Program: Outcasts and Outliers

55th Annual Comparative Literature Conference, CSULB

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Session I: 8-9:30 am (UTC 3-4:30 pm)

Panel 1: Intersectional Identity in the Novel

Moderator: Dr. Pravina Cooper, California State University, Long Beach

I. Intersectionality of class, race and gender in Austin Clarke’s The Polished Hoe

Marietta Kosma, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University

2. Identities of the Periphery and Indeterminate Selves: The Pursuit of Stability in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth

Manasvini Rai, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, India

3. Freaks, Feasts, and Farce: Bakhtin’s Grotesque Realism and American Racial Harmony in Frank Ross’ Oreo

Casey Manogue, California State University, Long Beach

4. Heathcliff: The Byronic Misfit

Farhat Binte Alam, Independent scholar

 

Panel 2: National Identity

Moderator: Dr. Kathryn Chew, California State University, Long Beach

I. Defining Cypriot Literature: Connections and Departures from Regional Affiliations in the Eastern Mediterranean

Dr. Daniele Nunziata, University of Oxford

2. A Personality under Construction: Black Milk and Conflicting Identities

Hediye Özkan, Aksaray University, Turkey

3. Writing in the Other’s language in a multicultural and multilingual society: Reflections on In the Shade of the Jujube Tree by Jeries Tannous

Dr. Athar Haj Yahya, Beit Berl College, Israel

4. The Politics of Accommodation: Hinduisation and Negotiations around the Performance of the Hook Swinging (Charak) Festival

Subhankar Dutta, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

 

Session II: 9:30-11 am (UTC 4:30-6 pm)

Panel 3: Affective Outcasts: Christa Wolf and Friedrich Nietzsche

Moderator: Taylor Espinoza, California State University, Long Beach

I. Christa Wolf and Friedrich Nietzsche: Prolegomena to an Odd Couple

Dr. Robert Blankenship, California State University, Long Beach

2. ‘Outcast’ is a State of Mind: The Subjectivity of East German Passports and Other State Documents in Christa Wolf’s City of Angels

Hailey Fulcomer, California State University, Long Beach

3. Casting In/Casting Out: Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Truth and the Creation of Fringe Groups Through Rhetoric

Kathleen Moriarty, California State University, Long Beach

4. Weaponized Love: The Priest as Mainstream Outsider in Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals

Luke Beller, Johns Hopkins University

 

Panel 4: Exiles, Wanderers, and Refugees

Moderator: Tess Morales, California State University, Long Beach

I. ‘Join the Community of Losers’: Lucette Lagnado’s Search for Belonging

Ichrak Issaoui, University of Bordeaux Montaigne, France

2. The Author and his Character as Political Exiles and Freedom Fighters: To Win Being Hunted Down

Dr. Lidiia Romanenko, Mariupol State University, Ukraine

Dr. Natalia Marakhovska, Mariupol State University, Ukraine

Denys Marakhovskyi, Mariupol State University, Ukraine

3. Common Flâneurs of the Crisis Era. Wandering Outcasts on the Margins of City Life During the Time of Economic Decay 

Dr. Olga Szmidt, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

4. Challenging the Bias of the Refugee as “Other”: Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains

Rilee Mello, California State University, Long Beach

 

Session III: 11 am-12:30 pm (UTC 6-7:30 pm)

Panel 5: 18th-century Libertines: Outcasts or Cosmopolitans in Literary Texts?

Moderator: Dr. Clorinda Donato, California State University, Long Beach

I. Pleasure in Discourse: Cosmopolitan Performance in Crébillon’s Strayings of the Heart and Mind, or Memoirs of M. de Meilcour (Les Egarements du coeur et de l’esprit)

Isabelle Kelman, California State University, Long Beach

2. The Evolution of the Libertine Subject: From Dom Juan to Madame de Merteuil

Laetitia Chance, California State University, Long Beach

3. The West’s Favorite Outlier:  Giacomo Casanova

Dr. Clorinda Donato, California State University, Long Beach

 

Panel 6: Social Injustice

Moderator: Kelsey Bright, California State University, Long Beach

I. Where is Grandma? Outcasting the grandmother figure from Palestinian adaptations of the fairytale Red Riding Hood

Loaay Wattad, Tel Aviv University, Israel

2. A Sociological Perspective on the Elderly in the Fairytale Realm

Viana Ly, California State University, Long Beach

3. Vacuumizing the Dalit Identity: Upper-caste writers and the bubble of representation in Indian novels

Uday Khanna, University of Delhi, India

4. CFIDS: Bearing Witness to Collective Suffering 

Zadie Baker, California State University, Long Beach

 

Session IV: 12:30 pm -2 pm (UTC 7:30-9 pm)

Panel 7: Alienation in Rock and Roll

Moderator: Dr. David Shafer, California State University, Long Beach

I. A Real Texas Maverick: Roky Erickson

Dr. Pascal Dupuy, Université de Rouen, France

2. A Good Chord on a Bad Guitar – Los Angeles Punk in the Late 70s

Kjehl Johansen, Commissioner, Los Angeles County Superior Court

3. David Berman and a World of Phonies

Dr. David Shafer, California State University, Long Beach

 

Panel 8: Afrofuturism

Moderator: Dr. Katherine McLoone, California State University, Long Beach

I. We Gave You Life: Afrofuturism and Quare Identity in Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer

Malika Rahim, California State University, Long Beach

2. Afrofuturism: The Subgenre of Science Fiction That Embraces Black Identity and Experience

Bianca Lopez Mendez, California State University, Long Beach

3. Digital Necromancy: Hegemony and Counter-Conduct in Soundcloud Rap

Ryan Prewitt, Saint Louis University, Missouri

4. Fertility Does Not Equate Womanhood: The Conflicting Perspectives of Conceiving in Yerma by Federico Garcia Lorca

Jessica Garcia, California State University, Long Beach

 

Session V: 2-3:30 pm (UTC 9-10:30 pm)

Panel 9: Outcasts in German Literature 1: The Outcast Novella and its Cast of … Outcasts

Moderator: Xochitl San Vicente, California State University, Long Beach

I. The Legacy of Schiller’s “unloved” Novellas: Early Gothic Trash and its Canonical Progeny 

Dr. Jeffrey L. High, California State University, Long Beach

2. The Outsider as Leader: Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas and AMC’s The Terror

Natalie Martz, California State University, Long Beach

3. The German Novella and De-Colonialization: Stefan Zweig’s Der Amokläufer and Kleist’s Die Verlobung in St. Domingo

Elaine Chen, Harvard University

 

Panel 10: Outliers in Contemporary Narratives

Moderator: Levon Parseghian, California State University, Long Beach

I. Uncovering the Margin / Silencing the Abject: The Ottoman Armenian Drama on the Contemporary Turkish Stage

Şeyda Nur Yıldırım, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey

2. Taoist Texts in Contemporary US Culture 

Dr. Brian Glaser, Chapman University

3. Uday Prakash: An Outlier in Indian Literature

Dr. Subhas Yadav, University of Hyderabad, India

4. Coloniality in Late Twentieth-Century Arabic Prison Narrative

Ayah Wakkad, University of Kansas

 

Session VI: 3:30-5 pm (UTC 10:30 pm – 12 am)

Plenary Talk

Moderator: Dr. Crystal Yin Lie, California State University, Long Beach

After almost 100 days: Race, Disability, and A Head

Dr. Therí Pickens, Bates College

 

Session VII: 5-7 pm (UTC 12 am-2 am)

Moderator: Dr. Kathryn Chew, California State University, Long Beach

screening of Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski 

Dr. Stephen Cooper, California State University, Long Beach

 

Thursday, April 8, 2021

Session VIII: 8-9:30 am (UTC 3-4:30 pm)

Panel 11: Digital Turns in Art and Literature

Moderator: Dr. Pravina Cooper, California State University, Long Beach

I. Reimagining the Canon: A Comparative Study of Digital Art

Ms. Mridula Sharma, University of Delhi, India

2. Unveiling the marginals: A study of the Danmei novel Mo Dao Zu Shi as an outlier in literature   

Sreelakshmi P S, Maharaja’s College Autonomous, India

3. From Typewriters to Twitter: What is Digital Media’s Impact on Modern English Literature?

Mariam Sahar, California State University, Long Beach

4. Blacksad and Get Out: How Organizations Built on Social Injustice and Hatred are Able to Thrive

Brandon Virgo, California State University, Long Beach

 

Panel 12: Art and Marginalized Voices

Moderator: Xochitl San Vicente, California State University, Long Beach

I. Artists and their place in the system of naïve and outsider art

Andrey Khilchenko, Rostov Regional Youth Society Movement, Russia

2. A space for one’s own. Affective archives in literature and art 

Magdalena Płotała, University of Silesia, Poland

3. Provincial Trash as Mythical Artifact: The Poetics of Discarded Matter in the Works of Bruno Schulz

Aleksandra Katarzyna Stokowiec, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

4. A Literary Untouchable and the Forgotten Surrealist

Camilo Villanueva, Murray State University, Kentucky

 

Session IX: 9:30-11 am (UTC 4:30-6 pm)

Panel 13: War, Destruction, and Dystopia

Moderator: Leila Gonzalez, California State University, Long Beach

I. The Archetypal Dystopian Outlier in John Wyndham’s Works

Hannah Elizabeth Mathew, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

2. Debating Distance: Modernity, Abstraction, and Conformity in Phil Klay’s Short Fiction

Dr. Trevor Jackson, Modesto Junior College

3. Vulnerability, Precarity, and Absurdism: Parallels between Camus’ The Plague, Soderbergh’s Contagion, and COVID-19

Jerald Kin Lara, California State University, Long Beach

4. The Role of Trauma in Relationships in Augusten Burrough’s Running With Scissors and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You

Emily Clark, California State University, Long Beach

 

Panel 14: Life Writing and Identity

Moderator: Adriana Concepcion, California State University, Long Beach

I. Erasing Erasure: Writing the Self in Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries

Sharon Mugg, University of Kansas

2. Outcastes of Literature: A Study of Biographies of Indian Subaltern Women

Dr. Rashimi Attri, Aligarh Muslim University, India

3. A Dalit woman reads and acts: A critique

Aatika Singh, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

4. How Literature Breaks the Medical Gaze in Rita Charon’s “To Render the Lives of Patients” 

David Bonilla Carcamo, California State University, Long Beach

 

Session X: 11-12:30 pm (UTC 6-7:30 pm)

Panel 15: Cultural Studies

Moderator: Dr. Vlatka Velčić, California State University, Long Beach

I. The Gothic: A Genre of Outcasts and Outliers

Megan Pierce, California State University, Long Beach

2. Outcasts in Literature and Media: From Moss’ “Exile” to Persona 4 and its Golden Animation

Eugene Shin, California State University, Long Beach

3. Exploring Outcast Identity Through Fantasy: Angels in America and The Archive of Alternative Endings

Madalyn Spangler, California State University, Long Beach

4. The Tribulations of Widows and Child Marriage as Shown by Nepali Films

Obeid Uddin, California State University, Long Beach

 

Panel 16: Beyond Capes and Cowls: Comics Canons and Retconning

Moderator: Amy Desuza-Riehm, California State University, Long Beach

Roundtable discussion with industry experts:

Ezra Clay Daniels

Corinna Bechko

Hector Navarro

​Sam Humphries

 

Session XI: 12:30-2 pm UTC 7:30-9 pm)

Panel 17: Lamentations in Music

Moderator: Letitia Deon, California State University, Long Beach

I. Lawanen Kurdish “Lamentations”

Dr. Amir Sharifi, California State University, Long Beach

Dr. Ali Ashouri, San Diego State University

2. Misinterpretation of Bluebeard’s Castle

Michael Valentekovic, California State University, Long Beach

3. Lovers’ Anthem—How One Folkloric Adaptation Divides the Caucasus

Houman Hazad, California State University, Long Beach

4. Critique of the Courtly Class in Ballad Analogues of the Clerk’s Tale

Orit Klein Vartsky, Tel Aviv University, Israel

 

Panel 18: Disability, Identity, and Representation

Moderator: Dr. Crystal Yin Lie, California State University, Long Beach

I. Resisting Legibility: Dyslexia in Alan Hollinghurst’s The Sparsholt Affair

Dr. Helena Gurfinkel, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

2. ‘Shit could get menacing’: Kanye West, Blackness, and Understanding Disability

Dr. Erin Lee Mock, University of West Georgia

3. The World Without Sound: A Quiet Place and the Resistance to the Artificial Insemination of Information

Dr. Shipra Tholia and Dr. Amar Singh, Banaras Hindu University, India

4. The vulnerable outcasts of Leros island: institutionalized mentally ill, political exiles and contemporary refugees in Simona Vinci’s La prima verità

Dr. Amanda Skamagka, University of Athens, Greece

 

Session XII: 2-3:30 pm (UTC 9-10:30 pm)

Workshop: How to think about Race, Gender, Class and Ability

Moderator: Dr. Crystal Yin Lie, California State University, Long Beach

Led by Dr. Therí Pickens, Bates College

 

Panel 19: Outcasts in Television and Film

Moderator: Dr. Katherine McLoone, California State University, Long Beach

I. Mixedness Comes of Age: Examining Multiracial Portrayals in Young Adult TV Shows

Dr. Marc Johnston Guerrero and Lisa Combs, The Ohio State University

2. Outliers, Outcasts, and Outsiders in Captain Marvel: The Emancipatory Function of Subversive Selfhood on the Margins of Public Memory 

Dr. Jose Rodriguez, California State University, Long Beach

3. “You can’t sit with us!”: The high school social reject as Marxist hero in Hollywood teen movies

Ananya Ray, Jadavpur University, India

4. Two Levels of Outcasts in Movies: Joker and Happiness

Armando Gonzalez, California State University, Long Beach

 

Panel 20: Outcasts in German Literature 2: Flâneurs on the Outside, Looking In

Moderator: Dionne Agawu, Austrian Fulbright Exchange Teacher Program

I. Thomas Mann’s Runaways: The Anti-Flaneur and the Flight from the Life of Modernity

Courtney Yamagiwa, Austrian Fulbright Exchange Teacher Program

2. The Living Necropolis: Movement and Vampirism in Modern Cityscapes

Vlad Sirbu, University of California, Riverside

3. The Return of the Flaneur and the Birth of the Walking Simulator: Defining a Genre from the Peripheries of Play

Curtis Maughan, Vanderbilt University

 

Session XIII: 3:30-5 pm (UTC 10:30 pm- 12 am)

Panel 21: Gender and Society

Moderator: Dr. Elizabeth Dahab, California State University, Long Beach

I. The ‘In-Between Place’: Exile and Disrupted Gender Identities in the Novels by Tomás Eloy Martínez

Mariya Dzhyoyeva, University of Toronto, Canada

2. Others amongst the Outcasts: Food, Deprivation and the Politics of Care in Autobiographical Narratives by Dalit Women in the English Translation

Ms. Pratibha, Ph.D. Research Scholar, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Assistant Professor (English), Sharda University, India

3. Fiction isn’t Real but Women are: the Male Gaze in Fiction and Why it is a Problem

Isabella Arnett, California State University, Long Beach

4. “I know I can do this”: Personal Identity and Voice in Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you

Conner David McCain, composer and musician

 

Session XIV: 5-6:30 pm (UTC 12 am- 2 am)

Panel 22: Queer Narratives

Moderator: Trevor Teafatiller, California State University, Long Beach

I. Queering This, Queering That: Absence of Queer narratives in the syllabi of the Departments of Literary Studies in Indian Universities

Dipanwita Paul, Jadavpur University, India

2. Voicing the margin: Blogging as textual visibilization of Northeast India’s queer community

Lede E. Miki Pohshna, North Eastern Hill University, India

3. Genderqueer Rome: Analysing Depictions of Nonbinary and Transgender Characters in Ancient Roman Poetry

Gillian Duane, California State University, Long Beach

4. Hijras (Transgenders) as Outcasts and Outliers in Indian Society: An Analysis of Mahesh Dattani’s Seven Steps Around the Fire

Monika Kaushik and Suman Sigroha, Indian Institute of Technology