Monthly Archives: August 2019

The English Department That Could —  When I was a young boy, my favorite picture books were those featuring anthropomorphic machines.  This preference is not that surprising since my favorite toy was a bulldozer, which I still have.  I liked Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) by Virginia Lee Burton.  I also liked Burton’s Katy and the Big Snow (1943) in which a snowplow named Katy saves the day.  However, the anthropomorphic machine book that I liked the most was The Little Engine That Could (1930) by Watty Piper.  Well, I thought it was by Watty Piper until I became a children’s literature professor and learned that Watty Piper is actually the pen name of Arnold Munk. I felt a bit disappointed when I made this discovery, but my disappointment did not undermine my fond memories of reading this book over and over again during my early boyhood.  There was something about the Little Blue Engine’s willingness to help others and her sense of determination that appealed to me as a boy, and it still appeals to me.  Even today, when I am tackling a difficult task, I sometimes find myself repeating the Little Blue Engine’s mantra: “I think I can–I think I can–I think I can.” 

The Little Engine That Could popped into my head last week as I was going over some of the student numbers related to the current state of the English Department.  These numbers are still preliminary, but they are encouraging.  This semester we have about 425 majors, which is up by about ten students compared to last fall.  This increase is noteworthy given that the overall enrollment at the university is down this fall when compared to last fall.  Most of the other departments in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are seeing declines in the number of students in their majors, but not English.  Some of the other numbers are also encouraging.  Our English Learning Community, for example, has 26 students participating in it this fall, which is a significant increase over last year’s total of 19 participants.  The number of students in our graduate program is 55, which matches last year’s figure, and last year’s numbers were way up from the year before.   It’s too early to tabulate numbers for our English Honors Program, but all indicators suggest that our Honors Program will continue to be one of the largest departmental honors programs in the university.

When viewed together, these numbers tell a story.  It’s the story of a determined and dedicated department that meets challenges and overcomes obstacles.  It’s the story of a department that thinks it can.  It’s the story of the English Department That Could.

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 “Mode Shifts in Conversations with People with Dementia Can Cause Confusion” in Gerontology and Geriatric Studies. 

Liz Miller recently had a co-authored chapter appear in the edited volume Qualitative Research Topics in Language Teacher Education (Routledge). Her chapter is titled “Emotions in Language Teacher Education and Practice.”

Becky Roeder together with Elsie Berman from the Anthropology Department recently presented a paper titled “Non-standard English Speakers as English Learners: Marshallese Students and the Effects of Language Policy on Neocolonial Subjects” at the Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning Conference in Toronto.

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

August 26— Last day to register, add, or drop classes with no grade.
September 2— Labor Day (no classes, university closed).

Quirky Quiz Question — In addition to writing Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel and Katy and the Big Snow, Virginia Lee Burton wrote a famous picture book about an anthropomorphic building.  This picture book won the Caldecott Medal.  What is the title of this book?

Last week’s answer: Slade

Toni Morrison co-wrote several children’s books with her son, including The Big Box (1999)and Please, Louise (2014).  What is the name of her son?

Honoring Toni Morrison — On the fifth of this month, the great American author Toni Morrison died in New York City at the age of eighty-eight.  The English Department has just installed an exhibit honoring Morrison and her literary legacy.  The exhibit includes copies of many of her books as well as photographs of Morrison at various stages in her long life.  Numerous members of the English Department helped with the installation of the exhibit.  Janaka Lewis, Paula Eckard, Bryn Chancellor and Jeffrey Leak all provided copies of Morrison’s books from their personal libraries.  Monica Burke, Angie Williams, and I all worked on installing the Morrison exhibit.  I encourage everyone to take a look at the exhibit, which is located in the main lobby area of the English Department.

One of the other ways in which members of our English Department honor Morrison is by conducting scholarship on Morrison’s writings.  For the purposes of this Monday Missive, I mention four examples of professors who have conducted Morrison-related scholarship.  

In her monograph titled Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith, Paula Eckard examines the portrayal of motherhood in three of Morrison’s novels:  The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Beloved.  As Paula points out in her monograph, “In these three novels, Morrison presents motherhood with compelling and brutal honesty.  She juxtaposes silence and voice in each novel and uses the maternal body as a source of myth and metaphor to undergd the realities of female experience.”

In his monograph titled Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature, Jeffrey Leak examines the depiction of black masculinity in Morrison’s Song of Solomon.  As Jeffrey discusses in his monograph, “Morrison appreciates the rich lives of black men, but she reveals two tenuous strands of black male heterosexual identity formation:  virulent differentiation from women and homophobia.”  In his analysis of Song of Solomon, Jeffrey shows how these two strands play out in the experiences of the novel’s protagonist.

Janaka Lewis participated in Language Matters: Toni Morrison NEH workshops and met Morrison there and at her curated exhibit “Foreigner’s Home” at the Louvre in Paris as part of the Toni Morrison Society.  She notes the influence of Morrison on the field of Black women’s writing in her book Freedom Narrativesand writes about Sula in a forthcoming article in South journal called “Building Worlds of Our Dreams.”

While Malin Pereira’s scholarship for the past two decades has been devoted to contemporary black poetry, Toni Morrison’s first six novels were the focus of her earliest work, published in four journal articles, an essay in a collection on women’s revisions of Shakespeare, and a chapter in her first book, Embodying Beauty: Twentieth-Century American Women Writers’ Aesthetics. In all of these publications, Malin writes, “I was obsessed with how Morrison wrote back to canonical authors and dominant Western ideas about female identity, beauty and blackness, always seeking to decolonize the black mind.” Malin has a yet-unfulfilled desire to write on Morrison’s libretto for the opera Margaret Garner and why it substantially differs from her novel Beloved.

As the aforementioned examples illustrate, our English Department is a place where Morrison and her writings are taken seriously.  Ever since Morrison burst on the literary scene in the late 1970s, members of our English Department have read, studied, and taught Morrison’s novels.  In so doing, we honor Morrison and her lasting contributions to American literature.

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:

Allison Hutchcraft published five poems in the summer issue of The Missouri Review.

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

August 20— First day of classes for the fall 2019 semester.

August 23— The CLAS All Faculty Meeting will take place on Friday, August 23, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the SAC Salons A & B. The meeting will be preceded by a light breakfast beginning at 8:30 a.m.

August 23— The first English Department meeting for the fall 2019 semester will take place on Friday, August 23, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Fretwell 290B (seminar room).

Quirky Quiz Question — Toni Morrison co-wrote several children’s books with her son, including The Big Box (1999)and Please, Louise (2014).  What is the name of her son?

Last week’s answer: Prince Edward Island

Charlotte is named after Queen Sophia Charlotte, the wife of England’s King George III.  The capital of Canada’s smallest province is also named after this same queen.  What is the name of this Canadian province? 

Urban Connections — Our university has long identified itself as an urban institution.  Our university is named after the city of Charlotte.  Our university’s tag line is “North Carolina’s urban research university.”  Our university has a large facility called UNC Charlotte Center City.  This urban focus is also reflected in our teaching and service work.  I was reminded of our urban emphasis during a recent conversation I had with Janaka Lewis about the seminar for teachers that she is leading for the Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI) this fall.    

Titled “Childhood and the City Space in Literature,” Janaka’s seminar is all about growing up in urban environments.  In her official description of her seminar, Janaka writes, “This seminar will examine representations of childhood in city settings, with specific focus on underrepresented populations and themes that feature them in literature.”  Among the books that she will be covering are Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer,Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, and Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give.

In addition to having the participants study works of literature, Janaka also plans for them to incorporate the city of Charlotte in their examination of urban childhoods.  As she states in her description of the seminar, “Participants will also draw upon Charlotte as a cityscape by examining how local art, science, and history museums represent or could connect to underrepresented experiences of children in Charlotte.” 

Janaka’s CTI seminar is but one of numerous examples of community engagement activities performed by members of our English Department.  For many members of our department, the city of Charlotte is not just the location of our university;  it’s also the urban nexus where our teaching and our commitment to community service converge. 

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:

Allison Hutchcraft published a poem titled “Steller and the Sea Cow” in The Southern Review.

Matt Rowney recently presented a pre-conference workshop titled “Romanticism Now” and a conference paper titled “‘Strange look’d it there!’: Palms, the Explosion of the Palm Oil Industry, and the Poetry of Felicia Hemans” at the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Conference in Chicago.

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

August 12— Final grades for the second summer session courses are due by noon on Monday.

August 15— The University Convocation will take place on Thursday, August 15, at 9:30 a.m. in McKnight Hall. The Convocation will be preceded by a reception beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Lucas Room.

August 20— First day of classes for the fall 2019 semester.

August 23— The CLAS All Faculty Meeting will take place on Friday, August 23, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the SAC Salons A & B. The meeting will be preceded by a light breakfast beginning at 8:30 a.m.

August 23— The first English Department meeting for the fall 2019 semester will take place on Friday, August 23, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Fretwell 290B (seminar room).

Quirky Quiz Question — Charlotte is named after Queen Sophia Charlotte, the wife of England’s King George III.  The capital of Canada’s smallest province is also named after this same queen.  What is the name of this Canadian province? 

Last week’s answer: Gary Trudeau

One of the ways in which the counterculture movement lives on is through the comic strip Doonesbury, which made its debut as a daily comic strip in 1970.  What is the name of the person who creates Doonesbury?

Woodstock and the Counterculture Movement — Fifty years ago this month, nearly 500,000 young people converged on a dairy farm in White Lake, New York, to participate in the music festival known as Woodstock.  Promoted as “3 Days of Peace & Music,” Woodstock featured many of the most prominent rock and folk-rock stars of the time, including the following: Joan Baez; The Band; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; The Grateful Dead; Arlo Guthrie; Jimi Hendrix; Jefferson Airplane; Janis Joplin; Melanie; Santana; Ravi Shankar; Sly and the Family Stone; and The Who.  Woodstock stands out for the remarkable array of talent that performed for one of the largest and most enthusiastic audiences in the history of rock ‘n’ roll concerts.

Woodstock, however, was much more than a music festival.  It became a defining moment in the history of the counterculture movement of the late 1960s and early ’70s.  Not long after the festival, the term Woodstock Generation came into use.  Although I was still in high school when Woodstock occurred, I identified with the Woodstock Generation.  Not only did I listen to the musicians that performed at Woodstock, but I also took a strong interest in the literary side of the counterculture movement.
During my high school and college years, I read a number of books that are now associated with the counterculture movement.  I remember, for example, reading Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test a year or two after it came out in 1968.  I wrote a paper on this book for a high school English class, but before I could hand in the paper, I had to provide my teacher with proof that I had my parents’ permission to read the book because of the book’s drug references.  

In preparing to write this Monday Missive, I tired to remember all of the counterculture books I read during my hippie days.  Here is a partial list, which I have arranged chronologically in terms of when the books first appeared:  Soul on Ice (1968) by Eldridge Cleaver; Slouching Toward Bethlehem (1968) by Joan Didion; The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) by Tom Wolfe; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) by Maya Angelou; Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) by Philip Roth; Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972) by Hunter S. Thompson; Fear of Flying (1973) by Erica Jong; and If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) by James Baldwin.  Although these books deal with very diverse topics, they all question prevailing societal norms, and for this reason they all relate in one way or another to the counterculture movement.  

For those of us were part of the Woodstock Generation, the 50th anniversary of Woodstock brings to the surface personal memories, melodies of favorite songs from the era, and recollections of stories that we read or heard all those years ago.  I feel a sense of nostalgia when I remember that time in my life.  Although our country was in turmoil during these years, there was nonetheless an underlying sense of optimism that ran through the counterculture movement.  I am reminded of a stanza from Joni Mitchell’s song about Woodstock in which she expresses hope for a more peaceful future:

By the time we got to Woodstock

We were half a million strong

And everywhere there was song and celebration

And I dreamed I saw the bombers

Riding shotgun in the sky

And they were turning into butterflies

Above our nation

English Learning Community News —  Last week Tiffany Morin sent me the following update about our English Learning Community (ELC):  “The English Learning Community is pleased to announce that the 2019-2020 ELC is full. The 25 members, who are mostly English majors, are excited to begin their first year at UNC Charlotte. It is our belief that a Learning Community that contributes to the department will feel more like a part of the department, and become more invested in it, aiding in student retention.  We welcome department members to stop by our class to discuss organizations and programs or just introduce themselves.  We are always looking for ways to contribute, so if you would like to involve the ELC in upcoming events, projects, or ideas, please contact Tiffany Morin.”

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:

Dina Massachi, a graduate of our M.A. program, recently presented a paper titled ““Are You a Good Witch, or a Bad Witch?’: When Glinda Isn’t Good” at OzCon International in Pomona, California. 

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

August 12— Final grades for the second summer session courses are due by noon on Monday.

August 20— First day of classes for the fall 2019 semester.

Quirky Quiz Question — One of the ways in which the counterculture movement lives on is through the comic strip Doonesbury, which made its debut as a daily comic strip in 1970.  What is the name of the person who creates Doonesbury?

Last week’s answer: A monkey

Astrid Lindgren’s most famous character is a girl named Pippi Longstocking.   Pippi has a pet named Mr. Nilsson.  What sort of animal is Mr. Nilsson?