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Monthly Archives: April 2018

Monday Missive - April 30, 2018

April 30, 2018 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Like a Bridge — On Sunday afternoon a congenial group of Stan Patten’s friends gathered together in the English Department Lounge to share stories about Stan and remember the roles he played in our department and our lives outside of the department.  For those of us who were able to participate in this event, the experience of talking about Stan with others who knew him was a pleasure despite our sadness over his recent death.

After everyone left, I spent a little time in my office reflecting on our losses this semester.  I am still having trouble dealing with the deaths of Julian Mason, Anita Moss, and Stan Patten within just weeks of each other.  However, I find that sharing stories about these friends helps me cope with their deaths, for I know that they will live on as real-life characters through these stories.  Whenever I tell the story of Julian’s love of stuffed peppers without the peppers, or the story of Anita’s energetic performance of Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?, or the story of Stan’s exciting adventures in Ethiopia during his time in the Peace Corps, these friends come back to life for me.

There is another reason I like to tell stories about Julian, Anita, Stan, and all of the other colorful characters who have contributed so much to our English Department over the years.  In a sense, I see myself as playing a similar storytelling role to the role that L. Frank Baum assigned to himself when he wrote the Oz series.  Baum often called himself the Royal Historian of Oz.  Given my long association with this department, I sometimes feel as if I am one of our department’s resident historians.  Many people have helped build our department, and our department would not be the same without their contributions.  For this reason, I believe it is important to share our history with the newer members of our department.  Through organizing events like Sunday’s gathering for Stan or the recent celebration of Anita’s life or through writing about former colleagues in my Monday Missives, I am trying to use stories to bridge our past and our present–like a bridge over storied waters.

Kudos  — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.  Here is the latest news:

Meghan Barnes recently published an article in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literature (JAAL) titled “Centering the How:  What Teacher-Candidates’ Means of Mediation Can Tell Us about Engaging Adolescent Writers.”Ralf Thiede presented a paper on April 20 at the SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL) titled “The Bigger Picture of Parameter Theory: Interfacing Language and Cognition.”

Upcoming Events and Deadlines — Here is information about upcoming events:

May 5 — A food symposium titled “Latinx Foodways in the New South: A Public Conversation” will take place on Saturday, May 5th, in Atkins Library room 143 from 9:00 a.m. to noon.  Consuelo Salas is the co-organizer of this event.

Quirky Quiz Question —  The heading for today’s Monday Missive is a nod to a famous folk-rock duo from the 1960s and early ’70s.  Can you name this duo?

Last week’s answer: Greg Wickliff, Juan Meneses, and Meg Morgan
Stan Patten received his PhD from Purdue University, but he is not the only member of our department who has a PhD from Purdue.  Two of our current faculty members and at least one of our emeritus faculty members earned their PhD’s from Purdue.  Can you name them?

Monday Missive - April 23, 2018

April 23, 2018 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Remembering Stan Patten — Dr. Stanley Ray Patten died on April 18, 2018, but for those of us who had the pleasure of knowing Stan, our memories of him will always be with us.  Here is the link to his obituary:  http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/charlotte/obituary.aspx?n=stan-ray-patten&pid=188789665

Stan taught in our English Department from 1982 to 1999.  During his career at UNC Charlotte, he played a key role in developing and leading our Writing Resources Center (WRC).  One of the first faculty members in the department to appreciate the value of computers in the teaching of writing, Stan obtained grant funding to equip the WRC with computers.

He was also an early supporter of the Women’s Studies Program, and he was the first male to teach a Women’s Studies course at UNC Charlotte.  Stan thought that the Women’s Studies Program should broaden its scope to include gender studies, and I am sure he would be pleased that the program is now called the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

When Stan taught in the English Department, the acronym LGBTQ was not yet in use.  However, Stan was already at the forefront of the movement to support all of our students no matter what their sexual orientation or gender identification might be.

When I first moved to Charlotte in 1984, Stan and I would occasionally have beers together at various bars in Dilworth, where he lived at the time.  I loved hearing his stories about the two years he spent in Ethiopia when he was in the Peace Corps.  He also told riveting stories about his involvement with the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta.  He liked to talk about his childhood and youth in a small town in Indiana, and he seemed to be pleased when I told him that my mother also grew up in a small town in Indiana.  Sometimes Stan would talk about his years at Purdue University, where he earned his PhD, but he talked more about his experiences as a high school English teacher.

Stan liked to talk about computers, and he was pleased when my wife and I finally purchased our first Mac computer.  We had trouble setting it up, so I called Stan.  In no time, he came over to our house and set up the computer for us.  That is the kind of person he was.

Stan’s teaching career at the UNC Charlotte came to an end in 1999 when he was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, but he remained in Charlotte for the rest of his life.  Stan’s final years were difficult because of his serious health problems.  However, he still took pleasure in interacting with his friends and neighbors in Plaza Midwood, where he bought a house on a street called Mimosa.  One of his other sources of pleasure was writing poetry.  In 2013, he published some of his poems in a chapbook titled Betrayals.  Stan sometimes felt betrayed by his body, but not by his friends.  He gave me a signed copy of this chapbook a couple of years ago.  I will always treasure it, just as I will always treasure my memories of Stan.

I am organizing an open house for Stan’s friends and colleagues to gather and share memories and stories about Stan.  This event will take place next Sunday (April 29) in the English Department Lounge (Fretwell 248C) from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.  Everyone is invited.  I will bring some homemade food, but everyone should feel free to bring something to share.  I hope to see you on Sunday.

Our Students’ Winning Ways —  Last Friday was an award-winning day for a number of our students.  At three separate events, our students received various awards.  During a ceremony sponsored by the Center for Graduate Life, Kevin Chauncey received the Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in recognition of his work as a teaching assistant in lecture classes offered by Ralf Thiede and Alan Rauch.  The Undergraduate Research Conference also took place on Friday, and our students were well represented.  Kelly Brabec, Jenna Hainlen, and Jordan Costanza all won awards for their presentations.  Late Friday afternoon, the Honors College Awards Ceremony took place, during which Kellyanna Atwell received a Delbridge E. Narron Scholarship and Travel Award.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines — Here is information about upcoming events:

April 23 — The CLAS Outstanding Teaching Awards Ceremony will take place today at 3:00 p.m. in the Halton Reading Room at Atkins Library.  Our own Valerie Bright is a finalist for the Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Part-Time Faculty Member.

April 27 — The English Department meeting will take place on April 21 from 11:00 to 12:30 in Atkins 125.

April 27 — The English Department’s Student Award Ceremony will take place on April 27 from 12:30 to 2:00 in the Dale Halton Reading Room in the Atkins Library.

Quirky Quiz Question —  Stan Patten received his PhD from Purdue University, but he is not the only member of our department who has a PhD from Purdue.  Two of our current faculty members and at least one of our emeritus faculty members earned their PhD’s from Purdue.  Can you name them?

Last week’s answer: Indiana University
Anita Moss’s Ph.D. dissertation is titled “Children and Fairy Tales:  A Study of Nineteenth-Century British Fantasy,” which she wrote under the direction of Donald Gray.  Do you know the name of the university where she earned her doctoral degree?

Monday Missive - April 16, 2018

April 16, 2018 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Thank You, Anita — On Sunday, April 15, 2018, approximately 130 of Anita Moss’s family members, friends, colleagues, and students gathered to celebrate Anita’s life.  As the various speakers recalled their experiences with Anita, underlying themes soon became apparent.  Speaker after speaker talked about Anita’s kindness, her helpfulness, and her words of encouragement.  Anita clearly made a difference in the lives of so many people.  I am one of the people whose life was changed for the better because she reached out to help me.

I first met Anita at a Children’s Literature Association conference in 1980.  I was a graduate student at the time, and I was just learning the ways of academia.  Anita talked to me after I presented my paper about American responses to fairy tales, and she encouraged me to develop my paper into an article.  For the next several years, she and I kept running into each other at academic conferences, and she always took an interest in my various research projects.

A children’s literature position came open at UNC Charlotte in 1984, and Anita encouraged me to apply for the position.  I followed her advice and sent in my application.  However, the fact that my Ph.D. is in American Studies rather than in English caused some to question if I would be a good fit for the English Department.  I later learned that Anita strongly advocated that I be invited to come for a campus interview.  Anita’s efforts worked, and I came for my interview in March 1984.  The interview went well, and I was offered the position at the end of the interview.  I later learned that this quick offer was also the result of Anita’s efforts.

After I started my career in our English Department, Anita helped me develop my classes and mentored me as I pursued my scholarly career.  At the time, she was the North American Editor for Children’s Literature in Education.  I had just finished an article about Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, and she encouraged me to submit it to Children’s Literature in Education.  After a few rounds of revisions, Anita accepted the article for publication.  The success I had with this article eventually led me to write an entire book on Roald Dahl.  None of this would have happened without Anita’s help and encouragement.

Anita was a big believer in the importance of community engagement, and she helped me make connections with literacy advocates in the community.  Early in my career, she introduced me to various people associated with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, and this resulted in my longstanding collaborative relationship with the public library.  To this very day, I work with the public library on festivals, talks, and various other activities.  It all started with Anita.

As I look back on my 34-year career as a professor in our English Department, I am aware that Anita was always there for me at just the right moment with just the right words.  Thank you, Anita.

Kudos  — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.  Here is the latest news:

Last week Bryn Chancellor presented at Central Piedmont Community College as part of Sensoria: A Celebration of Arts & Literature and its Levine Reads program, for which Sycamore was selected as its inaugural book. She also gave a talk at the Alabama Library Association’s annual conference in Florence, AL, where she received the 2017 Best Adult Fiction Award for Sycamore, and then gave a fiction reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. Additionally, she led a short-story workshop for the Charlotte Writers Club.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines — Here is information about upcoming events:

April 16 — Janaka Lewis and I will give presentations on Romare Bearden’s Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy on Monday, April 16, at 5:00 p.m. in the Halton Reading Room in the Atkins Library.   Janaka’s presentation is titled  “Children’s Narratives of Freedom:  Romare Bearden’s Li’l Dan the Drummer Boy.”   My presentation is titled  “Romare Bearden’s Artistic Influences as Reflected in Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy.”  For more information about this exhibit, please click on the following link:  https://library.uncc.edu/Bearden

April 19 — The English Department and UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens are co-sponsoring an event called “Gardens and Verses:  An Earth Day Celebration.” This event will take place on Thursday, April 19, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens.  The organizers of this event are Jen Munroe and Matt Rowney from the English Department and Jeff Gilman, the Director of the Botanical Gardens.  This event will feature poetry readings, opportunities to write about nature, a scavenger hunt, and free pizza while it lasts.  For more information about this event, please click on the following link:  https://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2018-04-02/earth-day-botanical-gardens

Quirky Quiz Question —  Anita Moss’s Ph.D. dissertation is titled “Children and Fairy Tales:  A Study of Nineteenth-Century British Fantasy,” which she wrote under the direction of Donald Gray.  Do you know the name of the university where she earned her doctoral degree?

Last week’s answer: A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
The name for the “Garden and Verses” event is tied to the title of a book a book by a Scottish that was originally published in 1900.  Do you know the title of this book?  For extra credit, can you name the author of this book?

Monday Missive - April 9, 2018

April 09, 2018 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Partners and Programs — In the history of our English Department, this April stands out as an exceptional month for collaborative programs involving our department and our various university and community partners.  These partners include the J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte Center City, UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, and the North Carolina Humanities Council.  Between now and the end of the month, the English Department will participate in five collaborative programs, all of which are free and open to the public.

The first of these programs is the Julian D. Mason Talk on Rare Books, which is scheduled for Tuesday, April 10, at 4:00 p.m. in the Halton Reading Room in the Atkins Library.  Co-sponsored by the Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives and our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, this event will feature a presentation by Dr. Leslie Howsam.  The title of her talk is “Book History:  A Niche for Nerds, or Essential Knowledge?”   Dr. Howsam is a well-known scholar in the field of book history and has published numerous works in this field, including The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book and Old Books & New Histories:  An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture.  For more information about this event, please click on the following link:  http://library.uncc.edu/HowsamTalk

Our next collaborative program is the Center City Literary Festival, which will take place on Saturday,  April 14, at UNC Charlotte Center City, 320 E. 9th Street.  Co-sponsored by the English Department and UNC Charlotte Center City, this festival is divided into two parts.  The day-time part is intended for children and their families and will run from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  The evening part is intended for adults and will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  For more information on this event, please click on the following link:  https://centercitylitfest.uncc.edu/

On the same day that the Center City Literary Festival will take place, the English Department and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library are co-sponsoring a screening of The Reivers at the Francis Auditorium in the Main Library (310 N. Tryon Street).  This screening will take place on Saturday, April 14, at 2:00 p.m.  This event is supported by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council and is tied to a larger program titled “The Child in Southern Literature and Film.”  For more information about this event, please click on the following link:  https://exchange.uncc.edu/event/film-the-reivers/

Our fourth collaborative program is tied to an exhibition at the Atkins Library of original artwork by Romare Bearden from Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy:  A Civil War Story, the only picture book ever created by Bearden.  Janaka Lewis and I will give presentations on Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy on Monday, April 16, at 4:00 p.m. in the Halton Reading Room in the Atkins Library.   Janaka’s presentation is titled  “Children’s Narratives of Freedom:  Romare Bearden’s Li’l Dan the Drummer Boy.”   My presentation is titled  “Romare Bearden’s Artistic Influences as Reflected in Li’l Dan, the Drummer Boy.”  For more information about this exhibit, please click on the following link:  https://library.uncc.edu/Bearden

Our fifth collaborative program is tied to Earth Day and is co-sponsored by the English Department and UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens.  Called “Gardens and Verses:  An Earth Day Celebration,” this event will take place on Thursday, April 19, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens.  The organizers of this event are Jen Munroe and Matt Rowney from the English Department and Jeff Gilman, the Director of the Botanical Gardens.  This event will feature poetry readings, opportunities to write about nature, a scavenger hunt, and free pizza while it lasts.  For more information about this event, please click on the following link:  https://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2018-04-02/earth-day-botanical-gardens

As this listing of upcoming programs demonstrates, the English Department is committed to collaboration, community engagement, and cultural outreach.

Kudos  — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.  Here is the latest news:

Boyd Davis recently published a co-authored article titled “Represented Speech in Dementia Discourse in the Journal of Pragmatics, 130: 1-15.  Share link until May 26:
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WrKk1L-nh7sg4

Paula Eckard was a keynote speaker on Thomas Wolfe and the flu in a kick-off event for Going Viral: Impact and Implications of the 1918 Flu Pandemic, an interdisciplinary symposium sponsored by the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Quirky Quiz Question —  The name for the “Garden and Verses” event is tied to the title of a book a book by a Scottish that was originally published in 1900.  Do you know the title of this book?  For extra credit, can you name the author of this book?

Last week’s answer: First Ward Park

Does anybody know the name of the new park that is situated between UNC Charlotte Center City and ImaginOn?

Monday Missive - April 2, 2018

April 02, 2018 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

The Center City Literary Festival as Civic Engagement — In what has become an annual event, the Center City Literary Festival will take place on Saturday, April 14, at UNC Charlotte Center City, 320 E. 9th Street. Co-sponsored by the English Department and UNC Charlotte Center City, this festival is divided into two parts. The day-time part is intended for children and their families and will run from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The evening part is intended for adults and will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Both parts of the festival are free and open to the public.

The part for children will feature appearances by children’s authors, creative activities, a live puppet show, and a dance performance by Dances of India. Among the children’s authors who will participate are Tia Capers, Janaka Lewis, and Lisa Klein.

The part for adults will feature appearances by five writers, an opening reception, poetry and fiction readings, and a book signing. The writers who will participate are Jill McCorkle, Gary Jackson, Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Paula Martinac, and Siobhán Campbell.

The organization of the Center City Literary Festival is a collaborative effort, but three people have played especially important roles in planning for this event: Bryn Chancellor, Janaka Lewis, and Angie Williams. Without the the hard work of these three members of the English Department, there would be no Center City Literary Festival. An example of the preparatory work that has gone into planning this event is a recent blog post that Bryn wrote for the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts. Here is the link: https://www.charlottelit.org/blog/chancellor-uncc-literary-festival/.

The Center City Literary Festival is an example of how the English Department contributes to UNC Charlotte’s “Civic Action Plan.” As stated in the published report that came out earlier this spring, “The Civic Action Plan is a sustainable and long-term approach to fully activate the University’s mission to address the unique needs of the Charlotte area.” Please find here, the final draft of UNC Charlotte’s Civic Action Plan from the Office of Academic Affairs. Among the needs mentioned in this plan are the Charlotte region’s cultural needs. The English Department is especially well suited to address the cultural needs of our region. The Center City Literary Festival is one of the ways in which we are already demonstrating our on-going commitment to civic engagement.

Welcome Siobhán Campbell — Poet and critic Siobhán Campbell is joining the English department this April as the 2018 Kingston Visiting Writer. Campbell is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Heat Signature, and the co-editor of Eavan Boland: Inside History, a book of essays on the work of Eavan Boland. She has received awards in the National Poetry Competition and the Troubadour International Competition and is the recipient of an Arts Council award and the Templar Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared regularly in the literary journals of the US and the UK/Ireland, including Poetry, The Hopkins Review, Agenda, and Magma Poetry. This April, Campbell will teach Advanced Creative Writing and read her work at the Center City Literary Festival on April 14.

Kudos — As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department. Here is the latest news:

Desiree Brown, one of our undergraduate students, has been accepted to NYU’s MFA program.

Paula Martinac is a 2017 Foreword INDIES Finalist for LGBT Fiction. Foreword Reviews is a journal devoted to reviewing books from independent and university presses. She was also the guest speaker at the March meeting of the Charlotte Writers’ Club. Her talk was titled “Writing Diverse Characters in Fiction.”

Kirk Melnikoff attended the Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Los Angeles, California, where he presented his paper “‘[T]il some household cares mee tye’: Isabella Whitney, Richard Jones, and Luckless Authorship” in the seminar “Women, Gender, and Book History.”

Juan Meneses recently presented a paper titled “Post-Politics and the Valences of Literary Critique” at the Association of Comparative Literature Conference held at UCLA.

Liz Miller recently presented a paper titled “A History-in-Person Approach to Teacher Dispositions and Practices: Orienting to the Personal as Sociocultural Phenomena” at the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference held in Chicago. A few days later, she presented another paper at the TESOL convention, also held in Chicago. This second paper was titled “A Critical Approach to Understanding Language Competence.”

Grace Ocasio recently gave a poetry reading as part of Mitchell Community College’s Spring Literary Festival.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines — Here is information about upcoming events:

April 7 — The English Department and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library are co-sponsoring a screening of Sounder at the Francis Auditorium in the Main Library (310 N. Tryon Street) on Saturday, April 7, at 2:00 p.m. This event is supported by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council.

April 10 — The English Department will be hosting Leslie Howsam, one of the most renowned historians of the book in North America, to give an open talk titled: “Book History: a Niche for Nerds, or Essential Knowledge?” on April 10th at 4:00 pm in the Atkins Library (Halton Room).

Quirky Quiz Question — Does anybody know the name of the new park that is situated between UNC Charlotte Center City and ImaginOn?

Last week’s answer: Phyliss Wheatley

Julian’s Mason was a widely recognized authority on an early African American poet.  What is the name of this poet?

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