Celebrating the Connections between the English Department and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program — Beginning in 1987, March has been designated as Women’s History Month in the United States. Since I am writing this Monday Missive in the middle of March, it seems like an appropriate time to write about the longstanding relationship between our English Department and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
UNC Charlotte’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program can be traced back to the late 1970s, but it wasn’t until the 1981-82 academic year that it made its first appearance in the university’s official catalog. This catalog contains the following description of the program: “The Women’s Studies Program at UNCC is designed to meet the needs of women and men for an educational program which recognizes the equal value of women’s experience and contribution to humanity.” Ann Carver, an English professor, was named the first Coordinator of UNC Charlotte’s Women’s Studies Program. Several other English faculty members also helped launch the program, including Shelley Crisp and Stan Patten.
In recognition of Ann Carver’s leadership in establishing women’s studies as a field of study at UNC Charlotte, the Women’s and Gender Studies Program now sponsors the Dr. Ann C. Carver Essay Contest. The deadline for this contest is March 22, 2019. For more information about this contest, please click on the following link: https://womensandgenderstudies.uncc.edu/node/629
Throughout the history of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, members of the English Department have played important leadership roles in the program. This pattern is especially evident in the recent history of the program. The three most recent directors of the program are all faculty members in the English Department. From 2012 to 2014, Paula Eckard served as the program’s director. From 2014 to 2017, Katie Hogan served as the director. Since 2017, Janaka Lewis has served as the program’s director.
Today the Women’s and Gender Studies Program is one UNC Charlotte’s largest and most influential interdisciplinary programs. The success of this program has a lot to do with the many contributions by members of the English Department.
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:
Janaka Lewis spoke on “Freedom and Family Narratives of African American Women” for the Charlotte Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society today (3/16) and did a “meet the author” talk on her books and research process for 4th and 5th grades at Winding Springs Elementary on Monday 3/11.
Kirk Melnikoff‘s co-edited essay collection Christopher Marlowe, Theatrical Commerce, and the Book Trade was recently reviewed in TLS. Also, Kirk recently delivered the paper “‘[H]e that likes not this’: Elizabethan Publishing, Browsing, and the Book” at the RSA conference in Toronto, Canada.
Malin Pereira currently has the following three essays in production: “Thylias Moss’s Slave Moth: Liberatory Verse Narrative and Performance Art.” Slavery and the Post-Black Imagination. Eds. Bert Ashe and Ilka Saal. In press, U Washington P, 2019; “An Angry, Mixed Race Cosmopolitanism: Race, Privilege, Poetic Identity, and Community in Natasha Trethewey’s Beyond Katrina and Thrall.” Cosmopolitanism, Race and Ethnicity. Eds. Ewa Luzcak, Anna Pochmara and Samir Dayal. In press, de Grunter, 2019; and “Brenda Marie Osbey’s Black Internationalism.” Summoning Our Saints: The Poetry and Prose of Brenda Marie Osbey. Ed. John Lowe. In press, Lexington Books, 2019.
Lara Vetter recently published an essay titled “Journeys Without Maps: Literature and Spiritual Experience” in British Literature in Transition, 1920-1940: Futility and Anarchy” (Cambridge UP).
Upcoming Events and Meetings — Here is a list of upcoming events and deadlines: