A record-breaking dozen PhD students from IUP’s Literature and Criticism program took center stage at the fifty-sixth annual Northeastern Modern Language Association (NeMLA) conference, held in Philadelphia March 6–9. The students’ diverse presentations reflect the program’s commitment to scholarly excellence, community building, and professional development.
Pictured (left to right): Joshua Calendrella, Cole Phillips, Josie Kochendorfer, Rachel Martin, N.K. Condua, Stacey Hoffer, Kenneth Sherwood
The student presenters included:
- Sarah Abuhandara — Reimagining Hybridity: A Feminist Critique of Gender and Colonialism in Octavia Butler’s Dawn
- Ahlam Abulaila — Writing as Resistance in Mourid Barghouti’s I Was Born There, I Was Born Here
- Adepeju Adenuga — Translation and the African Literary Experience
- Joshua Calendrella — Circling Sinai with Yehoash and Avrom Sutzkever: Multilingual Mythopoetic in Yiddish Landscapes
- K. Condua — Black Boys, Queer Trauma, and the Bible Belt
- Haleigh Hayes — A Tincture of Grassroots Revolution: Contemporary Witches as Guerilla Fighters for Social Change
- Stacey Hoffer — From Medusa to Melusine: Feminine Power in George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley
- Josie Kochendorfer — ‘I Am The Monster You Created’: Destabilizing Hag Horror in Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance
- Elizabeth Laughlin — The Tortured Poet: Melancholic Charm in Emily Dickinson and Taylor Swift
- Rachel Martin — Reflections Between Languages: Self-Translation in the Poetry of Sara Daniele Rivera
- Tabitha Parker —Communication in ‘Follow the Drinkin Gourd,’ Kamau Brathwaite, and M. Nourbese Philip
- Cole Phillips — Jones Very and the Translation of God
Pictured: Adepeju Adenuga, presenting; Rachel Martin, panel moderator.
Literature and Criticism students were joined by Mahmoud Othman, an IUP PhD student in Composition and Applied Linguistics, presenting on The Difficulties & The Applicability of Critical Pedagogy in the Egyptian Educational Context.
Faculty from the IUP Department of Language, Literature, and Writing also presented scholarship at the convention, including:
- Tanya Heflin — Afrofuturism and Feminist Science Fiction in the Teenage Diaries of Octavia E. Butler, 1962–1968
- Christopher Orchard — Critiquing the Blood Ties of Family in The Tempest in Philip Osment’s This Island’s Mine (1988)
- Kenneth Sherwood — Beyond the Lady Lovelace Objection: AI’s Place in Creative Literature
- Dawn Smith-Sherwood — ACTFL IPA: Engaged Learning for Undergraduate Modern Language Students at All Levels
Their accomplishments highlight not only their individual dedication, but the vibrant intellectual community within IUP’s Literature and Criticism program. We commend them for their scholarly contributions and commitment to advancing the field and building professional networks.