Presentations Gary Stark (Business), Tawni Ferrarini (Economics) and Sandra Poindexter (Business) presented “Predictors of Faculty Interest in Three Forms of Online Teaching” at the 2008 Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning. Timothy Compton (Modern Languages and Literatures) recently delivered a paper at the Bi-National Celebration of Contemporary Mexican Theatre in El Paso, Texas. The English translation of the paper's title is "Collisions with Colossus: Encounters Between Mexico and the United States in Plays Performed in Mexico City since 1997." The celebration included scholarly papers, roundtable discussions and dramatic readings in El Paso during the day. Each night, participants crossed the Mexican border to Ciudad Juárez to see plays in Mexico's annual showcase of some of the country's best theater performances of the year. Susan Goodrich (Modern Languages and Literatures) presented "The visionary and the voyeur: prophecy and violence in Mexican literature" at the Midwest Modern Languages Association conference Nov. 13-16 in Minneapolis, Minn. Her study examined the value of the sacred as it relates to gender and violence in two novels by 20th century Mexican women writers. Each tells the Cassandra-like story of the desacralization of an image of absolute female purity and power and contests the ways gender, sanctity and violence are inextricably enmeshed in narrative. Michael Joy (Modern Languages and Literatures) presented a paper entitled “Yo soy hijo de la piedra, que padre no conocí: The Ambiguity of Masculinity in Pedro de Urdemalas” at the annual convention of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in Louisville, Ky. Nell Kupper (Modern Languages and Literatures) presented her paper titled "Looking Back to the Future" at the 25th International Conference on Literature and Psychology in Lisbon, Portugal. According to her abstract, "research in neuroscience shows that the brain of women and men lay memories differently. Research also finds that memories of past experiences affect human behavior during any situation at hand. It is not surprising, then, that in a narrative, males and females would be characterized as showing quite contrasting reactions to the same situation. We see this manifest itself in the biblical story of Lot, as well as in mythological stories such as Theseus and Pirithous in their quest for Persiphone. In light of the neurobiological research and some archetypal paradigms, we examine 20th century French narrative, providing new insight into its male and female characters' reactions and behaviors, that have heretofore appeared puzzling and contradictory to other critics." Kupper also attended the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) conference in Liege, Belgium and obtained useful information for traveling with students abroad, which she will apply to her summer travel course.Kia Richmond (English) presented "Reaching Out, Teaching In: Academic Service Learning, 21st Century Literacy and English Language Arts" at the National Council of Teachers of English annual convention Nov. 21 in San Antonio, Texas. Also at the convention, Richmond received honorable mention for excellence in an affiliate journal. She co-edits the Language Arts Journal of Michigan, which focuses on teaching and learning of the English language arts. Submit presentations here. |
