{"id":1196,"date":"2017-08-28T11:13:50","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T15:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2017-08-28T11:13:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T15:13:50","slug":"monday-missive-august-28-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2017\/08\/28\/monday-missive-august-28-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – August 28, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Laz Varnas and the Origins of Our Linguistics Program<\/strong>\u00a0— If you have ever watched\u00a0My Big Fat Greek Wedding,\u00a0<\/em>you’ll likely remember that the father in this film always traces the origins of practically everything back to the ancient Greeks.\u00a0 He is very proud of his Greek heritage and takes every opportunity to share his passion for all things Greek.\u00a0 In some ways, Laz Varnas, the first linguist in our English Department, reminds me of the father from this film.<\/p>\n

When I first joined our department in the fall of 1984, Laz stopped by my office and said that he had heard that I had moved into Dilworth.\u00a0 I said that this was true.\u00a0 He then told me all about the upcoming Yiasou Greek Festival sponsored by the the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, which he informed me was right in the middle of Dilworth.\u00a0 He let me know that he belonged to this church, and that the festival was their big community outreach event.\u00a0 Well, I have gone to the Greek Festival every year since then.\u00a0 The 40th Annual Yiasou Greek Festival will take place this year from\u00a0September 7<\/span>–10<\/span>.\u00a0 I will be there and (as always) Laz will cross my mind as I enjoy the Greek food, music, and dance.<\/p>\n

Lazaros Anastasios Varnas joined our English Department in the mid-1960s and immediately set about developing our linguistics program.\u00a0 One of Laz’s first students was Ron Lunsford, and Ron traces his professional interest in linguistics back to courses that he took from Laz.\u00a0 In addition to creating the department’s first linguistics courses, Laz advocated for the hiring of additional faculty members in this area.\u00a0 He succeeded in this endeavor, and soon our own Boyd Davis joined Laz.\u00a0 I recently contacted Boyd and asked her to share with me her memories of Laz and the origins of our linguistics program.\u00a0 Here are her comments:<\/p>\n

Laz was our first linguist, hired by Dr Bob Wallace not long after he completed his dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania on the phonology and morphology of the Parker Chronicle (DA 26.3322, 1965).\u00a0 Before arriving here, he taught at the University of Michigan, where he was working on the Middle English Dictionary, was promoted from Instructor to Assistant Professor in 1965 after completing the dissertation, and that may have been when he joined the department.\u00a0 He was married to Athenais (who had an MA in Old French from UNC Charlotte) and they had twin sons who attended UNC Charlotte. He was deeply involved with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral on East Boulevard.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Shy and modest as he was, Laz had connections with most of the Greek restaurateurs through the Cathedral, and was able to talk many of them into establishing prizes in language for our English undergraduate majors and later, our graduate students, setting both the precedent and the bar. My interview in summer 1969 was at the Amber House, a really good steak and Greek potatoes restaurant on 49, and I began as an instructor in 1970. Jim Hedges came a couple of years later: James Stoy Hedges. His Midwestern training was, like Ron Lunsford\u2019s, partly in linguistics and partly in comp theory, and he adored folklore, so among the three of of us \u2013 this was prior to Ron\u2019s return to the department \u2013 we developed courses in all three areas (I remember I developed the Intro to Tech Writing with campus-wide projects which let us push for new hires there, as well as Language & Culture and Language Acquisition; Jim developed most of the comp\/rhetoric courses and its sequence plus Syntax; Laz did History of English, Chaucer, and we all shared Intro to English Linguistics).\u00a0\u00a0We were overflowing with students and were able to make a case to hire \u2013 and that was Ralf.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like Boyd, Ralf worked closely with Laz until Laz’s retirement in 1995.\u00a0 Ralf took it upon himself to organize a special event to honor Laz’s long career.\u00a0 I contacted Ralf and asked him to share his memories of this event and of Laz’s career.\u00a0 Here are his comments:<\/p>\n

I did indeed organize a special session in honor of Laz at the SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL); it was in 1995 at the University of Georgia, Athens.\u00a0 Laz’s concluding remarks were improvised and unnecessarily self-deprecatory.\u00a0 Laz was working on a book manuscript at the time in the spirit and style of Robert Lado on transfer interference for native Greek speakers of English.\u00a0 He gave me five or six chapters to critique after he retired, which I did, but I suspect they are stored somewhere in a box now.\u00a0 I also recall he was working on ancient Greek and Hebrew reflected in Anglo-Saxon writing, and boy do I wish I had that manuscript now.\u00a0 Laz had the only typewriter I have ever seen in my life with Anglo-Saxon characters on it.\u00a0 He had it specially made for him, I think.\u00a0 He also had a roll-out map of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which now resides in my office and will do duty again next Spring, when I teach a Medieval Literature survey.\u00a0 One thing that could be mentioned is that Laz was the faculty member who organized the library purchases for the department, which is probably a major factor in why Atkins has such a fine collection of old and facsimile English grammar books going back to the 16th century.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laz still lives in Charlotte.\u00a0 He is in his late 80s, and it has been many years since he last visited our department.\u00a0 We, however, should remember Laz, for he was one of the pioneers of the English Department, and he played a key role in building our internationally known program in linguistics.<\/p>\n

Kudos<\/strong>\u00a0— As you know, I like to use my\u00a0Monday\u00a0Missives\u00a0to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n

Valerie Bright<\/strong>\u00a0published an interview titled “Speaking as a Southern Picture Book Author:\u00a0 An Interview with Gail E. Haley” in the Spring\/Summer 2017 issue of\u00a0The Southern Quarterly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Paula Eckard<\/strong>\u00a0published an article titled “Lost Children in Southern Literature” in the Spring\/Summer 2017 issue of\u00a0The Southern Quarterly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anita Moss<\/strong>\u00a0contributed an essay on Willie Morris’s\u00a0My Dog Skip\u00a0<\/em>as part of a collaborative article titled “Childhood in the New South as Reflected in Children’s Literature:\u00a0 A Forum.”\u00a0 This article appears in the Spring\/Summer 2017 issue of\u00a0The Southern Quarterly.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

–Provost’s Awards Reception \u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Tuesday,\u00a0September\u00a05\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

3:30-5:00 pm<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Halton Reading Room, Atkins Library<\/p>\n

–Bank of America Award Reception and Dinner\u00a0\u00a0 Friday,\u00a0September 8\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a06:00 pm<\/span>\u00a0Hilton Charlotte Center City<\/p>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 In addition to being interested in the ancient Greeks, the father in\u00a0My Big Fat Greek Wedding<\/em>\u00a0has a peculiar obsession with a particular product.\u00a0 What is this product?<\/p>\n

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

The first time that the English Department was the recipient of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching was in 1995-1996.\u00a0 Who was the chair of the English Department at that time?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laz Varnas and the Origins of Our Linguistics Program\u00a0— If you have ever watched\u00a0My Big Fat Greek Wedding,\u00a0you’ll likely remember that the father in this film always traces the origins of practically everything back to the ancient Greeks.\u00a0 He is very proud of his Greek heritage and takes every opportunity to share his passion for […]<\/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-1196","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\/1196","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=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}