Earth Day – Today is John Muir’s birthday, and tomorrow is Earth Day. These two dates belong together, for John Muir (1838-1914) played a key role in the early days of the conservation movement.  Muir founded the Sierra Club and helped establish Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.  He was friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson, President Theodore Roosevelt, and many other major figures who shared his commitment to preserving the natural environment.  Throughout his career, Muir enjoyed writing about his experiences as a naturalist and his observations of special places, such as the Sierra.  As we look forward to celebrating Earth Day, we should note that the English Department has faculty members who share Muir’s interest in promoting the natural environment.  Two who come immediately to mind are Greg Wickliff and Jen Munroe.

Greg regularly teaches a summer course called “Writing about Place.”  In this course, Greg has his students immerse themselves in a particular place and then write about that place in terms of its natural resources as well as its human inhabitants, both past and present.  This summer, Greg is having his students write about Badin, North Carolina.  Located on the Yadkin River, this small twon is about forty miles east of UNC Charlotte.  It is also a significant archeological site, and research indicates that humans have lived in this area for more than 12,000 years.

Jen has established herself as a leader in the University’s sustainability initiatives, but she has also made a name for herself in the area of eco-criticism.  Her scholarship in this area is reflected in her books Making Gardens of Their Own:  Gardening Manuals for Women, 1500-1750 (2007), Gender and the Garden in Early Modern English Literature (2008), and Ecofeminist Approaches to Early Modernity (2011).   Last month Jen received a contract for a new co-authored monograph titled Shakespeare and Ecofeminist Theory.  It will appear as part of the Arden “Shakespeare and Theory” series. 

The celebration of Earth Day helps us remember the importance of preserving and understanding our natural environment, but only so much can be accomplished in one day.  Through teaching and scholarship, Greg and Jen help sustain throughout the year the goals we associate with Earth Day.  I am sure John Muir would approve.

Leadership — I am pleased to report that we now have three more faculty members who have completed the leadership program offered by the ADVANCE Faculty Affairs Office.  These faculty members are Pilar Blitvich, Liz Miller, and Aaron Toscano.  By participating in this program, these and the other faculty members who have already gone through this program are positioning themselves to play leaderships roles in the department as well as the wider university.  Jeffrey Leak, for example, is a previous participant in the ADVANCE Program, and he is now one of two candidates for the position of Faculty President.  In my opinion, one of the great strengths of the English Department is the willingness of our faculty and staff to serve in leadership roles.

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:

Andrew Hartley was the subject of a feature article that ran in last Sunday’s Charlotte Observer.  Here is the link to the article: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/04/18/4850175/unc-charlottes-andrew-hartley.html#.U1VPiRlmWTg

Lisa McAlister, one of our current graduate students, recently presented a paper titled “Relational Knowledge and the Knowledge of Power between the Human and the Nonhuman in Early Modern Culture: The Knowledge of Experience and the Knowledge of Experiment” at the joint University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and King’s College London (UNC/KCL) Graduate Student Conference.

Liz Miller will be a guest speaker—via Skype—in a doctoral class at Pennsylvania State University this evening.

Jacqueline Plante, one of our former M.A. students, has been accepted into the Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a fellowship that includes five years of funding.  She plans to study twentieth-century poetry and digital humanities.

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

April 24-26 — The Shakespeare in Action Initiative is sponsoring a workshop titled “Devising Shakespeare:  The Shrew Project.”  The workshop will take place in the Black Box Theater in Robinson Hall, starting at 7:30 (Thursday-Saturday).  Andrew Hartley, Kirk Melnikoff, and Jen Munroe all helped organize this event.

April 30 — The English Department Student Awards Ceremony will take place in the Dale Halton Room in the Library from 12:30-2:00.   

Quirky Quiz Question — I first took an interest in John Muir when I was living in Madison, Wisconsin.  Muir lived in Madison and attended the University of Wisconsin, although he never graduated.  We have several faculty members in the English Department who have degrees from the University of Wisconsin.  Name one of these faculty members.

I just got back from presenting a paper at the 5th Annual Public Intellectuals Conference.  This conference has a cap of 25 participants, and it’s unlike any other conference that I regularly attend.  Everyone sits around a conference table for two days.  Each participant gives a presentation for about 15 minutes, and then the entire group discusses the presentation for another 15 minutes.  The conference is amazingly interdisciplinary in nature.  This year the participants included scholars from English, history, sociology, psychology, communication studies, political science, and philosophy.   The experience of interacting in a scholarly way with academics from such diverse backgrounds underscored for me the value of approaching problems and topics from a variety of academic disciplines.

From my perspective, one of the great strengths of our English Department is our receptivity to interdisciplinary studies.  This strength is reflected in the active participation of our faculty in the American Studies Program, the Center for the Study of the New South, the Gerontology Program, the IDEAS (Infrastructure, Design, Environment, and Sustainability) Center, the M.A. Program in Liberal Studies, the Minor in Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies, and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.   There are more faculty from the English Department represented among the directors of such programs than from any other department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Jennie Mussington and Her Super Powers — A month or two ago I was channel surfing when I came upon a show on the History Channel called Stan Lee’s Superhumans:  Real Humans with Super Abilities.  I watched for a few minutes and saw a young man jump over a car racing toward him at 60 miles per hour (do not try this at home or the parking deck).  I know only one person with super human abilities, and that person is Jennie Mussington.  Jennie has an uncanny ability to win contests.  Over the years, Jennie has won five TVs, a Jeep, a camper, a bicycle, a trip to San Francisco to watch a 49ers game, sports memorabilia, and lots of smaller prizes.  This past weekend she won $104 from a local radio station. Jumping over moving cars is impressive, but I am even more impressed with Jennie’s super powers. 

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

Boyd Davis‘s proposal to the Veterans Administration, “Story-Call: E-mobile Support for Community Caregivers of Veterans with Dementia,” has been selected for funding. This is a 3-year project.

Susan Gardner, together with Vail Carter (UNC Charlotte’s first Native American graduate), gave a presentation at UNC Pembroke this past weekend. The title of their presentation is “Why Is Telling Our Lives a Subversive Thing to Do?”  

Janaka Lewis recently presented a paper titled “A Black Woman’s Guide to Freedom and Southern Conduct” at the College Language Association Conference in New Orleans.  

Kirk Melnikoff led the workshop “Digital Resources for the Early Modern Book Trade” at the annual Shakespeare Association of America meeting in St. Louis.

Juan Meneses has an essay in the recently published collection The Paradox of Authenticity in a Globalized World (Palgrave). The title of the essay is “‘Like in the Gringo Movies’: Translatorese and the Global in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666.”

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

April 15 — Elly Bavidge from Kingston University in London will give a presentation titled “London on Film” in the English Department Seminar Room from 3:30-4:30.

April 30 — The English Department Student Awards Ceremony will take place in the Dale Halton Room in the Library from 12:30-2:00.   

Quirky Quiz Question — The faculty in the English Department serve as the directors of several interdisciplinary programs/centers.  Name the directors of the following interdisciplinary programs/centers:

American Studies Program

Center for the Study of  the New South

M.A. Program in Liberal Studies

One Book. One week.  One community— The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is sponsoring a week-long,  community-wide reading of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  This project will take place from April 13-19, and it involves many related events at the various library branches and other places in the community.  I am scheduled to lead a book discussion at the the Beatties Ford Road Branch of the library on April 17 from 6:00-7:30.  For more information about these various events, please click on the following link: www.cmlibrary.org/onebook

Fahrenheit 451 came out in 1953, the height of the McCarthy era, and the book’s anti-censorship theme had direct connections to the wave of censorship that was sweeping America at the time. However, the problem of censorship is not, unfortunately, a relic of days gone by.  Just last month In our neighboring state of South Carolina, the state’s legislators voted to cut state funding to the University of South Carolina Upstate and to the College of Charleston to punish these institutions of higher learning for assigning LGBT books.  The two books these legislators are attacking are Out Loud:  The Best of Rainbow Reading and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. As Ray Bradbury makes so clear in Fahrenheit 451, the suppression of books is really about the suppression of ideas and ultimately the suppression of people.  Bradbury’s classic is 60 years old, but the theme of his book is still very relevant to our world and our 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:

Liz Miller recently attended the annual conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics in Portland, Oregon. She co-organized a colloquium on “Socially Mediated Agency and Second Language Learning: Theory, Analysis, Pedagogy” which included scholars from Finland, Sweden, France, Spain, Canada and the US. She also presented a paper titled “Social Sustainability: Is there a Definition in the House?”.  This past weekend she presented a poster titled “Starting the Conversation: Social Sustainability as Discursive Object” at the second annual conference of the Integrated Network for Social Sustainability, hosted at the Center City building in Charlotte. She also spoke on the same topic to the full assembly.

Becky Roeder and Matt Hunt Gardner (U Toronto) recently presented a paper titled “A Tale of Two Phonologies: English in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia” at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics.

Erika Romero, one of our M.A. Students, has been accepted into the Ph.D. program at Illinois State University, with full funding.  She plans to study children’s literature.

Ralf Thiede recently presented a paper titled  “Grammar for Writing: Discovering the Language of Power and the Power of Language” at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics.

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

April 11 — The EGSA Professional Day will take place throughout the afternoon.

Quirky Quiz Question — The central character in Fahrenheit 451 is Guy Montag.  What is Guy’s job?

Divine Discontent— Last Thursday marked the first day of spring, and for me the arrival of spring always brings to mind the opening chapter of The Wind in the Willows.  In this chapter, Mole is spring cleaning when he is overcome by the mood of the season:  “Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.”   This weekend, I felt a sense of kinship with Mole.  I spent much of the weekend reading a dissertation written by a graduate student in the College of Education.  I am a member of the student’s dissertation committee, so I really had no choice in the matter.  Still, when the sun came out yesterday afternoon, I joined Mole as he “bolted out of the house.”  I grabbed my shovel, dug up one end of my garden, and planted some radish seeds and lettuce seeds, and my sense of discontent subsided a bit.  As we head into the final stretch of the spring semester, I hope that you are able to carve out a little time to share with Mole “the delight of spring without its cleaning.”

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:

Kirk Melnikoff ran a workshop on “Digital Tools and Resources for Exploring the Early Modern Book Trade” at the Renaissance Association of America’s Annual Meeting in New York City.

Paula Rawlins, one of our former M.A. Students, has been accepted into the Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia, with four years of funding.  She plans to study contemporary Southern literature.

Aaron Toscano presented a paper titled “Outsourcing Technical Writing: Multiple Technical Writing Futures” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Indianapolis, IN.

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

April 3 — Henrietta Goodman will read and discuss her poetry on Thursday, April 3, at 6:00 pm in the English Department Lounge.   She is a 1991 graduate of UNC Charlotte’s English Department and is the author of two widely acclaimed books of poetry: Take What You Want (2006) and Hungry Moon (2013).

April 11 — The EGSA Professional Day will take place throughout the afternoon.

Quirky Quiz Question — In the beginning of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, Mole bolts out of his home and ends up having a picnic that consists of “coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscressandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater.”  With whom does he share this picnic?

Graduate Research Symposium — This past Saturday I attended the 2014 Graduate Research Symposium. Two of our graduate students delivered presentations at this event. Laura Erturk gave a presentation titled “The Construction of Race and Identity in the American Stand-up Comedy of George Lopez and Margaret Cho.” Brook Blaylock gave a presentation titled “Now and Then: The Twin Voices of Narrative and Cultural Identification in Nick Lake’s In Darkness.” Both Laura and Brook gave polished and thoughtful presentations. During the awards ceremony at the end of the day, Laura received an award for delivering one of the top presentations in the humanities category. In addition to Laura and Brook, we had a number of other graduate students who served as volunteers throughout the day-long symposium. These students were Traci Cruey, Sarah Davis, Jessica Morton, Erika Romero, and Jennifer Vogt. All of these graduate students impressed me with their high level of engagement and professionalism.

Mary Turner Harper — For those of you who have long-time associations with the English Department, you will remember Dr. Mary Turner Harper. A specialist in African American literature, she taught in our department during the 1970s and ’80s. She is interviewed in this week’s edition of Inside UNC Charlotte. Here is the link: http://inside.uncc.edu/inside-unc-charlotte-looks-legacy-mary-harper-and-herman-thomas

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

Lil Brannon received $20,000 grant from the National Writing Project for Preparing Teacher Leaders in the Teaching of Writing. Also, she just returned from the Conference of College Composition and Communication s where she received the Braddock Award and gave a paper titled “Critical Creativity and Rhetorics of the Body Politic.”

Paula Connolly recently learned that her book Slavery in American Children’s Literature has been selected as one of the four books that will be featured during the 2014-2015 Personally Speaking Series. She is scheduled to give her presentation on March 24, 2015.

Juan Meneses presented a paper titled “Futurities of Resistance: Thatcher and Contemporary Neoliberalism in Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time” at the American Comparative Literature Association Conference.

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

March 26 — Last day for students to withdraw from a course with the grade of W.

April 3 — Henrietta Goodman will read and discuss her poetry on Thursday, April 3, at 6:00 pm in the English Department Lounge. She is a 1991 graduate of UNC Charlotte’s English Department and is the author of two widely acclaimed books of poetry: Take What You Want (2006) and Hungry Moon (2013).

Quirky Quiz Question — I am looking forward to Henrietta Goodman’s poetry reading on April 3rd. Thinking about this reading, I am reminded that we now have another talented poet in the department who is teaching creative writing courses for us as a part-time faculty member. What is the name of this part-time faculty member?

St. Patrick’s Day — I am going to be out of the office tomorrow, so I decided to send you my Monday Missive on Sunday instead.  As I am sure you know, Monday is also St. Patrick’s Day, which of course has lots of Irish connotations. Those of us without Irish connections, however,  can still get in on the fun.  I remember last year seeing a Muslim woman student wearing an emerald green scarf on St. Patrick’s Day.  

Over the history of the English Department, we have had several faculty members who have published scholarly works on famous Irish writers.  Perhaps the most notable example is Fred Smith, who served as Chair of the English Department from 1984 through 1990.  Fred published a great deal about the famous Irish writer Jonathan Swift. Fred’s book titled The Genres of Gulliver’s Travels was widely praised when it came out in 1990.  

Whether you have Irish connections or not, I wish you all a happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Children’s Literature Association Conference — Three of our graduate students have recently had papers accepted for presentation at the upcoming Children’s Literature Association Conference, which will take place in Columbia, South Carolina, in June.  These students are Brook Blaylock, Traci Cruey, and Julia Morris.   Also, Joanne Rohan, one of our former graduate students, had a paper accepted.   There will be plenty of faculty members to keep an eye on these students when they present their papers.  Balaka Basu, Paula Connolly, Sarah Minslow, Daniel Shealy, and I will also be giving presentations at the conference.  I should point out that the paper selection process was very competitive, so the fact that so many students and faculty from UNC Charlotte received acceptances reflects well on 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:

Balaka Basu received a Faculty Research Grant from the Children’s Literature Association to support her project titled Playing the Game:  Reading Digitally with Children’s Literature.

Paula Connolly‘s book Slavery in American Children’s Literature just received a rave review in Slavery and Abolition:  A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies.  

Sarah Minslow presented a paper titled “Teaching War and Genocide in Children’s Literature” at a conference titled Understanding Atrocities: Remembering, Representing, and Teaching Genocide at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Maya Socolovsky presented a paper titled“Material Commodities and Judaism in a Wireless World: Exploring Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector,” at MELUS, Oklahoma City, OK. 

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

March 20 — In honor of Women’s History Month, please join English/AFRS 2301 and 4050-5050 for “A Celebration of Women’s Literature” featuring poet and playwright Murhl Bussey.  The evening will feature an open mic session (you may bring a short piece written by a woman author to share) and a reading of an excerpt of Bussey’s play “The Devil’s Playground.” The event will be held on Thursday, March 20 at 6 pm in McKnight Hall, Cone Center.

March 21 — Becky Roeder will give a presentation titled “Understanding Accent:  The Canadian Shift as Default” in the Conferecne Room from 1:00-2:00.  This presentation is sponsored by the Development Committee.  

Quirky Quiz Question — After publishing extensively on Jonathan Swift, Fred Smith switched his research to another Irish writer.  This writer is especially famous for his play Waiting for Godot.  What is the name of this writer?

Our English Major Days are just around the corner, and we should all make an effort to participate in this carefully coordinated series of events.  I hope that everyone can attend Mayor Terry Bellamy’s keynote address titled “How an English Major from UNC Charlotte Became Mayor of Asheville.”  Her presentation will take place on Wednesday, March 12, at 4:30 in Storrs 110.  

The English Major Days are especially designed to meet the needs of our English majors and other students who might be interested in declaring English as their major, but this initiative also helps maintain the strength of the English Department.  For those of us who teach in the humanities, we need to help students understand the value of humanities majors, such as English.  My thanks go to Kirk Melnikoff and the members of the Undergraduate Committee (Balaka Basu, Aaron Gwyn, Liz Miller, Anita Moss, and Aaron Toscano) for organizing our English Major Days.  My thanks also go to Alan Rauch for helping to arrange Mayor Bellamy’s appearance.

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 two invited presentations at the University of Florida.   He delivered a lecture titled “The Cradles of Nineteenth-Century Science:  Women Writers, Curious Children, and the Dissemination of Knowledge” at the University of Florida’s Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature.  He also gave a talk titled “The Culture of Dolphins and the Dolphins of Culture” at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the campus of the University of Florida.

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

March 11 and 12 — English Major Days.  For more information about the this event, please click on the following link:  http://english.uncc.edu/sites/english.uncc.edu/files/media/pdfs/English-Majors-Days-2.20.2014.pdf

March 20 — In honor of Women’s History Month, please join English/AFRS 2301 and 4050-5050 for “A Celebration of Women’s Literature” featuring poet and playwright Murhl Bussey.  The evening will feature an open mic session (you may bring a short piece written by a women author to share) and a reading of an excerpt of Bussey’s play “The Devil’s Playground.” The event will be held on Thursday, March 20 at 6 pm in McKnight Hall, Cone Center.

Quirky Quiz Question — March is Women’s History, which is intended to highlight the contributions of women to our history.  One of the many ways that women have shaped our history is by writing works of literature.   UNC Charlotte’s English Department faculty have published a number of books that focus on major women writers.  Here is a list of some of these books.  See if you can identify the authors or editors of these scholarly books the deal with women writers:

 A:  Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason and Lee Smith

B.  Alcott in Her Own Time 

C.  Ecofeminist Approaches to Early Modernity

D. Troubling Nationhood in U.S. Latina Literature

E.  The Poems of Phillis Wheatley 

F.  H. D.’s Poetry and Prose

G.  Rita Dove’s Cosmopolitanism

H.  Westward to a High Mountain:  The Colorado Writings of Helen Hunt Jackson

Seuss-a-Thon — The third annual Seuss-a-Thon took place this past Saturday at Park Road Books, and the English Department was very well represented.  Jeffrey Leak and his son did a great job of reading Green Eggs and Ham.  The audience really had a sense that Jeffrey does not care for green eggs or ham or annoying people who keep pestering him with repetitive questions.   Angie Williams read Horton Hears a Who, and her granddaughter hung on every word.  Alan Rauch read If I Ran the Zoo.  At one point he broke into a Russian accent, and it added a whole new dimension to Dr. Seuss.  The children’s literature faculty all participated. Paula Connolly read The Sneetches, Beth Gargano read Horton Hatches the Egg,  and Anita Moss read And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street.  Our advisors also showed up.  Tiffany Morin kicked off the event by reading The Cat in the Hat, and Sarah Minslow practically performed The Butter Battle Book.  Valerie Bright, one of our part-time faculty members, read Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  Several of our graduate students and former graduate students also participated.  In the publicity leading up to the Seuss-a-Thon, I described it as an English Department event. Well, to paraphrase a line from Horton Hatches the Egg, I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, Dr. Seuss is at home in English—one hundred per cent. 

Dr. Jeffrey Leak and son reading Green Eggs and Ham

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

Brook Blaylock and Laura Erturk, two of our graduate students, have been invited to give presentations at the upcoming Graduate Research Symposium.

Paula Eckard was recently awarded  a Publication Grant from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies in support of a project related to her work with the Thomas Wolfe Review.

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

March 4 — The deadline for mid-term grades has been changed due to concerns from faculty about missed classes because of the inclement weather.  The online entry of Unsatisfactory Grades submission deadline has been extended. The web will be open for grading until noon on Tuesday, March 4^th..

March 11 and 12 — English Major Days.  For more information about the this event, please click on the following link: http://english.uncc.edu/sites/english.uncc.edu/files/media/pdfs/English-Majors-Days-2.20.2014.pdf

Quirky Quiz Question — Dr. Seuss never completed a doctoral degree, but he did attend graduate school with the goal of earning a PhD in English.  Where did Dr. Seuss go to graduate school?  For extra credit, from what college did Dr. Seuss earn his BA in English?

Stanley Ray Patten — I am pleased to announce that the Chancellor and the Provost have approved Stan Patten for emeritus status. Stan taught in our department from 1982-2000. He played a major role in building our Writing Resources Center, and he taught a wide variety of courses in writing, literary theory, and gender studies. Unfortunately, he has Myasthenia Gravis, and this disease forced him to retire early. Stan still lives in Charlotte. Please feel free to send him a congratulatory message. Here is his email address: spatten@carolina.rr.com

One Book Campaign — The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is organizing a community-wide literacy event that they are calling “One Book. One Week. One Community.” Their goal is to encourage readers throughout the Charlotte area to read and discuss a classic novel over the span of a week. The novel they selected is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. They have scheduled this week-long event to take place April 13-19. Last week, I attended their kick-off meeting, and they made it clear that they would very much like for us to participate in this One Week Campaign. If you would like more information about this event, please click on the following link: http://www.cmlibrary.org/onebook

Seuss-a-Thon — The third annual Seuss-a-Thon will take place this Saturday (March 1) at Park Road Books from 11:00-3:00. This event is co-sponsored by the English Department and Park Road Books, and it involves a continuous reading of Dr. Seuss books for at least four hours. Many people associated with the English Department will be reading their favorite Dr. Seuss books. Please feel free to come and bring children. For more information, please click on the following link: http://www.parkroadbooks.com/event/book-event-seuss-thon

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 recently published two co-authored essays. One is titled “Developing a Pilot E-mobile App for Dementia Caregiver Support: Lessons Learned.” It was published in Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI), vol. 18(1) http://ojni.org/issues/?p=3095. The other is titled “Exploring Communicative Interactions between Visitors and Assisted-living Residents with Dementia. It was published in The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication (2014) http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415670432/.

Janaka Lewis convened a meeting of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers, Mid-Atlantic Chapter, on campus, and scholars from George Mason to UT-Knoxville were excited to spend the morning in Atkins Special Collections looking at rare books by African American and American women writers and the afternoon discussing texts published by black women writers from North Carolina.

Erika Romero, a graduate student in our children’s literature concentration, recently presented a paper titled “Product or Subject?: Identity Creation in the Corporation Controlled World of M. T. Anderson’s Feed ” at the Southwest Popular and American Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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

February 26 — The Children’s Literature Graduate Organization will sponsor a screening of The Wizard of Oz at the Student Union Movie Theater at 4:30 pm. Mark West will delivery a brief introduction to the film.

March 11 and 12 — English Major Days. For more information about the this event, please click on the following link: http://english.uncc.edu/sites/english.uncc.edu/files/media/pdfs/English-Majors-Days-2.20.2014.pdf

Quirky Quiz Question — Stan Patten received his PhD from Purdue University. We have several other members of the English Department who who earned their doctoral degrees from Purdue. Who are they?

Visiting Brer Rabbit — This weekend my wife and I went to Macon, Georgia, in order for her to do some research for a novella she is writing that is set in and around Macon. On the way home, we drove through Eatonton, Georgia, and we saw two signs. One said “The Home of Joel Chandler Harris and Alice Walker” and the other advertised the Uncle Remus Museum. On a whim, we stopped to check out the museum. Located in several former slave cabins, the museum has been in operation since 1963. I regularly talk about Harris in my children’s literature classes, so I already knew some key information about him before we toured the museum.

Harris was born in 1848 and grew up on a plantation in Eatonton, where his mother worked as a cook. As a boy, he often visited the slave quarters, and it was during these visits that he first heard the Brer Rabbit stories. He went on to become a journalist, and he occasionally wrote down some of these stories in a column he wrote for the Atlanta Constitution. In 1880 he collected a selection of these stories in a volume titled Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings. Although this book helped perpetuate racist stereotypes, it also helped introduce the Brer Rabbit stories to a wide audience.

We arrived at the museum about 4:00 in the afternoon. The two women who worked there informed us that they closed at 4:00, but they told us to come in anyway, and they went out of their way to be helpful. Both appeared to be in their 60s or 70s. One was an African American and one was white, but both clearly loved the Brer Rabbit stories. When they found out that I knew something about the Brer Rabbit stories, they started pointing out little details and sharing stories about Harris’s associations with Eatonton. At one point, they started completing each other’s sentences. My favorite part of our visit was listening to these women share their passion for Brer Rabbit and his adventures.

When we got back in the car and continued our drive home, I thought a bit about this unexpected interlude on our trip. It seemed fitting to me that we visited this museum during Black History Month. The Brer Rabbit stories play an important role in African American culture, but they also help bridge some of the racial divides that still exist in America. These trickster stories are full of humor and wry observations about human nature, and they appeal to people from many different backgrounds. These stories are obviously tied to the history of American racism, and yet they somehow transcend this history. That’s the thing about Brer Rabbit stories—they are kind of tricky to pin down.

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:

Pilar Blitvich has been invited as a plenary speaker at the im/politeness conference, which will take place at the University of Athens in Greece in July 2015.

Becky Roeder has recently published two articles. One is titled “The Canadian Shift in Non-Urban Southeastern Ontario: Transmission or Diffusion?” and appeared in the Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics. The other is titled “The Phonology of the Canadian Shift Revisited: Thunder Bay and Cape Breton” and appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. Also, she has just became an editor for the Strathy Student Working Papers on Canadian English for Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.

Upcoming Events and Deadlines—

February 18 — The Center for the Study of the New South is sponsoring a screening of the film Pride and Joy as part of a cultural series titled “Soul Food: A Contemporary and Historical Exploration of New South Food. The screening will take place in the Student Union Movie Theater at 2:00 pm.

February 19 — The Center for the Study of the New South is sponsoring a panel discussion on “The Future of Food in the New South” as part of a cultural series titled “Soul Food: A Contemporary and Historical Exploration of New South Food. The panel discussion will take place UNC Charlotte Center City at 6:00 pm. http://newsouth.uncc.edu/

February 26 — The Children’s Literature Graduate Organization will sponsor a screening of The Wizard of Oz at the Student Union Movie Theater at 4:30 pm. Mark West will delivery a brief introduction to the film.

Quirky Quiz Question — Joel Chandler Harris’s stories are discussed at length in a scholarly book titled Slavery in American Children’s Literature. What is the name of the English faculty member who wrote this book?