Good evening everybody, thank you for coming. Really
appreciate your time, hope you're enjoying the drinks and
the snacks and the food, Spending some time this
evening with us. Really appreciate this is our 11th
annual Virginia Tech authors recognition reception. So again,
thanks for coming. And this is what we do
here. This is really celebrating authors, researchers and
and those who produce creative works uh, during the
year for Virginia Tech faculty and two get material out
to the, to the globe and produce their publications
. We really appreciate the work that they do.
And that's, that's what this reception is for This
year. We have 88 books that are published from
77 authors. Lots of questions about how come there's
that kind of differential between 77 authors and 888 books
. Of course, there are some people who published
more than one. That's rare, but it happens
and there's a lot of multi authors of course as
well. This isn't just books, this is books
, print books, e books, this is other
kind of creative works, musical scores and the like
. So we include a lot of different kinds of
scholarship here. There were also quick mention, the
library's open excessive pension fund, which celebrates and supports
journal articles, which is not necessarily part of what
you see on the shelves, but we'd like to
mention what's going on on. There is it's a
fund that helps support faculty who are publishing uh their
materials in in an open journal, Actually funded 45
articles this year. That program continues to grow,
which is also another reason why I like a like
to mention it. So for those of you who
are interested in publishing, having some support through an
open journal, who let me know, I'll be
happy to help you. Of course. This year
we have, as usual we have College of Liberal
Arts and Human Sciences as our as our top producer
. 31 books from 25 authors. Although I have
it on authority that some people in the college think
they can do better. Well see I think that's
very very fine. And I have to give a
nod to the to the runner up which is the
College of Architecture Urban Studies. So we have to
colleges that beat out engineering, got to feel good
about that. Um We also have our distinguished author
, Professor robert Denton who is not here this evening
. He has come to every one of these.
He has published at everyone of these events. So
he has a book, this is his 11th book
and he emailed me a couple days ago to say
that it might happen next year but might not.
He's really doubting is going to happen and he's not
here this evening because he's, he's working with our
election tomorrow. He's on WDBJ TV this evening doing
his commentary. So he sends everybody as regards and
is sorry that he couldn't, couldn't be here.
Mhm. So we have a couple of speakers quick
remarks before we get to our five beta kappa uh
, Sturm award for excellence. So we're going to
turn it over to Executive Vice President and pros finances
for caucus for a few comments finances I think,
Oh, thank you. Tyler great to be here
and thank you all for coming. Congratulations to all
the authors who, who are the overachievers with the
two books. There you go. 3, 3
overachievers, three bucks each. That is, that
is impressive. That is. And you're sitting between
the Dean's to wow, There you go. There
is a powerful blast. Right? That's good.
That's a good plan. That's one way of dealing
with raids a check sit next to the faculty pictures
that don't go anywhere. Okay. The other one
would be to close the doors. Okay, great
. Uh, no, it's great to be here
. Uh, and I tell you, there are
a couple of reasons. It's great to be here
. First of all, it's, uh, this
is what being at the university is all about.
It's hard not to look at the books or look
at the titles and not realize that this is what
the university is all about about actually being covering the
whole range of universal knowledge. And I can only
imagine what it means to our students, each coming
for a particular experience to be able to walk into
a space where all these different types of thoughts are
being represented. This is exactly the diversity we're talking
about that can open up people's minds the diversity of
not only race and ethnicity and gender, but also
the diversity of intellectual thought. And I wish that
one of the things we would do for undergraduates just
bring them to events like this just to realize how
really broad human knowledge is and when we talk about
360° solutions that it takes this type of integration through
to come up with those solutions. So I want
to celebrate, first of all, how inclusive in
terms of intellectual diversity. Uh, this event is
um, the other thing I want to say and
uh see Theresa sitting over there and she will vote
for me. As you know, we went through
this exercise to the destination areas only a few weeks
ago looking at our scholarship and try to see where
we connect the best and what issues to address.
And the thing that came up fairly quickly is that
this idea of what scholarship is. Is it something
that's way, way harder to capture than just simply
some analytics serious politics there? All right. There's
activity in scholarship in books of course, as we
can see here in open journals in, in,
in, in computer science. A lot of the
activity is in conferences, but you also have architectural
plans. You have designed projects, you have choreography
, you have visual arts, you have sculpture.
Well, this is under what we would call scholarship
and in the kind of scholarship we need to have
a university. So the other reason I'm really happy
to be here and celebrate this is that these are
the types of dimensions that as we try to create
a more holistic view of other scholarship is we need
to be able to capture and present. So it's
a, it's a nice challenge to have. And
every time I come to an event like this,
I realize how much important all that exists in the
different types of scholarship that we have. And also
, I think it's a challenge for the evolution of
the library uh, in terms of actually being able
to present access to all these different types of knowledge
which is being made even more ubiquitous um, by
digital publishing. So some very interesting times with a
high dimensionality of knowledge and I think there is no
better meeting that is to actually show us this,
this kind of rationality, someone to appreciate talent and
his staff and what are you showing up? And
just to prove my point of how diverse this room
is actually, the athletic director sitting there at the
back. So there you go, we have the
full spectrum uh the university, so without who were
turning over to. So Theresa is next speaking about
diversity of knowledge. So before I turn it over
its recesses, I didn't know you were standing over
to you. Uh want to congratulate the authors again
. Uh the last thing to say about this is
that there is a uh even in a time of
digital publishing there's a tremendous effect that books are,
we were looking at the eliminate distinguished professors poor only
a couple of weeks ago and we began to realize
of course how many targeted affects books can have,
for example textbooks. Right? And how much they're
being adopted by different schools. So again, they're
all of the book and they're all of the music
composition uh in our kind of inclusive society of knowledge
is critical and it's really good to see it all
congratulate all of you for your productivity. And of
course I wanna congratulate you brats and human sizes and
architecture for beating up an engineering report was to beat
up on entering, what is that? Right?
That's good films. We thought, let's have an
engineer come up here and tell us all about it
. So I would like to, well, I
like to welcome a new vice prices for such innovation
. Theresa May. Thank you. Um, it's
really a pleasure to be here to honor all of
our authors who really do serve the larger academic community
through their work. Um it really is advancing the
state of the art and our scholarly thought and that's
critically is really at the foundation of what we do
in the university. Um, I was impressed in
looking through the list of um scholarly works that are
authors um span seven colleges and many academic units.
And so this is a real, a real collective
effort that shows the true, comprehensive nature of our
university. Um, We have works ranging from print
to film, So very, very broad and diverse
collections. Your works provided the insight to the landscape
of our beloved Blue Ridge Mountains through the cultures and
economy worldwide. So a very broad swath of the
population. Um green energy to french literature, nutrition
to neuropsychology. And as I was looking through the
list of books, um, I was struck to
see engineering economy and for those of you who don't
know me, I graduated with my undergraduate degree here
in engineering Um in the 80s and it took me
back to 1985 and I still had all of my
books packed up in my office. And so,
you know, I had to go rooting through my
, my books and I remember that this was written
by Virginia tech professor, so engineering economy. And
we have the 16th edition over here. Um,
so this had all my notes and complete with all
the tabs. And so it really took me back
, um, and showed just what a long term
strength this has been for the university as a whole
. Um, I also want to recognize uh,
that are authors have published through the open access suspension
fund. And this is really nice. I just
learned about this, that there are funds available for
authors, um, who are not able to support
the publication. These the very high and increasing publication
thieves, um, for open access journals. And
this is really a new strategy uh, for the
disclosure of our scholarly works and one that's going to
be growing. And so it was really exciting to
learn that Virginia Tech is really, I think leading
the nation and providing funds to our scholars to get
the works out um in an open access type format
. So that's very exciting. Um So I also
want to congratulate all of you, your achievements,
create the culture and reputation of the university and I
think um you know keep going, it's really a
great time for Virginia Tech and congratulations again. Thank
you. Um My name is Tom Ewing and I'm
here to introduce the seasonings keynote speaker. Um I'm
here as a secretary of the Virginia Tech chapter of
phi beta kappa. And I also chaired the committee
that awarded the Storm Research Prize, the criteria that
award our scholarly publications then address a broad general audience
. Um And so it's it's a very fitting prize
to be honored in this setting where we recognize the
intake office from across the university. The selection committee
was very impressed with the submission from Professor Paul Sorrentino
by the depth of research, the riveting narrative and
the original contributions to understanding the life and the significance
of Stephen Crane hit this book. Stephen Crane,
A Life of Fire is a model of how meticulous
research in the humanities field can address broad themes in
ways that enhance public understanding, thus advancing the liberal
learning that's central to the mission both of phi beta
kappa and to Virginia tech as a comprehensive university.
So Professor Sorrentino is, he was Professor Sorrentino when
when the prize was awarded, he's now professor emeritus
in the department of English, he will take questions
at the end of his talk. So so we'll
have a few minutes for that. Um And at
this time, please welcome Professor emeritus paul Sorrentino.
Mhm. Mhm. Well thank you very much for
that time. Introduction calm. It's somewhat ironic that
I'm here today because as tom said Professor emeritus english
department. And when I was in high school my
worst subject was english. And the last thing I
wanted to become with a teacher I run it is
how I came across the american author Stephen Crane.
When I was a junior in high school I was
taking a course survey of american literature. And in
addition to read these elections from an anthology, we
were required to choose from a list of american novels
, one model of months to read and that we
would then be examined on are related. So I
looked at the list. I did not recognize any
of the titles. I went to my neighbor.
I said mrs jones. Do you recognize any of
the names of these books on here? She scratched
her face. She looked nothing. She said.
I do have one of these. It's a book
called Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. I said could
I borrow that book? She said of course.
So she gave me this book. 450 page book
and I read this book and I went from my
oral exam. The teacher sitting on his desk.
I was standing in front the desk. He asked
me for 10 minutes, a set of questions.
It stopped, looked to the left out the window
And said you're great is 75. Mhm. Sorry
went out. I waited for my friend jimmy to
go back. 10 minutes later he came back out
. I said Jimmy, what did you get?
He said I got in mind me too. And
I said what book did you read? He said
something called the Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
. I said could I see it? And she
showed me this book? And what I've noticed immediately
was that it was only 150 pages. So I
thought to myself, perhaps shorter is better. I
borrowed the book the next month. I went from
a thorough exam, stood in front of the best
teacher For 10 minutes. He asked questions on Stephen
Crazy Red badge of courage, turned his head to
the left. I looked out the window and said
, your greatest 92, like definitely shorter is better
. Fast forward now, more than three decades later
. I arrive at Virginia Tech and I'm telling you
this is the professor. As you all know,
people have to have a research project. I thought
to myself, gosh, you know, I need
to do something very real quick to get tenure.
I don't want to spend the whole rest of my
life working on one person. What I'll do is
write a biography. And I even thought the biography
was simply a collection of facts. You know,
you'd have somebody born, somebody dies and you throw
in a few details in between. And I decided
I'm going to look at an alphabetical list of american
offers And I'm going to choose someone who did not
make it to age 30. I could write this
book very, very quickly. I flipped through three
x 5 cards. Came to one that said Crane
comma, Stephen died at age 28. I said
Bingo, that's the guy I could write a biography
about. That's the guy who many years ago was
short. It was better for the three decades later
I finally wrote that book and in the meantime I
wrote a number of other books on Stephen Crane ended
up ironically spending my life with Stephen Crane, a
person whose novel Courage I hate now. What I
did not realize was the set of problems involved in
writing by Stephen Crane. I as I said,
I thought I could simply right this very, very
quickly. And those of you who have Britain fire
fees are breathe fire reason though, that one of
the sources of information that you use our letters and
diaries and journals that Silky had. For example,
if you wanted to write a biography of Mark Twain
, american author, You would have to read 30,000
letters And go through 50 cents of notebooks. Mhm
If you wanted to write a biography about the playwright
George Bernard Shaw, there are 250,000 letters even more
so for the american poet ever pound 300,000 letters.
So you can be overwhelmed with information, Stephen Crane
the exact opposite. Just a few 100 letters to
in front And many of these are performed. They
begin by saying there, Jim, see you tonight
at 8:00, Stephen that's a letter. He also
did not keep diaries. And so I discovered a
lot of information about Stephen Crane is not readily available
. What made it even more difficult was that a
lot of the contemporary council contradict each other. People
who do you do say things? Yes. I
was with Stephen Crane on this particular day, somebody
was saying, no, he was with me on
that. Even people who knew him, who wrote
more than one account about His friend Hamlin Garland,
famous American writer at the time, four separate accounts
and he constantly changed the details on it. So
writing a biography of Stephen Crane, there was a
problem trying to figure out what information was readily available
. That compounded even more so when calling. And
I discovered that the most influential work That's Stephen Crane
in 20th century, A critical biography written in 1923
by a man named Posterior. We discovered that is
unfortunate, it's just the source of most of information
about Stephen Crane. So I suddenly discovered that this
biography not finding right had built in all sorts of
problems because did not know what was fact, what
was fiction. And so I had to sort through
all of that kind of thing. It eventually to
this particular book, it took more than three decades
too. Right along the way, I've had a
lot of exciting things happened that I won I never
thought would have happened. One of those happened that
left me stranded in Hawaii. Remember this? I'm
until your assistant professor and I hear that there's lost
collection of steaming cream materials that nobody has ever seen
except the person who claimed to have this election.
It disappeared. People attempted to find this collection.
I eventually tracked it down to be in Hawaii.
I contact the same window. The person collect this
material had died and I spent a year trying to
convince her that I was legitimate. I even had
my write a letter and say yes. All Sorrentino
is an ISIS tenured assistant professor. He does work
at Virginia Tech. Yeah, widely. The widow
said, you can come on out. I don't
know if you find anything here, but you can
come on out before I left. And you've got
happen to be unique thing there that I wanted somehow
to get access to. I arranged with certain university
or crane had been a student for one semester.
I found an angel, the ceo of the company
and he said to me, paul, if the
collection is written out there, I'm ready to buy
it. I said, is there any limit on
the amount? He said no. So I find
out to what The widow picks me up. four
or 10. Okay, Okay. Your interest in
your She takes him to her automobile and within seconds
she's driving like it takes me through a house.
I walk in, there was a table, there
were boxes set up, There's a chair and she
says paul, I don't know what you're going to
find. I have not looked at this collection.
It's been under the steps of our house for more
than two decades. I don't know if there's anything
there. Within 10 minutes I knew him from a
literary park. Of course. I was seeing letters
Break my Crane and nobody ever proceed before. I
was seeing manuscripts by Crane that nobody had ever seen
before and described first editions on here at the end
of the day. She's keeping an eye on me
. And she had also few£150 dogs who snap
one here, one here and put their draws lays
. At the end of the day. Mr Sherman
said dr Sorrentino, um if you want to come
back please do. And I said, oh,
I'd love to come back and look at this.
And she said, oh, by the way,
I know I can trust you. I said,
boy, I appreciate that. She said, you're
the first guest that the dogs haven't attacked The next
10 days. She and I got to know each
other on a first name basis. She would make
me lunch. We've watched soap operas together. Finally
, as I was getting towards the end of my
time, she said paul, why don't you take
some of this manuscripts back to your hotel because you're
running out of town? I said I said mrs
charlotte. These are unique Documents. A one of
a kind. She said no, no, I
trust you. So she gives me all these documents
I take for weekend. I decided to take a
break. I have a friend who's a teaches english
at the University of Hawaii. He said paul,
would you like to go by surfing? Would you
like to climb the mountains? I said yes,
great. Before I leave Hawaii. So we have
a wonderful time when I come back to my efficiency
. I notice immediately drops of blood and broken glass
I think oh my gosh! Somebody has broken into
my efficiency and I can see it right now.
I hope this thief is not a crane scholar.
I have good news, bad news. The good
news is that all the documents? Were there?
Bad news Is that the thief has stolen my plane
ticket? Council my flight off the island. So
I'm now stuck. Why? Every minute I call
back to my department head, I say art art
East. Some of you, you know the person
I'm referring to art. Uh He said how are
you doing in Hawaii? And I said, well
it's great. It's collection desperately exists and but I
have some bad news. I can't get off the
island and I may not be able to be in
time for my first. They have classes. Could
you get somebody to fill in? And he said
, what happened is somebody stole my ticket and I
cannot get out of quiet now. Imagine that the
content, your assistant professor's calling back for Genentech and
saying I'm not going to be there for the first
week of classes. Uh Yeah, that's it.
I couldn't get off the eilish. Well, fortunately
did get off the island. I came back and
I did not get much sympathy from the folks.
That might have been my tan. I'm here because
I was killing some time on here. But as
it turned out, Service University, the Ceo connected
with Syracuse University bought the collection and it's now in
service university. I was given access to a sole
access for 18 months. That was part of the
arrangement. The new york Times did a feature on
it and said this is closed until a year and
a half. That gave me time to go through
collection much more closely. It was quite a bit
of money. So that kind of thing. When
I think about when I was in high school,
hated Stephen Crane hated right about your courage has taken
me not only do y, but it took me
to the british library where I have access to a
material that nobody had ever seen before. In fact
, the collections of darkness covered with Sutton pebbles In
every 30 minutes agenda would have to come around me
sweet, But I would say I'm sorry for making
all this mess working. This comes from. I
said, well you have gotten access to a cattle
population. There was a section of the british like
they want to cut bomb in the battle of Britain
. You're the first person I have to look at
this material. So, I was seeing pebbles Suck
from the Battle of Britain in 1940. Coming at
my side as are looking at documents and crumble.
It also took me to Germany where cream ended up
as a no, he was in his final days
, he was at a Senate term. He was
suffering from tuberculosis. He was hoping to get a
cure. It did not happen. And he died
in a small village, a small place in Germany
called button by them Fighting fire decided to have a
literate international literature festival. I was invited there for
a week as a guest speaker. There was other
people. They're coming in here and it was a
kind of strange experience. And my first day there
I was with my my my guide, the person
who invited me and we were walking down and coming
towards us on the street was a woman who was
reading a newspaper like this. She wasn't looking at
us, she was reading the newspaper just going like
this way and she looked up and looked at me
and look that's my guy and I wonder what in
the world this being. Mhm. And she's pointed
at me and then she turned her newspaper around.
I think my experience a thought I would never have
spent my life with you know as I think about
this. Yeah and I think about my career and
how long it was as a young assistant professor and
then my retirement last june, this has been a
long road here and I never expected to spend my
whole life examining the work, just one particular person
. But I think back to my time in high
school when I was looking at those books and that
list of books and wondering, yeah, thank you
. Mhm. Which book to read? They all
looked like to me. But as I thought about
this I think you know what when I look back
at those thoughts I realized that perhaps shorter was better
. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah
, mm. Okay. Yes. What was the
material in the british library? What was it what
was Yes the question was what was the material british
library? Some of the doctors are looking at where
local newspapers and the area where Crane had lived.
There were also documents that were notebooks, diaries.
Not written by him. But if I was looking
for seeing Somebody happened, one into him and within
a third person mentioned cream. Sometimes I find it
more often. I'm not. I would those of
you have done research, archival research note. It's
for every 1000 pages you turn over you have to
at some point you say I've turned over Enough that
took a 1001 bingo. So that's what happened here
. Mhm. All right. Mhm. Yes.
Do you think you're how you talked about how he
didn't have a good relationship with him at the beginning
and you went into his material? do you think
that position help you in your riding and understanding and
learning more about him? Yes, I had I
my whole career has been a a matter of army
. All sorts of ways such as by getting involved
with teaching, by getting involved with english, by
getting involved with the Crane. It made me reexamine
why I hate it. That told me something about
me. And then once I started understanding who I
was, then I could understand a bit who he
I'm here. The nature of biography is such that
yeah, you may discover things about a person that
you wish. You did not know. And that
happened with steven. I filed out things about him
. I wish I hadn't known, but it helped
me appreciate him more. Later on, how is
your relationship now with him? I'm evangelicals. You
there was another question for you the same question really
. How did you go from not liking his book
to being interested in him over all those years?
When I started seeing when when people would say what
are you working on all? I'd say Stephen Crane
, they say Stephen curry. I think I think
I've heard of him before. I say Given was
guaranteed that you have read something by him. You
may not remember the name of it often. It's
a short story, the Open Boat or his novels
, the red badge of courage. But he wrote
so much war. And once I started reading other
things written by then I start seeing this guy.
It's got it. His contemporaries thought he was the
future of american literature. They all thought this was
the guy is going to revolutionize Part four. Mhm
Tragically dies at age 12. Yes. What did
you do with the material that you wish you haven't
found? It's in the biography. It. Yes
. Yes. What I realized was that I have
to be honest obviously the biography is my take on
so in many ways about her when she writes a
book is telling as much about herself as the subject
itself. Because it's not simply putting them together the
facts. It's creating what's called a narrative arc the
shape of a life story and here um I thought
I cannot sugarcoat things if I have slamming some things
I need to be honest. Because yeah I was
correcting all the mistakes have been made in court because
of traffic ations. The person who fabricated the person
who wrote this biography of Stephen Crane the first one
uh got frustrated because of lack of information. What
did they do invented it. But sometimes you know
like were there any relatives or something that would have
to some indiscretion? I don't know where it was
. But you're talking about. But it's only sometimes
I think you have hate some right mercy or some
. Yes. Some but you know, it might
have really represented a whole thing of person is about
some there might be some other aspects, right?
The question is dealing with there are times when you
might have to and I miss you know what I'm
talking about. Yeah, I think so. I
don't know how you shape some things that you don't
want to embarrass family members. And I was I
had a good relationship with the Crane Air. I'm
here and he shared information with me his material collection
. And he's died in the new era. Has
written a higher food. Mhm. Five second.
Should not herself. We'll see. Yes. Aristotle
teaches us that our fiction takes nature. So I'm
curious hole closed fiction. The previous paragraph of grandpa
invented for reality. How close is fiction is to
reality? I mean, the well that invented the
first fire feet. It's a beautifully told stories.
I wish I had the writing style of that offer
. But he made things up and I think and
I did not put this in the print. Yeah
. He had some mental problems at times. You
may have thought he was Stephen Crane. Mm.
And I published a little bit about that. Another
another article, but I had to be very,
very careful what's that in the case of Crane case
for any fire for a literary character, there was
a danger of making the fiction or the poetry or
the drama a autobiography. And that's one way to
read the offers. Authors hate that for cream.
A lot of what he writes about this from personal
experience. Yet ironic, the book is considered the
most realistic depiction of what it's like to be a
broad recruitment battle. Very much. And courage was
written by somebody. It wasn't born until 1871.
The Civil War ended 1865 when the red badge of
courage came up where people said this is so realistic
. He must have been there. And yes,
I do remember I was there with other questions.
Yes. Kind of point off of that. According
to any particular research, to be able to have
that sort of inside what would be able to portrayed
. It's much debated. My take on up very
briefly on my take on this is that he was
reading stories about the Civil war, written by generals
and the lake Part of the 19th century that a
lot of the veterans have for elder States people now
. They were recounting their experiences, create and read
these, some of these and he decided they're giving
me facts. They're not telling me how they feel
. So that sense of how do you feel?
What I think my guess is that he interviewed in
the town where he was growing up, part of
his early life veterans who went to the battle of
Chancellorsville and that was the first batter in the red
badge of courage. The main character is in his
first battle. It's a battle of Chancellor Field.
So I think crane to talk with these folks and
then imagine what it would have been like to be
terrified completely. And ironically he got it right without
having been in combat after he's in combat for the
first time. He's asked by one of his colleagues
did you get it right in the red badge of
courage? Ukraine says yes. Someone who validated what
his imagination told him many years earlier when he experienced
combat for the first time himself as a war correspondent
. Does that answer your question? Other questions or
comments? Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Well,
I hope you will enjoy more food. Yeah.
All right. Thank you very much for coming out
this evening for this illustrious event. And I would
like you all. Thank also all the authors here
today. I would like to give them a rising
ground glass here. I mhm. Great. Thank
you very much paul. So that concludes the program
. We would like you to stay please enjoy the
food and drink. And we would also like to
have all the authors gather in the back of the
room for a photograph. If you've been here before
and author before, you know, we do this
. We have to get a photo front way behind
the front of the room. Okay? Thank you
. Civil War. Yeah, Yeah.