Forces at Play: Bodies, Power, and Spaces

March 31, 2012

8:00-9:00am
Registration, Coffee, Breakfast
(provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Hall Lobby

Session 1: 9-10:20

Displaced Identities and Narratives
Chair: Lauren Rollins, Doctoral Candidate in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 131
• “Transience and Private Space in the Exillic Fiction of V.S. Naipaul,” Megan Crotty (Boston College)
• “Wife and Mother: Underground Exile and Female Violence in the Wife’s Lament and Beowulf,” Marjorie Housley

Bodies at Natural Borders,
Chair: Ron Welburn, Professor of English, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 119
• “The Blue Hole,” creative non-fiction, Joy Jansen (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “The Ecopoetics of Space in Snyder, Merwin, and Sze,” Jenny Morse (University of Illinois Chicago)
• “AilaminaMManimaliA, AnimanliAAilnaminA: Humanized Animals & Animalized Humans in Bresson’s Balthazar & Coetzee’s Costello,” Jimmy Duggan (University of Massachusetts Boston)

Disrupting Language Production and Identity
Chair: Jenny Krichevsky, MA/PhD in Composition and Rhetoric, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 127
• “Shirley Ann Williams: The Brightness of ‘Dessa Rose,’” Noreen Cleffi (University of Massachusetts Boston)
• “Native Sovereignty and Linguistic Identity: Multilingual Writing en América,” Rachel Bloom (University of Kansas)
• “Outrunning Our Monitor: A Psycholinguistic View of Freewriting,” Airlie Sattler Rose (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Session 2: 10:30-11:50

Queering Citizenship and the National Body
Chair: Anna-Claire Simpson, MA/PhD in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 125
• “Gender and Sex, Nationhood, and Citizenship: Revising How the West Was Won in Emma Pérez’s Forgetting the Alamo, or Blood Memory,” Karen A Fielder (University of Wyoming)
• “The Legacy of the Body in Mario Vargos Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat,” Emily Lepkowski (University of New Hampshire)
• “The Queerest of Them All: Cutting and Female Self-Injury in Spenser’s Knight of Chastity,” Alexander McAdams (University of Massachusetts Boston)

Performing Knowledge, Narratives, and Poetics: The Body in Response
Chair: Neelofer Qadir, Doctoral Candidate in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 109
• “Performing Narratives: Mawlid and the Moral Habitus in Keralite Sunni Islam,” A.K Muneer Hudawi (EFL University Hyderabad, India)
• “Performing Knowledges: Getting to Know What ‘Really’ Happened Between Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley,” performative piece, hari stephen kumar (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “‘Projective Verse’ and the ‘Open Text’ Considered as Practices of Body,” Sam Cha (University of Massachusetts Boston)

(En)Gendering Space
Chair: Gina Ocasion, Doctoral Candidate in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 131
• “The Pink Room: Seeing Her Self Multiplied and Emptied,” artist presentation, Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli (University of California San Diego)
• “Female Embodiment and Beat Success: Gendered Spaces in a Borderless Generation,” Raven See (Boston College)
• “Re-Forming Orphans: Gendered Space and the Surrogate Family in The Secret Garden and James and The Giant Peach,” Catherine Welter (University of New Hampshire)

Roundtable: “Play as Organizing Force; Men and Women in Ludic Spaces”
Chair: TreaAndrea Russworm, Assistant Professor of English, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 119

• James Hodges (New York University)
• Maxwell Foxman (New York University)
• Kimberly Thompson-Almanzor (New York University)
• Michelle C. Forelle (New York University)
• Stephanie Llamas (New York University)
• Holly Robbins (New York University)

12:00-1:00 LUNCH
(provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Lobby

1:00-2:30: Roundtable
Bartlett 61, Basement, to the left of the lecture hall

“‘Bodies Acting Together’: Collaborating and Colliding in the Academy,” moderated by Lauren Silber and Jenny Krichevsky, with Professors Amilcar Shabbaz (Afro-American Studies), Donna LeCourt (Critical and Cultural Composition Pedagogies), Laura Doyle (Transnational Fictions), and Ventura Perez (Violence Studies and Physical Anthropology)

Session 3: 2:40-4:00

Interrogating Solidarity in Alternative Spaces
Chair: Anna Waltman, Doctoral Candidate in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 127
• “Sweating the SlutWalk: Replications of Exclusionary Hospitality in Activist Movements,” Laura Hahn (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• “Playing by Their Own Rules: Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby as a Potential Site of Resistance,” Amanda Draft (Wayne State University)
• “Alternative Identities: Women, Sexuality, and Altporn,” Paige MacGregor (New York University)

Public Projections and Circulation of Bodies
Chair: Elise Swinford, Doctoral Candidate in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 125
• “Chowing Down: How Actresses Use Food to Gain Attention and Lose Respect,” Alexandra Cale (New York University)
• “The Rebecca Spencer/K. Spencer Project,” photography, K. Spencer Carey and Rebecca Katherine Hirsch (New York University)
• “A Blood Red Cosmo: The Female Body in Cosmopolitan Magazine,” Saniya Ghanoui (New York University)

Agents of Empire
Chair: Nicholas Bromell, Professor of English, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 109
• “‘The Colonial Sin of Imitation’: Inter-Imperialism in Poe’s ‘A Tale of The Ragged Mountain,’” Sean Gordon (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “Very Important Persons,” fiction, Nick Sansone (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “Playing the Empire: Where Does Empire Stand in The Age of Empires,” Mahshid Mayar (Universität Bielefeld)

Articulating the Female Body
Chair: Emily Lordi, Assistant Professor of English, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 131
• “Negotiating the Conceptualization of Black Femininity in Lil Kim’s Album Hard Core,” Samina Ali (Duquesne University)
• “A Peak of Disorientation: The Fetishizing of the Female Breast in the Novels of Philip Roth,” Mike Witcombe (University of Southampton)
• “Why Not Mama, Dada?: Mina Loy’s Embodied Female Poetics,” Aidan Patricia Thompson (State University of New York Albany)

Session 4: 4:10-5:30

Marking Movement and the City Space
Chair: Ruth Lahti, Doctoral Candidate in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 131
• “There’s No Place Like Homeplace in The Street,” Pamela Worth (University of Massachusetts Boston)
• “The Yoke’s on You: Mugging as Cultural Practice in Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude,” Osvaldo Oyola (Binghamton University)
• “Monuments to Migration in Boston’s Public Spaces,” Zoe Sherman (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

American Futurity: Envisioning Present Bodies
Chair: Sean Gordon, MA/PhD in Literature, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 127
• “Daring to Take the ‘Full Forced Shock’: Melville’s Electromagnetic Corporeality in ‘The Lighting-Rod Man’ and Moby Dick,” James Patrick Gorham (University of Rhode Island)
• “Taking Place: The Creation of Heterotopic Space in the Work of William Gibson,” Wesley Dalton (Boston University)
• “A Cemetery and a Prison: Elements of [Anti-]Utopia in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance,” Kimberly Young (University of New Hampshire)

Doing Time: Collections of Space
Chair: Rachael Katz, MFA Candidate in Fiction, UMass Amherst
Bartlett 119
• “Stone: A Storyteller,” fiction, Shastri Akella (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “‘The Prospect of Cluttered Cellar’: Joseph Cornell, Marianne Moore, and the Infinite, ‘Endless Associations of Process,’” Gale Marie Thompson (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “Approaches to the Asylum,” poetic project, Julia Madsen (Brown University)

//6:00: Meet in Bartlett Lobby to walk to reception

6-8:30: RECEPTION at University Club, provided with conference admission//

Post Reception…
Please join us for informal post reception
Festivities at the High Horse upstairs bar.
(Located at 24 N. Pleasant Street in Amherst,
right in the middle of town and a 15 minute
walk from the University Club.)

by EgO at UMass

• The full CFP.

• Check out the panel schedules here!

• Conference Presenters: the last day to mail in your registration fee is March 12th, 2012.

Submissions and Fees

Submissions for "Forces at Play: Bodies, Power, and Spaces" are now closed. Thank you to all who submitted!

FEES

There are two categories of fees:

1) Participants $20— this fee includes everything: presentation + any necessary AV equipment, admission, lunch, all-day coffee, and the reception.

2) Attendees $10— this fee covers your admission to all panels, lunch, coffee, and the reception.

Do not send cash. Please make checks payable to “University of Massachusetts” WITH “English Grad
Organization” IN THE MEMO LINE. Mail checks to:

Ashley Nadeau, EGO Treasurer
English Department
170 Bartlett Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

CONTACT

For questions about the conference, please contact the conference organizers, Jenny Krichevsky and Lauren Silber, by email at moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu#moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu.

TRAVEL

How to get here

By Car

From the North From I-91 South, take exit 25 in Deerfield. At the end of the ramp, turn left and follow road to the intersection. Turn right onto Routes 5 & 10 South. Go 1 mile, then turn left onto Route 116 South. Follow 8 miles to the UMass exit.

From the East From Route 2 West, take exit 16 (Belchertown/Amherst). Follow Route 202 for about 15 miles
to blinking light at Route 9 and 116 Amherst exit (Pelham). Turn right and follow for 7 miles to Amherst center.
Follow signs to UMass.

From I-90 (Mass Pike), take exit 4 (West Springfield). Follow I-91 North to Exit 19. From the exit ramp, turn right onto Route 9. Travel approximately 4.5 miles to Route 116 North (turn left at traffic lights). UMass exit is 1 mile.

From the South From I-91 North, take Exit 19 in Northampton. From the exit ramp, turn right onto Route 9. Travel approximately 4.5 miles to Route 116 North (turn left at traffic lights). UMass exit is 1 mile.

From the West From Route 2 East, follow to Greenfield/I-91 exit. Take I-91 South to exit 25 in Deerfield. At the end of the ramp turn left and follow the road to the intersection. Turn right onto Routes 5 & 10 South. Go 1 mile, then turn left onto Route 116 South. Follow for 8 miles to the UMass exit.

By Air
Bradley International Airport Bradley (Hartford/Springfield) is 45 miles south of the University.

Logan International Airport Logan (Boston) is 90 miles east of the University.

Valley Transporter (800.872.8752) provides airport transportation services.

Seemo Shuttle (413.586.1120) provides shuttle service to and from Bradley, Logan and New York airports.

Exclusive Car Service Inc (877.695.4665) provides private car service to and from Bradley, Logan, and New York
airports.

Bluebird Transportation (413.221.4512) provides airport shuttle and car service from Bradley, Logan and J.F.K.
airports.

By Bus
Greyhound (800.229.9424) serves Springfield, MA.
Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (413.586.5806) local service is free to students during the school year.
Peter Pan Bus Lines (800.343.9999) serves Amherst, MA.

LODGING –

Please refer to the following link for lodging information and accommodations:Accommodations

by Neelofer

by EgO at UMass

Under Construction…

Please refer to the UMass website for lodging information and accommodations.

by EgO at UMass

By Car

From the North From I-91 South, take exit 25 in Deerfield. At the end of the ramp, turn left and follow road to the intersection. Turn right onto Routes 5 & 10 South. Go 1 mile, then turn left onto Route 116 South. Follow 8 miles to the UMass exit.

From the East From Route 2 West, take exit 16 (Belchertown/Amherst). Follow Route 202 for about 15 miles to blinking light at Route 9 and 116 Amherst exit (Pelham). Turn right and follow for 7 miles to Amherst center. Follow signs to UMass.

From I -90 (Mass Pike), take exit 4 (West Springfield). Follow I-91 North to Exit 19. From the exit ramp, turn right onto Route 9. Travel approximately 4.5 miles to Route 116 North (turn left at traffic lights). UMass exit is 1 mile.

From the South From I-91 North, take Exit 19 in Northampton. From the exit ramp, turn right onto Route 9. Travel approximately 4.5 miles to Route 116 North (turn left at traffic lights). UMass exit is 1 mile.

From the West From Route 2 East, follow to Greenfield/I-91 exit. Take I-91 South to exit 25 in Deerfield. At the end of the ramp turn left and follow the road to the intersection. Turn right onto Routes 5 & 10 South. Go 1 mile, then turn left onto Route 116 South. Follow for 8 miles to the UMass exit.

By Air

Bradley International Airport Bradley (Hartford/Springfield) is 45 miles south of the University.

Logan International Airport Logan (Boston) is 90 miles east of the University.

Valley Transporter (800.872.8752) provides airport transportation services.

• Seemo Shuttle (413.586.1120) provides shuttle service to and from Bradley, Logan and New York airports.

• Exclusive Car Service Inc (877.695.4665) provides private car service to and from Bradley, Logan, and New York airports.

• Bluebird Transportation (413.221.4512) provides airport shuttle and car service from Bradley, Logan and J.F.K. airports.

** We may also be able to pick up from and drop off at Bradley International Airport. Please email the committee if you would like us to try to arrange for one of us to pick you up and/or drop you off.* *

By Bus

• Greyhound (800.229.9424) serves Springfield, MA.

• Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (413.586.5806) local service is free to students during the school year.

• Peter Pan Bus Lines (800.343.9999) serves Amherst, MA.

by EgO at UMass

FEES:

There are three categories of fees:

1) Participants $20— this fee includes everything: presentation, admission, lunch, all-day coffee, and the reception.

2) Attendees $10 — this fee covers your admission to all panels, lunch, coffee, and the reception.

3) Reception Attendees $7 — for people only interested in coming to the reception at the University Club after the
conference.

Do not send cash. Please make checks payable to “ University of Massachusetts” WITH “ English Grad
Organization” IN THE MEMO LINE. Mail checks to:

Ashley Nadeau, EGO Treasurer
English Department
170 Bartlett Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

by EgO at UMass

8:00-9:00am
Registration, Coffee, Breakfast
(provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Hall Lobby

Session 1: 9-10:20

Surreality and Artistic Representation
• “Hemingway’s Anti-Art: Dada Surreality in the ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’,” Lauryn
Gold (New York University)
• “‘Special for Norman’: Poems and Re-situating Location,” creative presentation,
Leora Fridman (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Forming and Performing American Identities
• “The Value of Artistic Productions in Keeping Cultural Memory Alive,” Pamela
Lagergren Williams (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “Performance, Perception, and the American Indian: The Manipulation of Fictions
in Coleman’s ‘Inkle and Yarico’ and Sarah Winnemucca’s Lectures,” Sarah
Bonnie (New York University)
• “Truth, Trump, and Trick: Racial Appearances, Identities, and Realities in
Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Kate Marantz (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Session 2: 10:30-11:50

Interior Design: Designing Spaces in Fiction
Creative Presentations and Discussion
• Sarah Boyer (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Sean Rosenberg (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Lauren Foss Goodman (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Adam Parker Cogbill (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The Young and the Reading: Youth Literature and Literacy
• “W1n5t0n Lives!: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction,” Brett A. Mobley (Fordham
University)
• “Social Spaces, Institutions, and Subcultures: Borderlands, Contact Zones, and
Undergraduates,” Paige M. Mitchell (University of Maine)
• “Mind Over Matter: Magical Realism and Imaginative Development of Adolescent
Girls,” Catherine E. Bailey (University of Rochester)

Violence and the Broken Body
• “Rural Heterotopias and Hillbilly Horrors in John Boorman’s Deliverance, Tobe
Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have
Eyes,” Jessica Hautsch (Fordham University)
• “Beyond Faces and Heels: The Effects of Goffmanian Keying and Archetypal
Theory on Character in Professional Wrestling,” Danielle Sanfilippo (Boston
College)
• “Of Sound Body and Mind: Remembering Fractured Identity Through the Mask in
WWI,” Amy Lanham (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

12:00-1:00 LUNCH
(provided with conference admission)
Bartlett Lobby

1:00-2:30: “CREATIVE REALITIES: INTERSECTING ART & TECHNOLOGY”
A roundtable discussion with faculty, scholars, and artists from the five-college area
Bartlett 316

Susan Jahoda (Studio Art, UMass), Eitan Mendelowitz (Computer Science, Smith),
Shawn Shimpach (Communication, UMass), and Emily Leisz Carr, Curator of the
exhibition “Memery: Imitation, Memory, and Internet Culture” at Mass MoCA

Session 3: 2:45-4:05

Mediating Realities: Television, Sound, and Community
• “‘Da Inner Sound Y’all’: De La Soul, the Walkman, and the Re-imagining of the
Hip Hop ‘Real,’” Casey Hayman (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “‘She Flipped the Script’: Reading Reality TV,” Daniel Heyman (New York
University)
• “Performing Realities Against Mysterious Missiles and Other News Fantasies,”
Hari Kumar (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Conflicting Realities: Reconceptualizing Women’s Experience
• “A Long View of Nellie Bly’s Asylum Series: What it Can Teach Us About
Persuasion,” Rebecca Griffin (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “A Defense of Regan and Goneril: Dislocating Reality in King Lear,” Marisa
Colabuono (Carnegie Mellon University)
• “‘Not at all the picture the correspondents have been painting’: Issues of
Conflicting Realities in Zelda Popkin’s Small Victory,” Rachael Hoy (Boston
College)

Session 4: 4:15-5:45

New Technologies and Human Connection
• “Boundary Work: The Posthuman Subject in The Stars My Destination,” Jennifer
R. Dickson (SUNY Buffalo)
• “The New Electronic Church,” Corrina Laughlin (New York University)
• “Age of The Onion: Humor’s Rhetoric, Discursive Integration, and Multimodal
Literacy,” Tristan Towne (Georgia State University)
• “Publics as Discursive Circulations,” Jessica Ouellette (University of
Massachusetts Amherst)

Globalism, Literature, and Worldmaking
• “Genres as Construction Kits for Worldmaking,” Martina Allen (Universität
Konstanz, Germany)
• “Fractured Realities and the Violence of Language,” Kurt Cavender (Brandeis
University)
• “The Paradox of Human Rights in Dave Eggers’ What is the What,” Amy Mikels
(Boston College)
• “The Part About Capitalism and the New Global Economy,” Rohit Sharma
(Fordham University)

6:00: Meet in Bartlett Lobby to walk to reception

6-8:30:
RECEPTION at University Club
(provided with conference admission)

Post Reception
Please join us for informal dinner and post reception festivities
at Amherst Brewing Company's upstairs bar.
(Located in the middle of town,
and a 15 minute walk from the University Club.)

by EgO at UMass

Conference Outline
7:30-8:00 Breakfast and Registration
8:00-9:20 Session One
9:30-10:50 Session Two
11:00-12:30 Roundtable
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:50 Session Three
3:00-4:20 Session Four
4:45-7:00 Reception at the University Club

Panels

Mediating Realities: Television, Sound, and Community

• “‘Da Inner Sound Y’all’: De La Soul, the Walkman, and the Re-imagining
of the Hip Hop ‘Real,’” Casey Hayman (University of Massachusetts
Amherst)
• “‘She Flipped the Script’: Reading Reality TV,” Daniel Heyman (New York
University)
• “Performing Realities Against Mysterious Missiles and Other News
Fantasies,” Hari Kumar (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Globalism, Literature, and Worldmaking

• “Genres as Construction Kits for Worldmaking,” Martina Allen (Universität
Konstanz, Germany)
• “Fractured Realities and the Violence of Language,” Kurt Cavender
(Brandeis University)
• “The Paradox of Human Rights in Dave Eggers’ What is the What,” Amy
Mikels (Boston College)
• “The Part About Capitalism and the New Global Economy,” Rohit Sharma
(Fordham University)

Surreality and Artistic Representation

• “Hemingway’s Anti-Art: Dada Surreality in the ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’,”
Lauryn Gold (New York University)
• “‘Special for Norman’: Poems and Re-situating Location,” creative
presentation, Leora Fridman (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “Reality and All the Other Moments,” creative presentation, Audrey Amir
(University of Rochester)

Violence and the Broken Body

• “Rural Heterotopias and Hillbilly Horrors in John Boorman’s Deliverance,
Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Wes Craven’s The
Hills Have Eyes,” Jessica Hautsch (Fordham University)
• “Beyond Faces and Heels: The Effects of Goffmanian Keying and
Archetypal Theory on Character in Professional Wrestling,” Danielle
Sanfilippo (Boston College)
• “Of Sound Body and Mind: Remembering Fractured Identity Through the
Mask in WWI,” Amy Lanham (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Forming and Performing American Identities

“The Value of Artistic Productions in Keeping Cultural Memory Alive,”
Pamela Lagergren Williams (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
“Performance, Perception, and the American Indian: The Manipulation
of Fictions in Coleman’s ‘Inkle and Yarico’ and Sarah Winnemucca’s
Lectures,” Sarah Bonnie (New York University)
“Truth, Trump, and Trick: Racial Appearances, Identities, and Realities in
Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Kate Marantz (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The Young and the Reading: Youth Literature and Literacy

• “W1n5t0n Lives!: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction,” Brett A. Mobley
(Fordham University)
• “Social Spaces, Institutions, and Subcultures: Borderlands, Contact
Zones, and Undergraduates,” Paige M. Mitchell (University of Maine)
• “Mind Over Matter: Magical Realism and Imaginative Development of
Adolescent Girls,” Catherine E. Bailey (University of Rochester)

Conflicting Realities: Reconceptualizing Women’s Experience

• “A Long View of Nellie Bly’s Asylum Series: What it Can Teach Us About
Persuasion,” Rebecca Griffin (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• “A Defense of Regan and Goneril: Dislocating Reality in King Lear,”
Marisa Colabuono (Carnegie Mellon University)
• “‘Not at all the picture the correspondents have been painting’: Issues
of Conflicting Realities in Zelda Popkin’s Small Victory,” Rachael Hoy
(Boston College)

New Technologies and Human Connection

• “Boundary Work: The Posthuman Subject in The Stars My Destination,”
Jennifer R. Dickson (SUNY Buffalo)
• “The Digital Evangelical,” Corrina Laughlin (New York University)
• “Age of The Onion: Humor’s Rhetoric, Discursive Integration, and
Multimodal Literacy,” Tristan Towne (Georgia State University)

Interior Design: Designing Spaces in Fiction
Creative Presentations and Discussion

• Sarah Boyer (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Sean Rosenberg (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Lauren Foss Goodman (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Adam Parker Cogbill (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

by EgO at UMass

April 16, 2011

Schedule

Submissions and Fees

Travel

Lodging

Contact

Submissions are closed.

“Reality”—as a state of mind or as an embodied experience—is not a unified or universal plane; from surrealism to social networks to the “real” housewives of New Jersey, we are constantly constructing, confronting, and negotiating diverse realities. These varied and often contending sites of reality are sometimes socially accepted and sometimes labeled “alternative,” but they are always central to our sense of self and our place in the world. What, then, does it mean to locate, or dislocate, a particular kind of “reality”? What are the implications of deeming some realities alternate, or altered? What are the different realities enacted within and through, for example, cybercommunities, the space of the theater, dream states, discourses of identity politics? What are the boundaries of these realities, and what are their purposes?

The English Graduate Organization of the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites submissions to the 2011 graduate interdisciplinary conference. This year's conference will explore multiple realities, how they are formed and demarcated, and the problems inherent in this practice. At question are states of mind, lived experiences, and subcultures that complicate or challenge traditional notions of reality and perceived states of normalcy. We urge submitters to consider the multiplicity of realities and how cultural phenomena impact our experience of those realities.

We invited submissions from a diverse range of disciplines and critical perspectives. Projects include papers and/or panel presentations, performance pieces, and multi-media approaches.
Topics include (but are not limited to):

• Film and television
• The stage, theatricality, theater production
• Literary worlds (dystopias/utopias, science fiction, realism, and fantasy)
• Constructions of gender
• Social spaces and institutions (academia, the classroom, politics)
• Representations of madness
• Digital spaces (gaming communities, social networks, internet sex-industry)
• Drug culture and altered consciousness
• Rhetorical spaces, notions of audience, meaning-making
• National boundaries (globalism, postcolonialism, and migrant communities)
• Visual and performance arts
• Theoretical approaches to reality

Questions? Email moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu#moc.liamg|fnocgnessamu

by EgO at UMass

First year:

File plan to finish language requirement
REQUIRED Coursework completed (2 courses per semester)
DEADLINE for scheduling and completing Qualifying Exam

Second year:

Establish Three Areas in conversation with Director
Coursework (2 courses per semester)

Third year:

Area lists and rationales submitted to Graduate Office
DEADLINE for completing Area Exams
Sign up for dissertation credits

Fourth year:

DEADLINE for submitting Prospectus
Meet with Assoc. GPD about job search
Work on dissertation

Fifth year:

Finish dissertation
File degree paperwork with Graduate Program Office
Job search

Note: The proposed changes in the American Studies program requirements will allow the required courses to count as one of the 8 required courses. If the Area Exam moves to Two Areas, then two courses could be fulfilled with Area Exam credits. Students sign up for dissertation credits with the Graduate Office.

by EgO at UMass

First Year:

File plan to finish language requirement
REQUIRED Coursework completed (2 courses per semester)

Second year:

DEADLINE for Completion of Qualifying Exam
Coursework (2 per semester)

Third year:

Establish Areas with Director
Coursework (2 per semester)

Fourth year:

Area Exam credits or courses (2 per semester)
Schedule Area Exam (recommended)

Fifth year:

Area lists and rationales submitted to Graduate Office
2 courses (or Area Credits) this year.
DEADLINE for completing Area Exams
Submit dissertation prospectus (recommended)

Sixth year:

DEADLINE for submitting Prospectus
Meet with Assoc. GPD about job search
Work on dissertation

Seventh year:

Finish dissertation
File degree paperwork with Graduate Program Office
Job search

by EgO at UMass

First year

Meet with GPD
Finish language requirement
Coursework (2 courses per semester)

Second year:

Discuss and Schedule Area Exams with GPD
Coursework (2 courses per year)

Third year:

Area lists and rationales submitted to Graduate Office
DEADLINE for completing Area Exams

Fourth year:

DEADLINE for submitting Prospectus
Meet with Assoc. GPD about job search
Work on dissertation

Fifth year:

Finish dissertation
File degree paperwork with Graduate Program Office
Job search

Note: All PhD students are required to take a minimum of six classes, two 3-hour Area Credits, and 18 dissertation credits. Dissertation credits make up the additional 6 hours in year one to fulfill the Grad School residency requirement. Dissertation credits and area credits must be signed up for with Wanda in the Grad Office. Students are not, of course, prevented from taking additional classes and may want to use a class to help them work on an area exam rationale.

by EgO at UMass

First year:
Meet with GPD
File plan for fulfilling language requirement
Coursework (2 courses per semester)

Second year:
Advisory Session Scheduled with GPD
Coursework (2 courses per semester)

Third year:

DEADLINE for completion of Advisory Session
Meet with GPD about Two-Area Exam
Finish language requirement
Coursework (2 courses per semester)

Fourth year:

Areas Approved and Scheduled by GPD
Area lists and rationales submitted to Graduate Office
Complete Area exams (recommended)
Meet with Advisors about dissertation
Coursework (2 courses per semester)

Fifth year:

DEADLINE for completing Area Exams
Submit Dissertation Prospectus (recommended)
Work on dissertation

Sixth year:

DEADLINE for submitting Prospectus
Meet with Assoc. GPD about job search
Work on dissertation

Seventh year:

Finish dissertation
Job search

by EgO at UMass

Co-Chairs
Amy Brady
Neelofer Qadir

Treasurer
Ashley Nadeau

Communications
Lisha Daniels Storey

Website Administrators
Julie Burrell
Kate Walker

English Department GEO Stewards (2010-2011)

Kathleen Baldwin
Miranda Dennis

English Department Graduate Studies Committee Representatives (2010-2012)

Lisha Daniels Storey
Amanda Waugh

English Graduate Organization (EGO) 2009 - 2010

Co-Chairs
Amy Brady
Joe Mason

Treasurer
Ruth Lahti

Communications
Amanda Carr

Website Administrator
Stacy Reardon

Website Moderators
Valerie Gramling
Lisha Storey

English Department GEO Stewards (2009-2010)

Kathleen Baldwin
Miranda Dennis

English Department Graduate Studies Committee Representatives (2008-2010)

Ann Garner
Philip Palmer

by EgO at UMass

Admin
EGO Constitution
Call for Nominations 2010-2011
How to Get Graduate Student Organization Status

Communications
About EGO Listserve Administration
About Online EGO Accounts
Wiki FAQs
How EGO's Social Networking Works

Officers
EGO Co-Chair
EGO Treasurer
Communications Officer
Wiki Admin
Wiki Moderators

Graduate Studies Committee Representatives
Graduate Student Senate Representatives
Graduate Employee Organization Stewards

Past Events
Graduate Information Meeting May 2010
Everything You Wanted to Know about Graduate School December 2009
Welcome Barbecue 2009

EGO Meeting Minutes

Add EGO Meeting Minutes

Create New EGO Admin Page

This page will be visible only to members logged in to the wiki site.

List of all EGO Admin pages by title:

by EgO at UMass

All nominations, regardless of the number for each position, will be put to a vote. Officers currently holding EGO positions will be up for re-nomination for a second year term, but all positions are considered "open" to new nominations as well. Current Graduate Studies Committee officers are completing a 2 year term and are not currently up for re-nomination.

Every vote/nomination counts, so make your voice heard!

Important Dates
Thursday, 4/1/2010
Nomination deadline. Nominate yourself or others by email to umassego AT english.umass.edu.

Friday, 4/2/2010
All English MA/PhD students will receive an invitation to participate in an online vote.

Wednesday, 4/7/2010
Elections results will be announced at EGO's April monthly meeting.

Elected Positions
English Graduate Organization Positions
Co-Chair 1
Co-Chair 2
Treasurer
Wiki Master/Admin
Wiki Moderator
Communication Officer

Graduate Studies Committee Positions
GSC Co-Ambassador 1
GSC Co-Ambassador 2

Descriptions
1. Co-Chair
The co-chair serves as an internal coordinator for the English Graduate Organization. He or she (or both co-chairs) will track the overall business and functioning of the Graduate Student Organization. This/these person(s) will call and announce meetings, request and prioritize agenda items (with input from GSA members), facilitate meetings, create special subcommittees, place appointees, monitor ongoing and new issues, and maintain regular communication with other representatives such as the Department Chair and GPD, members of the Graduate Student Committee, and GEO representatives on graduate student issues. The co-chair will be available to attend faculty meetings as a graduate student representative when appropriate.

2. Co-Chair
(As above under description 1.)

3. Wiki Master/Admin
Generally responsible for the accurate and impartial documentation, collection, and dissemination of information. Includes keeping minutes, distributing minutes, ensuring the reception of important news and announcements, overseeing the publishing of relevant news and information via e-mail, newsletters, EGO OIT account and English grad wiki.

4. Wiki Moderators
Generally responsible for assisting the Wiki Master in uploading all pertinent documentation and information onto the EGO wiki and maintaining generally the EGO wiki throughout their elected year.

5. Treasurer
Maintaining a bank account. When EGO is looking for funding s/he is responsible for submitting proposals to the English department and/or GSS one week prior to any Senate meeting and should attend that meeting in order to make a presentation to the full Senate.

6. Communications Officer
Generally responsible for publicity, postings, and maintaining an EGO email listserve.

GSC Ambassadors
The Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) is an organizational body within the English Department. Its purpose is to discuss the English graduate program, to choose graduate courses for each semester, to propose changes to the program when necessary and to develop plans for implementing these changes. The committee is composed of the GPD, AGPD, several faculty members who serve on a rotating basis, and two student representatives. Student representatives serve a two-year term, and their duties include:

1) Represent the English graduate students at all meetings of the Graduate Studies Committee (about 3-4 meetings per semester).
2) Convey information between the GSC and the graduate student body.
3) Advocate for graduate student needs and present issues with the program to the committee.
4) Answer questions, usually via email, from prospective graduate students about the program.

by EgO at UMass

Cracking the Code: Obstacles, Challenges & Requirements in the Program

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
4pm-5pm
Bartlett 256

Who Should Come: People who are new to and / or confused by the program or profession. Veterans who can offer their hard-won wisdom. Everyone is welcome.

What: Now that you have at least a semester under your belt, it’s time to get the lowdown on how the program really works, how you can make it work for you and where the potential pitfalls are. No question is silly or off-limits. This is a great opportunity to get your questions answered by people who've recently been through it as well as to meet fellow scholars. And we’ll have snacks.

Where, What, When to Publish

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
4pm-5pm

Conferences

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
4pm-5pm
followed by EGO meeting

How To Find Outside Funding

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
4pm-5pm

Teaching Your Own Class

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
4pm-5pm

by EgO at UMass

by EgO at UMass

Our conferences attract graduate students from across the disciplines, from regional colleges and universities as well as students from across the country. Our conference is open to graduate students in any field and from any university.

2012
Forces at Play: Bodies, Space, Power
Full conference website and Facebook page coming soon.


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

by EgO at UMass

794T: Theories of Interpretation
Instructor: Xenos

See the Department of Political Science for a full listing.

by lds