Library Brown Bag Talks will be presented via Zoom during the Spring 2023 semester. An email will be sent to the UNC Asheville community during the week of the talk with information about logging into Zoom.
All Library Brown Bags are free and open to UNC Asheville students, faculty, and staff. Brown Bags can be open to the larger community and may require registration.
For questions or comments about Library Brown Bag Talks, please contact Gene Hyde, Head of Special Collections and University Archivist, UNC Asheville. ghyde@unca.edu or 828-251-6645.
Thursday, January 19
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Juan Sanchez-Martinez, Languages and Literature Department
“Joy Harjo y Fredy Chikangana. A Trans-Indigenous Dialogue”
In this talk, I will juxtapose the poetry of Joy Harjo and Fredy Chikangana, renowned contemporary Indigenous poets from the United States and Colombia respectively. In achieving this trans-hemispheric juxtaposition, I have interpreted between Spanish and English, as well as bridged between mvskoke and yanakuna ways-of-being. My goal is to expand the Literary Studies on Indigenous textualities from Colombia beyond Latin America, and vice versa, drawing the attention of Indigenous Studies in North America toward Abiayala.
Thursday, January 26
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Caitlin Brez, Psychology Department
Alex Hollifield, Leadership Education and Development
Regine Criser, Director of Student Success
"UNCA's Quality Enhancement Plan: IGNITE - Finding Your Spark"
In August 2023, UNC Asheville will launch its second Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), IGNITE: Find Your Spark. Through IGNITE, students will build leadership skills and develop academic confidence, cultivate meaningful connections with one another, and deepen their sense of belonging at UNC Asheville. IGNITE will accomplish this by engaging all incoming first-year students in a structured peer-led cohort experience, led by upperclassman Peer Advising Leaders (PALs). Join us to learn about the QEP and how you can get involved in this exciting initiative.
Thursday, February 9 - This Brown Bag has been CANCELLED
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Angel Kaur, Neuroscience Program, Chemistry & Biochemistry (Project PI)
"Using Science Communication Instruction to Improve Undergraduate Science Literacy Skills"
This session will share information about the SciComm Scholars Institute, a faculty development program designed to improve students' science literacy and communication skills in core STEM courses. With funding from the National Science Foundation's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education program, this project offers support for faculty interested in revising an existing course using evidence-based teaching practices aimed at increasing student motivation and engagement. Attendees will learn more about the program and hear from participants from the 2022 cohort about their experience with SSI. Eligible faculty interested in applying for the 2023 or 2024 cohorts are encouraged to attend.
Thursday, February 16
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
"Climate Resiliency through the Sherrill Center Microgrid and Mobile Microgrid Work Vehicles"
Alison Ormsby, UNC Asheville Sustainability Director
Keith Thomson, UNCA 1989 graduate, Convenor/Co-founder, Critical Services Microgrid Group
Nick Haas, John Castellani, and Trevor Goldston, UNC Asheville Mechatronics/Engineering students
We will share about two collaborative undertakings regarding climate resiliency and meeting the UNC Asheville Carbon Commitment target of carbon neutrality by 2050. We also explain what a microgrid is, and how creating a behind-the-meter microgrid at the Sherrill Center with flexible load management, solar generation, and battery storage can help the campus save money, demonstrate leadership, and offer a resilient disaster relief shelter.
In addition, we will explain a successful and ongoing initiative to adapt campus golf carts by upcycling Lead Acid Battery Vehicles to Lithium Iron Phosphate, solar charging systems, and on-board power inverters to create a “mobile microgrid work vehicle.” Through a collaboration between faculty, staff, students, and alumni, solar mobile microgrid work vehicles are being created by students from the Engineering/Mechatronics, Computer Science, and Environmental Studies departments. This is an initiative with both UNC Asheville and Warren Wilson College, with leadership from the Critical Services Microgrid Group (https://www.avl-microgrids.
Thursday, February 23
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Alvis Dunn, Department of History
"Antigua, Guatemala and Alcohol Over The Centuries: Change Over Time?"
Antigua Guatemala is a World Heritage Site, a National Monument, and a Monumental City of the Americas. In recent times international tourists have sought the seemingly calm and colonial grandeur of the town and along the way, from times long past to the present, the city has served government, culture, and myriad shades of identity for Guatemalans themselves. The smallish city has been a destination for decades, even centuries…and the narrative of that status is intertwined with alcohol in interesting and fundamental ways. This paper proposes to explore, and perhaps juxtapose, the town’s unsettled relationship in the late Bourbon colonial period with alcohol – and drinking – and modern Antigua’s often problematic connection with distilled and fermented spirits from the latter years of the twentieth century to the present. Space in a colonial city, change over time, order and disorder, and tourism all come into play in this consideration.
Thursday, March 16
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Caitlin Meagher, Sociology & Anthropology Department
"All the single ladies: making meaning and identity in 'post-familial' Japan"
In this talk, I discuss my past and ongoing research on the growing number of lifelong never-married singles in Japan, with a special emphasis on single women. First, I describe the structural shifts that have given rise to unprecedented rates of singlehood across all genders, which contrast with recalcitrant postwar gender ideologies, producing what I am proposing to call a state of “gender anomie.” In the remainder of the talk, I describe recent market responses to widespread female singlehood, especially shared housing and so-called “solo activities” (solo katsu). I will describe the way that gendered marketing for these experiential commodities emphasize, on the one hand, neoliberal values of selfhood (jibunrashisa), self-realization (jibunmigaku) and freedom (jiyū); and the re-establishment and reimagination of social bonds (en, kizuna) on the other. I offer some preliminary conclusions about the current moment in which many Japanese appear to be fundamentally reconsidering the meaning and importance of community, and the relationship between self and other(s).
Thursday, March 23
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Nancy Ruppert, Department of Education
"The Power and Importance of a Sabbatical"
Sabbaticals at university are tools that can be used to focus on projects and inspire collaborative endeavors. I was on sabbatical fall 2022. In that time period I worked on multiple projects. One was a project that involved interviewing educators including unca alumni around the country about ‘living the dream as an educator, how they take care of themselves and those they work with, and who inspired them’. This presentation will share insights and advice on making your future sabbatical amazing.
Thursday, March 30
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Jessica Pisano, First-Year Writing Coordinator
Robert Bell, Director of the University Writing Center
"Student Support Collaborations in a Post-Pandemic University"
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have noted a deterioration of student engagement in our classes. In LANG 120, the lack of assignment completion has been especially concerning. In an attempt to support first-year students and model helpful academic practices, Robert Bell and Jessica Pisano have piloted two student success initiatives over the past year. We'll share our strategies, challenges, and findings with the campus community in hopes that we can learn from each other to better support our students in this post-pandemic world.
Thursday, April 13
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Eric Klein, Associate Director of Outreach & Success
"Can public schools feed themselves? Rebellious intersections of food and public education systems"
Of course they can. This talk presents recent research on one rural, Appalachian high school's experience with growing their own food and saving local seeds. Using the school's stories as a backdrop, I explore an approach to public education that privileges community cooperation over global competition and frames public schools as places where youth and adults practice the skills and relationships required in resilient, relocalized communities.
Thursday, April 20
12 - 1 PM
Via Zoom - login information will be sent via email a few days before the talk
Erica Locklear, Department of English
Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People
In this talk Erica Abrams Locklear will discuss her new book, Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People, published this April by University of Georgia Press. At its core, the project asks: How do long-held preconceptions about Appalachian foodways color our perception of the region and its people? Foods that were once considered “coarse” are now trendy, while a fairly rigid idea of what “counts” as mountain food remains stagnant.
Abrams Locklear will discuss how socially agreed upon understandings of food can and do define its consumers in the national imagination. Her book analyzes travel writing and fiction from the turn of the twentieth century, tactics Progressive Era reformers used when describing mountain fare, fictional critiques of government programs meant to educate farmers, literary depictions of the culinary shame that can accompany mountain eating habits, and the ways in which authors celebrate mountain fare.