EGSA Symposium Friday, Oct. 15
English graduate students at GW are a busy and productive group. In addition to the usual–taking classes, studying for and taking graduate exams, writing master’s and PhD theses, teaching and TAing–they do a tremendous amount of work organizing social and academic activities. These include research discussion groups, dissertation reading groups, and the occasional EGSA night out.
To highlight graduate student research, this year the GW English Graduate Student Association (EGSA), the group that represents graduate students, is sponsoring a symposium, “Emerging Scholarship: New Directions in the Study of English Literature and Culture.” The event will be held Friday, Oct. 15 from 9 am-1 pm in Rome 771. The program includes four graduate student papers, a keynote address, and lunch. The papers are:
- Erin Sheley, “Victim Narratives and ‘Truth’ in Criminal Sentencing”
- Tawnya Ravy, “Geographies of Intimacy in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth”
- Theodora Danylevich, “Sein S(t)ein: On the Affectivity of Being a Mediating Structure: A Joint Reading of Tender Buttons: ‘Objects’ and Phenomenology of Spirit: ‘Observing Reason’”
- Robert Brown, “‘Negative Space’: The Anti-Establishment Identities of Kurt Cobain and Henry David
Prof. McRuer is the author of Crip Theory:Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. Prof. Elman, who received her PhD from GWU in American studies, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University.
The organizers of the EGSA Symposium hope the event will strengthen graduate community at GW. According to EGSA Vice President Leigha McReynolds:
When EGSA was re-formed last fall, the board’s main goals were to foster a graduate community and provide graduate students with resources and support. The Symposium will help us meet these goals by providing a forum for graduate students to come together to share and discuss their work with their peers and the faculty. We hope that, after several years of continued success, the symposium will eventually evolve into a graduate conference, which will allow the GWU English graduate program to strengthen its relationship with other graduate programs and to provide students with a larger forum for academic engagement.
This event is open to everyone: current students (undergraduate and graduate), prospective students, faculty, friends. Please come out on Friday to support the EGSA, and don’t forget to “Like” them/RSVP on Facebook.
