Madison U. Sowell has been named chairman of the department of French and Italian languages at Brigham Young University.
He replaces L. Gary Lambert, who has returned to full-time teaching and research.Sowell, who has been teaching at BYU since January 1979, is an associate professor of Italian and comparative literature with a specialty in the Italian epic tradition from Dante to Tasso.
Sowell earned a bachelor's degree from BYU and master's and doctorate degrees at Harvard University.