Monthly Archives: September 2016

Monday Missive - September 26, 2016

September 26, 2016 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

pulitzer-prizePrizes — I have been thinking about prizes lately in part because of the North Carolina Humanities Council’s series of programs commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize. These programs are focusing on people from North Carolina who have won the Pulitzer Prize. I am playing a role in one of these programs, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, September 27, at 11:00 AM in the Halton Theater on the CPCC’s Central Campus. I will be talking about Doug Marlette, who was a Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer. My talk, however, will be on his comic strip, Kudzu. If you are interested learning more about this event, here is a link with more information: http://www.pulitzernc.org/events/2016/9/27/old-southnew-south-through-media-panel-discussion

Of course, being awarded the Pulitzer Prize makes headlines, but I think that being awarded lesser known prizes is also significant. Such prizes often recognize achievements that might not be noticed by the larger public but are highly regarded by people within the recipients’ field. Our colleague Chris Davis has just been informed that he has won such an award. His poem titled “Against Pride” has been selected as the winner of the Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award. This award is given by the creative writing journal Descant. The award is given annually to the single poem deemed the strongest in each edition of the journal, and the award includes a $500 prize. Even though the title of Chris’s award-winning poem is “Against Pride,” I am still very proud of Chris for winning this award. As everyone in our English Department knows, we have a very strong creative writing program. Chris’s latest award adds to the program’s already excellent reputation.

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 just signed a contract for a co-edited collection titled The Harry Potter Generation. Her co-editor is Emily Lauer.

Kirk Melnikoff gave the invited-paper “Shakespeare’s Early Comedies and the Lure of Conycatching” at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference in Winston-Salem, NC.

Liz Miller recently presented a paper titled “Individual Positioning Work and the Mobilzation of Responsibility in Organizational Discussions on Social Sustainability” at a critical discourse analysis conference in Catania, Sicily.

Quirky Quiz Question — Doug Marlette is one of several award-winning editorial cartoonists who have worked for the Charlotte Observer. Does anybody know the name of the current editorial cartoonist who works for the Charlotte Observer?

Last week’s answer: September 15 is the date that all of these countries gained their independence from Spain.

Does anybody know why September 15 is a significant day in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua?

Monday Missive - September 19, 2016

September 20, 2016 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
national-hispanic-heritage-month
National Hispanic Heritage Month — During President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, the United States began observing the Hispanic Heritage Week.  This week-long celebration expanded into the National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988.  The current celebration takes place from September 15 to October 15, and it provides an opportunity to recognize the many ways in which Hispanic Americans have contributed to American culture.  For more information about this month-long event, please click on the following link:  http://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/

In thinking about the English Department’s connections to the National Hispanic Heritage Month, I quickly realized that many of our faculty members do research, teaching, or service work that relates to this topic.  However, for the purposes of today’s Monday Missive, I will focus on the work of three of our faculty members:  JuliAnna Avila, Becky Roeder, and Maya Socolovsky.

Much of JuliAnna’s service work relates to this topic.  She is serving as the Secretary for CLAS’s Latino/a Caucus this year.  Since she has been in Charlotte, she has volunteered at Hawthorne High School working with ELL students as well as with Circle de Luz, a community organization that mentors adolescent Latinas and helps them prepare for college.

Becky’s dissertation was on assimilation to local dialect norms in Lansing, Michigan, by Mexican American enclave residents. Her most recent work with the Latino population is an investigation into language use on public signage in areas of Charlotte that are more densely populated by Latinos. Both projects have given her the opportunity to interact with members of the local population, raising awareness among community residents about research at a local university.

Maya has been been conducting research in this field for almost twenty years. Initially, she worked on Chicana, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican writing about memory, migration, and history. Her most recent work is moving into U.S. Latino/a children’s and young adult literature.  She recently published an article in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly on Julia Alvarez’s Return to Sender, and she is currently studying depictions of immigration and border crossings in picture books.  She also regularly teaches courses on Latino/Latina literature for both the English Department and the Latin American Studies Program.

News from the Blogosphere — Jen Munroe is a regular participant in “The Recipes Project,” the award-nominated blog site in the UK that features an international group of scholars talking about recipes (Medieval through 19th century).  She recently posted a blog about the unanticipated consequences of teaching recipes and the birth of our student group, EMPS (Early Modern Paleography Society).  Here is the link to Jen’s blog:  http://recipes.hypotheses.org/8442
Three of the EMPS past-and-current officers (Kailan Sindelar, Breanne Weber, and Nadia Clifton) have also written a blog for “The Recipes Project.”  Their submission, which was by invitation, is titled “Cooking for a Crowd: Recipes and the Transcribathon.”  Here is the link to their blog: http://recipes.hypotheses.org/8319

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 recently published a co-authored article titled “Conversing with the Elderly in Latin America: A New Cohort for Multimodal, Multilingual Longitudinal Studies on Aging”  in the Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Cognitive Aspects of Computational Language Learning.  She also presented a co-authored paper titled “Reducing Pediatric Patient Safety Risks for Families with Limited English Proficiency” at the SC Practice Network Annual Conference, Charleston.

Paula Eckard‘s book Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature has been nominated for the 2016 Warren-Brooks Award.  For more information about this prestigious award, please click on the following link:  https://www.wku.edu/rpw/navigation/rpw_bookprize_about.php

Sam Shapiro recently published a book review of Braxton Bragg:  The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy in the Charlotte Observer. 

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about an upcoming event:

The English Graduate Student Association is holding its first Faculty/Student Mingle on Friday, September 23.  The event will will take place at the Wine Vault (9009 J.M. Keynes Drive) at 7:00 pm.

Quirky Quiz Question — Does anybody know why September 15 is a significant day in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua?

Last week’s answer: Winston Salem
In her guest blog, Lara Vetter discusses H.D.’s roots in the Moravian Church.  A city on North Carolina has strong ties to the Moravia Church.  Does anybody know the name of this city? 

Monday Missive - September 12, 2016

September 12, 2016 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Celebrating Authors’ Birthdays — I think the fact that we have ten fingers has something to do with why we pay particular attention to birthdays that are divisible by ten.  I wonder if we had evolved from octopi if we would emphasize birthdays that are divisible by eight.  Regardless of the reason, however, we tend to take notice of birthdays that have associations with the number ten, and two prominent authors have such birthdays in the first half of September.  The 130th birthday of Hilda Doolittle (more commonly know as H.D.)  took place on September 10, and the 100th birthday of Roald Dahl will take place on September 16.

hilda-doolittleLara Vetter is widely recognized as a leading authority on H.D., so it is fitting that Oxford University Press asked Lara to write a guest blog about H.D.’s 130th birthday for their Oxford Bibliographies Blog.  In addition to writing about H.D.’s contributions to the modernist literary movement, Lara devotes much of her guest blog to discussing H.D.’s distrust of nationalism.  Here is a link to Lara’s blog: <http://blog.oup.com/2016/09/hd-130-birth-anniversary/>.

The upcoming 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s birth is attracting world-wide attention.  The Special Collections Department of UNC Charlotte’s Atkins Library is joining in the celebrations by installing a display devoted to Dahl and Beatrix Potter, whose 150th birth anniversary took place this past July.  When the organizers of this display learned that I knew Dahl and that I have a large collection of Dahl-related material, they requested permission to borrow some of my Dahl books and correspondence for their display.  Needless to say, I am looking forward to seeing this display.

Special Team — I know very little about football, but a few years ago I learned that each team has its own “special teams.”  Well, at this pastSaturday’s UNC Charlotte’s home game, there was an extra special team.  What made this special team so darn special is that its members are all tied to the English Department.   Jennie Mussington played in the greeter position at the Judy Rose Field House where all of the players and coaches made their entrances.  Angie Williams worked the Team/Player Guest and Media Gate, where she greeted all of the special guests and examined their bags.  Rounding out this extra special team were the members of the English Learning Community, who hosted a tailgate event for students and others.  Chelsea Moore and Nicole Jones played key roles in organizing this tailgating event.  With so many people from the English Department contributing to the effort, it’s only fitting that the 49ers were victorious on the field.

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English Learning Community

English Learning Community — Tiffany Morin, the Director of our English Learning Community (ELC), recently shared with me her good news about the ELC.  Here is what she wrote:  “The English Learning Community is off to a successful start. This year, it is made up of twenty-two members and three peer mentors. They have begun their campus wide scavenger hunt, so you will likely see them wandering the halls of the English Department. You can learn more about the individual members from the ELC bulletin board, located by 290-B. They are beginning to plan their events this semester, so if you would like to involve the ELC in any upcoming events, please contact Tiffany Morin.”

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‘s third edited issue of the Thomas Wolfe Review (39.1-2: 2015; 196 pages) has been published.  Still photos from the film Geniusare on the front and back covers. She contributed to an article on teaching Thomas Wolfe in the 21st century.  Her section of the article is titled “Thomas Wolfe in Context: North Carolina and the Digital World.”

Katie Hogan has been invited to give a talk at the annual colloquium for the Cultural Studies Ph.D. Program at George Mason University onApril 13, 2017.  Katie’s talk, “Complicit:  On Being a WGSS Director in the Neoliberal University,” resonates with the colloquium’s 2016-17 theme, “State of the University.”  A GMU doctoral student will also conduct an interview with Katie.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about an upcoming event:

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the UNC Charlotte Counseling Center are co-sponsoring an event titled “Just Me and Allah:  A Queer Muslim Photo Project,” featuring the work of Samra Habib.  Her presentation will take place on Wednesday, November 9, 2016 @7pm in McKnight Hall.  Here are some articles on Samra’s work:

http://qz.com/594969/between-me-and-allah-the-conflict-between-homosexuality-and-islam/

Quirky Quiz Question — In her guest blog, Lara Vetter discusses H.D.’s roots in the Moravian Church.  A city on North Carolina has strong ties to the Moravia Church.  Does anybody know the name of this city?

Last week’s answer: John Ford
Three years after the publication of In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, which is also set in California during the Great Depression.  In 1940, The Grapes of Wrath was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda.  Does anybody know the name of the famous director of this film?

Monday Missive - September 5, 2016

September 06, 2016 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
inbattlebook
A Novel for Labor Day — The labor movement gave rise to Labor Day, but it also gave rise to a genre of literature that is often called the labor novel.  When I was a student activist in the 1970s, I read many labor novels.  They sort of blur together in my memory, for most of them have similar plots and similar central characters.

The labor novel that I remember the best is John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle.  Published in 1936, In Dubious Battle is Steinbeck’s first full-length novel.  The novel deals with a strike by farm workers who are picking apples in California.  Like most labor novels, In Dubious Battle describes the deplorable working conditions that often spark labor unrest and sometimes strikes.  However, what sets In Dubious Battle apart from most other labor novels is Steinbeck’s thoughtful portrayal of the tactics and strategies used by the organizers of the strike.  Steinbeck shows how true believers in political causes can sometimes engage in questionable actions in the name of a greater cause.

When I first read this novel, I was moved by the plight of the farm workers In-Dubious-Battle moviewho figure so prominently in the story, but I was also left pondering the question of whether or not the ends justify the means.  In Dubious Battle is rooted in the labor movement and is certainly sympathetic to the movement, but it deals with themes that transcend the labor movement.  It speaks to all of us who are tempted to place causes over ordinary people and doctrinaire principles over basic human decency.   In Dubious Battle is one of my favorite novels, and I recently learned that it is one of President Obama’s favorite novels, too.

The film director Jame Franco has just released a film version of In Dubious Battle.  The film premiered on September 3 at the Venice Film Festival.  I always feel a bit anxious when one of my favorite books is made into a film, but I plan to see it in the hopes that the film does the book justice.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about an upcoming event:

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the UNC Charlotte Counseling Center are co-sponsoring an event titled “Just Me and Allah:  A Queer Muslim Photo Project,” featuring the work of Samra Habib.  Her presentation will take place on Wednesday, November 9, 2016 @7pm in McKnight Hall.  Here are some articles on Samra’s work:

http://qz.com/594969/between-me-and-allah-the-conflict-between-homosexuality-and-islam/

Quirky Quiz Question — Three years after the publication of In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, which is also set in California during the Great Depression.  In 1940,The Grapes of Wrath was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda.  Does anybody know the name of the famous director of this film?

Last week’s answer – Prince Charming!

Monica, Jennie, and Angie are the three official English Department staff members, but there is a fourth unofficial member of the staff who resides in Angie’s office.  Does anybody know the name of this unofficial member of the staff?