Dr. James Perkins, professor of English at Westminster College, will present "Being a Scholar in Your Spare Time" at Faculty Forum Wednesday, Feb. 15, at 11:45 a.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater located in the McKelvey Campus Center.

 "I will discuss how I have managed to publish a dozen books while teaching a full load most of the time, focusing on curiosity and questioning as the keys to successful scholarship," Perkins said.  I will try to show how I solve literary problems and discuss the problems in the works of Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Robert Penn Warren, and Ralph Waldo Emerson."

Two of Perkin's more recent books include: "Snakes, Butterbeans, and the Discovery of Electricity," which was published in 2003 by the Mercer University Press; and "The Cass Mastern Material: The Core of Robert Penn Warren's 'All the King's Men,'" which was published by the Louisiana State University Press in March 2005.

During the fall term of 1998, Perkins was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Seoul National University in Korea.  He has also been honored as a Henderson Lecturer and McCandless Fellow.  His publications also include three chapbooks of poetry, "For the Record: A Robert Drake Reader (a collection edited with Randy Hendricks), and collections of short stories, and "Southern Writers at Centuries End," (a collection of essays co-edited with Jeffrey Folks).

 Perkins, who has been with Westminster College since 1973, earned his undergraduate degree from Centre College, his master's from Miami University, and his Ph.D. from Catholic University of America.

Faculty Forum, established in 1990, serves as a venue for the exchange of ideas and information among Westminster College faculty.  Speakers present their research, teaching ideas, lectures, performances, special programs, and uses of technology to keep faculty informed about the work of colleagues from many disciplines.

 The event is free and open to the public.  Contact Perkins at (724) 946-7347 or e-mail jperkins@westminster.edu for more information.