MEGAA Symposium Schedule
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Schedule Overview
(Full descriptions are available below.)
8:30 – 9:00
Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 – 10:00
Session I: Panel A
10:15 – 11:15
Session II: Panels B and C
11:30 – 12:15
Keynote Address: Dr. Susan Morgan
12:30 – 1:30
Lunch
1:30 – 2:30
Session III: Panel D
2:45 – 3:45
Session IV: Panels E and F
4:00 – 4:45
Keynote Address: Dr. Lisa J.M. Poirier
5:00
Evening Reception at Bachelor Hall
Session I: 9–10 a.m.
Panel A: Reconstructed Memory (Room 212
- Adam Burkey, English Department. “Theorizing the Practice of Mourning: de Certeau and the World Trade Center Memorial.”
This paper applies Michel de Certeau’s theory of practice to the 9/11 makeshift memorials and contrasts this with the more organized World Trade Center memorial. - Jamie Calhoun, English Department. “Expanding the Story: Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water and the Method of Critical Allusion.”
What if one does not refuse dominant codes but reuses them? This presentation examines the ambivalent, comic, and half-serious method of critical allusion in King’s text as resistant to the American narrative of Manifest Destiny. - Tracy Savoie, English Department. “Bringing the Past into the Present: Collective Memory in Gayl Jones’ Corregidora.”
This presentation demonstrates how Gayl Jones’ Corregidora provides a way to think about the transference of history through memory which refutes Walter Benn Michaels’ argument against collective memory.
Session II: 10:15 – 11:15 a.m.
Panel B: Contested History in Colonial Encounters (Room 212)
This panel examines how colonial encounters have created contested histories in North Africa, in the United States, and in India. Specifically, the papers will address the contested historiographies of Al-Kahina in North Africa, the problems of place naming in Northern Michigan, the historiographical debate surrounding the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy in the United States, and the contested identities of Islamic feminists in postcolonial India.
- Casey J. Koons, Comparative Religion. “Finding Al-Kahina: Contested Historiographies in Colonial Algeria.”
- Jason Sprague, Comparative Religion. “Place Naming in Northern Michigan: From Initial Colonial Contact to the Present.”
- J. Blake Vaughan, Comparative Religion. “Can Vesey Speak?: The Historiographical Debate Surrounding the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy and Limits to Hearing the Subaltern Voice.”
- Stephanie D. Kien, Comparative Religion. “Contested Identities in Postcolonial India: Islamic Feminism and the Debates over Family Law Reforms.”
Panel C: Rereading the Landscape (Room 115)
- Jordan Carroll, English Department. “Yearning for Dystopia in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.”
This presentation explores how dystopia, shock, and trauma provide ways of imagining and narrating historical change in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. - Ben O’Dell, English Department. “Tubes, Telephones, and Technology: Communicating the Future in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward.”
This paper questions the efficacy of technology to provide utopian ends in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1877. - Joey Cheatle, English Department. “Naming the Other: An Examination of the Terminology in ‘Byron’s Journey of His Circumnavigation 1764-1766.’”
This presentation traces the way in which the other is named during an 18th century voyage.
Keynote Address: 11:30–12:15 p.m.
Susan Morgan (Room 212)
Distinguished Professor of English, Miami University.
Session III: 1:30–2:30 p.m.
Panel D: “‘Now Please Understand Me’: Contested Histories and the Performance of the Feminist Scholar” (Room 212)
- Jennifer Ernie-Steighner, Ann Fuehrer, Bre Garrett, Jacquelyn Manning-Dantis, Stephanie Rogers, and Nicole Wilder. “‘Now Please Understand Me’: Contested Histories and the Performance of the Feminist Scholar”
This interactive, collaborative conversation will discuss the women’s studies graduate seminar as a site of contested histories—the histories of the class members that arrive from multiple disciplines interwoven with the histories of the feminist scholar. We hope to continue in the practice of bridging these contestations through our reflexive, multimodal presentation, to which we invite direct participation from audience members.
Session IV: 2:45-3:45 p.m.
Panel E: “Contested Christianities” (Room 212)
The papers in this panel examine a variety of contested histories within the Christian tradition. However diverse, the three papers examine foundational questions historians of religion face: Who has rights to the history of a religious tradition? Who do we as scholars, determine who speaks for religious traditions, and what are the consequences of those determinations? What is the relationship between history and myth? How should scholars deal with contested religious histories, with deviations from the accepted narrative, or with traditions and groups left out of the accepted narrative entirely? The speakers in this panel aim to address these questions, while unpacking the specific problems of contested histories in Mari tradition, Pauline Christianity, and the American megachurch movement.
- Jennifer L. Crye, Comparative Religion. “Reshaping Identity: Mari Interaction with Orthodox Missionaries in Late Tsarist Russia.”
- Matt Conner, Comparative Religion. “Magic, Baptism, and the Apostle Paul: An Inquiry into 1 Corinthians 15:29 and the Evolution of a Discipline.”
- Myev Rees, Comparative Religion. “The Etiological Myth of the American Megachurch.”
Panel F: Countering Historical Narratives (Room 115)
- Josh Avery, History. “Friends of the King: Loyalism and Identity in Revolutionary Connecticut.”
This presentation examines how Loyalists (specifically the Rev. Samuel Andrew Peters) fought to construct and shape their identities in opposition to the dominance of the American Revolution. - Jennifer Anderson, Mass Communication. “The Debate over Same-Sex Marriage as a Convergence of Marriage and Gay Rights Histories.”
This presentation explores the ever-shifting and culturally constructed nature of marriage throughout history and its unique significance at this point in the history of gay rights activism. - Rachel Murdock, Mass Communication. “Weekly Newspapers as a Source of Local History.”
This presentation examines how weekly newspapers developed over time and how they document very local history.
Keynote Address: 4–4:45 p.m.
Lisa J.M. Poirier (Room 212)
Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Comparative Religion, Miami University.
Reception: 5 p.m.
Let Loose and Mingle (Bachelor Reading Room)
Drink some wine. Eat some food. Meet the speakers. Mingle with old friends and make new ones. The committee welcomes speakers and guests to a reception in the Reading Room of Bachelor Hall.
Bachelor Hall is located on the corner of Patterson Avenue (US 27) and Ohio Route 73. The Reading Room is located on the third floor (room 337).
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