ENGPHIL HOME > FACULTY DIRECTORY
Discipline: Science Fiction; Renaissance Literature; Creative Writing; Freshman Writing
Degrees: Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
M.A., Comparative Literature,University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
M.A., Creative Writing and Poetry, Temple University
B.A., Myth, Dickinson College
Certificat de langue, Niveau Moyen, la Nouvelle Sorbonne
Office: MacAlister 5037
Phone: (215) 895-1961
Fax: (215) 895-1071
E-mail: riggsda@drexel.edu
Don Riggs created an interdepartmental major in Myth at his undergraduate school, Dickinson College (BA 1974), where he focused on French literature, Ancient Greek language and literature, Comparative Religion, and Anthropology. He spent July 1974 in Paris, earning the Certificat de Langue, Niveau Moyen at la Nouvelle Sorbonne.
He studied Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he focused on the Middle Ages (Old French, Medieval Latin, Old and Middle English, with much work on 20th-century English-language poetry), his master`s thesis focusing on Henri d`Andeli`s Li Lai d`Aristote, and his doctoral dissertation fusing his medieval and contemporary interests by focusing on the theory of poetic translation, as applied to Ezra Pound`s and Paul Blackburn`s translations from the Old Provençal Troubadour chansons (MA 1977, PhD 1982).
After a year of working for Southern Media (Chapel Hill), he taught French and World Literature at Coker College, in Hartsville SC (1983-86). He attended the Florida School of Massage in Gainesville, Florida (1986) and moved to Carlisle, PA, where he worked as massage therapist in the Henshaw Health Center (Mechanicsburg, PA, 1987-1989).
Riggs worked as a free-lance copy editor and newspaper correspondent during these years, then returned to teaching at Harrisburg Area Community College (1990-1996), teaching Freshman Humanities, History of Modern Drama (a 2-semester sequence!), English Composition, and Art History. He did some graduate work in Art History at Penn State, Middletown PA, and published a paper, "Was Michelangelo Born Under Saturn?" (The Sixteenth Century Journal XXVI, 1 [1995]).
In 1995, he returned to graduate school to earn a second Master`s degree in English/Creative Writing-Poetry at Temple University (MA 1997). He has lived in Philadelphia since then, teaching at Temple,the University of St. Francis, Lincoln University, the Milton and Betty Katz Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill, NJ (classes on the murder mystery and science fiction), and, most notably and currently, at Drexel.
He has been a member of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts since 1984, has published several articles in the Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts and in conference volumes, and is actively engaged in research and teaching in Science Fiction literature.
Dr. Riggs has poetry in many publications, including 16th Century Journal, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Painted Bride Quarterly, xib and ixnay. He is the Co-Editor of and featured poet in the book Uncommonplaces: Poems of the Fantastic. He is the Editor of Lamont B. Steptoe's A Long Movie of Shadows and translated Chinese Poetic Writing by Francois Cheng.
Dr. Riggs teaches several courses for the Department of English and Philosophy, including Science Fiction Literature, Philosophy in Literature, Renaissance and Enlightenment Literature, Creative Writing, Visions in Writing, and Freshman Writing.
|
