Monthly Archives: June 2014

I just returned from Columbia, South Carolina, where I attended the Children’s Literature Association Conference on “Diverging Diversities: Plurality in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.” Our children’s literature faculty, graduate students and former graduate students were not only well represented in terms of numbers, but they also gave excellent presentations.

Anita Moss delivered a paper that she and Boyd Davis co-authored on “Diversity from Trauma and Dementia in Literature for Children and Adolescents.” Daniel Shealy gave a presentation on “Louisa May Alcott’s Lost Wonder Book,” and Paula Connolly read a paper titled “Integrating the New Republic: Representations of Race in Early American Children’s Literature.” Sarah Minslow presented a paper on “Victorian Attitudes Towards Otherness: Exclusion and Diverging Diversities in Edward Lear’s Nonsense,” and I presented on “Dr. Seuss’s Globalism.” Balaka Basu participated on a panel on “Building a Career in Children’s Literature” and was honored during the awards banquet for winning a Children’s Literature Association Faculty Research Grant.

Several of our graduate students and former graduate students presented papers. Brook Blaylock delivered a paper on “Exploring the Ghost of Voodoo Haunting: The Narrative Construction of Nick Lake’s In Darkness.” Julia Morris presented a paper titled “Inequality of Education and Its Damage to Women and Children in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions.” Traci Cruey, who just graduated from our MA program in May, read a paper on “The Girl in the Tower: The Patriarchal Worlds of Disney’s Tangled and Naploi’s Zel.” Finally, Joanne Rohan, who graduated from our MA program a few years ago, presented a paper titled “Soupy Grits and Turnip Greens: Negotiating Culture and Gaining Acceptance at the Southern Table in Dori Sanders’ Clover.”

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:

Aimee Parkison recently returned from Athens, Greece, where she taught a course on flash fiction at the International Creative Writing Summer School, which is affiliated with Kingston University.

Alan Rauch’s Dolphin recently received a glowing review from the Times Literary Supplement.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here are some dates to keep in mind:

July 1 — The first day of class for the second summer term is July 1.

July 2 — The last day to add or drop a class for the second summer term is July 2.

Quirky Quiz Question — This year’s Children’s Literature Association Conference took place very near the campus of the University of South Carolina. Among the members of the English Department, who graduated from the University of South Carolina? There is more than one correct response.

Charlotte Research Scholars — For many faculty members in the English Department, summer is when they focus on their research. This summer, however, a number of faculty members in our department are involving undergraduate students in their research. These faculty members are participating in the Charlotte Research Scholars (CRS) program. Started in 2012, this program provides high-achieving undergraduate students with opportunities to work alongside faculty members on research projects. Initially, CRS emphasized the sciences, but now the program draws students from across a wide range of disciplines, including English. As part of this summer program, Sarah Minslow and Greg Wickliff are leading writing workshops for the CRS students. The faculty members from English who are serving as CRS mentors this summer are Janaka Lewis, Kirk Melnikoff, Sarah Minslow, Alan Rauch, and Greg Wickliff.

Janaka is the research mentor for a student named Ashley Burch. The title of Ashley’s project is “Images and Perceptions of Black Women in African American Literature.” In addition to assisting with Janaka’s research, Ashley is conducting her own research on representations of success and perceptions of social and physical mobility for African American women writers in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Kirk and Alan are jointly mentoring English student Nadia Clifton as she researches the remarkable collection of plays, pantomimes, and operas (ranging from the 17th to the early 19th centuries) that are part of the Princess Augusta Sophia Collection in Special Collections at the J. Murrey Atkins. Nadia is learning about book history and textual bibliography as she works through the collection guided by a spreadsheet (designed by Alan and Kirk) that includes categories for marginalia, binding, royal monographs, ownership stamps, along with conventional bibliographic data.

Sarah is working with Kate Galindo to assess the use of children’s and young adult literature to teach the Holocaust in Charlotte Mecklenberg Schools (CMS) middle schools (grades 6-8). The study of this literature is the core of Sarah’s War and Genocide in Children’s Literature course. For this project, Kate will complete a literature review to establish what critics see as the essential aspects of the Holocaust that should be taught to middle school students and what children’s literature critics see as the general guidelines of writing about war and genocide for young audiences. Kate and Sarah will also administer a survey for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) middle school teachers that will be emailed to all History/Social Studies and English teachers. Kate and Sarah will begin developing a curriculum guide for middle school teachers that relates to teaching the Holocaust and other genocides using children’s and young adult literature.

Alan is mentoring Melanie Carty on a project titled “Private Subscription Libraries in 19th-Century England: Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle.” These libraries represent a cross-section of industrial or recreational cities in the early nineteenth century, where the interest in science and technology amongst members was strong. Melanie will examine the records of these libraries between 1800 and 1830 in an effort to determine: 1.) who readers were; 2.) what books were being purchased; 3.) what books were being borrowed/read; and, 4.) how books were being used. As the project moves forward, she will develop a strong sense of library history and practices, as well as a deep understand of book history, to say nothing of how knowledge was disseminated in the Regency Period.

Greg is working with Christopher Burton on a project titled “John William Draper and 19th-Century American Science.” They are conducting primary research for an article about John William Draper’s June 1860 paper given at Oxford on Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Draper’s paper is one of the earliest responses to Darwin’s book by a member of the scientific community.

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:

Allison Hutchcraft has three poems published in the Summer 2014 issue of The Kenyon Review, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. One of her poems is also featured on The Kenyon Review website, which can be found here: http://www.kenyonreview.org/journal/summer-2014/selections/allison-hutchcraft/

Lauren Klein, an English major, was selected as a winner of the United Nations Academic Impact Contest for an essay titled “Many Languages, One World.” Lauren wrote her winning essay in Russian.

Juan Menses has been appointed editor of H-Empire, an interdisciplinary online network under the H-NET Commons academic platform.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a date to keep in mind:

June 21 — Jeffrey Leak will sign copies of Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas at Park Road Books at

2:00 pm on Saturday, June 21, 2014

. Please click on this link for more information: http://exchange.uncc.edu/event/jeffrey-leak-book-signing/

Partnerships — The University’s website includes links to recent press releases, and last week one of these releases caught my attention. Titled “Charlotte Teachers Institute Partners with Discovery Place and Gantt Center,” this release relates directly to two faculty members in the English Department: Alan Rauch and Paula Connolly. Both Alan and Paula are leading seminars for the Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI) in 2014, and both are drawing on the resources of Charlotte museums. Alan is leading a seminar on “The Intersections of Science, Technology and Culture,” and his seminar will meet at Discovery Place. Paula’s seminar is called “Visual Storytelling in Children’s and Young Adult Literature,” and she is holding her seminar at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture. For more information about these partnerships, please click on the following link: http://publicrelations.uncc.edu/news-events/news-releases/charlotte-teachers-institute-partners-discovery-place-and-gantt-center

Alan and Paula are by no means the only faculty members in the English Department who have partnered with Charlotte-area institutions and organizations. Two other examples that immediately come to mind are Jeffrey Leak and Lil Brannon. Through his work as the Director for the Center for the Study of the New South, Jeffrey often collaborates with the Levine Museum of the New South, and he has held several programs at the Levine Museum. About a year ago, he worked together with the museum’s administrators and staff in co-sponsoring a conference. Through her work with the Charlotte Writers Project, Lil has collaborated with a number of Charlotte organizations. Recently Lil received a substantial grant from the National Writing Project to fund a collaborative program involving the Charlotte Writing Project and Discovery Place. Titled “Making STEAM,” this program encourages Charlotte-area students to write across numerous disciplines, including science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM). Through such partnerships, the faculty members in our department have an impact that extends well beyond the boundaries of our campus.

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:

Brittney Chalmers, one of our graduate students, is spotlighted in the Graduate School’s newsletter (The Graduate Source) for being the recipient of 2014-15 John Paul Lucas, Jr. Scholarship for Educational Leadership.

Aaron Gwyn’s Wynne’s War received a rave review from the Chicago Tribune. Here is the link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/books/chi-wynnes-war-aaron-gwyn-20140606,0,4346196.story

Jeffrey Leak will be a guest on WFAE’s Charlotte Talks on Thursday, June 19. He will talk about his new book Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a date to keep in mind:

June 21 — Jeffrey Leak will sign copies of Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas at Park Road Books at 2:00 pm on Saturday, June 21, 2014.

Quirky Quiz Question — The above mentioned news release about the Charlotte Teachers Institute seminars reminds me that English faculty have led more CTI seminars than the faculty from any other department at UNC Charlotte. Who is the English faculty member who led a CTI seminar in 2013?

June — Did you ever see the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel? I always think about Carousel around this time of the year because it features the famous song “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over.” When I was a junior in high school I performed in Carousel. The director made sure I had one of the few non-singing roles. I played the part of the stodgy banker who ends up shooting Billy Bigelow, the central character in the play. Nevertheless, I have great memories of being in the play, and I believe that the experience of performing a role in this play has carried over to my teaching career. When I teach, for example, I often act out scenes from the books that I am covering.

Another way in which performing and teaching can go together is when professors have their students take a performative approach to the texts that they are studying. Several professors in the English Department take such an approach in their classes. I know that that Kirk Melnikoff and Jen Munroe have their students act out scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. Similarly, Beth Gargano has her students perform versions of fairy tales. Lil Brannon encourages the students in her English education courses to engage in role playing. I am sure that there are other examples, and I would love to hear about them. Sometimes stories need to bust out from the pages of books. As I see it, June is a great time for stories to be bustin’ out all over.

Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department. For those people who think English faculty sit back and relax over the summer, the following listing will prove them wrong. Here is the latest news:

Paula Connolly recently received a Caleb Loring, Jr. Fellowship from the Boston Athenaeum for 2014-2015 (for a 4-week residency). Also, her book Slavery in American Children’s Literature just received a glowing review from the Journal of American History.

Amanda Dykema, a former graduate of our M.A. program in literature, received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland last weekend. She has accepted a two-year Visiting Assistant Professor position at Rhodes College.

Aaron Gwyn recently published an essay in the Huffington Post titled “Nine Classic Contemporary Westerns You Need to Read” Here is the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-gwyn/9-classic-contemporary-we_b_5397760.html?utm_hp_ref=books

Jeffrey Leak presented a paper titled “Robert Hayden: A Man of Few Poetic Boundaries” at the Ninth Biennial MESEA (Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas) Conference, which took place at Saarland University in Saarbruken, in Germany.

Malin Pereira presented a paper titled “Crossing Race, Class, and Nation: Natasha Trethewey’s Mixed Race Interrogations in Beyond Katrina and Thrall” at the Ninth Biennial MESEA (Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas) Conference, which took place at Saarland University in Saarbruken, in Germany.

Daniel Shealy presented “‘Playing with Edge Tools’: Teaching Louisa May Alcott’s Moods” at the American Literature Association conference on 24 May in Washington, DC. Also, his book Little Women: An Annotated Edition just received a glowing review from The Lion and the Unicorn.

Lara Vetter delivered a keynote address entitled “H.D., World War II, and Forms of Mysticism” at a conference on Women Modernists and Spirituality at the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK, on May 23, 2014.

Quirky Quiz Question — Carousel takes place in the state of Maine. Maine is also the home of several prestigious colleges, including the college where Nathanial Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were once students. What is the name of the college?