Storied Charlotte
Storied Charlotte
  • Home
  • Storied Charlotte
  • Monday Missive

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 290D
Phone: 704-687-0618
Email: miwest@uncc.edu

Links

  • A Reader’s Guide to Fiction and Nonfiction books by Charlotte area authors
  • Charlotte book art
  • Charlotte Lit
  • Charlotte Readers Podcast
  • Charlotte Writers Club
  • Column on Reading Aloud
  • Department of English
  • JFK/Harry Golden column
  • Park Road Books
  • Storied Charlotte YouTube channel
  • The Charlotte History Tool Kit
  • The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013

Monthly Archives: June 2015

Monday Missive - June 29, 2015

June 30, 2015 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

imageTravels with Charlie — The other day a professor asked me about the advantages and disadvantages of moving into university administration. I opined that a major advantage to having an administrative position is that one gets to know colleagues outside of one’s home department. Over the course of my administrative career, I have come to know many colleagues outside of the English Department, and in some cases these colleagues have become good friends. Charlie Brody is a prime example.

I got to know Charlie in 2002 when I was the Associate Dean for General Education and Charlie was the Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. My charge at the time was to launch the then new General Education Program. I worked with all of the department chairs, but none was more helpful than Charlie. Some years later, I worked alongside Charlie when I served as the Interim Associate Dean for Student Services and he served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. In more recent years, I have worked with Charlie in my role as Chair of the English Department. In all of my interactions with Charlie, I have found him to be one of the most professional and helpful administrators on our campus. He has a remarkable ability to solve problems, defuse potentially explosive situations, and bring people from a wide variety of backgrounds together. He has been a tremendous supporter of the English Department, and he has helped us deal with some very complicated assessment issues.

As many of you know, Charlie has now left UNC Charlotte. As of July 1, he will become the Vice President of Academic Affairs at Misericordia University in Pennsylvania. I know I speak for all of us who have worked with Charlie during his fourteen years at UNC Charlotte when I say that he will be missed. I have enjoyed my administrative travels with Charlie, and I hope our paths will cross again in the not too distant future. As Roy Rogers would have said, happy trails to you, Charlie.

News from Our Foreign Bureau — Last week I started featuring news about members of our department who have been globe trotting this summer. This week I am featuring Andrew Hartley and Tiffany Morin.

Andrew recently returned from a trip to the epicenter of the current European financial fiasco. I asked him about his adventure, and here is what he had to say. “I just returned from Greece where I spent almost 3 weeks between Athens, Crete and Delphi. The official purpose of the trip was to teach for the British Council/Kingston a week’s course on writing suspense fiction. I had a dozen mainly Greek students who worked with me each evening, which meant that I had the daylight hours to wander Athens by myself. Though I’ve visited the city a few times before I’d never had the chance to really get to know it, and there were archaeological sites like the temple of Haphaestus which I’d never actually seen. The class was, as such things tend to be, both challenging and rewarding, the former being inevitable when you are working with students who are writing in a second language. It struck me as weirdly ironic–even presumptuous–to be teaching three act structure in a classroom only a couple of miles from the theatre of Dionysius where the plays of Sophocles and Euripides got their first public airing two and half thousand years ago! The second leg of the trip–to Crete, partly to revisit the Minoan ruins of Knossos–was more obviously holiday, though I came away with the idea for a new novel, so that’s good.”

Tiffany just came back from a trip to the past. I asked her about her adventure, and here is what she had to say. “I just returned from a ten-day trip to Israel. I was there primarily to participate in UNC Charlotte’s Mount Zion Dig with the Religious Studies Department in Jerusalem. It was exciting to dig into the earth and uncover items that had not been touched in over a thousand years. Even just walking around the Old City, where I stayed, felt like an adventure as I observed the stunning architecture and many cultures around me. I was also fortunate to visit Masada and Qumran, where Professor James Tabor guided us on a tour. On that same day, I swam in the Dead Sea, which was far more beautiful than I expected. I think my favorite part of the trip though was meeting so many new people from so many different places. It was an amazing experience, and I hope to incorporate it somehow into my work.”

Kudos— As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department. Today’s Kudos section is being brought to you by the letter M.

Kirk Melnikoff delivered the paper “From the Talbot to Duck Lane: The Early Publication History Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London” at The Ladies of London in Context Conference at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Juan Meneses presented a paper titled “Reading Images, Seeing Words” at the ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) conference at the University of Idaho.

Julia Morris, a graduate student in our children’s literature concentration, received an offer from the Old Dominion University Darden College of Education for a admission to their PhD Program in Education, concentrating in curriculum/instruction with an emphasis in Literacy Leadership for children’s/young adult literature. She received an assistantship as the research coordinator for a three-year NSF grant that deals with first-year writing and peer review in literature classes.

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

June 29 — Classes for the second summer session begin on June 29.

June 30 — Last day to add or drop a class with no grade.

Quirky Quiz Question — I am not the only person to write about travels with Charlie. John Steinbeck used this phrase as the title of one of his nonfiction books. What role did Charlie play in Steinbeck’s life?

Last week’s answer- The Raven

Monday Missive - June 22, 2015

June 22, 2015 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
News from Richmond — I just returned from Richmond, Virginia, where I attended the Children’s Literature Association Conference.  This year’s conference focused on the “dark side” of children’s literature.  This theme seemed fitting to me since Richmond is the home of Edgar Allan Poe, who of course is famous for his dark Poe Museum 2stories.  While in Richmond, I visited the Edgar Allan Poe Museum and Garden, and I marveled at the museum’s extensive collection of Poe’s personal belongings and memorabilia.
I am pleased to report that our English Department was well represented at the conference.  Two of our graduate students presented papers.  Amanda Loefert delivered a paper on “Fighting in Flats:  How Kamala Khan Is Revolutionizing the Female Superhero.” Dina Massachi presented a paper titled “Starving for Readers:  The Epidemic of Glamorizing Eating Disorders in Young Adult Fiction.”  I attended their sessions, and they both gave excellent presentations.  Two of our former graduate students also presented papers.  Mary Catherine Miller, who is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Ohio State University, delivered a paper titled “Exploring Race in Panem from Colonialism to the Present,” and Erika Romero, who is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Illinois State University, presented a paper titled “Dismantling Boundaries:  The Post-Human World of M. T. Anderson’s Feed.” I always feel proud when I our former graduate students achieve success as doctoral students, and Mary Catherine and Erika are two such success stories.  Balaka Basu also attended the conference, and she was honored during the awards banquet for winning the Children’s Literature Association’s Best Edited Book Award for her collection titled Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults:  Brave New Teenagers.  This occasion marked the second year in a row that Balaka was recognized at the awards banquet.  Last year she was honored for winning the Children’s Literature Association’s Faculty Research Grant.
News from Our Foreign Bureau — When I was a kid, the television networks often ran a public service announcement that said, “It’s 10:00 pm.  Do you know where your children are?”  This announcement popped into my head the other day as I was trying to keep track of our faculty members’ travel plans for the summer.  I found myself asking, “It’s summer.  Do you know where your faculty members are?”  Many members of our department go on research trips over the summer, so keeping track of everybody can be a challenge.   In an effort to participate in these foreign adventures in a vicarious sort of way, I decided to provide some information about our globe trotters in my Monday Missives.
This week I am featuring Sarah Minslow, who recently returned from an extended trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland.  I asked her about her adventures, and here is what she had to say: “In May, I visited the UK and Ireland to conduct research for curriculum development for the courses I teach. I visited the British Library, Trinity College Dublin’s exhibition titled Upon the Wild Waves: A Journey through Myth in Children’s Books, Oscar Wilde’s childhood home and the Selfish Giant’s Children’s Playground, which is based on one of Oscar Wilde’s stories. I also visited the Bronte Parsonage, Beatrix Potter World and Beatrix Potter’s house, and Whitby Abbey. I met with faculty at Kingston University and the Chair of their English Department to discuss course requirements and advising our study abroad students and with the Director of the British Human Rights Institute.  It was an amazing trip, and I have a lot of reading and curriculum revisions to do now!”
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 UNC Charlotte’s Writing Project are featured in the Summer 2015 print edition of Exchange.  Copies of this magazine are in faculty members’ department mailboxes.

Liz Miller recently presented a paper in a symposium titled “Teacher Identity across Time and Space” at the International Society for Language Studies conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Earlier this summer she had a chapter titled “Power, Resistance and Second Language Learning” appear in the Handbook of Classroom Discourse and Interaction.
Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here are some dates to keep in mind:
June 22 — Last day of classes for the first summer session.
June 29 — Grades due for classes taught during the first summer session.
June 29 — Classes for the second summer session begin on June 29.
June 30 — Last day to add or drop a class with no grade.
Quirky Quiz Question— Edgar Allan Poe wrote poetry as well as prose.  One of his poems begin with the phrase, “Once upon a midnight dreary.”  What is the title of this poem?
Last week’s answer: Julian D. Mason

Monday Missive - June 15, 2015

June 16, 2015 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

The Study of the New South — At the end of June, Jeffrey Leak will step down as the Director for the Center for the Study of the New South in order to focus his attention on serving as the Faculty President. Jeffrey has served as the Director of the Center since Jeffrey Leak2011. Under his leadership the Center has developed programming that has engaged the larger Charlotte community. In 2012, he secured a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council for the Center to host a conference on the book and exhibit Without a Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. The Center also sponsored year-long programming on Sports in the New South, Soul Food: A Historical and Contemporary Exploration of New South Food, and most recently, a series titled Real Talk: Community Conversation on Why the Black American Male Still Matters. Please join me in commending Jeffrey for providing the Center with such excellent leadership.

Jeffrey’s work as the Director of the Center for the Study of the New South reflects the English Department’s long-standing involvement in Southern Studies. In the mid-1970s, the English Department began offering an upper-level course called Literature of the American South, and in the years since then English faculty have have contributed to Southern Studies both through their teaching and their scholarship. Currently, a number of English faculty members are engaged in scholarly projects that deal with Southern Studies. I could mention many examples, but there are four faculty members who immediately come to mind. Janaka Lewis and Paula Eckard are both doing research projects on writers from the American South while Liz Miller and Becky Roeder are conducting linguistics research on speech patterns and language usage in the South.

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

June 22 — Last day of classes for the first summer session.

June 29 — Grades due for classes taught during the first summer session.

June 29 — Classes for the second summer session begin on June 29.

June 30 — Last day to add or drop a class with no grade.

Quirky Quiz Question — The English Department’s engagement in Southern Studies is reflected in our annual award ceremony. Each year, the English Department gives an award to “an outstanding graduate student with an interest in literature, especially Southern Literature.” This award is named after a former English faculty member. Does anybody know the name of this former faculty member?

Last week’s answer: The Cheshire Cat couldn’t be beheaded because his body (and head) kept disappearing.

Monday Missive - June 8, 2015

June 08, 2015 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
me and my babies Warrior Dash 2015

Andrea, Josh, Angie, Reili

Warrior Dash — Angie Williams and her offspring (Reili Williams, Andrea Todd, and Josh Edwards) participated in the Warrior Dash in Huntersville this past weekend. This 5K run doubles as an obstacle course. The twelve obstacles include climbing a wall (Warrior Wall), wading through a muddy pond (Mud Mounds), crawling under barbed wire (Under the Wire), and jumping over live flames (Warrior Roast). This sounds like torture to me, and I am not at all sure I would survive. I would likely end up being a roasted chair. Angie and her crew, however, not only completed the Warrior Dash, but they all claim to have enjoyed the experience.

There is a scene in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in which the Queen of Hearts is having her own wild Warrior Dash of sorts, although she calls it a croquet game. I am not sure I would survive this chaotic experience either. I would likely end up being a behealice32aaded chair. Anyway, at one point Alice and the Duchess are watching the proceedings, and the Duchess insists on tacking on a moral to every comment that Alice makes about the game. At the risk of sounding like the Duchess, I can’t help tacking on a moral to the end of Angie’s Warrior Dash story. By supporting each other and finding the fun in overcoming obstacles, Angie and her crew turned something that sounds like an ordeal into something that they all sensed as an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday morning. And the moral to that, to quote the Duchess is–“Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.”

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 delivered a public presentation titled “Issues of Invisibility: or, How to Read Slavery Where There Is No Slavery” at the Boston Athenaeum. She talked about the Confederate children’s books that she examined during her month-long research stay at the Boston Athenaeum.

Melissa Quitadamo, a master’s student in English, is the recipient of the 2015-16 John Paul Lucas, Jr. Scholarship for Educational Leadership. She is featured in the Summer 2015 issue of The Graduate Source, a publication produced by the Graduate School.

Alan Rauch delivered a presentation titled “Issues Facing Scholarly Journals in the U.S.” at the annual congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. This event took place in Ottawa, Canada.

Ralf Thiede delivered a paper on June 6 entitled “Story as the Brain’s Information Management System” at the inaugural Colloquium on the Linguistics of Children’s Literature. The colloquium was held at the University of Mainz, Germany, and went so well that international conferences on the topic are envisioned for the future.

Quirky Quiz Question — In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Queen’s croquet game is interrupted over a dispute involving the ordered beheading of the Cheshire Cat. Why does the executioner argue that he cannot behead the Cheshire Cat?

Last week’s answer: Darwen is an anagram for Andrew

Monday Missive - June 1, 2015

June 01, 2015 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

ConCarolinas — I spent part of the past weekend at ConCarolinas, a convention for fans of fantasy and science fiction. The convention took place in a large hotel near the Charlotte Motor Speedway. My wife (Nancy Northcott) was one of the the guest writers, and I agreed to staff her table while she participated in panels and other events. Andrew Hartley (published as A. J. Hartley) also participated as a guest author, and his table was across the hallway from Nancy’s table. Andrew is the Robinson Professor of Shakespeare, but he is also the author of a number of fantasy novels, including a children’s fantasy trilogy titled the Darwen Arkwright Series.Hartley book Darwin Arkwright

As I watched Andrew interact with his readers, I began thinking about the various ways in which fans and literary scholars are alike. Both share a passion for stories, both enjoy talking to fellow readers about their favorite stories, and both like to write about stories. One of the key differences between these two groups is how they respond to stories. Fans tend to take a celebratory approach to their favorite stories while literary scholars tend to take more theoretical or historical approaches to stories. Still, these differing responses are not mutually exclusive. Fans and scholars can learn from each other and take pleasure in their shared interests.

Andrew provides an inspiring example of a scholar who is as comfortable in the world of fandom as he is in the halls of academe. When a girl came up to his table at ConCarolinas and wanted to talk to him about Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact, he gave her the same respect as he would give a fellow Shakespeare scholar. I watched as Andrew talked with the girl and signed her book, and I thought to myself how fortunate I am to count Andrew as one of my colleagues.

News about Sponsored Awards — Every month I receive a report titled “Sponsored Awards” from the Office of Research and Economic Development. This report provides information about the external funding generated by every department in the university. I took a look at the report that came last week, and I was pleased with the information related to the English Department. The report lists the “total value of awards” that have come in between July 1, 2014, and April 30, 2015. It also lists the same information from the previous year. A year ago, the English Department generated awards totaling $89,095, but this year the total increased to $116,136. This total is the highest for any humanities department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and it is higher than the totals for most of the departments in the social sciences.

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 Eckard served on a panel titled “Teaching Thomas Wolfe in the Twenty-First Century” at the 37th Annual Conference of the Thomas Wolfe Society in Albany, NY, May 22-24. Among other topics, she discussed the versatile uses of Wolfe’s works in teaching both undergraduate and graduate students and the outstanding digital resources available for teaching Wolfe in traditional and online environments.

Jennie Mussington is participating in the Summer 2015 Universal Design Certificate Program. This program provides information on how to make technology used on our campus accessible to users with disabilities.

Quirky Quiz Question — What is an “anagram” and how does it relate to Andrew Hartley’s Darwen Arkwright Series?

Last week’s answer – Decoration Day

Skip to toolbar
  • Log In