February 2022
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Dear Colleagues,
I hope your week is going well. It is hard to believe that spring break is around the corner. I hope you are looking forward to a little downtime (or maybe catch-up time). In the meantime, I have a few reminders to give you:
In case you missed Gary Stinnett’s email yesterday, this Thursday, February 2, at 10 and at 2, HR is sponsoring support sessions on handling pandemic-related stress. You can sign up for a session here: https://inside.charlottewp.psapp.dev/news-features/2022-02-14/hr-hosting-support-sessions-pandemic-related-stress
We have a department meeting this Friday, February 25, from 11-12:30. Angie will send out the agenda and minutes from the last meeting soon.
Also on Friday, February 25, from 5:30-7:00, om Fretwell 128, the English and History Departments will host a roundtable discussion on the Masters in Library Science (MLS) degree.
Mid-term unsatisfactory grades are due Friday, March 4, by noon.
Textbook orders are due Friday, March 18 for summer and fall:
KUDOS
In student news, Lauryn Massenberg, a senior English major in the Creative Writing Concentration/Film Studies minor and Honors student, was accepted into the highly selective University of North Carolina School of the Arts MFA in Screenwriting program.
Christine Arvidson’s poem “Dear Frances Crockett” was published as the lead poem in a double issue of NINE:A Journal of Baseball History and Culture. It is a special issue about women in baseball from the University of Nebraska Press.
Pilar Blitvich published “Getting into the Mob: A Netnographic, Case Study Approach to Online Public Shaming” in Analysing Digital Discourse: Practices of Convergence and Controversy (Palgrave Macmillan). Her article “Karen: Stigmatized Social Identity and Face-threat in the On/Offline Nexus” was published in the Journal of Pragmatics.
Janaka Lewis gave a reading followed by a discussion of Frances E.W. Harper’s poem “Learning to Read” on the Poetry for All Podcast. Here is the link:
Paula Martinac published two book reviews in Historical Novels Review. She reviewed Moon and the Mars by Kia Corthron and The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley. Paula also did a book launch interview for the Historical Novel Society website with novelist Elaine Stock, about her WWII-themed novel, We Shall Not Shatter. In addition, she did a virtual reading from her novel Testimony at the 5th Annual ReadOut Festival sponsored by the LGBTQ Resource Center of the Gulfport, FL library.Ralf Thiede presented his research on “Sir Gawain’s Voyage Through the Spheres” at the Southeastern Association of Cultural Studies (SEACS) annual conference, which was recently hosted by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of Languages and Culture Studies. Aaron Toscano gave a presentation on “Technical Communication, George Orwell, and Our Contemporary Surveillance State” at the
Southeastern Association of Cultural Studies (SEACS) annual conference.
Mark West delivered a presentation titled “Walt Disney and What Made Him So Successful” to 60 residents at the Aldersgate Retirement Community. He also published an op-ed in Gotham Gazette about a Theodore Roosevelt sculpture at the American Museum of Natural History. Here is the link to that essay:
Don’t forget to send me news of your accomplishments for upcoming missives. If I neglect to report what you have sent me, please let me know. Thank you!
Best wishes,
Paula