History of the
Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area
(last updated 6/12/2018)
Founded in 2008, the Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science
Fiction) Area of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association is
the successor to the organization’s various fantastic-themed areas (including
Horror, Medievalism, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy), and we are grateful to carry on the
work of our distinguished area chair emerita.
In memory of
April Selley (1954-2016), a two-time presenter to the area.
Area
Chair History:
Fantastic
(Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area
Michael
A. Torregrossa (Independent Scholar) (2016-2018)
Science
Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area
Michael
A. Torregrossa (Independent Scholar) (2014-2016)
Horror
Area (originally Horror Fiction & Film Area)
Michelle
Ephraim (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) (2006-2014)
Mary
Findley (Vermont Technical College) (2005-2007) (presently co-chair of The Vampire in Literature, Culture & Film Area
of the PCA/ACA)
Science
Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area
Michael
A. Torregrossa (Independent Scholar) (2009-2014)
Faye
Ringel (United States Coast Guard Academy, emeritus) (2008)
Medievalism
in Popular Culture Area
Faye
Ringel (United States Coast Guard Academy, emeritus) (at least 2002-2007)
Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Area
Area
Chair unknown (defunct from at least 2005)
ARCHIVE LIST OF CONFERENCE
SESSIONS
Help complete the history of our area.
Individuals with access to older programs of the Annual
Meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association, are
invited to contact the current area chair for the Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror,
and Science Fiction) Area at northeastantastic@gmail.com.
THE FANTASTIC (FANTASY, HORROR, AND SCIENCE FICTION) AREA
YEAR 10
2017 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
University of Massachusetts Amherst (Amherst, Massachusetts)
27-28 October 2017
Session
I: Friday, October 27, 1:00-2:30pm
PANEL
1 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: Horrors Past and Present
CHAIR: Amie Doughty, SUNY Oneonta
Paper 1: “Horrifying Mythical Obstacles: Masculine
Anxieties and Alternate Gazes in Robert Eggers’s The Witch (2015)”
Dustin
Fisher, University of Cincinnati
Dustin Fisher received an M.A.
in Literature from Wright State University in 2014 where he completed and
presented his master’s thesis, “Doppelgangers and Dualistic Femininity in
Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill
House.” In 2014 he also presented a paper at Newcastle University in
Newcastle, UK, on Ian McEwan’s Atonement.
He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in contemporary Gothic fiction and film
studies at the University of Cincinnati.
Paper 2: “Images of the Indigenous Monster in The
Green Inferno (2013)”
Erica
Tortolani, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Erica Tortolani is currently
enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is pursuing a
Ph.D. in Communication with a concentration in Film Studies. Her past research explored the intersection
of film theory with rhetorical studies, looking specifically at how the
cinematic medium can transmit messages regarding gender, sexuality, and the
female body through visual and narrative elements. These interests culminated into her Masters
thesis, entitled "Dual Images of the ‘Monstrous Feminine’ in Three Horror
Films," a project that received the 2015 Graduate Research Excellence
award at the University of Rhode Island.
Erica has also presented at the 2015 Graduate Conference at the URI, the
2016 Northeastern Modern Language Association Conference, and earned her
publication in the Fall 2013 issue of the undergraduate journal, Film Matters. Her research interests include general film
theory and criticism, silent cinema, comedy and theories of humor, horror
films, German Expressionist film, and feminist film theory.
Paper 3: “The Decomposing Youths and the Revival of
the Zombies in Contemporary Korea”
Ha
Rim Park, Seoul National University
After receiving her Master of
Literature in 2016, Harim Park is doing a Ph.D in Comparative Literature at
Seoul National University. She has published an article titled “The Origin of
Catastrophe and Melancholy: A Korean Cultural Study on Zombie Narrative in the
2000s” in the journal of Korea
Comparative Literature as the result of her master degree. Her areas of
research include 1990-2000s Korean literature, genre fiction, movie, webtoon,
and modernization, democratization after the Korean War. Harim is currently
studying on disaster, apocalypse, Sci-fi narratives and non-human
representations in contemporary East Asian cultures, specifically Korea, Taiwan
and Japan.
Paper 4: “The Bunhill Apocalypse: Robert Aickman’s
‘Larger than Oneself’ (1966) as a Post-Christian Metaphor”
Steffen
Silvis, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Steffen Silvis is a playwright,
theatre critic, actor and director, who is currently finishing his Ph.D. in
Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Among Silvis’ plays are Archetypes
(1991; produced at The King’s Head, London), Liberty, Oregon (winner of the London International Playwrights
Festival, 1993, produced by The Man-in-the-Moon Theatre, Chelsea, London, 1994,
[nominated for best new work on the London Fringe]; The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 1995, California State University,
2005,); The Kalama Orpheum (winner of
the London International Playwrights Festival, 2001); Nothing, If Not Critical (co-winner of the London One-Act Festival,
2003, and produced in London and Portland, Oregon, 2004); and Phere[crates]: Scraps (produced in
Madison, Wisconsin, 2013). Silvis was the theatre critic for Portland’s Willamette Week and The Prague Post in the Czech Republic. His writing has appeared in American Theatre Magazine, Time Out, Paperback Jukebox, and Black
Lamb. Co-Founder of the Madison-based theatre company, In-House, Silvis has
produced Manjula Padmanabhan’s Light’s
Out, and directed the devised-environmental piece, Reunion. Silvis has also won an NEA/Annenberg Fellowship and an
O’Neil Fellowship for his criticism.
Session
II: Friday, October 27, 2:45-4:15pm
PANEL
8 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: Meeting Monsters
CHAIR: Michael A. Torregrossa, Independent Scholar
Paper 1: “‘Everything That Ought to Have Remained
Hidden’: Sublimation and the Uncanny in Anya's Ghost (2011)”
Shane
Gomes, North Dakota State University
Shane is from Honolulu, Hawaii,
and completed his BA at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, his MA at the
University of Northern Colorado, and is currently pursuing his PhD in English
at North Dakota State University. His primary research interests are graphic
novels and pop/comic culture more broadly, especially minority representations
therein.
Paper 2: “Murder, Reproduction, and Bad Women in
Junji Ito’s Tomie”
Rahel
Worku, University of Maryland
Rahel Worku was an undergrad
English major at UMBC and is currently a Masters student at the University of
Maryland studying Comparative Literature. She is now in the second year of the
program and once again teaching English 101. Rahel’s interests are in African
American literature, speculative fiction, and comic books.
Paper 3: “A Trekkie’s Guide to the Zombie
Apocalypse”
Cinzia
DiGiulio, Merrimack College
Cinzia DiGiulio is an Associate
Professor of Italian and Cultural Studies at Merrimack College in North
Andover, Massachusetts. She completed a
Doctorate in Russian and English (languages and literatures) at the Catholic
University of Milan, a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature and Classics
at Purdue University, and then a Ph.D. in Romance Studies and Comparative
Literature at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Most of Cinzia’s
studies and research interests revolve around late 19th-century narrative (British,
Russian, and Italian) -- particularly popular narrative -- and its
intersections with contemporary popular culture.
Paper 4: “Scientists Become Monsters: The Strain’s
Dr. Goodweather”
Kristine
Larsen, Central Connecticut State University
Kristine Larsen is Professor of
Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University, where her teaching and
research focus on the intersections between science and society. She is the
co-editor of The Mythological Dimensions
of Doctor Who and The Mythological
Dimensions of Neil Gaiman.
Session
III: Friday, October 27, 4:30-6:00pm
PANEL
15 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: Re-envisioning the Heroic in Fantastic Fiction
CHAIR: Shane Gomes, North Dakota State University
Paper
1: “Happy Endings: Frankenstein’s Creature as a Romantic Lead”
Maggie Damken, Independent Scholar
Maggie Damken is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence
College, where she studied literature and creative writing. She has presented
previously at the Northeast Regional Honors Conference and Beacon Conference. A
previous essay on Frankenstein was accepted for presentation by the Science
Fiction Research Association.
Paper
2: “Guinevere, the Warrior Queen of Camelot?: The Altered Fate of Guinevere in
Recent Comics”
Michael A. Torregrossa, Independent
Scholar
Independent scholar Michael A.
Torregrossa is a graduate of the Medieval Studies program at the University of
Connecticut (Storrs). His research interests include adaptation, Arthuriana,
comics and comic art, medievalism, monsters, and wizards. Michael has presented
papers on these topics at regional, national, and international conferences, as
well as in published works. In addition, he is currently Fantastic (Fantasy,
Science Fiction, and Horror) Area Chair for the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association and organizes sessions, like this one, for
their annual conference in the fall and maintains the area’s blogs.
Session
IV: Saturday, October 28, 8:45-10:15am
PANEL
22 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: New Approaches to the Fantastic
CHAIR: Nova Seals, Salve Regina University
Paper 1: “The Princess Bride and Slavoj
Žižek's Fantasy of the Real”
Heather
Flyte, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
Heather Flyte is a graduate
student in English Literature at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She is
working on her thesis investigating the dialogue of imperialism created during
translation of non-western fairy tales in the Victorian era, with a specific
focus on Japanese folk tales. In September 2014, she presented at the
“Sensational Influences: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Literary Legacy” in London
and recently was awarded the Emma Richards-Bausch Award in Literary Criticism
from Kutztown University for her writing on H.G. Wells. She is a
non-traditional student who has previously worked in journalism and web
development and plans to pursue doctoral work in English Literature.
Paper 2: “Madness and Mixed-Bloods: Racial
Metaphors in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Series”
Amie
Doughty, SUNY Oneonta
Amie Doughty is an associate
professor of English as SUNY Oneonta, where she teaches course in linguistics,
composition, and literature, including children’s literature, folklore,
fantasy, and science fiction. She is the author of Folktales Retold: A Critical Overview of Stories Updated for Children
and “Throw the book away”: Reading versus
Experience in Children’s Fantasy, and is the editor of Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture: A Mosaic of
Criticism.
Paper 3: “Heredity And The Hero: The Role of
Heredity in Shaping Popular Heroes and Why It Matters”
Cheryl
Hunter, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Cheryl Hunter is an adjunct
professor of English and the Humanities at UMASS Lowell and Southern New
Hampshire University. She attended the University of New Hampshire where she
received a Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Philosophy
and Literature. She was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at a
week-long workshop on Henry David Thoreau. Her book, Myths and Archetypes in The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter,
looks at the roles of Philosophy and Mythology in modern literature and what
important lessons about the human condition are conveyed to the audience
through the hero and journey archetypes. She is a writer and artist, and she
loves to travel.
Session
V: Saturday, October 28, 10:30am-noon
PANEL
29 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: Re-Thinking the Monstrous
CHAIR: Heather Flyte, Kutztown University of
Pennsylvania
Paper 1: “‘If You're So Hungry, Why Don’t You Get a
Job?’: Patrick Bateman as Neoliberal Monster and Hero in American Psycho”
Caitlin
Duffy, Stony Brook University
Caitlin Duffy is a doctoral
student in the English Department at Stony Brook University. Her scholarly
interests include horror films and 19th century American Gothic literature. Her
work will be published in the 2017 issue of The
Journal of Dracula Studies and in an upcoming volume on 1980’s horror
films.
Paper 2: “Tackling the Femme: The Psycho-Biddy
Genre”
James
Patrick Carraghan, Kutztown University
James Patrick Carraghan is a
graduate student, writing tutor, and research assistant at Kutztown University.
He is currently writing a thesis on the intersection of Harlem Renaissance
scholarship and Queer Theory. His work has been published in On the Road, Glimmer on the Bookshelf, and 5x5.
He is currently a contributing writer at Terse
Journal and Vada Magazine (UK).
Paper 3: “The Aesthetics of Abjection in Anna
Dressed in Blood (2011)”
Nova
Seals, Salve Regina University
Nova Seals is a Ph.D. candidate
in humanities at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Nova is also
the Director of Library Services and Archives and teaches philosophy courses at
St. George’s School, an independent preparatory school in Middletown, Rhode
Island. Her academic interests are the intersection of philosophy and
technology, as well as art and aesthetics. Nova is particularly interested in
how groups use technology, especially social media, to transform knowledge.
Paper 4: “The Brides of Dracula Tell All: Dracula
as Romantic Protagonist in Recent Neo-Victorian Fiction”
Terry
Riley, Bloomsburg University
Terry Riley teaches in the
English Department at Bloomsburg University.
He teaches 19th and 20th century British Literature; his research
interests are in 19th century science and neo-Victorian fiction.
Session
VI: Saturday, October 28, 1:30-3pm
PANEL
36 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: 199 Years Old and Still Going Strong
CHAIR: Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State
University
Paper 1: “Frankenstein and the Real: A
Psychoanalytic Look at Power and the Unconscious”
Emilie
Lewis, Simmons College
Emilie Lewis is currently an
M.A. candidate in Gender/Cultural Studies at Simmons College in Boston. She
holds a bachelor’s degree in English-Creative Writing from Goucher College and
is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Paper 2: “Coexistence of Gender Binaries:
Bisexualism in Frankenstein”
Christopher
Maye, California State University, Long Beach
Christopher Maye graduated from
California State University, Long Beach with a Bachelor's in English Literature
and a minor in music in 2015. His research interest includes Critical Theory,
Gender Studies, Political, and Ethnic Literature, but he primarily focuses on
literature within the 18th Century English and 20th Century American periods.
While he is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in English at CSULB, he works
as a substitute teacher in the Los Angeles Charter School system, and is one of
the managing editors for CSULB’s graduate academic journal Watermark.
Paper 3: “Modern Prometheus Bound”
Dennin
Ellis, Independent Scholar
Dennin Ellis grew up in upstate
New York and was raised by a consortium of stubborn women, a trait they passed
to him. He learned how to read from X-Men comics and how to talk (and sing)
from Beatles records. Throughout his childhood he vacillated between his dual
passions for music and writing before settling on the former, receiving his
Bachelor’s in Music from the College of Saint Rose. He then immediately went
back to vacillating, achieving his Master’s in English from the State
University of Albany. His graduate thesis, Colossus,
concerned the place of humanity and the individual in the face of technological
encroachment, brought to life through the melding of historical fiction,
journalism and the epistolary novel. More recent projects include a collection
of speculative fiction and research papers on topics as diverse as Edgar Allan
Poe and Pink Floyd. He currently lives with his girlfriend in Ulsan, Korea,
where he teaches English.
Session
VII: Saturday, October 28, 3:15-4:45pm
PANEL
43 – CC 803 – The Fantastic: New England Horrors
Organizd by N. C. Christopher Couch, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Organizd by N. C. Christopher Couch, University of Massachusetts Amherst
CHAIR: Amie Doughty, SUNY Oneonta
Paper 1: “Body Horror in Lovecraft Fiction and Film”
Shastri
Akella, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Shastri Akella earned an MFA in
Creative Writing before joining the Comparative Literature PhD in 2014. He
lived all over India, Dublin, and San Francisco, before moving the valley. He
previously worked for a street theater troupe and for Google. His fiction and
essays have been published or is forthcoming in Guernica, Electric Literature,
The Common, The Rumpus, and Hypothetical
Review, among other places. He has taught at the university for 5 years and
was one of two teaching associates to win the campus-wide Distinguished
Teaching Award for the academic year 2015-2016. His dissertation topic is a
comparison of the perception of children in horror films and the perception of
refugees. His other interests include film and translation, and he is working
to get certified in both areas.
Paper 2: “The Dead Past in New England Vernacular
Poetry”
N.
C. Christopher Couch, University of Massachusetts Amherst
N. C. Christopher Couch holds a
Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University, and is the author of numerous
books and articles on comic art, graphic novels, and Latin American art. His
most recent book, Jerry Robinson:
Ambassador of Comics (Abrams 2010), on the artist and humanitarian famed
for his Expressionist Batman and creation of the Joker, was a Harvey Award
finalist and was featured in a New York Times profile of Robinson. As senior
editor at Kitchen Sink Press, he worked with Will Eisner, about whom he has
published two co-authored volumes, including The Will Eisner Companion (2005, with Stephen Weiner). He has held
fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study, Dumbarton Oaks of Harvard
University, and the Newberry Library among others. He teaches at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst, Trinity College in Hartford, and in the Care Center
Clemente Program, Holyoke, MA, and has curated exhibitions at the American
Museum of Natural History and other art and science museums.
Paper 3: “Tilting at Vampires”
Katie
Gagnon, Independent Scholar
Katie Gagnon has a Master of
Arts in American Studies from Trinity College.
THE FANTASTIC (FANTASY, HORROR, AND SCIENCE FICTION) AREA YEAR
9
39th Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Keene State College (Keene, New Hampshire)
21-22 October 2016
FRIDAY, 21 OCTOBER, SESSION I:
1:30-3 PM
Panel 3 - Fantastic #1: Women
and Fantastic Fiction
Presider: Kristine Larsen
(Central Connecticut State University)
Paper
1: “The Lavender Menace: The Horror of 1980s Lesbian Feminism in Tony Scott’s The Hunger”
William A. Tringali (Independent
Scholar)
William A. Tringali is a recent graduate of
Bridgewater State University, and he is currently working for a
cultural/historical nonprofit in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Paper
2: “Manic Pixie Green Girl: On the Problem of the Green-Skinned Space Babe”
Elizabeth Nielsen (University of
Massachusetts Amherst)
Elizabeth J Nielsen is a PhD student in
Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her MFA
from New Mexico State University in 2010 and her BFA from the Ohio State
University in 2005. Her research interests broadly focus on popular media, with
a special focus on monsters and the monstrous, gender studies, and fan studies,
as well as the frequent intersections between these areas. Elizabeth’s recent
and upcoming publications include two book chapters, “Wearing the Woman in
White: The Doomed Lives and Afterlives of Supernatural’s
Women” in The Gothic Tradition in
Supernatural: Essays on the Television Series and “A Bloody Big Ship:
Queering James Bond and the Rise of 00Q” in
Fan Phenomena: James Bond, and
the article “Dear Researcher: Rethinking Engagement with Fan Authors” in the Journal of Fandom Studies vol. 4.3.
Elizabeth is also co-editing a collection of essays on NBC’s Hannibal as well as guest editing an
upcoming special edition of the Journal
of Fandom Studies on virtual and physical fan spaces.Her most recent
conference presentations have dealt with the figure of the Wendigo in popular
culture as well as on the use of meta-text in the relationship between Holmes
and Moriarty in BBC’s Sherlock.
(Abstract posted at http://www.academia.edu/27113117/Manic_Pixie_Green_Girl_On_the_Problem_of_the_Green-Skinned_Space_Babe.)
Paper
3: “Chinese Fantasy and Women: When Immortals Tell About Life”
Jonathan Truffert (University of Geneva)
Jonathan Truffert born in France in 1985 and has
spent most of his life in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In 2013 he
obtained a Master degree in Chinese Studies at the University of Geneva. Long
stays in China, as well as language-related jobs during and after his studies
(tour guide at the UN, translator, check-in agent, etc.), helped him maintain a
very good level of the Chinese language, and in 2014 he accepted a position as
a research assistant in a project on “Popular Literature in contemporary
China”. Beside this main job, he works on his own translation projects, and
occasionally does the extra at the opera, the perfect side job to pass from a
sitting to a standing position.
Paper
4: “The Treatment of Women Shown through Witches in Pop Culture”
Hillary Di Menna (Independent
Scholar)
Hillary Di Menna began her work as a journalist
hoping to eliminate apathy within her communities. She has profiled those
fighting for social justice and investigated shady practices in big business.
Hillary tries to stay active within her community and is currently running the
Feminist Internet Resource Exchange (FIRE). Hillary also acts as a guest
speaker for Durham Rape Crisis Centre's training classes. In addition, she
maintains her own blog, Misfit Matriarch,
and is entering her final year of the Women and Gender Studies program at York
University. Hillary writes regularly for This
Magazine, most notably with her feminist blog Gender Block. Calling Toronto home, Hillary shares a cat-centric
apartment with her eight-year-old-daughter and three black cats.
FRIDAY, 21 OCTOBER, SESSION II:
3:15-4:45 PM
Panel 10 - Fantastic #2:
Dangerous Fantasy
Presider: Amie Doughty (SUNY
Oneonta)
Paper
1: “Psychological Trauma in Curse of
Strahd (2016)”
Shelly Jones (SUNY Delhi)
Shelly Jones has a PhD in Comparative Literature
from SUNY Binghamton. She studies ancient Greek tragedy and mythology and is an
avid board gamer and D&D player.
(Published as “The Psychological Abuse of Curse of Strahd” in Analog Game Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 23 Jan. 2017, http://analoggamestudies.org/2017/01/the-psychological-abuse-of-curse-of-strahd/.)
Paper
2: “Nazi Zombies: B-Movies and a Metaphor for Horror”
Mia Martini (University of Oklahoma)
Mia Martini
earned her doctorate at Purdue University and currently works as a
lecturer in the First Year Writing Program at the University of Oklahoma. Her
research interests include the American novel, narrative theory, trauma, and
war narratives.
Paper
3: “Angels and Demons: Physiological and Psychological Vivisection in the World
of SyFy’s Dominion (2014-15)”
Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut
State University)
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Astronomy at CCSU
where her teaching and scholarship focus on the intersections between science
and society. She is the author of Stephen
Hawking: A Biography and Cosmology
101 and co-editor of The Mythological
Dimensions of Doctor Who and The
Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman and has presented and published on
depictions of science and scientists in such varied sources as the works of
J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, George R.R. Martin. J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pullman,
Robert Heinlein, and Andrzej Sapkowski, and the tv series Lost, The Walking Dead,
and Land of the Lost. She was the
recipient of the 2014 Ralph Donald Award for Outstanding Conference Paper
(Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/American Culture Association) for “Monsters
Inside Me: Zombification as Parasitism.”
Paper
4: “Knowledge, Form and Function: Checking Out the Posthuman Condition in Gene
Wolfe’s A Borrowed Man (2015)”
Winner of the 2016 Amos St. Germain Graduate Student Essay Prize
Nova M. Seals (Salve Regina
University)
Nova Seals is a Ph.D. student in Humanities at
Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. She is also the Director of
the Library and Archives at St. George’s School, an independent preparatory
school in Middletown, Rhode Island. Her academic and research interests are
philosophy, technology and aesthetics. Nova is particularly interested in how
groups use technology, especially social media, to transform knowledge.
FRIDAY, 21 OCTOBER, SESSION III:
5:00-6:30 PM
Panel 16 - Fantastic #3: I Am
the Master of My Fate (Right)? Searching for Morality and Reality in the
Postmodern Age [
Organized by Kelly Kane (Iowa State University)
Organized by Kelly Kane (Iowa State University)
Presider: Amie Doughty (SUNY
Oneonta)
Paper
1: “Coming of Age in the Age of Uncertainty: Moral Relativism in Animorphs”
Catharine Kane (Independent Scholar)
Catharine Kane is presently an independent scholar.
She recently graduated with a MA and MFA in Children's Literature from Simmons
College in Boston, Massachusetts. Her primary area of focus is middle grade
fiction, especially fantasy/scifi series that deal with identity formation,
trauma, and war narratives. When not filling out PhD applications, she can be
found eating buffalo wings while cheering on the New York Giants.
Paper
2: “White Rabbits, Blue Pills, and Vanilla Skies: In ‘Psy Fi,’ the Final
Frontier is the Human Mind”
Kelly Kane (Iowa State University)
Kelly Kane is a social cognition graduate student
researching the ways that readers' attitudes and beliefs respond to the process
of becoming immersed in, or transported by, fictional narratives. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing and
Psychology from Ithaca College, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Social
Psychology at Iowa State University.
Paper
3: “I'm Not Calling You a Liar: Unreliable Narration and Complicated Canon in Dragon Age II”
Charlotte Reber (Independent
Scholar)
Charlotte Reber is an independent scholar. She
recently graduated this past May from Simmons College's school of Library &
Information Science. Her interests are in creative writing and children's
literature.
SATURDAY, 22 OCTOBER, SESSION
IV: 8:45-10:15 AM
Panel 23 - Fantastic #4: Frankenstein and the Fantastic
I--Shelley’s Frankenstein
Presider: Kathleen Healey (Worcester State University)
Paper
1: “There is No Monster: Monstrous Imitation in Frankenstein”
Saraliza Anzaldua (Independent
Scholar)
Saraliza Anzaldua studies teratology (the study of
monsters and the monstrous) and recently graduated from National Taiwan
University with an M.A. in English Literature. She has a B.A. in Sociology from
the University of Texas and studied Philosophy at Harvard University for a year
as a visiting graduate student. At last year’s NEPCA conference, she presented
a paper on contemporary monster erotica as a method of sexual displacement for
readers uneasy fantasizing about men. This year, she contributes another
teratological paper. This one argues that there is no monster in Frankenstein, and Shelley did not intend
to write a novel about one. Instead, she offered a critique of her own
monstrous society.
Paper
2: “Social Revolution’s Terrible Price:
Mary Shelley’s Failed Pastoral World in Frankenstein”
Sharon R Yang (Worcester State
University)
Sharon Yang is a Full Professor in the English
Department at Worcester State University and teaches courses in Renaissance
literature, nineteenth-century British literature (including the Gothic), and
Film and Literature. Sharon has
published and presented in these fields, including her book Goddesses, Mages, and Wise Women: The Female Pastoral Guide in Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century English Drama (2011) and her collection The X-Files and Literature: Unweaving the
Story, Unraveling the Lie to Find the Truth (2007). She has most recently edited a collection of
essays with Dr. Kathleen Healey called Gothic
Landscapes: Changing Eras, Changing
Cultures, Changing Anxieties due out next month.
SATURDAY, 22 OCTOBER, SESSION V:
10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Panel 28 - Fantastic #5: Frankenstein and the Fantastic
II--Rebuilding Frankenstein
Presider: Jesse Weiner (Hamilton
College)
Paper
1: “Frankenstein and Epigenetics—The Future of Paradise”
Gloria Monaghan (Wentworth Institute
of Technology)
Gloria Monaghan is a Professor of Humanities at
Wentworth Institute in Boston. Her research focuses on cyborgs, gender identity
and masculinity, and she is working a book about the spectrum of masculinity.
Gloria is also a creative writer. Her first poetry chapbook, Flawed, was published by Finishing Line
Press in 2012. Her second book The Garden (Flutter Press, 2015) was
recently published. Her poetry has
appeared in Slope, Spoonful, and Aries,
Blue Max Review and 2River. Her fiction has appeared in Ezine and Tracks, and she is also working on a collection of short stories.
Paper
2: “Franken-faeries, or the Conflation of Creator and Created in the October
Daye and Merry Gentry Series”
Amie A. Doughty (SUNY Oneonta)
Amie A. Doughty is an Associate Professor and Chair
of the English Department at SUNY Oneonta, where she teaches courses in
linguistics, children’s literature, fantasy, science fiction, mythology, and
folk literature. She is the area chair of the Children’s Literature and Culture
area of Popular Culture Association and the author of the books Folktales Retold: A Critical Overview of
Stories Updated for Children (2006) and “Throw
the book away”: Reading versus Experience in Children’s Fantasy (2013).
Paper
3: “Clockwork Resurrection: Steampunk
and Frankenstein in Mackenzi Lee’s This
Monstrous Thing (2015)”
Kathleen Healey (Worcester State University)
Kathleen Healey is a Visiting Professor at
Worcester State University. She is
co-editor with Sharon Healy-Yang of a book entitled Gothic Landscapes: Changing Eras, Changing Cultures, Changing Anxieties
to be published by Palgrave in October 2016.
This edition includes an essay she has written entitled "Dark
Shadows in the Promised Land: Landscapes of Terror and the Visual Arts in
Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly."
Her teaching and research
interests include Gothic Literature, Science Fiction, American
Literature, and Literature and the Environment.
SATURDAY, 22 OCTOBER, SESSION
VI: 1:45-3:15 PM
Panel 35 - Fantastic #6: Frankenstein and the Fantastic III--Frankenstein on Screen
Presider: Martin F. Norden
(University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Paper
1: “Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Hollywood
Production Code”
Joseph Sgammato (SUNY/Westchester
Community College)
Joseph Sgammato is a writer and teacher. After earning an M.A. in English from Fordham
University, he studied film at New York University and Columbia University,
receiving an M.F.A. in Film Studies from the latter. He is also a Fellow of the
CUNY Writers’ Institute in New York City. He has written about film,
literature, art, and medicine. His work has appeared in Sight and Sound, The
Wordsworth Circle, The College
Language Association Journal, Patient
Care, and other periodicals. He was a contributor to the essay collection The Book of Firsts published by Anchor
Books in 2010 (new edition Spring 2016.)
He teaches in both the English Department and the Film Department at
Westchester Community College, a division of the State University of New York,
in Valhalla, New York. He lives in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Paper
2: “From Frankenstein’s Monster to Ultron: Man’s Unbridled Ambition Gone Awry”
Cheryl A. Hunter (University of
Massachusetts Lowell)
Cheryl A. Hunter attended the University of New
Hampshire Manchester and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts
Degree in Humanities and a minor in English. She has extensive coursework in
Philosophy, Literature, and Classics. She received her Master of Arts degree in
Liberal Studies from the University of New Hampshire Durham with a
concentration in Philosophy and Literature and has since completed 18 graduate
hours beyond the Master’s degree since graduation. Cheryl’s Philosophy focus
includes Greek and Roman Philosophies, Enlightenment, and Transcendental
Philosophy; she was a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellow at a weeklong
workshop on Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts in 2010. Cheryl is
also the author of Myths and Archetypes
in The Lord of the Rings and Harry
Potter, which was published in February 2011 by Lambert Academic Publishers.
This book looks at the roles of Philosophy and Mythology in modern literature
and what important lessons about the human condition are conveyed to the
audience through the hero and journey archetypes used in The Lord of the Rings and Harry
Potter. Cheryl is currently an adjunct professor at UMASS Lowell and
Southern NH University. She teaches in a variety of formats (including 100%
online, hybrid, and traditional classroom) and a diverse group of courses
(including English Composition,
Introduction to Philosophy, Humanities I – Ancient Culture to
Renaissance, Humanities – Heroes, Humanities – Mediterranean Culture, Ethics,
Critical Thinking, and Communications).
Paper
3: “Frankenfilm: Bill Morrison’s Spark of
Being (2010)”
Jesse Weiner (Hamilton College)
Jesse Weiner is Visiting Assistant Professor of
Classics at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. He publishes broadly in Greek and
Latin literature and its reception in modernity, and his work has appeared in Classical Receptions Journal, International Journal of the Classical
Tradition, Law, Culture and the
Humanities, The Atlantic, and
several other journals and edited volumes. Jesse’s work in classical reception
studies has a particular emphasis on science fiction and fantasy. This work
includes studies of Homer and Kurt Vonnegut, epic poetry and the aesthetics of
high fantasy, and archaeology and the fantastic in Wilhem Jensen’s Gradiva: A Pompeiian Fantasy. Jesse is
also developing a monograph on classical traditions in science fiction,
centered on moral ambiguities created in the wake of speculative science. In Frankenstein studies, Jesse is the
author of “Lucretius, Lucan, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (in Rogers and
Stevens, Classical Traditions in Science
Fiction, OUP, 2015) and he is presently editing a volume of essays,
entitled The Modern Prometheus; or,
Frankenstein, which is dedicated entirely to Frankenstein and classical
traditions. In April 2016, Jesse organized and hosted an international
conference dedicated to Frankenstein and the classics, timed to celebrate the
bicentennial of the “Year without a Summer” and the ghost story challenge among
the British Romantics that precipitated Frankenstein’s conception. In public
humanities, Jesse has worked as a National Program Scholar with Ancient Greeks/Modern
Lives, an outreach program based in New York with NYU and the Aquila Theater.
Jesse is the 2013 recipient of the Women’s Classical Caucus Prize for Best
Paper (Post-Ph.D.) in Women’s or Gender Studies in Antiquity.
(Published as “Frankenfilm: Classical Monstrosity
in Bill Morrison’s Spark of Being” in
Frankenstein and Its Classics: The Modern
Prometheus from Antiquity to Science Fiction, edited by Benjamin Eldon
Stevens, Jesse Weiner, and Brett M. Rogers, Bloomsbury, 2018.)
SATURDAY, 22 OCTOBER, SESSION
VII: 3:30-5 PM
Panel 44 - Fantastic #7: More
Monsters
Presider: Shelly Jones (SUNY
Delhi)
Paper
1: “The Folly of Faithlessness in Dracula
Has Risen from the Grave (1968)”
Martin F. Norden (University of
Massachusetts Amherst)
Martin F. Norden teaches film history and
screenwriting as a Professor of Communication at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst. He has published more than one hundred books, book
chapters, journal articles, encyclopedia essays, and reviews, almost all of which
have been about film. At last year’s NEPCA conference in New London, NH, he
presented a paper on the classic 1930s horror film, Bride of Frankenstein.
(Published as “The Folly of Faithlessness in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave” in Divine Horror: Essays on the Cinematic
Battle between the Sacred and the Diabolical, edited by Cynthia J. Miller
and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, McFarland, 2017.)
Paper
2: “Gender Monsters: Angels, Demons, and Fans in the CW’s Supernatural”
Megan Genovese (University of
Pennsylvania)
Megan Genovese is a second-year PhD student at the
Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She
graduated summa cum laude from Baylor
University, where she was in the University Scholars interdisciplinary program
and pursued concentrations in media and culture studies. Her research interests
include superhero narratives and fan works.
Paper
3: “Winchester Abbey: Poking Fun at the Gothic Tradition in the CW’s Supernatural”
Nan King (Eastern Connecticut State
University)
Nan King is a part-time instructor in the Women’s
& Gender Studies and English Departments at Eastern Connecticut State
University in Willimantic. She earned her BA in English with a minor in Women’s
Studies from ECSU and her MA in English Literature with a focus on contemporary
women writers from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her current
research interests include contemporary perceptions of women and gender, fan
studies, and gender in science fiction and fantasy. Nan’s article “Fan Appreciation
No 4: CousinCecily and Winter, Bond Crossplayers” appears in the collection Fan Phenomena: James Bond. Her recent
conference subjects have been gender in fandom, James Bond, and Sherlock
Holmes.
Paper
4: “Did the Aliens Do It? The Disappearance of Franklin Expedition and Malaysia
Airlines Flight 370”
Donald Vescio (Worcester State
University)
Donald Vescio is a faculty member of Worcester
State University’s Department of English.
After serving ten years as Worcester State’s Chief Information Office/Vice
President of Information Technologies and two years as Vice President of
Enrollment Management and Marketing, Don now focuses his energies on teaching
undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of disciplines. His research interests are in critical
theory, narratological analysis, and information design.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, HORROR, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 8
Celebrity, Distinction, and Reputation: 2015 New England
American Conference for Irish Studies Regional Conference
(http://www.newhaven.edu/4486/academic-programs/undergraduate/english/894500/)
University of New Haven (West Haven, Connecticut)
20-21 November 2015
Saturday, 21 November 2015
(Session 6: 3:45-5:00 PM)
Horrors of the Irish
Imagination: Papers from the Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area
of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (Kaplan 203)
Organized by Michael A.
Torregrossa, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area Chair
Chair: Christopher Dowd,
University of New Haven
Paper
1. “Louis MacNeice’s Bogeymen”
Samuel Robertson, Suffolk County
Community College
Sam Robertson is an Associate Professor of English
at Suffolk County Community College. He received his Ph.D. from New York
University. Though he teaches a wide range of courses, and considers
himself a Generalist, his specialty is twentieth-century Northern Irish
poetry. He has written on such figures as John Hewitt, Louis MacNeice,
Michael Longley, and Derek Mahon. He lives in Brooklyn and enjoys spending
summers in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Paper
2. “There’s Something Rotten in Denmark Ireland: Irish Zombie Media and the
Irish ‘Other’ ”
Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut
State University
Dr. Kristine Larsen is Professor of Astronomy and
Faculty Coordinator of the Copernican Observatory and Planetarium at Central
Connecticut State University. Her teaching and scholarship focus on the
intersections between science and society, including science education, the
history of science, and scientific motifs in literature, television, and film.
Her research on popular culture has focused on The Walking Dead, Doctor Who,
the Resident Evil series of films, Lost, Harry Potter, Dominion,
and The Last Mimzy, and in particular
the fantasy works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Andrzej Sapkowski. She is
the author of Stephen Hawking: A
Biography and Cosmology 101, and
co-editor of The Mythological Dimensions
of Doctor Who and The Mythological
Dimensions of Neil Gaiman. Her twenty-five year career as a science
educator has been recognized by the 2014 Connecticut Science Center’s Petit
Family Foundation Women in Science Leadership Award, the 2013 Walter Scott
Houston award of the North East Region of the Astronomical League, the 2007
Distinguished CCSU Alumni Service Award, and the 2001 CCSU Excellence in
Teaching Award.
Paper
3. “Have the Irish Doomed Civilization?: Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Its Enduring Legacy in the 21st Century”
Michael A. Torregrossa (Independent
Scholar)
Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate of the
Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His
research interests include adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art,
medievalism, monsters, and wizards. Michael has presented papers on these
topics at regional, national, and international conferences, and his work has
been published in academic journals and edited collections. Michael is founder
of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and
co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of The Virtual Society for the Study of
Popular Culture and the Middle Ages; he also serves as editor for these
organizations’ various blogs and moderator of their discussion lists. Besides
these activities, he is currently Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend
Area Chair for NEPCA, a position he has held since 2009, and organizes sessions
for their annual conference in the fall (and other conferences like this one)
and maintains the area’s blogs.
38th Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American
Culture Association
Colby-Sawyer College (New London, New Hampshire)
30-31 October 2015
Session I: Friday, October 30,
2:30-4:00 PM
Panel 4: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend
I: Making Monsters (Ivey 201)
Chair: June-Ann Greeley (Sacred
Heart University)
Paper
1. “Imagining Monsters: Contemporary Horror and Cognitive Monstrosity”
Jack Dudley (Mount Saint Mary’s
University)
Jack Dudley received his PhD in English from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013, and he is currently an Assistant
Professor of English at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland,
where he researches and teaches modern and contemporary British and American
literature. Jack also works on horror fiction and film. He recently taught a
much-sought after class on American horror and is also working on a book
entitled Modernism and Horror.
Paper
2. “Butchering Identity: Depictions of Unconscious Repression within The Midnight Meat Train”
Courtney Peters (Flagler College)
Courtney Peters is a senior at Flagler College and majoring
in Media Studies and Advertising. Her main areas of interest are horror cinema
and the future of media convergence, and she has recently presented a paper on
the allegorical role of post 9/11 horror at PCA South’s 2014 conference. After
graduating this winter, she hopes to gain employment with one of the many theme
parks in Florida and use her knowledge of media and audience behavior to
develop and promote exciting new ways of interactive entertainment.
(Posted online at http://www.academia.edu/17979199/Butchering_Identity_Depictions_of_Repression_in_The_Midnight_Meat_Train.)
Paper 3.
“The Alien Human: Monstrous Humanity in Science Fiction”
Selena Middleton (McMaster
University)
Selena Middleton is a PhD candidate in English with
the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in
Hamilton, Ontario. She is a writer and scholar of science fiction. Selena’s
research interests include religion, myth, and ecocriticism, and her
dissertation, “Old Myths in the New Anthropocene: Negotiating the Terms of
Exile in Ecological Science Fiction,” engages trauma and affect theory to
examine the exilic experience in environmental science fiction.
Paper 4.
“Are They Among Us? The Battle of Los
Angeles and UFO Disclosure”
Donald Vescio (Worcester State
University)
Don Vescio is a faculty member of Department of
English at Worcester State University.
After serving ten years as Worcester State’s Chief Information
Office/Vice President of Information Technologies and two years as Vice
President of Enrollment Management and Marketing, Don now focuses his energies
on teaching undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of
disciplines. His research interests are
in critical theory, narratological analysis, and information design.
Session II: Friday, October 30,
4:15-5:45 PM
Panel 9: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, Horror, And Legend II: Transforming the Monster (Ivey 109)
Chair: Asher Ellis (Colby-Sawyer
College)
Paper 1.
“C. M. Kornbluth’s Postwar American Vampire at the Dawn of the Atomic Age”
Kristin Bidoshi (Union College)
Kristin Bidoshi is Associate Professor of Russian
at Union College, where she teaches courses on Russian language, literature and
culture. As a researcher, Kristin has conducted
fieldwork in Eastern Europe and published on the use of the oral tradition in
the works of Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Liudimila Petrushevskaia and on the
evil eye in Albania. Happily for our area, she also teaches a course on the
Vampire as Other in East European and American Culture and shares the
continuation of her thought-provoking work on C. M. Kornbluth with us
this afternoon.
Paper 2.
“Invisible Reflections: Queer Erasure and the Monstrous Visibility of Vampires
in Comics”
Gabriel Morrison (Rhode Island
College)
Gabe Morrison is a graduate student at Rhode Island
College studying creative writing, and he currently serves in a faculty
position as the writing coach for the Master of Social Work program at Rhode
Island College’s School of Social Work as well as a tutor in the college’s
writing center. Gabe’s research focuses on graphic narratives, children’s literature
and picture books, creative nonfiction, and teaching and tutoring writing. His
academic work has focused on the intersection of visual and textual narratives,
and, with a studio art minor at the undergraduate level, he frequently
incorporates graphic elements into his work in creative writing.
Paper 3.
“Super Monsters: Re-Casting Frankenstein
in the Superhero Genre”
Michael A. Torregrossa (Independent Scholar/Science
Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Legend Area Chair)
Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate of the
Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His
research interests include adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art,
medievalism, monsters, and wizards. Michael has presented papers on these
topics at regional, national, and international conferences, and his work has
been published in academic journals and edited collections. Michael is founder
of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and
co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of The Virtual Society for the Study of
Popular Culture and the Middle Ages; he also serves as editor for these
organizations’ various blogs and moderator of their discussion lists. Besides
these activities, he is currently Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend
Area Chair for NEPCA, a position he has held since 2009, and organizes sessions
for their annual conference in the fall and maintains the area’s blogs.
Session III: Saturday, October
31, 8:45-10:15 AM
PANEL 15: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, Horror, and Legend III: Rethinking Horror (IVEY 109)
Chair: Michael A. Torregrossa
(Independent Scholar/Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Legend Area Chair)
Paper 1.
“Where the Wild Things Are: Horror, Atavism, and the Unspeakable”
Christopher McVey
(Boston University)
Christopher McVey currently serves as a full-time
Lecturer for the Writing Program at Boston University, where he teaches courses
in dystopian fiction and film, modernism, the avant-garde, and twentieth-century
literature. Christopher’s published work has appeared in the Journal of Modern Literature and Twentieth-Century Literature, and his current
book project is entitled Syncretic
Cosmopolitanisms: Citizenship and Belonging in Twentieth-Century Literature.
Paper 2.
“The Boogeyman Catalyst: Transformative Fear in the Gothic and Child-like Power
in Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook”
Anna Lockhart (Rutgers
University-Camden)
Anna Lockhart is in her second year at Rutgers
University-Camden, where she is pursuing a Master’s in English Literature with
a concentration in Childhood, Literature and Culture and working as an adjunct
professor in writing. Her research interest lies in the relationship that female
protagonists have with space and natural vistas. Anna has also previously
written and presented a paper on the figure of the female child in Southern
Gothic literature
Paper 3.
“The Fallen Angel of the House: Women and Monsters in Penny Dreadful”
Kavita Mudan Finn (Independent
Scholar)
Kavita Mudan Finn just finished a year as Visiting
Assistant Professor of English at Southern New Hampshire University. Kavita
received her PhD from the University of Oxford in 2010 and published her book, The Last Plantagenet Consorts: Gender,
Genre, and Historiography 1440-1627, in June 2012. In addition to queenship
and gender studies, her research interests include popular history, medievalism
in popular culture, and the intersection between fan studies and early modern
literature.
Session IV: Saturday, October
31, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
(Note: The Area
has two panels running concurrently this session.)
Panel 20: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, Horror, and Legend IV: New Ideas on Science Fiction (Ivey 107)
Chair: Michael A. Torregrossa
(Independent Scholar/Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Legend Area Chair)
Paper 1.
“Fans of Bronze: Writers of Fan Letters Printed in Doc Savage Magazine, 1933-1949”
October Surprise (Independent
Scholar / Rogue Sociology)
October Surprise is a sociologist and now attached to
the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vermont, as a sociology instructor.
October is also currently completing a book, under contract with McFarland,
that views fascism and totalitarianism in the interwar period through the lens
of the Doc Savage pulp fiction novel
series.
Paper 2.
“Stylometry and the Seldon Crisis: Using Statistics to Categorize Novels in
Asimov’s Foundation Universe”
Daniel M. Look (St. Lawrence
University)
Daniel Look is an associate professor of
mathematics and chair of the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and
Statistics at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. His research
interests lie in Complex Dynamics and Stylometry (the statistical analysis of
language.) Recently, Daniel’s research has focused on using stylometry to
provide evidence in cases of disputed authorship, especially in the pulps.
Paper 3.
“Imperial Fictions: Doctor Who,
Post-Racial Slavery, and Other Liberal Humanist Fantasies”
Susana Loza (Hampshire College)
Susana Loza is an associate professor of media
culture at Hampshire College. Susana teaches courses in cultural studies,
critical race theory, film and media studies, popular music, feminist theory,
and ethnic studies. She has published a wide range of topics, including Doctor Who, film noir, popular music,
steampunk, and vampires, and her current project, Speculative Imperialisms: Monstrosity and Masquerade in Post-Racial
Times (forthcoming in 2016 from Lexington Books), explores the resurgence
of racial masquerade in science fiction, horror, and fantasy and contemplates
the fundamental, albeit changing, role that ethnic simulation plays in American
and British cultures in a putatively post-racial and post-colonial era.
(Published in Adjusting
the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of Race, edited by Sarita
Malik and Darrell M. Newton, Manchester UP, 2017.)
Paper 4.
“Female Warrior Heroes from Athena to Agent Carter”
Cheryl A. Hunter (Southern New
Hampshire University)
Cheryl Hunter is currently an adjunct professor at
Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester and Colby-Sawyer. Cheryl’s
background is in philosophy, and her research has focused on the heroic
tradition, including a number of conference presentations and a book, published
in 2011, entitled Myths and Archetypes in
The Lord of the Rings and Harry
Potter.
Session IV: Saturday, October
31, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
(Note: The Area
has two panels running concurrently this session.)
Panel 21: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, Horror, and Legend V: Nature and the Unnatural in the Fantastic (Ivey
109)
Chair: Deborah Wills (Mount
Allison University)
Paper 1.
“ ‘Safe at Last in the Wood outside the Garden’: Classic Animal Fantasy and the
Environment”
Amie A. Doughty (SUNY Oneonta)
Amie A. Doughty is Associate Professor and Chair of
the English Department at SUNY Oneonta. She teaches courses in linguistics,
composition, children’s literature, science fiction, and fantasy. Amie’s
primary area of research is children’s and young adult fantasy, and she is
author of the books Folktales Retold: A
Critical Overview of Stories Updated for Children (2006) and “Throw the book away”: Reading versus
Experience in Children’s Fantasy (2013), both published by McFarland. Amie
is also the Area Chair of the Children's Literature and Culture area of the National
PCA/ACA.
Paper 2.
“Souls of Creation: Trees in Selected Works of J. R. R. Tolkien”
June-Ann Greeley (Sacred Heart
University)
June-Ann Greeley is Associate Professor of Theology
and Religious Studies at Sacred Heart University. Her research and scholarship
focus on women and religion/women’s spirituality; religion and literature,
especially in contemporary fiction and fantasy; religious themes in modern art;
contemporary expressions of religious life and modern spiritual movements; and
comparative spirituality.
Paper 3.
“What’s the Use?: Man’s Search for Purpose in Bradbury’s Short Stories”
Laura A. Brown (SUNY Potsdam)
Laura A. Brown is an assistant professor at the
State University of New York in Potsdam, where she is the program coordinator
for Adolescent English Education. Laura is a member of the Assembly on
Literature for Adolescents and the National Council of Teachers of English and
has presented at the council’s annual convention numerous times. She has
co-authored two books on young-adult authors and their writings and has been
published in both The ALAN Review and
the Journal of Adolescent and Adult
Literacy. Laura’s current research is an analysis of Ray Bradbury’s short
stories and the Nancy Drew series for
unique content and stylistic markers.
4.
“Monstrous Machines: Technology, Nature and the Importance of Balance in Andre
Norton’s Witch World Novels”
Kathleen Healey (Worcester State
University)
Kathleen Healey is a Visiting Assistant Professor
at Worcester State University. She holds a PhD in American literature to 1865
and is currently co-editor, with Sharon Yang, of the forthcoming book Gothic Landscapes: Changing Eras, Changing
Cultures, Changing Anxieties. Kathleen’s research interests include Gothic
literature, environmental literature, and the intersection between literature
and the visual arts.
Session V: Saturday, October 31,
1:45-3:15 PM
Panel 27: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend VI: Writing Horror
(Ivey 109)
Chair: Amie A. Doughty (SUNY
Oneonta)
Paper 1.
“ ‘We’re Not All Dead Yet’: Humor Amid the Horror in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein”
Martin F. Norden (University of Massachusetts
Amherst)
Martin F. Norden teaches film history and
screenwriting as a Professor of Communication at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst. He has published
more than one hundred books, book chapters, journal articles, encyclopedia
essays, and reviews, almost all of which have been about film.
(Published in The
Laughing Dead: The Horror-Comedy Film from Bride of Frankenstein to Zombieland, edited by Cynthia J.
Miller, A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.)
Paper 2.
“Tales from the Encrypted: Decoding the
Index in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of
Leaves”
Deborah Wills (Mount Allison
University, Sackville, New Brunswick)
Deborah Wills teaches in the English Department at
Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, where she holds the
Charles and Joseph Allison Chair in English Literatures. Her research interests
include representations of violence in literature, metaphor and race in news
media, and contemporary gothic and horror fiction.
Paper 3.
“Hunting the Hunters: Lovecraft’s Epistemology and the 21st Century Monster
Hunter”
Jonathan Elmore (Savannah State
University)
Jonathan Elmore is an Assistant Professor of English
and the University Writing Center Director at Savannah State University. He teaches courses in British literature, composition,
writing center theory and practice, popular culture, and philosophy. Jonathan’s research interests include
composition theory and pedagogy, British modernism, multimodal literacies, and
the future of English departments. He has published and presented on a number
of writers, including Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, H. P. Lovecraft, Iris
Murdoch, Bram Stoker, and H. G. Wells, and his current projects include a book
length project for Routledge entitled Engagements
with Gothic Horror: From the Gothic Revival to The Walking Dead.
Paper 4.
“Becoming the Monster: A Jungian Analysis of Monster Erotica and the Acceptance
of the Animus through the Shadow”
Saraliza Anzaldua (National Taiwan
University)
Saraliza Anzaldua is an American in the master’s
degree program of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at
National Taiwan University. Her current studies focus on monstrosity, and she
is engaged in a research project that argues that there is no monster in Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein. Saraliza
hopes to continue her work on the monstrous in the future, and, after her
Mandarian has improved to an academic level, she would like to attempt a
cultural study regarding the impact of literary horror in American and Taiwanese
society.
Session VI: Saturday, October
31, 3:30-5:00 PM
Panel 37: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, Horror, and Legend VII: Re-Writing Horror (Cleveland Reading Room)
Chair: Lance Eaton (North Shore
Community College)
Paper 1.
“A Recurring Nightmare: A Teaching Opportunity in Pop Culture”
Joseph Sgammato (SUNY/Westchester
Community College)
Joseph Sgammato is a writer and teacher. His
background is in both English and Film Studies, and he teaches English and Film
at SUNY/Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York. He is also a
Fellow of the CUNY Writers’ Institute in New York City. Joseph writes poetry,
fiction, and nonfiction. In the last category, his subjects have included film,
literature, art, medicine, and memoir, and his work has appeared in the
journals Patient Care, Sight and Sound, and The Wordsworth Circle and in the
collection The Book of Firsts (Anchor
Books, 2010).
Paper 2.
“Evil that Devours: Modern Re-imaginings of the Wendigo”
Elizabeth J. Nielsen (University of
Massachusetts-Amherst)
Elizabeth J. Nielsen is a PhD student at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the Department of Communication with a
focus on Media Studies/Popular Culture. Her research interests include monsters
and the monstrous, gender studies, and fan studies. Her most recent
publications include essays on the James
Bond film series and the Supernatural
television series. Elizabeth will also be guest editing an upcoming edition of
the Journal of Fandom Studies dealing with virtual and physical fan spaces, an
extension of a panel she organized on the same topic for the Fan Studies track
at the national PCA/ACA conference in 2015. She also serves as one of the
organizers of the popular Pseudo Society panel at the annual International
Congress of Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University.
(Abstract posted online at http://www.academia.edu/14618677/Evil_that_Devours_Modern_Re-imaginings_of_the_Wendigo.)
Paper 3.
“The Four Texts of World War Z:
Unity, Violence, and Transformative Vulnerability”
Eric Boyer (Colby-Sawyer College)
Eric Boyer is an Associate Professor of Political
Studies at Colby-Sawyer College. He received his PhD from the University of
Minnesota in the department of Political Science. Eric’s research focuses on
the intersections of Marxism, pragmatism, and popular culture.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, HORROR, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 7
Beyond the Pale: Alienation, Sites of Resistance, and Modern
Ireland
2014 New England American Conference for Irish Studies
Regional Conference (http://wheatoncollege.edu/english/neacis-conference/)
Wheaton College (Norton, Massachusetts)
21-22 November 2014
Friday, 21 November (Session II:
4:30-5:15 PM)
Panel 3: Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Contexts and Afterlives (Meneeley
201)
Sponsored by The Science
Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA)
Organizer/Presider: Michael A.
Torregrossa, Independent Scholar
Paper
1. “Using Dracula to Explore 19th-Century Reactions to Medical Theories from
the Preceding Century”
Nicole Salomone, Independent Scholar
Nicole Salomone is an independent scholar whose
research interests focus on the history of modern medicine. At present, Nicole
is obtaining her degree in Liberal Arts, with an interest in continuing on for
a degree in the History of Science and Medicine. She has spoken at local,
regional, and national conferences about her research on scholarly medical
theories of 18th century London and is presently a lecturer in the Thomas
Jefferson University: History of Medicine Lecture Series. Nicole is also a
co-author on a peer-reviewed article on Mary Edwards Walker to be published in
the journal The American Surgeon. In
addition to her scholarly pursuits, she has served on the Executive Board of
the National Coalition for Independent Scholars and was that organization’s
interim Vice President in 2013. Outside of academia, Nicole has spent
nearly 15 years teaching Renaissance-focused re-enactors the theoretical and
practical sociology of 17th and 18th century dance and currently teaches
classes on 18th century English medicine and modern research techniques.
Furthering her outreach activities, Nicole is also a writer and has published a
novella Forgotten (2011), which
brings 18th century/medicine of the American Revolution to the average reader.
Paper
2: “Re-fashioning Dracula: Psychic Vampires in Postwar American Culture”
Kristin Bidoshi, Union College
Kristin Bidoshi is an associate professor of
Russian and director of the Russian and East European Studies Program at Union
College, where she teaches a course on the Vampire as Other in East European
and American Culture. As a researcher, Kristin has conducted fieldwork in
Eastern Europe and published on such subjects as the use of the oral tradition
in the works of Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Liudimila Petrushevskaia and the
evil eye in Albania. Her most recent research is on rites of passage in
contemporary Albanian society.
Paper
3: “A Transylvanian Count in Camelot? Investigating the Draculas of the Modern
Matter of Britain”
Michael A. Torregrossa, Independent
Scholar
Michael A. Torregrossa is the area chair for the
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area of the Northeast Popular
Culture / American Culture Association (a. k. a. NEPCA), a regional affiliate
of the national Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association. He
is a medievalist with degrees in Medieval Studies from both Rhode Island
College and University of Connecticut (Storrs). Michael’s present research
focuses on the medieval in the post-medieval world, and he is am especially
interested in how the monstrous has been appropriated into medieval legends,
like the Matter of Britain. His talk grows out of a multi-year (and still
ongoing) project tracing the absorption of themes associated with vampire
fiction into the Arthurian tradition.
37th Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Providence College (Providence, Rhode Island)
24-25 October 2014
Friday, October 24 (Session II:
2:45-4:15 PM)
Panel 13: Science Fiction,
Fantasy & Legend: Horror and the Fantastic (Harkins LL01)
Chair: Faye Ringel, United
States Coast Guard Academy
Paper
1. “ ‘You’re a Trickster Singular, Rachel Morgan’: Collective and Individual
Magic in Kim Harrison’s The Hollows
Series”
Amie Doughty, SUNY – Oneonta
Amie Doughty is Associate Professor and Chair of
the English Department at SUNY Oneonta. Her primary area of research is
children’s and young adult fantasy, and she is author of the books Folktales Retold: A Critical Overview of
Stories Updated for Children (2006) and
“Throw the book away”: Reading versus Experience in Children’s Fantasy (2013),
both published by McFarland. Amie is also the Area Chair of the Children’s
Literature and Culture area of the Popular Culture Association.
Paper
2. “Just Desserts: NBC’s Hannibal and
the Evolution of Cultural Morality”
Douglas Howard, Suffolk County
Community College
Douglas L. Howard is Academic Chair of the English
Department on the Ammerman Campus at Suffolk County Community College. He has
published and presented on literature, film, and television. He is also the
editor of Dexter: Investigating Cutting
Edge Television and the co-editor of The
Essential Sopranos Reader.
Paper
3. “ ‘Monstrosity Will Be Called For’: Holly Black and Melissa Marr’s Urban
Gothic Fairy Tale”
Rhonda Nicol, Illinois State
University
Rhonda Nicol is an instructional assistant
professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Illinois State
University. Her research focuses upon issues of gender, power, and identity in
contemporary fantasy, and she has published essays on works such as Harry Potter, Twilight, Supernatural,
and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
(Published as “ ‘Monstrosity Will Be Called For’:
Holly Black and Melissa Marr’s Urban Gothic Fairy Tale Heroines” in The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult
Literature: Essays on Stories from Grimm to Gaiman, edited by Joseph
Abbruscato and Tanya Jones, McFarland, 2014, pp. 165- 80.)
4. “Horrific
Science and the Great Unseen in the Fiction of Francis Stevens”
Sabrina Starnaman, University of
Texas at Dallas
Sabrina Starnaman is a literary studies professor
at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her work focuses on Progressive Era
(1880-1930) texts that involve women, urbanism, and disability, and today’s
paper arises from her interest in the history of science and women writers who
are doing things they aren’t supposed to—like writing dark horror fantasy
stories in 1919.
Saturday, October 25, (Session
IV: 9:00-10:30 AM)
Panel 24: Science Fiction,
Fantasy & Legend: Creature Features (Harkins 104)
Chair: Kristine Larsen, Central
Connecticut State University
1. “Dracula:
Monster of Masculinity”
Michael Paul Pecora, Worcester State
University
Michael Paul Pecora is a recent graduate of
Worcester State University, receiving his master’s degree in 2014. He has
worked as a teacher in the Worcester Public School system and will be pursuing
his Ph.D. in English Literature beginning in 2015. His primary scholarly interests
are Early Modern English Literature, as well as Contemporary Fantasy/Sci-fi,
where he focuses his studies on gender, society, and masculinity. Aside from
his work in the scholarly field, Michael is also a poet and writer of fiction,
as well as a classical guitarist and music instructor.
2. “‘Nature
Selects the Horla: Darwinian Influences on Guy de Maupassant’s Horror Tale”
Sharon Yang, Worcester State
University
Sharon Yang is a Full Professor in the English
Department at Worcester State University and teaches courses in Renaissance
literature, nineteenth-century British literature (including the Gothic), and
Film and Literature. Sharon has
published and presented in these fields, including her book Goddesses, Mages, and Wise Women: The Female Pastoral Guide in Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century English Drama (2011) and her collection The X-Files and Literature: Unweaving the
Story, Unraveling the Lie to Find the Truth (2007). She is currently working on editing a
collection of essays with Dr. Kathleen Healey called Gothic Landscapes: Changing
Eras, Changing Cultures, Changing Anxieties, which will include a more
in-depth version of her paper today on “The Horla”.
(Published as Sharon Rose Yang, “Nature Selects the
Horla: How the Concept of Natural Selection Influences Guy de Maupassant’s
Horror Tale” in Gothic Landscapes:
Changing Eras, Changing Cultures, Changing Anxieties, edited by Sharon Rose
Yang and Kathleen Healey, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 239-69. )
Paper
3. “Like Lovecraft for the Little Ones: ParaNorman’s
Gothic New England”
Faye Ringel, US Coast Guard Academy
& Jenna Randall, Independent Scholar
Combing efforts, Faye Ringel, the founder of our
area, and newcomer Jenna Randall offer insight into a recent film. Faye is
Professor Emerita of Humanities, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and taught English
there for over 25 years. She is the author of New England’s Gothic Literature: History and Folklore of the
Supernatural and many articles in reference books and scholarly journals on
this subject. Faye is especially knowledgeable about the works of Rhode
Islander H. P. Lovecraft, and she has it on good authority that she is the
reincarnation of his wife Sonia. (Don’t believe this? Ask Faye.) Her
co-presenter, Jenna, gets paid to listen to audiobooks all day. When she’s not
doing that, she’s chasing her 3 sons around. And when she’s not doing that, she’s
conspiring with Faye to take over the world, one paper presentation at a time.
(Published as “Lovecraft for the Little Ones: ParaNorman, Plushies, and More” in Lovecraftian Proceedings No. 2, edited
by Dennis Quinn, Hippocampus Press, 2017.)
Saturday, October 25, (Session
VI: 1:30-3:00 PM)
Panel 44: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend: Manufacturing Monsters (Library LL01)
Chair: Michael Torregrossa,
Independent Scholar
Paper 1. “Harvesting the Little Sisters:
Sexualization and the Exploitation of Children in the BioShock Series”
Ashley Barry, Independent Scholar
Ashley Barry currently works at a publishing house
in Boston and recently earned a Master’s degree in children’s literature at
Simmons College. Having written a number of Facebook posts about complex
narratives in video games, her favorite professor from her undergraduate
institution reached out and encouraged her to present at the NEPCA conference.
Paper 2. “Scopophilia and Ocular Mutilation: Kelly
Sue DeConnick’s Vision for Pretty Deadly”
Katy Rex, Independent Scholar
Katy Rex, Independent Scholar
Katy Rex is an independent scholar and writes
comics analysis at End of the
Universe Comics
<http://endoftheuniversecomics.com/>, Comics
Bulletin <http://comicsbulletin.com/>, and Bloody Disgusting <http://bloody-disgusting.com/>. She also
runs a podcast at endoftheuniversecomics.com featuring academic and
creator interviews focusing on the topics of both comics and music.
Paper
3. “Should Your Car Kill You?”
Don Vescio, Worcester State
University
Don Vescio is a member of Worcester State
University’s Department of English, where he teaches courses in critical theory
and rhetoric. Prior to this, Don served, for ten years, as Worcester State’s
Vice President of Information Technologies; he then became Vice President for
the newly formed division of Enrollment Management. Don’s research interests
include the connections between contemporary critical theory and data networks,
information design, and predictive analytics in the humanities.
Paper
4. “The Cosmic Gaze: Polyocularity in H. P. Lovecraft-Related Visual Culture”
Nathan Wallace, Ohio State
University
Nathaniel Wallace is a PhD candidate at the Ohio
University school of Interdisciplinary Arts, where his focus is on the visual
arts and film. His academic credentials also include an AAS in interactive
media from Columbus State, a BA in political science from the Ohio State University,
and an MA in political science from Ohio University, where he concentrated on
international relations. Nathaniel’s recent work centers on the writings of
Rhode Island author H. P. Lovecraft and their afterlives, and he is currently
finishing his dissertation, “H. P. Lovecraft’s Literary Supernatural Horror in
Visual Culture,” and working on related creative projects, including a video
game adaptation of Lovecraft’s unpublished novella “The Dreamquest of Unknown
Kadath”.
(Published as Nathaniel R. “Wallace, “H.P.
Lovecraft’s Literary ‘Supernatural Horror’ in Visual Culture,” Diss., Ohio U,
2014, etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?208877988850453::NO:10:P10_ETD_SUBID:100090._.)
Saturday, October 26, (Session
VII: 3:15-4:45 PM)
Panel 49: Science
Fiction, Fantasy, & Legend: Science and Science Fiction (Harkins 331)
CHAIR: Sabrina Starnaman,
University of Texas – Dallas
Paper
1. “Identifying Frankenstein’s Creature in Nature”
The 2014 Winner of the Amos St. Germain
Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper
Janna Andrews, Arcadia University
Janna Andrews was originally born and raised in San
Antonio, and she is currently a sophomore at Arcadia University, where she is
pursuing a double major in creative writing and graphic design. Fascinated with
the created world around us, she holds a passion for nature and expresses that
love through words and images. An illustrator, writer, and coffee aficionado,
she is working towards a career in book design and travel writing.
Paper
2. “ ‘I Miss Science Class’: Emasculating Scientists in The Walking Dead”
Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut
State University
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Astronomy at
Central Connecticut State University, and her research focuses on the
intersections between science and society, including science and popular
culture. She is the author of Stephen
Hawking: A Biography and Cosmology
101 and co-editor of The Mythological
Dimensions of Doctor Who and The
Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman.
Paper
3. “Did Chris Carter Want to Kill His Franchise? A Feminist Reading of The X-Files: I Want to Believe”
April Selley, Union College
April Selley, a Rhode Island native, received her
BA in English at Providence College and earned a PhD in English and American
Literature from Brown University. She now teaches American Literature and the Writing
of Fiction in the English Department at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
She, also, has been a Fulbright Lecturer in Portugal and in Japan. Her
published work encompasses scholarly articles on a variety of subjects, such as
Poe, Dickinson, fellow Rhode Islander Lovecraft, Fitzgerald, and Star Trek, and an impressive literary
output, which includes over forty poems and eight short stories, as well as
creative nonfiction and flash fictions, both in print and online. April has
also delivered many papers at regional, national and international Popular
Culture Association Conferences, mostly on the subject of Star Trek, but, today, she turns her attention towards a different
franchise and asks: “Did Chris Carter Want to Kill His Franchise? A Feminist
Reading of The X-Files: I Want to Believe”.
Paper
4. “Echoes of Frankenstein in the
Comics: Recasting the Story in Humor Comics”
Michael Torregrossa, Independent
Scholar
Michael Torregrossa is also Rhode Island born and
bred and holds degrees in Medieval Studies from both Rhode Island College and
University of Connecticut (Storrs). A scholar of both the medieval and the
modern, he is the current Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Legend Area
Chair, a position he has held since 2009. Michael’s present research focuses on
monsters, and he will present a paper entitled “A Transylvanian Count in
Camelot? Investigating the Draculas of the Modern Matter of Britain” next month
at Wheaton College as part of the 2014 Meeting of the New England Region of the
American Conference for Irish Studies.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 6
36th Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
St. Michael’s College (Colchester, Vermont)
25-26 October 2013
Saturday, 26 October (Session V:
1:30 PM - 3:30 PM)
Panel 25: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend: Science Fiction Character and Narrative
Chair: Michael Torregrossa
(Independent Scholar)
Paper
1: “Mutant, Monster, Freak”: Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher Series and the Ethics of Genetic Engineering”
Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut
State University)
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Astronomy at
Central Connecticut State University. Her research and teaching focus on issues
of science and society, including the preparation of science educators, science
outreach, and science and literature. Her publications include the books Stephen
Hawking: A Biography and Cosmology 101 and two co-edited volumes, The
Mythological Dimensions of Doctor
Who and The Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman, which received the
Gold Medal for Science Fiction/Fantasy in the 2012 Florida Publishing
Association Awards. Kristine is also the recipient of the 2013 Walter Scott
Houston award from the Northeast Region of the Astronomical League for
excellence in astronomy education and outreach.
(Published as “ ‘Mutant, Monster, Freak’: The
Mythological World of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher
Series” in Fantastic Animals, Animals in
the Fantastic, edited by Oliver Bidlo, Thomas; Honegger, and Frank
Weinreich, Special Issue of Fastitocalon
vol. 6, nos. 1 & 2, 2016, pp. 65-77, 2016. Available at http://www.wvttrier.de/top/Beschreibungen/ID1536.html.)
Paper 2: “When Species Speak: Interspecies Communication
in Sheri Tepper’s The Companions”
Kerry Shea
(Saint Michael’s College)
[Biography not provided.]
Paper 3: “Hyde’uous Evolution: Exploring How the Dwarfish
Hyde Became the Monstrous Hulk in the Classroom”
Lance Eaton
(North Shore Community College)
Lance Eaton is the outgoing Comics and Graphic
Novels Area Chair for NEPCA and graduated from University of Massachusetts,
Boston, where his studies focused on gender & sexuality and popular culture
and culminated in a Masters in American Studies. Since then, he has
continued to collect masters degrees and teach an assortment of courses, from
Cultural Diversity to World History to Comics in American Culture, as well as publishing
his writings on comics, audiobooks, and horror. At present, he is Coordinator
of Instructional Design at North Shore Community College and continues to teach
in a part-time capacity. He is also an
avid blogger and posts at By Any Other
Nerd <http://byanyothernerd.blogspot.com/>. His presentation today is
adapted from his essay, “The Hulking Hyde: How the Incredible Hulk Reinvented
the Modern Jekyll and Hyde Monster,” which was recently published in the
McFarland collection Fear and Learning:
Essays on the Pedagogy of Horror edited by Sean Moreland and Aalya Ahmad.
(Adapted from “The Hulking
Hyde: How the Incredible Hulk Reinvented
the Modern Jekyll and Hyde Monster” in Fear
and Learning: Essays on the Pedagogy of Horror, edited by Aalya Ahmad and
Sean Moreland, McFarland, 2013, pp. 138-55.)
Paper 4: “Echoes of Frankenstein in the Comics: Adaptations and Continuations”
Michael
Torregrossa (Independent Scholar)
Michael A. Torregrossa is the current (and
original) Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair for NEPCA. He is a graduate of the Medieval Studies
program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His research interests
include adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art, medievalism, wizards,
and, most recently, monsters. His research on medieval subjects has been
presented at regional, national, and international conferences and has been
published in a variety of collections as well as the three most recent
supplements to The Arthurian Encyclopedia. Lastly, he is
also founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of
Britain and co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of The Virtual Society for
the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages, and he serves as editor for
these organizations’ various blogs and moderator of their discussion lists.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 5
35th Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
St. John Fisher College (Rochester, New York)
26-27 October 2012
Paper
proposals and additional material are available (as noted) on St. John Fisher
College’s digital archive at http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/nepca/conference/.
Saturday, 27 October (8:30
AM-10:00 AM)
Panel 11: Science Fiction,
Fantasy and Legend I: Visions of the Future (Kearney 317)
Chair: Michael Torregrossa
(Independent Scholar)
Paper
1: “Bert the Turtle Won’t Save You: American Science Fiction Prose and
Criticism of Nuclear Civil Defense During the 1950s”
Cory Matieyshen (National
University)
Cory Matieyshen is a Master of Arts in History
student at National University in La Jolla, California. He lives in Ottawa,
Ontario, Canada.
Saturday, October 27 (10:15
AM-11:45 AM)
Panel 17: Science Fiction,
Fantasy and Legend II: Old Legends, New Stories (Kearney 317)
Chair: Michael Torregrossa
(Independent Scholar)
Paper
1: “Complex subjects in Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and True
Blood”
Mary Bridgeman (Trinity College
Dublin)
Mary Bridgeman is a PhD candidate at the Centre for
Gender and Women’s Studies and the School of English in Trinity College Dublin,
Ireland. She is in her third year of research, which is funded by The Irish
Research Council. Her dissertation “Loving the Dark: Gendered Subjectivity in
Three Popular 21st Century American Vampire Romance Narratives” focuses on
negotiations of womanhood in Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and True
Blood. As last year’s winner of the William E. Brigman award at the
national meeting of The Popular Culture and American Culture Associations, Mary
will have an article entitled “Forged in Love and Death: Problematic Subjects
in The Vampire Diaries” published in The Journal of Popular Culture
in February 2013.
Paper
2: “Witches, Elves, and Bioengineers: Magic and Science in Kim Harrison’s The
Hollows”
Laura Wiebe (McMaster University)
Laura Wiebe is a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in the
Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, where she
will be teaching a course on Science Fiction in the Winter 2013 term. She also
teaches in McMaster’s Women’s Studies program and at Brock University in the
Department of English Language and Literature and the Department of
Communications, Popular Culture and Film. Laura’s doctoral research focuses on
science and technology studies, theories of gender and of genre, critical
posthumanism, and popular culture, particularly contemporary speculative
fiction. Her academic work also includes the study of metal music and culture.
Paper
3: “Robin Hood: from ‘History’ to Folklore and Back Again”
Kathleen Mulligan (Providence
College)
Kathleen Mulligan has a B.A. in history from
Providence College in Rhode Island, where she is currently continuing her
studies in their Master’s program for Medieval and Modern European History.
After obtaining her Master’s degree she hopes to continue on in a doctoral
program to study British history.
Paper
4: “Once and Future Kings Revisited: The Theme of Arthur Redivivus in
Recent Comics”
Michael Torregrossa (Independent
Scholar)
Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate of the
Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His
research interests include adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art,
medievalism, vampires, and wizards. Michael is currently Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair for the Northeast Popular Culture/American
Culture Association. He is also founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of
Research on the Villains of the Matter of Britain, founder of The Institute for
the Advancement of Scholarship on the Magic-Wielding Figures of Visual
Electronic Multimedia, and co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of The Virtual
Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages; he also serves as
editor for these organizations’ various blogs. Michael has presented his
research at regional, national, and international conferences and has been
published in Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on
Arthurian Juvenilia, Arthuriana, The Arthuriana / Camelot Project
Bibliographies, Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays, Film &
History, The 1999 Film & History CD-ROM Annual, The Medieval
Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy, and the three most
recent supplements to The Arthurian Encyclopedia.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 4
2011 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Western Connecticut State University (Danbury, Connecticut)
11-12 November 2011
Friday, 11 November (Session I:
4-5:30 PM)
Panel I-2: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend I: Science Fiction (Warner 320)
Presider: Michael A. Torregrossa
(The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Paper
1: “Surviving The Night of the Comet: Zombies, Space, and the 2012
Hysteria”
Kristine Larsen (Physics and Earth Sciences Department,
Central Connecticut State University)
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Physics and
Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University, where she regularly inflicts
her deep interest in the intersection between science and society on
unsuspecting students. Her publications include the books Stephen Hawking: A Biography and Cosmology 101 as well as numerous articles and book chapters on
science in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, the role of women in
the history of science, depictions of science and scientists in science fiction
television series and films, and innovations in interdisciplinary science
education. She is co-editor of the recently published book The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who.
Paper
2: “Ain’t I a Xenomorph?: Representations of Post-Feminist Identity in the Alien
Films”
Randy Laist (Goodwin College)
Randy Laist received his doctorate from the
University of Connecticut and is currently Assistant Professor of English at
Goodwin College. He is the author of Technology
and Postmodern subjectivity in Don DeLillo’s Novels and the editor of Looking for Lost: Critical Essays on the Enigmatic Series. He also wrote the lyrics
for the recently published collection I’ll
Yo-Ho for Christmas: A Trove of Pirate Christmas Shanties.
Saturday, 12 November (Session
II: 8:30-10 AM)
Panel II-6: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend II: Legends Old and New (Warner 320)
Presider: Brian Clements (Western
Connecticut State University)
Paper
1: “Robin Hood in Ballad and Film”
Kerry R. Kaleba (George Mason
University)
Kerry Kaleba is a third year Masters Candidate in
Folklore at George Mason University and planning to graduate in December. She
holds a BA in Theatre from Virginia Tech and has also studied at the National
University Ireland-Galway. Her interests in folklore focus on cultural heritage
and tourism, as well as museums, storytelling, festivals, and film.
Paper
2: “What Do Vampires Have to Do with the Holy Grail?: The Transformation of the
Grail Legend in Undead Arthuriana”
Michael A. Torregrossa (The Virtual Society for the
Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate of the
Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His
research interests include adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art,
medievalism, wizards, and, now, vampires. Michael is currently Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair for the Northeast Popular Culture/American
Culture Association. He is also co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of The
Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages and serves
as editor for the organizations various blogs.
Paper
3: “Vampires in Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire novels and the Twilight Saga”
Andrea Siegel (Graduate Center/CUNY)
Andrea Siegel received her PhD in Sociology from
the CUNY Graduate Center, where her dissertation was on King Kong and Hollywood Labor Unions, and she thanks NEPCA for
helping that process. Andrea had published books on people obsessed with their
wardrobes and women in martial arts, among other things. Her most recent
scholarly publication appears in a book of essays on James Bond and looks at a
dialectical relationship between early James Bond and Woody Allen films.
Saturday, 12 November (Session
III: 10:30 AM – 12 PM)
Panel III-8: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend III: Fantasy (White 023)
Presider: Faye Ringel (United
States Coast Guard Academy, retired)
Paper
1: “ ‘Close This Book Right Now’: The Writer-Character in Children’s Fantasy”
Amie A. Doughty (SUNY Oneonta)
Amie Doughty is an Associate Professor of English
at SUNY Oneonta, where she teaches courses in linguistics, composition, and
children’s literature, fantasy, science fiction, and folktales. She is
currently writing a book about books, readers, and reading in children’s
fantasy fiction.
(Published as Amie A. Doughty, “The
Writer-Character in Children’s Fantasy” in “Throw
the book away”: Reading versus Experience in Children’s Fantasy, McFarland,
2013. Available at https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/throw-the-book-away/.)
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 3
2010 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (Boston,
Massachusetts)
23 October 2010
Saturday, 23 October (Session I:
8:30-10:00)
Panel 7: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend I: Children’s Culture (Room W305)
Presider:
Michael A. Torregrossa (The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture
and the Middle Ages)
Paper
1. “War, Veterans, Disabilities, and How
to Train Your Dragon”
Will Eggers (University of
Connecticut)
Will Eggers is finishing his Ph.D. in medieval
English literature at the University of Connecticut. His dissertation “ ‘Misticall
Unions’: Clandestine Communications from Tristan to Twelfth Night” explores the
continuing impact that changes in marriage law have had on communications
between lovers, up to the romantic comedies of the twentieth century. Medieval
lovers such as Tristan and Isolde fashion themselves as a “misticall union”: a
conglomerate self that shares one mind and erases all distinctions between
sender and receiver as grammatical subject and object. Will currently teaches
courses on Chaucer, Medieval Myths and Legends, and linguistics at Wesleyan
University.
Paper
2. “The Book’s the Thing: Books as Artifacts of Power in Children’s Fantasy”
Amie A. Doughty (SUNY Oneonta)
Amie A. Doughty is an Assistant Professor of
English at SUNY Oneonta where she teaches courses in linguistics, children’s
literature, fantasy literature, and composition. Her research interests include
children’s literature, folktales, and fantasy. She is the author of the book Folktales Retold: A Critical Overview of
Stories Updated for Children (McFarland 2006), as well as articles in Barbarians at the Gate: Studies in Language
Attitudes, Fairy Tales Reimagined:
Essays on New Retellings, and Children’s
Literature and Culture. Presently she is completing a book about books,
readers, and reading in children’s fantasy for McFarland.
(Published as Amie A. Doughty, “Books as Artifacts
of Power” in “Throw the book away”:
Reading versus Experience in Children’s Fantasy, McFarland, 2013. Available
at https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/throw-the-book-away/.)
Paper
3. “From Muggle to Merlin: Translating the Character of Nicodemus from Robert
C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of
NIMH (1971) to Don Bluth’s The Secret
of NIMH (1982).”
Michael A. Torregrossa (The Virtual Society for the
Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate of the
Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His
research interests include adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art,
medievalism, and wizards. Michael is currently Science Fiction, Fantasy, and
Legend Area Chair for the Northeast Popular/American Culture Association. He is
also founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Villains of
the Matter of Britain and co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of The Virtual
Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages. Michael has
presented his research at regional, national, and international conferences and
has been published in Adapting the
Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia, Arthuriana, The Arthuriana
/ Camelot Project Bibliographies, Cinema
Arthuriana: Twenty Essays, Film &
History, The 1999 Film & History
CD-Rom Annual, The Medieval Hero on
Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy, and the three most recent
supplements to The Arthurian Encyclopedia.
Saturday, 23 October (Session
II: 10:15-11:45)
Panel 16: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend II: SF TV (Room W305)
Presider: Wendy Wagner (Johnson
& Wales University)
Paper
1. “From Dunne to Desmond: Disembodied Time Travel in Tolkien, Stapledon, and Lost”
Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut
State University)
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Physics and
Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University, where she regularly inflicts
her deep interest in the intersection between science and society on
unsuspecting students. Her publications include the books Stephen Hawking: A Biography and Cosmology 101 as well as numerous articles and book chapters on
science in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, the role of women in
the history of science, depictions of science and scientists in science fiction
television series and films, and innovations in interdisciplinary science
education. She is co-editor of the recently published book The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who.
(Published in Mallorn:
Journal of the Tolkien Society vol. 53, 2012, pp.26-30. Available at
tolkiensociety.org/society/publications/mallorn/.)
Paper
2. “Watching Death in Torchwood: The
Impact on Characters and Fans”
Marla Harris (Independent Scholar)
Marla Harris has a PhD from Brandeis in literature,
and she has published articles on a wide variety of topics, including Jane Eyre, Harry Potter, graphic novels, and Iranian women’s memoirs. She grew
up in East Tennessee, but became a Doctor
Who fan when her family spent a couple of years in England. At present, she
is an independent scholar living in the Boston area.
Paper
3. “Battlestar Galactica and the
Cults of Seriality”
Jordan Lavender-Smith (CUNY Graduate
Center)
Jordan Lavender-Smith is working towards his Ph.D.
in English and Certificate in Film Studies at CUNY Graduate Center. His
academic interests include self-reflexivity in literature and film, seriality
and addiction, Early- and Post-modern dramaturgy, and, more generally, the
cultural causes and consequences of literary forms. He teaches in the English
department at CUNY Queens College.
Saturday, 23 October (Session
III: 1:00-2:30)
Panel 25: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend III: Monstrous Medievalisms (Sponsored by The Virtual
Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages) (Room W305)
Presider: John P. Sexton (Bridgewater State College)
Paper
1. “An Unsung Hero: The Arthurian Legacy in the Gabriel Knight Game Series”
Angela Tenga (Florida Institute of
Technology)
Angela Tenga is an assistant professor at Florida
Institute of Technology. She completed her graduate studies in English
literature at Purdue University and was a professional writer and teacher in
Germany before coming to Florida Tech. Her courses focus on literature,
history, popular culture, and monsters in fiction, while her research interests
include early English literature, popular depictions of monstrosity, and the
virtual self.
(Published as “Gabriel Knight: A Twentieth-Century
Chivalric Romance Hero” in Digital Gaming
Re-imagines the Middle Ages, edited by Daniel T. Kline, Routledge Studies
in New Media and Cyberculture, Routledge, 2013, pp. 67-78.)
Paper
2. “Staking them Out: Shakespeare’s Vampires”
Danielle Rosvally (Rutgers
University)
Danielle is a recovering actor and graduate student
in English at Rutgers University where she has the occasion to teach acting and
theatre production courses. She received her BA from New York University in
Elizabethan Theatre and has also trained at the American Globe Theatre,
Shakespeare & Company, the Actor’s Institute, the Shakespeare Birthplace
Trust and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her research interests include
performativity and theatricality with an emphasis on non-canonical texts,
unconventional Shakespeare studies, and the intersection between practical and
theoretical theatre.
Paper
3. “The Impaling of Vlad: Dracula, Literary Tourism, and National Identity”
Tony Giffone (Farmingdale State
College/SUNY)
Tony Giffone is a professor in the English and
Humanities Department at Farmingdale State College. His research interests
include Victorian novels, detective fiction, film, and travel literature, and
has published articles on Dickens, detective fiction, and contemporary Chinese
film. He co-edited a special issue of the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture
Association’s journal, The Mid-Atlantic
Almanak, on the topic of “Aspects of Victorian Culture in Popular Culture.”
Saturday, 23 October (Session
IV: 2:45-4:15)
Panel 35: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend IV: Race and Gender (Room W307)
Presider: Macey M. Freudensprung
(The University of Texas at San Antonio)
Paper
1. “The Lilith Character: Critically Analyzing Women’s Roles within
African-American Speculative Fiction According to the Portrayal of Lilith
within Jewish, Greek, and Afro-Diasporic Folklore and Mysticism”
Macey M. Freudensprung (The
University of Texas at San Antonio)
Macey Freudensprung is a Master’s student for the
Department of English at The University of Texas at San Antonio. She
specializes in Rhetoric and Composition with a focus on Technical and
Professional Writing. Macey’s current research interests involve the phenomenon
of self-representation and identity performance in social networking
sites.
Paper
2. “Vampire as Tragic Mulatto: Angel and Spike in the Whedonverse”
Wendy Wagner (Johnson & Wales
University)
Wendy Wagner is associate professor of English at
Johnson & Wales University where she teaches composition and literature
courses. Her dissertation focused on motherhood and characters of mixed racial
ancestry in African American women’s writing. Her research interests include
race and gender in popular culture, writing assessment, and the integration of
technologies in the classroom. Her article on Jennifer Crusie appeared in the
Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Teaching
American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice.
Paper
3. “Nyota Uhura: Feminist Star of Freedom”
Mayan A. Jarnagin (The University of
Texas at San Antonio)
Mayan Jarnagin is currently attending the
University of Texas at San Antonio seeking a master’s degree in English and
American literature. Mayan is currently an active member of Sigma Tau Delta
English honor society. Mayan’s interests include the appropriation and alteration
of mythology to further ideology, poetry and poetic prose, the use of music in
film and literature, creative writing, satire, and depictions of race, gender,
and the military in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and video games.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 2
2009 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Queensborough Community College (Queensborough, New York)
23-24 October 2009
Saturday, 24 October (8:30-10:00
AM)
Panel 17: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend I
Presider: Michael A. Torregrossa
(The Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Paper
1. “How a Young Man’s Invention Became the Inspiration for American Popular
Science Fiction”
Joseph Rainone (Independent Scholar)
Joseph Rainone has been a collector of popular
fiction for close to 30 years now. His
collection (currently at 40,000 items) encompasses the entire field of American
Popular Fiction (from the mid-17th century to the mid-20th century) with an
emphasis on 19th-century periodicals, pulp magazines, dime novels, story papers
and comic almanac and other such related ephemera. Joseph has served as an
advisor for “The Victorian Era” in the Overstreet
Price Guide and pulp prices for The
Comic Art Price Guide, and he has published articles in the magazines Blood & Thunder and Comic Book Marketplace and two books on
Frank Reade Jr. for The Art and History of American Popular Culture Series.
Paper
2. “The Limits of Watchmen (1986-87)”
Geoff Klock (Borough of Manhattan Community
College)
Geoff Klock (D. Phil, Oxford University) is the
author two academic books: How to Read Superhero Comics and Why and
Imaginary Biographies: Misreading the Lives of the Poets. He presented at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of their Superheroes: Fashion and
Fantasy exhibit. He is an assistant professor at Borough of Manhattan
Community College, and his name was the inspiration for villain in a work by
Marvel Comics writer Matt Fraction. You can find him online at geoffklock.blogspot.com.
(Published as “The End is Nigh. The Limits of Watchmen” in Minutes to Midnight: Twelve Essays on Watchmen, edited by Richard
Bensam, Sequart Journal 6, Sequart Research & Literacy Organization, 2010, pp.
147–156. Available at sequart.org/books/6/minutes-to-midnight-twelve-essays-on-watchmen/.)
Paper
3. “Searching for the Well of Surcease: Ethical Choices in Sherri Tepper’s The
Gate to Women’s Country (1988)”
Marlene San Miguel Groner
(Farmingdale State College)
Marlene San Miguel Groner is currently Chair of the
Liberal Arts and Sciences Department at Farmingdale State College. Her prime
area of specialization is twentieth-century women writers.
Saturday, 24 October (10:30
AM-12:00 PM)
Panel 27: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend II
Presider: Marlene San Miguel
Groner (Farmingdale State College)
Paper
1. “America’s First Arthurian-Inspired Superhero: Quality Comics’ Merlin the
Magician (1940-42)”
Michael A. Torregrossa (The Society for the Study
of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Michael A. Torregrossa, current Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair, is a graduate of the Medieval Studies program
at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His research interests include
adaptation, Arthuriana, comics and comic art, medievalism, and wizards. He is
founder of the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Villains of the
Matter of Britain and co-founder, with Carl James Grindley, of the Society for
the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages. Michael has presented his
research at regional, national, and international conferences and has been
published in Adapting the Arthurian Legend for Children: Essays on Arthurian
Juvenilia, Arthuriana, The Arthuriana / Camelot Project
Bibliographies, Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays, Film &
History, The 1999 Film & History CD-Rom Annual, The Medieval
Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy, and the three most
recent supplements to the Arthurian Encyclopedia.
Paper
2. “Who’s Afraid of the Beowulf? The Anglo-Saxon Hero as a Modern Movie Monster”
John P. Sexton (Bridgewater State
College)
John P. Sexton is an Assistant Professor of English
at Bridgewater State College. John received both masters and doctorate degrees
in Medieval Studies from the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and has
published essays on Anglo-Saxon hagiography, medieval Icelandic literature, and
(with Joshua R. Eyler) Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales. He is also Co-President of the New England Saga Society
(NESS).
3. “Rebooting
an American Myth: Nurturing Males in the 2009 Star Trek Film”
April Selley (Union College)
April Selley teaches American Literature and
Creative Writing in the English Department at Union College in Schenectady, New
York. She has delivered four previous papers on Star Trek at Popular
Culture Conventions and has published the following articles: “ ‘I Have Been,
and Ever Shall Be, Your Friend’: Star Trek, The Deerslayer and
the American Romance,” “Transcendentalism in Star Trek: The Next Generation,”
“The Final Farce: Demythologizing the Hero and the Quest in Star Trek V: The
Final Frontier” (with Louise Grieco), and the entry on Star Trek in The
Guide to United States Popular Culture.
Saturday, 24 October (1:30-3:30
PM)
Panel 37: Science Fiction,
Fantasy, and Legend III
Presider: April Selley (Union
College)
Paper
1. “Mr. Tompkins, the Philadelphia Experiment, and Land of the Lost
(1974-77): Parallel Universes, Closed Universes, and the Dangers of
Interdimensional Travel”
Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut
State University)
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Physics and
Astronomy at Central Connecticut State University. She completed her graduate
work in Physics at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and has published
works on science in popular culture, including essays on the Harry Potter series, the Lost television series, and the writings
of J. R. R. Tolkien. Kristine is also the author of Stephen Hawkings: A Biography (Greenwood, 2005;
revised ed. Prometheus Books, 2007) and Cosmology
101 (Greenwood, 2007).
(Published as “Elsewhere and Elsewhen: Parallel
Universes and the Dangers of Interdimensional Travel in Land of the Lost”
in Antae vol. 3, no, 1, 2016, pp. 87-99. Available at
um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/13078.)
2. “Narratives
of Credulity and Disappointment: Histories of Magic and Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan
Strange and Mr. Norrell (2004)”
Jennifer T. Abeles (University of
Hartford)
Jennifer T. Abeles is a Visiting Professor of
English at the University of Hartford. She received a PhD in English and
Interdisciplinary Certificates in both Medieval Studies and Renaissance Studies
from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Jennifer’s
research focuses on early modern English literature, and she has published
(with Kenneth MacMillan) an edition of John Dee’s The Limits of British Empire (Greenwood, 2004).
Paper
3. “ ‘I Won’t Feel a Thing’: Invulnerable Male Superheroes Made Emotional
through Internet-Broadcasted Song in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along
Blog (2008)”
Derek S. McGrath (SUNY Stony Brook)
Derek McGrath is a third-year graduate student in
the English PhD program at Stony Brook University. He previously studied
liberal arts and science at Florida Atlantic University, with interests in the
themes of home and travel in nineteenth-century American literature. His other
research interests include the description of human bodies in text and film,
including Henry Louis Gates’s African American Lives television series,
the works of Charles Darwin, and his scheduled presentation on Dr. Horrible.
By this year, Derek will have presented twice at the Modern Language
Association convention, and he has presented at the Northeast MLA conference.
Paper
4. “The Road to Hell is Paved in D20s: Evangelical Christianity and Fantasy
Role Playing Games”
John Walliss (Liverpool Hope
University)
John Wallis is a member of the Department of
Theology, Religious Studies and Philosophy at Liverpool Hope University in the
UK and serves as Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Religion and Director of
the Hope Centre for Millennialism Studies.
THE SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA YEAR 1
2008 Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture/American
Culture Association
University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Campus (Dartmouth,
Massachusetts)
31 October-1 November 2008
Saturday, 1 November (8:30-10:00
AM)
Panel
10: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area I: Varieties of Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Chair: Michael Torregrossa (The
Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Paper
1. “My Girlfriend is a Lipstick Lesbian from Outer Space: Gender Performance
and Identity Formation in Torchwood’s
‘Greeks Bearing Gifts’.”
Jennifer Elizabeth Love (Independent
Scholar)
Jennifer Love is a Senior Informatics Consultant
for Public Health Foundations Enterprises, Inc. She has worked as a business
analyst and quality assurance specialist in software development since 1998,
primarily in the grants management and public health care industries. Jennifer
received Bachelor of Arts degrees in English, History, and Social Science from
the University of Southern California, located in Los Angeles, California, in
1995. She also received a Master of Arts in English Literature and a Master of
Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Chapman University, located in Orange,
California, in 2002.
Paper
2. “Intertextuality and Dr. Who”
Lisa LeBlanc (Anna Maria College)
Lisa LeBlanc is an Associate Professor of English
at Anna Maria College. While her doctorate and background is in medieval
literature, she has recently begun to explore film studies, both on the big and
small screens. This is her second time presenting at NEPCA, and she’s very glad
to have a forum in which to explore this new interest. She is presenting a
paper on the blending of genres in the science fiction TV show, Doctor Who.
Paper
3. “Aslan’s Song, the Themes of Iluvatar, and the Real Music of the Spheres”
Kristine Larsen (Central Connecticut
State University)
Kristine Larsen is Professor of Physics and
Astronomy, and Director of the University Honors Program, at Central
Connecticut State University. Her research interests include the history of
women in astronomy, astronomy education and outreach, and the astronomical
motivations and motifs in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and other writers. She
is the author of two books, Stephen
Hawking: A Biography and Cosmology
101.
(Published as “ ‘Behold Your Music!’: The Themes of
Iluvatar, The Song of Aslan, and the Real Music of the Spheres” in Music in Middle-earth, edited by Heidi
Steimel and Friedhelm Schneidewind, Cormarë Series 20, Walking Tree Press,
2010. Pp. 11-27. Available at
walking-tree.org/call/music_in_middle-earth.php. Also published as “»Sehet,
dies ist euer Lied!«: Die Themen von Ilúvatar, das Lied von Aslan und die echte
Sphärenmusik” in Musik in Mittelerde,
herausgegeben von Friedhelm Schneidewind und Heidi Steimel, Band 4, Edition
Stein and Baum, 2014, pp. 9-20. Available at stein-und-baum.de/4_mim.htm.)
Paper
4. “Hunting Down Pirates: The Influence of Peter Pan and Treasure Island
on Contemporary Picture Books”
Patricia Kirtley (Independent
Scholar)
Patricia Kirtley is a recent graduate of Vermont
College of Fine Arts in Montpelier VT with an MFA in Writing for Children and
Young Adults. Her critical thesis discussed the influence of Peter Pan and Treasure Island on contemporary picture books, and she has
published papers in the National Social Science Association journals on Ageism
in Children’s Literature and Pirates in Children’s Literature. Pat has recently
retired from her 40-year career as a Medical Technologist in a hospital
laboratory and is now a full-time writer of children’s literature.
(Published as “The Influence of the Pirates in Peter Pan and Treasure Island on
Contemporary Picture Books” in The
National Social Science Journal Vol. 32, No. 1, 2009, https://www.nssa.us/journals/2009-32-1/2009-32-1-09.htm.)
Saturday, 1 November (10:30 AM –
12:00 PM)
Panel
22: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area II: Medievalism at War
Chair: Amy West (Worcester State
College/Higgins Armory Museum)
Paper
1. “King Arthur for the Union: The Motif of Arthur Redivivus in the Writings of Abolitionist Moncure Daniel Conway”
Michael A. Torregrossa (The Society for the Study
of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Michael A. Torregrossa holds a master’s degree in
Medieval Studies from the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and is co-founder,
with Carl James Grindley, of the Society for the Study of Popular Culture and
the Middle Ages. Michael is also the
organizer of the “The Comics Get Medieval” sessions, in its sixth year in 2009,
at the Joint Meeting of the Popular Culture /American Culture
Associations. His research focuses on
representations of the Matter of Britain in popular culture, and Michael has
presented on this topic at regional, national, and international conferences,
and his work has been published in Adapting
the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia, Arthuriana,
the Arthuriana / Camelot Project
Bibliographies, Cinema Arthuriana:
Twenty Essays, Film & History: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations
from Beowulf to Buffy, the 1999 Film & History CD-ROM Annual,
and the 2001, 2005, and forthcoming supplements to The New Arthurian Encyclopedia.
At present, Michael is completing work on a collection of essays
entitled The Reel Matter of Britain,
due out next fall, and, next spring, he will be presenting on invocations of
the Arthur redivivus motif during
World War Two.
Paper
2. “The Platoon Genre in Medieval Cinema”
Pete Burkholder (Fairleigh Dickinson
University)
[Biography
not provided]
Roundtable
Discussion of Medievalisms at War
Amy West (Worcester State College)
Peter Burkholder (Fairleigh
Dickinson University)
Michael A. Torregrossa (The Society
for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages)
Faye Ringel (Coast Guard Academy)
The Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction) Area
is successor to a number of older areas once active within the Northeast
Popular Culture/American Culture Association, including Horror, Medievalism,
and Sci-Fi/Fantasy. The core of the new area developed from sessions organized
by Faye Ringel, Amy West, and Michael A. Torregrossa as part of the Medievalism
Area, but the past activities of both the Horror Area and Sci-Fi/Fantasy Area laid
additional foundations for our ongoing success.
2007 Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts)
26-27 October 2007
Friday, 26 October (4:30 PM)
Panel 3: Horror Area: Uncanny
Homes: The Domestic Space in Gothic and Horror Literature and Film (Jonas Clark
Hall 118)
Chair, Mary Kate McMaster, Anna
Maria College
Paper
1: “The Evolution of Fear: The Film Versions of The Haunting of Hill House”
Brittany Crompton, Fitchburg State
College
Paper
2: “The Others as Feminist Revision of Woman-Plus-Habitation Gothic”
Lisa LeBlanc, Anna Maria College
Paper
3: “Literary Hauntings: The Legacy of Shirley Jackson in Stephen King’s The Shining”
Heather Roberts, Clark University
Paper
4: “The Eerie Dwelling in Québec’s Fantastic Horror”
Amy J. Ransom, Central Michigan
University
Saturday, 27 October (10:30 AM)
Panel 13: Medievalism Area I:
Manuscripts, Monsters, and Medievalism (Jonas Clark Hall 102)
Chair: Amy West (Worcester State
College)
Paper
1: “Undead Arthuriana: Vampires and the Matter of Britain”
Michael A. Torregrossa (Independent
Scholar)
Paper
2: “Prevailing Poetry: The (Re)Presentations of Beowulf and His Monsters in
Popular Culture”
The 2007 Winner
of the NEPCA Graduate Student Paper Award
Brandon W. Hawk (University of
Connecticut)
Paper
3: “Dynamic Designs: An Examination of Collaborative Projects in New England
Archives”
Trudi Wright (McGill University)
Saturday, 27 October (1:30 PM)
Panel 19: Medievalism Area II: Medieval
and Gothic New England (Room: Jonas Clark
Hall 102)
Chair: Michael Torregrossa (Independent
Scholar)
Paper
1: “He is New England: The Afterlife
of H. P. Lovecraft”
Faye Ringel (U.S. Coast Guard
Academy)
Paper
2: “Ruined Buildings, Ruined Bodies: Lovecraft’s Medieval Universe”
Jeanette S. Zissell (University of
Connecticut)
Paper
3: “The Castle on the Hill: Libraries and Medievalism in New England”
Susan E. Jones (Palm Beach Atlantic
University)
2006 Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Rivier College (Nashau, New Hampshire)
Saturday (1:00 PM)
Panel 15: Horror Area: Buffy
Moderator: Lori Del Rossi (Paulsboro
High School)
Paper
1: “The Fandom Project: What Makes a Fandom Run? ‘Ships, Fics, Plot Devices,
Favorite Characters, and Fancons’ ”
Mary Kirby-Diaz, Farmingdale State
University of New York
(Published as “The Fandom Project: What Makes a
Fandom Run – ‘Ships, Fanfiction, Plot Devices, Favorite Characters, and
FanCons” in The International Journal of
the Humanities, vol. 3, no. 4, 2006, pp. 256-65. Available at ijb.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.26/prod.582;
b05.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.26/prod.582)
Paper
2: “Broody Boy and the Big Bad: Angel and Spike as Complementary Postmodern
Embodiments of the Byronic Hero”
Stephanie Dutchen (Independent
Scholar)
Paper
3: “Alleys, Paths and Choices”
Lori Del Rossi (Paulsboro High
School)
2005 / 28th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, Connecticut)
28-29 October 2005
Saturday, 29 October (Session
II: 9:00-10:30 AM)
Panel 205: Medievalism Area: Arthurian Film
Chair: Mary Lynn Saul (Worcester
State College)
Paper
1: “Imaging the Grail: Recent Depictions of the Cup of Christ in Contemporary
Film”
Carl James Grindley (State
University of New York-Hostos),
Paper
2: “Philip DeGuere’s Dr. Strange (1978): A Forgotten Example of Cinema
Arthuriana”
Michael A. Torregrossa (University
of Connecticut, Storrs)
Paper
3: “Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot: From Stage to Screen”
Daniela Sovea Falco (University of
Connecticut, Storrs)
Saturday, 29 October (Session
IV: 2:00-3:30 PM)
Panel 403: Horror Area: “The
Horror, The Horror . . .”
Chair: TBA
Paper
1: “Mapping the Horror Film: ‘Here Be Monsters’ ”
Alfred V. Jacobs (Menlo College)
Paper
2: “The Transhumanists Are Here!”
Stephen Lilley (Sacred Heart
University)
Paper
3: “Interviewing Louis: Morality and Manipulation in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire”
Mary Findley (Vermont Technical
College)
2004 / 27th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Newbury College (Brookline, Massachusetts)
29-30 October 2004
Saturday, 30 October 2004
(Session IV: 2:00-3:30 PM)
Panel 26: Social Issues in
Science Fiction and Fantasy (Sci-Fi/Fantasy Area?)
Chair: Marc Stern (Bentley College)
Paper
1: “Middle-earth, Wind, and Fire: J. R.
R. Tolkien’s ‘Green’ Ideology, The Lord
of the Rings, and 1960s Environmentalism”
Deborah A. Robinson (Roger Williams
University)
Paper
2: “Social Issues in Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children Series”
Glenna Andrade (Roger Williams
University)
Paper
3: “Conserving the Balance: Frank
Herbert, Social Consciousness, and Dune”
Barbara A. Silliman (Providence
College)
2003 / 26th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular
Culture/American Culture Association
Worcester State College (Worcester, Massachusetts)
31 October-1 November 2003
Friday, 31 October (Session I: 4:30-6:00
PM)
Panel 2: Medievalism Area I: Medievalism,
Wizards and Monsters (Room SC 2)
Chair: Amy West (Higgins Armory
Museum)
Paper
1: “Escape to the Middle Ages: Why Tolkien? Why Now?”
Kathryn L. Lynch (Wellesley College)
Paper
2: “Deconstructing Dumbledore: J. K. Rowling and the Way of the Wizard”
Michael A. Torregrossa (University
of Connecticut-Storrs)
Michael A. Torregrossa is a graduate student in
English at the University of Connecticut (Storrs). His current work focuses on modern versions
of the Arthurian tradition with an emphasis on film and comics adaptations. His published work includes contributions to
supplements of the New Arthurian
Encyclopedia; essays on Arthurian film in Film & History and in Kevin J. Harty’s Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays, Revised Edition; an annotated
listing of Arthurian comics for Arthuriana;
and an essay on the motif of Arthur redivivus
in the comics for Barbara Tepa Lupack’s Adapting
the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia. Michael
has recently completed “The Way of the Wizard: Reflections of Merlin on Film”
for Martha Driver and Sid Ray’s The
Medieval Hero on Film.
Paper
3: “Cavalier in Clay: The Golem Returns”
Faye Ringel (U.S. Coast Guard
Academy):
Friday, 31 October (Session I:
4:30-6:00 PM)
Panel 6: On the Buff (Room SC 6)
(Horror Area?)
Chair: Susan Clerc (Southern
Connecticut State University)
Paper
1: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
Oscar De Los Santos (Western
Connecticut State University)
Paper
2: “From Nellie Bly to Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
Abbey Zink (Western Connecticut
State University)
Paper
3: “She Saved the World”
John-James Sargent (Western
Connecticut State University)
Saturday, 1 November (Session
III: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM)
Panel 15: Medievalism II: The
Medieval and the Modern(Room SC 1)
Chair: Sharon Yang (Worcester
State College)
Paper
1: “Arthurian Legend in Popular Culture”
Rebecca Housel (Rochester Institute
of Technology)
Paper
2: “The Transformative Power of Sasquatch”
Jeanie Wills (University of
Saskatchewan)
Paper
3: “Joan of Arc in The Messenger”
Alexander Belisle (Becker College)
Help complete the history of our area.
Individuals with access to older programs of the Annual
Meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association, are
invited to contact the current area chair for the Fantastic (Fantasy, Horror,
and Science Fiction) Area at northeastfantastic@gmail.com.
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