Tag: English

We’re Not Just a Team; We’re Also a Community: UO Poetry Slam Team

Presenter: Hannah Golden

Co-presenters: Alex Dang, Sarah Hovet, Sarah Menard, Dante Douglas

Mentor: Corbett Upton, English

Creative Work Presentation: C4 (Maple Room)

Majors: Journalism and Spanish 

The UO Poetry Slam (UOPS) was founded by Hannah Golden and Alexander Dang to build a community and audience for poetry on campus that embodies the inclusiveness and excitement of slam poetry. Poetry and language belong to all of us, not just a select few, and by foregrounding the form’s communal aspects, slam challenges hierarchical notions of what forms and experiences constitute art, specifically when it comes to poetry, and seeks to make poetry accessible to, and inclusive of, all voices, experiences, subjectivities. In this presentation, we will explain the origins of slam poetry and show how the form is distinguished from traditional poetry readings in both its ethics and its format, most obviously by the fact that poets’ work is limited to a 3-minute original poem scored on a 10-point scale by five judges randomly selected from the audience, and will conclude with performances by each slam team member. Additionally, we will detail the team’s journey to competing at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), the top competition for college slam poets. In fall 2014, we held auditions, attracting a wide range of students, who competed in six bouts. After the dust settled, we had our team. Some of us had never performed or even written poetry before these tryouts. Throughout the process of recruiting and building a team that can be competitive anywhere in the state, we have held to our ideal of an inclusive, democratic community with an insistence on high-quality work and an atmosphere of mutual encouragement. We began the slam community here at UO to create a forum where all can express themselves – anyone can be a poet, and anyone can appreciate poetry. We are excited to show you our work now.

Another Girl Bites the Dust: Motherhood and Futurity at the End

Presenter(s): Megan Schenk − English

Faculty Mentor(s): Forest Pyle, Casey Shoop

Oral Session 2O

Research Area: English (Humanities)

Funding: Presidential and Summit Scholarships

A post-apocalyptic setting is a particularly potent arena for sexist narratives precisely because such an environment allows the author control over depicting how people will naturally act when stripped of modern conventions in order to survive. “Masculine” traits often appear favorable if not necessary to survival in the midst of a futuristic wasteland, while “feminine” qualities like hysteria, sentimentality, and domesticity deem an individual submissive, weak, and utterly incapacitated. Within these exaggerated patriarchal structures, women are simultaneously linked to a failing, stagnant past while providing the only true form of creation: motherhood. My research focuses on how women writers like Megan Hunter, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Louise Erdrich confront and repurpose certain apocalyptic tropes to force readers to reevaluate preconceived notions about male dominance, femininity, and motherhood, specifically in interaction with a post-apocalyptic environment. By engaging with existing literature on gendered heroics in apocalyptic media, intersectional feminist histories in speculative fiction, feminist theory in futurism studies, and the representation of motherhood in popular film and literature, I illuminate how these authors demonstrate that the nurturing of motherhood, not masculinity, is the ultimate means of conquering a decaying world. My research contributes to the important and growing feminist criticism of popular media that works to reveal how we think about the world and how that might (and hopefully, will) change.

The Cinema 7 History

Presenter(s): Katherine Wilson—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Peter Alilunas, Stephen Rust

Session 1: Flicks and Pics

Cinema 7 was a unique “art house” movie theater in Eugene, Oregon, 1974–87 . It was part of Oregon’s emerging film culture in the early 70s; showcasing the films of Poetic Cinema Filmmakers Ron Finne, Sharon Genasci and Don Cato, among others; and was partially funded and staffed by Oregon Film’s Pioneer Film Crew member Katherine Wilson, a professional Location Scout and Casting Director . The cinema boasted attendance by such notables as cast and crew from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Animal House, and Stand By Me; as well as local icon Ken Kesey .

Curious about what the venue looked like, U of O Cinema Studies Professor Alilunas discovered in 2020 that one of the students in his class, filmmaker Katherine Wilson, had worked there; and an opportunity arose to learn more about the theater’s special place in history .

Only a single photograph from the Eugene Register Guard Newspaper (of the hidden projector room) and one polaroid image of a corner of the lobby existed, so Katherine made the decision to make a diorama from the blueprints Dr . Alilunas had found at Eugene’s City Planning Department .

The interior design itself was inspired by the great former movie and opera houses of Eugene (the ornate theater seats were reused and recycled from the demolished Heilig Theater in 1973) as it mimicked The Egyptian Theater and The Bagdad Theater in the Art Deco/ Egyptian Revival style popular in the 1920s .

Therefore, it became more important than ever to somehow preserve the theater’s history for students who were studying how and why Art Houses were so important beginning in the early 70s; as these “underground” artistic filmmakers helped create Cinema as we know it today .

Additional photos were later found and printed from negatives by the Cinema’s Interior Designer and Graphic Artist Lynn Peterson, who also designed all the Cinema 7 posters starting 46 years ago . Lynn had donated many of them along with Katherine’s to the Katherine Wilson Special Collection at the Knight Library in 2016 . Video link: https://vimeo .com/401805694/0167ee0cc3

History of the Animal House: (1977–20)

Presenter(s): Katherine Wilson—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Philip Krysl

Session 1: Flicks and Pics

This research project asks what is left of an old fraternity house made famous in 1977 during the filming of National Lampoon’s Animal House, and is answered in a short motion picture: https://vimeo . com/401735276/4367deb178

In the mid-60s and early 70s the Animal House was a half-way house for parolees going to college . In 1977 it’s exterior starred in the movie Animal House, but the interior was off limits . So the set decorators bought two identical doors, and mounted one of them as the front door on the “Exterior” of the Animal House, while the other they mounted on the Sigma Nu House, which also had sidelights, and would help continuity-wise to not only mimic the living room and basement of the other house, but would double as the Interior door .

In 1986, an old friend of Katherine Wilson’s contacted her about trying to save the house from being demolished . She was on-location in Washington state and was unable to help, and it was demolished . However, pieces of the house were saved, and ended up in her possession in 2012 . In 2017, she was asked to create a movie set from the various pieces for The Oregon Film Museum’s fundraiser, and she recreated the front porch . In 2018, the Cottage Grove Hysterical Society, planning for the 40th Anniversary Celebration of Animal House, used it as a backdrop at Bohemian Park for the concert starring Otis Day and The Kingsmen . Watch for it again in 2021 .

The University of Oregon’s EMU: Cultural Epicenter and Incubator for Oregon’s Film Industry (1967–77)

Presenter(s): Katherine Wilson—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Stephen Rust

Session 1: Flicks and Pics

This research project answers the questions relating to how the University of Oregon’s EMU helped create Oregon’s First Film Crew in the 70’s; how that in turn resulted in National Lampoon’s Animal House being filmed at the UO in 1977; and why significant events were held and filmed specifically in The EMU: A) How Animal House Came to the UO: https://vimeo .com/401518226/f72da257a4
B) The Casting Call: https://vimeo .com/400122172/8de7c92b45
C) The Food Fight: https://vimeo .com/399570228/6eab0a62f7

The EMU was considered one of the Nation’s cultural epicenters because of its programs supporting and housing new social, intellectual, political, artistic, journalistic, filmic and musical paradigms of the 60’s . Because of this, a group of Poetic Cinema filmmakers emerged from this cultural center in 1969 and became Oregon’s first film crew; not only helping create Oregon’s film industry, but stepping in to help save Animal House from being scrapped by a Hollywood studio . These filmmakers all met on July 8th, 1969 on the Free Speech Platform of the EMU while watching a Communist debate the ASUO Student Body President . From there they formed FWAPS to help Kesey edit his 1964 footage, participated in Jack Nicholson’s film Drive He Said (1970), Elliott Gould’s Getting Free (1971), the Grateful Dead’s Sunshine Daydream (1972), as well as supporting Paul Newman’s Sometimes A Great Notion and Michael Douglas’ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), before becoming key personnel on Animal House in 1977 .

How the second person perspective utilizes distance as a way to tell traumatic stories, specifically from marginalized perspectives

Presenter(s): Hayley Schlueter—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Will Alden

Session 4: Let’s KIDD Around: KIDD Creative Writing Program

This project aims to understand the unique ways in which the second person perspective can be utilized for stories about trauma, and therefore, stories about marginalized identities and experiences—meaning people who experience some form of systemic oppression, such as women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people . The second person often creates a sense of discomfort in the reader by calling direct attention to the reader, essentially forcing them to become a part of the story by inhabiting the “you” and the life of the story’s character . At the same time that the “you” creates this often uncomfortable intimacy, it also creates a sense of distance . My research explores the ways in which the second person perspective utilizes these seeming contradictions between intimacy and alienation, discomfort and distance, as a method for telling stories about trauma and identity through the examination of short stories such as Michael Cunningham’s “Mister Brother” and Kiese Laymon’s “You are the Second Person .” I am interested in the ways in which marginalized authors and characters, who already experience the world as deeply alienating, are able to use the second person as a way to emphasize and control that alienation .

Murderess in the Headlines

Presenter(s): Erin Sandvold—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Heidi Kaufman

Session 3: Pens & Clicks are Mightier than the Sword

Crime has permeated society and stimulated generations with stories of mystery, grotesque motives, and gruesome scenes . Crimes from over a hundred years ago still draw our interest as we seek to find answers to the basic question we ask at any tragedy: why? While our modern perspectives have given us tremendous insight into the minds of various criminals and murderers, I wish to explore how journalists of the early twentieth century and contemporary podcasts present these cases to the general public . Murder and storytelling about murder have always been present in society, but the early twentieth century featured these stories on the pages of newspapers with blazing headlines on the front pages . These sensationalized headlines continue to inform researchers and storytellers as they remake true crime stories for new audiences . My project will focus on two murderesses: Belle Gunness (1859-1908) and Amy Archer-Gilligan (1873-1962) . On the surface, these women appeared to live ordinary and productive lives . Yet, in distinct ways, they both pushed against the societal norms of domestic femininity to become sensational figures in the American press . My discussion of these case studies will focus on the role of gender in the legends about their crimes . While I will begin with newspapers published immediately following the discovery of their criminal acts, discussions will extend to later versions of storytelling about these women . Hence, I will subsequently consider the ways that later versions of these legends respond to shifting gender constructions over time .

A Lost Whisper: Recovering Vanessa Howard

Presenter(s): Lorelei Kelsey—English, Creative Writing

Session 4: Cultural Considerations—The Other

During my Spring term in 2019 at the University of Oregon I was assigned an archival assignment, I was to uncover a little known author of color . I elected to find a copy of a collection of poetry edited by June Jordan and Terri Bush, The Voice of the Children (1972) . I had heard that the kids who were included in the collection were from the intercity in Brooklyn, and that they were a part of a poetry workshop led by Jordan and Bush . I wasn’t aware how moving the work would end up being . After receiving the book I decided to highlight one of the students, Vanessa Howard . In this presentation I will be highlighting my journey through researching this book and reading some poetry . In doing so I hope to highlight the importance of poetry and freedom of expression .

The Experience of Hyperobjects: From Percy Shelley to the 21st Century Instagram User

Presenter(s): Tucker Engle—English

Faculty Mentor(s): Forest Pyle

Session 1: Oh, the Humanities!

My project performs a comparative and analytical study of the romantic poetry of the 19th century, in particular that of Percy Bysse Shelley, with contemporary literature and digital texts of today . Examples of contemporary texts my project will examine are the 2018 film Eighth Grade (dir . Bo Burnham), the 2017 poetry book Nature Poem by Tommy Pico, and Douglas Rushkoff’s 2013 work Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, among others . I bring the cultural and literary criticism of the 20th century in as an intermediary between these two distinct literary eras and traditions . The project focuses on the work of the critical work of theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Giles Deleuze, and Fredric Jameson to accomplish this end . Each of these moving parts is strung together by Timothy Morton’s concept of Hyperobjects and ecological thinking . My work shows how the internet and technologies which produce culture today have created manifested as Hyperobjects which greatly occupy the artistic bandwidth of the modern subject . The relationship with self and culture experienced by poets in the romantic period has erupted to exist everywhere in the Internet age . Through building on the work of the 20th century cultural theorists and Shelley’s poetry, I will begin to piece together what this all means for the 21st century reader and critic .

The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems: A Haunting Maternal Presence in Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Poetry

Presenter(s): Martha DeCosta—English (major) and Creative Writing (minor)

Faculty Mentor(s): Corbett Upton

Session 3: Beyond a Melody

The image of the ideal mother as a self-sacrificial caretaker for her children echoes in Edna St . Vincent Millay’s Pulitzer Prize winning poem “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”: “She sang as she worked, / And the harp-strings spoke; Her voice never faltered, / And the thread never broke .” Although deserving of its high praise and reception, this sentimental ballad’s appearance in The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems collection seems somewhat incongruous, given the nature with which Millay’s other poems explore the roles of motherhood . She depicts speakers who regard children, or the absence of children, with detachment and pity for their unsettled lives, reinforcing underlying anxiety or association with death and suffering . This volume deals with darker themes such as domestic violence, neglect, and imagined realities, embodying various forms of motherhood and not a traditional depiction of gentleness and love . Much of the excitement and the controversy surrounding Millay focuses on her bisexuality and compelling voice for the early twentieth century’s New Woman . However, critical lenses historically discuss her poetic themes in connection with her biographical background . They leave unexplored gaps in their research by minimalizing or overlooking her poetic representations of alternate women’s roles . To enhance and expand the larger and perhaps limited literary discourse about motherhood in The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems, I analyze Millay’s portrayal of a haunting maternal presence throughout this unique volume .