August/September Missive

Announcements

CHESS “AI Week” will take place from October 20th until October 24th in various venues across campus. This College-wide set of events is dedicated to exploring AI from the perspective of the humanities and earth and social sciences. For more information, including about the English-Department sponsored round table with Rob Conkie, Helen Davies, Mark Hall, and Lara Vetter on Tuesday that week, visit the event website. As a reminder, the Department will provide a light meal at 5pm Tuesday in the Seminar Room before the 5:30 event. For university guidance on best practices having to do with personal social-media accounts, visit this site. Finally, the first round application deadline for the CHESS small grants program is today, October 6th. The next deadline is February 2. For information on the program, visit this site. 

Kudos 

Lucy Arnold published an untitled poem in Twin Flame Literary Magazine.

Meghan Barnes published with Lucy Arnold & Heather Coffey the book chapter “From practice to critique: ELA teachers grappling with writing instruction in a third space” in English Teaching: Practice and Critique. She also submitted to Routledge the co-authored, contracted book Fostering Critical Pedagogy in the ELA Classroom: Mentoring, Networking, and Supporting English Teachers (with Lucy Arnold & Heather Coffey) and now has the book Developing Critical Literacy: Disrupting the Page in Middle and Secondary English Language Arts Classrooms under contract with Bloomsbury (with Heather Coffey).

Bryn Chancellor was named Writer-in-Residence in Charlotte Lit’s new residential program.

Helen Davies published the co-authored article “Seeing together: an innovative and collaborative multispectral imaging initiative” in Studi Francesi, Vol 26, September 2025, p. 347-356. 

Erica Hussey was awarded a Writers Residency at Casa Lü Sur, Mexico.

Allison Hutchcraft’s poem “Is Wrack, Is Rak, Is Wreckage,” which originally appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, was reprinted in the 50th anniversary edition of the Pushcart Prize L: Best of the Small Presses.

Liz Miller co-authored a new book in Cambridge University Press’s Elements in Language Teaching series. The title of her book is Language Teacher Emotions.She also co-authored a chapter titled “Language Teacher Identity and Agency Informing Teaching Practice: Empowering Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners in Adult ESL” with former student Anna Sanczyk-Cruz (University of Białystok, Poland). It appears in the edited volume Criticality, Agency, and Language Teacher Identities: Research and Praxis from Global Teacher Education(Bloomsbury). She was also asked to contribute a short Commentary chapter to the book. 

Becky Roeder gave a talk on Marshallese school kids’ academic performance with Lori Aine O’Healy (majoring in French and Anthropology) and Elise Berman (Dept. of Anthropology) entitled  “LTEL [long-term English learners] Risk in Barnestown: A Longitudinal Look” at the Second Annual Southeast Linganth Exchange.

Ralf Thiede co-presented with Barbara Thiede (Dept. of Religious Studies) a talk on Bible translations into Creoles entitled “No Escape from Colonialism: How Bible Translations into Creoles Domesticate the Language of Slavery and Reinforce Judeophobia” at the Second Annual Southeast Linganth Exchange.

Mark West gave the presentation “The Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter” at the Aldersgate Retirement Community on September 18, 2025 and delivered the story “My Late-Night Encounter with a Brown Recluse Spider” at an event at Davidson College. He also published the following articles: (1) “Visiting Robert Louis Stevenson’s Childhood Home in Edinburgh” in the latest issue of The Early Children’s Literature and Culture Chronicle; and (2) “A Fitting Tribute to the Conservation President” in The Arena: Newsletter of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.