NEPCA's Annual Conference
The main
activity which NEPCA members share is the annual meeting. Normally this is a
two-day (Friday-Saturday) meeting, with scholarly papers, performances,
readings, film screenings, and wide-ranging discussions presented at up to 25
sessions arranged thematically, but usually crossing narrow disciplinary
boundaries. Younger scholars, independent scholars, and graduate students often
participate as do folk artists, film makers, and creative scholars and
performers. In addition to formal sessions, members have ample time to converse
informally during coffee, luncheon, and receptions. There is also a book
exhibit. Members are encouraged to sample the variety of intellectual
approaches and perspectives which this interdisciplinary conference offers.
Sessions last 90 minutes and are always followed by panel and audience
discussion, facilitated by the chairperson.
The best
conference papers are recommended for presentation at the national PCA and ACA
conferences. The best graduate student papers are considered for the NEPCA
Prize.
It
is NEPCA’s policy to post our final conference attendance and note those papers
that were scheduled but not delivered.
NEPCA Schedule — Friday, Nov. 11, 2011
Session I: 4 to 5:30 p.m.
1) Health,
Disease, Physical Culture I: Mass Media Portrayals of Illness and Health
Practitioners
Warner Hall 303
Chair: Carol-Ann Farkas,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• “Dr. Joyce Brothers and American
Television”
Kathleen Collins, John Jay
College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York
• “Myths and Realities: Exploring
Portrayals of Therapists in Popular Culture”
Michelle Ronayne,
Nashua Community College
• “Do You See What I
See?—Searching for Visual Representations of Health Care Professionals on the
Internet”
Rick Shifley,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• “Hypochondria and Somatoform
Disorders in Popular Culture”
Carol-Ann Farkas,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
2) Science
Fiction, Fantasy and Legend I: Science Fiction
Warner Hall 320
Chair: Michael A. Torregrossa,
The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture
and the Middle Ages
• “Surviving the Night of the
COMET: Zombies, Space, and the 2012 Hysteria”
Kristine Larsen, Central
Connecticut State University
• “Abandonment and Salvation in
Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book”
Marlene San Miguel Groner, Farmingdale State College/SUNY Canceled
• “Ain’t
I a Xenomorph? Representations of Post-feminist
Identity in the Alien films”
Randy Laist,
Goodwin College
3) Music I: Punk
Warner Hall 201
Chair: Christopher Gleason, Worcester
Institute of Technology
• “‘All you posers go to hell’:
The Descendants and the Deconstruction of Punk” Cory E. Alix,
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
• “F#@% You: Punk and the
Transformation of American Sexuality in the 1970s” David Valone,
Quinnipiac University
• “Bitches Ain’t
Shit: Restrictive Gender Roles in Pop/Rap Music”
Daniel H. Hoskins, Roger
Williams University
4) Comics and
Graphic Novels I: Disturbing and Disturbed Bodies
Warner Hall 226
Chair: Lance Eaton, Emerson College
• “‘I Know
it When I See it’: Mike Diana’s Use of Childhood Iconography as ‘Obscene’ Mode
of Discourse”
Lisa Cunningham,
University of West Georgia Canceled
• “Boundless Monstrosity: The
Evolution and Intertextual Development of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde”
Lance Eaton, Emerson College
•
“Bam! Biff! Pow!: Batman and the Evolution of the American Romantic Hero”
Forrest C. Helvie,
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
NEPCA Schedule — Friday, Nov. 11, 2011
Session I: 4 to 5:30 p.m. continued
5) Discourse
Analysis: Contexts and Commentary
Warner Hall 318
Chair: Truman Keys, Western Connecticut
State University
• “Basic Assumptions of the
Western Theory of Identity Communication”
Christian Nelson, Massachusetts
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• “Critical discourse analysis as
a means to uncover social practices and cultural reproduction in sports texts”
Carolyn Fortuna, independent
scholar
• “Freedom and Meaning of Art
within Estonian Identity”
Karin Mansberg,
Western Connecticut State University
6) Global Culture
and Art: Crossing Borders, Intersecting Ideas
White Hall 025
Chair: Elaine Slater, Wentworth
Institute of Technology
• “Introducing Buddhism in
Nineteenth-Century American Magazines”
Katsuya Izumi, University at Albany,
SUNY
• “The Theory of Iconic Realism
and Creative Cultural Expression”
Jeanne I. Lakatos,
Western Connecticut State University
• “Transgressing Borders, Private
and Public: The Work of Lalla Essaydi”
Elaine Slater, Wentworth
Institute of Technology
• “The Use of Urban Space in High
Modernity: Bansky and the Revival of Graffiti”
Rachel L. Kaminsky,
Fordham University
7) Gender,
Identity and Sexuality I: Studying Gender and Gender Studies
White Hall 026
Chair: Joe Hancock, Drexel University
• “Seduced and Betrayed by Deviant
Male Texts! A gender studies reading of Darren Aronofsky’s
Black Swan”
Katsuya Izumi, University at Albany,
SUNY
• “‘I’m Not a Fag, I’m a
Werewolf’: Teen Wolf and 1980s Masculinity”
Martha Fischoff, University of Wisconsin-Madison Canceled
• “Training a Female Hero:
Negative Influences Drive Keladry to Heroism in Tamora Pierce’s The Protector of the Small Quartet”
Sarah M. Kniesler,
Plymouth State University
8) Science and
Technology I/Symposium: Geeks, Gadgets and Games:
The Influence of
Technology on Media Entertainment in Contemporary Culture
White Hall 024
Chair: David Kazibut,
Western Connecticut State University
• “From Mighty Thor to Thor:
Problematizing the Inherent Societal Values and Individual Identities of
“Geek” Culture Artifacts
Appropriated by Mainstream America”
Jessica Eckstein and David Kazibut, Western Connecticut State University
•
“Community
building or isolation tool? An analysis of college
students’ use of digital music devices”
Katie Lever Mazzuto,
Western Connecticut State University
• “It’s the Context, not the
Content: Reassessing the Threat of Violence in Video Games”
Chris Prorock/Christopher Oswald/ Shane Murphy, Western
Connecticut State University Canceled
Reception / Keynote Speaker
Professor William H.
Foster, III
Friday, Nov. 11,
2011
Warner
Hall Lyceum, 6 to 7 p.m.
NEPCA Schedule — Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011
Session II: 8:30 to 10 a.m.
1) Folklore and
Folk Culture I: Hawai’ian Narratives at the
Crossroads of Culture:
Multidisciplinary
Interpretations
Warner Hall 103
Chair: Virginia Metaxas, Southern
Connecticut State University
• “Narratives of Illness and
Healing in Nineteenth Century Hawai’i”
Virginia Metaxas, Southern
Connecticut State University
• “Hawai’ian
Psychology-Western Psychology: Healing Through Talking”
Carol Austad,
Central Connecticut State University
• “The Hidden Narrative of the Hawai’ian Missionary Legacy”
Catherine Hoyser,
St. Joseph’s College
2) Health,
Disease and Physical Culture II: Patients and Communication of Illness Meanings
Warner Hall 201
Chair: Christine Parkhurst,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• “On-line Publicized Technical
Standards as Requirements for Entry into Physical Therapy
Education Programs and
Subsequent Physical Therapy Practice, as Public Discourse”
James R. Brennan, The Sage Colleges
• “Use of Film Simulation to
Enhance Teaching and Learning in the Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum”
Lois Angelo, Massachusetts
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• “Breaking News about Mortality:
Philippe Aires toTristanne Connolly”
Christine Parkhurst,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
3) Social Media Panel: How
Social Media Magnifies the Privacy Issue for Public Figures
Warner
Hall 226 Panel and panelists canceled
Chair: Diana I. Rios,
University of Connecticut
Panelists:
Mary Helen Millham, University of
Connecticut
Chris Clemens,
University of Connecticut
Brianna Diaz,
University of Connecticut
David J. Atkin, University of Connecticut
4) Visual Culture
I: Virtual Life
Warner Hall 138
Chair: Jim Hanlan,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• “Emotion Online: Social Networks,
Happiness and Convergence”
Kristyn Gorton, University of York
• “Youtube
Comedy: Asian-American Slammers and Ravers Confront Physical and Sexual
Stereotypes”
Mark DeStephano,
Saint Peter’s College
• “Fried Egg Friday: Parody in the
Age of Digital Reproduction”
Terri Toles
Patkin, Eastern Connecticut State University
• “Chronophotography
and the Sports Highlight”
Jonathan Finn, Wilfrid Laurier University
Session II: 8:30 to 10 a.m. continued
5) Music:
Innocence to Alienation
Warner Hall 303
Chair: Kate Allocco,
Western Connecticut State University
• “Authenticity, Existentialism,
and the Music and Lyrics of Defiance, Ohio”
Zach Richter, Western
Connecticut State University
• “Mop-Top Hysteria Goes Digital:
Reexamining the Manic Fandom of the Beatles in a Bieber
Generation”
Dana Jennings, Fairfield
University
• “Sex, Drugs . . . and Polyphony:
The Medieval Guitarist and the Rock and Roll World”
Carey Fleiner,
University of Delaware
6) Science
Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend II: Legends Old and New
Warner Hall 320
Chair: Brian Clements, Western
Connecticut State University
• “The Werewolf: Out of Bounds”
Barry Hall, University
of Nizwa Canceled
• “Robin Hood in Ballad and Film”
Kerry R. Kaleba,
George Mason University
• “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
• “Vampires in Sookie
Stackhouse Southern Vampire novels and the Twilight saga”
Andrea Siegel, Graduate
Center/CUNY
7) Television:
Broadcasting Culture
White Hall 025
Chair: Truman Keys, Western Connecticut
State University
• “When Good Kids Go Dumb: Rachel Dretzin’s Trilogy of PBS Teen Documentaries”
Evan Cooper, Farmingdale State
College
• “Rebecca, Schooner, and
Chocolate Starfish: Discourse and Postfeminism in Sex
in the City”
Kyley A. Caldwell, Brandeis
University
• “We’re From Different Tribes:
The Counter-Culture and the TV Movie, 1970-1985”
Michael McKenna, Stony
Brook University Canceled
8) Food: Cooking
up Identities
White Hall 026
Chair: Fabio Parasecoli,
The New School
• “Fajita-Lore: The Creation of Ninfa Laurenzo, the ‘First Lady
of Mexican Cooking’”
Chrystel Pit, University of Arizona
• “Eating La Famiglia:
Consumption of Authenticity in Italian-themed Restaurants”
Fabio Parasecoli,
The New School
• “Dione
Lucas and Post-World War II Domesticity”
Madonna L. Berry,
Roger A. Saunders School of Hotel and Restaurant Management Canceled
NEPCA Schedule — Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011
Session III: 10:30 a.m. to Noon
1) Music II: Lady
Gaga
Warner Hall 320
Chair: Carol Mitchell, Springfield
College
• “Image as Spiritual Hologram:
Lady Gaga & Alexander McQueen, Royalty of a Different Fashion”
Ingrid Pruss,
Western Connecticut State University
• “Lady Gaga’s
Disease: Jo Calderone and the Pathology of the
Image’s Virulent Body”
Roland Betancourt, Yale
University
• “My Mother (Monster), My Self:
Lady Gaga and Adolescent Identity Development”
Cathy Leogrande,
LeMoyne College
2) Health,
Disease and Physical Culture III: Historical Perspectives on Disease
Conceptions
and Health Care Practice
Warner Hall 201
Chair: David Tanner, Massachusetts
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
• “Contagious Metaphors: Ideas of
Transmission in Early Modern Ottoman Society”
Nukhet Varlik, Rutgers
University Canceled
• “The ‘Hunt for Defects’ and
Resistance to Medical Expertise in American School Hygiene”
Kate Mazza,
City University of New York
• “From Domestic Sickroom to
Hospital Bedside: Transitions in Popular Representations of
Female Nursing, 1850-1950”
Thomas Lawrence Long, University
of Connecticut
3) Gender,
Identity and Sexuality II: Limning Marginality
Warner Hall 226
Chair:
• “Popular Perceptions of Male
Victims of Intimate Partner Violence: Informal and Formal Sources
of Information and Their Influence
on Gender Stigmatization”
Jessica J. Eckstein, Western
Connecticut State University
• “Heteronormativity
and the Fictional Queer Rampage Killer: Youth Identity, Masculinity, and Sexual
Citizenship”
Kathryn Linder, Suffolk
University
• “Dude Looks Like a Lady: The
Feminization of the Archetypal Hero in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel”
Susan Podhajski-LeRoy,
Western Connecticut State University
4) Sports:
Baseball Plus
Warner Hall 303
Chair: Rob Weir, University of
Massachusetts
• “The World Game Within: the
Cultural Politics of Soccer in Multicultural Australia”
Jess Carniel, University of Melbourne Canceled
• “Frederick Taylor’s Use of the
Baseball Team Metaphor: A Historical perspective on Scientific
Management and Baseball”
Chris Risker, Webster College
• “Baseball and Poison Gas: The
Death of Christy Mathewson”
John Palencsar,
SUNY-New Paltz
• “The Yankee Dynasty Before Steinbrenner”
Donna Waller Harper,
independent scholar Canceled
Rob
Weir, University of Massachusetts
“Why
Baseball Triumphed Over Cricket in the United States’
NEPCA Schedule — Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011
Session III: 10:30 a.m. to Noon continued
5) War and
Genocide: Harsh Realities
White Hall 022
Chair: Mark van Ells, Queensborough Community College
• “‘The Other’ Persisting in
Popular Culture: Children’s and Young Adult Literature Depicting Genocides
of the Late 20th and 21st
Centuries”
Jane M. Gangi,
Western Connecticut State University
• “‘Really Bizarre Creatures’: The
Cultural Politics of GI Dissent and Disobedience during the Vietnam War”
Dylan Gottlieb, Temple
University Canceled
• “T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and
the Great War”
Kathryn Van Wert
6) Race: Evasion,
Identity and Anxiety
White Hall 025
Chair: D.L. Stephenson, Western
Connecticut State University
• “Whitely Ways of Playing:
Employing Video Games in Racist Distancing Strategies”
Evan W. Lauteria,
Syracuse University
• “Imperialistic Visions on the
Airwaves: The Construction of Non-white Peoples and Foreign Settings
in Adventure Radio Programs of the
1930s through the 1950s”
Bonnie M. Miller, University of
Massachusetts, Boston
• “Post-Racial Anxieties:
Reproduction and Gender in Contemporary African-American Artistic Culture”
GerShun Avilez,
Yale University
7) Science and
Technology II: Refuse and Renewal
White Hall 026
Chair: Amos St. Germain,
Wentworth Institute of Technology
• “Music and Technology: The
Promise of Reconciliation”
Gloria Monaghan and Brian
Donnell, Wentworth Institute of Technology
• “Fat Cats: Fat and Waste in
Society”
Henderson Pritchard, Wentworth
Institute of Technology
• “Seeing Green: Have They Blinded
Us With Science?”
Jack Duggan, Wentworth Institute
of Technology
8) Science
Fiction, Fantasy and Legend III: Fantasy
White Hall 023
Chair: Faye Ringel,
United States Coast Guard Academy, retired
• “‘Epic’ in Epic-Fantasy
Literature”
Robert Luce, Independent Scholar
• “Who is Afraid of Merlin? The
Darkening of Merlin in Modern Arthurian Fiction”
Anne Berthelot, University of
Connecticut
• “‘Close This Book Right Now’:
The Writer-Character in Children’s Fantasy”
Amie A. Doughty, SUNY Oneonta
Luncheon
Warner
Hall Lyceum, 12:15-1:30 p.m.
Welcome by Dr. Abby Zink, Dean,
College of Arts and Sciences, WCSU
NEPCA Schedule — Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011
Session IV: 12:15 to 1:30 p.m.
1) American
Literature: Texts and Contexts
Warner Hall 320
Chair: Mark Madigan, Nazareth College
• “Nailing Class: Social Class
Critique in Tom Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons”
Robert Niemi,
St. Michael’s College
• “Bestsellers: Popular Culture’s
‘Invisible Man’”
Donald G. Baker, Long Island University
• “Chip Hilton, the Cold War, and
the ‘Diabolical Bomb’”
Dennis Gildea,
Springfield College
2) Comics and
Graphic Novels II: Damsels Causing Distress
Warner Hall 226
Chair: Lance Eaton, Emerson College
• “She-Hulk: A Cultural Study of
the Pornographic ‘Angry’ Woman”
D. L. Stephenson, Western
Connecticut State University
• “Vampiric
Viragoes: Villainizing and Sexualizing Arthurian
Women in King Arthur v. Dracula (2005)
and Madame Xanadu
(2008)”
Kate Allocco,
Western Connecticut State University
• “Women in Comics”
Jessica Gamache,
Western Connecticut State University
• “Drawing from the Margins:
Truth, Fiction, and Power in Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s Cancer Vixen”
Lindsey Hanlon, Boston College
3) Film and
History: Hollywood Endings
Warner Hall 303
Chair: Steven Grossman, New England
Institute of Art
• “Gone With the Wind: Then
and Now”
John Mueller, University of
Hartford
• “Exploring New Frontiers: What
Makes Superman and Ethan Edwards Wander”
Jordan Young,
Susquehanna University Canceled
• “‘A Girl’s Gotta
Live’: Gender Roles, Moral Ambiguity, and Career Criminals in Three Pre-Code
William Wellman Film”
Emily E. Gifford, Central
Connecticut State University
• “FIGHTER: A Love Poem for Boxing
from Lowell”
Amos St. Germain,
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Session IV: 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. continued
4) Folklore and
Folk Culture: An Internationale
Warner Hall 201
Chair: Bruce Cohen, Worcester State
University
• “Aztlan
as Spiritual Birthplace: Chicano and Mexican American Political Folklore”
Barbara Ann Driscoll de
Alvarado, Anna Maria College
• “From ‘Balle
Balle’ to Bhangra Rap: The
folk invasion from Punjab, India”
Gitanjali Chawla,
University of Delhi
• “Conjuring Rats in New England
by Edicts, Letters, Songs, Tradecards, and
Advertising”
Robert M. MacGregor,
The Williams School of Business Administration
• “‘Our most important neighbor to
the north’: Canada in the U.S. Imagination”
Judith Broome, William Paterson
University
5) Health,
Disease and Physical Culture IV: Ideas of the Body and Public Policy Contexts
White Hall 025
Chair: Jennifer Tebbe-Grossman,
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health
• “Let’s Eat Something Different!
Revising and Adapting the ‘Let’s Move’ Campaign”
Virginia Cowen, Queensborough Community College
• “The Representation of ‘Green’
Beauty in Contemporary American Popular Culture”
Stacie Kotschwar,
SUNY Binghampton University
•
“Medical
Imaging as Persuasive Technology? Ordering Visual Information,
Persuading Patients,
Epistemic Deficiency”
Alexander I. Stingl,
European University Viadrina
• “The Visual Popularization of a
Degenerated Sexuality in the 20th Century: From Syphilis to AIDS”
Lukas Engelmann and Stefan Wuensch, Humbolt University,
Berlin
6) Music:
International
White Hall 026
Chair: Jim Hanlan,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• “Iran: Musical Freedom
Circumventing Censorship”
Karen Nagy, Western Connecticut
State University
• “Songs of our Ancestors:
Reconstructing African Culture Through African Music”
Mark Malisa, College of Saint Rose Canceled
• “The American-Soviet Music
Society: An Alternative Discourse in Cold War Culture”
Victoria Waxman, Northeastern
University
• “Music and Culture—Emotional and
Spiritual Experiences/Musical Saint Composers of Andhra,
India-Tyaagaraaja:
A Study”
Vijaya Kumar Babu,
Osmania University (ret.) Canceled
NEPCA Schedule —
Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011
Session IV: 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. continued
7) Philosophy and
Popular Culture: Navigating the 21st Century
White Hall 022
Chair: Tim Madigan, Division Chair for
Philosophy and Popular Culture, PCA/ACA
• “McLuhan’s Maelstrom: Marshall
McLuhan in the Cyber Age”
Tim Madigan, St. John Fisher
College
• “The Unironical
in the Age of Irony”
Seth Vannatta,
Morgan State University
• “Popular Media as Popular
Epistemology: Neil Postman on Communicating and Knowing”
Gerald J. Erion,
Medaille College
• “Product Placement Within Teen Movies as a Creativity Booster”
Francesca Masoero,
Universita’ degli studi di Bologna
8) Television:
Visions and Revisions of Identity
White Hall 023
Chair: Truman Keys, Western Connecticut
State University
• “The Symbolic Annihilation of
Women at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce”
Rod Carveth, Fitchburg State University Canceled
• “Evaluating the Construction of
Overweight and Obese Adolescent Children in Huge”
Andrea M. McClanahan, East
Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
• “Road to Rhode Island: Family
Guy and New England Culture”
Tanya Lovejoy, Southern Illinois
University, Carbondale