Monthly Archives: September 2019

Anniversaries — In celebration of our 32nd anniversary, my wife (Nancy) and I traveled to Atlanta for a quick getaway this past weekend.  We packed a lot into two days.  We saw the Romare Bearden’s Profile Series Exhibit at the High Museum of Art, and we were pleased to see that number of works on exhibit are based on his experiences in the Charlotte area. We took the behind-the-scenes tour at the Georgia Aquarium, and we saw the giant whale sharks up close.  We visited the touring Silk Road exhibit at the Fernbank Museum, and we learned all  about this ancient trading route between China and Iraq.

My favorite place that we visited, however, was the Center for Puppetry Arts.  As a puppeteer, I enjoyed seeing their amazing collection of puppets from around the world.  These puppets are housed in what they call their Global Collection Gallery.  As much as I liked seeing the international collection, the part of the center that appealed to me the most was their Jim Henson Collection Gallery.  This gallery houses the world’s largest collection of Henson puppets, or muppets as Henson often called his puppets.  Our visit coincided with the Center for Puppetry Arts’s celebration of Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary, and the gallery includes lots of information related to this anniversary. This coincidence added to my enjoyment, for it brought back memories of my introduction to Sesame Street and Henson’s puppets.  

When Sesame Street made its debut in 1969, I was in high school, so I did not watch the program at the time.  In 1972, however, I started watching Sesame Street on a regular basis.  I worked at a day care center in Burlington, Vermont, at the time.  The day care center owned a television, but nobody turned it on until late in the afternoon when the parents started streaming in to pick up their children.  About 4:00 somebody always turned on the television just in time for the remaining children (and me) to watch Sesame Street.  That is when I first saw Kermit, Big Bird, Elmo, Miss Piggy, Oscar, the Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, and the rest of the Sesame Street puppets.  I marveled at how Henson and his crew brought these puppets to life and gave them distinct personalities.  It would be another four years before I launched my own career as a puppeteer, but my love of puppetry can be traced back to 1972 and the afternoons I spent watching Sesame Street, often with a kid in my lap.   Seeing Henson’s puppets at the Center for Puppetry Arts reminded me of those days in the early 1970s when I became a Jim Henson fan and joined the ranks of the countless people whose lives have been influenced by Sesame Street over the past 50 years.

Since our visit, the Sesame Street theme song has been running through my head.  I keep finding myself humming the opening lines of the song:

Sunny Day

Sweepin’ the clouds away

On my way to where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get?

How to get to Sesame Street?

Well, I can’t tell you exactly how to get to Sesame Street, but I can tell you how to find Kermit and the rest of the Sesame Street puppets—just take Interstate 85 down to Atlanta and follow the signs for the Center for Puppetry Arts. 

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:

Lara Vetter‘s A Curious Peril: H.D.’s Late Modernist Prose (UP of Florida, 2017) has been released in paperback.

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

October 1– Benjamin Filene, the Chief Curator at the North Carolina Museum of History, will deliver a lecture titled “Reading, Writing, and Race: One Children’s Book and the Power of Stories” on Tuesday, October 1, from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm in Fretwell 290B. A Panel discussion with Janaka Lewis and Ashli Stokes will follow the lecture.

October 2 — Molly G. Yard will deliver a lecture titled “‘We Have Lost Our Labour’: Recovering Women Editors of Shakespeare” on Wednesday, October 2, from 12:15 pm to 1:15 pm in Fretwell 290B.

Quirky Quiz Question — Jim Henson worked with many puppeteers over the course of his career, but there was one puppeteer he worked with on almost every project he did.  This was the puppeteer behind Miss Piggy.  This same puppeteer also controlled Yoda from Star Wars.  What is the name of this puppeteer? 

Last week’s answer: Gregory Peck

What is the name of the actor who played the role of Atticus Finch in the famous film version of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Welcoming Gina Kelley — Last week I was pleased to announce that Gina Kelley accepted the Academic Advisor position in the English Department with a starting date of Monday, September 30, 2019.  However, Gina is already moving into her new office, and she is excited about becoming a member of our departmental family.

Gina has a wealth of experience as a professional advisor.  She has served as an Academic Advisor for the College of Computing and Informatics since 2016.  Prior to coming to UNC Charlotte, she served as an advisor for the Department of World Languages and Culture at UNC Wilmington from 2010 to 2016.  Over the course of her career, she has won several advising awards, both at UNC Charlotte and at UNC Wilmington. 

For Gina, becoming the Academic Advisor for the English Department provides her with an opportunity to combine her love of advising with her long-standing interest in English Studies.  Gina has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from UNC Wilmington, and she is currently pursuing her M.A. in English (with a concentration in children’s literature) here in our department.  As Gina put it, she has “a true passion for literature and writing.”

Gina is following in the footsteps of Sarah Minslow, who served as our previous Academic Advisor.  In addition to being professional colleagues, Gina and Sarah have another interesting point in common.  Both Gina and Sarah are dog lovers.  One of Sarah’s dogs is named Atticus after the character Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.  I recently learned that Gina’s dog is named Charles Atticus.

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

September 24— The Provost’s Awards Reception will take place on Tuesday, September 24, 2019, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Halton Reading Room (Atkins Library).

Quirky Quiz Question — What is the name of the actor who played the role of Atticus Finch in the famous film version of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Last week’s answer: Waiting to Exhale

Three years before the release of How Stella Got Her Groove Back another film based on a popular McMillan novel made its debut.  This film is about the friendship of four women.   What is the title of this film?

Back in the Groove — In August 1998, the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back made its debut.  Based on Terry McMillan’s 1996 novel of the same title, this film had a great opening weekend, and it went on to become one of the most successful romantic comedies from the 1990s.  Shortly after the release of the film, I started hearing more and more people saying the word “groove,” and this pleased me.  I like the word “groove” because it is associated with the grooves on vinyl records, and I have never lost my love of vinyl records.  It is for this same reason that I still use the old hippy word “groovy.”  Thus, even though Stella (a stockbroker on the rise) and I (an aging English professor) don’t have that much in common, the title of her film appeals to me.

For Stella, getting her groove back involves taking a vacation at a luxury resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica.  For those of us in the English Department, however, getting our groove back involves settling into the routines and rhythms of our work.  Now that our students have returned and our fall classes are well underway, I have a sense that the English Department is back in business.  The quiet summer months are conducive to doing research, but the department just doesn’t feel right to me without the presence of students.

The energy that our students bring to the department was evident at last Friday’s Graduate Student Social.  Hosted by our English Graduate Student Association, this event took place off campus at the nearby Wine Vault, and it provided an opportunity for graduate students and faculty members to socialize.  I went, and I enjoyed hearing our students talk excitedly about their classes and their research projects.  I also enjoyed hearing our faculty members sharing stories with our students.  Kirk Melnikoff, for example, entertained all of us with his tales about his new office mate, who happens to be a mouse.  I am not sure how a mouse got into Kirk’s office, but I am pretty sure that the mouse is in for an educational experience.  When faculty, students, and perhaps an occasional mouse interact in this way, I know that the English Department is back in the groove.

Working the Game — We all know how hard our staff work in the department, but what many people don’t know is that our staff often also work at UNC Charlotte sporting events on the weekend.  Last Saturday, Monica Burke, Jennie Mussington, and Angie Williams all worked at the home football game.   I am pretty sure that this is the real reason the home team won!

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:

Daniel Shealy published an article titled “‘Wedding Marches’: Louisa May Alcott, Marriage, and the Newness of Little Women” in Women’s Studies, vol. 48, no. 4, 2019.

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

September 24— The Provost’s Awards Reception will take place on Tuesday, September 24, 2019, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Halton Reading Room (Atkins Library).

Quirky Quiz Question — Three years before the release of How Stella Got Her Groove Back another film based on a popular McMillan novel made its debut.  This film is about the friendship of four women.   What is the title of this film?

Last week’s answer: Piedmont Airlines

Our English Department is not the only place in Charlotte with international connections.  The Charlotte Douglas International Airport offers international connections of a different sort.  The Charlotte airport became an international airport in 1987 when a now defunct airline introduced flights between Charlotte and London. What is the name of this airline?

International Connections — Every September UNC Charlotte holds its now famous International Festival.  This year’s 44th annual International Festival will take place on Saturday, September 21, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. in and around the Barnhardt Student Activity Center.  For more information about this year’s International Festival, please click on the following link:  https://ifest.uncc.edu/

Given that the International Festival is just around the corner, I started thinking about the English Department’s many international connections. Numerous members of our department are engaged in research projects that are international in nature.  Examples include Liz Miller’s research on the teaching of foreign languages in Germany, Jeffrey Leak’s research on the Dutch/British editor Rosey Pool and her promotion of African American poetry, and Pilar Blitvich’s recent article titled “Globalization, Transnational Identities, and Conflict Talk: The Complexity of the Latino Identity,” which appeared in the Journal of Pragmatics in 2018.The English Department’s international connections are also reflected in the courses that we teach.

This semester, for example, Boyd Davis is teaching a course on the “History of Global Englishes” in which she provides her students with an overview of how English became the global lingua franca.  Another example from this semester is Juan Meneses’s “Modern World Literature.”  As Juan states in his official course description, “This course investigates a series of 20th- and 21st-century works with the objective of studying some of the most important questions at the center of world literature:  universal values, the dissemination of ideas across borders, the relationship between national literary traditions, translations, and cosmopolitanism.” 

The English Department also provides students with opportunities to include international experiences as part of their education.  Next semester, for example, Jen Munroe will take a group of students over spring break to London and Stratford for “Shakespeare in England.” More than just experiencing Shakespeare’s works in performance in the cities that shaped his career, though, this course exposes students to a new country, with its own traditions and way of being. Students have regularly commented after taking the course that they were amazed by the differences between the US and the UK, despite our speaking the same language.

As the aforementioned examples illustrate, our English Department’s international connections are numerous, diverse, and ongoing. 

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 has been named to the Data Safety Monitoring Board as part of the NIA-funded SPEEKO dementia caregivers project headed by Kristine Williams, U. Kansas.  Also, Boyd and Margaret Maclagan are presenting a poster titled “Pictures without Frames: Lexical Bundles and Multiword Expressions in Dementia Discourse” at the 13th World Congress on Dementia.

Tiffany Morin and Malin Pereira were selected as finalists for the 2019 J. Murrey Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award. Both Tiffany and Malin will be recognized at a ceremony and social on October 2 at 4:00 PM. For more information please click on the following link: https://library.uncc.edu/2019FacultyEngagement

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

September 13— English Department meeting will take place on Friday, September 13, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Fretwell 290B (seminar room).

September 13— The EGSA Graduate Student Social will take place at the Wine Vault on Friday, September 13, at 5:00 p.m.

Quirky Quiz Question — Our English Department is not the only place in Charlotte with international connections.  The Charlotte Douglas International Airport offers international connections of a different sort.  The Charlotte airport became an international airport in 1987 when a now defunct airline introduced flights between Charlotte and London. What is the name of this airline?

Last week’s answer: Industrial Workers of the World

Mother Jones was one of the founders of a union whose members were often called Wobblies.  What is the name of this union?

Remembering Mother Jones on Labor Day — Since Labor Day always falls on a Monday, I have written about Labor Day in several of my Monday Missives over the years.  While contemplating the focus for this week’s Monday Missive, I gave some thought to writing about another labor novel.  I wrote about John Steinbeck’s labor novel titled In Dubious Battle in the Monday Missive that I wrote on Labor Day in 2016, so I thought it might be time to pick another labor novel to highlight, but which one?  I decided to enter the phrase labor novels in Google and see what titles showed up most often.  Lists of famous labor novels popped up just as I expected, but to my surprise, I also came across lists of novels that deal with childbirth and motherhood.  Well, this surprise prompted me to think about famous mothers associated with the labor movement, and Mother Jones immediately came to mind.

Nowadays many people associate the name Mother Jones with the magazine that goes by this name, but there really was a labor leader named Mother Jones.  Her official name was Mary Harris Jones, but for much of her adult life, everybody called her Mother Jones.  She was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1837.  At the age of ten, she moved to Canada with her family.  After attending school in Toronto, she moved to the United States where she worked first as a teacher and then as a dressmaker.  In 1861 she married George Jones, who was a member of the National Union of Iron Moulders, and he introduced her to America’s fledgling labor movement.  They settled in Memphis and had four children, but her children and her husband all died in 1867 when a yellow fever epidemic swept through Memphis. Following this personal tragedy, Mother Jones moved to Chicago where she became increasingly involved in union activities.  

Throughout her many years as a labor organizer, Mother Jones worked on behalf of exploited children.  She fought to end child labor and improve the living conditions of children from mining communities and textile factory towns.  In 1903, she organized a massive event billed as a “Children’s Crusade” in which children who worked in mines and textile mills marched and carried signs demanding an end to child labor.  Mother Jones’s dedication to helping children, workers, and immigrants is reflected in her most famous quotation:  “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

As we celebrate this Labor Day, I think we should take a moment to remember Mother Jones.  For those who want to know more about her eventful life, I recommend The Autobiography of Mother Jones. This book came out in 1925, just five years before her death in 1930.  I read her autobiography when I was a college student, but I still remember being impressed with her life story and her unwavering commitment to helping the most vulnerable members of our society.  She died nearly ninety years ago, but the story of her life still resonates today.  

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:

Greg Wickliff recently presented at paper titled “Communicating Mathematics and Science” at the 15th International Conference of The Mathematics Education for the Future Project at Maynooth University in Kildare, Ireland.

Quirky Quiz Question — Mother Jones was one of the founders of a union whose members were often called Wobblies.  What is the name of this union?

Last week’s answer: The Little House

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?