Miscellany

The inaugural Downtown Dialogue in the Humanities was held Tuesday, March 24 at The Starlight Café on W 5th Street Greenville from 5-7 pm.  The theme for the event was "The Humanities in the Modern United States: Building Bridges from Research to Real Life" and featured Jelena Bogdanovic (Architectural History), Nicholas Georgalis (Philosophy), Mary Nyangweso Wangila (J. Woolard & Helen Peel Distinguished Professor in Religious Studies), and Joyce Irene Middleton (English).  Opening remarks were made by Peter Green (2009 Whichard Distinguished Visiting Professor), and Gerald J. Prokopowicz (History) served as moderator. Purificación Martínez, Margaret Bauer, and Nicole Sidhu helped organize the first dialogue. [Pictured here: Alan White, Joyce Middleton, and Ylce Irizarry.] A second dialogue is scheduled for April, which will include Su-Ching Huang as one of the panelists.

Poet Nikki Giovanni visited the ECU campus on March 27.  The poet met with students at the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center at 5 pm and then read from her work in Wright Auditorium at 7 pm.  The renowned poet visited ECU to honor Ledonia Wright Center Cultural Day.  Giovanni is Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.  Her books of poetry include: Black Feeling, Black Talk (1967), Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983), Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems (2002), and Acolytes (2007).   She also wrote the forward to Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance.

ECU's English Graduate Student Organization held its second Spring reading on March 19 at 7:30 pm at the Tipsy Teapot on Evans Street. Nathan Black, Hugh Pearce, Celestine, and Tom Douglass read from their work.

Amy Eichhorn-Mulligan of the University of Memphis presented "Women, Power, and Sovereignty in Medieval  Ireland" on March 19 at 4 pm in Bate 1032.   Her talk was sponsored by the Departments of History and English, the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program and Women’s Studies, in collaboration with Appalachian State University and Longwood University, VA.  Eichhorn-Mulligan received her doctorate in Medieval Languages and Literatures, with a focus on medieval Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia, from Oxford University.  She is completing a book titled Anatomies off the Map: “Secret and distant freaks” and the Authorization of Identity in Medieval Irish and Icelandic Literature.

During March 5-16, Seodial F Deena organized and led a team of 12 professionals from Eastern North Carolina to deliver humanitarian services in Ghana.  The team served over 575 children and young people, visited over 600 patients, and made donations to five hospitals and religious organizations (books, finance, sporting equipments, children’s arts and craft materials among other items).  Further, the team held lectures for over 2000 people and exchanged friendship between the Greenville Noon Rotary and the Rotary Club of Accra West, Ghana, District 9100. Deena's team also met with several educators, leaders, professionals, and doctors to establish plans for the Servant Leadership Institute (SLI) in Ghana to extend their influence throughout West Africa in cooperation with Leadership Alliance for Africa (LAFA).  Discussions also focused on further supplies to Ghana, creating a BMX Program and a Masters Commission’s exchange program between Greenville Masters Commission and Ghana.  According to Deena: "As a bonus, we learned from the people, their food, and culture, and visited the slave castle, Wli Falls, and Ashanti Kingdom.  It was a fantastic trip."