James Weldon Johnson's Modern Soundscapes

 Associate Professor of African American literature, Dr. Noelle Morrissette, recently published James Weldon Johnson's Modern Soundscapes, which "provides an evocative and meticulously researched study of one of the best known and yet least understood authors of the New Negro Renaissance era" (University of Iowa Press).

"Johnson, familiar to many as an early civil rights leader active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and an intentionally controversial writer on the subject of the significance of race in America, was one of the most prolific, wide-ranging, and yet elusive authors of twentieth-century African American literature.  Drawing on archival materials such as early manuscript notes and drafts of Johnson’s unpublished and published work, Morrissette explores the author’s complex aesthetic of sound, based on black expressive culture and cosmopolitan interracial experiences" (University of Iowa Press).

"Johnson realized early in his writing career that he could draw attention to the struggles of African Americans by using unconventional literary methods such as the incorporation of sound into his texts. In this groundbreaking work, literary critic Noelle Morrissette examines how his literary representation of the extremes of sonic experience—functioning as either cultural violence or creative force—draws attention to the mutual contingencies and the interdependence of American and African American cultures. Moreover, Morrissette argues, Johnson represented these “American sounds” as a source of multiplicity and diversity, often developing a framework for the interracial transfer of sound. The lyricist and civil rights leader used sound as a formal aesthetic practice in and between his works, presenting it as an unbounded cultural practice that is as much an interracial as it is a racially distinct cultural history" (University of Iowa Press).

"The result is an innovative new interpretation of the works of one of the early twentieth century’s most important and controversial writers and civil rights leaders" (Project Muse).  “Noelle Morrissette brings to the forefront an undervalued aspect of Johnson’s amazing career—his attempt to bridge the separation between black political activism and black popular culture. Impressively informed but quite accessible and engaging, James Weldon Johnson’s Modern Soundscapes is an authoritative reconsideration of critical approaches to Johnson. I expect it to be quickly established as one of the essential books for anyone interested in Johnson, and an important methodological model for any scholar working in this period of American cultural history" (John Ernest, University of Delaware).

Miriam Thaggert, Associate Professor of English at The University of Iowa, declares it “an engaging, thought-provoking book... [and] an important work in African American literary studies, American studies, and the growing field of sound studies.”

Fallen Forests

 

"In 1844, Lydia Sigourney asserted, 'Man's warfare on the trees is terrible.' Like Sigourney, many American women of her day engaged with such issues as sustainability, resource wars, globalization, voluntary simplicity, Christian ecology, and environmental justice" (UGA Press).

In her recently published book, Fallen Forests, English Professor Karen Kilcup examines nineteenth century American women's environmental writing "to show how women writers have drawn on their literary emotional intelligence to raise readers' consciousness about social and environmental issues" (UGA Press).  Kilcup's extensive research on the subject encompasses a wide range of female voices, including those from marginalized communities, such as Native American, African American, Mexican American, working class, and non-Protestant.  Her analysis extends beyond traditional texts to incorporate Native American speeches, travel writing, slave narratives, and diaries and illustrates their influence on environmental debates of the time.

"Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and brilliantly argued, Fallen Forests is a major contribution to ecocriticism and to the study of nineteenth century American women writers more broadly.  [It is] a remarkably dexterous and insightful work of ecocritical scholarship" (Michael P. Branch).

Empowering Words: Outsiders and Authorship in Early America

Karen A. Weyler, Associate Professor of American Literature in the English Department, recently published, Empowering Words: Outsiders & Authorship in Early America.  In her book, Dr. Weyler "explores how outsiders used ephemeral formats such as broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers to publish poetry, captivity narratives, formal addresses, and other genres with wide appeal in early America" (University of Georgia Press)

Marginalized and repressed populations from this time period understood the social power and influence of the written word and sought outlets for self expression as a means of communication and connection.  "To gain access to print, outsiders collaborated with amanuenses and editors, inserted their stories into popular genres and cheap media, tapped into existing social and religious networks, and sought sponsors and patrons" (University of Georgia Press).  "Empowering Words compels us to expand our definitions of agency, authorship, literacy, and literature to encompass the unlikely men and women who populated the world of print in early America" (Vincent Carretta, author of Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage).

"Using an innovative and persuasive approach, as well as much new material, Empowering Words reveals that slaves, women, and other marginalized groups shrewdly manipulated mainstream culture and not only wrote but published themselves into being during the early national period. The book will be an invaluable resource for scholars interested in class, gender, identity, race, and print culture."—Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola, author of The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict through the Captivity Literature 

Click here to see Jackson Library's catalog record of the book.  The library has both a print edition as well as an ebook available!

Critical Essays on Colombian Cinema and Culture

Spanish Professor Laura Chesak provided the translation for Juana Suarez's Critical Essays on Colombian Cinema and Culture: Cinembargo Colombia, which was published in August 2012. Suarez is a Latin American cinema, visual culture, and literature scholar, whose recent research focuses on the interdisciplinary study of Colombian film through historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives.

Through her examination of Colombian films, particularly those produced as a result of the 2003 Law of Cinema, Suarez addresses the issues of pervasive violence, race and gender relations, class, and power in the nation and their portrayal in Colombian cinema.  She places her analysis in its proper political and social context, and argues for the use of this artistic medium as a means of national reflection.  Colombian cinema has historically played a minimal role in the international film market, with only a limited number receiving international awards or accolades, and Suarez considers its future possibilities in this arena.

She "undertakes to examine with critical insight the most important texts of Colombian film making. Her work is geared toward those films that have become part of a Latin American and international canon, those texts that have attracted significant critical attention and that are most likely to be used in courses on Latin American film or in courses in which Latin American film is part of a larger thematic or modular focus. Focusing on key texts, Suarez examines them in interpretive depth, with full attention to theoretical issues they raise in filmmaking and in cultural studies. Her coverage is a judicious balance between historical considerations and actual textual analyses, between a discussion of questions relevant to the film industry in Colombia and the cultural contexts of specific texts." David William Foster, Regents' Professor of Spanish and Women and Gender Studies, Arizona State University

"Dense but fascination reading, this [is] a book for specialists in film studies, Latin American studies, and cultural studies.  Suarez writes with solid theoretical grounding regarding both feature films and documentaries by Colombian cineasts.  Summing Up: Highly recommended."  CHOICE

The German Student Movement and the Literary Imagination: Transnational Memories of Protest and Dissent

Professor Susanne Rinner, Languages, Literature, and Culture, recently published The German Student Movement and the Literary Imagination: Transnational Memories of Protest and Dissent.  The book has been praised as "a thoughtful study of the current discourse surrounding the important role of literature in shaping cultural memory…The case of the literary representation of the German ‘1968’ is particularly interesting as it reveals a continuing preoccupation with the traumatic effects of Germany’s past” (Ingo Cornils, University of Leeds).

Looking specifically at novels by Ulrike Kolb, Irmtraud Morgner, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Bernhard Schlink, Peter Schneider, and Uwe Timm, Professor Rinner's book, as the publisher describes, "traces the cultural memory of the 1960s student movement in German fiction, revealing layers of remembering and forgetting that go beyond conventional boundaries of time and space. These novels engage this contestation by constructing a palimpsest of memories that reshape readers’ understanding of the 1960s with respect to the end of the Cold War, the legacy of the Third Reich, and the Holocaust."
  
The German Student Movement and the Literary Imagination is the ninth volume in Berghahn's Protest, Culture & Society series.

The Next Time You See Me

English professor Holly Goddard Jones published her first novel, The Next Time You See Me, in February, 2013. 

Booklist's Leah Strauss praised the novel, noting "Jones’ debut novel, following her short story collection Girl Trouble (2009), follows the intersecting effects of one woman’s disappearance on residents of a small Kentucky town. Middle-school teacher Susanna becomes concerned when she finds her older sister, Ronnie, is missing. The two share a complicated relationship—Ronnie is a hard-partying factory worker while Susanna is a mild-mannered wife and mother. When Susanna launches a widespread search, it unexpectedly connects the lives of other townsfolk. Such as Emily, a tragic 13-year-old outcast whose daydreams may well reveal a dangerous secret, and downtrodden Wyatt, a fiftysomething blue-collar worker who begins to confront a lifelong emotional void after meeting and falling in love with a local nurse. Meanwhile, there’s Tony, the failed athlete who has returned to his hometown as the detective assigned to Ronnie’s case. As the search for Ronnie intensifies, Susanna begins to question the stagnancy in her own life, while other characters confront their perceptions of self-worth. Jones’ well-crafted tale captures small-town nuances while exploring the individual psychologies of her characters and their struggles." --Leah Strauss

The New York Times called the work "Impressive . . . An eerie air hangs over the novel, but Ms. Jones has a talent for making even scenes apart from the central mystery feel suspenseful. She also has a precise eye and empathy to burn, bringing each of her many characters to well-rounded life.”

This book, like many other recent novels, can be located in the Current Literature section on the first floor of Jackson Library. 

Is your book in the University Libraries? Is your article in NC Docks?

Faculty--welcome back to campus!  This blog was on hiatus over the summer, but now we would like to help you get the word out about your publications.  The University Libraries actively collect faculty books, films, scores, and more.  If you have recently published, edited, or translated a scholarly monograph, work of fiction, book of poetry, or collection of essays, please let us know--send an email to Kimberly Lutz at kdlutz2@uncg.edu.  Each Spring we hold an event to celebrate the book publications of our faculty, and we feature many on this blog throughout the year. 

We also want to make sure we are collecting, preserving, indexing, and distributing your scholarly articles.  Please contact Beth Bernhardt, Assistant Dean for Collection Management and Scholarly Communications, at brbernha@uncg.edu, to learn how you can contribute your work to our institutional repository, NC Docks.