Panels & Presentations

Angelo Restivo presented "The Conformist: Allegories of Transference" at the Fifth Annual Comparative Literature Conference at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, February 13.  This year's conference was devoted to the theme: "The Desires of the Analysts: Psychoanalysis and Cultural Criticism in the 21st Century."  Restivo also presented "Cosmopolitanism and Transference" at the Conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, March 6-9, 2003 in Minneapolis, MN, and chaired the panel, "Cinematic Cosmopolitanism(s)."

Julie Fay spoke at the 2003 Associated Writing Programs Conference in Baltimore, MD, February 26 - March 1.  She discussed the process of working with the NC Humanities Council while conducting writing workshops in eastern North Carolina having to do with the aftermath of the floods caused by Hiurricane Floyd.  During this process, Fay formed a community based ad hoc committee, AFTUR (After Floyd, Up River), and received  one of the NC Humanties Council's 30th Anniversary Large Grants in 2002, for gathering and editing materials for a book project, Up River: Stories of the Flood.

Gay Wilentz presented "Healing Narratives and Comparative Cultures: Women Writers from Jewish and African Diasporas" at the Conference on Global Diasporas and the United States, sponsored by Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Town Center, FL, November 7 - 9.  Wilentz discussed the work of Jewish American writer Ruth Seid, a.k.a Jo Sinclair (1913-1995), author of Anna Teller (1992), Wasteland (1988), The Changelings (1984), and The Seasons: Death and Transfiguration: a Memoir (1982); and the work of Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995),  author of The Salt Eaters (1980), The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977), and Gorilla My Love (1972).

Reginald Watson gave black history presentations at St. James Church of Christ in Goldsboro, NC on February 21, 2003 and at Jericho A.M.E Zion church in Kinston, NC on February 23, 2003.  Both presentations were titled "Is Bigger Thomas Still Alive: Disconnection of the Spirit."  The Goldsboro presentation was sponsored by St. James and the NC Humanities Speakers Bureau.

Philip Rubens presented a paper, co-authored with Sherry Southard, titled "A Study of Computer Usage Behaviors in Technologically-Impoverished and Technologically-Rich Audiences" at the 2003 European Communication Congress in Munich, Germany.

Don Palumbo presented "The Monomyth in Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon: Keyes, Campbell, and Plato," on March 21 at the 24th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, in Dania, Florida, March 21.  Keyes, a fan of Palumbo, attended the presentation.

Several ECU faculty participated in the "Let's Talk About It" series sponsored by the NC Humanities Council.  Seodial Deena presented "Christianity and Slavery in Stowe's Uncle Tomís Cabin" in New Bern, NC in February; E. Thomson Shields discussed Willa Cather's The Professor's House at the Henderson Public Library, February 11; and Bryan Oesterreich discussed Michael Malone's Time's Witness at the Carteret County Public Library on February 10.

Pat Bizzaro convened six lecture/discussions at the Neuse Regional Library in Kinston in a program titled "Voices From Home: North Carolina Poets" from January 21 to February 13.  The program was sponsored by the North Carolina Center for the Book with funding from Humanities Extension/Publications at NC State University.  Bizzaro focused on the work of  Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, Katherine Byer, Susan Ludvigson, James Applewhite, and Gerald Barrax.