A Community of Scholars — As a member of our English Department, I highly value the many opportunities I have to learn from my colleagues.  I often read scholarship by members of the department, and I always enjoy the discussions that I have with faculty members about their current research projects.  I also enjoy hearing scholarly presentations by members of our department, and I always learn from these presentations.  It is not often that I have the opportunity to hear three such presentations in the span of three days, but that is exactly what happened last week.

My cornucopia of presentations started on February 22 with Alan Rauch’s talk titled “Fantastic Beasts and Why You Find Them.”  Alan tied his talk to the traveling Harry Potter exhibit that the Atkins Library hosted last semester, but he talked about much more than the animals in the Harry Potter stories.  One of his points that stuck with me involved the ways in which we as humans project aspects of ourselves onto animals.

Two days after Alan’s talk, Jen Munroe gave a presentation titled “Shakespeare, Ecofeminism, and the Power of the Not-Yet-Known.”  Among the topics that Jen addressed was the portrayal of non-humans in Shakespeare’s plays.  As I listened to Jen’s talk, I began drawing connections between her talk and Alan’s talk.  I realized that both Jen and Alan had a lot to say about humans’ attitudes toward the natural world.

An hour after Jen’s talk, Maya Socolovsky gave the keynote speech at the 4th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium on Children’s Literature sponsored by the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization.  Titled “Running, Reading and Writing:  Material Literacies in Mexican American Children’s Picture Books,” Maya’s talk focused on a picture book about a girl from one of the indigenous groups in Mexico.  This girl is living in the United States, but she continues to embrace her native culture.  In her talk, Maya explained how this picture book captures the cultural and political tensions in this girl’s life as she faces a system that seeks to control rather than understand.  In some ways, Alan, Jen and Maya all touched on the issue of how many people from dominant cultures seek to control those who are defined as “other.”

The experience of attending these three faculty presentations last week underscored for me that we are much more than a collection of academics housed in the same building.  In a very real way, we share our research, we learn from one another, and we support one another in our research endeavors.  We are truly a community of scholars.

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 gave a co-authored poster/presentation titled “The Carolinas Conversations Collection: Pragmatic Spaces in Pauses, Prepositions and Reported Speech” at the Corpora for Aging, Language and Research 3, Freie Universität Berlin, 6 March 2017.

Sam Shapiro recently published a book review of George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo in the Charlotte Observer.

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

March 4 — The English Department and Park Road Books are co-sponsoring the annual Seuss-a-Thon on Saturday, March 4, from 11:00 to 3:00 at Park Road Books (4139 Park Road).  This event will involve people reading their favorite Dr. Seuss books aloud to children.

Quirky Quiz Question — In his presentation on “fantastic beasts,” Alan Rauch discussed a “real” fantastic animal that combines the bill of an aquatic bird with the body of a mammal.  As he explained, the first zoologists who examined specimens of this animal initially thought it was a hoax.  What is the name of this animal?

Last week’s answer: Who killed his neighbor’s dog.

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the central character is investigating a crime.  What is the crime that he is investigating?

A Curious Incident — About two weeks ago I received an email from Provost Joan Lorden regarding one of the plays sponsored by the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.    As she explained to me in her email, the Blumenthal had arranged to bring a touring production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to Charlotte, and they were looking for moderators to lead a discussion of the play after each performance.  The Provost asked if I would be willing to serve as one of the moderators, and I said yes.

This past Sunday evening I went to the play and then led the group discussion after the performance.  Afterwards, I reflected on the various ways that this experience related to my personal and professional life.  This play is based on a young-adult novel by Mark Haddon, and both the novel and the play are told from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old boy who has Asperger’s Syndrome.

My father had Asperger’s Syndrome, so much of the play resonates with my memories of my father.  Like the central character in the play, my father was brilliant in terms of certain academic subjects, but he had a great deal of trouble relating to people on an emotional basis.   In a way, I had a sense that this play was as much about my father’s troubled adolescence as it was about the experiences of the central character.

Experiencing this play also tied directly to my work as a children’s literature professor.  In fact, I directed Victoria White’s honors thesis last semester on the value of teaching the novel to high school students.  I was very pleased to see Victoria and another of our English honors students show up for the discussion after the performance.   Having two of our honors students participating in this discussion underscored for me the many ways in which our teaching and our community service interrelate.

Finally, this play, more so than the novel, relates to my longstanding research interest in narrative play.  At a key moment in the play, the central character works out his plans for a trip to London through the use of play objects, such as a train set and toy buildings.  For this character, manipulating these play objects helps him build a personal narrative that gives his life direction and meaning.

In the various roles that we play within the university, we tend to separate our personal life, our teaching, our community service , and our scholarship.   However, as my recent experience at the theater demonstrates, all of these aspects of our lives all come into play with one another.  As Shakespeare once said, the play’s the thing.

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 gave plenary presentation titled “English for Specific Purposes in Technology-Based Healthcare and Training” at the 2017 International Symposium on English Professional Communication and Instructional Technology, which took place at the National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences.

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

Feb. 22 — Alan Rauch will will give a presentation titled “Fantastic Beasts and Why You Find Them” on February 22, 2017, at 4:00 pm in the Halton Reading Room in the Atkins Library.  For more information on his talk, please click on the following link:  https://library.uncc.edu/FantasticBeastsEvent

Feb. 24 — The English Department meeting will take place on February 24 from 11:00 to 12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

Feb. 24 — Jennifer Munroe will give a faculty talk titled “Shakespeare, Ecofeminism, and the Power of the Not-Yet Known” on February 24 from 1:00 to 2:00 in the English Department Conference Room.

Feb. 24 — The Children’s Literature Graduate Organization (CLGO) is sponsoring a day-long conference of social issues in children’s and young adult literature on February 24from 10:00 to 3:00 in Cone 268.

Quirky Quiz Question — In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the central character is investigating a crime.  What is the crime that he is investigating?

Last week’s answer: Quicksilver

Evan Peters, the star of American Animals, played the role of a mutant in two recent X-Men movies.  Does anybody know the name of the character whom he played in these two films?

Lights, Camera, Action — Usually when I come to the university on the weekends, the Fretwell Building is pretty quiet, but not this past Saturday.  As I walked toward Fretwell on Saturday morning, I kept noticing temporary signs about “catering” and “crew meetings,” and I became curious about what was happening.  I entered Fretwell on the first level, and I suddenly realized that the building had been taken over by a large film crew.  There were “extras” everywhere I looked.  Along one wall a battery of make-up stations had been set up, and a half-dozen make-up artists were hard at work.  Caterers were busy preparing for lunch.  I walked by one of the classrooms, and a man called out to me and asked if I was one of the extras for a particular scene.  I should have said I was.

I eventually ran into a person from the university communications office, and he explained to me that the crew was filming two scenes for a film called American Animals, which stars Evan Peters and deals with a daring heist.  On Saturday they shot one scene in the Storrs Building and the other in the Schley R. Lyons Lecture Hall in Fretwell.

Although the Fretwell Building is not usually an actual film location, it is the home for courses on film taught by faculty members from the English Department.  Just this current semester, the English Department is offering five film-related courses.  Paula Connolly is teaching a course on Disney’s films.  Rebecca Cook (a new part-time faculty member who is also film producer) is teaching a course on the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.  Tony Jackson is teaching an introductory film class for the General Education Program.  Juan Meneses is teaching a course titled “Issue in Global Cinema,” and Tiffany Morin is teaching a course that deals with vampire films.   Given how much interest our students and faculty have in the field of film studies, I suppose that it is fitting that our building doubled as a makeshift movie set for a day.

Bill Brown Conference on Incarceration Across the Americas — English Honors Scholars Sara Eudy and Maria Lignos did a great job presenting original research (Sara from her Independent Study on black women and violence and Maria from her thesis on representations of slavery and childhood by black women writers) as part of the opening panel of the Bill Brown Conference on Incarceration Across the Americas, coordinated by Dr. Andrea Pitts of Philosophy and Latin American Studies and supported by the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics.  This conference took place at UNC Charlotte Center City on February 11, 2017.  Several interdisciplinary and international scholars commented on the strength of their work and presentations.  Janaka Lewis coordinated and was also part of the panel on “Black Women, Police Brutality, and State Violence.”  For more information about this conference, please click on the following link:  https://exchange.uncc.edu/event/2017-annual-bill-brown-conference-incarceration-across-the-americas/

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:

Liz Miller and several of her ENGL 6163 Language Acquisition students attended the TESOL / Applied Linguistics Graduate Students Conference hosted by East Carolina University and Greensboro College on Saturday, February 11.  Also, Liz has a chapter, “(In)convenient Fictions: Ideologies of Multilingual Competence as Resource for Recognizability,” in a recently published edited volume titled Diversity and Super-Diversity: Sociocultural Linguistic Perspectives, published by Georgetown University Press. http://press.georgetown.edu/book/languages/diversity-and-super-diversity
Jen Munroe and Kirk Melnikoff were recently interviewed about Shakespeare on Charlotte Community Radio.  Here is the link to the interview: http://charlottecommunityradio.org/2017/02/southern-wonder-feb-8th-shakespeare-with-professors-of-english-jennifer-munroe-kirk-melnikoff/

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

Feb. 13 — The Faculty/Staff performance of “Tales From Down There” will be on Monday, February 13 at 7pm in McKnight Hall. This performance will include appearances by the following people associated with the English Department: Janaka Lewis, Tiffany Morin, Angie Williams, Alison Walsh, and Shannon Bauerle. Advanced tickets can be purchased on-line at https://ecom.uncc.edu/C21561_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=147&SINGLESTORE=true or with CASH only at the door.

Feb. 22 — Alan Rauch will will give a presentation titled “Fantastic Beasts and Why You Find Them” on February 22, 2017, at 4:00 pm in the Halton Reading Room in the Atkins Library.  For more information on his talk, please click on the following link:  https://library.uncc.edu/FantasticBeastsEvent

Quirky Quiz Question — Evan Peters, the star of American Animals, played the role of a mutant in two recent X-Men movies.  Does anybody know the name of the character whom he played in these two films?

Last week’s answer: As part of America’s bicentennial celebration, Carter G. Woodson’s 50th Negro History Week became Black History Month by (Gerald) Fordian decree.  

Black History Month was officially recognized by the United States government in 1976 as part of a larger celebration of American history.  What was the name of this  national event celebrating American history? 

Celebrating Black History Month —  February is Black History Month (also known as African American History Month).  For the members of the English Department, the history of African Americans relates in significant ways to our research and teaching.  A perfect example of this relationship is Janaka Lewis’s current a research project on the history of girls’ play in African American communities.  When I contacted Janaka and asked her for more information about her research, she sent me the following description:

My current research project, “Freedom to Play,” looks at narratives of girlhood in African American literature (19th through 21st centuries) and the ways play is both embraced as a tool of liberation and means of negotiating identity and also used to restrict the spaces in which black girls are able to move.  Using authors that include Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison, I discuss narratives of games that mimic the roles that young girls are expected to embody as adults, stories that are passed down from elders, and lessons that are taught about and through play in formal and informal educational settings.  Along with scholarship about these narratives, my future goals are to create a black girlhood studies reader with excerpts of literary experiences in black girlhood (which I will design for a future course) and to incorporate the narratives as interactive experiences for a broad audience.

As the above description makes clear, Janaka’s current project connects in many ways to the various curricular and research areas that are encompassed within the English Department.  Her examination of works of African American literature supports our concentration in Literature and Culture as well as our minor in Diverse Literature and Cultural Studies.  Her focus on children’s play has direct connections to our minor in Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies.  Her emphasis on the history of African American girlhood contributes to the English Department’s long-time relationship with the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Her consideration of “lessons” and “educational settings” connects to our departmental commitment to English Education.   In other words, the research on African American history that Janaka and other members of our English Department do is integral to the work of the English 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:

Paula Eckard recently participated in a panel discussion on The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter sponsored by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, the Charlotte Film Society, and Charlotte Lit.

Janaka Lewis recently led a workshop on the book Hidden Figures with a group of middle school students from Hickory Ridge Middle School in Harrisburg.

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

Feb 13 – The Faculty/Staff performance of “Tales From Down There” will be on Monday, February 13 at 7pm in McKnight Hall. This performance will include appearances by the following people associated with the English Department: Janaka Lewis, Tiffany Morin, Angie Williams, Alison Walsh, and Shannon Bauerle. Advanced tickets can be purchased on-line at https://ecom.uncc.edu/C21561_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=147&SINGLESTORE=true or with cash only at the door.

Quirky Quiz Question — Black History Month was officially recognized by the United States government in 1976 as part of a larger celebration of American history.  What was the name of this  national event celebrating American history?

Last week’s answer: Ellis Island

Like many Polish Jews who immigrated to America during the turn of the last century, my father’s grandparents settled in New York City.  However, before they established homes in New York City, they first passed through a famous immigration processing center located on an island.  What is the name of this island?

International Holocaust Remembrance Day — This past Friday (January 27) marked the observance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this event sparked me to reflect on my family’s connections to the Holocaust.  Everyone on my father’s side of the family came from the Jewish community in Warsaw, Poland.  A small group of them immigrated to New York City in the early years of the 20th century.  My great-grandparents were among those who fled the oppressive conditions in what was known as the Warsaw Ghetto, and they eventually became American citizens.  Many of their relatives, however, remained in Warsaw.

When I was a college student, my grandfather shared with me the story of what happened to his relatives who stayed in Warsaw.  He had just watched the famous mini-series Roots, and he thought that I should know something about my roots.  According to my grandfather, his relatives who remained in Warsaw were swept up in the tumultuous series of events known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  This celebrated act of Jewish resistance started on April 19, 1943, when the Jewish residents of the Warsaw Ghetto refused to surrender to the Nazi forces who had come to the Ghetto to round up everyone and deport them to concentration camps.  Chaos ensued, and nearly every one from the Warsaw Ghetto was killed, including my relatives.  However, they died resisting Fascism, and my grandfather always took pride in that fact.  I do, too.

I think that it is important not only to remember the Holocaust, but also to become better informed about this nightmarish chapter in our history.  For those who want to know more about the history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, I recommend two books as good starting points.  Dan Kuzman’s The Bravest Battle:  The Twenty-eight Days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is an excellent historical account of the events related to the uprising. Leon Uris’s Mila 18 is a moving novel about the uprising and the story of the Jewish resistance fighters.  As both of these books make clear, it takes a great deal of courage to resist tyrants and bigots.  In remembering the Holocaust, we should also remember and honor those brave people who stood with the resistance.

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:

Katie Hogan‘s essay, “The Academic Slow Lane,” appears in the newly published collection, Staging Women’s Lives in Academia: Gendered Life Stages in Language and Literature Workplaces, edited by Michelle Masse and Nan Bauer-Maglin (SUNY Press, 2017).

Liz Miller is first author of a co-authored article titled “Exploring Language Teacher Identity Work as Ethical Self-Formation” that has just been published in the Modern Language Journal.

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

February 3 — The 17th Annual English Graduate Student Association Conference will take place on February 3, 2017, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in the Cone Center Lucas Room.

Quirky Quiz Question — Like many Polish Jews who immigrated to America during the turn of the last century, my father’s grandparents settled in New York City.  However, before they established homes in New York City, they first passed through a famous immigration processing center located on an island.  What is the name of this island?

Last week’s answer: See below.

In addition to writing The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers wrote three other novels.  Can you complete the titles of her three other novels listed below?  

Celebrating the Centennial of Carson McCullers’s Birth — Copper Restaurant, known for its Indian food, is located just a few blocks from our home.  Whenever I walk our dog along East Boulevard, we pass by it as we get our exercise.  Our dog doesn’t seem to care that the famous novelist Carson McCullers lived in the building where Copper Restaurant is now located, but it matters to me.

McCullers and her husband rented an apartment in the building in 1937.  While living there, she began writing The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, her first novel.  She lived in Charlotte for just a year, but for those of us who are interested in Charlotte’s literary history, that’s long enough for us to claim her as a Charlotte writer and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth on February 19, 1917.

As part of this celebration, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, the Charlotte Film Society, and an organization called Charlotte Lit are presenting a film series showcasing three films based on McCullers’s novels.  The series kicks off on February 5, 2017, with a screening of the 1968 film version of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, starring Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, and Cicely Tyson.  The film will be shown at 1:30 p.m. at ImaginOn’s Wells Fargo Playhouse.  After the screening there will be a panel discussion, and our own Paula Eckard is one of the panelists.   Paula is a charter member of the Carson McCullers Society, and she often includes McCullers’s novels in her courses on Southern literature.

For more information about the film series and the other events related to the centennial of McCullers’s birth, please click on the following link: http://www.charlottelit.org/carsonmccullers/

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 chapter titled “Challenges and Experiences in Training Multilingual, International Direct Care Workers in Dementia Care in the United States” in the edited volume Multilingual Interaction in Dementia. 

Lara Vetter recently published an afterword to a collection titled Modernist Women Writers and Spirituality:  A Piercing Darkness, co-edited by Elizabeth Anderson, Andrew Redford, and Heather Walton.

Debora Rae Wenger, a graduate of our M.A. program, was recently named one of the nation’s ten best journalism educators.  She is currently a professor at the University of Mississippi.  Please click on the following link for more information: http://hottytoddy.com/2017/01/20/wenger-professor-honored-nations-best/

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about upcoming events and deadlines.
January 27 — The English Department meeting will take place on January 27, 2017, from 11:00-12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

February 3 — The 17th Annual English Graduate Student Association Conference will take place on February 3, 2017, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in the Cone Center Lucas Room.

Quirky Quiz Question — In addition to writing The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers wrote three other novels.  Can you complete the titles of her three other novels listed below?

 
Reflections in a _______ Eye

The Member of the _________

_________ without Hands

Last week’s answer: Atlanta

In addition being a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, John Lewis has long served as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives.  His district encompasses most of what major city in the South?

John Lewis and Jim Zwerg

Reflecting on Dr. Martin Luther King Day — A few years ago a student in my children’s literature course made an appointment to talk with me about her interest in doing an independent research project related to our class session on the history of African American children’s literature.  She was especially interested in nonfiction books for young people about the history of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.   She signed up for an independent study with me, and she and I met on numerous occasions to talk about her readings.  She introduced me to Freedom Riders:  John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement by Ann Bausum.  The student and I both read this book, and we agreed that it provides an excellent introduction to the history of the Civil Rights Movement and to two of the movement’s leaders, both of whom risked their lives to advocate for equality and freedom.  For her final project, this student interviewed Bausum, and I proudly published an excerpt of this interview in RISE:  A Children’s Literacy Journal.  

By introducing me to Bausum’s excellent book, this student underscored for me the lesson that learning is often a collaborative process.  Of course, students learn from their teachers, but it is also true that teachers can learn from their students.  By working together to learn new material and share discoveries and insights, we can sometimes break out of our individualistic concerns and come up with new and collaborative solutions to common problems.   As Dr. King once said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

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 recently received a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Studies from UNC Greensboro.

Heather Vorhies recently published “Women and Corporate Communication in the Early American Republic” in Peitho Journal.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines— Here is information about an upcoming events and deadlines.
January 27 — The English Department meeting will take place on January 27, 2017, from 11:00-12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

February 3 — The 17th Annual English Graduate Student Association Conference will take place on February 3, 2017, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm in the Cone Center Lucas Room.

Quirky Quiz Question — In addition being a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, John Lewis has long served as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives.  His district encompasses most of what major city in the South?

Last week’s answer:

Ian Fleming–The Spy Who Loved Me

John le Carré–Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

John le Carré, Roald Dahl, and Ian Flemming are all British writers who also worked as spies.  Listed below are three books written by one of these authors.  See if you can identify the author of each book.

Coming in from the Cold — As I made the frigid walk from the East Parking Deck to the Fretwell Building on this first day of the Spring 2017 semester, a phrase popped into my head the moment I felt the welcomed warmth of the building.  “Aah,” I said to myself, “the professor who came in from the cold.”  Then I started wondering where the phrase came from, and I remembered a spy novel that I read in college titled The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold came out in 1963, and the Cold War tensions are integral to the novel.  Spying, espionage, and subversive interventions in the political processes of nations all figure in this famous novel.   I remember being caught up in the fast-paced plot of the book, but what stuck with me was the way in which the novel addresses moral questions and concerns.  Lying is so central to the central character’s life that he hardly knows the difference between lying and telling the truth.   Needless to say, there is a lot about The Spy Who Came in from the Cold that relates to our current situation besides the cold temperatures.

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:

Juan Meneses presented a paper titled “Postcolonial Misrecognition in Jean Rhys’sVoyage in the Dark” at the MLA conference, which took place last week in Philadelphia.

Sarah Minslow published a chapter titled “Helping Children Understand Atrocities:  Developing and Implementing an Undergraduate Course Titled ‘War and Genocide in Children’s Literature'” in a the volume Understanding Atrocities:  Remembering, Representing, and Teaching Genocide.  The book was published Calgary University Press.

Jen Munroe presented a paper titled “Premodern Kitchen Ecologies: ‘Sustainable Becoming'” at the MLA conference in Philadelphia last week.

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

January 16 — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day–University closed.

January 16 — The last day to add/drop with no grade.

January 27 — The English Department meeting will take place on January 27, 2017, from 11:00-12:30 in the English Department Conference Room.

Quirky Quiz Question — John le Carré, Roald Dahl, and Ian Fleming are all British writers who also worked as spies.  Listed below are three books written by one of these authors.  See if you can identify the author of each book:

The Spy Who Loved Me

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Going Solo

Last week’s answer: Larry Mellichamp

Jeffrey Gillman is the current Director of the Botanical Gardens.  Does anybody remember who served as the Director of the Botanical Gardens before Jeffrey?

Innovative Teaching — I do not usually make resolutions at the beginning of the new year, but this year I have resolved to write a bit more about teaching in my Monday Missives.  In my 33 years of teaching in the English Department, I have long been impressed with my colleagues’ innovative approaches to teaching.  Starting with today’s Monday Missive, I am going to celebrate some noteworthy examples of innovative teaching by members of our English Department.

Last semester Matthew Rowney took an innovative approach to teaching his students about ecocriticism.  Matt met with Jeffrey Gillman, the Director of Botanical Gardens at UNC Charlotte, and Jeffrey gave Matt a tour of the greenhouses and gardens.  In recounting this tour, Matt told me, “I told him about my Romantic ecocriticism course, in particular the author John Clare, who was himself an accomplished amateur botanist.  Given the importance of individual plants to Clare, I went through the texts assigned for the course and made a list of plants, and then forwarded these to Jeffrey, inquiring whether the garden contained any of them. Luckily, the gardens have many of the same or similar species. After reading Clare’s work and discussing his ecological vision, my class took a tour of the gardens, stopping to examine individual plants appearing in Clare’s work, and thinking about what seeing these plants within a larger habitat might contribute to how we understand Clare’s poetry.”

Jeffrey Gillman, Director, UNCC Botanical Gardens

An example of one of Clare’s poems that Matt connected to the gardens is “Emmonsail’s Heath in Winter.”  In this poem, there are two lines that relate to an ash tree.  One of the lines reads, “Beside whose trunk the gypsy makes his bed.” There are three ashes that stand together in the gardens, near where the forest area connects with the Asian garden.  Matt showed these ash trees to his students and asked them to imagine the trunks of these trees as a resting place for a weary traveler.

By bringing his students into the garden and relating the plants in the garden to Clare’s poetry, Matt helped his student develop a deeper appreciation of these poems’ intrinsic connections to the natural world.

RD News — As we start the Spring 2017 semester, two of our faculty members are about to experience changes as a result of being awarded an RD (Reassignment of Duties).  Paula Connolly will return to teaching after having spent the fall semester working on a research project, and Ralf Thiede is about to take a semester-break from teaching in order to work on a research project.

During her RD, Paula worked on Stories about Slavery, an anthology of U.S. literature published for children between 1790 and 1865. The anthology contains pro- and anti- slavery selections (with many that fall in a spectrum between the two). While the anthology could function as a companion to her earlier critical study, Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010, most of the anthology contains new material not previously discussed and only available in rare book rooms. Some of the different groupings of literature include “slave narratives,” “alphabets,” and even “schoolbooks: mathematics” where Confederate children learned how to figure the price of slaves they were expected to one day own. Her goal is to offer historical and literary contexts for the pieces as guideposts, but to keep critical intervention to a minimum so readers can explore the literature–particularly in terms of its racial ideologies–on their own.

For his RD, Ralf will work on project in which he can combine his backgrounds in linguistics, cognitive science, and literature. He is writing a book on the linguistics of children’s literature. He is working within an emerging new paradigm in neuroscience that focuses not so much on brain areas but on the pathways between them and how they develop over time in infants and children, changing their thinking. He then matches the successive processing profiles with what the language of children’s literature can offer at each developmental stage that is not already present in how adults talk to children. He has already completed his study of how babies acquire and produce speech sounds and how authors like Dr. Seuss support that development with noises (Mr. Brown Can Moo!), rhyme, rhythm, anticipation, engaging repetition, funny-sounding words (S-L-U-R-R-R-P), and surprising violations (thnead is definitely not a possible sound combination in English) that trigger the child’s instinct to explore.  Ralf will look at interactive book readings between adult readers and preliterate children to describe linguistic collusions among child, adult, protagonist, and author.

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:

Alan Rauch recently gave a presentation titled “Rethinking A Christmas Carol as a Malthusian Parable” as one of the community salons organized by Twig Branch.

Angie Williams recently launched a blog titled It Is What It Is:  Life as a Parent, Grandmother, and Caregiver.  Her is the link to her blog:  https://pages.charlotte.edu/angie-williams/updates/

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

January 9 – The first day of classes for the Spring 2017 semester is January 9.

Quirky Quiz Question — Jeffrey Gillman is the current Director of the Botanical Gardens.  Does anybody remember who served as the Director of the Botanical Gardens before Jeffrey?

Last week’s answer: Epistolary

In thinking about the term “missive,” I am reminded that some novels are told through a series of letters (or missives).  What is the term that is generally used for such novels?