Four Marymount Students Present at the Virginia Humanities Conference

This April, four Marymount students attended the 2019 Virginia Humanities Conference, hosted by Virginia Wesleyan University in Virginia Beach, VA. The conference, focusing this year on the theme of “The Fluid Humanities,” asked scholars from a variety of perspectives to consider how the humanities respond to topics as diverse as rising seas, water scarcity, accelerated migration flows, environmental disasters and geopolitical shifts that reshape physical and ethnic maps, and other ways that a sense of “fluidity” describes our experience of life.

Two undergraduate students in the English program presented current research. Julia Torrico, a dual degree student who will be receiving both her BA in English and her BS in Information Technology this May, presented her work on “The Consumption of Race and Color in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire.” Elizabeth Ramos, an undergraduate English Education student, also presented her work, “Fluidity in Chicano Poetry.”

Additionally, two students from Marymount’s Graduate Program in English and Humanities also presented current work. Michael Weeks shared his analysis of “The Meanings and Uses of Black and White in Shakespeare’s Othello,” and Joey Robbins presented on the fluid depiction of gender in the Alien franchise with his project, “Geno/Transphobia and Xenomorphs.””

The Virginia Humanities Conference is an organization of universities, colleges, and community colleges in Virginia whose purpose it is to promote interest and research in the humanities. Next year, the VHC will be hosted by James Madison University, on the theme of “The Humanities and our Global Future,” March 27-28th, 2020. Dr. Tonya Howe is Marymount’s delegate to the conference; feel free to contact her with any questions.