Senior English Seminar Conference Program
Geri Farrell, “The Insufficient Nature of the Human Language”
Shelby Brown, “Edward Abbey’s Use of Comedy in Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang”
Allison Bearly, “Constructed Nature: The Human Impact in Desert Solitaire and Double Whammy”
9:30 a.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Conference Room
Callyn Burgess, “In Parenthesis: A Modern Epic for a Modern War”
Belkisa Causevic, “‘On entend le Canon’: A Translation of Schoolboy Yves Congar’s World War I Journal”
John Brooks, “Sergeant York: Constructing an American Hero”
9:30 a.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Activities Room
Amy Koonce, “Johnny Depp May Be Adorable But Mental Illness Isn’t: The of Women in Benny and Joon”
Stephanie Sherman, “Helpless Hero: The Effect of PTSD in Brothers”
10:30 a.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Conference Room
Laura Kenny, “Who Run the World? Girls”
Theresa Wildhaber, “From Corsets to Overalls: American Women in the Workforce During the First World War”
Kelly Cunningham, “Writers as Pacifists During and After the Great War”
10:30 a.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Activities Room
Hope Benefield, “Abstractions”
Paula Vaught, “Leprechauns, Black Bears, and Other Things About Divorce”
Shelby Welch, “Stars”
11:30 a.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Conference Room
Diane Prinster, “Once Upon a Disability: Portrayals of the Disabled Villain”
Kaitlin Austin, “Portrayal of Disability in Shirley Temple’s Heidi”
Rachel Hoffman, “The Phantom of the Opera: Changing Portrayals of Disability”
11:30 a.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Activities Room
Alexandria Lockett, “Whats the ‘T’ about English Majors? Some Reflections about the Trans-Power of the Field—in around, and outside Academic Jobs”
12:30 p.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Conference Room
Jennifer Marks, “Small Town, Big War: Re-purposing Kirksville, Missouri, for the Great War”
Robert Overmann, “’Ill in the’Ville’: The Events and Culture of Kirksville, Missouri, During the 1918 Influenza as Viewed through Kirksville Newspapers”
Amy Ritter, “Eugenics, Harry Laughlin, and World War I”
1:30 p.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Conference Room
Lauren Ragsdale, “A Study in Disabilities: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in Conan Doyle’s Stories and BBC’s Sherlock”
Janae Fritze, “Representations of Conjoined Twins in Grey’s Anatomy’s ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ and ‘This Magic Moment’”
1:30 p.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Activities Room
Michelle Hadler, “Bad-Mouthing the Enemy: Dysphemistic Use of Language in WWI”
Heather Ernst, “Bringing Harlem to Europe: Power, Jazz, and the Other in WWI”
2:30 p.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Conference Room
Samantha Battrick, “High on the Mountaintop: Seeking Out Nature for Spiritual Renewal and to Commune With God”
Sadie Gerau, “The Sublimity of Landscapes in American Nature Writing”
Julie Phillips, “The Starting Point: A Case for the Power of Children’s Natural Wonder”
2:30 p.m.
Dec. 1
Student Union Building Activities Room
Megan Dice, “The Kilt and the Evolution of Scottish Identity in The Great War”
Paige Bergan, “Reaching the Sky: The Impact of Pioneering Aircrafts in WWI”
Tori Palumbo, “Man Up: Debilitating Social Attitudes toward Shell Shock and the Intersectionality of Disability and Gender in Pat Barker’s Regeneration”
10:30 a.m.
Dec. 2
Student Union Building Conference Room
Isaac B. Akers, “The Absolute Adventures of Grass Peldrage & Miriam Watch”
Thomas Fitzler, “At the Edge of Expansion”
Marissa Meehan, “Wyndfall Jones”
Erin Twenter, “The Awkward Stage: How to Catch It Before It Claims Your Youth”
10:30 a.m.
Dec. 2
Student Union Building Activities Room
Nathan Sandbothe, “The Public’s Walt Whitman”
Stephen Furlong, “Heritage: An Origin Story of the Poetry of Linda Hogan and Louise Glueck”
Conor Gearin, “‘There are birds here’: American Nature Writing in a Fragmented World”
Jessica Koch, “Situational Irony and Its Effects on Nature”
August Thies, “Nature Writing as a Tool to Teach and Encourage the Sciences”
12 p.m.
Dec. 2
Student Union Building Conference Room
Keynote: Alexandria Lockett, “Contagious Nonsense: Informatic Mythography in Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo and Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters”
1:30 p.m.
Dec. 2
Student Union Building Conference Room
Libby Jenkins, “’Til We Meet Again”
Lauren Neilson, “The Good Egg”
David Winn, “Laura: Revised”
Joe Rhyne, “#LifeAsWeProbablyDon’tKnowIt: A Ritualistic Trip Around the World”
3 p.m.
Dec. 2
Student Union Building Conference Room
Zainab Jasim, “Jane Eyre’s Bertha Mason: Madwoman or Feminist Rebel?”
Julianne Dworak, “The Best Years of Our Lives: Gender Issues and Disabled Veterans”
Lindsay Hickman, “American Horror Story: Disabilities and Classism in 1950’s America”
Kim Wronkiewicz, “Neurodiversity vs. The Medical Model: A Discussion of Autism from “Look Me In the Eye”
3 p.m.
Dec. 2
Student Union Building Activities Room