Eight current graduate students and four current faculty from the Cal State LA English Department presented papers at the 112th annual conference of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA). PAMLA, one of the regional conferences of the Modern Language Association, held its annual conference in Riverside this year drawing an unprecedented number of Cal State LA faculty and staff. "It was gratifying to see the sheer solidarity of a Cal State LA presence," commented Jonathan Lee, one of the graduate student presenters, who added "many people were surprised by our numbers."
Some participants referred to the value of their prior participation in Significations, Cal State LA's annual graduate student conference now entering its twentieth year. Second-year graduate student Amanda Kong expressed some surprise: "I didn't quite expect to have so much fun at an academic conference, but the atmosphere at PAMLA was both thought-provoking and friendly. Everyone was very encouraging and the research was so interesting." Or as fellow graduate student Renee Grodsky suggested, "PAMLA: a place where nerds realize just how cool they actually are."
Those new to academic conferences came away with very positive feelings. Juliana Kubicki thought PAMLA "was a great experience . . . to be surrounded by like-minded individuals, especially in an environment that fosters the sharing, rather than the hoarding, of knowledge." Gabriela Valenzuela thought everyone was "incredibly nice and offered great constructive criticism." She was so impressed that she has agreed to serve as a presiding officer for the American Literature after 1865 panel next year in Portland.
Juliana Kubicki prepares to present at PAMLA
Cal State LA Faculty Presenters at PAMLA (with links to paper proposals)
The Duplicitous Nature of Empathy in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (Jeffery Anderson, California State University, Los Angeles)
Spectacles, Spectacle, and Specters: A Gatsby for the 21st Century (Christine Danelski, California State University, Los Angeles)
2714 Marsh Street is Everywhere: Demonic Spaces in Thomas McGrath’s Poetry (Andrew Lyndon Knighton, California State University, Los Angeles)
Marketing the Middle Eastern Memoir: Escapee Narratives and the Politics of the Exotic (Atef Laouyene, California State University, Los Angeles)
Cal State LA Graduate Student Presenters at PAMLA (with links to paper proposals)
Monotony and Metonymy in Labels, Identity, and Culture: Psyche of a Well Dressed Killer (Anni Aslanian, California State University, Los Angeles)
How Magic Problematizes Evil in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (Renee Grodsky, California State University, Los Angeles)
The Transformation of Lady Macbeth: Witchcraft and Kingship in Shakespeare’s Tragedy (Katharine Henry, California State University, Los Angeles)
Freakish Bodies: Poe's "Hop-Frog" and the Spectacle of Difference and Disability (Amanda Kong, California State University, Los Angeles)
Re-Fashioning the Old South: Material Culture and Deconstruction in William Faulkner (Juliana Kubicki, California State University, Los Angeles)
Playwriting: Mass Effect and the Use of Video Games as Digital Rhetoric (Jonathan Lee, California State University, Los Angeles)
Misplaced Sympathies in The House of Mirth: The Dangers of Identifying with a Non-Entity (Gabriela Valenzuela, California State University, Los Angeles)
Cézanne and Stevens: The Importance of an Individual Experience in Modern Art (Emily Yasonia, California State University, Los Angeles)