Program for the 58th Annual Comparative Literature Conference
Writers of Extreme Situations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective
TUESDAY, APRIL 16
Session 1, 8-9:30 am PST / UTC 3-4:30 pm
Panel 1: Christa Wolf: A Writer of Extreme Times for Extreme Times
Moderator: Minh Nguyen, CSULB
Location: AS 385
Dr. Robert Blankenship (CSULB), ‘Imminent dangers, all fatal’: Reading Christa Wolf’s Divided Heaven in the Age of Doomscrolling
Barbara Ward (independent scholar), Invisible Clouds: Cultural Evolution of Language in Accident: A Day’s News by Christa Wolf
Emery Pham (CSULB), A Story of Liminality: The Significance of the In-Between Fate in Christa Wolf’s Cassandra
Lani Chavez (CSULB), Gen Z Doesn’t Want to Work Anymore: The Reaction to East German Socialism in Fräulein Schmetterling Echoes through Modern Sentiments of Work Culture
Session 2, 9:30-11 am PST / UTC 4:30-6 pm
Panel 2: Trauma, Scars, and Repair
Moderator: Amy Desuza-Riehm (CSULB)
Location: AS 385
Dr. John Kennedy (Western Carolina University), Counterfactual Central American Poetics: Grief, Longing, and Repair
Jessica Montero (CSULB), Bearing Scars: Resilience and Unresolved Trauma in The Tattooed Soldier
Leslie Garcia (CSULB), Asylum Seekers and Their Fate in the US
Roberto Soto (CSULB), Unraveling Pandemic Misinformation: The Nexus Between Dishonesty and Conspiracy Theories in Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s The Real Anthony Fauci
Session 3, 11 am-12:30 pm PST / UTC 6-7:30 pm
Panel 3: Surviving Trauma
Moderator: Levon Parseghian (CSULB)
Location: AS 385
Dr. José Rodriguez (CSULB), Ethical Cognizance in Survival Stories: Exploring Subversive Identity, Intentionality, and Agency in Moral Ordeals
Hillorie McLarty (Middle Tennessee State University), This is a Story Not to Pass On: Sethe’s Trauma and Loss in Beloved
Ayah El Reda (CSULB), “The Old Will Die and the Young Will Forget”: Ghassan Kanafani’s “The Land of Sad Oranges” and “Letter From Gaza”
Kattiana Etka (CSULB), Journey Through Trauma: Navigating The Paths of Addiction in Carr’s The Night of the Gun
Session 4, 12:30-2 pm PST / UTC 7:30-9 pm
Panel 4: Unveiling the Resilience: Women’s Survival in Extreme Situations through the French Language
Moderator: Dr. Maria Sanchez-Reyes (CSULB)
Location: AS 385
Samantha O’Mara-Mezzano (CSULB), Surviving and Forgiving Adultery during 1500s Europe
Victoria Ferreyra (CSULB), The creation of an identity, sexuality, and gender through writing: A study of trauma and memory processing in the life of Rachilde, a fin-de-siècle gender-non-conforming woman
Yen-Tran Le (CSULB), Ru by Kim Thúy: A Novel with Film Sequences
Session 4, 12:30-2 pm PST / UTC 7:30-9 pm
Panel 5: Violence Against Women: Survival and Trauma Narratives
Moderator: Dr. Rajbir Judge (CSULB)
Location: MHB 315
Dr. Susan Cherie Beam (York College of Pennsylvania), “Assault buries the self”: Reading Trauma in Sexual Assault Survival Narratives
Jessica King (CSULB), Sexual Violence in Media Impacting Disabled Women
Dr. Amir Sharifi (CSULB) and Dr. Ali Ashouri (SDSU), Linguistic Implications of “Jin, Jian, Azadi” Slogan (Woman, Life, Freedom) at Local and Global Levels
Christina Schwartz (CSULB), The Cost of Girlhood: Acceptance and Sacrifice in Kij Johnson’s “Ponies”
Session 5, 2-3:30 pm PST / UTC 9-10:30 pm
Panel 6: Wars and Victimhood in Texts and Media
Moderator: Dr. Katherine McLoone (CSULB)
Location: MHB 315
Dr. Katherine Hammitt (CSU Dominguez Hills), Representing Nuclear Entanglements in the Pacific: Les Champignons de Paris
Bahar Momeni (University of Texas at Dallas), Resilience and Rebellion: Artistic Expressions of Identity and Democracy in The Trees We Carry
Tyler Wadman (CSULB), The Scars of the Past: The Polarity of Victimhood in Obsidian Entertainment’s Knights of the Old Republic II
Session 6, 3:30-5 pm PST / UTC 10:30 pm-12 am
Musical Performance by Dr. Adrià Martin Mor (CSULB) & CWL Graduation Celebration
Location: MHB 315
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17
Session 7, 8-9:30 am PST / UTC 3-4:30 pm
Panel 7: Reverse Migrations and Impossible Returns in Life and Fiction
Moderator: Amy Desuza-Riehm (CSULB)
Location: Anatol Center, AS 119
Max Molchan (Northern Illinois University), Frustrating and Damaging Attempts to Return to a Previous Culture
Dr. Molleen Shilliday King (University of the Fraser Valley), Trauma-Based Adaptations: Antigone, Monsieur Lazhar and Ru
Dr. Paul Cahill (Pomona College), Economic Exile and Migratory Identity in the Writings of Azahara Palomeque
Mayra Lopez (CSULB), “A Fly in Milk”: Isolation and Loss of Hope in Walter Tevis’ The Man Who Fell to Earth
Session 8, 9:30-11 am PST / UTC 4:30-6 pm
Panel 8: Living as Women in Twenty-First Century Italy: An Extreme Situation I
Moderator: Dr. Clorinda Donato (CSULB)
Location: Anatol Center, AS 119
Dr. Clorindo Donato (CSULB), Writing in the Extreme: The Autofiction of Twenty-first Century Italian Women Writers
Mary Conte (CSULB), The Shared Extremities of Born Under a Bad Sign and The Lying Lives of Adults
Elizabeth Poirier (CSULB), Family Relations in the Extreme: Growing up Girl in Italy Today
Jaclyn Taylor (CSULB), The extreme does not exist: rejecting death and other organizing boundaries in Viola Di Grado’s Hollow Heart
Session 9, 11 am-12:30 pm PST / UTC 6-7:30 pm
Panel 9: Living as Women in Twenty-First Century Italy: An Extreme Situation II
Moderator: Dr. Pravina Cooper (CSULB)
Location: Anatol Center, AS 119
Rhonda Hunt del Bene (CSULB), Di Grado’s Hollow Heart: Surviving the Extremes
Hilary Stern (CSULB), Extreme Empowerment in Sardinian Women Writers: Grazia Deledda and Michela Murgia
Alessandra Balzani (CSULB), The Postcolonial Extreme in the Black Mediterranean: Igiaba Scego’s Cassandra in Mogadiscio
Session 10, 12:30-2 pm PST / UTC 7:30-9 pm
Panel 10: Extreme Situations in the Ancient World
Moderator: Jessica Brooks (CSULB)
Location: Anatol Center, AS 119
Eliana Eisen (CSULB), From Captivity to Catastrophe: Analyzing the Mythic Journey of Daedalus and Icarus
Gillian Duane (CSULB), And God Said, “Let Them Be Trans:” The Nonbinary Ascetic in Early Eastern Christian Monasticism
Jessica Brooks (CSULB), Ancient Authors and Extreme Situations: what accounts survive major catastrophes and are they accurate?
Session 11, 2-3:30 pm PST / UTC 9-10:30 pm
Plenary Address
Moderator: Dr. F. Elizabeth Dahab (CSULB)
Location: Anatol Center, AS 119
Christopher Goffard (LA Times), Crossing the Impossible Bridge in a Dynamite Truck: Observations on Film, Friendship and Collaboration
Session 12, 3:30-5 pm PST / UTC 10:30 pm-12 am
Panel 11: Poetics of Identity and Failure
Moderator: Dr. Pravina Cooper
Location: Anatol Center, AS 119
Dr. Enrico Vettore (CSULB), Extreme Situations as Exemplary Zen Texts: Luigi Pirandello’s Last Short Stories Collection
Ciaran Pierce (CSULB), “We Had Become What We Feared Most”: Queer Failure and Inherited Violence in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Ray Paramo (CSULB), ‘Stricken with a Double Loss’: Manuel Muñoz’s Communities of Productive Melancholia in The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
Karely Rodriguez (CSULB), A Shameful Life: Social Alienation and Collective Suffering in Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human
THURSDAY, APRIL 18
Session 13, 8-9:30 am PST / UTC 3-4:30 pm
Panel 12: Bearing Witness and the Politics of Resistance
Moderator: Dr. Kathryn Chew (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Dr. Manjeet Baruah (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India), Writing Violence and the Indigenous in a Borderland: Motifs and Literary Representation of Crisis among the Nagas of Northeast India
Dr. Sasha Colby (Simon Fraser University), Memoir and the Literature of Crisis: WW II and the Canvas of the Personal
Elsa Canali (Freie Universität Berlin), ‘Despite all’: The urgent writing and practices of resistance of Alcira Soust Scaffo during Mexico ’68
Duygu Dalyanoğlu (Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkiye), The Post-Memory of the Armenian Catastrophe in Armenian North American Plays
Gamze Tosun (Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkiye), Performing atrocity: Staging memories of violence in the contemporary theatre of Turkey
Dr. Haritha Unnithan (University of Kerala, India), Temporality, Memory Repertoire, and the Discourse of Conflict in The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Session 13, 8-9:30 am PST / UTC 3-4:30 pm
Panel 13: Narratives of Trauma Across Cultures
Moderator: Randall Estupinan Medel (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Giovanni Salvagnini Zanazzo (University of Padua, Italy), Why am I suffering? Self-Identity and Trauma in Duras’ La Douleur
Dr. Lipika Das (IIIT-Bh, Centre for the Study of World Literature, Odisha, India), Can World Literature Exist Without English?
Maya Gal (University of British Columbia), Ethical Considerations of Trauma Storytelling; Case Study of Refugee Tales Project
David Williams (Clemson University), At the Limits of Expression: Memory and Knowledge in Zofia Nałkowaska’s “The Visa”
Session 14, 9:30-11 am PST / UTC 4:30-6 pm
Panel 14: Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Moderator: Dr. Crystal Lie (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Dr. Dilek Menteşe Kıryaman (Çankırı Karatekin University), The Language Barrier and the Asylum System in Carol Watts’ “The Interpreter’s Tale”
Jake Perea (CSULB), ‘No Belongings Except Our Stories’: History and Trauma in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees
Brenna Rose (CSULB), Can Replicating DNA Replicate Our Soul?: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence in Ezra Daniels’ Upgrade Soul
Session 14, 9:30-11 am PST / UTC 4:30-6 pm
Panel 15: Women in Extreme Situations
Moderator: Dr. Jeffrey High (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Dr. Daniela Suarez (CSULB), Brenda Navarro’s Empty Houses: Mothering the State, Disappearing the Mother
Dr. Eun-Joo Lee (Sogang University, South Korea), Ethical Ordeals: Surviving the Unimaginable
Daman Khalid (Washington State University), Imperialism’s Impact on Women’s Bodies: Examining Violation and Vulnerability in the Context of United India and Japan (1940s)
Jinghan Jiao (Université Lumière), How we remember and write about comfort women after the Nanjing Massacre
K S Ahima (NIT Warangal), Feminine War Memory in The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Entidhar Al-Rashid (University of Texas at Dallas), The Literary Representation of Traumatic Experience in Between Two Worlds by Salbi and in Dreaming of Baghdad by Zangana
Session 15, 11 am-12:30 pm PST / UTC 6-7:30 pm
Panel 16: Extreme Encounters in Nature and Urban Settings
Moderator: Dr. F. Elizabeth Dahab (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Dr. Marie Cazaban-Mazerolles (Université Paris 8), The cyclone and the crocodile : poetic issues regarding extreme encounters with disruptive nature
Inés Noé (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany), An aesthetic from the street: The chronicles of extreme poverty by Victor Hugo Viscarra
Ridhima Narayan (independent scholar), Documentaries on the Edge: Portraying the Untold Stories of Manual Scavengers and Caste-Based Discrimination
Session 15, 11 am-12:30 pm PST / UTC 6-7:30 pm
Panel 17: Exilic and Prison Narratives in Postcolonial Spaces
Moderator: Dr. Kathryn Chew (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Benjamin Hoover (Indiana University), Subversive Consolations Past and Present: The Role of the Image in Prison Poetry
Junaid Shabir (University of Texas at Dallas), ‘Against Forgetting’: Witnessing and Memory-Making in the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali
Azzeddine Tajjiou (Mohamed First University, Oujda, Morocco), Amidst Shadows and Dreams: Exploring Extremes of Corruption and Hope in Postcolonial African Writing
Session 16, 12:30-2 pm PST / UTC 7:30-9 pm
Panel 18: Bearing Witness: Erasures and Horrors
Moderator: Dr. Crystal Lie (CSULB)
Location: AS 385 (for viewing; all panelists are on Zoom)
Dr. Elisa Reato (Université Paris Nanterre), Leaving the perimeter of xenophobic thinking
Dr. Hadas Zahavi (Princeton University), Peace: An Extreme Situation
Madelaine Hron (Wilfrid Laurier University), Eating Black Children’s Flesh: Writing/Righting Current Cocoa Slavery
Nishtha Pandey (Indian Institute of Technology Madras), Bearing Witness Through Erasure: Examining Crises of Form in Contemporary Refugee Novels