Monday Missive

Playing in Stories — Now that the holiday season is upon us, I am reminded of the opening chapters in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. In these chapters, the March family is celebrating Christmas, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress figures prominently in their celebration. For the March sisters, Bunyan’s religious allegory has playful associations. In the chapter titled “Playing Pilgrims,” the sisters recall acting out scenes from the book and turning the upper reaches of their house into a “Celestial City.” As Alcott makes clear in these opening Christmas chapters, reading stories and playing games often go hand in hand.

More and more English professors are conducting research on the relationship between stories and games, including several members of our English Department. Beth Gargano was one of the first members of our department to conduct scholarship in this area. In 2007, she presented a conference paper titled “Distraction and Destruction in Back to Baghdad: Images of Iraq in a Current Video Game.” A few years later, she published an article in the American Journal of Play titled “Broomsticks Flying in Circles: Playing with Narrative in Eleanor Estes’s The Witch Family.” More recently, Balaka Basu and Aaron Toscano have embarked on major research projects related to gaming.

Balaka is currently working on a book project for which she received a research support grant from the Children’s Literature Association. Tentatively titled Playing the Game: Reading Digitally with Children’s Literature, this book will examine how accounts of child readership and play in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reveal a mode of reading where the textual world is fully participatory and immersive, thus serving as the perfect model for “reading digitally.” In discussing this project, Balaka writes, “The digital ideals of enhanced, accessible, and multi-dimensional textual experiences have been part of children’s literature since long before the internet was invented, for the stories of childhood have always traveled easily from classroom to playground, from print to performance, and back again. Young readers continually resist, rewrite, act out, and play with the various narratives to which they’ve been exposed and thus, with the aid of toys, games, costumes, and props, as well as the power of ‘pretend,’ young people have historically managed to extend textual universes well beyond the covers of their books, just as digitizations seek to do.”

Like Balaka, Aaron is currently working on a book project related to gaming. Aaron is researching the claims that watching violent media (specifically playing violent video games) leads to real world violence. In discussing this project, Aaron writes, “There’s a ton of research about this claim, but, considering the drop in violent crime and youthful offender crime from the 1990s—when video game violence started becoming more and more realistic—this idea is bogus. I’m comparing it to other witch hunts surrounding children’s entertainment, such as comic books in the 1950s, Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s. My goal is to show how these peer-reviewed articles get filtered to mainstream, sound-bite media, which regurgitates the findings and doesn’t critically analyze how the research was done. This is going to be an article and, hopefully, chapter one of my book project.”

In part because of the efforts of Beth, Balaka, and Aaron, our department is on the verge of becoming a major player in the world of gaming scholarship.

Commencement Report — Last Saturday the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences held its winter commencement ceremony, and for 70 of our students, this ceremony marked their transition from current students to graduates. A total of 14 of our graduate students are listed in the commencement program, and 56 undergraduate students are listed. I should also point out that two of the students who received doctoral degrees in the Curriculum and Instruction Program had Lil Brannon for their academic advisor. These students are Anthony Iannone and Ryan Charles Welsh.

I was especially impressed with how many of our BA students fall under the heading of “Graduation with Distinction.” Of the 56 students, 7 earned the distinction of Cum Laude (GPA between 3.4-3.7), 4 earned the distinction of Magna Cum Laude (GPA between 3.7-3.9), and 3 earned the distinction of Summa Cum Laude (GPA between 3.9-4.0). This total comes to 14 students, which means that 25% of our graduate seniors earned this special distinction. I am very proud of all of our graduating students, but I want to mention by name the 3 students who earned the distinction of Summa Cum Laude. Their names are John Stuart Cloer, Katrina Lawson Holmes, and Monica L. Jackson.

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 Connolly’s Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010 continues to receive glowing reviews. Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers just published a very strong review on the book in which the the reviewer concluded by describing the book as “an excellent volume that will be a touchstone for scholars and teachers for many years to come.”

Juan Meneses has been awarded a Faculty Research Grant to continue working on his book in which he examines the role of dissent in a series of modern Anglophone novels.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a date to keep in mind:

December 18 — The Dean’s Office in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will hold its Celebration of Faculty Achievement reception on Thursday, December 18 at noon in the Harris Alumni Center in Johnson Glen. This annual event recognizes faculty who received external funding in the prior fiscal year and who published books since last December. Refreshments will be served.

Quirky Quiz Question — In the world of gaming, what does the abbreviation RPG stand for? For extra credit, what does the term cosplay mean?

Last week’s answer: Belladonna Took

Of Exams and Hobbits — ‘Tis the season for professors to spend countless hours grading their students’ final exams. The process of grading exams can be a bit on the tedious side, but every now and then something unusual happens to break up the tedium. Such was the case when J.R.R. Tolkien was grading examinations at Oxford University in the late 1920s. Recalling this moment, Tolkien wrote, “One of the candidates had mercifully left one of the pages with no writing on it (which is the best thing that can possibly happen to an examiner) and I wrote on it: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ Names always generate a story in my mind. Eventually I thought I better find out what hobbits were like. But that’s only the beginning.” From this one sentence, written impulsively on a student’s examination, sprang not only The Hobbit but ultimately The Lord of the Rings. The moral to this story is that we should always be receptive to flashes of inspiration, even when we feel like we are at the bottom of a hole in the ground with a pile of finals stacked on top of us.

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 recently published an article titled “…And They Lived Happily Ever After: The Enduring Appeal of Fairy Tales” in RISE: A Children’s Literacy Journal.

Paula Connolly recently published a chapter titled “The Metafictive Playgrounds of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh: The Movie Is a Book” in Walt Disney, from Reader to Storyteller: Essays on the Literary Inspirations.

Andrew Hartley’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel, which he co-authored with David Hewson, was named the Audiobook of the Year by Audible.com. The audio version is narrated by Richard Armitage.

Jen Munroe recently published an article titled “Mary Somerset and Colonial Botany: Reading Between the Ecofeminist Lines” in Early Modern Studies Journal.

Heather Vorhies recently had an article titled “Building Professional Scholars: The Writing Center at the Graduate Level” accepted for publication in WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here are some dates to keep in mind:

December 13 — The Commencement ceremony for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will take place in Barnhardt Student Activity Center (SAC) on Saturday, December 13, at 3:00 p.m.

December 15 — Grades are due by noon.

December 18 — The Dean’s Office in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will hold its Celebration of Faculty Achievement reception on Thursday, December 18 at noon in the Harris Alumni Center in Johnson Glen. This annual event recognizes faculty who received external funding in the prior fiscal year and who published books since last December. Refreshments will be served.

Quirky Quiz Question — J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit introduced the world to a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo’s mother was an exceptional hobbit who, in her younger days, liked to go on adventures. Does anybody know the name of Bilbo’s remarkable mother?

Last week’s answer: tomatoes

A Walk in Park Güell — During my high school days, I took a strong interest in Antoni Gaudí, the famous architect from Barcelona. My father bought me a book about Gaudí that included color photographs of Gaudí’s buildings, and I spent many hours studying the book and marveling at the images of Gaudí’s astonishing works of architecture. I dreamed of visiting these buildings in person, and this Thanksgiving that dream finally came true. My wife and I traveled to Barcelona where our son is spending the fall semester studying architecture. Together we visited several of Gaudí’s buildings, including La Pedrera (https://www.lapedrera.com/en/home) and the Sagrada Família (http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/), but we spent the most time exploring a park he designed called Park Güell. Located in a hilly area on the outskirts of Barcelona, Park Güell was constructed between 1900 and 1914. For more information about this park, please click on the following link: http://www.parkguell.cat/en/

Gaudí’s passion for nature, Greek mythology, fairy tales, and the teachings of Catholicism can be seen throughout the park. Nearly every structure in the park involves a narrative element, so the act of walking through this park is akin to immersing oneself in stories. In the not too distant future, my son and I plan to write an article about the narrative elements that Gaudí incorporated into the design of Park Güell. Like several other members of the English Department, I am interested in the ways in which narrative elements enter into modes of expression outside the standard forms of literature. The scholar in me approached our visit to Park Güell as a research trip, but visiting this park meant much more to me than most of my research trips. The experience of exploring this special place with my family resonated with me on deep emotional and aesthetic levels. For me, Gaudí’s Park Güell transcends everyday reality and provides visitors with an opportunity to enter a playful, whimsical, and sometimes spiritual realm.

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 and Vail Carter (UNC Charlotte’s first Native American Graduate, and a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame) gave an invited presentation to the 19th Annual Indian Heritage Celebration at the Raleigh Museum of History on Nov. 22nd. It was an introduction to the Native Carolinas Indian Elders Collection in Atkins Library.

Kirk Melnikoff had his essay “From the Talbot to Duck Lane: The Early Publication History of Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London” accepted for inclusion in a new Queen’s Men Editions website dedicated to the play The Three Ladies of London.

Marty Settle, a retired member of the English Department, has a book of poetry coming out in February called The Teleology of Dunes. It is being published by Main Street Rag. For those interested in purchasing it or pre-ordering it, please click on the following link: http://mainstreetrag.com/bookstore/product/the-teleology-of-dunes/.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a date to keep in mind:

December 2 — The Writing Resources Center’s Midnight Madness event will offer support for students preparing for final exams, on Tuesday, Dec. 2 from 8 p.m. to midnight in Cameron 125.

December 4 — The English Department Holiday Party will take place on December 4 from 12:00-2:00 in the Faculty/Staff Lounge. The pot luck sign-up sheet is in the front lobby.

Quirky Quiz Question — While we were in Barcelona, we enjoyed an appetizer called pan a la catalana. It is toasted bread with a particular topping. What is this topping?

Last week’s answer – The horse knows the way, To carry the sleigh, Through the white and drifted snow

Over the River — The poem most frequently associated with Thanksgiving is “Over the River and Through the Wood” by Lydia Maria Child. The poem originally appeared in her book Flowers for Children, which came out in 1844. Although Flowers for Children had a large readership among children in the years before the Civil War, today it is largely forgotten. The same, however, cannot be said for Child’s Thanksgiving poem. Not only is it still in print, but it has been set to music, and it’s still sang or recited in the schools. A few years ago, I mentioned this poem to the students in my Children’s Literature class. I read the beginning of the poem to the students, “Over the river, and through the wood,” and then I asked them to complete the line. Almost all of them responded by saying in unison, “To Grandmother’s house we go.”

My guess is that Lydia Maria Child would have been astonished to know that she is remembered today primarily for her Thanksgiving poem, for during her lifetime she achieved fame as an outspoken abolitionist and a strong advocate for women’s rights. She wrote extensively on these topics both for children and adults, but these publications have long since gone out of print. However, her abolitionist writings for children have recently begun to attract attention largely due to the scholarship of our own Dr. Paula Connolly. In Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010, Paula writes in some detail about Child’s efforts to win over children to the abolitionist cause. Through her scholarship of recovery, Paula is demonstrating that there is much more to Child than her Thanksgiving poem. As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, I am mindful of how fortunate I am to teach in a department alongside so many impressive scholars, such as Paula. I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

Basketball Season — When I came to UNC Charlotte for my campus interview back in the spring of 1984, I realized that I had arrived in basketball country when the then English Department Chair, Dr. Julian Mason, started asking me questions about my favorite ACC basketball team. At the time, I didn’t even know what ACC stood for, and I was worried that my ignorance might cost me the job. Luckily for me, Julian decided to hire me despite my woeful lack of basketball knowledge. I soon learned, however, that there are many connections between the English Department and basketball. Now that the college basketball season is upon us, I thought I would mention a few of these connections. For example, Dr. Jeffrey Leak played on the men’s basketball team at Campbell University. Dr. Lil Brannon was the high school girls’ basketball coach for Celeste High School in Celeste, Texas, which had a total population of 719 people. One year she had the state championship basketball team. Dr. Ron Lunsford also coached basketball. Both Drs. Aaron Toscano and Kirk Melnikoff played on their school basketball teams during their pre-college days. I am sure there are more members of the department who also have basketball connections, but the buzzer has sounded so I have to stop.

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:

Lil Brannon and her associates with the Charlotte Writers Project received a 2014 Educator Innovator Award in support of a project titled “Making Our Worlds.”

Aaron Gwyn recently appeared as a guest on WFAE’s “Charlotte Talks” as part of a program called Charlotte Authors Roundtable.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is a date to keep in mind:

December 4 — The English Department Holiday Party will take place on December 4 from 12:00-2:00 in the Faculty/Staff Lounge. The pot luck sign-up sheet is in the front lobby.

Quirky Quiz Question — The first line of Lydia Maria Child’s Thanksgiving poem reads: “Over the river, and through the wood,/To Grandmother’s house we go.” What’s the next line?

Last week’s answer: Professor Sprout (extra credit – Neville Longbottom)

UNC Charlotte’s Professors of Herbology — As anyone who has read the Harry Potter series knows, herbology is what the study of plants is called at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. Botany is the term used in the mundane (or muggle) world, but for me the language of the mundane world just does not capture the magic of UNC Charlotte’s McMillan Greenhouse and its associated gardens. For many years, the person who has presided over this magical corner of UNC Charlotte is Dr. Larry Mellichamp. His official title is Professor of Botany and Director of the UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens, but I think Larry’s title should be Professor of Herbology. After 38 years at UNC Charlotte, Larry is about to retire. His retirement reception will take place on Wednesday, November 19, from 3:00-4:15 in the lobby of Robinson Hall. I will be there.

Let me tell you a story about Larry. Some years ago I ran a week-long Harry Potter summer camp at UNC Charlotte, and I devoted a day to herbology. I contacted Larry and the assistant director of the greenhouse, Paula Gross, and I asked them if they would talk to my campers about unusual plants. Larry is a world-famous expert on the Venus flytrap and other carnivorous plants, and I knew that the campers would be interested in these odd plants. Larry and Paula not only agreed to talk with the campers, but they threw themselves into the spirit of the Harry Potter camp. We met at the McMillan Greenhouse, and Larry and Paula introduced the campers to many bizarre plants. Then Larry gave the kids a tour of the greenhouse, paying particular attention to the carnivorous plants that grow there. Larry’s zeal for these plants and his willingness to engage with the kids in a playful way won over the campers. That afternoon, they all enthusiastically drew pictures and wrote stories based on the plants they observed in the greenhouse. Many gardeners have green thumbs, but Larry has more than special thumbs. He has the magical power to spark a curiosity about plants in the minds of all who come into contact with him.

The English Department has its own professor of herbology, and that person is Dr. Jen Munroe. Like Larry, Jen has a passion for gardens. She writes about gardens in her first two books, a monograph titled Gender and the Garden in Early Modern English Literature and an edited volume titled Making Gardens of Their Own: Gardening Manuals for Women, 1500-1750. As Jen makes clear in these books, gardens are much more than a collection of plants. They combine science, aesthetics, and self-expression. Planting and tending gardens can become part of one’s identity. For both Jen and Larry, gardens transcend the mundane world.

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:

Brook Blaylock, a graduate student in the English Department, delivered a paper titled “These Ruined Walls: The Gender of Nature and the Nature of of Gender in William Wordsworth’s The Ruined Cottage” at the SAMLA Conference in Atlanta.

Janaka Lewis moderated a panel on Black Women in Literature at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Jessica Morton, a graduate student in the English Department, delivered a paper titled “Writer Seeks Readers Willing to Work: Chuck Palahniuk’s Avant-Garde” at the SAMLA Conference in Atlanta.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here are some dates to keep in mind:

November 21 — The English Department meeting will take place on November 21 from 11:00-12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

November 21 — The ELC is sponsoring a Faculty Meet and Greet event starting at 12:30 in Faculty/Staff Lounge.

November 21 — The Development Committee is sponsoring a faculty talk by Dr. Tony Jackson on November 21 from 1:00-2:00 in the Conference Room. The title of Tony’s talk is “Social Neuroscience, Imitative Identity, and Aronofsky’s Black Swan.

Quirky Quiz Question — What is the name of the Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts School throughout most of the Harry Potter series? For extra credit, who becomes the new Professor of Herbology at the end of the series?

Last week’s answer – Jeffrey Leak and Cy Knoblauch

Armistice Day, Poetry and Poppies — Veterans Day started out as Armistice Day, which is why it is celebrated on the eleventh day of November. The armistice agreement that marked the end of World War I took effect on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. Initially Armistice Day commemorated all those who lost their lives during World War I. After World War II, the United States changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day while in Great Britain and most of the Commonwealth Nations, the name was changed to Remembrance Day.

Although the term Armistice Day is not widely used today, the term lives on in the world of poetry. In 1915, three years before the signing of the armistice agreement, a Canadian physician and soldier with the Allied Forces named John McCrae wrote a poem titled “In Flanders Field” in which he expressed his grief over the death of a fellow soldier who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. His friend was buried in a field in Flanders, which is located in Belgium. The poem begins with the line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row.” This poem came to be associated with Armistice Day, and it started the connection between Armistice Day and poppies. In 1919, an American poet named Moina Michael wrote a poem in response to McCrae’s poem. She called her poem “We Shall Keep the Faith,” and in it she vowed to wear a red poppy in honor of those who died during World War I. Because of these two poets, poppies are now associated with Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, and Veterans Day.

My father was an avid gardener, and his favorite flowers to grow were poppies. He planted poppies all around the home were I grew up in the mountains of Colorado. My father was also a veteran. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War era. As we commemorate the service of our veterans, my thoughts turn to my father. He died on Thanksgiving nearly two years ago, but the poppies he planted live on. For John McCrae, the poppies in Flanders field represented the life spirit of his fallen friend. For me, the poppies that still grow in my Colorado home represent the most important veteran in my life—my father, Walter West.

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:

Nancy Gutierrez delivered her presidential address at the Annual Meeting of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences in San Antonio, Texas, on November 7. Titled “Storytelling and the Deanship,” her address explored the relationship between effective leadership and the ability to construct meaningful narratives.

Juan Meneses presented a paper titled “Divided and Doubled: The Modernist Character as Postcolonial Model” at the Modernist Studies Association conference in Pittsburgh.

Alan Rauch delivered a paper titled “Taking the ‘***perature’ of Interdisciplinary Studies: What Happened to the ‘TEM’ in STEM?” at the National Collegiate Honors Council Meeting, which took place in Denver.

Daniel Shealy presented the keynote address to open the “Concord and Abraham Lincoln Exhibit & Lecture Series” on November 7 at the Concord Free Public Library in Concord, MA. His presentation was “‘The pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart’: Abraham Lincoln and Concord’s Civil War.”

Lara Vetter served as invited respondent to a session titled “The Project of Digitizing the Texts of Modernist American Women Poets: Editing, Annotating, Re-evaluating, and the Pedagogy of Making It New” at the Modernist Studies Association conference on November 9, 2014.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here are some dates to keep in mind:

November 12 — On Wednesday, November 12, 12-4pm Sarah Minslow’s War and Genocide in Children’s Literature class is hosting “Be a Piece of Peace,” a rally for peace on the fields in front of Robinson Hall at the main entrance to campus from University City Boulevard. There will be live entertainment, trivia, face painting, book and poetry readings, crafts, and free food. Please stop by and encourage your students to stop by.

November 13th — The ELC is holding the second Engagement Seminar with Henry Doss this Thursday at 3:30 in the Fretwell Faculty Lounge.

Quirky Quiz Question — The English department includes veterans among the faculty. Can you name them?

Last Quirky Quiz answer – Bill O’Reilly

Democracy in America — As this year’s mid-term election process builds to its crescendo on Tuesday, I can’t help but reflect on how we conduct our elections. Our democracy seemed so pure in the civics books I read as a boy in school, but in real life our democratic elections are messy affairs. One of the first writers to take a serious look at how our democracy functions in real life was a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville. He traveled throughout America during the early 1830s, observing our elections and political processes. He wrote about his findings and observations in his now famous two-volume work titled Democracy in America, which came out in 1835 and 1840. In part because he did not grow up in America, he was able to take a clear-sighted view of the political contradictions and complexities inherent in our then fledgling democracy.

In a number of ways, Pilar Blitvich reminds me of Tocqueville. Like Tocqueville, Pilar grew up in Europe and has travelled widely. Just as Tocqueville did in his time, Pilar has taken a keen interest in the American political process. She has studied the inner workings of our elections, paying particular attention to how digital forms of communication shape our elections and political discourse. She has written several scholarly articles about the impact of YouTube on political campaigns. She has also conducted groundbreaking research on the aggressive language used on political television programs. However, unlike Tocqueville, Pilar is not just an observer of American democracy. She is a participant observer. Several years ago, Pilar became an American citizen, and she now eagerly casts her vote during our elections. In this regard, Pilar has one up on Tocqueville.

Explore — This past weekend, Aaron Toscano and Tiffany Morin served as ambassadors of English Department. I asked Aaron about the experience, and he sent me this statement: “Tiffany and I greeted prospective students at EXPLORE UNC Charlotte on Saturday. We had more prospective students come to our table than I ever remember, and, more importantly, I didn’t have skeptical parents in the background seemingly humoring their children by letting them talk to a Humanities Major. The parents were supportive.” My thanks go to Aaron and Tiffany for representing the English Department at this event.

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 and Mohamed Shehab (SIS) received a Mosaic grant this fall for a project called “Investigating Seniors’ Preferences for Receiving Information about Internet Security.”

Katrina Holmes, an English major, has been selected for membership in the Pinnacle Honor Society. Created in 1989 to recognize outstanding adult students (24 years of age or older), Pinnacle celebrates academically successful seniors and rising seniors who have displayed leadership and community engagement.

Quirky Quiz Question — While conducting her research on aggressive language used on political television programs, Pilar spent countless hours dissecting the language used by a regular host on Fox News. What is the name of the person whose language usage she studied?

Last Quirky Quiz answer – Rip Van Winkle

title: Monday Missive – October 20, 2014

Of Poetry and Flight — The opening of the art exhibit titled “Icarus: An Exploration of the Human Urge to Fly” and the Center City Literary Festival both took place this past weekend at UNC Charlotte Center City. I had the pleasure of viewing the exhibit, which is in the Projective Eye Gallery. The exhibit includes an image of the Wright brothers’ famous plane as well as many other examples of visual art in nearly every medium one could imagine. The exhibit also includes a poem by Chris Davis titled “Phaeton,” which deals with flight. Seeing Chris’s poem in the same gallery with an image of the Wright brothers’ plane got me thinking about the connections between the Wright brothers and poetry.

Most Americans know something about the key role the Wright brothers played in launching America into the era of mechanized flight, but the Wright brothers also played a pivotal role in launching the career of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the nation’s foremost African American poets. Orville Wright and Paul Laurence Dunbar were classmates at Ohio Central High School in Dayton, and they often studied together. Orville started a printing business while still in high school, and he was the first person to print Dunbar’s poems. He also printed a weekly newspaper Dunbar wrote and edited for six weeks. When Orville and Wilbur Wright started manufacturing bicycles, they gave one of their first bicycles to Dunbar. That bicycle still exists and is on exhibit at the Dunbar House. Orville Wright helped Dunbar find a publisher for his first collection of poetry, Oak and Ivy, in 1893. Over the years, the Wright brothers took every opportunity to promote their friend’s poetry. Dunbar died at the age of 33 in 1906, two years after the Wright brothers’ legendary first flight. The connection between the Wright brothers and Dunbar lives on, however, at Wright State University in Dayton. The library at this university is called the Dunbar Library in honor of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

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’s co-edited book titled Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis: Intersections and Challenges has been awarded the 2014 Edward B. Fry Book Award by the Literacy Research Association.

Sonya Brockman presented a paper at the Sixteenth Century Conference in New Orleans this weekend titled “‘My falcon now is sharp’: Shakespeare, Falconry, and Femininity, or You Can’t Tame a Haggard.”

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here are some dates to keep in mind:

October 24 — The English Department meeting will take place in the Conference Room from 11:00-12:15.

October 24 — Undergraduate Committee has scheduled a brown bag meeting on online teaching for October 24 from 12:30 until 2:00PM in the conference room. The focus of this brown-bag will be online teaching.

October 24 — The EGSA’s Professional Day will take place in the Conference Room from 2:00-4:30. A reception at the Wine Vault will begin at 5:00.

Quirky Quiz Question — In addition to writing poetry, Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote several novels. His last and most important novel came out in 1902 and is one of the first works of African American literature set in Harlem. What is the title of this novel?

Last week’s answer – The Ice Age

Columbus Day — I remember learning about Christopher Columbus in fourth grade. He was presented to us as a great hero who discovered the New World and helped introduce civilization to the Indians. Some years later, I learned more about the devastating impact that Columbus and his fellow European explorers had on Native Americans, so I understand why Columbus Day is such a problematic holiday. There is now a movement to discontinue celebrating Columbus Day and replace it with an Indigenous People’s Day or Native Americans Day. I support the movement to set aside a day to recognize and celebrate Native Americans, but I think that Columbus Day also provides an opportunity to reflect on the significance of the immigration process on the history of America.

I am a descendant of immigrants from Poland (on my father’s side) and Sweden (on my mother’s side) who came to the United States via Ellis Island in the early 20th century, so when I think of the immigration process I automatically bring up associations with Ellis Island. In 1954, Ellis Island closed, and it is now an historic site, but that does not mean that immigration has come to an end. Immigrants continue to arrive in the United States, many from Latin America, and they continue to shape our culture and language.

Ellis Island

Two recently published books by English faculty members provide keen insights into the current immigration process in terms of both culture and language. Maya Socolovsky’s Troubling Nationhood in U.S. Latina Literature: Exploration of Place and Belonging (Rutgers University press, 2013) explores how a number of contemporary Latina writers from Mexican American, Puerto Rican and Cuban American backgrounds respond to the concept of nationhood in their writings. As Maya argues in her book, these writers are redrawing the cultural map of the United States so that it reflects a broader, more Pan-American vision of the United States. Elizabeth Miller’s The Language of Adult Immigrants: Agency in the Making (Multilingual Matters, 2014) examines the connection between power dynamics and second-language acquisition in the lives of recent immigrants. As Liz makes clear in her book, these recent immigrants see the learning of English as being associated with the political and social dimensions of their lives.

Christopher Columbus never settled in America, but he played a role in one of the most significant population shifts in human history. On this Columbus Day, I think it makes sense to take a “big picture” view of the impact of immigration in the history of America. I am very pleased that several of our colleagues are already contributing to our understanding of this important aspect the American experience.

Student Engagement — The upcoming Center City Literary Festival takes place this Friday and Saturday, and I am happy to report that all four of the English Department’s student organizations have stepped forward to help. Students from the English Learning Community, Sigma Tau Delta, the English Graduate Student Association, and the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization have volunteered their time to help with this festival. I feel fortunate that we have such engaged students associated with the English Department. For more information about the festival, see attached flyer.

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:

Laura Eason, an English major, has been named to CLAS-ACT, which is an undergraduate student advisory council for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Sarah Minslow presented a paper titled “Offering a Place to Stay: Academic Advisors at the Center for First Generation College Students’ Experiences” at the NACADA (National Academic Advisor Association) conference in Minneapolis. She co-wrote the paper with Pamela Richardson-Nowak.

Alan Rauch recently gave a paper titled “The Urban Squirrel” as part of the session “Humans and Other Animals” (which he chaired) at the 28th Annual meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts in Dallas.

Aaron Toscano recently presented a paper titled “Video Games and Aggressive Word-Play: Media Sensationalism on the Effects of Playing Violent Video Games” at the Popular Culture Association of the South/American Culture Association of the South Conference in New Orleans.

Quirky Quiz Question — Christopher Columbus is credited with introducing horses to North America during his second voyage to America, which took place in 1493. In reality, however, horses evolved in North America, and they populated much of the continent during the Pleistocene Epoch. Some of them moved to Eurasia when there was a land bridge between the two contents. Horses eventually went extinct in North America, but they thrived in Eurasia. What caused this land bridge to appear and then disappear?

Last week’s answer: The Jewish Daily Forward