April 22, 2024
Dear Colleagues,
Congratulations to all the students who received awards and recognition at the English Department’s Awards Ceremony
on Friday. It was a wonderful celebration that honored many outstanding students in our undergraduate and graduate
programs.
Many thanks to Paula Connolly, who chaired the Awards committee, and to members of the committee, Balaka Basu,
Tiffany Morin, and Daniel Shealy, for their work selecting the recipients and organizing the ceremony. And a special thanks
to Angie Williams, Monica Burke, and the student workers who helped to make the award ceremony such a success.
Don’t forget that Bryn Chancellor will be hosting the Creative Writing Symposia featuring our MA creative writing students
graduating this spring and last fall. Students will be reading from their creative writing theses and projects in two
events: 5:30-7p on Tuesday, April 23, and 5:30-7p Wednesday, April 24, both in Fretwell 280C (Conference Room).
Rob Conkie will be introducing the film Shakespeare in Love this Sunday at the Independent Picture Houses at 3:30 pm.
If you would like tickets, please get in touch with Rob by the end of the day tomorrow at rconkie@charlotte.edu https://
independentpicturehouse.org/movies/shakespeare-in-love/
KUDOS
Pilar Blitvich delivered two plenary talks recently. One was titled “Cómo poner una pica en territorio posdigital: Nuevas metodologías para nuevos fenómenos: Proyecto sobre la cultura de la cancelación” and was presented at the 2nd CoCoMint (Conflict and mediation) Network Workshop, at the University of Valencia (Spain). Pilar’s second plenary talk was titled “Unlocking Cancel Culture and Intergroup Communication: Pragmatic Outlook” and was presented at the 41st Conference of the Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics (AESLA), at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain).
Allison Hutchcraft published two poems, titled “Is Wrack, Is Rak, Is Wreckage” and “Cobble,” in the latest issue of
the Southern Humanities Review.
Paula Martinac is the recipient of a 2024 Creative Mecklenburg Grant from the Arts & Science Council. Having recently
finished writing her first historical mystery novel, she’ll use the funds to attend two mystery writers’ conferences this year.
With MA student Katie Holly, Kirk Melnikoff had an entry on the seventeenth-century London printer-publisher
Elizabeth Allde accepted for publication in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Kirk also will be attending the
International Shakespeare Conference and participating in a roundtable on the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of
Christopher Marlowe at the upcoming International Marlowe Society of America Conference. Both are being held in
England this coming July.
Juan Meneses presented a paper titled “Postmortem Comparatism” at the American Comparative Literature Association
conference in Montreal. He recently organized the talk titled “”The Conservation Plot: Postcolonial Natures and the
Humanitarian Documentary,” which was delivered by Dominic O’Key (University of Sheffield). Juan’s book, Resisting
Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future of Dissent, was reviewed very favorably in the journal Law, Culture and the
Humanities.
Liz Miller presented a paper titled “Exploring Language Teachers’ Sense of Belonging as Entangled with (In)Hospitable
Spaces, Norms, and Relationships” at the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference in Houston. Her visit to
Houston included two days of meetings with the AAAL Executive Committee. Liz recently delivered a (virtual) keynote presentation titled “What research on language teacher emotions can teach us: Learning from experienced teachers’ accounts of emotional challenges, rewards and management strategies” for the II International Scientific Conference, hosted by the Department of Philology at the University of Bialystok, Poland. Liz also had a co-authored paper titled “When Values Collide: Language Teacher Identity Tensions and Ethical Judgments”
presented by her co-author at the 6th Conference of the International Society for the Study of Interactivity, Language and Cognition, held at the University of Oslo. Liz has also agreed to serve as an Editor for the Critical Language and Literacy Studies book series for Multilingual Matters Publishing.
Becky Roeder presented ‘The Changing South: The /ay/ vowel in flux in Charlotte, NC’ at the joint conference of LAVIS (Language Variety in the South) and SECOL (SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics) and began her term as a new member of the SECOL Executive Committee.
Daniel Shealy received a Faculty Research Grant to support his latest Alcott project.
Ralf Thiede gave a presentation entitled “Core vs. Periphery in First-language Acquisition and Attrition” at the joint conference of LAVIS (Language Variety in the South) and SECOL (SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics).
Maya Socolovsky received a CHESS small grants award.
Lara Vetter’s recent biography of H.D. received a positive review in Mascara.
Mark West published an article titled “Introducing My Students to St. Nicholas” in Early Children’s LIterature and Culture
Chronicle. His most recent book Liminal Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature appeared in both the #1 and #6 positions on Amazon’s Hot New Releases List in the Category of “Children’s Literary Criticism.” Mark also gave a talk titled “Responding to Censorship: What We Can Learn from the Experiences of Censored Children’s Authors” to the Charlotte Writers Club.
STUDENT NEWS
Jordan Frederick, one of our M.A. graduates in literature, will be pursuing her doctorate at the University of South
Carolina, with full funding.
Sa’Nya Polo, one of our honors students, received a Sigma Tau Delta Convention Honorable Mention in the “Original
Poetry” category for her work. She will be attending the University of Southern California’s Film School to pursue her
M.F.A.
Catherine Sawyers, one of our M.A. students in creative writing, has been awarded full funding to pursue her M.F.A. at
the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.
Carlos Serrano, one of our M.A. students in literature, has been named a finalist for the university-wide 2023-2024 UNC
Charlotte Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.
Ayanna Watkins, one of our honors students, has accepted a fully-funded offer from Northeastern University, where she
will be pursuing a Ph.D.
Two Fulbright scholars have accepted offers of admission into our M.A. program this fall. Julio Lopez Soza, from
Nicaragua, will be studying linguistics, and Anastasiia Malakhova, from the Ukraine, will be studying creative writing.
Best wishes, everyone, as you wrap up the semester!
Paula