By Tully Taylor
Christopher Metress, Â鶹¹û¶³ professor of English and director of Â鶹¹û¶³'s University Fellows program, presented a paper on author Harper Lee at the Society for the Study of Southern Literature conference in Nashville, March 29- April 1.
Metress presented "Harper Lee and the Burden of Southern Liberalism," which addressed the new criticism facing Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird that it is not as racially progressive as first thought.
"In my paper, I offered a new reading which suggests that Harper Lee built this criticism of white liberalism and Atticus Finch into the novel itself, and that it's something we should have been noticing all along," Metress said.
Metress joined Â鶹¹û¶³ in 1993.
Tully Taylor is a senior journalism and mass communication major and a news and feature writer in Â鶹¹û¶³'s office of marketing and communication.