Summer 2022 / Honoring our beloveds

Summer is a time for exploring new experiences while the world slows down. In moments of expansion, we often look back to those we admire—to our real-life heroes, called Beloveds by this project. For Summer, 2022, The Clever Chicas Project honors three Beloveds; their standards guide the mission of this project. Their light guides our way.

We begin with Dr. Nancy R Comley, who left us in 2016.  Dr Comley is remembered as a pioneering critic in Gender Studies for writers including Ernest Hemingway. She was a Professor at Queens College, serving as English Department Chair and mentoring countless curious minds.  Concurrently, she was a consummate shopper—a real fashionista boldly wearing her finely curated collection gathered from travels all over the world. When she spoke to international audiences, her calm, regal light brought change—consistently.  After hours, she was selfless—never speaking of herself, instead asking provocative questions of younger scholars.  Her Socratic sincerity was boundless, and the women she supported over her vast career are still out there following her example, as best we can.  Thank you, Chica, from those of us still chasing the goals you defined.

Proud United States Navy Veteran, renowned literary and linguistic scholar, Dr Hal Farwell, who left us in 2018, evoked change in the classroom and in our National Parks throughout his diverse career. Serving as a Professor of English for more than 30 years at Western Carolina University (Go, Catamounts!), he made that oft-overlooked corner of Appalachia a bastion of scholarly study with works including Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech.  He also saw oft-overlooked students and unlocked their potential.  His bravery in championing mountain people and their landscape earned him the undying respect of thousands of young Appalachian minds, including many women engaged in this Project.  From Melville to Postmodernism, from Mountain Music to Opera, we remember zealous dialogues filled with insight and compassion.  Thank you, Compañero, from those of us still aspiring to the bravery you defined.

Singer, Songwriter, and internationally-acclaimed Modernist critic Dr Harry Robert Stoneback (known as Stoney to Jerry Jeff Walker fans), who left us in 2021, was there to launch this project. The academic world followed Dr Stoneback for guidance in understanding literary figures, including Ernest Hemingway, Robert Penn Warren, and Elizabeth Maddox Roberts.  His friends and colleagues followed him to conferences all over the world for decades, hearing his new ideas during the day before joining him in song at night while he played his guitar.  During one such cacophony of creativity in Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer, France, in 2018, Stoney suggested we include men in the Clever Clever Chicas Project.  He suggested we make our project a literal Crusade, one we’d launch the next day at nearby Aigues-Mortes, where King Louis IX sent out his Crusaders in the 13th century. While it may not have seemed like it at times, Stoney, we were listening.  Thank you, Compañero, for your ideas that keep us going when the road gets tough.