2010 – 2011 Series

Personally Speaking 2010-2011: The Beginning

In September 2010, UNC Charlotte’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences in partnership with J. Murrey Atkins Library launched an “Authors Series” envisioned by the Dean’s Advisory Council as an event that would “showcase authors from the college who will read from their books” and illustrate the faculty expertise available to the community. They chose the name Personally Speaking for their series.

• The first event, on Sept. 7, 2010 in the Halton Reading Room of Atkins Library, featured Christina Haynes, a history professor, who discussed her new book, Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France. Recounting the story of a contentious struggle over the regulation of print two centuries earlier, she illuminated current debates over the information marketplace.
• The second presenters of the new series on Nov. 2, 2010, at Atkins Library were Larry Mellichamp, director of UNC Charlotte’s Botanical Gardens, and his assistant director Paula Gross, co-authors of Bizarre Botanicals: How to Grow String-of-Hearts, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Panda Ginger, and Other Weird and Wonderful Plants.
• Chosen to present next in the published scholars’ series called Personally Speaking, on Feb. 17, 2011, at Atkins Library was English Professor Tony Jackson, who discussed The Technology of the Novel, a book about the extraordinary powers of the alphabet and how it has changed human storytelling.
• Rounding out the first series of Personally Speaking, on Mar. 22, 2011, at Atkins Library was Sean McCloud, professor of religious studies and author of Divine Hierarchies, which makes a convincing case for the past and present importance of class in American religious thought, practice, and scholarship.

By season’s end, it was obvious that Personally Speaking would become a popular community experience, binding town and gown through research and writing.