Stanley Ray Patten — I am pleased to announce that the Chancellor and the Provost have approved Stan Patten for emeritus status. Stan taught in our department from 1982-2000. He played a major role in building our Writing Resources Center, and he taught a wide variety of courses in writing, literary theory, and gender studies. Unfortunately, he has Myasthenia Gravis, and this disease forced him to retire early. Stan still lives in Charlotte. Please feel free to send him a congratulatory message. Here is his email address: spatten@carolina.rr.com
One Book Campaign — The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is organizing a community-wide literacy event that they are calling “One Book. One Week. One Community.” Their goal is to encourage readers throughout the Charlotte area to read and discuss a classic novel over the span of a week. The novel they selected is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. They have scheduled this week-long event to take place April 13-19. Last week, I attended their kick-off meeting, and they made it clear that they would very much like for us to participate in this One Week Campaign. If you would like more information about this event, please click on the following link: http://www.cmlibrary.org/onebook
Seuss-a-Thon — The third annual Seuss-a-Thon will take place this Saturday (March 1) at Park Road Books from 11:00-3:00. This event is co-sponsored by the English Department and Park Road Books, and it involves a continuous reading of Dr. Seuss books for at least four hours. Many people associated with the English Department will be reading their favorite Dr. Seuss books. Please feel free to come and bring children. For more information, please click on the following link: http://www.parkroadbooks.com/event/book-event-seuss-thon
Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department. Here is the latest news:
Boyd Davis has recently published two co-authored essays. One is titled “Developing a Pilot E-mobile App for Dementia Caregiver Support: Lessons Learned.” It was published in Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI), vol. 18(1) http://ojni.org/issues/?p=3095. The other is titled “Exploring Communicative Interactions between Visitors and Assisted-living Residents with Dementia. It was published in The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication (2014) http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415670432/.
Janaka Lewis convened a meeting of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, on campus, and scholars from George Mason to UT-Knoxville were excited to spend the morning in Atkins Special Collections looking at rare books by African American and American women writers and the afternoon discussing texts published by black women writers from North Carolina.
Erika Romero, a graduate student in our children’s literature concentration, recently presented a paper titled “Product or Subject?: Identity Creation in the Corporation Controlled World of M. T. Anderson’s Feed ” at the Southwest Popular and American Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a date to keep in mind:
February 26 — The Children’s Literature Graduate Organization will sponsor a screening of The Wizard of Oz at the Student Union Movie Theater at 4:30 pm. Mark West will delivery a brief introduction to the film.
March 11 and 12 — English Major Days. For more information about the this event, please click on the following link: http://english.uncc.edu/sites/english.uncc.edu/files/media/pdfs/English-Majors-Days-2.20.2014.pdf
Quirky Quiz Question — Stan Patten received his PhD from Purdue University. We have several other members of the English Department who who earned their doctoral degrees from Purdue. Who are they?