Brandeis University

Department of English and American Literature

415 South St. MS 023 - Rabb 144 Waltham MA 02454

781-736-2130

Second Annual English Graduate Conference

Friday, March 11, 2005

Power demands intellectual debate, engagement and intervention in fields as diverse as literary studies, visual culture, performance studies, political theory and cultural studies. Contemporary critical assessments of power continuously re-imagine the modes of representation, construction and production possible within different hegemonic forms. This conference will broaden the spectrum of critical inquiry by exploring new and competing ways of perceiving power.

Conference Schedule

Brandeis University
March 11, 2005

Shapiro Campus Center, 3rd Floor

8:00-9:00 Registration and Breakfast

9:-00-10:30 Panel I: Modern Power: Aesthetics, Imperialism, Sexuality
Panel Chair: Shayna Skarf

Tabitha Morgan, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Gazing-Back: Women's Photography and the Authority of Artistic Representation

Agata Izabela Szczeszak, University of South Carolina
• "Making Do" Among Gringos and Cosas de Costaguana: Joseph Conrad's Clandestine Insubordination

Joel Silverman, University of Texas at Austin
• "To Waylay a Beautiful Girl": The "Sex Side of Life" Case and Changing Attitudes Towards Masculinity in the Early Twentieth Century

10:45-12:15 Panel II: Iconographic Power: Religion, Theater, Gender
Panel Chair: Vanita Neelakanta

Betsy Moss, Yale University
• The Power of Images: Leo VI and the Virgin Mary

Magda Romanska, Cornell University
• Power and Femininity: Figuration and Counter Discourse in Greek and Shakespearean Drama

Jonathan Silverman and Thomas Henthorne, Pace University
• "El Que Es Poder Absoluto": Stagecraft, Witchcraft, and Divine Science in Calderon's El Magico Prodigioso

12:15-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:00 Plenary Talk, "What is a Superpower?"
Caren Irr, Brandeis University
Introduced by Mikel Parent

2:15-3:45 Panel III: Institutions of Power: Bureaucracy, Protest, History
Panel Chair: Doug Kirshen

Ted Gournelos, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• The (Re)organization of Power: Temporary Services' The Library Project

Robert Henn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Academic Power and the Postmodern Imagination: Lionel Trilling's Struggle Against Bureaucracy

Ebenezer Obadare, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Cell Phones in Nigeria

Shreerekha Subramanian, Rutgers University
• Communing with the Dead: Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones

4:00-5:30 Panel IV: Encountering Power: Utopia, Intimacy, Law
Panel Chair: David Bottorff

Jason Cato, University of California at Berkeley
• Architectures of Domination and Aesthetics of Resistance: Analyzing US-Mexico
Border Walls from the 1990s to 9/11

Justine Dymond, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Ethnic Mysteries: Genre, "Race," and the Power of Law

Jennifer Moon, University of Michigan
• Cruising, Queer Intimacy, and John Rechy's City of Night

Hassenfeld Conference Center, Levine-Ross Auditorium

5:45-6:45 Plenary Talk, "Powerbooks"
Leah Price, Harvard University
Introduced by Melanie Doherty

6:45-7:30 Reception

this page updated March 5, 2005