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Natures ConferencePracticing Humanities Scholarship in the 21st Century
February 17, 2012La Sierra University’s
4th Annual Humanities Conference
Table of Contents
Welcome
General Information
Event Map
Program Schedule
Presenter Location and Information
Presentation Abstracts by Panel
Plenary Speaker
Presenter Biographies
Thank You
Notes
Natures 2013
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It is a pleasure to host such a diverse and talented group of scholars on the campus of La Sierra University for Natures 2012. The establishment of the Natures Conference in 2009 arose from two convictions: (1) that the various disciplines housed in the humanities each
have their own respective natures, perspectives, and techniques, but that communication between them is vital and
(2) that the environment has emerged as a critical part of that discussion between humanities scholars, the rest of academia, and society at large.
This year, we discuss how the new millennium has changed!the premise and practices of humanities scholarship. Thank you for joining us. Enjoy the day.
Welcome
Natures 2012 Graduate student Steering Committee:Jennifer Donascimento, Marjorie Ellenwood, Kendra Kravig,
Jeeyoung Lee, Tami Perez, Erica Szilagyi, Patrick Garrett York (Program Editor), and Jessica Zakarian.
Panel Chairs:Dr. Melissa Brotton (English), Dr. Ken Crane (anthropology), Dr. Andrew Howe (History), Dr. Winona Howe (English), Dr.
Sam McBride (English)
Faculty Sponsor:Dr. Lora Geriguis
The Natures Conference is sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences
The English and Communication DepartmentLa Sierra University 2
General Information
Meeting LocationsPanel presentations will take place in either the Cactus Room or the Palm Room. The Cactus Room is in the Commons, left of the cafeteria entrance. The Palm Room is in the commons, right of the cafeteria entrance.
The plenary address will take place in Cossentine Hall 100, located directly west of the Cactus Room, in the upper campus. Signs mark the path to each location and conference staff will lead participants to the plenary address.
Map Legend (A) Cactus Room, Palm Room(B) Cossentine Hall(C) Parking
FacilitiesMeals and snacks are taken in the Cactus Room. Restrooms are located in the vestibule between the Cactus and Palm Rooms as well as in Cossentine Hall
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Campus Map
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Program Schedule
First Session! ! ! ! 8:00 - 9:10 1A: Nationalism, Popular Culture, and the Humanities
Cactus—Panel Chair: Dr. Andrew Howe• “Untheorizing The Nation: The Epistemological Residue in
Post-WWII Hong Kong Television Studies”— Aubrey Tang• "You’re our favorite colony: The Walking Tour as an Act of
Eco-Cultural Re-Appropriation in Washington Irving’s Boars Head Tavern.”— Deanne Michelle Sparks
• “Hunting the Radical Rat: Warring with the Avant-Garde in Robert Graves's Magazine ‘The Owl’"— Alisha Maria Mitchell
1B: Bodies, Minds, and the HumanitiesPalm—Panel Chair: Dr. Melissa Brotton
• “C.S. Lewis Undressed”— Tami Perez• The Problem of Calormen in Narnia—Addressing
Accusations of Racism and Islamophobia in C.S. Lewis—Marjorie Ellenwood
• “There’s Something scholarly in the state of Denmark: The Overlooked Intellectual in Shakespeare’s Hamlet”—Mariam A. Galarrita
Break 9:10-9:20
Welcome7:45 a.m. in the Cactus Room.
Breakfast Served
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Second Session! ! ! ! ! 9:20-10:402A: Landscapes= Political, Economic, and Literary
Cactus—Panel Chair: Dr. Sam McBride• “Pipe Dreams: The Cultural Narratives behind Keystone XL”—
Tamara Wallace Ramirez• “Inventing a Tradition, Diego Rivera's History of Medicine in
Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health Mural, 1953.”— Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez
• "Humanist Locus Amoenus: The Didactic Landscape of!THE FAERIE QUEENE"— Christopher Blood
• “Re-Thinking Ecology; Economics, Irrationality, and the Ecological Thought”—Ned Weidner
2B: Being Human and the HumanitiesPalm—Dr. Ken Crane
• “Transcendentalisms, Myths, and Oracular Gibberish: Melville’s Moby-Dick as Counterargument for Emerson’s Ideologies”—Juan Sepulveda
• The “Eternal Silence” of “Something Far Off”—Patrick Garrett York
• Beyond Life and Death: How Nature Interacts with Fear, Terror, and Horror in Gothic Literature—Jeeyoung Lee
• Margaret Fuller and Emersonian Philosophy: REstoring the Incongruous Self”—Jennifer DoNascimento
Plenary Session #1: Scholarly Address11:00-11:50
Cossintine 100“Between Wasteland and Wilderness”
Dr. David Briggs, PhD6
Plenary Session #2:Seminar on Academic Life
12:40-1:20Cactus Room
"Love, money, and Glory"Dr. David Briggs, PhD
1:30-3:00
Third Session! ! ! ! 1:30-3:00The Role of Library as the Defender of the Liberal Arts! !
Cactus—Dr. Winona Howe• Raymond Pun, CUNY Graduate Center• Arpine Eloyan, Glendale Public Library• J. Silvia Cho, The New York Public Library• Lynn T. Nguyen, Glendale Public Library
!! ! ! Lunch 12:00-12:40p.m.
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Presenter School/Study Panel
Christopher Blood California State University, East BayEnglish MA 3rd year
2ACactus
Jennifer DoNascimento
La Sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 3rd Year
2BPalm
J. Silvia Cho The New York Public Library 3 Cactus
Marjorie Ellenwood
La Sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 1st year
1B Palm
Arpine Eloyan Glendale Public Library 3 Cactus
Mariam A. Galarrita
California State University, FullertonEnglishMA 1st Year
1B Palm
Jeeyoung Lee La Sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 3rd year
2BPalm
Alisha Maria Mitchell
University of TennesseeEnglish MA 2nd year
1ACactus
Lynn T. Nguyen Glendale Public Library 3 Cactus
Presenter Location and Info
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Presenter Location and Info
Presenter School/Study Panel
Tami Perez La Sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 1st year
1BPalm
Raymond Pun CUNY Graduate Center 3Cactus
Tamara Wallace Ramirez
Claremont Graduate University Cultural StudiesPhD 1st year
2ACactus
Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez
University of California, RiversideArt History? year
2ACactus
Juan Sepulveda La Sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 3rd year
2BPalm
Deanne Michelle Sparks
La Sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 3rd year
1ACactus
Aubrey Tang University of California, RiversideCinema StudiesPhD 2nd year
1ACactus
Ned Weidner Claremont Graduate UniversityCultural StudiesPhD 1st year
2ACactus
Patrick York La sierra UniversityEnglish LiteratureMA 1st year
2BPalm
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Panel 1A: Nationalism, Popular Culture,
and the HumanitiesCactus Room
“Untheorizing The Nation: The Epistemological Residue in Porst-WWII Hong Kong Television Studies”—Aubrey Tang
This paper argues that the widely discussed topic in the 1980s and and 1990s, namely the nation as a construct, took a turn from a theoretical approach to a historical one in contemporary visual studies in the new millennium.
"You’re our favorite colony: The Walking Tour as an Act of Eco-Cultural Re-Appropriation in Washington Irvings Boars Head Tavern.”— Deanne Michelle Sparks
In Washington Irving's a short sketch, entitled The Boars Head Tavern, East Cheap, the first person narrator, Geoffrey Crayon, strolls through a physical environment, the streets and alleys of London, seeking a location found only in Shakespeare's plays. He desires to possess a concrete physical artifact or experience connected to a fictional environment. However, Crayon, an American citizen visiting London, does not leave his citizenship or his American mentality and mannerisms at home in New York. Instead, he must learn how to navigate the unknown urban landscape of London with his cultural baggage in tow. By using ecocritical analysis mixed with transnational theory, this paper argues that Crayon's walking tour and the helpful and not-so-helpful guides he meets along the way display an American appropriation of the mother country through the act of environmental possession and cultural possession.
“Hunting the Radical Rat: Warring with the Avant-Garde in Robert Graves's Magazine ‘The Owl’"— Alisha Maria Mitchell (University of Tennessee/English/MA 2nd year)
When Graves returned from the Great War, an event that, by many definitions of modernism, was the impetus behind the experimental aesthetics and ideologies of the post-war avant-garde, he published a magazine that made a subtle attack on the avant-garde, and instead supported the aesthetic and ideological principals of pre-war Georgian art.
Presentation Abstracts
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The Problem of Calormen in Narnia—Addressing Accusations of Racism and Islamophobia in C.S. Lewis—Marjorie Ellenwood
C.S. Lewis, renowned author and Christian apologist, has recently been re-popularized by the film adaptations of his children’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia. One book, The Horse and His Boy, proves problematic for readers in its characterization of Calormen, a Narnian country which bears obvious vestiges of the Middle East and Islam. In this work, I will show how the Calormenes, while somewhat stereotypically Middle Eastern, are neither wholly protagonistic nor completely vilified by Lewis, but that they are complex characters patterned more closely to biblical Egyptians than Muslims. Lewis ultimately combines several cultures and ideas to form Calormen, and with a closer look at The Horse and His Boy, one can heartily assert that Islamophobia is not present in its pages.
1B:Nationalism, Popular Culture, and the Humanities
Palm Room
“C.S. Lewis Undressed”— Tami PerezNudity, is this the cause for alarm or simply a natural state of our body? C.S. Lewis books are full of references that may help unlock the mystery of nakedness. Discussion of nudity in a perfect, ideal world as well as a fallen planet are discussed within the paper in an analysis of the importance this often though immodest state we, as people, find ourselves in.
“There is something scholarly in the state of Denmark: The Overlooked Intellectual in Shakespeare’s Hamlet”—Mariam A. Galarrita
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia’s description that Hamlet is a courtiers, soldiers, scholars, eye tongue, sword and that he is a glass of fashion…the mould of form identifies him as a Shakespearian Fool. A Shakespearian Fool differs from a typical comedic fool in that a Shakespearian Fool function in a play as a mirror, reflecting back to other characters their human fallibility, imperfection, and limitations. Hamlet’s contemplativeness and engagement with philosophy is representational of today’s Humanities scholar that aims to understand aspect of the human condition found in literature.
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“Pipe Dreams: The Cultural Narratives behind Keystone XL”—Tamara Wallace Ramirez
The roots of the hotly-debated Keystone Pipeline proposal are not fiscal or technological but ideological. The project proposal exists as a result of a set of unsustainable cultural narratives that underlie - yet are not directly addressed in - public discourse about the project.
Panel 2A: Politics, Science and Healthcare
through the HumanitiesCactus Room
“Inventing a Tradition, Diego Rivera's History of Medicine in Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health Mural, 1953.”— Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez
Scholarship on Diego Rivera too often acknowledges his socio-political perspectives as the major catalyst for his artwork without considering the fragmentation and continuity of modernity itself. Rivera's art is a re-vindication of the Mesoamerican past appropriated and adopted into modern art as a means of inventing traditions for the audience to potentially manifest.
"Humanist Locus Amoenus: The Didactic Landscape of"THE FAERIE QUEENE"— Christopher Blood
To form an original close reading of Spenser’s Faerie Queene, I have used a combination of both Reader Response critical theories, Eco-criticism and Romantic ideology. I have employed a relatively new eco-critical way of looking at Spenser’s work using a literary cartographic or literary geographic lens to help better organize and critically respond to Spenser’s great epic poem. The overall thesis of my work builds upon the idea that Spenser’s landscapes act as didactic spaces; they can be read as very consequential environments, closely linked with his characters psychology and morality. Spenser’s landscapes both heighten the degree of metaphoric complexity as well as they help to provide a background and basis for the reader to recognize the moral lessons being communicated by the Humanist poet.
“Re-thinking Ecology: Econoics, Irrationality, and the Ecological Thought” —Ned Weidner
Since the Wealth of Nations, people have been though to be rational actors, carefully calculating economic decisions. The rational actor model has pervaded social thought in a litany of ways. By influencing economic policy and often in direct opposition to environmentalism, this concept of man as rational actor as been a contributing factor to humans historical dominance over natural and the subsequent over consumption has led to a lack future for our planet. This paper historicizes the concept of man as rational actor in relation to evolutionary theories and environmental movements, and argues from a cultural studies perspective that if future environmental movements are to be successful in reversing or slowing the effects of global climate changes and in creating sustainable living situation, irrationality need to be heavily considered when creating ecological conscious education programs or proposing effective economic and environmental policies. 12
Panel 2B: Being Human and the Humanities
Palm Room
The “Eternal Silence” of “Something Far Off”—Patrick YorkThis paper puts C.S. Lewis and Flannery O’Connor in conversation to demonstrate the positive and negative effects of Christian identity as it relates to the production of postwar fiction. Both wrote, aware of the standards of literariness appropriate for their period, yet did not sacrifice religious convictions in their prose. Many critics argue that Lewis and O’Connors Christianity detracts from their works’ literariness and limits their works’ audience. This paper argues, conversely, that their religious identity creates the lasting appeal of the authors’ fiction,, and literary success in their works.
“Transcendentalisms, Myths, and Oracular Gibberish: Melville’s Moby-Dick as Counterargument for Emerson’s Ideologies”—Juan Sepulveda
In 1849 Melville attended a lecture delivered by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He did not find Emerson full of transcendentalism, myths, and oracular gibberish; instead, he found a man of great wisdom that was quite intelligible. However impressed he may have been with Emerson, it seems that Melville hesitated to adopt Emerson’s ideas.
Beyond Life and Death: How Nature Interacts with Fear, Terror, and Horror in Gothic Literature—Jeeyoung Lee
Gothic literature powerfully reflects humanity’s most private aspect: being afraid. To Radcliffe’s delineation of gothic literature into "terror Gothic" and "horror Gothic", this paper adds another dimension: the "fear Gothic". Further, God-generated physical nature can be at odds with God-breathed human soul while, at other times, it partners with humanity to guide, comfort, and even protect. The most oppressive fear, terror, or horror results from situations in which the natural world becomes out of sync with humanity.
Margaret Fuller and Emersonian philosophy: Restoring the Incongruous Self — Jennifer DoNascimento
The ideology of separate spheres dominating nineteenth century America clearly dictated Margaret Fuller should be confined to a life of domesticity. However, by submitting his daughter to the intellectual rigors of a Harvard-bound young man, Timothy Fuller awoke in Margaret a voracious appetite for learning and personal freedom that was socially denied women; Margaret Fuller’s access to Emersonian philosophy—through personal interaction, the reading of manuscripts, and attendance to lectures—challenged the patriarchal mode which made self-worth, self-actualization, and wholeness unrealizable for her thus allowing her to ground herself and assert power not only for herself but for women in general.
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Natures 2012 plenary speaker
David Biggs is an Associate P r o f e s s o r i n t h e H i s t o r y Department of UC Riverside. His research examines intersections in the history of science, technology and environment in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. His essays have appeared in such journals as Te c h n o l o g y a n d C u l t u r e , Environmental History and the Journal of Southeast Asian
Studies. His recent book is titled Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta. (University of Washington 2011)
Plenary Speaker
A South Vietnamese soldier documents the transfer of American base property to the Republic of Vietnam in 1972. In the foreground and background are stacks of 55-gallon drums used for storing chemicals left behind by the American units stationed there.
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A view of mountain rainforest at Bach Ma National Park in Vietnam.
Between Wasteland and Wilderness—11:00 a.m.
Nature is one of the most complex words in the English language; and it is almost impossible to translate.! While scholars may debate its semantics, all societies in the world today grapple with protecting nature in its purest form, wilderness, and restoring it in its most polluted form, wasteland. As with the word nature, ideas of wilderness and wasteland have changed dramatically around the world in the past century. While activists and others may tend to view nature in its! utopic or dystopic forms, environmental history almost always leads us somewhere into the middle. This talk draws upon research in Vietnam, from the wetlands of the Mekong Delta to the war-torn central coast, to examine how ideas of wilderness and wasteland are changing along with new approaches, especially to wasteland, in environmental history.
Love, Money and Glory: Navigating Academic Life and Continuing the Pursuit of Research—12:40 p.m.
Today, working at the college level in humanities teaching and research is one of the most competitive yet lowest paid fields considering the number of years required to attain a PhD. Attaining a PhD often carries with it high opportunity costs: lost income, lost loves, and lost worlds. By the time we're through, the job market presents us with more tough choices: adjuncting, teaching colleges, and tenure battles. Nevertheless, many of us continue like Don Quixote and his windmills to pursue our dreams -- and perhaps we may find wonders, even treasure!, on our roads less traveled. Join David Biggs for an informal discussion about the challenges of balancing love, money and pursuits of academic glory through research.
Plenary Session Descriptions
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“The Role of the Library and the Defender of the Liberal Arts”
How do public libraries improve the well being of peoples in society? This panel explores the research and critical thinking skills that people can gain from public libraries; the relationship between public libraries and humanities studies and how both continue to create better citizens and scholars of tomorrow.
Raymond Pun (CUNY Graduate Center)Arpine Eloyan (Glendale Public Library) J Silvia Cho, (The New York Public Library)Lynn T. Nguyen (Glendale Public Library)
Panel 3, Library Panel
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Presenter Biographies
Christopher Blood is on the brink of completing his Masters Degree in Literature (May 2012); with the aims of attaining his Doctorate to follow. His literary interests include examining works from the Renaissance to Post World War II American literature with a multitude of points in between. Having worked in the backcountry wilderness of the Sierra Nevada for six years and currently working and writing for our National Parks in the SF Bay Area, Christopher’s writing style assimilates his extensive wilderness experience and literary philosophies. He originally hails from the forested hills of Central New York. —email: [email protected]
J. Silvia Cho, a recent graduate of the Master's in Library Science program at Queens College (CUNY), works at the General Research Division of the New York Public Library. !Her broader academic interests include digital humanities, evolution of language, and multilingualism. —email: [email protected]
Jennifer Pimenta DoNascimento is a third year graduate student at La Sierra University. Her love of the English language and the many literatures written in English stem from the wonderful experience she had as and English learner during her high school years when she moved to California from Brazil. Upon graduation, she will pursue a Doctorate degree that informs both her American and Brazilian sensibilities. !—email: [email protected]
Marjorie Ellenwood is in her first year at La Sierra University, earning her M.A. in English. Her first loves in literature were the Romantics, but she is currently pursuing a relationship with 20th century!existentialists!and feminists. Marjorie enjoys traveling, but a comfy chair, a cup of tea and a good book of poetry are all she requires for happiness.!—email: [email protected]
Arpine Eloyan —email: [email protected] 17
Jeeyoung Lee finishes her MA coursework this quarter. Her BA and MBA are also from La Sierra; another passion led to an acting degree from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Future research topics include the interrelationship between education and politics. —email: [email protected]
Raymond Pun is pursuing an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center while working as a research librarian at The New York Public Library where he provides reference services; his research interests include digital humanities and the usages of social media in the Middle East.! —email: [email protected]
Lynn T. Nguyen recently received her MLS from the University of North Texas and has been working for the Glendale Public Library for the past 4 years as a Library Assistant conducting reference work and readers advisory services. Lynn has over 8 years of public library experiences across the state of California and has recently served as a Consular Affairs Intern!for the Department of State: U.S. Embassy in Rome. She is interested in emerging technologies in providing and strengthening digital literacy skills. —email: [email protected]
Alisha Mitchell is in the last semester of her M.A. degree in literature at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She studies Victorian and Modern British poetry, but she is particularly interested in the Great War Soldier Poets. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. after taking a year off to catch her breath.! —email: [email protected]
Mariam Galarrita is a first-year MA graduate student at California State University, Fullerton. Although she plans to earn a PhD in sixteenth and seventeenth-century literature, she is also fascinated with Modernist literature, narrative theory, identity construction, and the works of Faulkner, Beckett and Joyce. !—email: [email protected]
Tami Perez —email: [email protected]
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Patrick Garrett York is a second year MA student in English Literature at La Sierra University. He prefers Modern and contemporary American Literature, but believes the likes of Orwell, Wilde, and Walcott can’t be outdone. He plans to pursue graduate work in Creative Writing and Rhetoric. —email: [email protected]
Juan Sepulveda is a third year graduate at La Sierra University.! His main line of interest lies in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s overwhelming influence in America’s Literature and Religion. He enjoys teaching students to think for themselves, urging them to discover their own “genius.”!!!—email: [email protected]
Gabriela Rodriguez-Gomez is a second year graduate student at the University of California Riverside, currently working her my Masters Thesis in Art History with Professor Jason Weems as Chair. The title for her thesis is, Inventing a Tradition, Diego Rivera's History of Medicine in Mexico: The People's Demand for Better Health Mural, 1953. !She will be conducting a study concerning a visual analysis of the mural in relation with modernity, medicine, indigenous iconography, and the artist himself. Her area of research involves modern art in Mexico, and the United States, more specifically the Mexican muralist movement of the twentieth century. —email: [email protected]
Aubrey Tang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside. She earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature from The University of Hong Kong in 1998 and has worked as a columnist and a radio host in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Her research interests include cinema, history and memory, visual and cultural studies. She is the author of Bcc (Trio, 1999), a collection of short stories about technology. —email: [email protected]
Ned Weidner —email: [email protected]
Deanne Sparks holds a B.S. in Social Studies from Pacific Union College, an M.A. in History from Rutgers University-Camden, and (in four months) an M.A. in English from La Sierra University.! She specializes in nineteenth-century transnational American-British literatures and Native Studies, and enjoys reading postcolonial and cultural criticism.—email: [email protected]
Tamara Wallace-Ramirez —email: [email protected]
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Much Heartfelt Thanks
To those who have made the Fourth Annual Natures Conference possible.
The College of Arts and Sciences
CAS Dean’s Office
History and Political Science Faculty
English and Communication Faculty
Sodexo Food Services
Larry Becker and Darla Tucker
Natures 2012 Committee
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Natures 2013Save the Date
February 15, 2013La Sierra University
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