
{"id":826,"date":"2016-08-15T16:42:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T20:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=826"},"modified":"2016-08-15T16:42:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T20:42:28","slug":"monday-missive-august-15-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2016\/08\/15\/monday-missive-august-15-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive &#8211; August 15, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/322\/2016\/08\/Orchestra-Maze2.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-829\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/322\/2016\/08\/Orchestra-Maze2-300x236.png?resize=258%2C203&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Orchestra-Maze2\" width=\"258\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/322\/2016\/08\/Orchestra-Maze2.png?resize=300%2C236&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/322\/2016\/08\/Orchestra-Maze2.png?resize=768%2C603&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/322\/2016\/08\/Orchestra-Maze2.png?w=992&amp;ssl=1 992w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 258px) 100vw, 258px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div><b>Tuning Up the Orchestra<\/b> &#8212; In the days of my youth, I played the bassoon in a community orchestra.\u00a0 One of my pleasant memories from this experience was the ritual involved in tuning up the orchestra before a performance.\u00a0\u00a0 I remember the musicians assembling on the stage.\u00a0 I remember the initial sounds of a few instruments going through scales.\u00a0 And then more and more instruments would add to the growing cacophony of sounds.\u00a0 And then the oboe player would play an A, and all of the musicians would tune their instruments to the oboe.\u00a0 And then they would put down their instruments, the conductor would appear, and the performance would begin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>I flashed back on this memory today while sitting in my office listening to the sounds wafting through the department.\u00a0 Like the musicians assembling on the stage, the faculty members are assembling in the lobby and chatting in the mail room.\u00a0 The photocopy machine is making its rhythmic sounds as faculty members keep it busy running off course syllabi.\u00a0 Students keep ringing the bell at the front desk, asking for help finding offices.\u00a0 I regularly hear Sarah Minslow&#8217;s cheery voice as she greets students and brings them to her office for last-minute advising appointments.\u00a0 These are the sounds I associate with the beginning of the semester, and they remind me of the sounds that the members of an orchestra make as they prepare for their next performance.\u00a0 Our next performance starts in a week, and I am confident that by then we will all be tuned up and ready to go.<\/p>\n<p><b>Kudos<\/b>\u2014 As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><b>Eric Linne<\/b>, a graduate of our M.A. program, recently learned that his new novella titled <i>MillVille<\/i> will be released in serial form online in the <i>Charlotte Agenda.\u00a0 <\/i>Beginning <span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">this Tuesday<\/span><\/span>, they will be publishing two chapters a week for five weeks.<\/p>\n<div>\n<b>Sarah Minslow<\/b> presented two papers at international conferences this summer.\u00a0 In June she presented a paper titled &#8220;They All Fall Down:\u00a0 Representations of Child Soldiers in Literature and Film&#8221; at a conference on Children&#8217;s Lives in Historical Contexts, which took place at Kings College London.\u00a0 In July she presented a paper titled &#8220;Representing War and Genocide in Children&#8217;s Literature at the Children and War, which took place at the University of Salzburg.<\/p>\n<p><b>Upcoming Events and Deadlines<\/b>\u2014\u00a0Here is an important date to keep in mind:<\/p>\n<div>Here is a list of upcoming meetings and events that will take place this month:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<b>University Convocation<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<b>Thursday, August 18 <\/b><\/div>\n<div>8:30am coffee, 9:30-11 Convocation McKnight Hall<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&#8211;<b>Day of Convocation\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<b><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday, August 22<\/span><\/span> \u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">11:00-5:00pm<\/span><\/span> (faculty arrive at <span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">10:15<\/span><\/span>) Halton Arena<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;<b>Classes Begin \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday, August 22 <\/span><\/span><\/b><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">(<\/span><\/span><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">at 5:00pm)<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<b>CLAS All Faculty Mtg &amp; Breakfast\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0 <b><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Friday, August 26<\/span><\/span> <\/b><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">8:30-10:00am<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Fretwell 100<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>&#8211;<b>English Department Mtg<\/b><b>\u00a0\u00a0 <span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Friday, August 26<\/span><\/span> \u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"aBn\"><span class=\"aQJ\">11-12:15pm \u00a0<\/span><\/span>Fretwell 290B (English Department Seminar Room)<\/p>\n<p><b>Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 Like an academic departments, orchestras have their own hierarchies.\u00a0 In a traditional orchestra, who is second in command behind the conductor?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><strong>Last week&#8217;s answer: Chris Bongartz<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<div><em>Manu Vida is a graduate student of a former faculty member from our English Department who now teaches at the University of Cologne.\u00a0 Does anybody know the name of this former member of our English Department?<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuning Up the Orchestra &#8212; In the days of my youth, I played the bassoon in a community orchestra.\u00a0 One of my pleasant memories from this experience was the ritual involved in tuning up the orchestra before a performance.\u00a0\u00a0 I remember the musicians assembling on the stage.\u00a0 I remember the initial sounds of a few [&hellip;]<\/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-826","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\/826","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=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}