| Texts, Media, Cultural Literacy In The 21st Century |
The 2004 Undergraduate English Conference on Friday and Saturday, March 25-26, 2004, involved over 60 students from six Penn State campuses and six Philadelphia-area colleges and universities. Students presented critical essays, poems, and stories; participated in fiction and poetry workshops; and mounted an abbreviated production of Dickens's Great Expectations written by Villanova University student, Marc Napolitano.
Novelist Lorene Cary, author of the 2003 One Book One Philadelphia selection, The Price of a Child (publisher date)and a memoir, Black Ice (publisher date), read from her new work and led the fiction workshop. Poet and former Penn State Abington writer-in-residence A.V. Christie, read from her new work, which has since been published in The Housing (The Ashland Poetry Press 2005). She also lead the poetry workshop at the Conference.
In the Conference's opening plenary session, Penn State scholars Dr. Sandra Spanier from University Park and Dr. Linda Miller from Penn State Abington discussed their current project of collecting and publishing the letters of Ernest Hemingway and presented slides of Hemingway.
Recent Abington graduates Justin De Senso '03 and Nicole Sonsini '03 organized a Poetry Slam on Friday night. Abington adult student Rob Baldassarre, co-owner of Cornucopis Catering in Malvern, prepared a banquet on Friday night and provided food for Saturday breakfast and lunch. Several students took advantage of a bus trip to Center City Philadelphia after the conference ended on Saturday. Several Abington faculty and students hosted visiting students in their homes.
A committee of Abington faculty and students began planning the conference in Spring 2003. Submissions were reviewed by a Program Committee composed of Dr. Ellen Knodt, Dr. Linda Miller, Dr. Bill Mistichelli, Dr. James Peterson, and Dr. Tom Smith.
The Conference received financial support from the Student Activities Fee Committee and from the Maiele Fund administered by Penn State Abington Dean (now Chancellor) Karen Wiley Sandler. Cornucopia Catering's Rob Baldassare generously donated all the food for the Conference.
In Summer 2005, Currents:
Selected Works from the 2004 Undergraduate English Conference, a 64-page publication including stories, poems, and a critical essay presented at the Conference, was published. It was edited by Justin De Senso '03, who in Fall 2005 began graduate studies in English at Arizona State University. Graphic designer, writer, and editor Andrew Kamateros '03 served as Production Editor for Currents. Copies were distributed to all Conference participants and the library of every campus in the Penn State system. If you would like to receive a copy, contact Dr. Tom Smith at trs8@psu.edu, 215 881-7543, or Department of English, Penn State Abington, 1600 Woodland Road, Abington, PA 19001.
Abington's 2004 Undergraduate English Conference was the second in a series begun by Dr. Meg Powers Livingston at Penn State Altoona in Fall 2002 and continued there in Spring 2005 under the direction of Dr. Laura Rotunno. In 2006, Penn State Delaware County will host the fourth Penn State Undergraduate English Conference organized by Dr. Phyllis Cole and Dr. Adam Sorkin.
Below is a copy of the 2004 Conference program:
Lares Student Center
Conference Program
In October 2002, the English Department at Penn State Altoona hosted an inaugural Undergraduate English Conference at which 25 Penn State students presented their critical and creative work. We at Penn State Abington's English Department have built on the success of the Altoona conference, opening it to students at colleges in the Philadelphia area as well as those at Penn State campuses. We hope that another Penn State campus or Philadelphia-area college will continue next year what Penn State Altoona and Abington have begun.
Texts, Media, & Cultural Literacy in the 21st Century
Undergraduate English Conference
Friday, March 26, 2004
12 noon-6: 15 p.m.
Registration: Lares Lobby
(staffed by SIFE members led by Mina Azizi and volunteers)
1:00-2:15 p.m.
Opening Session, 108 Lares
Welcome -- Dean Karen W. Sandler, Penn State Abington
Introduction -- Dean Hannah P. Kliger, Penn State Abington
Plenary Session -- "The Penn State Hemingway Project”
Dr. Linda Miller, Penn State Abington
Dr. Sandra Spanier, Penn State University Park.
2:30-3:45 p.m.
Session 1: Versions of the Self
1. Neon Colasante, Penn State Delaware . "Nasar and Nash: Literary
Opinion of Shock Therapy."
2. Matthew O'Malley, Villanova University . "Great Expectations and
Authentic Experience of Self"
3. Justin De Senso, Penn State Abington '03. "The Fallacy of Identity"
Session 2: Early American Biography and Autobiography
1. Gloria Boyd, Penn State Delaware . "Benjamin Rush at Home."
2. Linyu Zhang, Penn State Delaware . "Benjamin Franklin and His Virtues"
3. Robert Roggio, Penn State Delaware '03. "A Narrative of Mary Jemison:
The Battle for the Truth"
Session 3: Comparing Shakespeares -- Speakers from Penn State
Altoona
1. Jessica Shoemaker. "Passion, Reason, or Fate: What Influences the 'star-
crossed lovers' in Two Versions of Romeo and Juliet?"
2. Erica Kasun. "Intimacy and Madness in King Lear: Two Productions,
the Text, and Thematic Issues"
3. Brook Duchesneau. "The Color, Characters, and Creation of Two
Versions of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet"
Session 4: Poetry Readings
Crystalee Calderwood, Penn State Altoona
Mary E. Gorman, Penn State York
Laura Hirneisen, Penn State Lehigh Valley
Sara Mazenko, Penn State University Park
Michelle Morningstar, Penn State York
Sean Phelan, Villanova University
Randi Simler, Penn State Altoona
Daniel Wallace, Temple University
Justina Wiggins, Penn State Altoona
Rossella Williams, Penn State Altoona
4:00-5:15 p.m.
Session 5: Modern Versions of Browning's "The Ring and Book" --
Speakers from Rosemont College
1. Maureen Christie. “The Trial from To Kill a Mockingbird”
2. Lauren Curtis. “The Mississippi Burning Trial”
3. Claire Filipi. "The Murder Trial of Leopold and Loeb"
4. Maura Forney. "The Rosenberg Trial"
5. Melissa Frey. "The Trial of Bruno Hauptmann"
6. Joye Lewis. “The Trials of Oscar Wilde”
7. Valerie Rossi. “The Nuremberg Trials”
Session 6: Tempests in Shakespeare
1. Marc Napolitano, Villanova University . "Shakespeare's Squalls"
2. Alexis Heit, Penn State University Park. "The Role of Rage in
Shakespeare's Overly Emotional Men"
3. TBA
Session 7: Trickster Literature: Three Cross-Cultural American
Novels -- Speakers from Penn State Altoona
1. Jennifer Cole. "How Fiction Functions as a Trickster: Louise Erdrich's
Love Medicine"
2. Krista D. Grove. "Trying to Overcome the Past to Live in the
Future: Toni Morrison's Beloved"
3. Jessica Sidler. "Ambiguity and How It Functions in Maxine Hong
Kingston 's Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book"
Session 8: Fiction Workshop led by novelist Lorene Cary
All or some of the following (Lorene Cary's selection not yet made):
Judeanne Armenti, Cabrini College
Anna K. Burke, Temple University
Joseph J. Ross, St. Joseph 's University
Klaus Yoder, Ursinus College
(Visitors permitted only with the approval of Lorene Cary.).
5:30-6:00 p.m.
Staged reading of scenes from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations . Adapted by Marc Napolitano, Villanova.
6:15-7:15 p.m. Conference Banquet . Lares Cafeteria
7:30 p.m .Fiction Reading by Lorene Cary . Banquet Room
(open to nonregistrants)
8:30 p.m .Poetry Slam 108 Lares. Organized by former Abington English majors Nicole Sonsini '03 and Justin De Senso, '03
Saturday, March 27, 2004
7:30-9:30 a.m.
Continental Breakfast. Lares Cafeteria
Registration ongoing through Saturday morning.
8:00-9:15 a.m.
Session 9: Feminist Learning, Uses of Nature, and Existentialism
1. Taia A. Altiero, Penn State Lehigh Valley . "The Road Not Taken:
Feminist Pedagogy and the Meandering Route to Knowledge"
2. Monica Farrell, Penn State Abington. "Trees in Zora Neale Hurston's
Their Eyes Were Watching God"
3. Bekah Dickinson, Penn State University Park. "Entangling the Reader:
Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina "
Session 10: History, Politics, Forms, and Ethics in Pop Culture
1. Eric Deissler, Penn State Abington. "How the 'Beats' Became the
Beatles"
2. Nancy Sun, University of Pennsylvania . "Writings on the Wall: Ruling
Class Ideology and the Semiotic Discourse of Hip-Hop Graffiti"
3. Jennifer Najarian, Penn State University Park. "Blogs: Confessions on
the Internet"
4. Kristina Cole, Penn State Altoona . "From Gangster to Guru: Ethical
Conversion in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction"
Session 11: Literature or Reality?
1. Matt Marusiak, Penn State Lehigh Valley . "The Characteristics of
Effective Environmental Writing"
2. Sarah Newhouse, University of Delaware . "To the Death: Loyalty in
Tolkien's 'The Passing of the Grey Company' and The Battle of Maldon "
3. Jeffrey Brenner, Penn State Delaware ."The New Relevance of Orwell's
1984 under Ashcroft and the Patriot Act"
9:30-10:45 a.m.
Session 12: A Path of Feminist Consciousness: Narrative Essays --
Speakers from Penn State York
1. Vanessa Riebel. "Curtain Rod Installation."
2. Alexis Key. "Am I Feminist: Why or Why Not?"
3. Jeffry Baughman. "Raising Feminism"
Session 13: Fiction Readings
1. Daniel Wallace, Temple . "from 'The Last Steps'"
2. Laura Hirneisen, Penn State Lehigh Valley . "Oppressing Women."
3. Eric Deissler, Penn State Abington. "from 'Sometimes I Think Back to
the Years I Worked for Nabisco'"
Session 14: Victorian Religion, Morality, and Aesthetics
1. Adam Cudoc, Penn State Beaver. "'The Work of Nature": Redefining
Religious Discourse in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
2. Heather Morris. "The Art of Morality: The Aesthetic Philosophies of
Ruskin, Pater, and Wilde"
3. Joanna Clinich, Penn State Altoona . "Nineteenth-Century Literature of
Pleasure: Shelley, Carroll, Holmes, and Wilde"
4. Kristina Cole, Penn State Altoona . "Sensually Delighting in the
Nineteenth-Century British Novel"
11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Session 15: Women in Crisis – the 1890's, Virginia Woolf's Mrs.
Dalloway , and Michael Cunningham's The Hours
1. Jane Tippett, University of Delaware . "Marriage and the Late-Victorian
Woman Writer"
2. Glenn Todaro, St. Joseph 's University. "Cunningham's Characters
Choose Life Over Death.
3. Colleen Klees, St. Joseph 's University. "Clarissa as Virginia Woolf's
Counterpart and Bearer of Hope"
Session 16: Cultural Cartography
1. Alice E. O'Connell, Penn State Fayette. "Fulfilling the Promise: Pablo
Neruda and the Voice of the Voiceless."
2. Elaine W. Opher, Cheyney University . "Is the Black Woman's Strength a
Curse"
3. Matt Agzigian, Penn State Abington. "Crossing Cultures in Ayemenem:
Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things"
Session 17: Three Turn-of-the-20th Century American Writers and
Their Writing
1. Misty Doane, Penn State Lehigh Valley . "Mark Twain, Elmira and
Social Construction"
2. Hannah Lee, Penn State Abington. "The Good Person Dies and the Evil
People Live in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets"
3. Andrea Vanina Arias, University of Pennsylvania . "The Houses that
James Built: A Study of the House as a Character within Henry James'
Novels
Session 18: Poetry Workshop led by poet A.V. Christie, LaSalle
College, and formerly Penn State Abington
Crystalee Calderwood, Penn State Altoona
Mary A. Gorman, Penn State York
Laura Hirneisen, Penn State Lehigh Valley
Sara Mazenko, Penn State University Park
Sean Phelan, Villanova University
Daniel Wallace, Temple University
(Visitors permitted only with the approval of Ms. Christie.)
12:30-1:15 p.m.
Lunch. Lares Cafeteria
1:30-2:30 p.m.
Poetry Reading by A.V. Christie . Banquet Room
(open to nonregistrants)
Closing Remarks: Dr. Tom Smith, Penn State Abington. Banquet Room
2:45 p.m. Bus leaves from Visitors' Parking outside Lares Student
Center for Center City Philadelphia .
(Optional day trip. Cost: $5).
10:30 p.m. Bus leaves from Center City to return to Visitors' Parking at
Penn State Abington.
Acknowledgements
Student and Faculty Conference Planners:
Erin Cook, Justin De Senso, Dr. Charmaine Ijeoma, Richard Grande, Dr. Ellen Knodt, Hannah Lee, Sara Mazenko, Dr. Linda Miller, Dr. Bill Mistichelli, Dr. James Peterson, Bryan Polk, Dr. Tram Turner, Phyllis Shabe, Nicole Sonsini, Dr. Tom Smith, Dr. Karen Weekes
Abington Community Hosts: Erin Cook, Hannah Lee, Dr. Bill Mistichelli, Dr. Tom Smith, Joan Rubin
Registration Planning : Mina Azizi, Isaac Ung, and Mary Zhang (now of Penn State Delaware County)
Registration Volunteers : Blake Miller, Janet Petkov and Phyllis Shabe
Conference Guest/Host Matchmaker: Isaac Ung
Conference Logo: Elizabeth Baldwin, Penn State Abington '03
Many thanks to Dean Karen Sandler, Associate Dean Hannah Kliger, and the Student Activities Fee Committee (SGA President Ashley Martin and Gale Siegel, co-chairs) for their generous support of this conference.
Conference meals provided courtesy of Cornucopia Catering and Abington English major Rob Baldassarre.
Thank you to the following people for their help in making this Conference a reality (all from Penn State Abington unless otherwise noted):
Rob Burger; Kevin Burke, English Dept, Univ. of Delaware; A.V. Christie; Marcia Delia; Bob English; Shannon Fitzgerald, English Dept., Penn State University Park; Dinah Geiger; Dale Hollenbach; Martha Leva; Dr. Meg Powers Livingston, English Dept., Penn State Altoona; Chuck Marsh; Jim McGlade; Eleanor Meehl; Blake Miller; Donna Millinghausen; Russ Mulkewycz; Janet Petkov; Pat Rizzolo; Joan Rubin; Terrie Smith; Frank Symkowski
The Abington planners are grateful to their many colleagues at Penn State campuses and Philadelphia-area colleges who encouraged their students to participate in this conference and helped them along the way. We particularly thank those faculty who helped organize panels: Dr. Phyllis Cole, Penn State Delaware; Jackie Murphy, Rosemont College and Dr. Megan Simpson, Penn State Altoona.
