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Monthly Archives: August 2017

Monday Missive - August 28, 2017

August 28, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Laz Varnas and the Origins of Our Linguistics Program — If you have ever watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ll likely remember that the father in this film always traces the origins of practically everything back to the ancient Greeks.  He is very proud of his Greek heritage and takes every opportunity to share his passion for all things Greek.  In some ways, Laz Varnas, the first linguist in our English Department, reminds me of the father from this film.

When I first joined our department in the fall of 1984, Laz stopped by my office and said that he had heard that I had moved into Dilworth.  I said that this was true.  He then told me all about the upcoming Yiasou Greek Festival sponsored by the the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, which he informed me was right in the middle of Dilworth.  He let me know that he belonged to this church, and that the festival was their big community outreach event.  Well, I have gone to the Greek Festival every year since then.  The 40th Annual Yiasou Greek Festival will take place this year from September 7–10.  I will be there and (as always) Laz will cross my mind as I enjoy the Greek food, music, and dance.

Lazaros Anastasios Varnas joined our English Department in the mid-1960s and immediately set about developing our linguistics program.  One of Laz’s first students was Ron Lunsford, and Ron traces his professional interest in linguistics back to courses that he took from Laz.  In addition to creating the department’s first linguistics courses, Laz advocated for the hiring of additional faculty members in this area.  He succeeded in this endeavor, and soon our own Boyd Davis joined Laz.  I recently contacted Boyd and asked her to share with me her memories of Laz and the origins of our linguistics program.  Here are her comments:

Laz was our first linguist, hired by Dr Bob Wallace not long after he completed his dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania on the phonology and morphology of the Parker Chronicle (DA 26.3322, 1965).  Before arriving here, he taught at the University of Michigan, where he was working on the Middle English Dictionary, was promoted from Instructor to Assistant Professor in 1965 after completing the dissertation, and that may have been when he joined the department.  He was married to Athenais (who had an MA in Old French from UNC Charlotte) and they had twin sons who attended UNC Charlotte. He was deeply involved with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral on East Boulevard.  Shy and modest as he was, Laz had connections with most of the Greek restaurateurs through the Cathedral, and was able to talk many of them into establishing prizes in language for our English undergraduate majors and later, our graduate students, setting both the precedent and the bar. My interview in summer 1969 was at the Amber House, a really good steak and Greek potatoes restaurant on 49, and I began as an instructor in 1970. Jim Hedges came a couple of years later: James Stoy Hedges. His Midwestern training was, like Ron Lunsford’s, partly in linguistics and partly in comp theory, and he adored folklore, so among the three of of us – this was prior to Ron’s return to the department – we developed courses in all three areas (I remember I developed the Intro to Tech Writing with campus-wide projects which let us push for new hires there, as well as Language & Culture and Language Acquisition; Jim developed most of the comp/rhetoric courses and its sequence plus Syntax; Laz did History of English, Chaucer, and we all shared Intro to English Linguistics).  We were overflowing with students and were able to make a case to hire – and that was Ralf.

Like Boyd, Ralf worked closely with Laz until Laz’s retirement in 1995.  Ralf took it upon himself to organize a special event to honor Laz’s long career.  I contacted Ralf and asked him to share his memories of this event and of Laz’s career.  Here are his comments:

I did indeed organize a special session in honor of Laz at the SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL); it was in 1995 at the University of Georgia, Athens.  Laz’s concluding remarks were improvised and unnecessarily self-deprecatory.  Laz was working on a book manuscript at the time in the spirit and style of Robert Lado on transfer interference for native Greek speakers of English.  He gave me five or six chapters to critique after he retired, which I did, but I suspect they are stored somewhere in a box now.  I also recall he was working on ancient Greek and Hebrew reflected in Anglo-Saxon writing, and boy do I wish I had that manuscript now.  Laz had the only typewriter I have ever seen in my life with Anglo-Saxon characters on it.  He had it specially made for him, I think.  He also had a roll-out map of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which now resides in my office and will do duty again next Spring, when I teach a Medieval Literature survey.  One thing that could be mentioned is that Laz was the faculty member who organized the library purchases for the department, which is probably a major factor in why Atkins has such a fine collection of old and facsimile English grammar books going back to the 16th century.

Laz still lives in Charlotte.  He is in his late 80s, and it has been many years since he last visited our department.  We, however, should remember Laz, for he was one of the pioneers of the English Department, and he played a key role in building our internationally known program in linguistics.

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:

Valerie Bright published an interview titled “Speaking as a Southern Picture Book Author:  An Interview with Gail E. Haley” in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of The Southern Quarterly.  

Paula Eckard published an article titled “Lost Children in Southern Literature” in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of The Southern Quarterly.

Anita Moss contributed an essay on Willie Morris’s My Dog Skip as part of a collaborative article titled “Childhood in the New South as Reflected in Children’s Literature:  A Forum.”  This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of The Southern Quarterly.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:

–Provost’s Awards Reception    Tuesday, September 5 

3:30-5:00 pm  Halton Reading Room, Atkins Library

–Bank of America Award Reception and Dinner   Friday, September 8  

 6:00 pm Hilton Charlotte Center City

Quirky Quiz Question —  In addition to being interested in the ancient Greeks, the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a peculiar obsession with a particular product.  What is this product?

Last week’s answer: Ron Lunsford

The first time that the English Department was the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching was in 1995-1996.  Who was the chair of the English Department at that time?

Monday Missive - August 21, 2017

August 21, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

“Wall of Fame”

Excellence in Teaching — Whenever I talk about the English Department to candidates or other people who are interested in our department, I mention that our faculty members take teaching very seriously.  We do not all teach in the same way, but we are all committed to sharing our specialized knowledge and insights with our students.  We all do our best to cultivate our students’ skills as readers, writers, and critical thinkers.  I believe that we always strive for teaching excellence, so I take great satisfaction when the larger university recognizes our excellent teaching.  Over the years, such recognition has come our way on many occasions.  For evidence, one simply needs to look at the many plaques and certificates related to teaching on display on the English Department’s Wall of Fame.  This year, the larger university is again recognizing the excellent teaching that takes place in our department.

The English Department is the recipient of the 2016-2017 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.  According to the official description of this award, “The Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching is granted to an academic department, program, or unit in recognition of the collective responsibility of faculty members for maintaining high-quality teaching.  The award is intended to recognize documented efforts that improve student learning and outcomes.”  The English Department also received this award in 1995-1996, making our department one of only three departments to receive this award twice.

Also this semester, Kirk Melnikoff is being honored as a finalist for the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence.  The award ceremony will take place on September 8, 2017, at which point we will learn if Kirk won this award.  However, being named a finalist for this award is itself an honor.  Kirk joins a long list of English faculty members who are recipients or finalists for this award. Listed below are the names of the various English professors who have received this award or who have been named finalists:

1968:  Seth H. Ellis (Recipient)
1969:  Roy C. Moose (Recipient)
1976:  Anne R. Newman (Recipient)
1977:  Boyd H. Davis (Recipient)
1988:  Anita W. Moss (Recipient)
1993:  Samuel D. Watson (Recipient)
1995:  James H. McGavran (Finalist)
1997:  Margaret P. Morgan (Finalist)
1998:  Daniel L. Shealy (Finalist)
2001:  Sandra Y. Govan (Finalist)
2004:  David Amante (Finalist)
2006:  James H. McGavran (Recipient)
2008:  Margaret P. Morgan (Recipient)

2013:  Mark I. West (Finalist)

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:

 

Henry Doss, who just joined our English Department as a part-time faculty member, is also a recording artist.  His recently released single titled “Just the Way” recently hit the #30 spot of the AMC National Top Hot 40 ratings.  For more information about this single, please click on the following link:  https://lamonrecords.com/henry-doss-releases-new-single-just-the-way-on-lamon-records/
 
Paula Eckard‘s book Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature has been nominated for the C. Hugh Holman Award.  This “annual award is for the best book of literary scholarship or literary criticism in the field of southern literature published during a given calendar year.”  For more information about this award, please click on the following link:
C. Hugh Holman Award

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:

–CLAS All Faculty Mtg    Friday, August 25       8:00-10:30am

 Fretwell 100

–English Department Mtg   Friday, August 25          11-12:15pm

Fretwell 290B (English Department Seminar Room)

Quirky Quiz Question —  The first time that the English Department was the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching was in 1995-1996.  Who was the chair of the English Department at that time?

Last week’s answer: The Prince and the Pauper
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is not the only novel that Mark Twain set in pre-industrial England.  He also used this setting in a novel dealing with switched identities.  Does anybody know the title of this novel? 

Monday Missive - August 14, 2017

August 14, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

 

Reflections on the Eclipse — In a very literal way, the hullabaloo surrounding the start of the fall 2017 semester is being eclipsed by an eclipse.  On August 21, during our New Student Convocation, we will experience a solar eclipse.  Well, what’s an English professor to do when faced with such a celestial phenomenon?  For me, at least, the upcoming solar eclipse has prompted me to retrieve my copy of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and reread the passage that deals with the solar eclipse that took place in the year 528.

In Twain’s remarkable time-travel story, the central character, Hank Morgan, is a nineteenth-century engineer and gunsmith who is magically transported back in time to the age of King Arthur.  He arrives in Camelot just before the solar eclipse will take place.  Being something of a history buff, Hank knows when the eclipse will happen.  He uses this knowledge to convince the inhabitants of Camelot that he has the power to extinguish the sun.  Awed by Hank’s apparent power, the King names Hank his “perpetual minister and executive.”  This development launches Hank’s meteoric rise to become the most powerful person in King Arthur’s court.

As Twain demonstrates in this novel, knowledge is empowering.  Because of Hank’s knowledge of history and technology, he is able to bring about change and sway the views of the people he encounters in Camelot.  Although I would be surprised if any of our students find themselves transported back in time to the age of King Arthur, I have no doubt that the knowledge that they acquire during their years at UNC Charlotte will empower them to bring change to our world.

Meghan Barnes and All Things Pedagogical  — Meghan Barnes, our new assistant professor in English Education, has already settled into her new office and has started work on two research projects.  For one of these projects, she is surveying a group of pre-service undergraduate English Education students as they complete a university-based methods course.  Meghan is researching how this coursework relates to the students’ responses to the edTPA Standards for initial teacher licensure.  For her other project, she is examining how the reading and analysis of young adult literature influences students’ responses to polemical topics such as race, gender, and sexuality.

When Meghan and I talked about her research projects last week, she indicated to me how pleased she is to be in an English Department where pedagogical research is valued.  After she left my office, I started thinking about how many faculty members in our department have published scholarship in this area.  JuliAnna Ávila immediately comes to mind with her multiple publications on digital literacy and storytelling, including her award-winning volume titled Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis:  Intersections and Challenges.  However, we have other faculty members outside the field of English Education who have also conducted research related to pedagogy.  Liz Miller has conducted research on the role that emotion plays in the interactions between students and teachers in the context of second-language acquisition.  She has published some of her findings in her book The Language of Adult Immigrants:  Agency in the Making.  Beth Gargano has studied the history of British schools and published her findings in Reading Victorian Schoolrooms:  Childhood and Education in Nineteenth-Century Fiction.  Paula Connolly has studied the racism reflected in Confederate-era textbooks and published her findings in Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010.  These are just a few of the examples I could mention, but they demonstrate that Meghan’s research projects align perfectly with the English Department’s long and impressive pedigree in area of pedagogical-related research.

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 Arvidson, who just joined our English Department as a part-time faculty member, recently published a co-edited book titled The Love of Baseball:  Essays by Lifelong Fans.  The volume includes essays by several people who have connections to our English Department, including Henry Doss, Nancy Gutierrez, Julie Townsend, and Sam Watson.

Boyd Davis recently published a co-authored article titled “Care across Languages” in The Linguist.  The article will be available online to non-members at http://thelinguist.uberflip.com/h/  in another couple of weeks.

Paula Eckard was a featured speaker at the “Writers at Wolfe” event sponsored by the Thomas Wolfe Memorial in Asheville this past weekend.  She talked about and read from her book Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature. 

Matthew Rowney recently presented “Preserver and Destroyer: Salt in The History of Mary Prince” at the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR) conference in Ottawa, Canada.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:

–University Convocation
Thursday, August 17    8:30am coffee, 9:30-11 Convocation in McKnight Hall

–Classes Begin Monday, August 21 at 5:00 p.m.

-CLAS All Faculty Mtg  
Friday, August 25 8:00-10:30am in Fretwell 100

–English Department Mtg
Friday, August 25  11-12:15pm in Fretwell 290B (English Department Seminar Room)

Quirky Quiz Question —   A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is not the only novel that Mark Twain set in pre-industrial England.  He also used this setting in a novel dealing with switched identities.  Does anybody know the title of this novel? 

Last week’s answer: Rutgers

Since arriving at UNC Charlotte in 2014, Katie Hogan has played a major role in introducing the field of girlhood studies to the English Department.  Does anybody know the name of the university from which Katie received her PhD?  Here’s a hint:  Think Garden State.

Monday Missive - August 7, 2017

August 07, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Girlhood Studies — A year or two ago I wrote an article about the education of girls in antebellum America, but I was not sure where to submit it. I shared a draft of the article with Katie Hogan and asked for her feedback and for any suggestions as to where my article might find a home.  Katie provided me with valuable advice and suggested several journals that might be interested in considering my article, including Girlhood Studies:  An Interdisciplinary Journal.  Before receiving this information from Katie, I had not heard of this journal.  In fact, I did not even realize that the field of girlhood studies had achieved a level of recognition and acceptance in academia to support its own scholarly journal.  I ended up publishing my article in the Journal of American Culture, but this experience made me more aware of the field of girlhood studies.  Within the context of academic specialties, girlhood studies is quite new–the journal was founded in 2008.  Nevertheless, several members of our English Department are already teaching and conducting research in this field.  Three notable examples are Katie Hogan, Janaka Lewis, and Paula Eckard.

Katie teaches an interdisciplinary course titled “Girl Cultures.” In an email that Katie sent to me about this course, she wrote, “This course uses texts by and about girls’ experiences both in the United States and globally.  Focusing on how girls both shape culture and are shaped by it, this course looks at three conflicting characterizations:  “can-do” power girls; girls as consumers; and “at-risk” girls.  These contradictory portrayals of girls and girlhood guide a variety of topics. including the rise of girlhood studies; girls and feminism, girls and social media; girls and sex; riot girls; black girls; queer girls; trans girls; and global girls.  Students read Brown Girl Dreaming (J. Woodson); Redefining Realness (J. Mock); Girls to the Front (S. Marcus); Push Out:  The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (M. Morris); Loteria:  A Novel (M. Zambrano); selected fairy tales; and several articles by girlhood scholars, including Ruth Nicole Brown, Mary Celeste Kearney, Lyn Mikel Brown, and Anita Harris.”

Janaka’s current scholarly project relates directly to the field of girlhood studies.  In an email that Janaka sent to me about this project, she wrote, “My current book project, Freedom to Play, looks at the representation of African American girls in literature and how they learn and have sought liberation through play.   I am concerned specifically with what girls are taught as they become women, beginning in the 19th century with narratives of enslavement but continuing to how they have been taught about their identities through various social movements. From Harriet Jacobs to Zora Neale Hurston to Maya Angelou, and even including newer fictional texts like Everything, Everything, I frame many of my questions about girlhood and freedom with concerns about education, discipline and even criminalization of black girls in institutional settings. This project examines how childhood, and specifically girlhood, are represented in narratives of restriction and freedom and to what end black girls are able to engage and learn through play.”

Paula’s interest in girlhood studies relates to her larger interest in southern literature and culture.  In an email that Paula sent to me about this interest, she wrote, “My research and teaching have included girlhood studies as a component, particularly as southern girlhood is represented in works by southern women writers.  In my undergraduate courses ‘Growing Up Southern,’ ‘Appalachian Literature and Culture,’ and ‘Literature of the American South,’ as well as in my graduate course ‘Contemporary Southern Women Writers,’ I include an array of texts that depict girlhood and coming of age in the South during different time periods, ones frequently associated with conflict and change, such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, Civil Rights Era, desegregation, and the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Texts include Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, Oral History, Saving Grace, and On Agate Hill by Lee Smith, In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason, The Invention of Wings and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and stories from Trash by writer Dorothy Allison who won the Lambda Literary Award Best Lesbian Fiction for the collection. In my research, I have written about several of the above authors and their works in articles, conference papers, and book chapters in my two monographs, Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith and Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature.”

As these aforementioned examples indicate, our English Department is already establishing itself as a powerhouse in the new field of girlhood studies.  Upon reflection, I think that this development is fitting, for it combines our longstanding strengths in women’s and gender studies and children’s literature and childhood studies.

It’s a Mystery — Susan Riley, a recent graduate of our M.A. program, learned last week that her children’s mystery novel titled That Southern Spirit has been accepted for publication by Young Palmetto Books, which is affiliated with the University of South Carolina Press.  Susan initially wrote this mystery as a creative thesis.  Susan is following in the footsteps of Mark de Castrique, who also wrote a mystery for young readers as a creative thesis and went on to get it published.  Titled Death on a Southern Breeze, this mystery launched Mark’s career as a successful mystery writer.  Mark has a new mystery coming out this fall titled Hidden Scars, which is set in Asheville uses Black Mountain College as a backdrop.

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 Martinac recently learned that a panel proposal titled “Nothing Can Happen Nowhere: The Craft of Setting in LGBTQ-Themed Fiction” has been accepted for the upcoming  AWP Conference to be held in Tampa.

Matthew Rowney recently presented a paper titled “More Invisible than Visible: The Albatross, the Anthropocene, and Plastic” at the inaugural conference of the Romanticism Association in Strasbourg.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Important dates to keep in mind:

Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month.

–University Convocation      Thursday, August 17 
8:30am coffee, 9:30-11 Convocation in McKnight Hall

 –Classes Begin                     Monday, August 21   

Classes begin at 5:00 p.m.

–CLAS All Faculty Mtg    Friday, August 25 
8:00-10:30am in  Fretwell 100

–English Department Mtg   Friday, August 25  
11-12:15pm in Fretwell 290B (English Department Seminar Room)

Quirky Quiz Question —   Since arriving at UNC Charlotte in 2014, Katie Hogan has played a major role in introducing the field of girlhood studies to the English Department.  Does anybody know the name of the university from which Katie received her PhD?  Here’s a hint:  Think Garden State.

Last week’s answer: Denmark
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?   
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