{"id":1550,"date":"2018-08-27T09:41:27","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T13:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2018-08-27T09:41:34","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T13:41:34","slug":"monday-missive-august-27-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2018\/08\/27\/monday-missive-august-27-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – August 27, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the Days of My Youth<\/b>\u00a0— This past weekend I saw Hal Ashby’s 1975 comedy,\u00a0Shampoo,\u00a0<\/i>which is one of the films featured in the Charlotte Mecklenburg’s film series titled “Hal Ashby in the Seventies.”\u00a0 Sam Shapiro, one of our part-time faculty members, organized this film series.\u00a0 There are three more films that will be screened as part of this series:\u00a0\u00a0Bound for Glory,\u00a0<\/i>which will be screened on September 8; Coming Home,<\/i>\u00a0which will be screened on October 6; and\u00a0Being There,\u00a0<\/i>which will be screened on November 10.\u00a0 For more information about this film series, please click on the following link:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/www.cmlibrary.org\/blog\/summer-film-series-showcases-hal-ashbys-seventies-classics<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Seeing\u00a0Shampoo\u00a0<\/i>brought back memories of my days at Franconia College, an experimental college that operated in northern New Hampshire from 1963 to 1978.\u00a0 I graduated from Franconia College in 1975, the same year that\u00a0Shampoo\u00a0<\/i>came out.\u00a0 I remember seeing\u00a0Shampoo\u00a0<\/i>in a movie theater in Littleton, New Hampshire, which was the only theater that showed first-run movies in that part of New Hampshire.\u00a0 Just for curiosity’s sake, I Googled this theater, and to my amazement, I discovered that it still exists.<\/p>\n

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Shampoo<\/i>\u00a0perfectly captures the more hedonistic aspects of the counter-culture movement associated with the late 1960s and early ’70s.\u00a0 However, this period was also associated with the controversies surrounding Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War.\u00a0 Even though\u00a0Shampoo\u00a0<\/i>takes place against the backdrop of the 1968 presidential election, it does not address the political questioning that was such an important part of the lives of many young people at the time.\u00a0 The central characters in\u00a0Shampoo\u00a0<\/i>are much more interested in engaging in sexual relations than they are in engaging in political debates.<\/p>\n

I recommend pairing\u00a0Shampoo<\/i>\u00a0with the 1976 film\u00a0All the President’s Men. \u00a0<\/i>Released just one year after the debut of\u00a0Shampoo,\u00a0<\/i>this film celebrates the determination and idealism of two young journalists who take it upon themselves to expose the corruption and crimes of a president who thinks he is above the law.\u00a0 Taken together, these films show two different sides of American culture and society during these tumultuous years.\u00a0Shampoo\u00a0<\/i>deals with the breakdown of traditional mores while\u00a0All the President’s Men\u00a0<\/i>deals with the rising skepticism toward authority figures.\u00a0 Like many of my contemporaries, I experienced both sides in the days of my youth.\u00a0 Although these films were made more than forty years ago, they still speak to issues and concerns that relate to life in America in 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Visiting Author Presentation<\/b>\u00a0—\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0best-selling YA author Alan Gratz will speak on campus Wednesday, September 5th, at 5pm as part of the NC Humanities Council funded project co-led by Sarah Minslow and me, “The Child in Southern Literature and Film.” The specific location of his presentation will be announced in a few days.<\/div>\n
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Alan received degrees in Creative Writing and English Education from the University of Tennessee and lives in Asheville, NC. He has written more than 14 books for young readers, including the latest,\u00a0Ban This Book<\/i>, which is set in NC. I hope you will join us for his talk. For more information visit\u00a0www.alangratz.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Kudos<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n

Boyd Davis<\/b>\u00a0is the co-author of a paper titled “Seniors’ Media Preference for Receiving Internet Security Information: A Pilot Study” that is featured as part of an international workshop on\u00a0Mobile Privacy and Security for an Ageing Population in Barcelona, Spain.<\/p>\n

Ron Lunsford<\/b>\u00a0and his son, Christopher Lunsford, recently learned that their paper titled “The Letter of Medical Necessity as Genre: \u00a0Who Creates It and Who Controls It” will be published in the proceedings of the IEEE ProComm Conference.\u00a0 The conference took place in Toronto in July.<\/p>\n

Upcoming Events and Meetings<\/b>\u00a0—\u00a0Here is a list of upcoming events and meetings:<\/p>\n

Library Social and Award Ceremony for Prof. Consuelo Salas. Thursday, September 6, 4 p.m., Halton Reading Room (Atkins Library)<\/p>\n

English Department Mtg \u00a0 Friday, September 7, 11:00am-12:30pm in Fretwell 280C (English Department Conference Room)<\/p>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0All the President’s Men\u00a0<\/i>features two characters who are based on the real-life journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.\u00a0 Do you know the names of the actors who played these roles?<\/p>\n

Last week’s answer: Beth Caruso<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The person who is currently in charge of the Atkins Library’s Visualization Lab received her M.A. in English from our English Department.\u00a0 Do you know her name?<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Days of My Youth\u00a0— This past weekend I saw Hal Ashby’s 1975 comedy,\u00a0Shampoo,\u00a0which is one of the films featured in the Charlotte Mecklenburg’s film series titled “Hal Ashby in the Seventies.”\u00a0 Sam Shapiro, one of our part-time faculty members, organized this film series.\u00a0 There are three more films that will be screened as […]<\/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-1550","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\/1550","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=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}