Each year, the UMass English Graduate Organization hosts a day-long conference featuring academic panels, creative presentations, round-table discussions, and a reception. The conference has grown from a smaller, department-based showcase of graduate student work and interests to a larger, interdisciplinary conference bringing together graduate students from outside departments and universities.
The schedule for this year’s conference is published below. It will take place on Saturday, March 30, from 8:00 am to 8:30 pm. Registration is $10 and will be ongoing throughout the day. You can pay on the day of the conference with cash or by check. Open to all!
Citizenship and Its Discontents:
Belonging in a Global World
UMass-Amherst English Graduate Organization
Interdisciplinary Conference
8:00-9:00 am
Registration, Breakfast, Coffee
(Provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Hall Lobby
Session 1: 9:00-10:20 am
Panel 1: Uncertain Borders: The Location of Citizenship
Chair: Chris Edwards, MA-PhD Student in Composition and Rhetoric, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 109
- “Husserl’s Crisis, ‘Europe’, and Questions of Cultural Identity,” Jake Jackson, The New School for Social Research
- “Border Cities, Contested Citizenship: The Case of Hatay,” Sule Can, SUNY Binghamton
- “Practicing Citizenship: Negotiating for Polities in Revolutionary New Hampshire and Vermont,” Jordan AP Fansler, University of New Hampshire
Panel 2: Do You Hear What I Hear?: Languages of (un)Belonging
Chair: Carly Houston, Doctoral Student in English, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 127
- “‘You Sabe Me!’: Portrayals of Chinese Pidgin English in American Popular Culture,” Jared Demick, University of Connecticut
- “Discourses of Displacement: Jewish-American Autobiographies as Nodes of Access in Literacy Studies,” Jenny Krichevsky, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “Sa-I-Gu: Rioting Against Silence: Invisibility and Language,” Sara Lee, SUNY Binghamton
- “Thomas Jefferson’s Appropriation of Native American Voice in ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’,” Elaina Frulla, University of Albany
Session 2: 10:30-11:50 am
Panel 1: Making it Compute: The Possibilities and Limitations of Digital Spheres
Chair: Jenny Krichevsky, Doctoral Student in Composition and Rhetoric, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 127
- “Citizenship as ‘Facebookization’: Consumer-selfhood on the Internet,” Michael Fisher, University of Rochester
- “Interrogating Geographies of Food: Exploring (Trans)National Community and Citizenship in the Digitization of Food Discourse,” Emily Polk and Lily Herakova, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “Netizens in the Age of Big Data,” Christian Pulver, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Panel 2: Black Discontent: Re-imagining African American Citizenship in the 19th Century
Chair: Brit Rusert, Assistant Professor of Afro-American Studies, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 109
- “That Middle World: The Cultural Invention of A Bi-Racial Sphere,” Julia S. Charles, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “Rewriting Black Female Desire in the 19th Century: An Alternative Contribution to the Project of Racial Uplift,” Crystal Donkor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “’We Are All Bound Up Together’: Frances E.W. Harper’s Activism for Racial Equality and Black Citizenship Rights,” Johanna M. Ortner, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “’A Distinction Founded in Color’: The Trials of Prudence Crandall and the Limits of African American Citizenship,” Julia Bernier, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Panel 3: “I Too Sing America”: Perspectives on US Citizenship
Chair: Nichole Reynolds, MA-PhD Student in English and American Studies, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 125
- “From Calvinism to Democracy: Infidel Philosophy at Yale,” Evan DuFaux, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “Amalgamation Nation: Abolitionism, Interracial Sex, and Citizenship in the United States, 1831 – 1853,” Sergio Pinto-Handler, SUNY Stony Brook
- “Speaking the State: Inaugural Poetry from Robert Frost (1961) to Richard Blanco (2013),” Amy Paeth, University of Pennsylvania
Panel 4: Inside Out: States of Exclusion
Chair: Daniel LaChance, Assistant Professor of Political Science in Legal Studies, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 131
- “Statelessness and the Nation State,” Muna Husain, SUNY Binghamton
- “Silent Disenfranchisement: An Examination of the Recent California Realignment Legislation and the Cascading Effects on Communities of Color,” Julia Mendoza, New York University
- “Literary Representations of the Disenfranchised within the Prison Camps of the Reservation Indian, the Plantation Slave, the Holocaust Camp Inmate and Others: Who Owns the Human in a Global Community?” Pamela Lagergren Williams, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
12:00-1:00 pm
Lunch (provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Lobby
1:00-2:30 pm
Roundtable
Bartlett 61 (basement, to the left of the lecture hall)
“The Academy and Its Discontents: Working Toward Political and Public Engagement” moderated by Neelofer Qadir and Sean Gordon, with Professors Priscilla Wald (English, Duke University), David Fleming (Composition and Rhetoric, UMass-Amherst), and Sut Jhally (Communication, UMass-Amherst, and Founder and Executive Director, Media Education Foundation)
Session 3: 2:40-4:00 pm
Panel 1: Tales of Transnationalism: Narratives of Place and Belonging
Chair: Andrew Fox, Doctoral Candidate in English, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 119
- “Tamil or Australian? Traces of Transnationalism in Channa Wickremesekera’s Distant Warriors,” Mahendran Thiruvarangan, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “‘Flanders Fielding’: Politics and Disability in Language,” Kelin Loe, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- “Tales of Transnationalism: Storytelling and Citizenship in Arab American Literature,” Nora Eltahawy, Northwestern University
- “‘My Irish Molly’ from the Rock of Gibraltar: Molly Bloom’s Citizenship in Ulysses,” Janet Zong, Harvard University
Panel 2: Get It in Writing: Citizenship and Print Culture
Chair: Suzanne Daly, Associate Professor of English, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 109
- “The Panfleto Murders: Social Cleansing and the Necropolitics of Unbelonging in Colombia,” Ariana Ochoa Camacho, New York University
- “Reversing the Gaze of the Black-Jewish Alliance: Leo Frank’s Role in The Crisis,” Lauren Silber, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “An AfrOriental Analytic: Articulations of Racial Globality in theAfrican Times and Orient Review (1912-1920),” Marina Bilbija, University of Pennsylvania
Panel 3: re/imagine/ing/citizen/ship
Chair: hari stephen kumar, Doctoral Student in Composition and Rhetoric, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 127
- “Hierarchies of Citizenship: The Baha’is in Egypt,” Mona Oraby, Northwestern University
- “Writing to Associate: The Role of Writing in a Model of Networked Citizenship,” Michael Dedek, Northeastern University
- “The Case for ‘Citizenship Regimes’: Reconceptualizing Social Citizenship,” Mehmet Cansoy, Boston College
Panel 4: Framing Citizenship, Visualizing Identities
Chair: Alex Ponomareff, Doctoral Student in Comparative Literature, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 131
- “‘A Tree Without Roots’: Establishing Identity through Uncommon Ground in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica,” Tommy Poehnelt, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “The Photo Speaks Back: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ ‘List’ and the Ethics of (re)Presenting Difference,” Nichole M. Young, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “‘Are You a Red Dupe?’ The ‘Child’ as Political Object of Desire and Rhetorical Scapegoat in the Great Comic Book Scare,” Caitlin McCabe, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Session 4: 4:10-5:30 pm
Panel 1: The Little Schoolmaster: Canadian Identity and Language (a performance with audience talkback by Alison Jane Bowie)
Chair: Harley Erdman, Professor of Dramaturgy, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 109
Panel 2: Nurturing Citizenship: Children and Education
Chair: Gina Ocasion, Doctoral Candidate in English and American Studies, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 127
- “Child Removal Initiatives’ Contributions to National Assimilation,” Julia Bates, Boston College
- “Constructing ‘Educated Personhood’ Across Contexts: Burmese and Bhutanese Refugee Youth and the Postsecondary Transition,” Julia McWilliams, University of Pennsylvania
Panel 3: Ideal-ic Roots: Dreams, Discontents, and Consciousness
Chair: Ashley Nadeau, Doctoral Student in English, UMass-Amherst
Bartlett 119
- “Looking for a New New Jersey: Exploring Working Class Political Consciousness and USAmerican Geographic Identity Via the Commodified Mythologies of the Garden State,” Anna Waltman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- “What Is Your Purpose of Visiting the United States?” Shastri Akella, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
5:45 pm: Meet in Bartlett Lobby to walk to reception
6:00-8:30 pm: Reception at the University Club
(provided with conference admission)
A list of previous conferences:
2013: Citizenship and Its Discontents: Belonging in a Global World [CFP]
2012: Forces at Play: Bodies, Power, and Spaces
2011: Real Worlds: (dis)Locating Realities
2010: Caught in the Act: Performance and Performativity
2009: Locating Public(s)
2006: Re-Imagining the Discipline
2004: Recent Studies in English
