CLGO Organizes Banned Books Week Events — The members of the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization (CLGO) organized a series of events related to the annual Banned Books Week, which took place this year from September 24 through September 30. At the beginning of the week, CLGO set up special displays in the Atkins Library to spread the word about Banned Books Week.
On Tuesday, CLGO hosted their traditional banned books tea party. They served tea, coffee, and sweet pastries, and they dressed up as characters from banned books. Co-president Amy Arnott dressed up as Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, co-president Laura Burgess dressed up as Dorothy Gale from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, vice president Katherine Tallent dressed up as Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, secretary Melissa LaFrate dressed up as the Grand High Witch from The Witches, and treasurer Russ Winfrey dressed up as Holden Caufield from The Catcher in the Rye. Over 30 students came to drink tea with these characters and informally discuss banned books.
On Thursday, CLGO held a round table event called “The Most Dangerous Books.” This event featured Paula Connolly and Sarah Minslow who led a discussion about censorship, free speech, hate speech, and the controversies related to the treatment of race and sexuality in children’s literature.
Our Honors Students Participate in North Carolina Honors Association Conference — UNC Charlotte hosted the North Carolina Honors Association Conference on September 29-30. At this conference, six out of the total 47 presentations were by our English honors students.
Nicole Kaufman presented on “Race, Gender, and Publishing: Policing Public Perception in Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road.” Shelby LeClair gave a presentation titled “Serious Matters: How Humor Functions in Young Adult Literature about the Holocaust.” Chelsea Moore delivered a presentation titled “A Country that Hath yet her Maidenhead: Representations of Landscapes as Female Bodies in Spenser’s The Faerie Queen and A View of the Present State of Ireland.” Susanna Parkhill gave a presentation titled “Eye Contact Across Gender and Culture.” Nephdarlie Saint-Syr presented on “The Construction of Minority Identities in Video Games,” and Brianna Thurman presented on “Bell Jars, Physics, and Jumping Off Cliffs: An Exploration of Adolescent Depression in the Coming of Age Novel.” For more information about this conference, please click on the following link: http://nchaconference.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/7/102793204/ncha_program__1_.pdf
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:
Meghan Barnes recently published two articles. One is titled “Conflicting Conceptions of Care and Teaching and Pre-Service Teacher Attrition,” which came out in Teacher Education. The other is titled “Practicing What We Preach in Teacher Education: A Critical Whiteness Studies Analysis of Experimental Education,” which appeared in Studying Teacher Education.
Consuelo Salas recently published a book chapter titled “Unlikely Dinner Guests: Inviting ‘Everyday’ People to the Table of Visual Imagery.” It was published in Anita August’s edited collection, Visual Imagery, Metadata, and Multimodal Literacies Across the Curriculum.
Maya Socolovsky recently published an article titled “Text, Terrain, and Temporality: Re-exploring Judaism in Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector” in Studies in American Jewish Literature.
Quirky Quiz Question — What national organization sponsors the annual Banned Books Week?
Last week’s answer: Gringotts
One of the rides at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter takes visitors on a wild ride into the underground vaults beneath a bank. What is the name of this bank?