Sunday, March 14, 2010

2010 Colloquium

This past Friday and Saturday the graduate students of the English department held their annual colloquium. MAs, PhDs, and MFAs from seven local universities presented and discussed their work throughout a wonderful day of panels.

The event began Friday night at the keynote lecture. The first order of business was to thank everyone who organized or would participate in our yearly conference (see more of those thank-yous below!) and to award the "I have no EGO award," also known as "The Beagle." Each year graduate students nominate the professors they would like to to recognize for their hard work and dedication on behalf of grad students. While many of our across-the-board outstanding faculty were nominated this year, professor Gwen Bergner received the most votes and took home the trophy.

Dr. Kristina Straub of Carnegie Mellon gave her presentation, "Performing The London Cuckolds," to a receptive audience of professors, students, and guests from other universities. Comparing adaptations of Edward Ravenscroft's 1681 play, the talk provided an engaging look at how performance can reinterpret notions of sexuality, gender, and class. EGO thanks Dr. Straub for being a part of the event with her wonderful lecture and participation at panels the next day.

Saturday saw the graduate students presenting their work, moderating panels for their peers, or attending to and discussing the papers given. Praise for the strength of the papers presented this year abounded. The colloquium again enjoyed a wonderful turnout, one of the many positives our event offers for our own students and our guests from other schools. We are especially grateful to the faculty who attended the keynote or the panels. Your support means everything to us and we were so happy to see so many of you stop by.

EGO would again like to thank the Student Government Association and the English Department for their support of the colloquium. A special thanks to Marsha Bissett, Michele Marshall, and Greg Thumm for their help. More thanks go to Cari Carpenter, Bryan Coyle, Rebecca Schwab, and Lindsey Joyce.

And still more are owed to the incredible organizers of the colloquium: Andrea Bebell, Erin Johns, and Teresa Pershing. The organizers did an amazing job continuing the tradition of the colloquium and have worked so very hard since the beginning of the academic year to ensure its success. They did, quite simply, an outstanding job.

Lastly, EGO would like to express its gratitude to everyone who agreed to present papers, or to moderate, or just came by to support the colloquium. Your participation made it a great conference, and we are so pleased that we are a part of such a wonderful community.

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