Singapore Bound — Singapore is one of the smallest nations in the world in terms of its physical size, but it looms large in my plans for spring break. Several months ago I received an invitation from a program jointly sponsored by Yale University and the National University of Singapore (YaleNUS College) to participate in an international symposium on censorship. Titled “What Children Shouldn’t Read: A Global Controversy,” the symposium will take place on March 3-4, although there will be related events before and after the official symposium.

I am by no means the only English Department faculty member who is engaged in projects that relate to global issues and themes. I could list at least a dozen examples, but I will limit myself to three. Pilar Blitvich’s research on pragmatics is international in nature, and she regularly publishes in European linguistics journals. Juan Meneses’s research on postcolonial literature transcends national boundaries. Alan Rauch is the series editor for Intersections in Literature and Science, a book series published by University of Wales Press. Every year, numerous members of our department present papers at international conferences or conduct research outside the United States. Nowadays UNC Charlotte is incorporating the theme of globalism in its educational and research mission, and the English Department is clearly a participant in this development. As Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage.” The English Department is already a player on this very wide stage.

CLGO Colloquium — On February 20, the Children’s Literature Graduate Organization sponsored an event titled “Mockingjays, Mirrors, and Mysterious Missions: A Colloquium on Dystopias, Distortions, and Other Worlds.” Five graduate students presented papers at this event. Amanda Loeffert presented a paper titled “Fighting in Flats: How Kamala Khan is Revolutionizing the Female Superhero.” Dina Massachi presented a paper titled “What Makes a Child’s Utopia: Thomas More and L. Frank Baum.” Hannah Mayfield gave a paper on “Katniss Everdeen and Her Band of Not So Merry Men: The Outlaw Hero’s Journey from Myth to Dystopia,” and Julia Morris delivered a paper titled “Battle on the Playground: A Discussion of War in Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” Richard Smith presented on “Weird Stones, Familiar Places: The Other World of Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.” The colloquium concluded with a faculty panel discussion featuring Balaka Basu, Paula Connolly, and Beth Gargano.

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 co-edited with Dena Shenk a special issue of American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias (February 2105). The theme of this special issue is “Technology and Dementia.”

Allison Hutchcraft recently had four poems accepted for publication in the May 2015 issue of The Kenyon Review.

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

February 27 — Mid-term grades are due by noon on Friday, February 27.

Quirky Quiz Question — Singapore is a city-state located on an island very near a much larger Asian country. What is the name of this larger Asian country?

Last week’s answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Immortality — In the beginning of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins answers a series of knocks on his round door. Each time he opens the door, a dwarf walks in, and soon there is quite an assemblage of them. After gathering in Bilbo’s home, they talk of treasured memories and future plans, and then they set about the more serious business of preparing for the immediate challenges that await them. I was reminded of this scene last Saturday. Around 1:00 in the afternoon, I started answering series of knocks on the main door to the English Department. Each time I opened the door, a graduate student entered the lobby. Soon they formed a convivial party of six. They quickly began exchanging greetings and chatting amongst themselves, but they clearly shared a sense of purpose. They gathered together on Saint Valentine’s Day to celebrate and remember a beloved professor: a professor from whom they had all taken courses; a professor who had helped them appreciate the treasure of literature; a professor named Jim McGavran.

These six graduate students—Brook Blaylock, Yekaterina Dolmatova, Beth Greene, Lisa K. McAlister, Joye T. Palmer, and Breanne Weber—all agreed to participate in the  upcoming “Celebration of the Life of James McGavran.” As part of this event, they will give an oral reading of William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” They spent much but not all of Saturday afternoon in the Conference Room diligently rehearsing their performance. From my office, I could hear them reading Wordsworth’s poem, but I could also hear them sharing stories about Jim’s courses and laughing at amusing things that Jim did in class. After a few hours, they informed me that they were ready to recite the poem. I joined them in the Conference Room, and they proceeded to amaze me with their professional and passionate presentation.

After the graduate students left, I sat in my office and reflected on the notion of immortality. Wordsworth’s poem revolves around this theme, but I found myself thinking about Jim’s enduring spirit. The experience of spending an afternoon with Jim’s students helped me realize that his wisdom, his passion for the British Romantics, and his love of poetry and nature writing live on through his students. As a result of Jim’s deep commitment to teaching, he achieved his own form of immortality. Such is Jim’s legacy.

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 will journey to Middlebury College on February 24 to speak at a workshop for faculty and students about the changing nature of academic English.

Chris Davis recently had two poems published in an anthology titled Words Without Walls: Writers on Addiction, Violence, and Incarceration (Trinity University Press). He also had a poem titled “Along the Crimes Against Nature Trail, Look,” accepted by Exit 7, a journal published in Kentucky.

Janaka Lewis participated in the panel discussion of “Living Thinkers: An Autobiography of Black Women in the Ivory Tower” for the Center for Graduate Life on Feb. 12. The event was coordinated by English Literature Master’s Student and Graduate Life Fellow Kristen Reynolds.  Also, Janaka will read her poem “New Southern Blues” from 27 Views of Charlotte on Wednesday, February 18, at 6 pm at North County Regional Library, Huntersville.

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

February 18 — Historian Lawrence Friedman will deliver a lecture titled “Inconvenient Visionaries: Crafting World Peace” on Wednesday, February 18, from 4:00 to 5:30 in Fretwell 290B. This lecture is sponsored by the American Studies Program.

February 20 — “A Celebration of Jim McGavran” will take place on Friday, February 20, from 2:00-4:30 in the Rowe Recital Hall (Rowe 140). The official program will begin at 2:30 to be followed by a reception in the main lobby of Rowe.

February 27 — Mid-term grades are due by noon on Friday, February 27.

Quirky Quiz Question — While William Wordsworth was composing “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” he was in frequent contact with another Romantic poet with whom he shared a close friendship. What is the name of this other Romantic poet?

Last week’s answer: The Carolina Israelite

Rosey E. Pool during a Black Nativity tour in England (ca. 1965), with (a.o.) Marion Williams, Alex Bradford, Vinette Carrol and Madeleine Bell.

Black History Month — February is Black History Month. One aspect of this history is the longstanding and mutually supportive relationship between African Americans and Jews. Jeffrey Leak’s most recent research project deals specifically with this relationship. Jeffrey began this project by studying the life and career of the African American poet Robert Hayden. In the process of conducting his preliminary research, he discovered a fascinating connection between Hayden and Rosey E. Pool, a Jewish editor from England. This spring Jeffrey plans to go England to examine Pool’s papers. I asked Jeffrey about his research trip, and he sent me the following information:

I’ll be journeying to England to visit the archives at the University of Sussex, located in Brighton. I’ll be looking through the papers of Rosey E. Pool (1905-1971), who grew up in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. While training to become an English teacher, she came across a poem by the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen; as a result, she she developed a life-long passion for African American poetry and culture. Her family was interned at Westerbork Transit camp, but only she survived. During that time, they would sing what were referred to as Negro Spirituals. At war’s end she continued to celebrate and analyze African American poets, editing volumes of poetry in England. She lectured widely here in the U.S. at historically black colleges and universities in the 1950s and ’60s. She was a major voice for black literature in Europe, and her archive provides a social and cultural history of African American writers from the vantage point of Great Britain and Western Europe.

Jeffrey’s research relates to a larger story with intriguing ties to the Charlotte area. Last year the Levine Museum of the New South sponsored an exhibit titled “Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges.” As this exhibit made clear, many historically black colleges and universities, including Johnson C. Smith University, provided teaching opportunities for Jewish refugees from Europe during the World War Two era. African Americans and Jews also collaborated during the Civil Rights Movement. Charlotte’s own Harry Golden is an important example of a prominent Jew who played a key role in this movement. As we celebrate Black History Month, we should make note of this chapter in African American history and remember the strength that comes from forming alliances and coalitions.

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:

Amanda Loeffert, a graduate student in our children’s literature concentration, recently had a paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming Children’s Literature Association Conference. Her paper is titled “Fighting in Flats: How Kamala Khan is Revolutionizing the Female Superhero.”

Katie Hogan recently had a chapter titled “The Academic Slow Lane: Creating Alternative Professional Identities” accepted for publication Staging Academic Women’s Lives (State University of New York Press).

Dina Massachi, a graduate student in our children’s literature concentration, recently had a paper accepted for presentation at the upcoming Children’s Literature Association Conference. Her paper is titled “Starving for Readers: The Epidemic of Glamorizing Eating Disorders in Young Adult Fiction.”

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

February 10 — The third presentation in this year’s Personally Speaking Series will take place on Tuesday, February 10, at 6:30 at UNC Charlotte Center City. John David Smith will speak about his recent book Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops. On March 24, Paula Connolly will give the fourth and final presentation in this year’s Personally Speaking Series. She will speak about her book Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010.

February 16 — The Vagina Monologues (faculty and staff cast) – Monday, February 16 at 7pm in McKnight Hall (Cone Center). Angie, Janaka, and Tiffany will each be performing in this important event. This year’s production is being directed by Shannon Bauerle, a former English grad student, ELC Coordinator and part-time instructor. All proceeds will benefit Safe Alliance. Admission tickets are $10. For admission ticket and a t shirt $15. ONLY CASH will be taken at the door. To purchase tickets online:https://ecom.uncc.edu/C21561_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=104&SINGLESTORE=true

February 20 — “A Celebration of Jim McGavran” will take place on Friday, February 20, from 2:00-4:30 in the Rowe Recital Hall (Rowe 140). The official program will begin at 2:30 to be followed by a reception in the main lobby of Rowe.

Quirky Quiz Question — Charlotte’s Harry Golden used his own periodical to voice his support for the Civil Rights Movement. Does anybody know the name of this periodical?

Last week’s answer:

The Last Studebaker – Robin Hemley
Crossing Blood – Nanci Kincaid
Dog on the Cross – Aaron Gwyn
Six Figures – Fred Lebron
The Petals of Your Eyes – Aimee Parkison

Our Fiction Writers: Past, Present and Future — I will be attending a day-long retreat on Monday, so I decided to write my Monday Missive a day early, which is why I am writing this on Super Bowl Sunday. When I came into the office this morning, I wondered if I could make a connection between football and the English Department. I was about to give up, when I remembered Nanci Kincaid’s novel Balls. She wrote this novel while she taught creative writing in our department. Originally published in 1998, Balls explores the world of college football from the perspective of the women who are involved with the coach and players of a Southern college football team. The last I heard, Nanci is now living in Hawaii, but she grew up in the South, and she often writes about Southern culture in her novels and short stories.

Nanci Kincaid is one of a number of talented fiction writers who have helped build our creative writing program over the years. Others include Robin Hemley, Fred Leebron, Aimee Parkison, and of course our current colleague Aaron Gwyn. We are now in the process of searching for a new faculty member to teach fiction writing in our department. As this search process moves to its final stages, I am already looking forward to welcoming a new fiction writer to the department, reading this person’s stories, and helping this new faculty member continue the process of developing our creative writing program.

English Learning Community News — The Learning Communities recently hosted their annual Honor Roll Reception that honors Learning Community students who made the honor roll in the fall semester. The English Learning Community is happy to report that fourteen of our members were honored. Those that made the Chancellor’s List are Sarah Eberly, Nephdarlie Saint-Cyr, Alina Fortunato, Broneicia Williams, Katharine Clarke, Haley O’Brien, and Michael Brooks. Those that made the Dean’s List are Baker Williams, Joshua Johnson, Julie Benavides, Nailah French, Caitlin Murphy, Anna-Beck Panel, and Alyssa Knittel.

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 “Stylization, Aging, and Cultural Competence: Why Health Care in the South Needs Linguistics” in Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. This book was published by the University of Alabama Press.

Katie Hogan recently had an article titled “Come Closer to Feminism: Gratitude as Activist Encounter in Women’s and Gender Studies 101” accepted for publication in Feminist Teacher.

Malin Pereira has an essay titled “Brenda Marie Osbey’s Black Internationalism” coming out in Diasporas, Cultures of Mobilities.

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

February 10 — The third presentation in this year’s Personally Speaking Series will take place on Tuesday, February 10, at 6:30 at UNC Charlotte Center City. John David Smith will speak about his recent book Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops. On March 24, Paula Connolly will give the fourth and final presentation in this year’s Personally Speaking Series. She will speak about her book Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010.

Quirky Quiz Question — Here is a list of five books written by fiction writers who have taught in our department. Can you identify the author for each book:
The Last Studebaker
Crossing Blood
Dog on the Cross
Six Figures
The Petals of Your Eyes

Last week’s answer: Portuguese Water Dogs

Heather Vorhies’s Excellent Adventure–Heather Vorhies met President Obama on Friday, January 23. Heather’s husband, James, recently ended seven years of service with the National Security Council, and the White House arranged for a ceremony to recognize James’s years of service. Heather had her photograph taken with President Obama in the Oval Office, and along the way she got to hang out in the Palm Room, sit on some White House furniture, and meet the First Family’s dogs, Sunny and Bo. She also had a brief conversation with the President about her research, to which he replied,“There was a lot of rhetoric in the eighteenth century.”

English Graduate Student Association Conference —The 15th Annual English Graduate Student Association Conference took place last Saturday at the Student Union. The conference was a great success. Our graduate students did an excellent job of organizing this conference, and the quality of the papers presented impressed all of us who attended. This year’s conference attracted graduate students from many universities in addition to UNC Charlotte. Among the other universities represented were Clark University, East Carolina University, George Mason University, Harrison Middleton University, N.C. State University, Old Dominion University, University of Alabama, University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Birmingham, UNC Asheville, and UNC Wilmington. The conference ended with the EGSA’s Professor of the Year presentation. This year the award went to Tony Jackson.

Celebrating Jim McGavran — I am working closely with Deje McGavran, the wife of Jim McGavran, to organize a campus event that we are calling “A Celebration of Jim McGavran.” This celebration will take place on Friday, February 20, from 2:00-4:30 in the Rowe Recital Hall (Rowe 140). The official program will begin at 2:30 to be followed by a reception in the main lobby of Rowe. More details will be made available in the near future.

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, the Executive-in-Residence for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a graduate of our English program, recently published a co-authored book titled The Rainforest Scorecard: A Practical Framework for Growing Innovation Potential.

Kirk Melnikoff was given a Cambridge University Press contract for his co-edited collection Booking Christopher Marlowe: Cultures of Performance and Publication. The volume will be published in 2016.

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

February 10 — The third presentation in this year’s Personally Speaking Series will take place on Tuesday, February 10, at 6:30 at UNC Charlotte Center City. John David Smith will speak about his recent book Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops. On March 24, Paula Connolly will give the fourth and final presentation in this year’s Personally Speaking Series. She will speak about her book Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010.

Quirky Quiz Question — During her recent visit to the White House, Heather Vorhies met the First Family’s dogs, Sunny and Bo. Sunny and Bo belong to what breed of dogs?Last week’s answer: “The New World”

The Freedom Riders — On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we honor Dr. King and his legacy. However, I believe that we should also honor the many other people who contributed to the Civil Rights Movement, including the brave young people known as the Freedom Riders. In 1961, hundreds of college-aged students from different races sat together on interstate buses and bus terminals in the South in an effort to challenge the Jim Crow travel laws that were still in force in many southern states at the time. Often met with violence, these Freedom Riders played an important role in challenging the legality of racial segregation. My dissertation advisor was one of the Freedom Riders, so I heard many stories from him about this chapter in the history of the Civil Rights Movement.More recently, one of my students, an English major named Amber Monroe, brought up the topic of the Freedom Riders during a meeting that she scheduled with me last semester. As a student in my Children’s Literature course, she knew that I had some experience conducting interviews with authors. In our meeting, she explained to me that she was interested in learning more about the Freedom Riders and wanted to conduct an interview with an expert on this topic. I agreed to work with her, and after several meetings, she decided to request an interview with Ann Bausum, the author of Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement. Bausum’s book is intended for children, and this appealed to Amber since she wanted to know more about nonfiction for children. Amber prepared a list of questions, consulted with me several times about conducting interviews, and then sent Ann Bausum a formal written request. About two weeks ago, I received an email form Amber in which she excitedly told me that the interview was great success and that she now plans to use her interview findings as part of a larger research project. Needless to say, I am proud of Amber, and I am very pleased that a student with her initiative and curiosity has chosen to major in English.

Remembering Blair Rudes — The other day I was thumbing through the most recent catalog from the University of Toronto Press, and I was so pleased to see an announcement for a new paperback edition of Blair Rudes’ Tuscarora-English/English-Tuscarora Dictionary. Blair taught linguistics in our department for a number of years. He died in 2008, but his scholarship on the languages of Native Americans is still having a major impact in the fields of linguistics and Native American studies. I am excited that his ground-breaking dictionary will now be available to a wider audience.

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 has just been asked to be on the Editorial Board to review and add terms/definitions, particularly in the area of dementias for the 10th edition of Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions (Elsevier).

Allison Hutchcraft attended the 33rd annual Key West Literary Seminar and Writers’ Workshop Program, for which she received a scholarship. The theme of this year’s seminar was “How the Light Gets In.”

Becky Roeder recently presented a paper titled “City, Province, or Region? What Do the Vowels of Victoria English Tell Us?” at the American Dialect Society Conference held in Portland, OR. She also recently published an article titled “Talking about Accent: The Canadian Shift and Canadian Raising” in Contact Magazine: Teachers of English as a Second Language Association of Ontario.
Sam Watson, a retired member of the English Department, recently published a poetry collection titled So Far As I Can Say.

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

January 23 — The first department meeting of the spring semester will take place from 12:00-1:30 in the English Conference room. Please note that this meeting will take place an hour later than our customary start time for department meetings.

Quirky Quiz Question — In addition to conducting scholarship on Native American languages, Blair Rudes served as a consultant on Native American languages for major film. What is the title of this film?

Last week’s answer: Samuel Clemens lived in Hartford, Ct. His house there is now a museum.

English in Demand — The preliminary enrollment figures for the spring 2015 semester provide solid evidence that the demand for our undergraduate English courses is continuing to increase. This spring semester, the combined registration numbers for all of our undergraduate courses is 2,126. In spring 2014, the comparable number was 1,914. In spring 2013, the number was 1,824. In spring 2012, the number was 1,679. As these numbers demonstrate, our courses are in high demand and the demand is on the rise. In fact, nearly all of our undergraduate courses have hit their registration caps. I cannot speak for other English departments, but our English Department is offering courses that clearly appeal to a wide range of our undergraduate students.

After reviewing these registration numbers, I am reminded of the following quotation that is often attributed to Mark Twain: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Similarly, the reports of the demise of English Studies as a discipline, at least at UNC Charlotte, are about as accurate as the report that Mark Twain had died in 1897 when in fact he was alive and well at the time.

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 presented a paper at MLA titled “I hear of Sherlock everywhere: Digital Scrapbooks and the Curation of Female Desire.” The paper was part of a panel called Textual Assemblage: Readers, Remixing, and the Reconstruction of Books organized by the Discussion Group on Bibliography and Textual Studies.

Sonya Brockman organized and presided over a special session titled Literary Rape Culture at MLA. She also has an article forthcoming in the Journal of Early Modern Studies titled “Tranio Transformed: Social Anxieties and Social Metamorphosis in The Taming of the Shrew.”

Malin Pereira presented a paper at MLA titled “Wanda Coleman’s ‘Retro Rogue Anthology’ in Mercurochrome.” She also presided at the ADE-sponsored “Pre-convention Workshop for Job Seekers.”

Alan Rauch organized a panel at MLA titled “The Ballad Beyond Bibliography.” As part of this panel, he gave a paper titled “The Logic of the Ballad: An Introduction.” He also organized the session for the Council of Editors of Learned Journals of which he remains president. His paper for this panel is titled “Editing a Critical Journal: Pitfalls and Possibilities.”
Heather Vorhies will be attending the Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute at University of Wisconsin-Madison this June. Also, she will be presenting “Transatlantic Adaptations of Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres” in July at the International Society for the History of Rhetoric.

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

January 16 — Last day for students to add courses or drop courses with no grade.

January 19 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – University Closed.

January 23 — The first department meeting of the spring semester will take place from 12:00-1:30 in the English Conference room. Please note that this meeting will take place an hour later than our customary start time for department meetings.

Quirky Quiz Question — Mark Twain is associated with his boyhood home in Hannibal, Missouri, but he spent his most productive years as a writer living in New England. What is the name of the New England city that he called home for many years?

Faculty Achievement — The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences annual Celebration of Faculty Achievement took place on December 18, 2014, and the achievements of many members of the English Department were recognized. The event celebrated faculty who published books in 2014 or who received external funding for research projects between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014. A total of fourteen English faculty members were recognized at this event—eight for publishing books and six for receiving external funding. During the ceremony, the English Department was singled out as the department the produced the most books in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2014. The faculty who were recognized for publishing books are JuliAnna Ávila, Pilar Blitvich, Aaron Gwyn, Cy Knoblauch, Jeffrey Leak, Ron Lunsford, Elizabeth Miller, and Lara Vetter. The faculty who were recognized for their sponsored research projects are Balaka Basu, Lil Brannon, Paula Connolly, Boyd Davis, Paula Eckard and Aimee Parkison.

Our friend and colleague Jim McGavran attended this event. He and I stood together during the ceremony, and he mentioned to me how proud he was of the accomplishments of his colleagues. The very next day he had his stroke. It seems somehow fitting to me that the last time Jim set foot on our campus was to help celebrate the achievements of his colleagues. His devotion to the English Department, his pride in the successes of his colleagues, and his generous and collegial approach to life are all reflected in his decision to attend this event even though he was not one of the faculty who was being recognized. In my view, Jim’s steadfast support of his colleagues is a special achievement itself and is one of the reasons why we will always honor Jim in 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:

JuliAnna Ávila received the 2014 Edward B. Fry Book Award from the Literacy Research Association at the association’s annual conference on December 5, 2014. She received this award for her book Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis, which she co-edited with Jessica Zacher Pandya. For more information about this award, please click on the following link: https://exchange.uncc.edu/english-faculty-receives-prestitious-award-for-book-on-critical-digital-literacies/

Susan Gardner recently published an article titled “Subverting the Rhetoric of Assimilation: Ella Cara Deloria’s Writing in the 1920s” in Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women’s Liberation.

Angie Williams was recently promoted to Business Services Coordinator. This new title recognizes the level of work she performs for the English Department.

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

January 7 — First day of classes.

January 16 — Last day for students to add courses or drop courses with no grade.

January 19 – Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. Day – University Closed.

January 23 — The first department meeting of the spring semester will take place from 12:00-1:30 in the English Conference room. Please note that this meeting will take place an hour later than our customary start time for department meetings.

In Honor of Jim McGavranDear Colleagues,

For forty-one years, Jim McGavran taught in the Department of English at UNC Charlotte, but sadly his long career came to an end with his unexpected death from a massive stroke on December 20, 2014. However, his presence will be felt in the English Department and the broader UNC Charlotte community for many years to come.

Dr. James Holt McGavran, Jr., as he was known to those who knew him through his published scholarship, joined the English Department in the fall of 1973, shortly after completing his PhD in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to beginning his doctoral work, he had received a BA from the College of Wooster in 1963 and an MA from Columbia University in 1965.

Throughout his teaching career at UNC Charlotte, Jim taught a wide variety of courses in British literature, but he especially enjoyed teaching courses on the English Romantics. Over the years, Jim also developed new courses. Early in his career, he took an interest in the relationship between literature and film. He and a colleague team-taught one of the department’s first courses in the area of film studies. He also created an interdisciplinary graduate seminar titled “The Idea of Nature.” In recent years, he delved into the field of creative nonfiction, and he taught several courses on this topic. From the very beginning of his career, his students and colleagues recognized Jim’s extraordinary dedication to teaching. His gifts as a teacher resulted in many awards and recognitions, including the Bank of America Teaching Excellence Award in 2006 and the UNC Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award in 2007.

In addition to being a gifted teacher, Jim achieved success as a scholar. He published numerous articles on the English Romantics. He developed a particular interest on the relationship between the Romantic Movement and children’s literature, and he edited three important collections on this topic: Literature and the Child: Romantic Continuations, Postmodern Contestations (University of Iowa Press, 1999); Romanticism and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (University of Georgia Press, 1991); and Time of Beauty, Time of Fear: The Romantic Legacy in the Literature of Childhood (University of Iowa Press, 2012). Jim’s interest in creative nonfiction is reflected in the publication of his memoir, In the Shadow of the Bear: A Michigan Memoir (Michigan State University Press, 2010).

Throughout his career at UNC Charlotte, Jim took seriously his role as a University citizen. He played a variety of leadership roles in the English Department including a term as the English Graduate Coordinator, but he also performed important service roles beyond the English Department. He served as the Faculty President in 1987-1988, and he held the position of Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1988 through 1993. He also served as the Interim Chair of the Department of Dance and Theatre from 2000 through 2002.

A listing of Jim’s degrees, awards, publications, and positions, although impressive, does not capture Jim’s passions. In some ways, the pictures taped to his office door better reflect the real Jim than does a listing of his accomplishments. In keeping with Jim’s playful approach to life, there is a picture of Kermit the Frog in the middle of the door. Jim’s wry sense of humor is reflected in the Doonsebury cartoon taped next to Kermit. Surrounding Kermit are beautiful images of flowers and other scenes from nature, which is fitting given Jim’s passion for the natural world. At the top of the door there is a photograph of a man climbing a cliff. Upon close inspection, one realizes that the man in the photograph is Jim. As his door proclaims, Jim took joy in life, embraced nature, and was always ready to climb the next cliff, for he knew that when he reached the top he would be able to see for miles around. I trust that he is enjoying the view.

Sincerely yours,

Mark I. West, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Department Chair

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