Fostering Creativity — Today is Labor Day, but in the Charlotte area, it is also Yard Art Day. Deborah Triplett, a Charlotte photographer, created Yard Art Day a few years ago. As she explains on the event’s website, she invites participants “to celebrate their creative spirit by displaying or performing their own works of art in their front yards or balconies for the public” (http://www.yardartday.org/). This year I created a “book mobile” for Yard Art Day. I love books and I love mobiles and other forms of kinetic art, so I decided to create a work that integrates both of these loves.
One of the main reasons I am a big supporter of Yard Art Day is that it fosters creativity. Most of us who participate in Yard Art Day are not professional artists, but we enjoy being creative and sharing our creations with an appreciative audience. Fostering creativity is also at the core of the English Department’s DNA. The most obvious example of this side of our department is our burgeoning creative writing program. Many of the students who take our various creative writing courses relish the opportunity to write poems and short stories, and they take pleasure in sharing their creative work with their classmates.
However, our creative writing teachers are not the only members of our department who foster their students’ creativity. For example, our faculty members in the area of technical and professional writing regularly sponsor an exhibition of their students’ work. I attended this event last semester, and I was very impressed with the high level of creativity that our students brought to their projects. Other faculty members in our department encourage their students to experiment with theatrical projects, film and digital productions, and various visual presentations, ranging from formal conference posters to free-for-all collages.
The creative dimensions of our department spin around us in unpredictable but appealing ways. It’s sort of like a mobile.
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:
Chris Davis recently had a poem titled “Idol” accepted by Hawaii Review for a “Literature of Crime” issue.
Andrew Hartley was a guest speaker this Labor Day weekend at Dragon Con, which is one of the largest fantasy conventions in the world. An interview with him appeared in the Daily Dragon. The person who conducted the interview is Nancy Northcott, who is an affiliated member of our department. Here is the link: http://dailydragon.dragoncon.org/2015/discussing-books-and-audiobooks-with-a-j-hartley/
Liz Miller recently presented a paper titled “Relational Agency: An Emerging Perspective in Applied Linguistics” at the annual conference of the British Association of Applied Linguistics, held in Birmingham, England.
Jennifer Munroe recently had an article titled “Shakespeare and Ecocriticism Revisited” published in Literature Compass. Here is the link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/lic3.12251/
Lance Phillips’s poem “Sericulture” was published last month in 33rd edition of New American Writing. Here’s a link: http://www.newamericanwriting.com/current.htm.
Daniel Shealy recently had a chapter titled “Little Women in Its Time” published in Critical Insights: Little Women, edited by Gregory Eiselein and Anne K. Phillips.
Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here are some dates to keep in mind:
September 10 — Shakespeare in Action is co-sponsoring a guest lecture by Sujata Iyengar titled “Why Shakespeare’s King John Leaves out the Magna Carta” at 4:30 in Fretwell 290B.
October 19 — The deadline to apply for a Faculty Research Grant is October 19. For more information, click on the following link: http://research.uncc.edu/proposal-development/locating-funding
Quirky Quiz Question — What is the name of the American sculptor who is largely responsible for introducing mobiles to the art scene?
Last week’s answer: runcible spoon
In her article about Edward Lear’s nonsense poetry, Sarah Minslow discusses many of Lear’s poems. One of Lear’s most famous poems is “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat.” In this poem, the owl and the pussy-cat eat “slices of quince” with an unusual utensil. What is this utensil called in the poem?