Undergraduate Research & Writing Conference, Wednesday, April 20

English Doctoral student Ola Kalu reads a Toni Morrison passage at the Toni Morrison tribute.

You are cordially invited to the Department of English’s Undergraduate Research & Writing Conference on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 9 a.m.–6:30 p.m. in Humanities 354. Come hear students share their work from 2021-22. 

Note: This is an in-person event. Anyone who is feeling unwell or has any reason to believe they have been recently exposed to COVID should consider not attending. 

Questions? Contact Prof. Rick Barney: [email protected].
 

Program Schedule

Courses and instructors where these presentations originated are listed below. For English Honors theses, the students' respective project supervisors are listed.


Coffee and Welcome

9:00 - 9:10 a.m., HU 354

Greeter: Karen Williams

 

Panel 1: Reading Middlemarch

9:15 - 10:15 a.m., HU 354

Faculty moderator: Paul Stasi

  • Grace Fischer, “Great Expectations in Middlemarch” (Middlemarch and Ulysses, AENG 411, Prof. Paul Stasi)
  • Jean-Paul Klem, “Fred’s Horse and the Sublime of Middlemarch” (Middlemarch and Ulysses, AENG 411, Prof. Paul Stasi)
  • Linfeng Li, “Literary Deconstruction in the Conjugal Binary Opposition” (Middlemarch and Ulysses, AENG 411, Prof. Paul Stasi)
  • Aidan Tarolli, “Social Status, Knowledge, and Communication in Middlemarch” (Middlemarch and Ulysses, AENG 411, Prof. Paul Stasi)

 

Panel 2: Fantastic and Unreal: The Everyday Under Duress

10:20 - 11:20 a.m., HU 354

Faculty moderator: Eric Keenaghan

  • Auger Copps, "Only Words to Play With': Fictional Characters in Lolita" (Contemporary Literary & Critical Theory, AENG 410, Prof. Helen Elam)
  • Angela Capovani, “Exactitude + Abstraction = Absurdity” (Contemporary Literary & Critical Theory, AENG 410, Prof. Helen Elam)
  • Tatum Koster, “The Branch and the Magpie” (Advanced Writing Workshop, AENG 402Z, Prof. Aashish Kaul)

 

Panel 3: Dramatizing Injustice in Shakespeare’s England

11:25 a.m. - 12:25 p.m., HU 354

Faculty moderator: Ineke Murakami

  • Ruyen Phan, “The Failure of Mediation in Early Modern Plays” (Shakespeare & the Poetics of Revenge, AENG 357, Prof. Ineke Murakami)
  • Olivia Baxter, “'A Perfect Wife': Patriarchal Womanhood in A Woman Killed with Kindness” (Shakespeare & the Poetics of Revenge, AENG 357, Prof. Ineke Murakami)
  • Grace Wright, "Titus Andronicus: Frailty to Mobility Through the Violent Destruction of the Self" (Shakespeare & the Poetics of Revenge, AENG 357, Prof. Ineke Murakami)
  • Charles Rogers, "Aaron’s Revolt: The Threat of Black Nationalism in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus" (Shakespeare & the Poetics of Revenge, AENG 357, Prof. Ineke Murakami)

 

Lunch Buffet

12:30 - 1:25 p.m., HU 354

During lunch, at 1:00, the recipients of this year’s undergraduate awards and recognitions will be announced.

Introductory remarks: Rick Barney

Award announcements: Ineke Murakami

 

Panel 4: Either/Or, Neither/Nor: Sex and Gender Reconfigurations

1:30 - 2:30 p.m., HU 354

Faculty moderator: Elliot Tetreault 

  • Jada Jinks, “Homonormativity Outside the U.S.” (Queer Theory, ENG 416, Prof. Elliot Tetreault)
  • Cheryse Johnson, "Medical Malpractice and the Binary" (Queer Theory, ENG 416, Prof. Elliot Tetreault)
  • Kaitlyn Kessinger, “The Tragedy of Daisy Miller: Third-Person Limited Narration and its Tensions” (Studies in Writing about Texts, AENG 305V, Instructor James Searle)
  • Paige Neal, “Television as Theory: Exploring Gender in Y: The Last Man” (Queer Theory, AENG 416, Prof. Elliot Tetreault)

 

Panel 5: Dire Straits: Stories of Extremity

2:45 - 3:45 p.m., HU 354

Faculty moderator: Prof. Mike Hill

  • Kaya Carvajal, “Parasitic Identity in Annihilation” (Honor’s Thesis, AENG 498-99, Prof. Mike Hill)
  • Kyle Kelly, “The Everlasting Impact of the Loss of a Loved One” (Expository Writing, AENG 310, Prof. Jeff Berman)
  • Steffi Santos, “Wanderer Above the Sea of Desolation: The Romantic Ruin in Contemporary Dark Fantasy” (Honors Thesis, AENG 498-99, Prof. Kir Kuiken)
  • Greg Wilder, "Prisoners of Our Own 'Devices'” (Honors Thesis, AENG 498-99, Prof. Eric Keenaghan)

 

Panel 6: In, Out, and Otherwise: Racial, Sexual, and Cultural Limits

4:00 - 5:00 p.m., HU 354

Faculty moderator: Prof. Mary Valentis

  • Marilyn Feerick, "From Repression to Transparency in Giovanni's Room" (Critical Approaches to Gender & Sexuality in Literature, AENG 362/AWSS 362, Prof. Eric Keenaghan)
  • Xavier Fitzsimmons Cruz, "Literary Guerillas: Understanding Nuyorican Nationhood” (Honors Thesis, AENG 498-99, Prof. Helen Elam)
  • Irma M. Hernandez, “A Battle to Seize the Unrealized Dream: Reclaiming Langston Hughes' Deferred Dream” (Studies in Poetry, AENG 358, Prof. Eric Keenaghan)
  • Grace Wright, “Deliver Us from Evil” (Creative Writing, AENG 302W, Prof. Mary Valentis)

 

Arch Spring 2022 Reading & Reception

5:15 - 6:15 p.m., HU 354

Spring 2022 Managing Editors: Devin Jinadasa and Sydney Pennington 

Poetry Editor: Lakota Levandowsky    

Fiction Editor: Shianne Henion 

Faculty Advisor: Jil Hanifan

Celebrate the Spring 2022 issue's contributors and editors, plus readings by the winners of the Shields McIlwaine Poetry Prize and the Leah Lovenheim Prize for Fiction. Reception concludes with an open mic.