2017 Program




Friday, March 24




9:30AM-10:45AM: Panel 1 (Maple Room, IMU)

Law and Order: Language as Legal Authority

Moderator: Julie Chamberlin | PhD Candidate, Department of English

1. The Subordination of Languages: The Discriminatory Justifications for English-Only Policies in the Workplace, Andrew Moos

2. Silences Matter: Strategic Silences in Melville and William James, Eric Rosenbaum

3. Linguistic Labor and Inequality in Los Angeles Immigration Court, Sonya Rao

4.The Politics of Language: A Study of “English” in Official English Legislation, Peter W. Carrillo




11:00AM-12:15PM: Panel 2 (Maple Room, IMU)

Alternative Facts: Political Conspiracy and Flights of Fancy

Moderator: Linda Charnes, Professor, Department of English

1. Staged Machiavels:  Machiavellian Thought and the Discourse of Early Modern English Theater, Evan Hixon

2. Countering Right Conspiracy Discourses, Martin Law and LM Sturua

3. Narrative Resistance: The Fancy and the Imagination During the French Wars, Chelsey Moler

12:15PM-1:45PM: LUNCH (Distinguished Alumni Room, IMU)

12:30PM-1:30PM: Creative Panel (Maple Room, IMU)

"Monsters in Politics: A Writers' Dialogue on Creating Surreal Art Post-Election"

1. Anna Cabe

2. Su Cho

3. Emily Corwin

4. Maggie Su




1:45PM-3:00PM: Panel 3 (Maple Room, IMU)

Collective Memory: Erasing the Faces and Spaces of Social Justice

Moderator: Cynthia Smith, Lecturer, Department of English

1. Africana Feminism and Representations in the Transnational Movement, Serena Koissaba

2. Writing Guantánamo: Literature, Memory, Justice, Bix Gabriel

3. What's in the Language of Social Justice?: A glimpse of the linguistic landscape in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Suriati Abas

4. U.S. Immigration Policy and "The First Fall of the European Wall": Commemoration as Activism via Multidirectional Memory, Stephanie Stoeckl




3:15PM-4:30PM: Panel 4 (Maple Room, IMU)

Cultures of Shame: Sexual Violence and Misogynist Rhetoric

Moderator: Yael Massen | MFA Candidate, Department of English

1.Women and Nationalism: Chinese College Students’ Responses to the 1946 Rape of Shen Chong, Huijuan Li

2. Among the Saints: Women, Sexual Violence, and the Public Speech of the Church, Jodie Scordo

3. Defining "Misogyny" in Early Modern Performance, Miles Drawdy

4. The Disembodiment of Bans Against Shackling, JWells




5:00PM-6:30PM: Keynote Lecture (Ballantine Hall 310)

“That Letter Killed Marc”: Ratios of Rhetorical Influence, Mechanisms of Endless War

Dr. Rosa A. Eberly, Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and English




6:30PM-8:30PM: Reception at Grazie Italian Eatery




Saturday, March 25




9:30AM-10:45AM: Panel 1 (Ballantine Hall 015)

Natural Resistance: Geopolitics, Space, and Colonialism

Moderator: Alberto Varon, Assistant Professor, Department of English

1. The Water Phenomenon: Foucault, Intra-Actions, and the Powers of Matters, Usmaan M. Farooqui

2. Dioramas of Colonialism: A Critique of Wilderness Rhetoric in our National Parks, Maxwell Forton

3. "I Am Contingent": Resonances in Craig Santos Perez's from Unincorporated Territory, Franklin K.R. Cline

4. The Vanishing Point: Interrogating Cultural Erasure in US Public Memory of American Bison, Amelia Brackett




11:00AM-12:15PM: Panel 2A (Ballantine Hall 005)

Speaking Up: Composition and Classroom Rhetoric

Moderator: Christine Farris, Professor, Department of English

1. Influential Identities: Responding to the Transfer Question by Acknowledging Writing as Enacting Ideologies, Laura Rosche

2. Writing as a Civic Act: Fostering Civically-Active Habits of Mind in First-Year Composition, Anthony Howe

3. Instructors, "Make it work!": The Rhetoric of Clothing as Meaning-Making in FYC, Rachel McCabe

4. Skeletons in the Closet: Introducing and Unpacking Physical Anthropology, Caitlin Monesmith




11:00AM-12:15PM: Panel 2B (Ballantine Hall 015)

Searching for the Right Words: Literacy, Education, and Translation

Moderator: Mallory Cohn | PhD Candidate, Department of English

1. Hands "Living" and Dead: Keats, War, and the Violence of Reading, Christie Debelius

2. Mnemonic Rhetorics of the Sri Lankan Civil War in Diasporic Fiction and Humanitarian Journalism, Dinidu Karunanayake

3. Rhetorical Development and Developmental Disability in Pearl S. Buck’s The Child Who Never Grew, Kaitlynn Milvert

4. Identifying Societal Injustice Within the Health Care System: An Analysis of Current Research into Medical Readability and Health Literacy, Joseph Spieles




12:15PM-2:00PM: LUNCH (Ballantine Hall Café)




12:30PM-1:45PM Dissertator Roundtable (Ballantine Hall 005)

Moderator: Freya Thimsen, Assistant Professor, Department of English

1. Energy Remix: Reimagining Rhetoric as Energy for Social Justice, Kathleen M. de Onís

2. "Life’s a failure for ninety-nine percent of us": Nineteenth and Twenty-First Century Legacies of Free Soil Discourse, Jessica George

3. Homeless Modernisms: Down-and-Out Politics in Early Twentieth-Century U.S. Literature, Cody St. Clair

4. Theorizing Doxa: Social Media and the Movement of Everyday Rhetorical Invention, Caddie Alford




2:00PM-3:15PM: Panel 3A (Ballantine Hall 005)

Remediation: Representation in Virtual and Literary Public Spheres

Moderator: Vivian Halloran, Associate Professor, Department of English

1. A New and Less-Public Sphere: Political Cartoons Respond to the Attack at Charlie Hebdo, Katherine Hammitt

2. The Epistemic Resistance and Democratic Importance of #SayHerName, Katherine Brichacek

3. Performing Aesthetic, Textuality, and Colonial Violence in John Fletcher's The Island Princess, Sarah Le

4. "A Father, A Daughter, and a Fatal Clash of Conflicting Cultures": An Analysis of the Interpretation of Gendered Violence and Historical Presentation of So-Called Honor Crimes in American Newspapers, Josephine Chaet




2:00PM-3:15PM: Panel 3B (Ballantine Hall 015)

Queer Public Narratives: Embodiment, Regulation, and Discursive Strictures

Moderator: Rory Boothe | MA Candidate, Department of English

1. Bedroom Devils: Sex Panics and Sexual Regulation, Alex D Velez

2. "Bury Your Gays": Backlash and Activism in Response to the TV Trope Killing LGBT Women, Kristina Krasny

3. Coming Out in Context: Public and Private Coming Out Narratives, Chloe Brown




3:30PM-4:45PM: Panel 4 (Ballantine Hall 005)

Activism Speaks Louder than Words: Social Justice and Black Lives Matter

Moderator: Shane Vogel, Associate Professor, Department of English

1. Black Lives/Black Matters, Alexander Aguayo

2. black., Isaac Pickell

3. The 'Voice' of Modern Political and Social Movements: Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the Utilization of the Social Media Framework, Amilee Turner

4. "This Is How You Are A Citizen": The Politics and Poetics of Empathy in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, Pamela Dungao

5:00PM-7:00PM: Happy Hour at The Tap