FARMINGTON - Eric Brown, professor of English at the University of Maine at Farmington, has received a $50,000 Fulbright grant to teach American literature at the University of Bergen in Norway for a year.

Brown is leaving for Norway's largest city in mid-August to teach the course for the first time in his life. He also must learn the language.

"Well, I don't speak Norwegian, so I have to do a crash course," Brown said.

Brown has been teaching at UMF for four years. He previously taught medieval literature at the University of Louisiana and spent a year conducting research on the Renaissance at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

Originally from Dover-Foxcroft, he received bachelor of arts degrees in zoology and English from the University of Maine at Orono.

"I graduated and felt like I really didn't know anything," he said, so he went to Louisiana State University where he received his doctoral degree in English literature, specializing in the Renaissance.

He eventually returned to Maine and last December published "Insect Poetica," an anthology of essays which are the first to comprehensively explore the connection between insects and literature.

Brown said he has always been fascinated with insects, especially their connection to literature.

"They actually challenge what it means for us to have language at all," Brown said.