Mark West

Partnering with the J. Murrey Atkins Library — The Department of English and the Atkins Library have a long history of collaborating on various projects. This spirit of collaboration is clearly reflected in the upcoming special event to celebrate the Atkins Library’s Two Millionth Volume. This event will take place in the library on Thursday, November 17th, from 4:30 to 6:30, and it will celebrate the acquisition of a very rare copy of Olaudah Equiano’s famous slave narrative, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Julian Mason (a former chair of our English Department) and his wife, Elsie Mason (a former librarian who worked for many years at Atkins Library), are donating this volume to Atkins Library. During this event our own Paula Connolly will discuss this work from a literary perspective. For more information about this event, please click on the following link: http://library.uncc.edu/RSVP

This spirit of collaboration is also reflected in the Library’s current exhibit celebrating the 150th birthday of Beatrix Potter and the 100th birthday of Roald Dahl. Curated by the Special Collections Department of the library, this exhibit is a joint project of the library and the English Department. Valerie Bright, Sarah Minslow and I have provided the library with some of the books and artifacts that are included in this exhibit. If you are interested in seeing this exhibit, it is located on the main floor of the library near the Harry Golden exhibit.

The English Department works in partnership with many university programs and units, but as I see it, the Atkins Library is one of our key partners given that our core missions overlap in so many ways. In a way, the loving relationship between Julian and Elsie Mason parallels the the relationship between the English Department and Atkins. In both cases, it’s a perfect match.

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

Susan Gardner, one of our emeritus faculty members, was recently appointed an affiliate for the Women’s Studies Program at the University of New Hampshire. She has also became involved with the Lakota Language Consortium’s Ella Deloria Publication Project.

Kirk Melnikoff gave the invited talk “*As You Like It*: ‘much virtue in [the] if'” this past Friday at Queens University.

Quirky Quiz Question — Julian Mason has a long-standing interest in early African American literature. He edited the definitive edition of the works by one of America’s first African American poets. Can you name this poet?

Last week’s answer: Steven Spielberg

A Week of Volunteering — My commitment to volunteering in the community can be traced back to my parents.  Both of my parents were members of the Inter-Canyon Volunteer Fire Department in the front range west of Denver.  My father served as the president of the fire department for a number of years, and my mother was among the first women to sign up as a volunteer fire fighter.  She was handicapped, so she could not do some of the activities associated with fire fighting.  However, she learned how to drive the giant tanker truck that transported water to the scene of the fires (there are no fire hydrants in the mountains).  This truck dated back to World War Two, and it had an amazing number of gears, but the truck was no match for my mother.  She not only drove the tanker truck, but she also stood up to the sexism of the men who resisted having women join the department.  As a young boy, I was very proud of my parents for serving in the volunteer fire department, and this pride lives on even though both of my parents are deceased.  In my own volunteer work in the Charlotte community, I try to measure up to the example set by my parents.

Given how highly I value volunteer work in the community, I am always pleased with the volunteer work that our students, staff and faculty regularly perform in the community.  However, last week I went from being pleased to bursting with pride in English Department’s volunteer work.  In an effort to recognize everyone in the English Department who stepped up and volunteered in the community last week, I will attempt to mention by name the people who did significant volunteer work.  If I miss somebody, please accept my apologies in advance.

It all started on Tuesday evening when Alan Rauch gave his presentation on dolphins as part of the Personally Speaking Series.  Several members of Sigma Tau Delta volunteered at this event.  They greeted the attendees, distributed the programs, and helped in many other ways.  Here is the list of the students who volunteered at this event:  Kelly Brabec, Hannah Brown, Sara Eudy, Eileen Jakeway, Chelsea Moore, and Carissa Wilbanks.

On Wednesday, Angie Williams volunteered to help with the preparations for Verse and Vino, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation’s main fundraising event.  This is the second year in a row that Angie has volunteered for this event.

On Saturday morning, Sara Eudy volunteered to speak at Explore UNC Charlotte.  She gave a presentation to prospective students on the experience of being an English major and taking coursework in the humanities.

Also on Saturday, a large number of our students volunteered at EpicFest, the Charlotte Meckleburg Library’s literary festival for children of all ages.  Students from the English Learning Community, Sigma Tau Delta, the English Graduate Student Association, and the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization all volunteered at this event.  Here is a list of the students who helped make EpicFest such a tremendous success:  Cristtiah Baltazar,Julie Benavides, MaKalea Bjoin, Darrion Boone, Katie Clark, Nadia Clifton, Diane Gromelski, Kelsey Helveston, Katie Hughes, Amanda Loeffert, Samantha Martin, Shanon Murray, Emma Parrish, and Courtney Singleton.

All of these volunteers did an excellent job of representing our English Department and making a real difference in our community.

Honors Trip — This past Friday and Saturday, Kirk Melnikoff took a group of Honors students from both English and Theatre to a production of King Lear by the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA. The next morning, students attended a directing workshop led by the actresses who played Goneril and Oswald. The trip was made possible by the English Department, by the Shakespeare-in-Action Initiative, and by the Honors College.

Arrival — Paramount Pictures contacted our linguistics program ahead of their November 10 release of the movie Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life.  Ralf Thiede incorporated the material in LBST 2213 “Language, Mind, and Power,” which he co-teaches with Dan Boisvert from Philosophy.  The linguist, Dr. Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams), needs to twist her mind into a rather alien way of thinking to comprehend the extraterrestrials and finds herself pushing the envelope a bit too far for her mental comfort in the process.  You can have your own minds twisted, because in exchange for incorporating the movie into his lecture, Ralf got 30 free passes to an early screening tonight (Nov. 7) at 7:30 in the beautifully renovated Stonecrest Regal Theatre (7832 Rea Rd, Charlotte, NC 28277).  To download your own, go tohttp://www.gofobo.com/UNCCLing (passcode: UNCCLing).

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

JuliAnna Ávila recently published an article “Inequitable Variations: A Review of Research in Technology, Literacy Studies and Special Education” with Jessica Pandya in Literacy(United Kingdom Literacy Association journal).

Paula Connolly recently gave a lecture at Washington University in St. Louis titled “Seeing Slavery in American Children’s Literature.”

Quirky Quiz Question — The film Arrival deals with the encounter between extra-terrestrials and humans.  Two other films that deal with such an encounter are E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Who was the director of both of these films?

Last week’s answer: Wicked

One of my favorite witch characters is Elphaba Thropp.  Can you identify the work in which this character appears?

A Day for Witches — In the popular imagination, Halloween is often associated with witches, so I have decided to write a bit about witches in today’s Monday Missive.  Witches (and characters accused of being witches) have long played important roles in literature.   Some of these characters conform to the iconic image of the “wicked witch,” but in many cases, they don’t.  Often characters who are called “witches” are simply powerful or magical women, but they are not especially wicked.  Witch characters have attracted the attention of several members of our English Department.

In her latest blog for the Recipes Project, Jen Munroe discusses the three witches in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  As Jen explains in her blog post, these three witches have much in common with the women of the time who concocted medicines.  Jen shows that recipes and spells have much in common.  In her blog, she also discusses the role that these witches play in Macbeth. As she points out, these “witches are guilty of nothing more than ‘knowing’ (or foreknowing, since they merely predict his actions); they no more dictate Macbeth’s murderous ambitions than he can direct their appearances and disappearances.”  Here is the link to Jen’s blog: https://recipes.hypotheses.org/8612

In their co-authored Macbeth: A Novel, Andrew Hartley and David Henson have also turned their attention to the three witches.  As several reviewers have mentioned, the witches in this novelization of Shakespeare’s play are more fully developed than their counterparts in the play.  In Shakespeare’s original play, the three witches function much like the chorus in ancient Greek drama, but in Andrew and David’s novelization, the three witches are more complex characters.

Witches figure prominently in many famous works of children’s literature, including L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.  All of us who teach children’s literature courses have included such books in our courses, and several of us have written about them in our scholarship.  Beth Gargano, for example, published an article titled “Broomsticks Flying in Circles:  Playing with Narrative in Eleanor Estes’s The Witch Family” in the American Journal of Play.

In my research on the censorship of children’s literature, I have often commented on the controversies that surround such books.  Children’s books that have characters who are labeled as witches are often often censored or challenged for various religious reasons.  Although I strongly support the free exercise of religion, I also believe children should have the right to read these books.

In my opinion, Halloween is a perfect day to read whichever witch book you wish to read.

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

Matthew Osborn recently participated in the biannual Thomas R. Watson Conference at the University of Louisville where he gave a presentation simply titled “Surprise.” His presentation was part of a panel in which the speakers each took punctuation marks as metaphors for conceptual processes in writing and rhetoric.

Angie Williams recently returned from attending the 43rd Annual Administrative Professionals conference in Las Vegas, NV, where she participated in sessions on management practices.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about an upcoming event:

November 1 — Alan Rauch will deliver a presentation about his book titled Dolphin on Tuesday, November 1, at UNC Charlotte Center City.  His presentation will begin at 6:30.  A reception and book-signing will follow his presentation.  His presentation is part of the Personally Speaking Series, which is co-sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the J. Murrey Atkins Library with support from UNC Charlotte Center City.  The series is open to the public without charge, but attendees are expected to register in advance.  To register for Alan’s presentation, please click on the following link:http://clas.uncc.edu/engagement/personally-speaking/dolphin

November 2 — On November 2, the Interdisciplinary Strategies of Activism will facilitate a workshop featuring AFRS faculty and affiliates, along with library staff and special collections resources.  This workshop will take place Wed. Nov. 2 from 4-6 pm in Atkins 125 and Halton Reading Room. Info and free registration are at https://strategiesconversation.eventbrite.com

Quirky Quiz Question — One of my favorite witch characters is Elphaba Thropp.  Can you identify the work in which this character appears?

Last week’s answer: Edmund Spenser

When writing All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren drew inspiration from The Faerie Queen?  Who wrote The Faerie Queen?

Elections and Literature — With Secretary Hillary Clinton campaigning on our campus this past weekend and with the election just two weeks away, I’ve decided to devote this week’s Monday Missive to the connections between elections and American literature.  Over the years, many authors have written stories and novels that deal with the drama and tensions associated with elections.  For today’s Monday Missive, I will comment on two:  Grace for President, a children’s book written by Kelly DiPucchio, and All the King’s Men, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren.

Grace for President came out in 2008, and it deals with a third-grade girl named Grace who asks her teacher why the United States has never had a female president.  Grace decides to campaign for the role of president in the school’s mock election, and in the process she and her classmates learn a great deal about America’s electoral college system.  What makes this book stand out, however, is not the lessons it teaches about our system of electing presidents.  Rather, what makes this book appealing to me is the central character.  Grace is strong, funny and inspiring.  Grace for President has a special connection to Charlotte, for the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte is currently performing a musical based on this story.  This musical had its world premier here in Charlotte on October 21, and there are performances scheduled through November 6, 2016.

All the King’s Men originally came out in 1946, and it is partially inspired by the political career of Huey P. Long, a former Governor of Louisiana.  In Warren’s novel, however, the character is named Willie Stark.  In writing this novel, Robert Penn Warren reflects on the messiness of American elections.  In many ways, Stark is a cynical and manipulative politician, but he is not a two-dimensional villain.  Warren uses the backdrop of an election to reflect on philosophical and even theological concerns.  Warren shows how elections can draw out some of the underlying conflicts that shape American culture and discourse.  In 1949, the novel was made into a film, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

My guess is that I am the first person to pair up Grace for President and All the King’s Men,but as I see it both books move well beyond the nuts-and-bolts aspects of elections.  Although intended for completely different audiences, these books both explore the human side of elections, and both are great books to read during this election season.

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

Paula Eckard recently presented a paper titled “Mountaintop Removal, Methamphetamine, and Appalachian Homeland Insecurities in The Evening Hour” at the Canadian Association for American Studies Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick.  Matthew Rowney recently presented a paper titled “De Quincey’s Stairs” at the International Conference on Romanticism in Colorado Springs.

Lara Vetter‘s edition of H.D.’s By Avon River (2014) received a very positive review inAmerican Literary Scholarship.

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

October 28 —  The English Department meeting will take place on Friday, October 28, from11:00 to 12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.  The English Learning Community will have a faculty meet and greet in the faculty/staff lounge following the department meeting.

October 28 — The UNC Charlotte University Writing Program’s Fall Conference will take place on October 28, 2016. Here is the link to register: https://pages.charlotte.edu/uwpconference/registration-2016/

Quirky Quiz Question — When writing All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren drew inspiration from The Faerie Queen?  Who wrote The Faerie Queen?

Last week’s answer: Robert Zimmerman

Most people have heard of Bob Dylan, but this is not his original name.  Does anybody know Dylan’s original name?

Recollections and Reflections on Bob Dylan —  I do not usually get early morning emails from Daniel Shealy, but last Thursday I received a cryptic email from Daniel expressing his excitement about the “cool” news regarding the latest winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.  However, he didn’t tell me what the news was.  I looked it up and discovered that this year’s winner is Bob Dylan.  Well, for those of you who don’t know, Daniel is a devoted Dylan fan, so I didn’t need a weather man to know why Daniel was so excited.

Like Daniel, I grew up listening to Dylan albums, all of which I still own.  When I was in high school, my parents bought a new stereo set.  Back in those days, stereo sets were pieces of furniture.  I asked my parents for their old stereo set, and they let me move the hulking object into my bedroom.  It had a loose wire, but I discovered that if I jiggled the wire around, I could get the stereo to work most of the time.  One day I put on Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, and I reached under the turntable to jiggle the wire.  The next thing I knew I was knocked over on the floor with my arm tingling from a powerful shock.  The electric light still struck like arrows, but I managed to stand upright and be strong.  Now, you would think that after I got an electric shock from my stereo, I would have seen it from a different point of view and just turned on my radio.  But all I really wanted to do was hear my Dylan album, so I jiggled the wire again and this time it worked.   This convinced me that I could have my cake and eat it too.

This past weekend I played all of my old Dylan albums, and while I was listening to them, I thought about the significance of Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for literature.  By bestowing this award on Dylan, the selection committee helped expand out definition of literature to include song lyrics.  This development is in keeping with the expanding and evolving world of English studies.  Through our course offerings and our research, we cover topics that were not included in the English Departments of yesteryear.  These new topics include video games, reality television programs, scientific documents, road signs, board games, apps, websites, and recipe books.  I am sure there are some traditionalists who respond to these changes by attempting to seek shelter from the storm, but as I see it, we are making the right move by acknowledging that the times, they are a-changin’.

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

Bryn Chancellor was an invited author at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN, this past weekend. She gave a reading and answered questions as part of the panel “The Rural, the Urban and the Search for Home: Navigating Landscapes in Short Stories.”

Allison Hutchcraft recently visited The Writing School at Kingston University, London, where she taught a graduate-level poetry workshop and gave a reading of her work.

Janaka Lewis recently learned that she has been nominated of a 2016 Bookie Award.  These awards recognize “extraordinary literacy and educational work being done in the Charlotte community.”

Emma Parrish, one of our new M.A. students, recently presented a paper titled “Allow it to Occur to You: Invention versus Reality in Roald Dahl” at a conference on Literature of the Hidden and Fantastic at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.

Alan Rauch recently presented a paper titled “Novel Highways & Information Turnpikes” at the Victorians Institute Conference.

Bonnie Shishko, one of our part-time faculty members, has a successfully defended her dissertation titled “Epistemologies of the Kitchen: Art, Science, and Nineteenth-Century British Culinary Writing.”  Her defense took place on October 10, 2016, and she will be formally awarded her Ph.D. in December.  However, as far as I am concerned, she is now Dr. Bonnie Shishko.  Congratulations, Bonnie.

Lara Vetter‘s monograph, Modernist Writings and Religio-scientific Discourse (2010), is now available in paperback.

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

October 19 — Dean Nancy Gutierrez and I invite everyone in the English Department to attend a formal announcement of an important and very positive development related to our department.  This announcement will take place next Wednesday, October 19, at 10:00 a.m. in the English Department Conference Room (Fretwell 280C).  Please come if you possibly can.

October 28 — The UNC Charlotte University Writing Program’s Fall Conference will take place on October 28, 2016.  October 20 is the registration deadline. Registration is $45. Late registration will be open until the day of the conference at an increased rate of $55.  Here is the link to register: https://pages.charlotte.edu/uwpconference/registration-2016/

Quirky Quiz Question — Most people have heard of Bob Dylan, but this is not his original name.  Does anybody know Dylan’s original name?

Last week’s answer: Flipper

In Dolphin, Alan Rauch writes about the depiction of dolphins in popular culture, including a hit television series from the mid-1960s that features a bottlenose dolphin. Does anybody remember the name of this television show? 

Check Out Frankenstein at the Public Library — The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is celebrating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein during the month of October.  This celebration is tied to the library’s Community Read Program, and it includes a wide variety of events and activities, including a presentation by our own Matthew Rowney.  Matt will give a talk titled “Frankenstein: The Making of a Novel in the Year Without a Summer” this comingSaturday, October 8th, at 2 pm at the Main Library.  He will give the talk again onSaturday, October 29, at 2 pm at the Myers Park Branch of the library.

As part of the Community Read Program, Sam Shapiro (a part-time faculty member in our department) has organized a Frankenstein Film Series.  One of the films that he will be showing is Mel Brooks’ comedy Young Frankenstein.  This film will be shown onSunday, October 16, at 2 pm at the Main Library.  For more information about this film series, please click on the following link:  https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/frankenstein-film-series-october

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

Boyd Davis‘s “virtual poster” titled “More Than a Story: Narrative Formats in Alzheimer’s Conversation” is on display at the Aging in Society 2016 Conference in Linkoping, Sweden.

Prizes — I have been thinking about prizes lately in part because of the North Carolina Humanities Council’s series of programs commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize. These programs are focusing on people from North Carolina who have won the Pulitzer Prize. I am playing a role in one of these programs, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, September 27, at 11:00 AM in the Halton Theater on the CPCC’s Central Campus. I will be talking about Doug Marlette, who was a Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer. My talk, however, will be on his comic strip, Kudzu. If you are interested learning more about this event, here is a link with more information: http://www.pulitzernc.org/events/2016/9/27/old-southnew-south-through-media-panel-discussion

Of course, being awarded the Pulitzer Prize makes headlines, but I think that being awarded lesser known prizes is also significant. Such prizes often recognize achievements that might not be noticed by the larger public but are highly regarded by people within the recipients’ field. Our colleague Chris Davis has just been informed that he has won such an award. His poem titled “Against Pride” has been selected as the winner of the Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award. This award is given by the creative writing journal Descant. The award is given annually to the single poem deemed the strongest in each edition of the journal, and the award includes a $500 prize. Even though the title of Chris’s award-winning poem is “Against Pride,” I am still very proud of Chris for winning this award. As everyone in our English Department knows, we have a very strong creative writing program. Chris’s latest award adds to the program’s already excellent reputation.

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

Balaka Basu just signed a contract for a co-edited collection titled The Harry Potter Generation. Her co-editor is Emily Lauer.

Kirk Melnikoff gave the invited-paper “Shakespeare’s Early Comedies and the Lure of Conycatching” at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference in Winston-Salem, NC.

Liz Miller recently presented a paper titled “Individual Positioning Work and the Mobilzation of Responsibility in Organizational Discussions on Social Sustainability” at a critical discourse analysis conference in Catania, Sicily.

Quirky Quiz Question — Doug Marlette is one of several award-winning editorial cartoonists who have worked for the Charlotte Observer. Does anybody know the name of the current editorial cartoonist who works for the Charlotte Observer?

Last week’s answer: September 15 is the date that all of these countries gained their independence from Spain.

Does anybody know why September 15 is a significant day in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua?

National Hispanic Heritage Month — During President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, the United States began observing the Hispanic Heritage Week.  This week-long celebration expanded into the National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988.  The current celebration takes place from September 15 to October 15, and it provides an opportunity to recognize the many ways in which Hispanic Americans have contributed to American culture.  For more information about this month-long event, please click on the following link:  http://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/

In thinking about the English Department’s connections to the National Hispanic Heritage Month, I quickly realized that many of our faculty members do research, teaching, or service work that relates to this topic.  However, for the purposes of today’s Monday Missive, I will focus on the work of three of our faculty members:  JuliAnna Avila, Becky Roeder, and Maya Socolovsky.

Much of JuliAnna’s service work relates to this topic.  She is serving as the Secretary for CLAS’s Latino/a Caucus this year.  Since she has been in Charlotte, she has volunteered at Hawthorne High School working with ELL students as well as with Circle de Luz, a community organization that mentors adolescent Latinas and helps them prepare for college.

Becky’s dissertation was on assimilation to local dialect norms in Lansing, Michigan, by Mexican American enclave residents. Her most recent work with the Latino population is an investigation into language use on public signage in areas of Charlotte that are more densely populated by Latinos. Both projects have given her the opportunity to interact with members of the local population, raising awareness among community residents about research at a local university.