December 11, 2023
Dear Colleagues,
As you finish giving exams and grading papers this week, please remember that grades are due Monday 12/18 by noon. If you are teaching cross-listed courses, make sure you submit grades for all sections that you are teaching.
I also want to let you know that I will be taking vacation days this week and next (otherwise I lose them at the end of the year). I will be at home catching up on projects and also doing some writing before I leave town on 12/22. I will be checking email from time to time, but if you need immediate assistance, please get in touch with Angie Williams or Lara Vetter. I can also be reached on my cell–704-574-4933.
I hope you have a wonderful break and enjoyable holidays with family and friends. Thank you for hard work this semester and for all that you do for the English Department day in and day out. I know our students, staff, and colleagues value your efforts. I certainly do!
KUDOS
Bryn Chancellor was an invited visiting writer at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth, TX. She also led a fiction session, “Objects May Be Closer: Activating Story Setting,” at the North Carolina Writers’ Network fall conference in Charlotte.
Juan Meneses recently published an essay titled “From the South Out: Neoliberalism, Horizontality, and the Post-Global Subject in Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” in the The Routledge Companion to Literature and the Global South.
Jen Munroe participated in Global Virtual Live From Kingston University event as part of International Education Week in the Office of International Programs. This was a pilot live event for students interested in studying at Kingston University. She led the event here in Kingston. Jen again worked with EMROC to host (in partnership again this year with the Royal College of Physicians and the Wellcome Collection) its annual transcribathon. The event, which was held in London and online, was titled, “Beauty By the Books” and included a panel with scholars and curators from the libraries. Participants worked to transcribe cosmetic and other beauty recipes that were selected to complement a newly-opened exhibit at the Wellcome, “The Cult of Beauty.”
Jen also gave an invited lecture for the Race and Gender Matters research group at Kingston University titled, “Colonial Botany and Environmental Justice: Mary Somerset, Knowledge-Making, and the Domestication of Plants in Seventeenth-Century England.” She also co-led (with curators from the Wellcome Collection in London) a paleography session for members of the public at the Wellcome.
Alan Rauch gave a salon presentation at the Barclay at South Park retirement community. His presentation was titled “Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol: A Malthusian Tale.”
Mark West published an essay titled “Going Over the River and Through the Wood with Lydia Maria Child” in “The Early Children’s Literature and Culture Chronicle.
ALUMNI NEWS
Josh Megson, who graduated with a B.A. in English/Creative Writing Concentration last spring, was accepted in poetry and fiction writing in Queens University’s MFA program and started the program this fall.
Emma West, who graduated with a B.A. in English/Creative Writing and in Interdisciplinary Studies/Women and Gender Studies last spring, accepted a position at Pfeiffer University as the Coordinator of VP Support and Coordinator of Pfeiffer Life and was recently promoted to Lead Content Writer for Pfeiffer’s various publications.
Cody Ward, who graduated with a M.A. in English in our department and is completing his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill, published an article titled “From Commas to Cosmos: The Pervading Influence of Thomas Wolfe on Cormac McCarthy” in The Thomas Wolfe Review.
Best wishes,
Paula