Literature and Social Justice Grad Conference
March 7th, 2015
Lehigh University
Registration: 8:30-10:30
University Center (UC) Room 308
Keynote: Lyndon Dominique 9:15-10:30
UC Room 308
Registration: 10:30-3:34
Linderman Library Room 200
(All Panels in Linderman Library)
Session 1-- 10:45-12:00
Faculty Roundtable on Literature and Social Justice
What does a department focus on literature and social justice look like?
Room 400
Chairs: Laura Kremmel and Dashielle Horn, Lehigh University
1.
Kate Crassons
2.
Beth Dolan
3.
Mary Foltz
4.
Dawn Keetley
5.
Jenna Lay
Post-colonial Voices
Room 300
Chair: Elizabeth Fifer, Lehigh University
1.
Adrienne Nenow, Kutztown University. Existing on the Bridge between Cultures: Social
Complications in Cultural Hybridity
2.
Samantha Sorenson, Villanova University. I came to love myself in defiance: Embodied
Political Resistance in Kincaids Autobiography of my Mother
3.
Taryn Gehman, Kutztown University. Ideological Frameworks Leading to Genocide within PostColonial Africa
Class Mobility
Room 302
Chair: Robert Fillman, Lehigh University
1.
Janna Moretti, West Chester University. Working Class Awareness and Short Fiction
2.
Dana McClain, Lehigh University. Love and Need: Robert Frost and Social Justice
3.
Emily Rau, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The sunset of the pioneer: The Destructive Power
of the Rails in Willa Cather's A Lost Lady
Lunch-- 12:00-1:00
Linderman 200
Session 2-- 1:15-2:30
Language and Hybridity
Room 302
Chair: Colleen Clemens, Kutztown University
1.
Amanda Funk, Kutztown University. Decolonizing Expression: Exploring Relationships
between Language, Culture, and Identity
2.
Nate Mickelson, CUNY. The Verbal Possibilities of Nuyorican Poetry: Towards a Poetics of
Neighborhood
3.
Michelle Lovato, Kutztown University. Hybridity, Gender Identity, and the Space In-Between
Between Aesthetics and Politics
Room 400
Chair: Sarita Mizin, Lehigh University
1.
Christopher Varlack, Morgan State. If Theres Anything that Will Break Down Prejudice: Art
and the Social Justice Movement in Jessie Redmon Fausets There is Confusion
2.
Tony Ferrizzi, Independent scholar. The Other Side of Utility: Lolita, improvisation, and the
moral use of the novel
3.
Kelly Swope, Independent scholar. "Whitman, Ellison, Metonymy"
4.
Daniel Nutters, Temple University. From Romantic Ideology to Late Style: The Critical
Humanism of Lionel Trilling and Edward Said
Narratives of Race
Room 300
Chair: Sara Snyder, Lehigh University
1.
Sara Lee, SUNY Binghamton. Asian American Aesthetics: Can Asian Americans be Literary
Artists?
2.
Stephanie Scherer, Bucknell University. Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Provincial Freeman, and Slave
Narratives: Networks of Dissent in the Nineteenth-Century Black Press
3.
Luis Ceniceros, University of Texas, El Paso. "'What, to a Prisoner, is the Fourth of July?':
Mumia Abu-Jamal and Contemporary Narratives of Slavery"
4.
Nick Salvo, Bucknell University. The Corrupt Cult of Chivalry, Counter-History, and Charles
Chesnutt: Demystification of Chivalric Myth in Marrow of Tradition
Session 3-- 2:30-3:45
Collective Storytelling
Room 300
Chair: Jenna Lay, Lehigh University
1.
James Hamill, Lehigh University. No Longer Silent, No Longer Militant?: Mourning and
Militancy in Lehigh Universitys No Longer Silent Blog
2.
Sarah Stanlick, Lehigh University. Critical thinking, social justice, and citizenship: Storytelling
as a means to crafting community and individual identity
3.
Ashley Murphy, West Chester University. Sharing Stories, Changing Lives: The Role of
Creative Nonfiction as a Pedagogical Tool
4.
George Mote, Lehigh University. Murakami and Mitchell in the Underground
Alternative Realisms
Room 400
Chair: Wade Linebaugh, Lehigh University
1.
Sara Wilson, Temple University. Justifying Beckett: Murphy and the Unnaturalist Novel
2.
Matt Chelf, Lehigh University. The Work and the Creation of Lost Poets in The Savage
Detectives
3.
Lindsay Bowman, Kutztown University. Magical Realism as an Instrument for Social Change:
Imagined Nations and New Realities in Borges Tln, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
4.
Kira Apple, Kutztown University. Fairy As You Are: Magic, Gender, and Femininity in Jane
Eyre and Ironskin
Bodies and Scripts
Room 302
Chair: Elizabeth Dolan, Lehigh University
1.
Gabrielle Squartino, Villanova University. Internalizing Social Stigmas: A Discussion of
Disability in Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter
2.
Nicol Epple, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Representational Strategies and Ramifications:
Three Literary Perspectives of Enslaved for Sex
3.
Catherine Goodman, University of Utah. Social Justice and the Ownership of Bodies
Coffee-- 3:45-4:00
Linderman 200
Session 4-- 4:00-5:15
Rhetorics of Rebellion
Room 300
Chair: Kyle Brett, Lehigh University
1. Adam Bruce, Virginia Tech. A Cause Without a Rebel
2.
Thomas Dichter, University of Pennsylvania. Prison Literature, the Revictimization Relief Act,
& the Future of Mass Incarceration
3. Amara Hand, Monmouth University. The Other Side of the Game: A Dramatistic Analysis of
Contemporary Hip-Hop
Religious Contentions
Room 400
Chair: Rachel Heffner, Lehigh University
1.
Darcey Lovell, Southern Connecticut State University. The Unpardonable Pardoner: Addressing
Religious Corruption in the Medieval Catholic Church
2.
John Thomas, Rutgers University. Better Never to Have Been Born: Religious Literature, AntiAbortion Politics, and the Pro-Life Paradox
3.
Richard Votta, Temple University. Becoming Men: Pennsylvania Quakers and a Deconstruction
of Masculinity
(In)visible Women
Room 302
Chair: Katie Burton, Lehigh University
1. Joanna Grim, Lehigh University. Books, Babies, and Womanhood in Tess Slesingers Missis
Flinders and A Life in the Day of a Writer
2. Renee Buesking, University of Georgia. Imagined Female Communities in Wollstonecrafts
Mary
3. Jamie Parmese, Rutgers University. Powerful Women? The Illusion of Authority in Vocabulary
4. Theodora Sakellarides, Villanova University. Its Cause You Saw It: (In)visibility, Sight, and
Seeing in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye and Sula
Wine and Cheese Reception: 5:30-6:30
Packer House
