Helen Lock, an English professor at ULM, will join scholars from the U.S., Europe and Asia at the first international conference of the U.S. National Association of Ethnic Studies. The conference, which is hosted by Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, is Nov. 15-17.

Lock will present a paper on Mark Twain's perspectives on international relations. Her trip is funded by the McKneeley Professorship, of which Lock is the current holder.

“The conference should provide invaluable perspective for my sophomore world literature and upper-level multicultural literature classes, and for my teaching generally, as the conference theme is ‘America Abroad,’ and the papers will focus on how we see the rest of the world and how it sees us,” Lock said.

The McKneeley professorship will also enable Lock to attend the South Central Modern Language Association conference in Dallas in October.