Mansfield University English Faculty and Students Participate in State Conference

Article authored by English Professional Writing student Logan Henry.

MANSFIELD, PA – This past weekend students and faculty of the English and World Languages department at Mansfield University attended the English Association of Pennsylvania State Universities’ (EAPSU) conference at Shippensburg University. Faculty in attendance were professors Jimmy Guignard, Lilace Guignard, Brad Lint, and Lynn Pifer. Unlike previous years, this year’s EAPSU conference combined both the graduate and undergraduate conferences. In addition to the aforementioned faculty, 2018’s Outstanding English Major (OEM) Jessica Lowman, Elementary and Special Education Major Meghan Griffin, and Professional Writing Major Logan Henry were also in attendance.

This year’s theme was “Creativity in Times of Crisis.” Friday, October 5^th, Dr. Lynn Pifer presented “It Takes a Village: Finding a Creative Solution to a ‘Boring Class’” to a panel titled “Creative Technical/Professional and Writing Program Solutions” that featured two other PASSHE professors. At the same time, Dr. Jimmy Guignard presented on the “Readings from Works-in-Progress (Prose)” panel. Dr. Guignard read from his paper, “Performing Class: On Being a Southerner in Academia.” Students Meghan Griffin and Logan Henry presented in the following session. They both shared their papers on the panel, “Learning/Unlearning Femininity.” Griffin read “‘The Illusion of Innocence and Ignorance’: Moral expectations and Immoral Behaviors in Frances Burney’s Evelina, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton,” while Henry read part of her paper “Gender and Power: An Analysis of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, H. Rider Haggard’s She, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.”

On Saturday, October 6^th, Lilace Guignard
co-chaired and performed poetry in the panel “Spoken Word in the Poetry
Classroom: Approaches, Advantages, and Examples.”

After Guignard’s session Mansfield University’s OEM, Jessica
Lowman, presented her paper “The Eyes Have it: Seeing Through a Crisis in
Murakami’s Underground.” Later that
day Lowman was given her award at the Outstanding English Majors Awards
Luncheon.

 Dr. Brad Lint rounded out the conference with
his paper “‘What Can’t Be Cured Must Be Endured’: Magical Realism as Crisis
Management in Slaughterhouse Five and
Midnight’s Children” during the
“Conflict and Creativity in 20th Century Texts” session.

Mansfield University will host the next EAPSU conference in
the fall of 2019.

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