At age seven, Peyton Fouts,’06, wanted to change the world. And he’s been working toward that goal since.

At that young age, he saw a girl on TV carrying one brother and dragging another (who was dead) by the hand in the sand. “She had been orphaned by AIDS and my heart broke. I knew I wanted to change their circumstances and I just kept seeing people around the world who needed help.”

Fouts, a Lexington, Ky., native, grew up in a family of six children. The son of a teacher (mother) and lawyer (father), he has an older sister and four younger brothers.

When Fouts graduated high school from Lexington Christian Academy in 2003, he enrolled at the University of Kentucky, earning two degrees in just three years at age 19.

While at the University of Kentucky, Fouts decided to plow through his coursework to graduate early. “I was at UK for three years

Adam Banks, an Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Media in the Department of English continues his efforts to strengthen the Black community in Lexington. Currently, he's involved with the King Mixtape Project taking place at St. Paul AME Church. Read the full story from The Key Newsjournal.

A delegation of six Iraqi professors from the University of Kufa arrived on campus April 2. They are part of the Iraq University Linkages Program, which pairs Iraqi schools with U.S. institutions that can assist with curricular development.

In 2010, the University of Kentucky was one of five U.S. schools selected to receive a 3-year grant for curriculum development in Iraq. UK was paired with the University of Kufa, which is located in Najaf province in southern Iraq.

Other U.S. schools participating in this initiative are Ball State, the University of Cincinnati, Georgia State and Oklahoma State. Each school is partnered with an Iraqi university by the U.S. Department of State, based upon the specific needs of the Iraqi institution. The goals will be

Writing is a way for life for Nikky Finney, a UK English professor and Affrilachian poet. In the March 17 issue of Ace Weekly, Bianca Spriggs writes about Finney. An accomplished writer and professor, Finney has written four books, worked as a professor in the English department for a number of years, and has traveled all over as a presenter and Affrilachian poet.  

Head Off and Split, her latest collection of poems and fourth book, is already garnering recognition and a place on the Poetry Foundation's Contemporary Best Sellers list.

You can tell a lot about a girl from the type of barbecue she prefers. So, do the connections between ketchup, mustard or vinegar, collards or corn — carry cultural weight beyond the calories? University of Texas American studies Professor Elizabeth Engelhardt would most likely say yes. 

Engelhardt will present the third of the University of Kentucky's Place Matters series, titled "Gathering Wild Greens: Foodways Lessons from Appalachia’s Global Past" at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, March 24 in the John Jacob Niles Gallery.  UK English professors Erik Reece and Randall Roorda will participate as discussants in Engelhardt's lecture. 

"I want to talk about how our myths of Southern food can get in the way of understanding a much more complicated story of food and culture

A new exhibition of poster art from World War I at the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky examines the use of the art form as a propaganda tool in wartime, while also providing a glimpse into life on the home front during that time. "World War I and the Art of Persuasion," on view through May 8, features rarely exhibited American, French and German war posters drawn from UK Special Collections Library and three private collections. This exhibition is free and open to the public.

The iconic image of Uncle Sam telling Americans "I Want You" is among the most recognizable posters included in the exhibition. Like many, it conveys a simple message with few words and strong graphics. Others, particularly the French posters, offer complex and beautiful imagery. Leading American

by Saraya Brewer

photos by Lee Thomas

Leave it to a graduate student in film studies to hammer out aspects of horror from one of America’s most beloved family Christmas classics. “It’s Christmas film noir,” said Colleen Glenn about "It’s a Wonderful Life." “It’s an extremely dark film.” "It’s a Wonderful Life" is just one of the handful of Jimmy Stewart films that Glenn, a University of Kentucky English Ph.D. candidate with a specialty in film studies, has watched (and re-watched, analyzed, paused, rewound, and watched again) for her dissertation, in which Stewart and other great actors of the mid 20th century –– including Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne –– will each get their own chapter.

“I grew up watching old classic movies on PBS with my family, so I really have my parents to thank for my original interest in film,” Glenn

by Rebekah Tilley

photos by Richie Wireman

For many of us, our freshman year of college is the first transitional step into experiencing the world. As a freshly minted high school graduate, doctoral student Leah Bayens instead spent that first year in the woods reading.

“There is something about that experience that forged in me what was already a deep-seated understanding of the importance of those kinds of rural communities, the importance of not developing everything into suburban enclaves,” explained the Louisville native. “It was a foundational experience for me because of that. It was also my first real foray into understanding farm culture.”

Since that time Bayens has grafted herself into the land, the culture and the nature that surrounds it all. It permeates her graduate research, how she lives her life, and who she is at her core.

Anyone who has ever had doubts about majoring in English – with questions about job prospects or a well-defined career path – should talk to Andrew Crown-Weber.

He was in the same boat when he came to UK, unsure as to where an English degree would lead him – the answer has been, just about anywhere and everywhere.

The Danville native always knew he enjoyed language. Growing up in a house that emphasized reading books over watching cable television, his connection with words has been firmly entrenched. Add in his wide-eyed enthusiasm for knowledge and his varied academic interests, and Crown-Weber found an A&S education to be the perfect launch pad for travel, learning and adventure.

Early on he landed in Jonathan Allison’s class on James Joyce and William Butler Yeats, which led to an opportunity

Frank X Walker - co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets, widely published writer, founder of a journal of Affrilachian culture, and recipient of numerous writing and teaching awards - will join the faculty of the University of Kentucky in January 2010. Walker has accepted a position in the UK College of Arts and Sciences Department of English, where he will teach in the Creative Writing Program as an associate professor. As he returns to his alma mater, Walker will also bring with him Pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, which he founded in 2007.

“The college is thrilled Frank will be joining the English department and bringing with him expertise in Affrilachia,” said

Katherine Osborne knew UK’s Department of English was the right graduate program for her the moment she met then-DGS Ellen Rosenman during a campus tour.

"She talked about her work, but she was more interested in me,” said Osborne, a Frankfort, Ky., native and graduate of Hanover College in Indiana. “I could tell she was interested in graduate students. That was evident from the get-go. She just completely turned me on to the program.”

Now in her fifth year at UK, Osborne’s interest in 19th-century British literature has flourished under Rosenman’s mentoring. Osborne credits two of Rosenman’s courses—one on George Eliot and the other on material objects in the Victorian age—as the impetus for development of her own dissertation

Andrew Bozio first got hooked on British literature as a junior at Louisville’s St. Xavier High School. He knew then and there he’d found his calling.

Having just finished his first year of studies in the English PhD program at the University of Michigan, Bozio credits his undergraduate experiences at UK with helping establish a foundation for his intended career in early modern literature.

A Gaines Fellow and member of the UK Honors Program, Bozio graduated from UK in December 2006 with a degree in English and minors in French and philosophy. His classes in Arts & Sciences, the Honors Program, and the Gaines Center for the Humanities program “absolutely” prepared him for his graduate level coursework, he says.

It was the combination of those three things, the skills that one program offered, another program was able to supplement and help develop,” he says