Last week, students from Jen Munroe’s ENGL 4072/5072: Ecologies of Eating in Early Modern England course traveled to Washington, DC, where they participated in a workshop on rare materials at the Folger Shakespeare Library, co-lead by Jen and the Folger’s Education Outreach Specialist, Rachel Dankert. Students spent the first part of the day viewing and discussing the material qualities and print production of early/first editions of the early modern print books and manuscripts they were studying in class, which included the first folio of Shakespeare’s works; in the afternoon they received training in working with rare materials and were able to work with the same rare texts as they did original research for their final papers (though the first folio sadly had to be put away). That day, the students were also able to mingle with scholars researching at the library as they attended the daily afternoon tea. Students commented during and after the trip about how meaningful it was to view these materials and to use them in their research as well as to spend time together and strengthen their sense of community with each other.
Just as Jen’s students were returning from their trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library, Alan Rauch took a group of students from our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta to Saint Louis to participate in the 2019 Sigma Tau Delta International Convention, which took place from March 27 to March 30. Our students presented creative pieces and participated in a roundtable discussion. However, they also took advantage of opportunities to learn from the students from other chapters and developed their networking skills.
A third example took place much closer to home. On Friday, March 29, several of our students participated in UNC Charlotte’s Undergraduate Research Conference, which took place in the James H. Barnhardt Student Activity Center. All of the student participants worked with a faculty advisor in preparing their presentations. Clayton Tarr worked with Kathleen Griffin, one of our English undergraduates. Kathleen presented an essay titled “The Unattainable Body of the Female Child in Children’s Literature: How Adults Control Parameters.” Clayton reports that Kathleen “did a great job, especially during the question/answer period.” Meghan Barnes served as the faculty advisor for two of our English majors who presented at the conference: Corinne Rigordaeva presented a paper titled “Building Classroom Rapport: How Teacher and Student Gender Roles Influence Communication,” and Charity Clark presented a paper titled “Communication: Male and Female Professors in the Classroom and Its Effects on Students.” Meghan reports that “and they each did a fabulous job! For both students, this was their first experience conducting their own human subjects research and presenting in a ‘conference’ — I was incredibly proud of them.
As these three examples illustrate, the work of our English Department often transcends the classroom. For our students and faculty members, the process of learning and teaching knows no bounds.
Kudos — As you know, I like to use my Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department. Here is the latest news:
Meghan Barnes recently published a co-authored article titled “You stick up for all kids”: (De)politicizing the enactment of LGBTQ+ teacher ally work” in Teaching and Teacher Education. Please click on the following link to access the article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X18313295?dgcid=author
Boyd Davis recently published “Formulaic Language” in the Sage Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders. She also published a co-authored article titled “Represented Speech in Dementia Discourse” in the Journal of Pragmatics.
Janaka Lewis recently delivered a presentation titled “Finishing a Dissertation without Losing your Soul” for Social Science Research Council Proposal Writing and Dissertation Development Seminar, in Atlanta, Georgia. She was also one of three speakers on the Local Leaders Panel, Levine Museum of the New South HERstory Day.
Juan Meneses participated as a respondent following the screening of Raoul Peck’s documentary I Am Not Your Negro as part of the UNC Charlotte International film Festival.
Alan Rauch was recently appointed to a three-year term on the PMLA Advisory Committee.
Upcoming Events and Meetings — Here is a list of upcoming events and deadlines:
April 10 — A group of twenty of our students will participate in a performance titled “Challenging the Good Ole Ways: Exploring Southern Childhood Narratives” on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in the Francis Auditorium of the Main Library of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. This “Performance Narrative” is part of a grant from the NC Humanities Council.
Quirky Quiz Question — What crime-fighting icon of American popular culture turned eighty this week?
Last week’s answer: Novello
The impetus to create the Center City Literary Festival was in response to the demise of a community-wide literary festival that was sponsored and organized by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library for many years. What is the name of this former literary festival?