{"id":1177,"date":"2017-08-14T13:58:24","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T17:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2017-08-14T13:58:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T17:58:24","slug":"monday-missive-august-14-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2017\/08\/14\/monday-missive-august-14-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – August 14, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reflections on the Eclipse<\/b>\u00a0— In a very literal way, the hullabaloo surrounding the start of the fall 2017 semester is being eclipsed by an eclipse.\u00a0 On\u00a0August 21<\/span><\/span>, during our New Student Convocation, we will experience a solar eclipse.\u00a0 Well, what’s an English professor to do when faced with such a celestial phenomenon?\u00a0 For me, at least, the upcoming solar eclipse has prompted me to retrieve my copy of Mark Twain’s\u00a0A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court<\/i>\u00a0and reread the passage that deals with the solar eclipse that took place in the year 528.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In Twain’s remarkable time-travel story, the central character, Hank Morgan, is a nineteenth-century engineer and gunsmith who is magically transported back in time to the age of King Arthur.\u00a0 He arrives in Camelot just before the solar eclipse will take place.\u00a0 Being something of a history buff, Hank knows when the eclipse will happen.\u00a0 He uses this knowledge to convince the inhabitants of Camelot that he has the power to extinguish the sun.\u00a0 Awed by Hank’s apparent power, the King names Hank his “perpetual minister and executive.”\u00a0 This development launches Hank’s meteoric rise to become the most powerful person in King Arthur’s court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As Twain demonstrates in this novel, knowledge is empowering.\u00a0 Because of Hank’s knowledge of history and technology, he is able to bring about change and sway the views of the people he encounters in Camelot.\u00a0 Although I would be surprised if any of our students find themselves transported back in time to the age of King Arthur, I have no doubt that the knowledge that they acquire during their years at UNC Charlotte will empower them to bring change to our world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Meghan Barnes and All Things Pedagogical<\/b>\u00a0 — Meghan Barnes, our new assistant professor in English Education, has already settled into her new office and has started work on two research projects.\u00a0 For one of these projects, she is surveying a group of pre-service undergraduate English Education students as they complete a university-based methods course.\u00a0 Meghan is researching how this coursework relates to the students\u2019 responses to the edTPA Standards for initial teacher licensure.\u00a0 For her other project, she is examining how the reading and analysis of young adult literature influences students’ responses to polemical topics such as race, gender, and sexuality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When Meghan and I talked about her research projects last week, she indicated to me how pleased she is to be in an English Department where pedagogical research is valued.\u00a0 After she left my office, I started thinking about how many faculty members in our department have published scholarship in this area.\u00a0 JuliAnna \u00c1vila immediately comes to mind with her multiple publications on digital literacy and storytelling, including her award-winning volume titled\u00a0Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis:\u00a0 Intersections and Challenges.\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0However, we have other faculty members outside the field of English Education who have also conducted research related to pedagogy.\u00a0 Liz Miller has conducted research on the role that emotion plays in the interactions between students and teachers in the context of second-language acquisition.\u00a0 She has published some of her findings in her book\u00a0The Language of Adult Immigrants:\u00a0 Agency in the Making.\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0Beth Gargano has studied the history of British schools and published her findings in\u00a0Reading Victorian Schoolrooms:\u00a0 Childhood and Education in Nineteenth-Century Fiction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>Paula Connolly has studied the racism reflected in Confederate-era textbooks and published her findings in\u00a0Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>These are just a few of the examples I could mention, but they demonstrate that Meghan’s research projects align perfectly with the English Department’s long and impressive pedigree in area of pedagogical-related research.<\/p>\n

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Kudos<\/b>\u00a0— As you know, I like to use my\u00a0Monday Missives\u00a0to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n

Chris Arvidson<\/b>, who just joined our English Department as a part-time faculty member, recently published a co-edited book titled\u00a0The Love of Baseball:\u00a0 Essays by Lifelong Fans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>The volume includes essays by several people who have connections to our English Department, including Henry Doss, Nancy Gutierrez, Julie Townsend, and Sam Watson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Boyd Davis<\/b>\u00a0recently published a co-authored article titled “Care across Languages” in\u00a0The Linguist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>The article will be\u00a0available online to non-members at\u00a0http:\/\/thelinguist.uberflip.com\/h\/<\/a>\u00a0 in another couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

Paula Eckard<\/b>\u00a0was a featured\u00a0speaker at the “Writers at Wolfe” event sponsored by the\u00a0<\/span>Thomas Wolfe Memorial in Asheville this past weekend.\u00a0 She talked about and read from her book\u00a0Thomas Wolfe and Lost Children in Southern Literature.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Matthew Rowney<\/b>\u00a0recently presented “Preserver and Destroyer: Salt in\u00a0The History of Mary Prince<\/i>”\u00a0at\u00a0the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism (NASSR) conference in Ottawa, Canada.<\/p>\n

Upcoming Events and Deadlines<\/b>\u2014Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:<\/p>\n

–University Convocation<\/b>
\nThursday,\u00a0August\u00a017\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0 8:30am coffee, 9:30-11 Convocation in McKnight Hall<\/p>\n

–Classes Begin\u00a0Monday, August 21 at\u00a05:00 p.m.<\/b><\/p>\n

-CLAS All Faculty Mtg\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>
\nFriday, August\u00a025\u00a0<\/b>8:00-10:30am\u00a0in Fretwell 100<\/p>\n

–English Department Mtg<\/b>
\nFriday,\u00a0August\u00a025\u00a0\u00a011-12:15pm in Fretwell 290B<\/strong> (English Department Seminar Room)<\/p>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0\u00a0A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court\u00a0<\/i>is not the only novel that Mark Twain set in\u00a0pre-industrial England.\u00a0 He also used this setting in a novel dealing with switched identities.\u00a0 Does anybody know the title of this novel?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week’s answer: Rutgers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Since arriving at UNC Charlotte in 2014, Katie Hogan has played a major role in introducing the field of girlhood studies to the English Department.\u00a0 Does anybody know the name of the university from which Katie received her PhD?\u00a0 Here’s a hint:\u00a0 Think Garden State.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Reflections on the Eclipse\u00a0— In a very literal way, the hullabaloo surrounding the start of the fall 2017 semester is being eclipsed by an eclipse.\u00a0 On\u00a0August 21, during our New Student Convocation, we will experience a solar eclipse.\u00a0 Well, what’s an English professor to do when faced with such a celestial phenomenon?\u00a0 For me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-missive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}