Gannon’s paper, “Agency and Creation of Space: Empowered Women in the Gothic Fictions Mexican Gothic聽and Build Your House Around My Body,” is part of a project mentored by Professor of English Rosemary Haskell. The research investigates 21st-century adaptations of the eighteenth-century Gothic mode, with a particular focus on the changing representations of women characters and the spaces they inhabit in their novels. “Mexican Gothic” is by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and “Build Your House Around My Body” is by Violet Kupersmith.

Inspired by their recent team-taught Literature on Screen course, Burns, assistant professor in English, and Swanson, assistant professor in Cinema & Television Arts, gave a hybrid talk on a panel with the theme 鈥淣etworks, Multiverses, and (Trans)Media Ecologies.鈥�

Their talk, titled 鈥淒irection as Data Extraction: Surveilling Behavioral Surplus in Joseph Kosinski鈥檚 ‘Spiderhead,’鈥� explored Shoshana Zuboff鈥檚 theory of 鈥渂ehavioral surplus鈥� in a comparative analysis of George Saunders鈥� short story 鈥淓scape from Spiderhead鈥� (2010) and director Joseph Kosinski鈥檚 recent Netflix Original adaptation, “Spiderhead” (2022). Reading the work’s “clinical trials” context as an allegory of surveillance capitalism, they argued that Kosinski鈥檚 modernist and postmodern production design evokes the data-gathering practices mobilized by corporate interests outside of their users’ awareness and autonomy鈥攁 new prediction market that maximizes profits through the harvesting of personal information.

Hosted by the University of Montana this year from Sept. 21-23, the Literature/Film Association is currently the largest and most active scholarly society in the United States devoted to the study of literature and film.

A panelist on the interdisciplinary Forum Session 聽Pearson delivered her paper, 鈥淭he White Supremacist Strategy of Lost Cause Medievalism,鈥� in a roundtable format that included scholars from Drake, Rice, Caltech, George Washington and Cal State-Monterey Bay. Pearson鈥檚 paper argued that Thomas Dixon鈥檚 bestselling novels “The Leopard鈥檚 Spots”聽and “The Clansman” (on which the blockbuster 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation was based) used popular ideas about the medieval period to seize the white U.S. imagination and promulgate white racial reunification at the expense of Black lives and rights.

Chairing an Asian Literatures Special Session entitled 聽Karunanayake introduced and moderated discussions by literature faculty from Colgate University, Hunter College and UT-El Paso. His talk, 鈥淪hyam Selvadurai鈥檚 Mapping of Queer Memory as Postmemory,鈥� applied Marianne Hirsch鈥檚 formulation of 鈥減ostmemory鈥� to the queer Sri Lankan Canadian writer鈥檚 work and argued that Selvadurai鈥檚 invocation of queer memory fills the gaps of the heteropatriarchal nationalist consciousness, thus presenting a postmemory of postcolonial Sri Lanka.

For the roundtable 聽Burns鈥� 鈥淭oo Big to Fail: Hanya Yanagihara鈥檚 A Little Life and the Art of Excess in the Age of Inclusion鈥� analyzed narrative theories of maximalist fiction in a comparative case study on the varied reception histories surrounding Yanagihara鈥檚 National Book Award-nominated and Booker Prize-shortlisted epic novel. Burns鈥� paper explored how the existing critical orthodoxy surrounding big, ambitious novels written by women deliberately fails its subjects through implicit biases that conflate the perceived perceptual limitations of a given work鈥檚 visionary scope with the minoritarian positionality of its authorship. The panel included scholars from Hartwick College, UT-Austin, Cornell, Oregon, and Penn State-Harrisburg, whose work examined emergent literary forms and their relationship with or remediation by other media, including film, documentary, social media, publishing platforms, transmedia, autotheory, and other hybrid narrative and poetic forms.

The Modern Language Association has been the flagship conference in literary studies since 1883 with sessions that present a range of critical approaches on a variety of languages, literatures, and cultural traditions. This year鈥檚 convention鈥檚 theme, 鈥淲orking Conditions,鈥� invited participants to consider the subject of knowledge work through 鈥渢he reconstruction of the profession, its institutions, and its wider environment.鈥�

This paper, presented in a session called “On Queer Time: Velocities and Temporalities in Contemporary French and Francophone Cultural Production,” argued that Diome’s 2006 novel “K茅tala,”听the story of queer lives struggling to unfold in a hostile Senegalese culture,聽depicts the deadly pressures exerted on individual lives by heteronormative timelines and illuminates the broader cultural implications of these delayed, disrupted and fugitive life stories.

Fatou Diome is the author of several novels, including “Le Ventre de l’Atlantique,” very successfully translated as “The Belly of the Atlantic,” two short-story collections, and two polemics against the French “far-right” political wing. Diome has lived in France since the early 1990s.

Morehead, assistant professor of English, presented his research on how some films produce the same kind of political emotions that public monuments and memorials do. His talk 鈥淢onument Films and the Politics of Tragic Emotions鈥� identified the aspects of a new film genre that aligns itself with the commemorative and political aspirations of monuments. Reading Oliver Stone鈥檚 film “World Trade Center” as an example of how these kinds of films create a national 鈥渢ragic spectatorship,鈥� he made the claim that monument films do their political work through orienting their audiences toward feeling certain national events as tragedies.

Inspired by their work in a recent Literature on Screen course, Burns, assistant professor in English, and Stafford, a first-year English major, gave a collaborative talk entitled, 鈥淰oice v. Vision: The Reception Histories of ‘If Beale Street Could Talk.’鈥�

Their presentation examined Barry Jenkins鈥� 2019 adaptation of James Baldwin鈥檚 novel in dialogue with recent film scholarship as well as excerpts from the author鈥檚 own unfinished screenplay of his narrative. Written on-spec by Baldwin after Universal Studios acquired the rights to “If Beale Street Could Talk” in the mid-70s, the fragmentary document remains unpublished and is available only in the at the 鈥攚here Burns conducted archival research in Fall 2021 with a grant from the Provost鈥檚 Office.

The virtual symposium, entitled 鈥淥nly Connect,鈥� highlighted the importance of textual, intertextual, social and biological adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Literature/Film Association is currently the largest and most active scholarly society in the United States devoted to the study of literature and film. The U.K.-based Association of Adaptation Studies is committed to challenging assumptions concerning the boundaries of literature on screen and enlarging the place of adaptation studies across the humanities curriculum.

An article by Professor of English Rosemary Haskell recently appeared in The Minnesota Review: A Journal of Creative and Critical Writing.

Haskell’s article, “Migritude’s Progress: Fatou Diome’s Twenty-Five Years in Afrique(s)-sur-Rhine,” analyzes francophone Senegalese novelist Fatou Diome’s explorations in novels and in nonfiction of “migritude,” the rich conceptualization of the complexities of Black African identity in the context of the exciting and perilous migrant’s condition.

Fatou Diome, born in Senegal in 1968, now lives in France. She has published several novels, including the best-selling “Le ventre de l’Atlantique” (translated into English as “The Belly of the Atlantic”), about boys and young men risking their lives by migrating to Europe from Senegal in the hope of playing soccer in the “big leagues.”

The article is available here – .

The Minnesota Review, Issue 94, 2020 (New Series),聽 pp. 142-156.

Rosemary Haskell, professor of English, recently chaired a session titled “The Rhetoric of Contact Between Military and Civilian Life” at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, held Nov. 16 in Atlanta.

Haskell also presented a paper at this conference session: “The Power Vacuum: Two Kinds of `Inner Emigration’ in Ben Fountain’s ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.'”

Fountain’s 2012 novel explores the experiences of a group of young U. S. soldiers as they are feted during the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys’ football game for their now-famous, but deadly, firefight at the battle-front in Iraq.

Cecily Basquin ’16 and Sabrina Campelo ’18 spoke at SURE’s second luncheon of the summer.聽

Basquin, currently pursuing a聽doctorate in聽clinical psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, participated in SURE for two summers while at 黑料不打烊. Working with faculty advisor Meredith Allison, professor of psychology and director of undergraduate research, Basquin researched the accuracy and misunderstandings that occur in eyewitness testimonies between English-speaking police officers and eyewitnesses who speak English as a second language.

Basquin presented her research across the country and in Canada while studying at 黑料不打烊. She said the experiences she had in the SURE program were priceless.

鈥満诹喜淮蜢� cares about each and every student and truly invests in the future of its students,” she said. “黑料不打烊 taught me to think critically, be passionate about my ideas, to value my relationships with peers and mentors and 鈥� most importantly 鈥� to be intellectually curious through it all.”

鈥婥ampelo is now pursuing a master’s degree in medical physics聽at Duke University. While at 黑料不打烊, she researched irreversible electroporation, a cancer treatment that applies an electric field across tumors, creating nano-tears on the cells and causing the tumors to die.

On Monday, Campelo offered advice to SURE聽participants about what they can take away from the experience and how it can help them develop as presenters.

“If you have the opportunity to give oral presentations, I strongly encourage you to take any and every opportunity,” Campelo said. “Practicing and giving presentations is a great way to become more comfortable.鈥�

SURE offers student researchers the chance聽to earn a stipend while spending eight weeks working full-time on a project in collaboration with a faculty mentor with substantial and recognized expertise in the discipline. The purpose of the SURE program is to enhance learning opportunities for students while encouraging collaboration in learning and research between faculty and students.

鈥婽his year’s class of SURE student researchers is focused on a wide range of topics.

Junie Burke ’20, a human service studies聽and strategic communications major, is researching the availability of聽psycho-social resources for pediatric cancer patients. Burke is mentored by聽Cindy Fair, the Watts/Thompson professor of public health studies聽and human service studies, and she called the experience unforgettable.

“Learning in a classroom is one thing, but putting your major into real life is another,” she said.聽“SURE has allowed me to apply it and also make a difference in my sector.”

鈥婱aeve Riley ’20, an English literature and drama and theatre studies major,聽is researching the roles of women during the聽economic boom聽of Ireland in the 1990s. Riley, an 黑料不打烊 College Fellow, is mentored by Associate Professor of English聽Scott Proudfit and said she sees the SURE program as an opportunity to give special attention to the topics that interest her most.

“During the semester, it鈥檚 really difficult to focus on your research,聽and you really need to focus in order to make something very concentrated and probable,鈥� she said.

The 37 student researchers in the 2019 SURE program will continue their research throughout the summer and present their findings during poster sessions on July 24.

And, as the students continue to work toward their summer research goals, Cecily Basquin offered some encouraging words about the program.

“黑料不打烊 prepares you very well for what鈥檚 ahead, and you鈥檒l have developed a unique skill set that other students won鈥檛 necessarily have,” she said.聽“Take advantage of it. Seek out new opportunities.”

CELEBRATE! Week offers an annual opportunity to highlight the academic and artistic achievements of 黑料不打烊 students and faculty. Each day this week, we'll be putting the spotlight on a student scholar's research — what they are seeking to find out, and who they became interested in their project.

Area of study: English Literature

Major(s): English, concentrations in Literature and Professional Writing & Rhetoric

Minor(s): Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Faculty mentor: Megan Isaac, associate professor of English

Title of research: Literary and Social Narratives of Young Adult Power

Abstract:

Young adult literature is all about power. Critics like Roberta Trites and Maria Nikolajeva choose to define the genre by the way themes of power affect the narratives of young adults. They argue that ideas of power are central in developing the plots and themes of novels in the genre. Simultaneously, youth rights theorists argue that adolescence is a period void of all power. John Holt, father of the philosophical youth rights theory, argues that the social construction of the period of adolescence creates a relationship between adults and adolescents that is unequal: one in which adults hold all power and wield it in a way that represses the power of adolescents around them. Holt calls for an abolition of this arbitrary and socially constructed institution in order to restore power to adolescents, a group he believes has been needlessly oppressed.

A stark contradiction about adolescent power emerges when looking at young adult literature through a youth theorist lens. John Holt asserts that adolescence is a period void of all power and repressed by adult influences, but young adult literature, a genre for and about adolescents, is all about power. The gap between these two ways of thinking calls theories of adolescent power and scholarship about young adult literature into question, and furthermore demands a more nuanced study of power than has been done in the past. My research explores this contradiction.

In order to understand how power operates in the genre, I selected twenty-one contemporary realistic, award-winning American novels and focused on power in four nuanced contexts: mental health representations, LGBTQ relationships, book banning incidents, and narration strategies. My research demonstrates contradictions surrounding adolescent power that reveal the intricate relationship between young adult literature and power and how literature shapes ideas about the kinds of power young adults can or should wield.

In other words:

I studied representations of adolescent power in young adult literature, a genre for and about adolescents but written almost exclusively by adults. Adolescence, in general, is a period void of most power and repressed by adult influences, but the young adult literature is all about power. My research explores this contradiction and how it manifests in the genre.

Explanation of study:

In order to understand how power operates in the genre, I selected 21 contemporary realistic, award-winning American novels. All novels have either won or been long- or short-listed for the Michael L. Printz Award or the National Book Award, the two most sought-after prizes in the field. I chose to focus on award winners in order to ensure that all the books I examined were of high literary quality and had a significant audience. Definitions of adolescence vary with time and place, and consequently there is no standard definition of the age group that is agreed upon by all. In order to narrow the scope of conceptions of adolescence, all novels have been published in the past twenty years (1999-2019) and have achieved success (in the form of awards) in the United States. This selection criteria ensures cultural relevance and a shared understanding of what it means to be an adolescent. Along the lines of standardizing what it means to be an adolescent, I’ve chosen to define the age group as high-school-aged, only choosing novels with protagonists in high school. Finally, working within these parameters, I purposefully chose novels that give attention to character diversity on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and ability. Past literary studies have either ignored representation altogether, or only studied it as it pertains to marginalized groups. By design, I strove to study adolescence in a broad and inclusive way. I used this set of novels as a case-study to study power in its nuanced contexts in the genre.

What made this research interesting to you? How did you get started?

I’ve always loved young adult literature. Growing up, the genre provided me with a comfort that the real world never could. When I came to 黑料不打烊 I realized that I could marry my personal passions and academic pursuits in interesting and innovative ways. During the spring of my first year, I took a young adult literature course, which introduced me to scholarship in the genre. I also took a feminist philosophy course that increased my exposure to theories of privilege and oppression. One day in this class, my professor briefly mentioned the intersection of childhood and oppression. I began to wonder how this oppression might manifest itself in the literature I love: a genre for and about adolescents, written almost exclusively by adults. From there, the 黑料不打烊 College Fellows Program and my mentor Dr. Megan Isaac helped me make meaning of this intersection.

How has undergraduate research contributed to your experience at 黑料不打烊?

Undergraduate research has been the single most rewarding experience I’ve had while at 黑料不打烊. My project afforded me the opportunity to take something I love and run with it. I’ve never been in a situation where I could spend two-and-a-half years taking complete ownership of an academic endeavor. Throughout the process, I’ve developed curiosity, creativity, and resilience. These skills have permeated outward to affect all other work I’ve done at 黑料不打烊. Furthermore, my relationship with my mentor has strengthened my bond with the English department and the University as a whole. It’s the best feeling to have someone in your corner reassuring you that your academic pursuits are worthy and important.

As one literature major explained, “Peele’s backstory for this movie’s premise is far deeper than the one created for his previous film. It’s ‘The Sunken Place’ expanded and reimagined as a community space—with its own secret history and legacy.”

“That’s why I probably won’t be sleeping tonight,” another student quickly added.

Following the Friday evening show, Assistant professors Craig Morehead and Dan Burns led an hour-long discussion over coffee with a dozen diehard cinephiles in the Snow Family Grand Atrium in the School of Communications. The conversation focused on a range of topics: from interpreting the Tethered’s subterranean society to Freudian interpretations of “doubling” and “the uncanny” to spotting Peele’s complex layering of intertextual references to other films and literature.

Underscored by the director’s trademark sardonic humor, the film’s creative use of soundtrack, for instance, had recent literature graduate and attendee David Patterson ’18 marveling at one scene’s juxtaposition of The Beach Boys and N.W.A. while also looking up Minnie Riperton song lyrics to better grasp Peele’s final message.

“With all the allusions, pop culture references, and Easter Eggs thrown at the audience,” Patterson said, “we've got our work cut out for us.”

If nothing else, the film’s searing commentary on the polarizing state of U.S. national identity—students and faculty alike agreed—does for “family vacations” what its predecessor did for “meeting the parents.”

Grant funding for this special event was generously provided by the Office of the Associate Provost for Academic and Inclusive Excellence.