Monday Missive - October 23, 2017

October 24, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

 

Lending a Helping Hand — The spirit of volunteerism and a commitment to community engagement often go hand in hand.  This pairing was clearly the case earlier this month when a group of students from the English Learning Community (ELC) volunteered at the 6th Annual Charlotte Literary Festival at the Little Rock Cultural Center.  Janaka Lewis helped organize this community event, and she contacted Tiffany Morin, the coordinator of the ELC, to see if any of the ELC students would be interested in volunteering.  Not only did a group of these students agree to volunteer, but they showed up early in the morning to help set up for the event and assist the featured authors with their tables.  A group of ELC students will also help out with the upcoming EpicFest, the public library’s children’s literature/literacy festival that will take place at ImaginOn on November 4. This year’s EpicFest will include a “teen night,” and the ELC volunteers will be helping with this aspect of the festival.  For more information about EpicFest, please click on the following link:  https://foundation.cmlibrary.org/epicfest-2017

Our students are not the only ones who are getting into the volunteer spirit these days.  The members of our staff are also volunteering their time to help others.  Jennie Mussington recently volunteered at the Second Harvest Food Bank and the Crisis Assistance Ministry, and later this week she is scheduled to volunteer with Friendship Trays.  Angie Williams volunteered at the Staff Fall Festival last week, and she’s scheduled to volunteer for Verse and Vino, the major fundraising event for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library.

As these examples demonstrate, the willingness to lend a helping hand, which is a characteristic of our departmental culture, extends well beyond the confines of our department.

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 recently published a a co-authored article titled “Perceptions of U.S. Veterans Affairs and Community Healthcare Providers Regarding Cross-System Care for Heart Failure” in Chronic Illness.

Allison Hutchcraft recently gave a reading at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro as part of an event organized by the North Carolina Arts Council.

Janaka Lewis recently had a chapter titled “Brown Girls in the Ivory Tower:  Reflections on Race, Gender, and Coming of Age in Academia” published in Coping With Gender Inequities:  Critical Conversations of Women Faculty (Thompson and Parry, eds., Rowman & Littlefield 2017).

Consuelo Salas recently presented a paper titled “Undergraduate FYW Program Philosophy: Foundation of an Independent Department” at the Association of Rhetoric and Writing Studies, which took place in El Paso, Texas

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about upcoming events.

Oct. 27 — Sigma Tau Delta and the Early Modern Paleography Society are sponsoring  their “Haunted English Department Takeover” on Friday, October 27, from 4-7 p.m.

Nov. 14 — The Personally Speaking presentation featuring Paula Eckard will take place on Tuesday, November 14, 2017, at UNC Charlotte Center City.  Paula’s presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m.  A book signing and reception will follow her presentation. For more information and to RSVP, please click on the following link:  https://exchange.uncc.edu/personally-speaking-looks-at-lostness-through-the-eyes-of-children/

Quirky Quiz Question — The upcoming EpicFest will take place at ImaginOn.  This unique facility is jointly operated by two cultural organizations in Charlotte.  Can you identify these two cultural organizations?

Last week’s answer: The Old Kentucky Home

Thomas Wolfe grew up in his mother’s boarding house in Asheville, North Carolina.  Does anybody know the name of this boarding house at the time that Wolfe lived there? 

Monday Missive - October 16, 2017

October 16, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

 

Thomas Wolfe Moves In — Paula Eckard will be talking about her book Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature as part of the Personally Speaking Series on November 14, 2017.  In the lead up to her presentation, we have just installed an exhibit on Thomas Wolfe in the main lobby of the English Department.  Among the items included in the exhibit are copies of Wolfe’s books, recent issues of the Thomas Wolfe Review (edited by Paula), samples of Wolfe’s handwriting, a portrait of Wolfe, and an image of his mother’s boarding house in Asheville where he grew up during the early years of the twentieth century.  The items on exhibit are from Paula’s personal collection of Wolfe material.

The exhibit case has its own story.  Alan Rauch acquired the case from a Macy Department store that closed over the summer.   He brought it to the English Department, but the case clearly needed to be refurbished.  Angie Williams contacted Chris Shores from Facilities Management, and he repaired the base of the exhibit case and painted the case’s exterior sides.  Our current Wolfe exhibit marks the debut of our newly refurbished departmental display case.

I urge everyone to check out the Wolfe exhibit and attend Paula’s presentation.  Her Personally Speaking presentation will take place on Tuesday, November 14, 2017, at UNC Charlotte Center City.  Paula’s presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m.  A book signing and reception will follow her presentation. For more information and to RSVP, please click on the following link:  https://exchange.uncc.edu/personally-speaking-looks-at-lostness-through-the-eyes-of-children/

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:

Chris Arvidson‘s co-edited collection titled The Love of Baseball:  Essays by Lifelong Fans was recently featured in Inside UNC Charlotte.  Here is the link:  https://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2017-10-13/fall-classic-%E2%80%94-essayists-contribute-tribute-baseball

Bryn Chancellor this past weekend was an invited author at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, where she was part of the panel “A Reckoning: Novels of Unresolved Pasts” and the Authors in the Round fundraiser. She also recently was an invited speaker at the Hoover Public Library Write Club in Hoover, AL, and she gave readings at the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts and Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh as part of the North Carolina Arts Council fellowship reading series.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about upcoming meetings and events.

Oct. 20 — The English Department meeting will take place on October 20 from 11:00 to 12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

Oct. 20 — The English Learning Community will hold its annual Faculty Meet and Greet on October 20 at 12:30 (immediately after the department meeting) and the faculty/staff lounge.

Oct. 20 — Ralf Thiede will give a faculty talk titled “Managing Language:  Children’s Literature, Brain Development, and Language Acquisition” on October 20 from 1:00 to 2:00 in the Seminar Room (Fretwell 290B).

Quirky Quiz Question — Thomas Wolfe grew up in his mother’s boarding house in Asheville, North Carolina.  Does anybody know the name of this boarding house at the time that Wolfe lived there?

Last week’s answer: As You Like It

What is the title of Shakespeare’s play that includes the line “All the world’s a stage”?

Monday Missive - October 9, 2017

October 09, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

 

 

 

 

All the World’s Our Stage — The 42nd Annual UNC Charlotte International Festival will take place on Saturday, October 14, at 10:00 a.m. in the in the Barnhardt Student Activity Center.  For more information about this festival, please click on the following link: http://ifest.uncc.edu  As I checked out the information about this festival, I was reminded about the English Department’s many global connections.

A very recent example of the department’s global orientation is the successful fundraiser that many of our students held last Thursday for the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  Students from the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization (CLGO), the English Graduate Association (EGSA), the English Learning Community (ELC), the Gen-X Learning Community (from the Women’s and Gender Studies Program), and Sigma Tau Delta (the English Honor Society) raised nearly $1,000 to help desperate people who, though American citizens, live almost 1,500 miles away in a place far different from Charlotte.

Another way in which the members of our English Department play on a global stage is by conducting research that crosses national boundaries.  The word international begins with the prefix inter-, which is associated with the words between, among, together, mutually and reciprocally. Many members of our department study how language and literature take on new qualities when evolving within the liminal spaces between and among nations.  I could mention numerous examples, but I will limit myself today to the scholarship of four faculty members whose research deals with the cultural interplay among nations.

Jeffrey Leak’s most recent research focuses on Rosey E. Pool, a Jewish writer and editor who was born in Amsterdam in 1905 but went on to live in the U.K for much of her adult life.  Pool played an important role in promoting and publishing African American poets.  Jeffrey is particularly interested in Pool’s 1962 anthology, Beyond the Blues:  New Poems by American Negroes.  He is currently conducting research for an article on Pool’s work to bridge the differences between Europeans and Americans, Christians and Jews, and blacks and whites.

Juan Meneses’s research deals with twentieth- and twenty-first- century literature as well as visual studies from a global perspective.  In the book he is currently completing, titled Against Dialogue:  Post-Politics, Modern Anglophone Fiction, and the Future of Dissent, he examines a number of modernist, postmodernist, and contemporary novels from the English-speaking world for their capacity to reveal how dialogue is employed to eliminate disagreement.  The book focuses on some of the most prominent concerns of our time, such as cosmopolitanism, democracy, citizenship, race, and environmental violence.  This book, like most of his work as a scholar and teacher, explores how such cultural, political, and social issue manifest across the globe.

Liz Miller has a particular interest in second-language acquisition among recent immigrants to the United States.  Her past research with adult immigrants to the U.S. offers an indirect international perspective given that these individuals speak about their language learning experiences in the U.S. through the lens of their past histories in many different national contexts.  She addresses this topic in her monograph titled The Language of Adult Immigrants:  Agency in the Making as well as in numerous scholarly articles and book chapters.  Her current research with language teachers includes English teachers from the U.K. as well as in the U.S.

Maya Socolovsky’s research has long dealt with U.S. literatures about immigration, migration, and ethnicity, so it all deals with issues of biculturalism, bilingualism, border crossings and questions of assimilation/foreignness in the U.S.. In particular she has worked on Dominican, Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican literature written in the U.S. and focused on how nationhood and belonging are expressed. She is currently looking at U.S. Latino/a children’s literature that depicts the border and migration, and raises questions about the ethics of borders and immigration in general.

As the aforementioned examples indicate, many members of our English Department are also players on a far larger stage.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, all the world’s our stage (and that’s how we like it).

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 recently published a co-authored article titled “Views on Ageing in Place from Relocated Low‑income Housing Residents in the US” in the Journal of Nursing Older People 29 (8), 28-32. https://journals.rcni.com/nursing-older-people.  She also co-authored a conference paper titled “Searching for Shared Decision Making in the Talk of Diabetes Primary Care Visits:  A Mixed Methods Study,” which was recently presented in Baltimore at the 15th International Conference on Communication in Healthcare.  Moreover, she just received a formal invitation to join the Australian National University’s Institute for Communication in Health Care.

Alan Rauch was recently quoted in a Charlotte Observer article about the relationship between humans and dogs:  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article176687566.html

Aaron Toscano recently presented a paper titled “Doing Their Supplemental Part: World War I Propaganda and the Female Workplace” at the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, which took place in Dayton, Ohio.

Heather Vorhies recently presented a paper titled “Finding Feminist Theory in Folk Medical Communication of the Early American Republic” at the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, which took place in Dayton, Ohio.

Quirky Quiz Question —  What is the title of Shakespeare’s play that includes the line “All the world’s a stage”?

Last week’s answer: American Library Association
What national organization sponsors the annual Banned Books Week?

Monday Missive - October 2, 2017

October 04, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

 

CLGO Organizes Banned Books Week Events —  The members of the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization (CLGO) organized a series of events related to the annual Banned Books Week, which took place this year from September 24 through September 30.  At the beginning of the week, CLGO set up special displays in the Atkins Library to spread the word about Banned Books Week.

On Tuesday, CLGO hosted their traditional banned books tea party. They served tea, coffee, and sweet pastries, and they dressed up as characters from banned books. Co-president Amy Arnott dressed up as Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, co-president Laura Burgess dressed up as Dorothy Gale from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, vice president Katherine Tallent dressed up as Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, secretary Melissa LaFrate dressed up as the Grand High Witch from The Witches, and treasurer Russ Winfrey dressed up as Holden Caufield from The Catcher in the Rye. Over 30 students came to drink tea with these characters and informally discuss banned books.

On Thursday, CLGO held a round table event called “The Most Dangerous Books.” This event featured Paula Connolly and Sarah Minslow who led a discussion about censorship, free speech, hate speech, and the controversies related to the treatment of race and sexuality in children’s literature.

Our Honors Students Participate in North Carolina Honors Association Conference — UNC Charlotte hosted the North Carolina Honors Association Conference on September 29-30.  At this conference, six out of the total 47 presentations were by our English honors students.

Nicole Kaufman presented on “Race, Gender, and Publishing:  Policing Public Perception in Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road.”  Shelby LeClair gave a presentation titled “Serious Matters:  How Humor Functions in Young Adult Literature about the Holocaust.”  Chelsea Moore delivered a presentation titled “A Country that Hath yet her Maidenhead:  Representations of Landscapes as Female Bodies in Spenser’s The Faerie Queen and A View of the Present State of Ireland.”  Susanna Parkhill gave a presentation titled “Eye Contact Across Gender and Culture.”  Nephdarlie Saint-Syr presented on “The Construction of Minority Identities in Video Games,” and Brianna Thurman presented on “Bell Jars, Physics, and Jumping Off Cliffs:  An Exploration of Adolescent Depression in the Coming of Age Novel.”  For more information about this conference, please click on the following link:   http://nchaconference.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/2/7/102793204/ncha_program__1_.pdf

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:

Meghan Barnes recently published two articles.  One is titled “Conflicting Conceptions of Care and Teaching and Pre-Service Teacher Attrition,” which came out in Teacher Education.  The other is titled “Practicing What We Preach in Teacher Education:  A Critical Whiteness Studies Analysis of Experimental Education,” which appeared in Studying Teacher Education.

Consuelo Salas recently published a book chapter titled “Unlikely Dinner Guests: Inviting ‘Everyday’ People to the Table of Visual Imagery.” It was published in Anita August’s edited collection, Visual Imagery, Metadata, and Multimodal Literacies Across the Curriculum.

Maya Socolovsky recently published an article titled “Text, Terrain, and Temporality: Re-exploring Judaism in Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector” in Studies in American Jewish Literature.

Quirky Quiz Question —  What national organization sponsors the annual Banned Books Week?

Last week’s answer: Gringotts

One of the rides at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter takes visitors on a wild ride into the underground vaults beneath a bank.  What is the name of this bank?

Monday Missive - September 26, 2017 (a day late)

September 27, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Narratives Are Us — I have a longstanding interest in story-based amusement parks and literary playgrounds, so it was with great anticipation that I visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter this past weekend. One of the star attractions of Universal Orlando, this totally immersive world truly provides visitors with a sense that they have somehow magically entered the pages of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. My wife, son, and I are all great admirers of Rowling’s fantasy books as well as the movies based on the books. For us, exploring this world brought back memories of reading the books aloud as a family. I think that for many Harry Potter fans, playing in this world augments the experience of reading Rowling’s books. Visitors feel as if they are actually attending Hogwarts or shopping for wands in Diagon Alley, or riding Hogwarts Express. After we explored the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we spent an hour checking out Seuss Landing, which is devoted to the Dr. Seuss’s books. The architecture and rides in this part of the park look like three-dimensional Seuss illustrations with their bold colors, curvy lines and whimsical representations of real-world objects.

I am currently working on a book about how narrative elements are embedded in such places. I am also interested in how interacting with and in these places is like playing in stories. As I see it, my research on this topic relates to the ever-expanding field of narrative studies.

I am by no means the only person in our English Department who is pushing the boundaries of narrative studies. Balaka Basu is currently doing research on how Harry Potter fans respond in creative ways to Rowling’s narratives.

Pilar Blitvich is interested in how aggressive language comes into play in the narratives that are presented on reality television programs.

Jen Munroe is conducting research in the ways in which women from the early modern period told narratives about their lives through the writing of recipes.

Greg Wickliff is studying the ways that 19th-century scientists used photographs to help tell scientific narratives. As these few examples indicate, narrative studies has become one of pillars of our English Department.

It was 20 years ago today [plus ten] Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play — My wife and I got married exactly thirty years ago today. I remember inviting every person in the English Department to the wedding. Almost everybody showed that Saturday morning and wished us well as we set out for our honeymoon adventure in San Francisco. There are just a few people who were in the department then who are still in the department today, but many things have not changed. Nancy and I (and Gavin) still enjoy having adventures together, and we still feel that that interaction with members of the English Department is an important thread woven through our lives.

Quirky Quiz Question — One of the rides at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter takes visitors on a wild ride into the underground vaults beneath a bank. What is the name of this bank?

Last week’s answer: textile mill
Bookout Blooms is located in Atherton Market. Does anybody know the original purpose of this facility before it became a market?

Monday Missive - September 18, 2017

September 18, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

3 Under 30 — The website Charlotte Agenda recently ran an article titled “30 Under 30”  in which they featured thirty young people who are making a difference in the Charlotte community.  Inside UNC Charlotte picked up this story and noted that of the people featured in the article six graduated from UNC Charlotte, including one who majored in English.  For more information, please click on the following link:  http://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2017-09-11/alums-make-%E2%80%9930-under-30%E2%80%99-list In response to this article, I decided to celebrate the accomplishments of three young people who recently received degrees from our English Department.

Ashley Pittman Bookout is the English major who is included in Charlotte Agenda’s “30 Under 30.”   Ashley graduated in 2011 after which she worked in corporate Charlotte for a few years.  However, Ashley’s long-time love of flowers and flower arranging, combined with her entrepreneurial spirit, led her to found Bookout Blooms in the fall of 2015.  Located in Atherton Market in the Southend, Bookout Blooms is already recognized as one of Charlotte’s premier florists.  According to Paul Redd (another one of our former students), “This is the best florist in Charlotte. Hands down! Ashley has done the flowers for my daughter’s celebrations, my grandmother’s funeral, and everything in between. I will continue to support these fine people. Plus you get to see her smiling face when you go to pick them up at Atherton Market.”

Peter Fields received both his BA (2015) and MA (2017) in English from our department.  Peter is now working as an outdoor educator in Florissant, Colorado.  In a recent email that Peter sent to me, he wrote, “Teaching on the trail at High Trails Outdoor Education Center has been one of the most unique, stimulating and fulfilling experiences of my life.  Each lesson requires a different approach, and the variety of material covered has far exceeded expectations.  My time learning under the English Department’s wonderful professors has undoubtedly contributed to my preparedness as an instructor and provided examples of how to bring out the inquisitive nature in students.”

Mark Taylor received both his BA (2011) and MA (2014) in English from our department, where he specialized in Technical and Professional Writing.  Since 2015, he has worked for IMPLAN Group a global software company headquartered in Huntersville.  Mark currently has the title of Applied Support Economist.  In this role, he analyzes economic impact data and modeling to governments, universities, and public and private sector organizations for assessing the economic impacts of project decisions in all industry sectors.  Mark will be one of our featured speakers at our upcoming Major’s Day, which will take place on October 23.

As these brief profiles indicate, our English majors go on to pursue a wide variety of careers.  So what can you do with an English major?  The correct answer is just about anything.

English Learning Community News — The English Learning Community has put up their new bulletin board. ELC Peer mentors Bethany Hyder and MaKalea Bjoin have designed something a little different this year, giving it an Alice in Wonderland theme as well as making it a bit more interactive. In addition to seeing pictures and learning about the individual members, you can also leave them little notes of encouragement. Please stop by and learn a bit more about the newest members of our department. Let’s make them feel like a part of our department. Please let Tiffany Morin know if there is any events coming up that the ELC can be involved with.

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:

Ron Lunsford (and Christopher Daniel Lunsford) delivered a paper titled “Insurance Claims and Denials: Insights Provided by Rhetorical Genre Theory” at the third biennial meeting of The Symposium on the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine, Sept 14-15, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Quirky Quiz Question —  Bookout Blooms is located in Atherton Market.  Does anybody know the original purpose of this facility before it became a market?

Last week’s answer: 1989
I remember well when Hurricane Hugo hit Charlotte?  Does anybody remember what year Hugo came to town?

Monday Missive - September 11, 2017

September 11, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

The English Department Has Received a Grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council — I am pleased to announce that the English Department has just been awarded one of the North Carolina’s Humanities Council’s “Large Grants” to support a series of community events around the theme of “The Child Character in Southern Literature and Film.” This $20,000 grant will make it possible for the English Department to bring several authors to Charlotte, engage in collaborative literacy projects with area educational organizations and programs, and co-sponsor a film series with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library. Sarah Minslow and I co-wrote the grant proposal with valuable input from Paula Eckard and Sam Shapiro.

As I see it, this project is part of the English Department’s larger commitment to engage with the Charlotte community. Our department has a long record of sponsoring or co-sponsoring cultural and educational events that are open to everyone in the Charlotte area. These events include the Center City Literary Festival, the Shakespeare in Action’s lectures and performances, and the annual Seuss-a-Thon.

As I reflect on our record of community engagement, I have a sense that we are truly of the city for which our university is named. The official name of our institution is the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, but when it comes to the English Department, I think it might be more accurate to say that we are of Charlotte, not just at Charlotte.

Reflecting on Hurricanes — Like most everyone else, I have been closely following the distressing news about hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Perhaps more than any other meteorological event, hurricanes command our attention. Not only are they amazingly powerful and destructive, but they seem almost sentient as they relentlessly advance toward land. It is no wonder to me that we give them human names and anthropomorphize their behavior. One gets a sense that they are indeed hellbent on destruction. Even after they die, hurricanes continue to haunt us. They transform lives and communities, and in the process, they resurrect themselves in the form of stories.

JuliAnna Ávila and Paula Connolly have turned their attention to hurricane stories, in particular stories related to Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, JuliAnna moved to Louisiana, where she worked with children displaced by the hurricane. One of the ways in which JuliAnna helped these children deal with the trauma in their lives was by creating opportunities for them to create stories about their experiences. JuliAnna wrote about this work in several articles. She also maintains a website with some of the then-young Katrina survivors’ stories as an ongoing tribute to them: storyagainstsilence.org Paula has studied children’s books that deal with Katrina. She published her findings in an article titled “Surviving the Storm: Trauma and Recovery in Children’s Books about Natural Disasters,” which appeared in Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature.

I have no doubt that hurricanes Harvey and Irma will generate their own stories in the coming years, but for now I am just hoping that the loss of life will be minimal, and we can all pull together to help with the recovery.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of an upcoming meeting that will take place this month:

-English Department Mtg Friday, Sept. 15 11-12:15pm
Fretwell 280C (English Department Conference Room)

Quirky Quiz Question — I remember well when Hurricane Hugo hit Charlotte? Does anybody remember what year Hugo came to town?

Last week’s answer: New York Public Library

The animal characters in Winnie-the-Pooh are based on toy animals that A. A. Milne’s son (Cristopher Robin) played with during his childhood.  These toys are now on display in a public library.  In what city is this library display located?

Monday Missive - September 4, 2017

September 05, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

 

Working and Making — When I think about the meaning of Labor Day, I think about the meaning of work in our daily lives.  One of the most memorable books I have ever read on the meaning of work is Studs Terkel’s Working:  People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.  I read this collection of oral history interviews when it first came out in 1974.  I was an undergraduate student at the time, and I read it for one of my classes.

Many of the people featured in this book felt alienated from their jobs, but others took great satisfaction from their work.  A pattern that I noticed is that people who made things or who exercised creativity as part of their jobs tended to feel positively about their work.  The stonemason who was interviewed, for example, stood out for me as a person who found great meaning in his work.  I just re-read this interview, and it still resonates deeply with me.  I especially like what he had to say about the pride he took in the stone buildings he helped create: “I can see what I did the first day I started.  All my work is set right out there in the open, and I can look at it as I go by.  It’s something I can see the rest of my life. … That’s the work of my hands.”

The satisfaction that comes from making things is a pleasure that many contemporary Americans do not experience in their jobs.  However, for those of us who live in the Charlotte region, Labor Day presents us with an opportunity to make something and, in the words of the stonemason, “set it out there in the open.”  This opportunity is Yard Art Day, an annual community event founded and organized by Deborah Triplett.  As she explains on her website, “Yard Art Day is a grassroots arts exhibition, curated by the community for the community.  The annual Labor Day event is for anyone and all to celebrate their creative spirit by displaying or performing their works of art in their front yard for the public.”

I always participate in Yard Art Day.  This year  I created a scene from Winnie-the-Pooh in which Owl is standing at his front door.  I carved Owl from a piece of pecan wood, and built his porch much as it is depicted in the book, complete with Eeyore’s missing tail.  So that’s what I did on this Labor Day weekend.  Whatever you have done this weekend, I hope you have made the most of it.  http://www.yardartday.org/yad-2017-highlights/

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 is the recipient of a 2017-18 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship in the categories of literature, musical composition, and songwriting; she is among nineteen recipients from across the state. https://www.ncarts.org/meet–2017-nc-arts-council%E2%80%99s-artist-fellowship-recipients

Allison Hutchcraft  is the recipient of a 2017-18 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship in the categories of literature, musical composition, and songwriting; she is among nineteen recipients from across the state. https://www.ncarts.org/meet-2017-nc-arts-council%E2%80%99s-artist-fellowship-recipients

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:

–Provost’s Awards Reception    Tuesday, September 5       
3:30-5:00 pm  Halton Reading Room, Atkins Library

–Bank of America Award Reception and Dinner   Friday, September 8
6:00 pm  Hilton Charlotte Center City

Quirky Quiz Question —  The animal characters in Winnie-the-Pooh are based on toy animals that A. A. Milne’s son (Cristopher Robin) played with during his childhood.  These toys are now on display in a public library.  In what city is this library display located?

Last week’s answer: Windex
In addition to being interested in the ancient Greeks, the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a peculiar obsession with a particular product.  What is this product?

Monday Missive - August 28, 2017

August 28, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

Laz Varnas and the Origins of Our Linguistics Program — If you have ever watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ll likely remember that the father in this film always traces the origins of practically everything back to the ancient Greeks.  He is very proud of his Greek heritage and takes every opportunity to share his passion for all things Greek.  In some ways, Laz Varnas, the first linguist in our English Department, reminds me of the father from this film.

When I first joined our department in the fall of 1984, Laz stopped by my office and said that he had heard that I had moved into Dilworth.  I said that this was true.  He then told me all about the upcoming Yiasou Greek Festival sponsored by the the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, which he informed me was right in the middle of Dilworth.  He let me know that he belonged to this church, and that the festival was their big community outreach event.  Well, I have gone to the Greek Festival every year since then.  The 40th Annual Yiasou Greek Festival will take place this year from September 7–10.  I will be there and (as always) Laz will cross my mind as I enjoy the Greek food, music, and dance.

Lazaros Anastasios Varnas joined our English Department in the mid-1960s and immediately set about developing our linguistics program.  One of Laz’s first students was Ron Lunsford, and Ron traces his professional interest in linguistics back to courses that he took from Laz.  In addition to creating the department’s first linguistics courses, Laz advocated for the hiring of additional faculty members in this area.  He succeeded in this endeavor, and soon our own Boyd Davis joined Laz.  I recently contacted Boyd and asked her to share with me her memories of Laz and the origins of our linguistics program.  Here are her comments:

Laz was our first linguist, hired by Dr Bob Wallace not long after he completed his dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania on the phonology and morphology of the Parker Chronicle (DA 26.3322, 1965).  Before arriving here, he taught at the University of Michigan, where he was working on the Middle English Dictionary, was promoted from Instructor to Assistant Professor in 1965 after completing the dissertation, and that may have been when he joined the department.  He was married to Athenais (who had an MA in Old French from UNC Charlotte) and they had twin sons who attended UNC Charlotte. He was deeply involved with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral on East Boulevard.  Shy and modest as he was, Laz had connections with most of the Greek restaurateurs through the Cathedral, and was able to talk many of them into establishing prizes in language for our English undergraduate majors and later, our graduate students, setting both the precedent and the bar. My interview in summer 1969 was at the Amber House, a really good steak and Greek potatoes restaurant on 49, and I began as an instructor in 1970. Jim Hedges came a couple of years later: James Stoy Hedges. His Midwestern training was, like Ron Lunsford’s, partly in linguistics and partly in comp theory, and he adored folklore, so among the three of of us – this was prior to Ron’s return to the department – we developed courses in all three areas (I remember I developed the Intro to Tech Writing with campus-wide projects which let us push for new hires there, as well as Language & Culture and Language Acquisition; Jim developed most of the comp/rhetoric courses and its sequence plus Syntax; Laz did History of English, Chaucer, and we all shared Intro to English Linguistics).  We were overflowing with students and were able to make a case to hire – and that was Ralf.

Like Boyd, Ralf worked closely with Laz until Laz’s retirement in 1995.  Ralf took it upon himself to organize a special event to honor Laz’s long career.  I contacted Ralf and asked him to share his memories of this event and of Laz’s career.  Here are his comments:

I did indeed organize a special session in honor of Laz at the SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL); it was in 1995 at the University of Georgia, Athens.  Laz’s concluding remarks were improvised and unnecessarily self-deprecatory.  Laz was working on a book manuscript at the time in the spirit and style of Robert Lado on transfer interference for native Greek speakers of English.  He gave me five or six chapters to critique after he retired, which I did, but I suspect they are stored somewhere in a box now.  I also recall he was working on ancient Greek and Hebrew reflected in Anglo-Saxon writing, and boy do I wish I had that manuscript now.  Laz had the only typewriter I have ever seen in my life with Anglo-Saxon characters on it.  He had it specially made for him, I think.  He also had a roll-out map of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which now resides in my office and will do duty again next Spring, when I teach a Medieval Literature survey.  One thing that could be mentioned is that Laz was the faculty member who organized the library purchases for the department, which is probably a major factor in why Atkins has such a fine collection of old and facsimile English grammar books going back to the 16th century.

Laz still lives in Charlotte.  He is in his late 80s, and it has been many years since he last visited our department.  We, however, should remember Laz, for he was one of the pioneers of the English Department, and he played a key role in building our internationally known program in linguistics.

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:

Valerie Bright published an interview titled “Speaking as a Southern Picture Book Author:  An Interview with Gail E. Haley” in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of The Southern Quarterly.  

Paula Eckard published an article titled “Lost Children in Southern Literature” in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of The Southern Quarterly.

Anita Moss contributed an essay on Willie Morris’s My Dog Skip as part of a collaborative article titled “Childhood in the New South as Reflected in Children’s Literature:  A Forum.”  This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of The Southern Quarterly.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:

–Provost’s Awards Reception    Tuesday, September 5 

3:30-5:00 pm  Halton Reading Room, Atkins Library

–Bank of America Award Reception and Dinner   Friday, September 8  

 6:00 pm Hilton Charlotte Center City

Quirky Quiz Question —  In addition to being interested in the ancient Greeks, the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a peculiar obsession with a particular product.  What is this product?

Last week’s answer: Ron Lunsford

The first time that the English Department was the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching was in 1995-1996.  Who was the chair of the English Department at that time?

Monday Missive - August 21, 2017

August 21, 2017 by Mark West
Categories: Monday Missive

“Wall of Fame”

Excellence in Teaching — Whenever I talk about the English Department to candidates or other people who are interested in our department, I mention that our faculty members take teaching very seriously.  We do not all teach in the same way, but we are all committed to sharing our specialized knowledge and insights with our students.  We all do our best to cultivate our students’ skills as readers, writers, and critical thinkers.  I believe that we always strive for teaching excellence, so I take great satisfaction when the larger university recognizes our excellent teaching.  Over the years, such recognition has come our way on many occasions.  For evidence, one simply needs to look at the many plaques and certificates related to teaching on display on the English Department’s Wall of Fame.  This year, the larger university is again recognizing the excellent teaching that takes place in our department.

The English Department is the recipient of the 2016-2017 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.  According to the official description of this award, “The Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching is granted to an academic department, program, or unit in recognition of the collective responsibility of faculty members for maintaining high-quality teaching.  The award is intended to recognize documented efforts that improve student learning and outcomes.”  The English Department also received this award in 1995-1996, making our department one of only three departments to receive this award twice.

Also this semester, Kirk Melnikoff is being honored as a finalist for the Bank of America Award for Teaching Excellence.  The award ceremony will take place on September 8, 2017, at which point we will learn if Kirk won this award.  However, being named a finalist for this award is itself an honor.  Kirk joins a long list of English faculty members who are recipients or finalists for this award. Listed below are the names of the various English professors who have received this award or who have been named finalists:

1968:  Seth H. Ellis (Recipient)
1969:  Roy C. Moose (Recipient)
1976:  Anne R. Newman (Recipient)
1977:  Boyd H. Davis (Recipient)
1988:  Anita W. Moss (Recipient)
1993:  Samuel D. Watson (Recipient)
1995:  James H. McGavran (Finalist)
1997:  Margaret P. Morgan (Finalist)
1998:  Daniel L. Shealy (Finalist)
2001:  Sandra Y. Govan (Finalist)
2004:  David Amante (Finalist)
2006:  James H. McGavran (Recipient)
2008:  Margaret P. Morgan (Recipient)

2013:  Mark I. West (Finalist)

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:

 

Henry Doss, who just joined our English Department as a part-time faculty member, is also a recording artist.  His recently released single titled “Just the Way” recently hit the #30 spot of the AMC National Top Hot 40 ratings.  For more information about this single, please click on the following link:  https://lamonrecords.com/henry-doss-releases-new-single-just-the-way-on-lamon-records/
 
Paula Eckard‘s book Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature has been nominated for the C. Hugh Holman Award.  This “annual award is for the best book of literary scholarship or literary criticism in the field of southern literature published during a given calendar year.”  For more information about this award, please click on the following link:
C. Hugh Holman Award

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:

–CLAS All Faculty Mtg    Friday, August 25       8:00-10:30am

 Fretwell 100

–English Department Mtg   Friday, August 25          11-12:15pm

Fretwell 290B (English Department Seminar Room)

Quirky Quiz Question —  The first time that the English Department was the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching was in 1995-1996.  Who was the chair of the English Department at that time?

Last week’s answer: The Prince and the Pauper
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is not the only novel that Mark Twain set in pre-industrial England.  He also used this setting in a novel dealing with switched identities.  Does anybody know the title of this novel?