Junior Year Writing Conference

11/24/08

This year’s Junior Year Writing Conference will be held Friday, December 5th from 10:00AM to 5:00PM in Herter 301. This event features research paper presentations from undergraduate students in their junior year writing intensive courses. Topics range from “Women in the Bible” to “Dark Comedy in Film,” to “Ayn Rand Meets Batman.” Session chairs are Antionia Carcelen Estrada, Kanchuka Dharmasiri, Nadia Alahmad, Emir Benli and Scott Salus, all College of Humanities and Fine Arts graduate students, many of whom also participated in the 2008 Crossroads Conference. The Junior Year Writing Conference allows undergraduate students to experience presenting research in a conference setting—a skill that will be beneficial throughout their education and careers. To see the conference booklet, click here.

Comic Art Society

  10/22/08

    Professor N. C. Christopher Couch of Comparative Literature is faculty adviser of the Comic Art Society, a registered student organization at UMass.  On October 18-19, this club hosted a 24-Hour Comic Day, which was attended by over 30 students from UMass and the Five Colleges. This event occurs worldwide and was founded by Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics.  During the 24 hours, students were supplied with food and drinks and were encouraged to draw a 24-page comic, although many students came up with other ideas, like posters or collaborative comics.  The event was funded by a UMass Arts Council grant, and was organized by the club's officers, Paige Zaferiou, Andrew Witts, Stephanie Ressler, and Bethany Sherwood, among others .

     The Comic Art Society also plans to publish a comic “zine” and will be participating in Free Comic Book Day this spring. The club meets every Monday at 7:30 in Herter 301 “to discuss comic art and graphic novels, and the other popular arts, and invites guest speakers from comics, literature and art to address its meetings,” says Couch. He encourages all 5-College students, undergraduate and graduate to attend these meetings and participate in coming events.

Sierra Simmons

    Comparative Literature Crossroads Conference

 10/17/08  

    The 2008 Crossroads Conference was very successful. Organizers Matt Goodwin and Kanchuka Dharmasiri, graduate students in the UMass Comparative Literature Department, said there was a good turn out overall, including undergraduate students and local members of the general public. The conference was divided into five sessions and during these sessions, a number of presentations occurred in different rooms. Each room had a selection of presenters that the organizers felt had something in common.

     For example, in room 601 between 2:45 and 5:00pm, the four graduate students who spoke had researched topics that focused on art.  Adrienne Posner, from UCLA, discussed “Tumbling Woman,” the controversial sculpture of Eric Fishl, which was created as a memorial to the 9/11 attacks. This sculpture met with a violent negative response, and Posner explained that the reason some viewers are insulted by so-called “victim art” is it makes humans feel their own true vulnerability and injurability. She also stressed that the acceptance of a piece of art depends greatly upon context: perhaps this work would have been better appreciated at a different time and place.

     Then UMass’ Matt Goodwin spoke about Functionary Performance Art as an agent for political change. He showed the example of a passport, stamps, and currency for El Spirit Republic de Puerto Rico (Puerto Ricans currently are required to use United States passports and dollars). This art protests American imperialism over Puerto Rico—it represents the ideal of national sovereignty, which they are denied. More about this movement can be found at http://www.elpuertoricanembassy.org/elpassport.html

     The next presenter was Diana Gumbar, from George Mason University, who spoke about the appropriation of Frida Kahlo’s unconventional portrayal of women in art. Chicana feminists saw Kahlo as a subversive cultural icon, and they both imitated and expanded upon her graphic, de-eroticized, un-beautified representations of the female body. They exploited her feminist image by mocking and belittling her beloved husband, Diego Rivera, as though they could not accept that such a strong woman could have a man in her life that she adored and respected.

     The last speaker was another UMass student, Rhona Trauvitch, who had studied the associations people create between products and producers. For example, a certain look and sound is often attributed to Tim Burton’s movies, but these identifying characteristics come from a number of ingredients: Danny Elfman’s music, regular actors, costume designers, etc. They are by no means a product merely of Tim Burton himself. Artists of all media find collaborations that fit them and the result is a unified, recognizable product.

     Following the presentations, there was an open question-and-answer discussion with the audience. Such questions arose as, “Can something be art if you cannot buy it?” And, “Does the value of a piece of art lie in the impression it gives you?” Also discussed was the tendency of the bureaucratic system to apply general rules to specific situations, and the simultaneous fascination and disgust with which people react to “shocking” material. This session served to draw connections between all the topics and make the audience think critically about the culture and society they live in.

     An anthology of all the presentations from last weekend is in the making and will be published around 2010. UMass Amherst is also host to The Romance Languages and Literatures Conference every other spring. This year, the conference will be held at Binghamton University in New York. UMass graduate students will be participating.

     Additionally, this year's Junior Year Writing Conference, organized by Goodwin, will occur on December 5th in 301 Herter Hall. This event features paper presentations from undergraduate students, and CHFA graduate students serve as panel chairs.

Sierra Simmons

Upcoming Crossroads Conference

  10/10/08

    The University of Massachusetts Comparative Literature program was founded in the 1960s by faculty of the English, French, German, and Spanish departments. The goal of creating this interdisciplinary field was to bring together diverse cultures, languages, and literature. Comparative Literature provides a global perspective on literary scholarship and translation, and draws in students from a variety of backgrounds.

   The Organization of Graduate Students in Comparative Literature (OGSCL), with the help of faculty, has organized the 2008 Crossroads Conference, to be held October 10-12.  Funding for the conference was provided by the Department of Comparative Literature, the Graduate School at UMass Amherst, UMass Amherst Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, UMass Amherst Graduate Student Senate, and Smith College Department of Comparative Literature.

    Forty graduate students from all over the country have been invited to bring their own perspectives and specializations to this momentous event. Crossroads represents the convergence of cultures, languages, literary genres, and varied histories and ideologies. The students will discuss their own research in the context of an interdisciplinary exchange, with the hopes of understanding and strengthening the underlying connections between their areas of focus.

    This is the first time the UMass OGSCL has hosted an event of such large proportions and the department expects that there will be many more conferences of this nature in the future. They intend to further positive social change through the continuous interaction of various humanities disciplines.

    This event is free and open to the public, and all who are interested in comparative cultural exchange are welcomed and encouraged to attend. More information is available at http://www.umass.edu/complit/ogscl/crossroads_2008_program.pdf

By Sierra Simmons