Monthly Archives: December 2014

In Honor of Jim McGavranDear Colleagues,

For forty-one years, Jim McGavran taught in the Department of English at UNC Charlotte, but sadly his long career came to an end with his unexpected death from a massive stroke on December 20, 2014. However, his presence will be felt in the English Department and the broader UNC Charlotte community for many years to come.

Dr. James Holt McGavran, Jr., as he was known to those who knew him through his published scholarship, joined the English Department in the fall of 1973, shortly after completing his PhD in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to beginning his doctoral work, he had received a BA from the College of Wooster in 1963 and an MA from Columbia University in 1965.

Throughout his teaching career at UNC Charlotte, Jim taught a wide variety of courses in British literature, but he especially enjoyed teaching courses on the English Romantics. Over the years, Jim also developed new courses. Early in his career, he took an interest in the relationship between literature and film. He and a colleague team-taught one of the department’s first courses in the area of film studies. He also created an interdisciplinary graduate seminar titled “The Idea of Nature.” In recent years, he delved into the field of creative nonfiction, and he taught several courses on this topic. From the very beginning of his career, his students and colleagues recognized Jim’s extraordinary dedication to teaching. His gifts as a teacher resulted in many awards and recognitions, including the Bank of America Teaching Excellence Award in 2006 and the UNC Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award in 2007.

In addition to being a gifted teacher, Jim achieved success as a scholar. He published numerous articles on the English Romantics. He developed a particular interest on the relationship between the Romantic Movement and children’s literature, and he edited three important collections on this topic: Literature and the Child: Romantic Continuations, Postmodern Contestations (University of Iowa Press, 1999); Romanticism and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (University of Georgia Press, 1991); and Time of Beauty, Time of Fear: The Romantic Legacy in the Literature of Childhood (University of Iowa Press, 2012). Jim’s interest in creative nonfiction is reflected in the publication of his memoir, In the Shadow of the Bear: A Michigan Memoir (Michigan State University Press, 2010).

Throughout his career at UNC Charlotte, Jim took seriously his role as a University citizen. He played a variety of leadership roles in the English Department including a term as the English Graduate Coordinator, but he also performed important service roles beyond the English Department. He served as the Faculty President in 1987-1988, and he held the position of Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1988 through 1993. He also served as the Interim Chair of the Department of Dance and Theatre from 2000 through 2002.

A listing of Jim’s degrees, awards, publications, and positions, although impressive, does not capture Jim’s passions. In some ways, the pictures taped to his office door better reflect the real Jim than does a listing of his accomplishments. In keeping with Jim’s playful approach to life, there is a picture of Kermit the Frog in the middle of the door. Jim’s wry sense of humor is reflected in the Doonsebury cartoon taped next to Kermit. Surrounding Kermit are beautiful images of flowers and other scenes from nature, which is fitting given Jim’s passion for the natural world. At the top of the door there is a photograph of a man climbing a cliff. Upon close inspection, one realizes that the man in the photograph is Jim. As his door proclaims, Jim took joy in life, embraced nature, and was always ready to climb the next cliff, for he knew that when he reached the top he would be able to see for miles around. I trust that he is enjoying the view.

Sincerely yours,

Mark I. West, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Department Chair

Playing in Stories — Now that the holiday season is upon us, I am reminded of the opening chapters in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. In these chapters, the March family is celebrating Christmas, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress figures prominently in their celebration. For the March sisters, Bunyan’s religious allegory has playful associations. In the chapter titled “Playing Pilgrims,” the sisters recall acting out scenes from the book and turning the upper reaches of their house into a “Celestial City.” As Alcott makes clear in these opening Christmas chapters, reading stories and playing games often go hand in hand.

More and more English professors are conducting research on the relationship between stories and games, including several members of our English Department. Beth Gargano was one of the first members of our department to conduct scholarship in this area. In 2007, she presented a conference paper titled “Distraction and Destruction in Back to Baghdad: Images of Iraq in a Current Video Game.” A few years later, she published an article in the American Journal of Play titled “Broomsticks Flying in Circles: Playing with Narrative in Eleanor Estes’s The Witch Family.” More recently, Balaka Basu and Aaron Toscano have embarked on major research projects related to gaming.

Balaka is currently working on a book project for which she received a research support grant from the Children’s Literature Association. Tentatively titled Playing the Game: Reading Digitally with Children’s Literature, this book will examine how accounts of child readership and play in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reveal a mode of reading where the textual world is fully participatory and immersive, thus serving as the perfect model for “reading digitally.” In discussing this project, Balaka writes, “The digital ideals of enhanced, accessible, and multi-dimensional textual experiences have been part of children’s literature since long before the internet was invented, for the stories of childhood have always traveled easily from classroom to playground, from print to performance, and back again. Young readers continually resist, rewrite, act out, and play with the various narratives to which they’ve been exposed and thus, with the aid of toys, games, costumes, and props, as well as the power of ‘pretend,’ young people have historically managed to extend textual universes well beyond the covers of their books, just as digitizations seek to do.”

Like Balaka, Aaron is currently working on a book project related to gaming. Aaron is researching the claims that watching violent media (specifically playing violent video games) leads to real world violence. In discussing this project, Aaron writes, “There’s a ton of research about this claim, but, considering the drop in violent crime and youthful offender crime from the 1990s—when video game violence started becoming more and more realistic—this idea is bogus. I’m comparing it to other witch hunts surrounding children’s entertainment, such as comic books in the 1950s, Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s. My goal is to show how these peer-reviewed articles get filtered to mainstream, sound-bite media, which regurgitates the findings and doesn’t critically analyze how the research was done. This is going to be an article and, hopefully, chapter one of my book project.”

In part because of the efforts of Beth, Balaka, and Aaron, our department is on the verge of becoming a major player in the world of gaming scholarship.

Commencement Report — Last Saturday the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences held its winter commencement ceremony, and for 70 of our students, this ceremony marked their transition from current students to graduates. A total of 14 of our graduate students are listed in the commencement program, and 56 undergraduate students are listed. I should also point out that two of the students who received doctoral degrees in the Curriculum and Instruction Program had Lil Brannon for their academic advisor. These students are Anthony Iannone and Ryan Charles Welsh.

I was especially impressed with how many of our BA students fall under the heading of “Graduation with Distinction.” Of the 56 students, 7 earned the distinction of Cum Laude (GPA between 3.4-3.7), 4 earned the distinction of Magna Cum Laude (GPA between 3.7-3.9), and 3 earned the distinction of Summa Cum Laude (GPA between 3.9-4.0). This total comes to 14 students, which means that 25% of our graduate seniors earned this special distinction. I am very proud of all of our graduating students, but I want to mention by name the 3 students who earned the distinction of Summa Cum Laude. Their names are John Stuart Cloer, Katrina Lawson Holmes, and Monica L. Jackson.

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:

Paula Connolly’s Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010 continues to receive glowing reviews. Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers just published a very strong review on the book in which the the reviewer concluded by describing the book as “an excellent volume that will be a touchstone for scholars and teachers for many years to come.”

Juan Meneses has been awarded a Faculty Research Grant to continue working on his book in which he examines the role of dissent in a series of modern Anglophone novels.

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

December 18 — The Dean’s Office in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will hold its Celebration of Faculty Achievement reception on Thursday, December 18 at noon in the Harris Alumni Center in Johnson Glen. This annual event recognizes faculty who received external funding in the prior fiscal year and who published books since last December. Refreshments will be served.

Quirky Quiz Question — In the world of gaming, what does the abbreviation RPG stand for? For extra credit, what does the term cosplay mean?

Last week’s answer: Belladonna Took

Of Exams and Hobbits — ‘Tis the season for professors to spend countless hours grading their students’ final exams. The process of grading exams can be a bit on the tedious side, but every now and then something unusual happens to break up the tedium. Such was the case when J.R.R. Tolkien was grading examinations at Oxford University in the late 1920s. Recalling this moment, Tolkien wrote, “One of the candidates had mercifully left one of the pages with no writing on it (which is the best thing that can possibly happen to an examiner) and I wrote on it: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ Names always generate a story in my mind. Eventually I thought I better find out what hobbits were like. But that’s only the beginning.” From this one sentence, written impulsively on a student’s examination, sprang not only The Hobbit but ultimately The Lord of the Rings. The moral to this story is that we should always be receptive to flashes of inspiration, even when we feel like we are at the bottom of a hole in the ground with a pile of finals stacked on top of us.

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:

Balaka Basu recently published an article titled “…And They Lived Happily Ever After: The Enduring Appeal of Fairy Tales” in RISE: A Children’s Literacy Journal.

Paula Connolly recently published a chapter titled “The Metafictive Playgrounds of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh: The Movie Is a Book” in Walt Disney, from Reader to Storyteller: Essays on the Literary Inspirations.

Andrew Hartley’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel, which he co-authored with David Hewson, was named the Audiobook of the Year by Audible.com. The audio version is narrated by Richard Armitage.

Jen Munroe recently published an article titled “Mary Somerset and Colonial Botany: Reading Between the Ecofeminist Lines” in Early Modern Studies Journal.

Heather Vorhies recently had an article titled “Building Professional Scholars: The Writing Center at the Graduate Level” accepted for publication in WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship.

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

December 13 — The Commencement ceremony for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will take place in Barnhardt Student Activity Center (SAC) on Saturday, December 13, at 3:00 p.m.

December 15 — Grades are due by noon.

December 18 — The Dean’s Office in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will hold its Celebration of Faculty Achievement reception on Thursday, December 18 at noon in the Harris Alumni Center in Johnson Glen. This annual event recognizes faculty who received external funding in the prior fiscal year and who published books since last December. Refreshments will be served.

Quirky Quiz Question — J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit introduced the world to a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo’s mother was an exceptional hobbit who, in her younger days, liked to go on adventures. Does anybody know the name of Bilbo’s remarkable mother?

Last week’s answer: tomatoes

A Walk in Park Güell — During my high school days, I took a strong interest in Antoni Gaudí, the famous architect from Barcelona. My father bought me a book about Gaudí that included color photographs of Gaudí’s buildings, and I spent many hours studying the book and marveling at the images of Gaudí’s astonishing works of architecture. I dreamed of visiting these buildings in person, and this Thanksgiving that dream finally came true. My wife and I traveled to Barcelona where our son is spending the fall semester studying architecture. Together we visited several of Gaudí’s buildings, including La Pedrera (https://www.lapedrera.com/en/home) and the Sagrada Família (http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/), but we spent the most time exploring a park he designed called Park Güell. Located in a hilly area on the outskirts of Barcelona, Park Güell was constructed between 1900 and 1914. For more information about this park, please click on the following link: http://www.parkguell.cat/en/

Gaudí’s passion for nature, Greek mythology, fairy tales, and the teachings of Catholicism can be seen throughout the park. Nearly every structure in the park involves a narrative element, so the act of walking through this park is akin to immersing oneself in stories. In the not too distant future, my son and I plan to write an article about the narrative elements that Gaudí incorporated into the design of Park Güell. Like several other members of the English Department, I am interested in the ways in which narrative elements enter into modes of expression outside the standard forms of literature. The scholar in me approached our visit to Park Güell as a research trip, but visiting this park meant much more to me than most of my research trips. The experience of exploring this special place with my family resonated with me on deep emotional and aesthetic levels. For me, Gaudí’s Park Güell transcends everyday reality and provides visitors with an opportunity to enter a playful, whimsical, and sometimes spiritual realm.

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:

Susan Gardner and Vail Carter (UNC Charlotte’s first Native American Graduate, and a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame) gave an invited presentation to the 19th Annual Indian Heritage Celebration at the Raleigh Museum of History on Nov. 22nd. It was an introduction to the Native Carolinas Indian Elders Collection in Atkins Library.

Kirk Melnikoff had his essay “From the Talbot to Duck Lane: The Early Publication History of Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London” accepted for inclusion in a new Queen’s Men Editions website dedicated to the play The Three Ladies of London.

Marty Settle, a retired member of the English Department, has a book of poetry coming out in February called The Teleology of Dunes. It is being published by Main Street Rag. For those interested in purchasing it or pre-ordering it, please click on the following link: http://mainstreetrag.com/bookstore/product/the-teleology-of-dunes/.

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

December 2 — The Writing Resources Center’s Midnight Madness event will offer support for students preparing for final exams, on Tuesday, Dec. 2 from 8 p.m. to midnight in Cameron 125.

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 — While we were in Barcelona, we enjoyed an appetizer called pan a la catalana. It is toasted bread with a particular topping. What is this topping?

Last week’s answer – The horse knows the way, To carry the sleigh, Through the white and drifted snow