Panels & Presentations

Anna Froula presented "Guerilla in Our Myths: Rambo's Shock and Awe on the Transnational Frontier" at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association of the South in Wilmington, NC, on October 2.  The paper explored the Rambo tetrology as a reification of post-WWII U.S. cultural and military dominance through the movies' invocation of US frontier mythology and the captivity narrative. Rambo is a global paramilitary army of one policing the world to enact US neo-imperial aims. The franchise develops a trajectory of frontier mythology that, as it goes transnational, continues to operate as an index of US fantasies and anxieties over national identity and foreign policy. 

Margaret Bauer presented "From the Newspaper Page to the Broadway Stage: Paul Green in the Poet/Priest Tradition" at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association SAMLA Conference in Atlanta, November 7.

On Monday, October 26, Donna Lillian gave a talk titled "How do you spell non-sexist language?  R-E-S-P-E-C-T, of course!" to approximately 80 students and faculty in Bate 1028.  The talk outlined some of the most common, often unconscious and unintentional, patterns of sexist discourse that persist, in spite of decades of feminist language reform. Women's Studies co-sponsored the event.

On October 9, Tom Shields was the lead speaker for the two-day "Symposium on John Lawson: A Carolinian’s Life and Times" held at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. The symposium commemorated the 300th anniversary of the publication of A New Voyage to Carolina, the 1709 work considered to be the first work specifically about North Carolina and identifying it as such. Shields's talk was titled "A New Voyage to Carolina: Publication History of a Classic of North Caroliniana." The symposium attracted about 200 scholars and lay people from North Carolina and the southeastern region. One of the attendees was professor emeritus Keats Sparrow, the former Dean of the Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, who also helped organize the symposium.

On September 23, Kirk St.Amant presented "Globalizing Online Business Education: Strategies for Teaching Globally Distributed Students via Online Classes" at the Virtual Conference on Business Management (VCOBAM).  Hosted by the Singapore-based online university U21Global, the theme of the VCOBAM conference was Organizations and the Interactive Web, and presenters examined the different ways in which online media are facilitating the globalization of distance education.  St.Amant's paper presented a framework for creating interactive online classes and effective distance education programs comprised of students in industrialized and developing nations.  

Reginald Watson gave an invited, guest presentation on Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God at Rose High School on October 9, 2009.

Tom Douglass gave a talk on Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels in Bayboro, NC, at the Craven County Public Library on October 21, as part of the NC Humanities Council "Let's Talk About It" series.

Joyce Middleton conducted the workshop titled "How to Use Images and Popular Films to Teach Analytical Thinking, Research, and Writing" on October 27, in the Old Cafeteria Complex.  The workshop was designed to help participants think about films as rhetorical texts that they can use to teach in their writing classes or in classes that require writing or research assignments.

Catherine Smith and Donna Kain presented findings from their study (with Ken Wilson, Sociology) of hurricane risk and hazard communication at the RENCI-NWS Summit held in Chapel Hill on October 29-30.  The summit brought National Weather Service (NWS) office directors together with academic and industry specialists in information science, software development, decision science, and communication, as well as users of weather in aviation, agriculture, school districts, and municipalities. Two days of presentation and discussion offered the NWS an overview of current research approaches and technology trends it might take advantage of in order to improve forecasts, warnings, information dissemination, collaboration, and outreach.

Michael Albers presented "Information Relationships: The Source of Useful and Usable" at the ACM SIGDOC Conference in Bloomington, IN, October 5-7. 

During October, John Hoppenthaler gave poetry readings at Salisbury University, MD, and St. Thomas Aquinas College, NY. He also gave a reading and lecture on poetry at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, VA.