{"id":1599,"date":"2018-10-08T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1599"},"modified":"2018-10-08T11:00:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T15:00:41","slug":"monday-missive-october-8-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2018\/10\/08\/monday-missive-october-8-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – October 8, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Popular Culture Studies<\/b>\u00a0— This past week several members of our English Department traveled to New Orleans to participate in the 2018 Conference of the Popular Culture Association in the South.\u00a0 Shannon Bauerle, a graduate of our MA program and a faculty member in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, organized a roundtable discussion of the program’s annual performance based on Eve Ensler’s\u00a0The Vagina Monologues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>The participants in the roundtable discussion included Shannon, Roberta Dunn, Tiffany Morin, Angie Williams, and Alison Walsh.\u00a0 During their presentation, they discussed how this annual performance has evolved beyond the scope of Ensler’s original work.\u00a0 Aaron Toscano also attended this conference where he delivered a paper titled “Video Games and the Neoliberal Hero: Capitalism, Postmodernism, and American Exceptionalism.”<\/p>\n

Our English Department’s presence at this conference reflects the department’s varied contributions to the study of popular culture.\u00a0\u00a0 Over the years, many of our faculty members have taught courses that deal with popular culture.\u00a0 A few examples include Chris Arvidson’s course on Baseball in Film, Aaron Gwyn’s course on the television series\u00a0Breaking Bad,\u00a0<\/i>and Katie Hogan’s course titled Girl Cultures.\u00a0 Our faculty have also published scholarly works that deal with popular culture.\u00a0 A few examples include Pilar Blitvich’s\u00a0Real Talk:\u00a0 Reality Television and Discourse Analysis in Action,\u00a0<\/i>Sarah Minslow’s recently published essay that deals with the impact of\u00a0Winnie-the-Pooh<\/i>\u00a0on children’s popular culture in America, and Alan Rauch’s scholarship on the portrayal of dolphins in popular culture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The field of popular culture studies as an academic specialty got its start at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), which is where I earned my doctoral degree.\u00a0 Ray Browne, a longtime English professor at BGSU, began building the field of popular culture studies shortly after he joined the English Department at BGSU in 1967.\u00a0 He founded the\u00a0Journal of Popular\u00a0Culture<\/i>\u00a0in 1967, established the Center for Popular Culture Studies in 1968, and launched the Popular Culture Association in 1970.\u00a0 He went on to establish BGSU’s Department of Popular Culture in 1973 and then founded the\u00a0Journal of American Culture\u00a0<\/i>in 1979.\u00a0 He and his wife, Pat Browne, also organized and developed what is now known as the Ray and Pat Browne Popular Culture Library.<\/p>\n

When I arrived at BGSU in 1980, Ray was still teaching, and I had the privilege of taking several courses from him.\u00a0 Also at BGSU, I met my friend and frequent collaborator, Kathy Merlock Jackson.\u00a0 Since we both were strongly influenced by Ray, we decided to dedicate our book\u00a0Disneyland and Culture\u00a0<\/i>to Ray and Pat Browne.\u00a0 In our dedication, we praise their “enduring work in popular culture.” \u00a0As I see it, the prominent role that popular culture studies plays in UNC Charlotte’s English Department is a testament to Ray’s enduring legacy.<\/p>\n

Kudos\u00a0<\/b>\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

Janaka Lewis<\/b>\u00a0recently participated in a roundtable presentation titled “Teaching in the Age of Trump and Black Lives Matter: \u00a0Possibility, Pedagogy, and Positionality” at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) Conference held in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

Heather Vorhies<\/b>\u00a0recently learned that her article titled “Ordering the Mind:\u00a0 Reading Style in Hugh Blair” has been accepted by\u00a0Rhetoric Review<\/i>. This is a top-tier journal in Heather’s field.<\/p>\n

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

October 12<\/strong> — The English Department meeting will take place on Friday, October 12, from 11:00-12:15 in the Conference Room (Fretwell 280C).
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Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 When the members of our English Department went to New Orleans to participate in the 2018 Conference of the Popular Culture Association in the South, they flew in and out of the major airport in New Orleans.\u00a0 This airport is named for a famous former resident of New Orleans.\u00a0 What is the name of this famous person?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Last week’s answer: The 150th anniversary<\/strong><\/div>\n
The quotations by Daniel Shealy in\u00a0<\/em>The Hollywood Reporter\u00a0article about film and television adaptions of\u00a0<\/em>Little\u00a0Women\u00a0relates to a recent surge of publicity surrounding an important anniversary associated with\u00a0<\/em>Little Women. \u00a0What is this important anniversary?<\/em><\/div>\n
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Popular Culture Studies\u00a0— This past week several members of our English Department traveled to New Orleans to participate in the 2018 Conference of the Popular Culture Association in the South.\u00a0 Shannon Bauerle, a graduate of our MA program and a faculty member in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, organized a roundtable discussion of the […]<\/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-1599","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\/1599","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=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}