Category Archives: Annual Grad Student Symposium

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Faculty News, Student News

The 2016 Graduate English Symposium

On Saturday, May 14th, a few MA students, alumni, family members, program faculty, and the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts gathered together at Mercy College for the 2016 Graduate English “Writing Image Text” symposium. The symposium took place in Maher Hall, the headquarters for the School of Liberal Arts on the college’s Dobbs Ferry campus. Below are a few photos from and information about the event.

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The two panels of presenters: seated, l-r, Dr. Miriam Gogol, Kit Gower, and Carol Mitchell; standing, l-r, Gloria Buckley, Nicholas Cialini, and Dr. Christopher Loots.

The MA program director, Dr. Loots, opened the symposium with welcomes and remarks, and then led the first panel sharing his research on “Entropy/Negentropy in Cormac McCarthy’s Fiction.” Gloria Buckley followed with her paper on “Whitman’s Free Verse: A Lyrical Embrace Shaped by Oration, Opera, Nature or War?” Nicholas Cialini, a recent alumnus and also now adjunct faculty in English at Mercy College, concluded the first panel with his study of “Eliot, The Eagles, Dylan, The Beatles: Modernism and Rock n’ Roll.”

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Following a lunch break, Dr. Gogol led the second panel with a discussion of her forthcoming book project, a collection of essays on Dreiser and his representations of women workers, for which she is the editor and a contributor (Dr. Gogol is the founder of the International Theodore Dreiser Society and a leading scholar in the field). Kit Gower followed with her study of “The Philosopher’s Dog: How Animal Characters in Children’s Literature Act as Guides for Transformation.” Carol Mitchell concluded the day’s research presentations with her paper on “Henry James’ What Maisie Knew and D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’:The Financial Morality Behind a (Literary) Childhood.”

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Below, Dean Jhashi (left) watches the second panel of presenters along with Dr. Dugan and Gloria.

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Below, Kit and Carol prepare for their panel to begin. Presenting CAN be fun!

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All in all, it was an afternoon filled with collegiality, ideas, good conversation and laughter. All of us here in the MA program and the greater School of Liberal Arts would like to thank all of our panelists and their guests for traveling to come together for this event. We look forward to seeing some and hopefully all of you again, as well as seeing some new faces, at next year’s 2017 symposium.

Annual Grad Student Symposium

Seeking Feedback About Spring Symposium / Gathering

In years past the graduate English program has put together a symposium, sort of a mini-conference right here in Maher Hall, for interested MA English students at which to gather and read aloud a scholarly paper, as well as to simply meet some fellow students and professors. Graduate students and professional scholars often attend and read at local, regional, and national conferences, so this symposium can provide a friendly small-scale introduction to the conference experience. And for anyone who reads a paper, it becomes a line-item you can list under the scholarship section on your CV (click here to read more about the CV). The issue in recent years has been that, because our student-body has shifted in the past decade from being traditional/on-campus to being entirely distance-learning, we don’t necessarily have enough students within convenient driving/traveling distance of the campus who are interested in participating in the symposium.

Well, maybe this year will be different, and that’s what I’m seeking feedback about. If you would be interested in attending a program-hosted symposium, please send me a note at cloots@mercy.edu letting me know. If we get enough student interest we’ll schedule an afternoon, perhaps near to commencement in May so that anyone traveling to walk in the commencement ceremony can attend, during which we’ll have a catered reception and have a few panels sharing a bit of our scholarship/writing aloud to one another. Any topic, really any type of writing would be appropriate to share, including creative. Again, if you’re interested, just write me a note letting me know, please. I’ll update everyone here on this blog later this semester based on the feedback I receive.

 

Annual Grad Student Symposium

W.I.T. Symposium POSTPONED until next school year.

The W.I.T Conference is being postponed until the fall so that we can coordinate a bigger turnout. We’re thinking of collaborating with the undergraduate English program to have student panels and MA grad student panels. It would be good for our undergraduates to hear some of the more developed studies that our grad students or alumni are generating. Anyway that will take some more coordination and so we’re going to postpone the April event and try to get it up and running in the next school year. Thank you to those who volunteered to participate; I hope you’ll be up to participate again when the symposium comes to fruition. Best, all, -CL