{"id":1570,"date":"2018-09-10T10:35:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1570"},"modified":"2018-09-10T10:36:10","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T14:36:10","slug":"monday-missive-september-10-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2018\/09\/10\/monday-missive-september-10-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – September 10, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Funny Thing Happened<\/b>\u00a0— I think that the word\u00a0forum<\/i>\u00a0is more interesting than the word\u00a0meeting,\u00a0<\/i>although the two words are listed as synonyms in most dictionaries.\u00a0 What I like about the word\u00a0forum\u00a0<\/i>is that it has two related meanings.\u00a0 According to\u00a0Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary,\u00a0<\/i>the word can\u00a0be used when referring to “a public meeting involving audience discussion,” but it can also be used when referring to “a public meeting place for open discussion.” \u00a0The word\u00a0forum<\/i>\u00a0also has interesting historical and cultural associations.\u00a0 The word dates back to the ancient Romans, and it is featured in works of popular culture, such as the 1962 musical\u00a0A Funny\u00a0Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,\u00a0<\/i>starring the great Zero Mostel.<\/p>\n

I started thinking about the word\u00a0forum\u00a0<\/i>after I adjourned Friday’s English Department meeting.\u00a0 Even after the official meeting ended, many faculty members stayed in the department, talking in clusters.\u00a0 They were not wearing togas, but they reminded me of pictures I have seen of Roman citizens standing together while engaging in lively debates.\u00a0 I saw several faculty members in the hallway talking with Natalie Ornat, our guest speaker from Atkins Library, about various library-related projects.\u00a0 I saw Chris Davis and Aaron Gwyn in the lobby area talking about their various creative-writing endeavors.\u00a0 I saw a number of the faculty members who teach British literature courses gathered together in the faculty\/staff lounge talking about their courses and research projects.\u00a0 It seemed that everywhere I went in the department I saw people carrying on conversations and sharing their plans for the year.\u00a0 This prompted me to come up with a slightly altered version of the title of the aforementioned musical.\u00a0 My new title is\u00a0A Funny Thing Happened on the Way from the Forum.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>The funny thing that happened is that the English Department forum kept going long after the official English Department meeting came to a close.\u00a0 It just relocated to other areas in the department.<\/p>\n

Another thought popped into my head as I contemplated the two meanings of the word\u00a0forum.\u00a0<\/i>The definition of\u00a0forum<\/i>\u00a0as “a public meeting place for open discussion” is a perfect description of the space that houses our English Department.\u00a0 Nearly every day I see faculty, staff and students gathered in the public areas of our department talking about classes, books, \u00a0research projects, and current events.\u00a0 In some ways, our department is like an inclusive version of a Roman forum.<\/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

Pilar Blitvich<\/b>\u00a0recently co-edited a special issue of\u00a0the\u00a0Journal of Pragmatics\u00a0<\/i>(the flagship journal in the field)\u00a0on im\/politeness and globalization. \u00a0The special issue includes seven articles and a state-of-the-art introduction.\u00a0 Pilar\u00a0co-authored the introduction and was single author of one of the articles, which is titled “Globalization, Transnational Identities, and Conflict Talk: The Superdiversity and Complexity of the Latino Identity.”<\/p>\n

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

September 12 — The Early Modern Paleography Society (EMPS) will have its first fall meeting of 2018 on September 12th, 2018, from 3:30-5:15 in Fretwell 290B. Pizza will be provided.<\/span><\/p>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 Zero Mostel won a Tony Award for his performance in\u00a0A Funny\u00a0<\/i>Thing<\/i>\u00a0Happened on the Way to the Forum. \u00a0<\/i>Two years later he won the Tony Award for his performance in another musical in which he played a character named\u00a0Tevye.\u00a0 What is the title of this 1964 musical hit?<\/p>\n

Last week’s answer: Matilda<\/strong>
\nRoald Dahl’s belief in the importance of reading is especially evident in his children’s book about a brilliant girl who taught herself how to read at the age of three. A musical based on this book will be performed by the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte this fall. Do you know the title of this book?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Funny Thing Happened\u00a0— I think that the word\u00a0forum\u00a0is more interesting than the word\u00a0meeting,\u00a0although the two words are listed as synonyms in most dictionaries.\u00a0 What I like about the word\u00a0forum\u00a0is that it has two related meanings.\u00a0 According to\u00a0Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary,\u00a0the word can\u00a0be used when referring to “a public meeting involving audience discussion,” but it can also […]<\/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-1570","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\/1570","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=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1575,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions\/1575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}