Aerial view of campus with Williamsport, the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Mountain as a backdrop

Lycoming Undergraduate Humanities Research Conference Program

Saturday, April 11, 2026

Check-in opens 8:30 a.m.
Humanities Research Center, Academic Center/Wendle Hall, 2nd Floor C-201

Coffee with Continental Breakfast, 8:30-9:30 a.m.
Academic Center, 2nd Floor Lobby

Panels and Presentations
(Academic Center, 2nd Floor)

Session 1 (9:30 - 10:45 a.m.)

Racialized Bodies & Trauma in Afrodiasporic Literature
9:30-10:45 a.m.
B-206

  1. Exploiting the Female Body: An Ecofeminist Approach to Jean Toomer’s Cane
    – Charlie Bach, Lycoming College
  2. Songs of the Sea: Afrodiasporic Embodiments of Water
    – Charlee Thacker, Bryn Mawr College
  3. Racial Narratives in Colonial and Post-Colonial Gothic Literature
    – Aaliyah Douglas, William Paterson University
  4. “The Researcher Contemplates Venus”: Bettina Judd’s Narrative Revival and Resistance to Medical Racism and Archival Silence
    – Haley Bateman, Elizabethtown College

Laying Down the Law
9:30-10:45 a.m.
B-207

  1. Immigration Policy and Labor Relations in Post-WWII United States
    – Ella Czeiner, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
  2. Crime, Consent, and Performance Art
    – Kira Clements, Lycoming College
  3. Faith, Virtue, and the Ethics of Care: Evaluating Aaron Cobb’s Perinatal Hospice Philosophy
    – Michael Cohen, Kings College
  4. Constitutional Jurisprudence on the Criminal Offense of Feminicide in Latin America
    – Joshua Evans, Lycoming College

Power & Autonomy: Notions of Masculinity & Femininity
9:30-10:45 a.m.
B-208

  1. Female Objectivity and Male Positionality: Femininity through the Eyes of Male Artists in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
    – Chloe Shendge, Lycoming College
  2. “His servant and subject”: Marriage and Female Autonomy in The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer for Children
    – Rachel Knearl-Wearne, Juniata College
  3. Lifting Spirits: Men’s Experiences in Positive Powerlifting
    – Rob Wintsch, Ithaca College
  4. Crossing the Threshold: Gender and Genre in Cicero’s Second Philippic
    – Tori Korman, Penn State University

Foreign Intervention & Its Consequences
9:30-10:45 a.m.
B-209

  1. Seeds of Discord: The Damascus Chronicle and the Origins of Western Conflict in the Middle East
    – Alexandra Reed, Albright College
  2. The Solomons Aflame: US Operations Between Guadalcanal and New Georgia
    – Jason Prowant, Grove City College
  3. Cancer, Contamination, and the Militarized Body in Glorimar Marrero’s La Pecera
    – Djitshmy Senejuste, Lycoming College
  4. Institutionalized Exploitation: Labor, Rights, and the Bracero Program’s Unkept Promises
    – Chelsea Garcia, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Resistance in Art & Literature
9:30-10:45 a.m.
B-210

  1. Everyday Defiance: Humor and Interiority in Contemporary Black Theatre
    – Nya Rowe, University of Scranton
  2. “Our connection to the past is unbroken”: Kwak’waka’wak Resilience and the Return of the Namgis Mask of K’umugwe
    – Soren Ashman, Lycoming College
  3. Vulnerability and “Daring to Love” as Anti-Grotesque: Subversion and the Genre of the Short Story Cycle in Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio
    – Mackenzie Wise, Messiah University
  4. Industrial Witchcraft, Green Cthulhus: Reconciling with Planetary Strangeness through Speculative Fiction
    – Haven Beckman, Bryn Mawr College

Session 2 (11:00 - 12:15 p.m.)

Deconstructing Domesticity
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
B-206

  1. The Forgotten Queens: The Germanic Agents of Christian Evangelism and Culture
    – Lily Savage, Grove City College
  2. “Where those gentlemen who please to favor me”: Tavern Matrons & Masculinity throughout Colonial America’s Publick Houses
    – Emma Mitcheltree, Lycoming College
  3. Murder and Domestic Devastation: Preventing Petty Treason and Reinforcing the Early Modern Gender Hierarchy
    – Marissa Adams, Washington & Jefferson College
  4. Remodeled by Fine Touches: Queer Homemaking and Domesticity in Brenda Shaughnessy’s So Much Synth and Silas Denver Melvin’s Grit
    – Leo Quinn, Ursinus College

Asking the Big Questions
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
B-207

  1. Eunoia as the Determinant Factor in Aristotelian Friendship
    – John Weisser, Penn State University
  2. What Is Our Obligation to Others?
    – Cassidy Landis, Lebanon Valley College
  3. The Meaning of Being: A Heideggerian Investigation of Existence
    – Sophia Perrin, University of Scranton
  4. The Imaginary of Popular Sovereignty and the Creation of Democratic Legitimacy
    – Zhuoyu (Jamie) Zhang, Swarthmore College

Fiery Phrases: Rhetoric & Ideas across Time
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
B-208

  1. Boy Scouts, Bombers, Banes of England: Na Fianna Éireann, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and the Irish Nationalist Agenda
    – Matthew Frantz, Lycoming College
  2. Christian Nationalism and Contemporary Evangelical Support for Donald Trump
    – Ethan Achmoody, Juniata College
  3. Propaganda of the American Civil War: Journalistic Bias and Influence of War Opinion in 1860s America
    – Molly Schaffner, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
  4. The Writing in the Walls: Spatial Organization in the Italian Utopian Tradition
    – Ginger Schiffmayer, Grove City College

Ways of Remembering
11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
B-209

  1. The Princess de Lamballe: A Woman’s Death and the Memory of Violence in the French Revolution
    – Greta Walk, Slippery Rock University
  2. Cecilia Vicuña’s Repertoire: Reading the Artist’s Living Quipu through the Lens of Diana Taylor’s Theory of Performance as an Act of Transfer
    – Krista Partusch, Lycoming College
  3. In Their Own Words: The Value of Oral History as a Method of Historical Preservation
    – Madison Seipp, Juniata College
  4. Incomplete Histories: Trauma, Silence, and the Short Story Cycle in The Dew Breaker
    – Chasely Ward, Messiah University

Words Beyond the Screen: Narratives in Film
11:00 am-12:15 p.m.
B-210

  1. Exoteric Hollywood: The Occult, Evangelicalism, and Conspiracy in Film Theories
    – Alex Setliff, Lycoming College
  2. Sidney Prescott: Adapting the Final Girl through Metatextuality
    – Logan Pfaff, Slippery Rock University
  3. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham: Religion and Culture in Bollywood
    – Juliet Mitchell, Ithaca College
  4. Continuity in the Tumultuous, the German Heimatfilm
    – Jack McCabe, Montclair State University

Lunch Break

12:15-1:45 p.m.

Session 3 (1:45 - 3:00 p.m.)

Defining Identity in America’s 250 Years
1:45-3:00 p.m.
B-206

  1. “Every Shut Eye Ain’t Sleep”: Contributions of African American Women During the Civil War
    – Keiyana Mosley, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
  2. A City Upon a Hill: The Historical and Gendered Roots of the Religious Right in the United States
    – Molly Carson, Ithaca College
  3. “Whatever happens, this is”: Adrienne Rich’s Fight against Anti-Lesbian Feminism
    – Brooklyn Torquato, Elizabethtown College
  4. “Renewal for Whitey:” How BCC Protesters Were Met with Police Brutality at the Three Stadium Riot
    – Cameron Antoniotti, Slippery Rock University

The Body, the Brain, & the Blues
1:45-3:00 p.m.
B-207

  1. Music on the Brain: Exploring the Neurological Basis of Emotional Connections with Songs
    – Rebecca Doyle, University of Scranton
  2. Langston Hughes Himself: The Brief, the Self and the Jazzy
    – Chase Bower, Lycoming College
  3. Dancing with the Stars: Courtly Choreography and the Classical Cosmos
    – Sophie Spilak, Grove City College
  4. Obliterate the Establishment with Polka Dots: Yayoi Kusama’s Anatomic Explosions
    – Alexis Rockwell, Lycoming College

Power & Evolution of Language
1:45-3:00 p.m.
B-208

  1. Anti-Blackness and American Humor: How the Canonization of Sambo and the Savage Materializes Harm against Black Men
    – Elliot London, Bryn Mawr College
  2. “You Bottom!” A Study of Ancient Greek Homophobic Slurs and the Ethics of Their Translation
    – Maximilian Settembre, Penn State University
  3. “She managed to misgender me four times in two minutes”: Capitalism and Queer Identity in Nino Cipri’s Finna
    – Jack Huxley, Elizabethtown College
  4. “Poverty of Language” and the Paradox of Private Pain: A Comparative Analysis of Woolf and Wittgenstein
    – Foster Hazen, Grand Valley State University

Textiles & Tattoos
1:45-3:00 p.m.
B-209

  1. The Social Implications of Bobbin Lace: A Historic Reproduction
    – Juliette Crowell, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
  2. Corsets: From Women Engineered to Male Scrutiny
    – Gemma Modugno, Montclair State University
  3. The Social Culture of Tattoos amongst College Students
    – Gemma Taylor, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Money Makes the World Go ’Round
1:45-3:00 p.m.
B-210

  1. Raise a Glass: The Napa Valley Wine Industry in World War II
    – Riley Hurd, Grove City College
  2. The Treasure Greece Could Not Hold
    – Matthew Swanson, Penn State University
  3. On the Brutal Side: Jacques Lacan’s Theory of “the Other” in the Works of James Joyce and Sally Rooney
    – Benjamin Warner, Ursinus College

Session 4 (3:15 - 4:30 p.m.)

Conceptions of Good & Evil
3:15-4:30 p.m.
B-206

  1. Broken Surfaces and Sightlines: A Creative Nonfiction Essay on Dark Tourism
    – Evelyn Kelly, Messiah University
  2. “The Midwife Evil”: Physicians’ Campaigns Against the Abortionist-Midwife
    – Nessa Rose Brooks, Goucher College
  3. Divine Justice and the Problem of Hell: A Case for Universal Restoration
    – Luke Taylor, Lycoming College
  4. Monstrosity and Horror in the Book of Joel
    – Oli Patchell, Penn State University

Censorship & Control: They’re Watching Us
3:15-4:30 p.m.
B-207

  1. Unplugged and Unproven: The Science of High School Phone Bans
    – Quentin Frank, Messiah University
  2. The Predominance of Watchfulness in Literature and in Modern Society: An Analysis of The Minority Report, The Giver, 1984, and Surveys Conducted
    – Sam Mitchell, Thiel College
  3. Perceptions of Mental Illness across Campus
    – Sophia da Costa, University of Scranton
  4. How to Make Pear Tree Sex PG: Rewriting Chaucer’s “The Merchant’s Tale” for Children
    – Claire Melican, Bryn Mawr College

Biblical Battles & Biographies
3:15-4:30 p.m.
B-208

  1. In Memory of Her Paul: The Acts of Thecla as the Female Quest for the Historical Apostle
    – John Adkins, Grove City College
  2. Walther von der Vogelweide and the Emergence of Papal Critique in Minnesang
    – Jakob Richter, Ithaca College
  3. False Hope in Shakespeare’s Richard III: A Theological Perspective
    – Yantong Li, Case Western Reserve University
  4. Exertion of Power and the Suppression of Heresy in Western Europe: The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229)
    – Haley Zebert, Albright College

Controversies in America’s Early Days
3:15-4:30 p.m.
B-209

  1. Benedict Arnold: The Military and Governmental Malefactions that Paved the Path to Treachery
    – Sarah Casler, Millersville University
  2. The Royal Takeover: The Failure of the Virginia Company and Colonial Expansion
    – Lindsey Newcomer, Lycoming College
  3. Arthur Orton and Billy the Kid: How Courage to Stand against the Upper Class Led to the Creation of Underdog Heroes in the Mid to Late Nineteenth Century
    – Mayzie Braun, Bryn Athyn College of the New Church
  4. The Colonial Myth of Nature
    – Madison VanDerLinde, Ithaca College

Live, Laf(ayette), Love
3:15-4:30 p.m.
B-210

  1. Judicial Consistency: Courts’ Interpretation of Undue Hardship
    – Tabitha Tomlinson, Lycoming College
  2. Relative of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette: Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne
    – Vanessa Manning, Lafayette College
  3. Beyond the Romance of Saints: A Comparative Analysis of Chaucer’s “Tale of Sir Thopas,” Beneit of St. Alban’s La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket en Verse, and Tail-Rhyme Schemes
    – Alejandre Lamas-Nemec, Bryn Mawr College

Awards Ceremony & Keynote Address

5:00-6:15 p.m.
Trogner Presentation Room, Krapf Gateway Building

"The Haudenosaunee and the Ethos of Sustainability"
-Scott Manning Stevens, Ph.D. (Director, Center for Global Indigenous Cultures and Environmental Justice at Syracuse University)

Reception to follow keynote address