Monthly Archives: November 2014

Over the River — The poem most frequently associated with Thanksgiving is “Over the River and Through the Wood” by Lydia Maria Child. The poem originally appeared in her book Flowers for Children, which came out in 1844. Although Flowers for Children had a large readership among children in the years before the Civil War, today it is largely forgotten. The same, however, cannot be said for Child’s Thanksgiving poem. Not only is it still in print, but it has been set to music, and it’s still sang or recited in the schools. A few years ago, I mentioned this poem to the students in my Children’s Literature class. I read the beginning of the poem to the students, “Over the river, and through the wood,” and then I asked them to complete the line. Almost all of them responded by saying in unison, “To Grandmother’s house we go.”

My guess is that Lydia Maria Child would have been astonished to know that she is remembered today primarily for her Thanksgiving poem, for during her lifetime she achieved fame as an outspoken abolitionist and a strong advocate for women’s rights. She wrote extensively on these topics both for children and adults, but these publications have long since gone out of print. However, her abolitionist writings for children have recently begun to attract attention largely due to the scholarship of our own Dr. Paula Connolly. In Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010, Paula writes in some detail about Child’s efforts to win over children to the abolitionist cause. Through her scholarship of recovery, Paula is demonstrating that there is much more to Child than her Thanksgiving poem. As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, I am mindful of how fortunate I am to teach in a department alongside so many impressive scholars, such as Paula. I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

Basketball Season — When I came to UNC Charlotte for my campus interview back in the spring of 1984, I realized that I had arrived in basketball country when the then English Department Chair, Dr. Julian Mason, started asking me questions about my favorite ACC basketball team. At the time, I didn’t even know what ACC stood for, and I was worried that my ignorance might cost me the job. Luckily for me, Julian decided to hire me despite my woeful lack of basketball knowledge. I soon learned, however, that there are many connections between the English Department and basketball. Now that the college basketball season is upon us, I thought I would mention a few of these connections. For example, Dr. Jeffrey Leak played on the men’s basketball team at Campbell University. Dr. Lil Brannon was the high school girls’ basketball coach for Celeste High School in Celeste, Texas, which had a total population of 719 people. One year she had the state championship basketball team. Dr. Ron Lunsford also coached basketball. Both Drs. Aaron Toscano and Kirk Melnikoff played on their school basketball teams during their pre-college days. I am sure there are more members of the department who also have basketball connections, but the buzzer has sounded so I have to stop.

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:

Lil Brannon and her associates with the Charlotte Writers Project received a 2014 Educator Innovator Award in support of a project titled “Making Our Worlds.”

Aaron Gwyn recently appeared as a guest on WFAE’s “Charlotte Talks” as part of a program called Charlotte Authors Roundtable.

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

December 4 — The English Department Holiday Party will take place on December 4 from 12:00-2:00 in the Faculty/Staff Lounge. The pot luck sign-up sheet is in the front lobby.

Quirky Quiz Question — The first line of Lydia Maria Child’s Thanksgiving poem reads: “Over the river, and through the wood,/To Grandmother’s house we go.” What’s the next line?

Last week’s answer: Professor Sprout (extra credit – Neville Longbottom)

UNC Charlotte’s Professors of Herbology — As anyone who has read the Harry Potter series knows, herbology is what the study of plants is called at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. Botany is the term used in the mundane (or muggle) world, but for me the language of the mundane world just does not capture the magic of UNC Charlotte’s McMillan Greenhouse and its associated gardens. For many years, the person who has presided over this magical corner of UNC Charlotte is Dr. Larry Mellichamp. His official title is Professor of Botany and Director of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, but I think Larry’s title should be Professor of Herbology. After 38 years at UNC Charlotte, Larry is about to retire. His retirement reception will take place on Wednesday, November 19, from 3:00-4:15 in the lobby of Robinson Hall. I will be there.

Let me tell you a story about Larry. Some years ago I ran a week-long Harry Potter summer camp at UNC Charlotte, and I devoted a day to herbology. I contacted Larry and the assistant director of the greenhouse, Paula Gross, and I asked them if they would talk to my campers about unusual plants. Larry is a world-famous expert on the Venus flytrap and other carnivorous plants, and I knew that the campers would be interested in these odd plants. Larry and Paula not only agreed to talk with the campers, but they threw themselves into the spirit of the Harry Potter camp. We met at the McMillan Greenhouse, and Larry and Paula introduced the campers to many bizarre plants. Then Larry gave the kids a tour of the greenhouse, paying particular attention to the carnivorous plants that grow there. Larry’s zeal for these plants and his willingness to engage with the kids in a playful way won over the campers. That afternoon, they all enthusiastically drew pictures and wrote stories based on the plants they observed in the greenhouse. Many gardeners have green thumbs, but Larry has more than special thumbs. He has the magical power to spark a curiosity about plants in the minds of all who come into contact with him.

The English Department has its own professor of herbology, and that person is Dr. Jen Munroe. Like Larry, Jen has a passion for gardens. She writes about gardens in her first two books, a monograph titled Gender and the Garden in Early Modern English Literature and an edited volume titled Making Gardens of Their Own: Gardening Manuals for Women, 1500-1750. As Jen makes clear in these books, gardens are much more than a collection of plants. They combine science, aesthetics, and self-expression. Planting and tending gardens can become part of one’s identity. For both Jen and Larry, gardens transcend the mundane world.

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:

Brook Blaylock, a graduate student in the English Department, delivered a paper titled “These Ruined Walls: The Gender of Nature and the Nature of of Gender in William Wordsworth’s The Ruined Cottage” at the SAMLA Conference in Atlanta.

Janaka Lewis moderated a panel on Black Women in Literature at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Jessica Morton, a graduate student in the English Department, delivered a paper titled “Writer Seeks Readers Willing to Work: Chuck Palahniuk’s Avant-Garde” at the SAMLA Conference in Atlanta.

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

November 21 — The English Department meeting will take place on November 21 from 11:00-12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

November 21 — The ELC is sponsoring a Faculty Meet and Greet event starting at 12:30 in Faculty/Staff Lounge.

November 21 — The Development Committee is sponsoring a faculty talk by Dr. Tony Jackson on November 21 from 1:00-2:00 in the Conference Room. The title of Tony’s talk is “Social Neuroscience, Imitative Identity, and Aronofsky’s Black Swan.

Quirky Quiz Question — What is the name of the Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts School throughout most of the Harry Potter series? For extra credit, who becomes the new Professor of Herbology at the end of the series?

Last week’s answer – Jeffrey Leak and Cy Knoblauch

Armistice Day, Poetry and Poppies — Veterans Day started out as Armistice Day, which is why it is celebrated on the eleventh day of November. The armistice agreement that marked the end of World War I took effect on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. Initially Armistice Day commemorated all those who lost their lives during World War I. After World War II, the United States changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day while in Great Britain and most of the Commonwealth Nations, the name was changed to Remembrance Day.

Although the term Armistice Day is not widely used today, the term lives on in the world of poetry. In 1915, three years before the signing of the armistice agreement, a Canadian physician and soldier with the Allied Forces named John McCrae wrote a poem titled “In Flanders Field” in which he expressed his grief over the death of a fellow soldier who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. His friend was buried in a field in Flanders, which is located in Belgium. The poem begins with the line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row.” This poem came to be associated with Armistice Day, and it started the connection between Armistice Day and poppies. In 1919, an American poet named Moina Michael wrote a poem in response to McCrae’s poem. She called her poem “We Shall Keep the Faith,” and in it she vowed to wear a red poppy in honor of those who died during World War I. Because of these two poets, poppies are now associated with Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, and Veterans Day.

My father was an avid gardener, and his favorite flowers to grow were poppies. He planted poppies all around the home were I grew up in the mountains of Colorado. My father was also a veteran. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War era. As we commemorate the service of our veterans, my thoughts turn to my father. He died on Thanksgiving nearly two years ago, but the poppies he planted live on. For John McCrae, the poppies in Flanders field represented the life spirit of his fallen friend. For me, the poppies that still grow in my Colorado home represent the most important veteran in my life—my father, Walter West.

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:

Nancy Gutierrez delivered her presidential address at the Annual Meeting of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences in San Antonio, Texas, on November 7. Titled “Storytelling and the Deanship,” her address explored the relationship between effective leadership and the ability to construct meaningful narratives.

Juan Meneses presented a paper titled “Divided and Doubled: The Modernist Character as Postcolonial Model” at the Modernist Studies Association conference in Pittsburgh.

Alan Rauch delivered a paper titled “Taking the ‘***perature’ of Interdisciplinary Studies: What Happened to the ‘TEM’ in STEM?” at the National Collegiate Honors Council Meeting, which took place in Denver.

Daniel Shealy presented the keynote address to open the “Concord and Abraham Lincoln Exhibit & Lecture Series” on November 7 at the Concord Free Public Library in Concord, MA. His presentation was “‘The pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart’: Abraham Lincoln and Concord’s Civil War.”

Lara Vetter served as invited respondent to a session titled “The Project of Digitizing the Texts of Modernist American Women Poets: Editing, Annotating, Re-evaluating, and the Pedagogy of Making It New” at the Modernist Studies Association conference on November 9, 2014.

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

November 12 — On Wednesday, November 12, 12-4pm Sarah Minslow’s War and Genocide in Children’s Literature class is hosting “Be a Piece of Peace,” a rally for peace on the fields in front of Robinson Hall at the main entrance to campus from University City Boulevard. There will be live entertainment, trivia, face painting, book and poetry readings, crafts, and free food. Please stop by and encourage your students to stop by.

November 13th — The ELC is holding the second Engagement Seminar with Henry Doss this Thursday at 3:30 in the Fretwell Faculty Lounge.

Quirky Quiz Question — The English department includes veterans among the faculty. Can you name them?

Last Quirky Quiz answer – Bill O’Reilly

Democracy in America — As this year’s mid-term election process builds to its crescendo on Tuesday, I can’t help but reflect on how we conduct our elections. Our democracy seemed so pure in the civics books I read as a boy in school, but in real life our democratic elections are messy affairs. One of the first writers to take a serious look at how our democracy functions in real life was a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville. He traveled throughout America during the early 1830s, observing our elections and political processes. He wrote about his findings and observations in his now famous two-volume work titled Democracy in America, which came out in 1835 and 1840. In part because he did not grow up in America, he was able to take a clear-sighted view of the political contradictions and complexities inherent in our then fledgling democracy.

In a number of ways, Pilar Blitvich reminds me of Tocqueville. Like Tocqueville, Pilar grew up in Europe and has travelled widely. Just as Tocqueville did in his time, Pilar has taken a keen interest in the American political process. She has studied the inner workings of our elections, paying particular attention to how digital forms of communication shape our elections and political discourse. She has written several scholarly articles about the impact of YouTube on political campaigns. She has also conducted groundbreaking research on the aggressive language used on political television programs. However, unlike Tocqueville, Pilar is not just an observer of American democracy. She is a participant observer. Several years ago, Pilar became an American citizen, and she now eagerly casts her vote during our elections. In this regard, Pilar has one up on Tocqueville.

Explore — This past weekend, Aaron Toscano and Tiffany Morin served as ambassadors of English Department. I asked Aaron about the experience, and he sent me this statement: “Tiffany and I greeted prospective students at EXPLORE UNC Charlotte on Saturday. We had more prospective students come to our table than I ever remember, and, more importantly, I didn’t have skeptical parents in the background seemingly humoring their children by letting them talk to a Humanities Major. The parents were supportive.” My thanks go to Aaron and Tiffany for representing the English Department at this event.

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 and Mohamed Shehab (SIS) received a Mosaic grant this fall for a project called “Investigating Seniors’ Preferences for Receiving Information about Internet Security.”

Katrina Holmes, an English major, has been selected for membership in the Pinnacle Honor Society. Created in 1989 to recognize outstanding adult students (24 years of age or older), Pinnacle celebrates academically successful seniors and rising seniors who have displayed leadership and community engagement.

Quirky Quiz Question — While conducting her research on aggressive language used on political television programs, Pilar spent countless hours dissecting the language used by a regular host on Fox News. What is the name of the person whose language usage she studied?

Last Quirky Quiz answer – Rip Van Winkle