Sex, Death and Boredom

MAIN INFO

This year’s one-day Graduate English Association conference to be held on Friday, February 12, 2010 at the Lincoln Center campus asks presenters to engage the interconnections amongst sex, death, and boredom and to challenge conventional definitions of each. The conference features submissions from undergraduate and graduate students, professors and published writers. Abstracts arrived from Fordham, NYU, UPENN, Georgetown, Virginia Tech, Concordia, St. John’s, UCLA, and even Universidade Estadual de Campinas in Brazil. These submissions reflect ambitious work in Modern European History, Humanities and Sciences, Philosophy, Ethics, Theology, Creative Writing and English. Each panel will consist of three ten-minute presentations followed by a half-hour discussion amongst panelists, conference attendees, and a moderator. In addition to traditional academic papers, each panel will feature a creative literary submission. The day will conclude with a keynote presentation by Simon Critchley (New School), who will host a conversation on topics ranging from academia and boredom to hypochondria, from séances to sadomasochism. Thanks to generous support from GSAS, GSA, Academic Affairs, Humanities & Sciences, Literary Studies, Theology, and the English Department, SEX, DEATH, AND BOREDOM is free and open to all. If you’re a Facebook user, join our Facebook group for the most up-to-date information. For general questions, email: sexdeathandboredom@gmail.com For specific questions, contact Will Fenton: fenton@fordham.edu

SCHEDULE AND PANEL INFORMATION

Sex, Death, and Boredom Conference Panels Friday, February 12, 2010 8:30-9:15 Registration & Breakfast, 12th Floor Lounge, Lowenstein 9:30-10:30 Session A 1A “I’ve Been in More Holes:” Violent Sexuality Moderator: Anna Beskin • Jessica Hautsch, “‘How like a statue! I can scarcely conceive that form to be a corpse:’ Eroticizing the Death of Helen Jewett" • Will Hughes, “‘Does This Look Sexual To You?’: Sexual Acts, Textual Errors, and Secretary” 2A “A Desire Not Within One But In, Ago:” Modern Ennui Moderator: Sarah Cornish • Christianne M. Cain, “Delayed Sexual Gratification in Double Indemnity and Body Heat” • James Belflower, “Excepts from Commuter” (Poetry) • Macy Todd, “Boredom, Sex, Violence, and Other Related Phenomena: Stendhal and Dostoevsky” 3A “It’ll Really Pop With the Flashbulbs:” The New Sex Spectacle Moderator: Stephanie Pietros • Martin Northrop, “Too Long, Too Short, and Too Hot” • Patricia Grisafi, “Cyborg, Manifest(ed): Lady Gaga’s Sexual Grotesque” • Jocelyn Meermans, “Lesser Sensibilities,” Short Fiction 10:45-11:45 Session B 1B “Dark Corner Communions:” Inspired by Boredom Moderator: Mary Karmelek • Shane Wilkins, “Sadomasochism, Necrophilia, Bestiality: On Beating a Dead Horse” • Gregory Steirer, “Authenticity is Boring: From the Situationists to the End of History” • L. Lamar Wilson, “Selected Poems” 2B “Cataloging Severed Bits:” Medico-Scientific Innovation and the Erotic Moderator: Cara Erdheim • Danielle Spratt, “Bear-Men and Microscopes, Monarchy and Anarchy: Emasculating Humanity in Cavendish’s Blazing World” • Anna Katerina Sagal, “Science and the Sexual Body in Marquis de Sade's Justine” • K.M.A. Sullivan, “Selected Poems” 3B “The Same Sad Palette:” Creative Form and Death Moderator: Anthony DiPiazza • Blake Seidenshaw, “Chaos Linguistics: Derrida’s Doctrine of Signatures” • Stephanie Caruso, “Selected Poems” • Rebecca Bates, “The End of the Line: Line-Endings and Premature Death in Milton’s ‘Lycidas’” 12:00-1:15 Lunch Break 1:30-2:30 Session C 1C “He she he was always around:” Anti-bodies and Body Doubles Moderator: Martin Northrop • Jonathan T. Wolf, “From Fight Club to Project Mayhem: How Boredom Leads to Death” • Tara C. Foley, “Sentimentality and Sex: The Public Health Advocacy of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Margaret Sanger” • Amanda M. Calderón, “Truthful Things,” Short Fiction 2C “Without the Trappings of Romance:” Sadistic Sex and Style Moderator: Vernita Burrell • Elizabeth Porter, “‘The Grandly Passive Kind:’ Representations, Perversions, and a Final Reimagining of Sex, Death, and Boredom in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda” • Jeremy Valentine Freeman, “Death and the Pomo Artist: Tory Dent’s HIV, Mon Amour and What Silence Equals” • Robert Pergament, “Thoughts During” (Poetry) 3C “The Hands, Expert Craftsmen, Kill Quick:” Art As Escape and Death Moderator: Jane Van Slembrouck • Li Yun Alvaredo, “beneath earth and broken illegible stone” (Poetry) • Aline M. Ramos, “Negative Redemption: Art and Suffering in the 20th century” • Rachel O’Connell, “Social Death, Self Comfort, and Queer Time: Aesthetic and Decadent Theories of Creativity” 2:45-3:45 Session D 1D “When things Die:” The Landscape of Death in Literature Moderator: Rachael Williamson • Francis Pastorelle, “The Fall of the Flower Queen,” Short Fiction • Christine Gottlieb, “Kissing Corpses: Necrophilia and Vengeance in The Revenger’s Tragedy and The Second Maiden’s Tragedy” • L. Lamar Wilson, “Mired in the Muck of an Unsteady Middle Ground: Wallace Stevens’ Disquieting Stroll Through ‘Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery,’ Or ‘The Snow Man’ Revisited” 2D “You’re on Your Back and Can’t Breathe:” Sexual Violence and the Loss of Community Moderator: James Rowe • Daniela Spinelli, “Sex, Oppression, and Death in The Hour of the Star” • Michael Wollitz, “The Shifting Dynamics of Power and Sexual Violence in Robert Bolano’s 2666” • Janna Pate, “Selected Poems” 3D “Breaking Free into Naked, Wrinkled Flesh:” Literature and the Liberation of Desire Moderator: Marry Anne Myers • Jeffrey Coleman, “’It’s Complicated: Sexuality in The French Lieutenant’s Woman” • Louie Dean Valencia García, “The Dionysian Representation of Tadzio as a Reflection of Aschenbach’s Humanity in Death in Venice” • Cristina J. Baptista, “Waxen Idols, and Other Poems” 4:00-5:00 Keynote Presentation, “Sex is Deadly Boring: A Conversation with Simon Critchley,” Simon Critchley, 12th Floor Lounge, Lowenstein

LOCATION INFO

Our conference will be held at the Fordham Lincoln Center Campus in Manhattan. Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus is located at the northwest corner of Columbus Avenue at 60th Street (113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023).  For directions, please click HERE.