Panels & Presentations

On November 1, Resa Crane Bizzaro attended the annual meeting of the Midwest Modern Language Association in Cleveland, Ohio, speaking on "Native American Educational Sovereignty: Chronology of Relevant Events in North Carolina Systems." Bizzaro also spoke to the Daughters of the American Revolution about the "Cherokee Indian Normal School: The United States' First Native American College" on November 15, in recognition of Native American Heritage month. The Croatan Normal School, first established in 1887, was relocated and renamed The Indian Normal School of Robeson County in 1911, then renamed again in 1912 as The Cherokee Indian Normal School because it was believed that the Lumbee were part of the Cherokee nation (even though the Lumbee spoke languages from different families). Eventually the school evolved into a public university known today as UNC-Pembroke, after joining the UNC system in 1972.

C.W. Sullivan III presented "Manipulation of the Folk-tale Patterns in the Harry Potter Series" at the American Folklore Society meetings in Anchorage, Alaska, 17-21 October 2001.  In the paper, Sullivan argued that J.K. Rowling's abandonment of the folk-tale pattern with which she began the Harry Potter series in favor of the boarding school story pattern (which the series is now following) accounts for some of the critical discontent with the Harry Potter books.

Michele Sharp presented "Between Writers and Readers, Copyright and Sedition: Robert Southey's Wat Tyler, the Romantic Author, and Literary Property," at the annual meeting of the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism, August 15-18, 2001, University of Washington. "The essay examines the consolidation of the concept of literary property through the lens of Southey's play from the 1790s, lionizing the tax rebel Wat Tyler, and advocating the right of citizens to oppose opprobrious taxation.  When the play was published in 1817, without its author's consent, the seditious content was deemed to negate the author's right of property in his work.  As a result, Southey was barred from suppressing the unauthorized publication, and copies of the work multiplied.  The copyright act of 1814 had done much to codify the grounds on which creative artists could own their work as property.  The Wat Tyler affair, however, suggests that the concept of literary property remained in flux, divided between two disparate bodies of jurisprudence -- copyright legislation and the laws and precedents concerning sedition -- which handled agency and ownership in very different ways.  Importantly, the case would introject a greater emphasis on the role of readers in determining the bounds of literary property."

Seodial F. H. Deena presented "The  Uniqueness and Relevance of Christianity to the Poor," at ICLC Conference in Barahona, Dominican Republic,  November 2-4. Deena also gave several lectures in the "Let's Talk About It Series" sponsored by the North Carolina Humanities Council -- "Faith Differences and Different Faiths: Exploring Religion in Modern American Fiction: The Color Purple" in Wilson, NC, October 16, "Exploring Spiritual Identity in Modern Fiction: The Color Purple"  in Raleigh, NC, October 13, and  "Identity Quest in Mother-Daughter Relationships in Immigrant Literature: Dreaming in Cuba," in Durham, NC, October 8, 2001.

Laura Micciche's contributed her essay "Not so Funny: Incest as Comic Narrative" at the Third Biennial Feminism and Rhetoric Conference in Decatur, IL on October 19, 2001. The paper focused on Debbie Drechsler's use of visual and written rhetoric in her 1995 comic book entitled Daddy's Girl. According to Micciche, "Debbie Drechsler escorts us into the psyche of a teenage girl ... and uses the comics form to construct a not so funny narrative about the trespassing of women's bodies. By using comics to create an incest narrative, Drechsler envisions and re-envisions girlhood, politicizing the link between genre and representation while animating one girl's complex emotional life."

On October 25-28, 2001, English graduate student Shawn McCauley attended the annual conference of the Aphra Behn Society, an organization "dedicated to encouraging and advancing research that focuses on issues of gender and/or women's role in the arts of early modern culture, circa 1660-1800," held in Daytona Beach, Florida.  McCauley presented his paper entitled "Holding the Middle Ground: The Politics of Katherine Philips."

Creative Writing graduate students Marie Griffin, Bridget Hemenway, and Jennifer McQueen presented their work, several poems and short stories, at a reading at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Greenville, on Thursday, November 8 at 7 p.m.