Recollections and Reflections on Bob Dylan — I do not usually get early morning emails from Daniel Shealy, but last Thursday I received a cryptic email from Daniel expressing his excitement about the “cool” news regarding the latest winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. However, he didn’t tell me what the news was. I looked it up and discovered that this year’s winner is Bob Dylan. Well, for those of you who don’t know, Daniel is a devoted Dylan fan, so I didn’t need a weather man to know why Daniel was so excited.
Like Daniel, I grew up listening to Dylan albums, all of which I still own. When I was in high school, my parents bought a new stereo set. Back in those days, stereo sets were pieces of furniture. I asked my parents for their old stereo set, and they let me move the hulking object into my bedroom. It had a loose wire, but I discovered that if I jiggled the wire around, I could get the stereo to work most of the time. One day I put on Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, and I reached under the turntable to jiggle the wire. The next thing I knew I was knocked over on the floor with my arm tingling from a powerful shock. The electric light still struck like arrows, but I managed to stand upright and be strong. Now, you would think that after I got an electric shock from my stereo, I would have seen it from a different point of view and just turned on my radio. But all I really wanted to do was hear my Dylan album, so I jiggled the wire again and this time it worked. This convinced me that I could have my cake and eat it too.
This past weekend I played all of my old Dylan albums, and while I was listening to them, I thought about the significance of Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for literature. By bestowing this award on Dylan, the selection committee helped expand out definition of literature to include song lyrics. This development is in keeping with the expanding and evolving world of English studies. Through our course offerings and our research, we cover topics that were not included in the English Departments of yesteryear. These new topics include video games, reality television programs, scientific documents, road signs, board games, apps, websites, and recipe books. I am sure there are some traditionalists who respond to these changes by attempting to seek shelter from the storm, but as I see it, we are making the right move by acknowledging that the times, they are a-changin’.
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:
Bryn Chancellor was an invited author at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN, this past weekend. She gave a reading and answered questions as part of the panel “The Rural, the Urban and the Search for Home: Navigating Landscapes in Short Stories.”
Allison Hutchcraft recently visited The Writing School at Kingston University, London, where she taught a graduate-level poetry workshop and gave a reading of her work.
Janaka Lewis recently learned that she has been nominated of a 2016 Bookie Award. These awards recognize “extraordinary literacy and educational work being done in the Charlotte community.”
Emma Parrish, one of our new M.A. students, recently presented a paper titled “Allow it to Occur to You: Invention versus Reality in Roald Dahl” at a conference on Literature of the Hidden and Fantastic at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.
Alan Rauch recently presented a paper titled “Novel Highways & Information Turnpikes” at the Victorians Institute Conference.
Bonnie Shishko, one of our part-time faculty members, has a successfully defended her dissertation titled “Epistemologies of the Kitchen: Art, Science, and Nineteenth-Century British Culinary Writing.” Her defense took place on October 10, 2016, and she will be formally awarded her Ph.D. in December. However, as far as I am concerned, she is now Dr. Bonnie Shishko. Congratulations, Bonnie.
Lara Vetter‘s monograph, Modernist Writings and Religio-scientific Discourse (2010), is now available in paperback.
Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about two upcoming events:
October 19 — Dean Nancy Gutierrez and I invite everyone in the English Department to attend a formal announcement of an important and very positive development related to our department. This announcement will take place next Wednesday, October 19, at 10:00 a.m. in the English Department Conference Room (Fretwell 280C). Please come if you possibly can.
October 28 — The UNC Charlotte University Writing Program’s Fall Conference will take place on October 28, 2016. October 20 is the registration deadline. Registration is $45. Late registration will be open until the day of the conference at an increased rate of $55. Here is the link to register: https://pages.charlotte.edu/uwpconference/registration-2016/
Quirky Quiz Question — Most people have heard of Bob Dylan, but this is not his original name. Does anybody know Dylan’s original name?
Last week’s answer: Flipper
In Dolphin, Alan Rauch writes about the depiction of dolphins in popular culture, including a hit television series from the mid-1960s that features a bottlenose dolphin. Does anybody remember the name of this television show?