BYU ENGLISH SYMPOSIUM

ENGLISH SYMPOSIUM 2024

Exemplary Student Work


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THURSDAY, MARCH 7

Registration and Check-in (9:00-9:30am)

Presenters can come pick up name badges and swag bags at the registration table next to the Education in Zion auditorium (at the bottom of the spiral staircase in the JFSB).

Session A (9:30-10:45am) 

Panel A1: Texts in Translation

Room: 4116 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Emron Esplin

  • Holden d’Evegnée, “’En tordre le sens’: Translingual Editing in the French Translation of the Book of the Mormon“
  • Lila Ann Rice, “Fidelity to Consequence in Translation: An Analysis of Visual Translations of the Arc de Triomphe”
  • Briley Wyckoff, “Fecit Avem: Birds as Augural Degrees of Immortal Vitality in Ovid’s Metamorphoses“
Panel A2: Individuals, Bodies, Minds (9:30-10:45)

Room: B105 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Aaron Eastley

  • Lindsay Haddock, “Personality: The Essayist’s Interpretive Tool”
  • Anna Jensen, “’I Want Something to Do’: Transcendentalism in Hospital Sketches“
  • Ethan Day, “To the Lighthouse and the Failures of Psychoanalysis”
  • Keola Quereto, “’The Body’s Imagination’: How Woolf Writes Consciousness and Body in The Waves“
Panel A3: Windows and Mirrors: How Teens Can See Themselves and Others in YA Literature (9:30-10:45)

Room: B101 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Chris Crowe

  • Toni Aguiar, “How the Closet Creaked Open: LGBTQIA+ Representation in YA Literature”
  • Annika Peacock, “Diverse Young Adult Literature in the Secondary Classroom”
  • Rachel Schaumann, “Why Adolescents Need Characters Like Them”
  • Claire Margetts, “YA Literature: A Tool for Addressing Mental Health”
  • Sheyla E. P. Tai Hook, “An Exploration of Windows: The Power of YA Literature to Build Empathy”
Panel A4: Graduate Creative Writing Contest Winners (9:30-10:45)

Room: B150 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Joey Franklin

  • Alixa Brobbey, “Dust Storm”; “Four Poems”
  • Jessica Mohsen-Crellin, “A Brief Experience with Infertility”

Keynote Address: “The Critic and the Creator: Understanding Your Creative Process” (11:00am-12:00pm)

Room: B190 JFSB

BYU English alum Michael Whittle is a composer based in LA. He received the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Award for Excellence in Music Composed for Film at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival and Best Original Score at VEFF. One of his original scores was performed by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in spring of 2023. Whittle has composed the musical score for a number of films including Disposal (Hulu/20th Digital), Vineyards (1091 Pictures/FAM4), Sealed with a Kiss (Vimeo Staff Pick/HollyShorts), and Born Under Punches (1991 Studio). He has written and produced music for Coca-Cola, MTV, Amazon, Google Pixel, Airbnb, Snowboarder Mag, Taft, Rip Curl, and others. Whittle’s work also appears in albums released by Top Dawg Entertainment and UUIN Records. He has been featured in RnB Magazine, Acid Stag, WFNM, GUM, and CSMG. Whittle’s first solo project will be released by Slow Signal Records (The Orchard/Sony) later this year.

English Fair (12:15-1:15pm)

Room: B135 JFSB

Come learn more about the opportunities that exist for English students. Along with information, there will be snacks, games, and free English Department swag (including the 2024 English Department t-shirt)! The following clubs and programs will be represented at this year’s English Fair:

  • Academic Advisement
  • American Studies
  • Criterion & Inscape 
  • C. S. Lewis Club
  • Diversity & Inclusion Committees
  • English Society
  • English+
  • Global Women’s Studies 
  • Graduate Programs
  • HumGrants & Mentored Research
  • Professional Writing
  • Research and Writing Center
  • Study Abroad Programs
  • Y-Fiction Writing Club

Session B (12:30-1:45pm)

Panel B1: Professional Writing Showcase

Room:  B101 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Dave Stock

  • Case Study 1, “Improving Inclusivity and Diversity at BYU” (Emma Belnap, Haley Noehren)
  • Case Study 2, “Promoting Alternative Transportation in Provo” (Emma Gosselin, Jake Holt, David Langston)
  • Case Study 3, “Supporting First-Year Students” (Madison Mulvey)
  • Case Study 4, “Gaining Track-tion in the English Major” (Nylene Hubschman, Ansley Morris, Hayden Hart, James Thomas)
Panel B2: The Worries of Women (12:30-1:45)

Room:  B105 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Keith Lawrence

  • Amelia Scott, “On the Threshold: Murder as a Binary between Adulthood and Childhood in Joyce Carol Oates’s Short Fiction”
  • El Valencic, “Ending the Battle of the Sexes: Gender-Expansive People as Potential Peacemakers in Alderman’s The Power“
  • Emma Ghiz, “’You’ve Let This Room and This House Replace You’: How Bradbury’s ‘The Veldt’ Reflects Societal Fears in the 1950s”
  • Josie Peterson, “The Power to Suffer and to Love: Grief and Sexuality in Records of Woman“
Panel B3: Female Love and Grief in Civil War England (12:30-1:45)

Room: 4116 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Jason Kerr

  • Christie Seamons, “Grief In Lucy Hutchinson’s Elegies“
  • Grace Soelberg, “Katherine Philips: Homosexuality, Spirituality, and Friendship”
  • Alyson Bishop, “Eve: The Feminine Biblical Entity, As Told By Milton and Hutchinson”
  • Brielle Paul, “Understanding Grief through Lucy Hutchinson’s Elegies“
Panel B4: America’s Dream: A Documentary Poetics (12:30-1:45)

Room: 4186 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Makayla Steiner

  • Lindsey Jenson
  • Piper Wadsworth
  • Sky Bragg
  • Jennifer Tenney

Session C (2:00-3:15pm)

Panel C1: Early, Modern, British, and Great

Room: 4186 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Brice Peterson

  • Coleman Numbers, “Love and Time in Donne’s ‘The Sun Rising’”
  • Liz Busby, “The Bower of (Poetic, Feminine) Bliss: Examining Art and Nature in Æmilia Lanyer’s ‘The Authors Dreame’ through C. S. Lewis”
  • Madison Maloney, “Planting Power for Women: Æmilia Lanyer’s Cultivation of Female Authority”
  • Sophia Snyder, “The Performativity of Poetry: A Look into George Herbert’s ‘The Temple’”
Panel C2: YA Literature, Old and New (2:00-3:15)

Room: B103 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Dawan Coombs

  • Anabella Schofield, “From Gilded Pages to Board Books: Little Women Through the Ages, For All Ages”
    **Winner of the 2024 L. Tom Perry Special Collections Research Award**
  • Emma Fox, “Damsels Deconstructed: New Life for Old Themes in YA Retellings of ‘The Goose Girl’”
  • Tait Carlson, “Judging a Book by its Cover: Is it Okay?”
  • Zerin Wetzel, “The Biopolitical Landscape: A Reading of Frances Hardinge’s Gullstruck Island“
Panel C3: Literature of the Topaz Internment Camp (2:00-3:15)

Room: 4116 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Brian Roberts

  • Caroline Johnson, “The Art of Hearing: Miné Okubo’s Self-Portraiture in Citizen 13660“
  • Ian Curtis, “The Individual Absorbed in the Collective: The First-Person Plural in When the Empire was Divine“
  • Madison Singleton, “Divine Citizenship and Incarceration: The Use of Flowers in Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine”
  • Talia McKinney, ‘”Here is All of Life’: Transplantation, Roots, and Japanese Gardening in Toyo Suyemoto’s I Call to Remembrance“
    **Winner of the 2024 Redd Center for Western Studies Award**
Panel C4: Romantically British (2:00-3:15)

Room: B101 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Paul Westover

  • Charity Ford, “Hymns for Victorians: The Appropriation of Romantic Poetry by Victorian Hymnody with Case Studies in Byron and Hemans”
    **Winner of the 2024 L. Tom Perry Special Collections Research Award**
  • Eve Dixon, “‘Viewed in Prospect or Retrospect’: Dorothy Wordsworth’s ‘Revisiting’ in the 1820 Continental Tour
  • Isabel Crosby, “How John Keats’s Letters Influence Our Abilities as Readers of Poetry”
  • Libby Webb, “Environmental Sentiment and William Wordsworth”

Session D (3:30-4:45pm)

Panel D1: Legendary Figures: Ghosts, Witches, Gods, and Others

Room: B103 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Chris Blythe

  • Kathryn Alvord, “Gold, Ghosts, and the Gospel”
  • Makenzi Strate, “Autism Legends”
  • Micah Eastwood, “Congolese Folktale: The State of our Resources”
  • Miriam Arce Munoz, “Mesoamerican Mythology: Aztecs and Mayans”
Panel D2: A Celebration of Style (3:30-4:45)

**All presenters are winners of the ENGL 302 Writing with Style Contest**

Room: 4186 JFSB
Chair: Brian Jackson

  • Ella Hyde Mikulecky, “Turtle Beach”
  • Sydney Woolstenhulme, “Lessons I Learned in Preschool”
Panel D3: No More Strangers (3:30-4:45)

Room: 4116 JFSB
Chairs: Dr. Meridith Reed, Thea Manning-Neal, Leila Schaumkel

  • Mikayla Johnson, “Shared, Dark Crowns” **First place winner**
  • Laura Vance, “Finding Home in the Spaces Between David Bowie and My Dead Grandmother’s Voice” **Second place winner**
  • Haley Cranney, “Relevant Information” **Third place winner**
Panel D4: Teaching and Technology in the Secondary Ed English Class (3:30-4:45)

Room: B150 JFSB
Chairs: Dr. Johnny Allred

  • Caroline Pickett and Abbie Atkinson, “Education in a Technology Driven World”
  • Danelia Dust, “Welcome, Students, to the Digital Age! Are You Ready for It?”
Brandie R. Siegfried Lecture in Global Women’s Studies (3:30-4:30)
  • Dr. Kristin Matthews, “#WellReadBlackGirl: Connection, Community, and Creation in a Virtual Age” (238 HRCB)

Special Event: Q&A with keynote speaker Michael Whittle (5:00-6:00pm)

Room: 4010 JFSB (all welcome; pizza provided)

FRIDAY, MARCH 8

Registration and Check-in (9:00-9:30am)

Presenters can come pick up name badges and swag bags at the registration table next to the Education in Zion auditorium (at the bottom of the spiral staircase in the JFSB).

Session E (9:00-10:05am)

Panel E1: The Human Angles of Shakespeare

Room: B150 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Michael Lavers

  • Kaden Nelson, “Schisms in King Lear“
  • Gillian Carter, “Grappling with the Dynamic Nature of Identity in Shakespeare”
  • Amelia Webb, “Fashioning a Human from Ink”
  • Emily Hakala, “Shakespeare and the Power of Perspective”
  • Allie Pearson, “King Lear and the Choice of Happiness”
Panel E2: Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest Winners (9:00-10:05)

Room: 4188 JFSB
Chair: Prof. Ann Dee Ellis

  • Lily Warnock, “Ghost in the Bedroom”
  • Alanna Hess, “Walking in the Snow”
  • Lucas Zuehl, “Treading Water”
Panel E3: Educational Partnerships: English Ed Majors, Writing Centers, and Secondary Schools (9:00-10:05)

Room: 4186 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Amber Jensen

  • Larissa Beatty
  • Emma Slater
Panel E4: Lowbrow Culture, High-Stakes Meaning (9:00-10:05)

Room: 4116 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Eric Eliason

  • Washington Carlyle Pearce, “When the Reader Becomes the Object: Agency and Engagement with Forbidden Texts”
  • Kayley Smoot, “The Evolution of the Colonial Newspaper and the Influence of a Forgotten Essayist”
  • Claire Margetts, “Female Fear and the Folklore Toilet Ghost”

Session F (10:15-11:45am)

Panel F1: Sexual Politics in Restoration Theatre

Room: 4186 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Brett McInelly

  • Hannah Lynn Spong, “Mirabell’s Power and Surrendering in Congreve’s The Way of The World“
  • Kendalyn Murdock, “‘I Am Absolutely Decayed’: Performative Femininity and Fragmentation in The Way of the World“
  • Emmalee Collyer, “Wearing the Pants: Patriarchal Breeches Roles in Oroonoko and The Rover“
Panel F2: Adaptation and Identity in Popular Culture (10:15-11:45)

Room: 4068 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Chris Blythe

  • Braden Slater, “Manga, Anime, and the Audience’s Right to Expect Faithful Adaptations”
  • Larissa Beatty, “Involving the Author: The Changing Culture of Cinematic Adaptations”
  • Washington Carlyle Pearce, “Let There Be Gods: Role-playing, Folklore, and Forming Narrative Identity”
Panel F3: Lorraine Hansberry’s Social Art (10:15-11:45)

Room: B150 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Kristin Matthews

  • Cara Saxton, “Music as a Medium Towards Resistance in Hansberry’s ‘Les Blancs’ and ‘The Drinking Gourd’”
  • Lily Jensen, “Community as a Force of Action in Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘Les Blancs’”
  • Emma Fox, “‘As it is and as . . . it ought to be’: The Shaping Power of Hope through Lorraine Hansberry”
Panel F4: Race & Otherness (10:15-11:45)

Room: B105 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Miranda Wilcox

  • Hannah Swenson, “Sui Sin Far vs. Dehumanization”
  • Lucy Esplin, “The Villainess Does Damage Control: Cultural Rescue in ‘The Man of Law’s Tale””
  • Noah Hickman, “Taboo Bodies, Improvised Bodies: Biopolitical Discourse, the Physicality of Language, and the McKoy Twins in Tyehimba Jess’s ‘Syncopated Sonnets’”
  • Wilson Hurdle,  “Becoming Amorphous: Reactions to Patriarchy in Chaucer’s ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’”

English Reading Series (12:00-12:50)

Room: HBLL Auditorium

  • Tomás Q. Morín is the author most recently of Where Are You From, letters to his son about navigating an America that constantly questions your place in it. He is also the author of the memoir Let Me Count the Ways, as well as the poetry collection Machete. He is co-editor, with Mari L’Esperance, of the anthology Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine and translator of The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Rice University.

Session G (1:15-2:45pm)

Panel G1: The Varieties of ENGL+ Experience

Room: Education in Zion Auditorium, JFSB
Chairs: Prof. Trina Harding, Prof. Frank Christianson

  • Spencer Anderson
  • Kally Billings
  • Kathryn Cragun
  • Lindsay Haddock
  • Kate Hansen
  • Cami Karpowitz
  • Anabella Schofield
Panel G2: WRTG 150 Contest Winners (1:15-2:45)

Room: B132 JFSB
Chair: Prof. Shelli Spotts

  • Victoria Clinger, “The Ones Who Make it Out”
  • JD Alexander, “The Creation Story”
  • Brynley Ellsworth, “A Broken Reflection”
  • Brooklyn Matteson, “If A Father Could Cry”
  • Tracy Anderson, “Silence”
  • Daniel Mikulecky, “Nuclear Energy”
  • Emma Adams, “Redrawing the Line of Democracy”
Panel G3: Books and Readers in the Secondary Ed Classroom (1:15-2:45)

Room: B103 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Dawan Coombs

  • Annika Peacock, “Literary Skills and Shoah Education: Using Maus in the Secondary Classroom”
  • Bailey Chen, “Writing Instruction for Multilingual Learners”
  • Emma Slater, “Legislation and Learning: Navigating Text Selection in the Secondary Classroom”
  • Mariane Rizzuto, “Diverse Literature in the Classroom”
Panel G4: The Magnificent Margaret Cavendish (1:15-2:45)

Room: B105 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Jason Kerr

  • Avery Lloyd, “Margaret Cavendish and the Multiverse of Madness”
  • Caroline McDonald, “Cavendish and the Relationship Between Science and Politics”
  • Emily Angell, “Rejecting the Mainstream: Margaret Cavendish’s Theories about the Mentality and the Brain”
  • Madison Singleton, “Cavendish’s Theory of Atomism in the Seventeenth Century: Fancies Found in Science”

Session H (3:00-4:15)

Panel H1: Spiegelman’s Maus: Trauma, Identity, Humanity

Room: B103 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Joe Darowski

  • Victoria Ho, “Identity in Maus: Mono-identity and the Redefinition of Humanity”
  • Megan Allred, “Understanding Life Through Death: Maus and Defining Humanity”
  • Ainsley Farmer, “Duality of Testimony: The Liberating and Anchoring Acknowledgment of Trauma in Maus“
Panel H2: Teaching YA Literature in Secondary English Classrooms (3:00-4:15)

Room: B132 JFSB
Chair: Prof. Karen Brown

  • Abbie Atkinson
  • Emma Withers
  • Toni Aguiar
  • Sarah Carpenter
  • Sheyla Tai Hook
Panel H3: Form and Meaning in the Short Story (3:00-4:15)

Room: B105 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Dennis Cutchins

  • Aubrey Boyle, “‘Indian Camp’: A Male Monopoly on Pain Relief”
  • Claire Margetts, “‘The Waking of Helen’: One Part of a Larger Narrative”
  • Emmalee Collyer, “Who the Dead Leave Behind: Ritual Mourning in ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’ and ‘The Gardener’”
  • Sam McIntosh, “A Study in Gardens: Kipling’s ‘The Gardener’ and Mansfield’s ‘The Garden Party’”
  • Starly Pratt, “Cather, Du Bois, and Montgomery: The Fear of the Unattainable”
Panel H4: Rhetorical Matters of Life and Death (and Taylor Swift) (3:00-4:15)

Room: B150 JFSB
Chair: Dr. Jon Balzotti

  • Abigail Overson, “Shock Appeal: How the Coen Brothers Make Penetrating Political Statements to an Opposing Audience”
    **Winner of the 2024 Redd Center for Western Studies Award**
  • Alayna Beck, “In My Linguistic Era: A Study of ‘Era’ Usage in the Context of Taylor Swift”
  • Luci Sullivan, “‘Us Kids’ vs. Them: The Parkland High School Shooting and New Modes of Protest Rhetoric”
  • Makenzi Strate, “Persuasion at Play: The Salem Witch Trials: Examination of Sarah Cloyse and Elizabeth Proctor”


(scan or tap to take survey)