Dr. John S. Tumlin
Contact Information
Office: J324
Phone: 678-915-7480
Email: jtumlin@spsu.edu
Professor John S. Tumlin holds Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Emory University, where he did his dissertation on Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick. He has also edited and written introductions for two volumes of stories by the Georgia writer Joel Chandler Harris. He has been part of the Southern Polytechnic State University faculty since 1971. In addition to teaching drama appreciation and survey courses in literature at SPSU, Dr. Tumlin has also taught graduate-level courses in Technical Communication. In 1990, he spent a semester teaching at Swinburne Institute in Melbourne, Australia, as part of a faculty-exchange program.
A published science fiction writer, Dr. Tumlin is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a professional organization. His course in science fiction is periodically offered as an elective.
Before earning his MA and Ph.D. in English, Dr. Tumlin earned a Master of Science degree in astronomy from Northwestern University and spent two years tracking satellites for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. During this time, he was stationed near White Sands, New Mexico.
An actor as well as a teacher of drama appreciation, Dr. Tumlin has appeared in plays with a number of local professional theater companies, including the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, Seven Stages, and the Academy Theatre. He has also had speaking roles in independent films, as well as educational and industrial-training films.
A regular volunteer during fund drives for WABE-FM, Metro-Atlanta's public radio station, Dr. Tumlin has also helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity. For several years, as a reader with the Georgia Radio Reading Service, he recorded books for the blind and print-handicapped.
Dr. Tumlin's nonacademic pastimes include running (mostly 5K races), bicycling, photography, scuba diving, and skiing on both water and snow. He enjoys foreign travel when time and budget permit and collects recordings by folk musicians in various countries he visits.
Dr. Tumlin and his wife, Terri, a former science editor for New Standard Encyclopedia, share a strong interest in all things scientific. As members of the press corps, they witnessed the launches of Apollo 8, 11, and 17 at Cape Kennedy. In the summer of 1997, they were volunteers with Earthwatch in a project to track the endangered black rhinoceros in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, Africa. Terri Tumlin is presently working as a contract computer programmer. In addition, she has just embarked on a master's-degree program in archaeology through the distance-learning program at Leicester University in England. The Tumlins keep in close touch by e-mail with their three grown children.
The English, Technical Communication, and Media Arts Department is a part of Southern Polytechnic State University.
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