The third of our Frankenstein at 200 commemorative sessions runs today at the meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association. Full panel details follow.
40th Annual Conference
of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association
Worcester State
University (Worcester, Massachusetts)
19-20 October 2018
Friday, 19 October at 2-3:15
Session 2: Frankenstein 1818 to 2018: 200
Years of Mad Scientists and Monsters I (S-205)
Chair: Saraliza Anzaldua (UCLA)
Frankenstein: A Personal History
Daniel Shank Cruz (Utica College)
Daniel Shank Cruz grew up in New York City and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
He is a graduate of Goshen College (B.A.) and Northern Illinois University
(M.A., Ph.D.) and is currently an Associate Professor of English at Utica
College in upstate New York. Daniel is the author of Queering Mennonite Literature, which is forthcoming from Penn State
University Press in spring 2019. He has also published articles on a variety of
contemporary North American authors in journals such as Crítica Hispánica, Mennonite
Quarterly Review, the Journal of
Mennonite Writing, and the Journal of
Contemporary Thought, as well as in several book collections. His research
interests include the intersections between ethnic minority literatures
(especially Mennonite literature and Latinx literature) and queer literatures,
archiving, and the role of geographical space in literature.
Looking at
Frankenstein: Ten Filmmakers Capture the Monster
James Osborne (College of Saint Rose)
James Osborne teaches writing and film in the Department of English at
the College of Saint Rose, Albany, New York. He holds a PhD in English from the
University of Arizona, an MA in English from Brooklyn College/CUNY, and a BA in
English, with Dramatic Arts as a related field, from the University of
Connecticut. His principal area of academic research is in adaptation studies,
an interest explored in his dissertation, “Looking at Frankenstein: Ten Film
Visions of Mary Shelley’s Novel, 1990-2015.” He lives in Albany, New York, with
his wife Denise, a lecturer in Portuguese at the University at Albany.
Frankenstein and Transatlantic Monster
Making in Robert J. Myer’s The Cross of
Frankenstein (1975)
Matt Grinder (Union Institute and University)
Matt Grinder is a PhD Candidate at Union Institute and University where
he studies literature and culture with an emphasis on Native American
Literature. He also works as an English and
Philosophy adjunct faculty member at Central Maine Community College.
Friday, 19 October at 3:30-4:45
Session 10: Frankenstein 1818 to 2018: 200
Years of Mad Scientists and Monsters II (S-205)
Chair: Marty Norden (University of
Massachusetts Amherst)
New Adam, New
Eve: The Brides of Frankenstein in Theodore Roszak’s Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein (1986) and John Kessel’s Pride and Prometheus (2018)
Faye Ringel
(U. S. Coast Guard Academy, Emerita)
Faye Ringel, the founder of the Fantastic Area, is Professor Emerita of
English at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT, having taught in the
Department of Humanities for 25 years. She directed the Honors Program and
taught the Honors Colloquium, composition and literature. After retiring from CGA, she taught British
Literature at UConn Avery Point. Faye holds an A.B. in Comparative Literature
from Brandeis University and doctorate in Comparative Literature from Brown
University. She is the author of New
England's Gothic Literature: History and Folklore of the Supernatural (E.
Mellen Press, 1995) and articles in scholarly encyclopedias, collections, and
journals, including a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to the American
Gothic (2017) edited by Jeffrey Weinstock. Faye is a long-time NEPCA member
and presenter, and she has published articles and presented conference papers
on (among many other subjects) New England vampires, urban fantasy, demonic
cooks, Lovecraft, King, Tolkien, Yiddish folklore, and sea music.
Frankenstein’s Justine Moritz: The
Female Monster and Her Body
Saraliza
Anzaldua (UCLA)
Saraliza Anzaldua, a frequent presenter
in the Fantastic Area, is a teratologist with a B.A. in Sociology from the
University of Texas, Dallas and an M.A. in English Literature from National
Taiwan University. She is currently a doctoral student with the philosophy
department of UCLA. Her work is devoted to promoting teratology as a framework
for social theory and moral inquiry. She also studies Chinese social
philosophy, and Japanese martial philosophy.
