Dr. Kendrick Prewitt
Associate Professor of English
B.A., Vanderbilt University
M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Office:177 Walton Fine Arts Center
Phone: (479) 979-1367
E-Mail: kprewitt@ozarks.edu
Dr. Kendrick Prewitt joined the Ozarks English faculty in 1999. His decision to teach seemed only natural, as he liked reading and thinking about literature, exploring new ideas, and putting ideas together to present and discuss. The decision turned out to be a good one -- Dr. Prewitt says, "I've found that a classroom of 18-22 year-old students makes wonderful company. In their college years, students reckon with the inherited wisdom of their upbringing and develop serious ideas of their own as adults, and I greatly enjoy reading, thinking and talking about fiction, plays, and poetry with that population - they have some maturity to bring to the table, but are still open to new ideas."
Dr. Prewitt realized that the environment at a small liberal arts college meant that he, as a faculty member, would have many close colleagues who were not all in his same field. However, he finds this to be a very positive aspect of his position and says it prompts him to think in broad terms about education and the liberal arts. He adds, "Having a small student body allows me to provide more individual attention to students, which is the most rewarding aspect of my job. I might add that I've found the faculty, staff, and administration here to be the most congenial of all the places I've taught."
When asked what he hoped his students would learn from him, he replied, "First of all, I hope the students enjoy the reading. Second, in our English department we aim to give students a sense of literary history and traditions, so that they can have a frame of reference for future reading endeavors. Beyond that, we want students to learn to think critically about what, how, and why they read. Even more broadly, having an understanding of how narrative and language work is hugely important in so many widely divergent endeavors."
In his time away from Ozarks, Dr. Prewitt says he has traded in his previous hobbies, mainly sports such as tennis, running, and bicycling, for another one -- playing with his one-year-old son. He also enjoys taking walks with his wife and working in the yard and garden. He describes some of their activities by saying, "Here in Clarksville, we like having dinner parties, cookouts, and potlucks with friends. We also find time to watch TV, some programs more edifying than others, and enjoy renting movies."
Dr. Prewitt's training in graduate school was in Renaissance English literature, and he has some ongoing projects in that field, particularly with emerging ideas about method in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the past, here and elsewhere, he has taught courses on film, Shakespeare, Milton, literature and the body, madness and reason, Western humanities, composition, surveys of British and world literature, and modern southern literature. "My secret ambition," he adds, "is to teach a course on nineteenth-century British novels."
