English Undergraduate Conference

The first session I attended was Session 4 from 1:25-2:15. In this session the panelists were presenting there research they had done. The first panelist was Sara Kirkpatrick. Her research was on "Temptation and Martyrdom: Religious Symbolism in Christina Rossetti's 'The Goblin Market'." The presenter explained what the poem was about and how she found religious symbolism within the poem. Her PowerPoint presentation showed pictures that came from the poem, which helped me to see what the poem was about. The symbolism she found was with the temptation of fruit in the poem. Sara also read from Genesis about the temptation of the fruit from the tree of knowledge and evil.
The second presenter was Theo Reddinger who did research on "Sherlock Holmes and the Media's Negative Influence." The presenter was connecting how a book could influence behavior. There was the example of work by Thomas De Quincey and his fascination with opium. Theo's main question was asking, "Was Whitney abusing drugs because De Quincey made them seem appealing?"
The third presenter, Natalie Corkos, researched and wrote a paper on "The Portrayal of Women in Horror Films." She gave examples from past to present movies showing how horror films are still negative towards women. She used both sexist and feminist theories to back up her research. One example Natalie used was the Phantom of the Opera. The character Christine is empowered and overtaken by the phantom. She is the one who needs to be rescued. Another example was Dracula. In this young women are shown as being sexual and being dependent. The presenter also gave the point that if women are the heroines or seen as being strong, they are described as being emotionally unstable or are presented as being extremely sexual.
All three of the presenters stated that they had a personal interest for the topic that they were presenting. I saw that each one of them enjoyed what they had research and wanted to continue to research about their topics. They also stated that by doing this research they are more aware of situations going on today related to their topic. I am hoping I get the same reaction when I am working on my social action research project.

The second session I went to listen to was Session 5 from 2:30-3:20. Laken Tassos was the first presenter and wrote an identity paper about Bill Strickland's speech at IUP. She expressed numerous times that Strickland's words inspired her in so many ways. Laken said one empowering statement Strickland said was, "do not give up on the poor kids." I thought this also was an important point. I read his book Make the Impossible Possible, and found what he did with the students at Manchester Bidwell inspiring. Laken read her paper aloud to us and you could tell this meant a lot to her. She is planning on taking what she has learned from Strickland and applying it to her future teaching career.
The second presenter, Heidi Zibura, wrote a paper on Islamophobia. She researched and showed how the government and media portrays them in a bad way. Many people have predetermined concepts of who they are as people. Heidi made the point that the government works to closely with the media and controls what is shown and presented. The main point of her paper was that we need to shed the bias and try to break down the barriers for others.
Amanda Petrunak was the last presenter and she did research on "The Influence of Family." She wrote about how Spain is very family oriented. They are more family oriented than what people are here in the United States. In Spain, businesses shut down in the middle of the day in order to have lunch with their families. People in Spain are also given a month leave from work to have vacations with their families; which is paid by the way.
Each one of the presenters showed that there are so many cultures in the world. They want to take what they have learned and researched with them in their lives and use it in their careers. There is always going to be culture diversity and people need to learn more and be more accepting. One point Laken made was that she wanted to be able to have her students share different experiences from their culture and lives. This would give the student's peers an exposure to other cultures. They could learn at an earlier age about other cultures and grow to be more understanding of diversified cultures.