Faculty Notes for November 2023

CHRIS ANSON

On November 3, Chris Anson presented “Implications of the NSSE Study for Supporting Writing in All Disciplines” to the Teaching with Writing Obermann Group at the University of Iowa.

Helen Burgess presented “Empty Your Pockets: Imaginal Discs and the Processes of Insect Rebirth” at the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA), held October 26–29 in Tempe, AZ.

On November 20, You Might Need to Hear This published Daun Daemon’s poem “Separate Bedrooms.”

PAUL FYFE

Paul Fyfe helped organize the 2023 Victorians Institute Conference, co-hosted by NC State and Methodist University and held on campus October 7 & 8.

He gave a talk titled “When Robots Do the Writing: ChatGPT in the Classroom” for Red and White Week and was subsequently interviewed on public radio by WUNC’s Will Michaels on November 6: “Q&A: To Find out More about AI, an NC State Professor Asked His Students to Cheat.”

He presented “Theodora Bosanquet, ChatGPT, and the Return of Automatic Writing” at the North American Victorian Studies Association conference at Indiana University in Bloomington and hosted the organization’s meeting of its Data Caucus.

Anna Gibson published the Little Dorrit Working Notes, a transcribed digital critical edition of the notes Dickens kept as he wrote this novel serially over 19 months. The digital edition, which is published on the Digital Dickens Notes Project Gibson co-directs, features visually faithful transcriptions, a critical introduction, and extensive critical annotations.

She also presented a paper related to this project, titled “’To be worked out as in life’: Forming and Re-forming Little Dorrit,” at the North American Victorian Studies Association conference on November 9 in Bloomington, IN.

On November 9, Marsha Gordon gave an Ursula Parrott lecture and screening introduction of The Divorcee (1930) at Michigan State University in East Lansing; on November 10, she gave an Ursula Parrott lecture and screening introduction of There’s Always Tomorrow (1956) at the University of Chicago; and on November 11, she introduced There’s Always Tomorrow (1956) and led a post-screening discussion at the Carolina Theater in Durham.  

On November 15, she gave a “publishing and promoting a trade book” presentation at the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park. 

In Massachusetts, Gordon gave a lecture at the Boston Athanaeum on November 29 and a lecture and book signing at the Harvard Club as well as an Introduction of There’s Always Tomorrow (1956) at The Brattle Theater in Cambridge on November 30.

WILLIAM LAWRENCE

Bill Lawrence’s newest novel, sequel, and eleventh book, Highway Zero, came out in October in hardcover and ebook, along with a preorder for the paperback in November. The story is about a college student in the late ’90s who travels around the United States on multiple road trips. 

The 2nd edition hardcover and ebook of The Punk and the Professor was also recently released. 

JASON MILLER

Jason Miller spoke about the collaboration between Nina Simone and Langston Hughes for the newly released National Humanities Center, Discovery and Inspiration Podcast Series.

His extended interview with Tony Bolden on the same topic, “Soul Talk: Langston Hughes and Nina Simone’s Friendship,” is now available in the Langston Hughes Review.

Miller participated in the conference “The New General Education: Common Conversations for Citizenship” in Palo Alto, CA, to learn how participating schools such as Stanford University are incorporating Teagle’s Cornerstone for Living principles into their curriculums.

JENNIFER NOLAN

Jennifer Nolan has been awarded a Hargrett Research Stipend for archival research at the George Horace Lorimer Center at the University of Georgia for her work on F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Saturday Evening Post.

Nolan spoke on illustration and popular literary modernism as part of the Modernist Lost and Found roundtable at the Modernist Studies Association Conference, held in Brooklyn, NY, October 26–29.

David Rieder presented “Visualizing the Alien, Trans-Species Rhythm of Kinetic Empathy Between Equine and Human” at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), held October 26–29 at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ.

Carter Sickels’s short story “Forage” was published in the The Kenyon Review (Fall 23). 

On October 24, Erik Thomas gave an online presentation to the Faculty of Philology and Translation at the University of Vigo (Vigo, Spain) titled “Development of Mexican American English and a Model for Immigrant Dialect Formation.”

Action, Spectacle has nominated Elizabeth Wagner’s story “With Cedar” for a Pushcart Prize.

John N Wall published his essay “Materializing Lost Time and Space: Implications for a Transformed Scholarly Agenda” in Renaissance Papers 2022.