ACETA News, Photos, and Archives

• Please open the PDF below for the registration information for our annual conference. The conference will be held at Alabama A&M University on February 22-23, 2024.

Visit ACETA's Facebook page for more pictures from events over the years.

ACETA’s 2023 Conference on the Sympathetic Imagination will be held from February 23-24, 2023 at Jefferson State Community College, Chilton-Clanton Campus. The conference includes an evening of welcome remarks and award-winning paper presentations from undergraduate students, full-time faculty, and keynote speaker on Thursday, February 23rd. On Friday, February 24th, there will be three concurrent sessions with over fifteen presentations to choose from, a feature presentation, the 2022 Eugene Current-Garcia award winner address, and an ACETA business meeting to learn about opportunities with the organization. Please see the “ACETA Conference” page on our website to see a snapshot of the conference activities. Additionally, on the conference page, you can download the registration form for individual attendees. If your college has a plus, silver, or gold membership, your college representative will receive their special registration paper. If you have any questions about the conference, please contact Ashley Harlan Kitchens at akitchens@jeffersonstate.edu. 

ACETA recognizes Dr. Heather White for Distinction in Literary Scholarship

The Association of College English Teachers of Alabama returned to a face-to-face conference on the campus of Auburn University at Montgomery on February 24 and 25, 2022. During the

conference, Dr. Heather White of the University of Alabama became the 25th recipient of the Eugene Current-Garcia Award for Distinction in Literary Scholarship.

In her career at Alabama, Dr. White has worked with both undergraduate and graduate students as they pursued their studies in American literature, and her work on Marianne Moore has been featured in journals and essay collections as well as being part of invited presentations. As Dr. Philip Beidler, the 1999 recipient of the Eugene Current-Garcia Award, put it in his letter of support, Dr. White “is one of the most exciting and skillful instructors I have worked with in 45 years at the University.” Her recently published book, Books Promiscuously Read: Reading as a Way of Life, has received positive reviews from the Chicago Review of Books and Inside Higher Education among others. Dr. White will serve as the featured keynote at the 2023 annual ACETA conference.

The award is named for the late Dr. Eugene Current-Garcia, who, in a distinguished academic career spanning five decades, mostly at Auburn University, published six books and dozens of articles and reviews on the short story genre and Old Southwest humor and also founded and co-edited the Southern Humanities Review.

2023 Kieran Quinlan
2022 Heather White
2021 Alan Gribben
2020 Robert Evans
2019 Chris Metress
2018 David Cowart
2017 Kirk Curnutt
2016 Frye Gaillard
2015 Eric Sterling
2014 Wayne Flint
2013 Sue Brannan Walker
2012 William A. Ulmer
2011 David Sauer
2010 Ralph Voss
2009 John Hafner
2008 Norman McMillan
2007 Elaine Hughes
2006 Nancy Anderson
2005 Robert W. Halli, Jr.
2004 Benjamin Buford Williams
2003 J. William Hutchings
2002 Trudier Harris
2001 Bert Hitchcock
2000 Don Noble
1999 Philip Beidler
1998 Claudia Durst Johnson