Monthly Archives: July 2017

July 31, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
Of Construction Toys and Public Engagement —  A few weeks ago I arranged for a group of graduate students to take a tour of ImaginOn, which is a collaborative venture of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and the Children’s Theater of Charlotte.  During our tour, we spent part of our time exploring an amazing interactive exhibit called “TINKERTOY:  Build Your Imagination.”  This exhibit will be at ImaginOn through September 10.

I talked with one of the librarians who brought the exhibit to ImaginOn, and I shared with her my long-standing interest in construction toys.  As a result of this conversation, I agreed to write an essay about the history and importance of construction toys.  This week the administrators at ImaginOn will post a giant version of this essay as part of the Tinkertoy exhibit.  Over the years, I have collaborated with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library on many projects, but this latest project is the first time I have written text for one of their exhibits.

My involvement with our public library is but one of many examples of members of our English Department sharing their academic expertise with the general public.  For the purposes of today’s Monday Missive, I will highlight the public engagement activities performed by JuliAnna Ávila, Alan Rauch, and Greg Wickliff, but I am aware of other examples that I hope to highlight in future Monday Missives.

JuliAnna has an expertise in digital storytelling, and she has been publishing on this topic since 2008.  Recently, however, she has become involved with several community projects in which she is drawing on her expertise in this area.  For example, she is participating in the Lumbee tribe’s project called Unlocking Silent Histories.  This project involves an extensive digital storytelling program.   She is also joining forces with Tisha Greene, the principal of the Oakhurst STEAM Academy in Charlotte, to implement a digital storytelling into their curricula.   As part of her public engagement work in this area, JuliAnna is creating opportunities for our English Education students to participate in these projects.

Alan’s public engagement activities often relate to his scholarly interest in the relationship between literature and science.  A recent example is tied to his role as a member of the Advisory Board of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature at University of Florida.  As part of his involvement with the Baldwin Library, he helped curate an exhibit of books about science written by women for children between 1790 and 1890.  Titled “Subverting the ‘Natural Order’:  Women and Science,” this public exhibit showed how women contributed to the advances in scientific knowledge during the nineteenth century.

Greg regularly shares his expertise in technical communication with the members of the Charlotte Regional Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.  He has participated in several collaborative projects with the members of this organization.  However, the largest of these projects is an annual exhibit of student work.  Each year the faculty teaching in our Technical/Professional Writing programs invite undergraduate and graduate students to exhibit and discuss their projects with representatives from the regional chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.  Over the years, Greg, Aaron Toscano, Meg Morgan, and Mary Ellen Muesing, with support from graduate students and other faculty in the department, have worked together to make this annual event a big success.  The discussions of the projects with professional writers and editors have often led to formal job interviews for our graduates with employers looking for employees with a balance of language, computing, and graphic design skills.

As these examples demonstrate, our English Department can be seen as a hub off of which there are many spokes extending in different directions.   I find it intriguing that this description applies equally well to the design principle behind Tinkertoys.

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:

Pilar Blitvich recently presented a paper titled “Trolling in the Name of Free Speech”: The Milo Yiannopoulos’s Controversy” at the Politeness Symposium in York, UK.  She also presented a paper titled “Peninsular Spanish Retailer-Consumer Interactions on Facebook: A Variational Pragmatics Perspective” at the conference of the International Pragmatics Association in Belfast.

Sarah Minslow presented a paper titled “Impossible Choices, Possible Justice?  The Realities and Representations of Child Soldiers” at the International Research Society of Children’s Literature conference at York University in Toronto.

Alan Rauch presented a paper titled “Evolutionary and Anglican Afterlives:  Death as a Sacrament in Kingsley’s Water Babies” at a workshop sponsored by Princeton University and held at the Gladstone Library in Hawarden, Wales.

Lara Vetter‘s edition of By Avon River was featured in a poet-scholar’s blog.  Here is the link:

<https://lesleywheeler.org/2017/07/18/hybrid-h-d/>

Greg Wickliff recently participated with his wife, Alisa, in the STEM education learning festival at Ludwigsburg University  in Germany on July 19th. In Germany, the STEM acronym is MINT: Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik. The learning festival brought together hundreds of elementary and middle grades students, their teachers, and students and faculty of the university for a day filled with workshops and exhibits.
 

Quirky Quiz Question —  Tinkertoys were very popular during my childhood, but nowadays the most popular construction toys in the United States are Legos.  However, Legos did not originate in the United States.  Does anybody know what country gave the world Legos?

Last week’s answer: Charleston, SC

Does anybody know what city in the South serves as the setting for the opera Porgy and Bess? 

Monday Missive - July 24, 2017

July 24, 2017 by Angie Williams
Categories: Monday Missive

Summertime – When I hear the word summertime, I immediately think of the song “Summertime” from the opera Porgy and Bess.  It is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music, but my favorite rendition is the the duet version by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.  I just listened to it as I started writing this Monday Missive, and it seems perfect to me in every possible way.   However, I also like the versions by Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin.  One of the reasons I so like this song is that it captures the slow, almost languid, pace of summer in the South.  The fish might be jumping, but for many of us, summer is a time to slow down a bit and enjoy the pleasures associated with living easy.  Still, the world does not come to a stop in the summer, and neither does the English Department.

Our internship program, now under the capable direction of Sarah Minslow, is one program that that is especially active in the summer.  This summer ten students from the English Department have been busy interning around the community.  We have students at the N.C. Wildlife Federation, Girls on the Run, International House, the Mecklenburg County Courthouse, The Independent newspaper in Concord, a law firm, and three local businesses.  These student interns are using skills learned in their English courses to design professional documents, manage social media, create content, and assist their supervisors while developing professional skills and networks.

Tiffany Morin has also been busy this summer recruiting for the English Learning Community.   She has been manning the table at the SOAR Resource Fairs, meeting with future English majors, and e-mailing prospective members. Her work has yielded 16 members of this year’s community, and recruitment continues, as does the planning for their first semester in college. While the learning communities help to transition students to university life in general, this year, Tiffany is trying to incorporate more interaction with the English Department itself. This is especially important because a student’s first year involves mostly gen-ed courses and very little work in the major. Often as freshmen, students even confuse the English Department with the UWRT classes. Students that understand and feel at ease in the program they have joined will be more engaged and successful students, which benefits us all. The sooner the students start meeting their future professors, learning about opportunities, and becoming involved in department events, the sooner they can begin to feel like a part of the English Department community.

As Tiffany tries to bring the focus back to the major, she is building off of previous successes. Veteran ELC members fondly remember and still keep in contact with Henry Doss, so he will again be joining the class to discuss “purpose, success, and the English BA.” One of the highlights for students in the past has been Andrew Hartley’s visits to discuss Steeplejack and being a writer, which he has agreed to do again. This year, the ELC is excited to have two authors visit the class, as Bryn Chancellor has accepted an invitation to discuss Sycamore with the class. Please let Tiffany know if you or one of your students would like to come in and tell them about those opportunities, including specific events, organizations, and programs. Also, she is looking for volunteer opportunities for them, so please let her know if you need the assistance of some eager first-year students. She even welcomes professors to just come in and say “Hi” for a moment. Let’s help them to feel at home remind them of their great decision to join our English program. You can e-mail Tiffany at tamorin@uncc.edu.

The work that both Sarah and Tiffany are doing this summer will help our students as they prepare for the future.  There is a line in “Summertime” that seems as if it is written with our students in mind:  “One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing/And you’ll spread your wings and you’ll take to the sky.”

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 member of the fiction faculty at the Hub City Writing in Place Conference at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC, July 14-16, where she taught a fiction workshop and gave a fiction reading.

Juan Meneses recently published an article titled “Historical Restoration, Narrative Agency, and Silence in Graham Swift’s Waterland” in the Journal of Modern Literature.  You can access the article by clicking on the following link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jmodelite.40.3.10?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Liz Miller guest edited a Special Issue for the journal Critical Inquiry in Language Studies which has just been published. She and her collaborator, Ryuko Kubota, also have an article in the issue titled “Re-examining and Re-envisioning Criticality in LanguageStudies: Theories and Praxis.”

Thomas Eric Simonson, who recently received his BA degree (with honors) from our English Department, was featured in an article published in the Statesville Record & Landmark.  Here is the link:  http://www.statesville.com/news/mooresville-native-wins-prestigious-fellowship/article_82932706-6d48-11e7-8579-1f83698754e6.html

 

Quirky Quiz Question —  Does anybody know what city in the South serves as the setting for the opera Porgy and Bess?

Last week’s answer: Jeffrey Leak
John Lewis, the co-author of March: Book Three, lives in Atlanta, which is also the home of Emory University.  Who, among our current faculty members, received a PhD from Emory University?

Monday Missive - July 17, 2017

July 24, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
United We Teach — Every summer I teach an intensive graduate seminar called Children’s Literature Award Winners in which I cover the most recent winners of some of the major awards in the field of children’s and young adult literature.  Among the awards that I regularly cover are the Coretta Scott King Award, which recognizes outstanding children’s books by African Americans, and the Printz Award, which recognizes outstanding books for young adult readers.  This year March:  Book Three won both of these prestigious awards.  

March:  Book Three is the final work in a trilogy of graphic novels focusing on John Lewis’s role in the Civil Rights Movement during the first half of the 1960s.  Co-written by Lewis and Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell, March:  Book Three culminates with the famous march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in March 1965.  Lewis led this march as part of a larger campaign to advocate for equal voting rights in the South.  This march helped win the necessary support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which President Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965.  One of the final scenes in the book depicts President Johnson giving the pen that he used to sign this legislation to Lewis in recognition of the role the Lewis played in making the Voting Rights Act a reality.

Although March:  Book Three can be read on its own, it has a greater impact when it is read in conjunction with the first two books in the trilogy.  However, in preparing to teach this summer’s seminar, I kept my focus on the third book since it is the book that won this year’s awards.  Luckily for my students and me, Paula Connolly came to the rescue.  Paula had already studied the first two books in the trilogy, and this past Friday she gave a guest presentation to my class on these books.  During her presentation, she also explained how graphic novels differ from conventional novels.

Paula’s presentation underscored for me what I see as one of the great strengths of the English Department.  In my nearly 34 years of teaching in this department, I have witnessed countless examples of faculty members supporting each other in the classroom.  This support includes giving guest presentations, sharing syllabi, mentoring new faculty members, and exchanging teaching tips.  In some cases, this support involves covering classes when faculty members are physically unable to meet their classes.  This situation happened to me last semester when I was unexpectedly hospitalized after the electrical side of my heart stopped working properly.  Without any advanced notice, Paula stepped in and covered my classes.  As a result, not a single one of my class sessions was cancelled during my heart crisis.

By supporting each other in the classroom, we are able to accomplish more than we could if we taught in isolation.  In my reading of March:  Book Three, I see a similar message.  By marching together, John Lewis and the 600 other peaceful demonstrators who set out to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge were able to accomplish much more than they would have if each of them had walked across the bridge alone.

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:
 
Andrew Hartley‘s Steeplejack won the International Thriller Writers’ 2017 Thriller Award in the YA category last Saturday at a gala banquet in New York City.  On the same day, Steeplejack also won the North Carolina-based Manly Wade Wellman award for fantasy/science fiction.

Tony Jackson published an article titled “Imitative Identity, Imitative Art, and AI: Artificial Intelligence” in the June 2017 issue of Mosaic.

Sarah Minslow published an article titled “Forced to Cross Oceans:  Displacement in Children’s Literature” in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of RISE: A Children’s Literacy Journal.

Alan Rauch published an article titled “Ocean of Whales and Dolphins” in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of RISE: A Children’s Literacy Journal.
 
Angie Williams was recently received a certificate of recognition “for 30 years of faithful service to the State of North Carolina and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.”
 

Quirky Quiz Question —  John Lewis, the co-author of March: Book Three, lives in Atlanta, which is also the home of Emory University.  Who, among our current faculty members, received a PhD from Emory University?

Last week’s answer: Thomas Paine

Several leaders of the American Revolution went on to support the French Revolution, including the famous pamphleteer who wrote Common Sense and Rights of Man. Does anybody know the name of this writer?

Monday Missive - July 10, 2017

July 10, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive
Bastille Day, Jules Verne, and Revolutionary Power of Science Fiction — The French celebrate Bastille Day on the 14th of July, just ten days after Americans celebrate Independence Day.  Both holidays are rooted in revolutions, and both commemorate the efforts of brave people who took stands against monarchies.  Bastille Day commemorates the storming of the Bastille, which occurred in Paris on July 14, 1789.  The Bastille was a fortress-like prison where opponents of the royal government were often held without trials.  For many common people in France, the Bastille was seen as a symbol of tyranny.  For this reason, they saw the storming of the Bastille as a way to make a statement not only against the royal government but also for “liberty, equality and fraternity,” which was their motto.  The leaders of the French Revolution, like the leaders of the American Revolution, were trying to shape the future.  They imagined a world that differed in significant ways from the world in which they lived, and then they attempted to come up with a plan to bring their vision of the future into reality.

About a half a century after the French Revolution, a French author named Jules Verne also began imagining an alternative future, and in the process he gave birth to the genre of science fiction.  Verne envisioned a future in which technology was much more advanced than the technology of the mid-nineteenth century.  Verne envisioned a more interconnected world where the contributions of scientists were valued and innovation was celebrated.  He provided readers with glimpses of the future that he envisioned through the pages of his novels, such as From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).  Verne died in 1905, but the genre that he started is alive and prospering, and it is well represented in our English Department.  Several members of our department have taken a serious interest in science fiction, including Aaron Toscano, Sandy Govan, and Andrew Hartley.

Aaron regularly teaches works of science fiction in his classes.  In fact, the honors seminar that he developed and taught is focused on science fiction.  Aaron has also written a scholarly article that relates to Isaac Asimov’s classic 1950 work of science fiction, I, Robot.  Aaron’s article is titled “Using I, Robot in the Technical Writing Classroom:  Developing a Critical Technological Awareness,” and it appeared in Computers and Composition.  

Sandy (who retired several years ago but who is still very much a member of our department) has an ongoing interest in African American writers of science fiction.  Sandy has a particular interest in Octavia Butler, the author of Parable of the Sower and many other works of science fiction.  Sandy has published a number of scholarly articles about Butler’s work, including “Connections, Links, and Extended Networks in Octavia Butler’s Science Fiction,” which appeared in Black American Literature Forum.  

Andrew has taken an interest in writing science fiction.  He recently published a science fiction novel titled Cathedrals of Glass: Planet of Blood and Ice.  He is also co-writing a science fiction series called the Sekret Machines series (co-written with Blink 182 front man, Tom DeLonge).  The first book in this series is titled Chasing Shadows.

As Aaron, Sandy, and Andrew can attest, science fiction provides a lens through which we can see future possibilities.  There is something inherently revolutionary about science fiction, for it is predicated on the assumption that our present conditions are changeable.  No one knows for certain what is in store for us in the future, but science fiction authors can help us imagine what the future might look like and in the process help us look at our present world from a different perspective.For those of you who are interested in participating in a science fiction reading group, you will be pleased to know that Aaron and honorary member of the English Department Alison Walsh have started a book club they call The RITAs (Reading Interesting Tales Association).  On Bastille Day (7/14) the group will be discussing The Handmaid’s Tale. Next month on 8/18–the Friday before classes start–the group will be discussing Octavia Butler’s Dawn.  If you are interested in participating in this group, please contact Aaron.

New Members of the Honors Faculty — The Honors College recently appointed Jeffrey Leak, Janaka Lewis, and Aaron Toscano to the Honors Faculty.  In their letters of appointment, Malin Pereira wrote, “Only full-time faculty who have already taught and/or served honors programs on campus or at another institution are eligible for Honor Faculty appointment and, thus for assuming governance roles for honors.  It is an honor and also a responsibility.”

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:

Allison Hutchcraft completed a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences in the mountains of North Georgia.

Sam Shapiro published a review of a book about American films from the 1970s in the Charlotte Observer.  Here is the link: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/books/article159474939.html 

Quirky Quiz Question —   Several leaders of the American Revolution went on to support the French Revolution, including the famous pamphleteer who wrote Common Sense and Rights of Man.  Does anybody know the name of this writer?

Last week’s answer: Prince Edward Island

When Balaka Basu gave her presentation last summer at the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 12th Biennial Conference, she traveled to Canada’s smallest province, which is also the setting for Anne of Green Gables.  Does anybody know the name of this province?  Here is an extra credit question:  What does the capital of this province have in common with our city? 

Monday Missive - July 3, 2017

July 05, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Canada 150 — Canadians celebrated their nation’s 150th birthday this past weekend. This event prompted me to think about the English Department’s associations with our neighbor to the north. Three of our colleagues immediately came to mind: Balaka Basu, Alan Rauch, and Becky Roeder.

Balaka has conducted extensive research on Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery is widely recognized as one of Canada’s most well-known writers. In June 2016, Balaka presented a paper titled “‘Before I’ll not be wanting visitors for a while’: The Social Consequences of Pregnancy in the Works of L.M. Montgomery” in a plenary session at the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 12th Biennial Conference, “L.M. Montgomery and Gender.”

Alan grew up in Canada, and he has a degree in biology from McGill University in Montreal. Alan’s monograph titled Dolphin, which Reaktion Books published in 2014, can be traced back to the research he did on marine mammals under the auspices of the Montreal Zoological Society. Alan has also taught courses on “Canadian Literature and Culture” both at UNC Charlotte and at Georgia Tech.

Becky has focused much of her research in the area of socio-phonetics on the pronunciation of vowels in different regions of Canada. She is widely recognized for her original research on what is known as the “Canadian vowel shift” associated with words such as out and about. This research has led to the publication of several scholarly articles, including an article titled “The Canadian Shift in Two Ontario Cities,” which came out in World Englishes.

The distance between Charlotte and the southern border of Canada is about 750 miles, but English Department’s Canadian connections can be found by taking a short walk down the hallways of the Fretwell Building.

In an email to me about Canada’s 150th birthday, Alan sent me a link to a song from the Toronto band Moxy Fruvous. It’s called “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors.” So, if you want to listen to a song while you toast Canada’s birthday, please click on the following link: https://youtu.be/nr5bAhEsX6M

Celebrating the 4th of July — My father was born on July 4, 1928, and he grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. According to a family story that my father often told, when he was a little boy, his father took him for a walk through the neighborhood on his birthday. My father asked my grandfather why everyone was shooting off fireworks, to which my grandfather responded, “Because it’s your birthday.” Well, my father didn’t like loud noises when he was a young child, so he didn’t fully appreciate the fireworks. He walked up to a man who was about to light some firecrackers, and he told the man, “You don’t need to light the firecrackers for my birthday. I don’t really like them.”

For some reason, I love this family story. I like the idea that the little-boy version of my father thought that the whole city of New York was setting off fireworks to celebrate his birthday. This story reminds me that we all have our own associations with holidays. Whatever your associations with the 4th of July might be, I hope you have a great July 4th holiday.

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:

Dina Schiff Massachi, a graduate of our M.A. program, recently published a chapter titled “‘You are not a live thing. You’re a dummy’: The Rights and Hierarchy of the Hero-Creations of Oz” in Toy Stories: The Toy Hero in Literature, Comics, and Film, edited by Tanya Jones.

Malin Pereira participated in a roundtable on Afropolitanism at the Collegium for African American Research conference held in Malàga, Spain, from June 13-16.

Lane Rhodes was in Austin last week for Macmillan Publishing’s Tech Ed Week. She presented to other educators and to Macmillan’s development team how she uses interactive and adaptive learning online components in the classroom.

Quirky Quiz Question — When Balaka Basu gave her presentation last summer at the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s 12th Biennial Conference, she traveled to Canada’s smallest province, which is also the setting for Anne of Green Gables. Does anybody know the name of this province? Here is an extra credit question: What does the capital of this province have in common with our city?

Last week’s answer: Wayne State University

The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Conference was sponsored by the largest university located in Detroit.  Does anybody know the name of this university?