FINAL SCHEDULE AS PRESENTED
Thank You to Everyone Who Participated in the Inaugural Conference of the Popular Culture Association of Canada
THURSDAY MAY 12th
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SESSION 1: 2:00pm-3:30pm
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Panel 1A: Stars on 45: Celebrity and the Music Industry
SALON B
Chair: Karen Snell, The Eastman School of Music
Tom Mayberry McMaster University
The Nexus of Authenticity: Lady Gaga’s Self-branding and the Success of her Psychopathy
Lee Marshall University of Bristol
The Logic of Celebrity in the Recording Industry
Karen Snell The Eastman School of Music
The Musical Personhood of Three Canadian Turntablists as ‘Transformative Collaborative Practice’
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Panel 1B: That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Or Is It?)
ONTARIO
Chair: Stuart Henderson, York University
Nick Holm McMaster University
Uncomfortable Laughter: Social Boundaries and Popular Media Humour
Stuart Henderson York University
That N—–‘s Crazy: Richard Pryor, Blackness, and Performing “That Word” in the 1970s
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Panel 1C: Speculations on Speculative Television
NIAGARA
Chair: Nicholas Greco, Providence College
Gozde Kilic Brock University
All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues: The Centrality of Father Issues in Lost
T.A. Pattinson Wilfrid Laurier University
In Life, After Death: Mirrored Reflections of Selfhood and Otherness in Lost (2004-2010)
Nicholas Greco Providence College
“I must be losing my undefinable allure”: The Flux of Gender in Inara Serra as Enigma
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Panel 1D: Screened Identities
MAPLE
Chair: Joan Nicks, Brock University
Katja Lee McMaster University
Always the Wine, Never the Wine-maker: Negotiating The “Enological Talents of Women” in Contemporary Cinema
Victor Kulinski University of Windsor
Affirming the Problematic Disability Identity:
The Affirmation Model of Disability and Gattaca
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Panel 1E: Technology and Anxiety in Speculative Fiction
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Hans Skott-Myhre, Brock University
Malisa Kurtz Brock University
Borderlands and Boundary Consciousness in Geoff Ryman’s Air: Or, Have Not Have: (Post)Cyberpunk and the “New Mestiza”
Michele Braun Mount Royal University
Occupying Alien Spaces: The Human, the Animal and the Machine in Peter Watts’ Fiction
Hans Skott-Myhre Brock University
Capitalism and Control: Paranoia, Imagination and the Unconscious in Pynchon, Stephenson, and Inception
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SESSION 2: 3:45pm-5:15pm
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Panel 2A: Popular Music and New Media
SALON B:
Chair: Paul Aitken, University of Leeds
Angie Chiang University of Calgary
The Speed of Pop: Online Journal Gaga Stigmata and the future of Popular Culture Studies
Phil Rose York University
Radiohead and the Media Fallout of OK Computer
Paul Aitken University of Leeds
Preferring Not To: Piracy and the Politics of Refusal
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Panel 2B: Canada for Sale: Advertising Tropes and National Identities
ONTARIO
Chair: Lorraine York, McMaster University
Estee Fresco University of Western Ontario
Snow, Ice and “Natives”: The Trope of Survival in Advertisements Aired During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games
Lorraine York McMaster University
Viticultural Verse: Advertising, Poetry, and the Niagara Wine Industry
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Panel 2C: Science Fact or Fiction? The Real and the Signified
NIAGARA
Chair: Derek Foster, Brock University
Matthew Thompson Brock University
Replicated Eyes and “I”s: Blade Runner as Ontological Critique
Robert Hyland National Taipei College of Business
A Tangled Heap of Broken Images: Making Sense of Evangelion
Derek Foster Brock University
The Fictive Facticity of “Vulcan” Heritage: Star Trek, Place Branding and Popular Culture in Rural Alberta
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Panel 2D:All the World’s a Stage: Shakespeare and Popular Culture
MAPLE
Chair:Katja Lee, McMaster University
Zak Bronson Brock University
Taste, Class and Shakespeare: Tromeo and Juliet’s Critique of High Culture
Dave Peterson University of Pittsburgh
Performing Shakespeare’s Clowns: Reevaluating Realism
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Panel 2E: Anxieties and Rituals
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Jacqueline Botterill, Brock University
Amanda Orr Wilfrid Laurier University
Outbreak, Infection and Plague: Zombie Narrative and Flu Anxieties
Claudie Massicotte University of Western Ontario
Ghosts of Modernity: The Nineteen Century Séances
Jacqueline Botterill Brock University
Dinnertime and the Magic of Food: An Exploratory Study of Dinner Party Rituals
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FRIDAY MAY 13th
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SESSION 3: 8:30am-10:00am
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Panel 3A: Gender, Image and Pop Performance
SALON B
Chair: Chris Richardson, University of Western Ontario
Ashley McAskill McMaster University
Booty and Racial Performances: The Complexities of Empowerment
Corey Allen McMaster University
Transnational Hip Hop Warrior: Analyzing Political Violence in M.I.A. Music Videos
Chris Richardson University of Western Ontario
“I Am Not Jasmine; I Am Aladdin”: Nicki Minaj’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Feminism
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Panel 3B: Screened Politics
ONTARIO
Chair: Michael Meneghetti, Brock University
Suze Tkachuk Brock University
24’s Seventh Season and the War on Terror in the Post-Bush World
Ian Reilly University of Guelph
Fake News and the Return of the Political in Canadian Popular Culture
Matthew Flisfeder Independent Scholar
What’s So Funny About Class Struggle? Ideology in The Trotsky
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Panel 3C: Assessing Shifting Conventions in Reality Television
NIAGARA
Chair: Liam Young, University of Western Ontario
Eric Lohman University of Western Ontario
Scary Tale Weddings: Competing for Cosmetic Surgery in Bridal Reality Television
Atle Mikkola Kjosen University of Western Ontario
Dollhouse, Labour and Uploading of the Mind: The Transhumanist Production Process of Reality Television
Gemma Richardson University of Western Ontario
Socially Conscious Reality TV?
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Panel 3D: Construction and Consumption: Popular Consumerism
MAPLE
Chair: Marian Bredin, Brock University
Shakira Lynch Brock University
Keeping Up with the Joneses: As Portrayed Within Popular Culture
Trina Joyce Sajo University of Western Ontario
Consuming Media Piracy
Kyle Asquith University of Western Ontario
Join the Club: Radio, Comic Strips, and Food Advertising to Children in the 1930s.
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Panel 3E: Theorizing Popular Culture
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Laura Wiebe, McMaster University
Arun Jacob Ryerson University
Natalia Dmuchowska University of Calgary
Through the Eye of the Media Beholder:The Psychogeographic Approach to Urban Exploration and the Media Experience
Birgit Schneidmueller York University
Narrative Management Strategies in a Transmedia Environment
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SESSION 4: 10:15am-11:45am
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Panel 4A: Genres, Scenes, and Legacies
SALON B
Chair: Thomas M. Kitts, St. John’s University
Jeff McMahon Brock University
“Sweeping Up the Broken Pieces of Yesterdays Life”: An Exploration of the Life and Legacy of Jimi Hendrix as a Function of Social Memory
Nicole Lemieux Brock University
It’s Not Black or White; It’s Blues: Jack White, Homage and the Politics of Recycled Blues in the 21st Century Music Industry
Thomas M. Kitts St. John’s University
Creedence Clearwater Revival and the San Francisco Scene
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Panel 4B: Celluloid Geography: Filmic Articulations of Place
ONTARIO
Chair: John J. Fink, University at Buffalo
Matt Raimondo York University
Blood, Bodies and the Burbs: Social Space and John Carpenter’s Early Horror
Armando Alfaro Brock University
“As Far As Memory Reaches:” Carnival and Myth in Robert Altman’s Nashville
John J. Fink University at Buffalo
Image and Desire in the Dirty South: Chris Robinson’s ATL
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Panel 4C: Sexual Discourse
NIAGARA
Chair: Gael Sweeney, Syracuse University
Laura Berger Brock University
Not So Sexy Sex: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Teen Girls ‘Doing It’ For the First Time on The WB/CW Network
Nathan Rambukkana York University
Primetime Polygamy: Reading the Intertextuality of Popular and Journalistic Polygamy Discourse from Big Love to Bountiful, BC.
Gael Sweeney Syracuse University
Gay-jà Vu: Toronto Stands In for Pittsburgh in Queer as Folk
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Panel 4D: Cultural Mediation and the Image: Illustrations and Representations
MAPLE
Chair: Jaleen Grove, SUNY Stony Brook
Douglas Clarke Brock University
Exploring Wakanda: Finding Racism in Black Superhero Comic Books
N.C. Christopher Couch University of Massachusetts
Hubert Rogers and the Heroic Portrait of Canadian Identity
Jaleen Grove SUNY Stony Brook
Illustrator as Cultural Mediator: Walter Haskell Hinton’s Portrayal of Native Americans in Mammoth Western Magazine
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Panel 4E: Posthumanist Entanglements and Popular Forms
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Sherryl Vint, Brock University
Laura Wiebe McMaster University
Popular Posthumanism in Futuristic Fantasy: Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity Series
Jonathan Smith Wilfrid Laurier University
(Post)Humanizing The Global “Stand Alone Complex”: Theoretical Speculations Within Kenji Kamayama’s Ghost in The Shell: SAC and Eden of the East
Zorianna Zurba Ryerson University
Telephoning Lady Gaga: Feeling Out Popular Posthumanism and Everyday Fantasies
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CONFERENCE LUNCHEON 12:00pm-1:30pm
OAKES SOUTH BALLROOM
**KEYNOTE TALK**
Motel Culture and Tourist City–Niagara Falls, Ontario: An Illustrated Address
Joan Nicks Adjunct Professor, Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Brock University; Continuing Researcher of Popular Culture in Niagara
John Burtniak Retired Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Brock University; Continuing Researcher of Niagara’s History
Chair: Barry Grant, Brock University
PCA-Canada BUSINESS MEETING 1:30pm-2:30pm
OAKES SOUTH BALLROOM
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SESSION 5: 2:45pm-4:15pm
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Panel 5A: Spaces and Places: Geographies of Popular Music
SALON B
Chair: Richard Sutherland, University of Calgary
Al Larsen University at Buffalo
Grunge and Globalization
Brent Hagerman Wilfrid Laurier University
Riddim Driven: Communicative Musical Texts in Black Atlantic Sound Culture
Richard Sutherland University of Calgary
Playing Well With Others: Struggles and Successes in the Calgary All-ages
Scene
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Panel 5B: Theorizing Television
ONTARIO
Chair: Scott Henderson. Brock University
Liam Young University of Western Ontario
Chronic Cities: The Archive, The City, The Acceleration of History
Andrew Atkinson Wilfrid Laurier University
When You Walk Through the Garden: Ten Theses on HBO and the Post-Secular
Scott Henderson Brock University
‘One Big Trip’: The Synaesthetic Qualities of Fringe
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Panel 5C: Popular Culture and Religion
NIAGARA
Chair: David Schimpf, Marian University
Ryan Weston Wilfrid Laurier University
“There’s Just Something About it”: Folk Festivals, Gospel Music, and Audience Reception
Robert St. Hilaire Niagara University
God as Explanation?: What the New Atheism Teaches Us about Popular Conceptions of Science and Religion
David Schimpf Marian University
The Bad Romance of Mother Monster: The Persona, Presence, and Music of Lady Gaga as ‘Vagabond Catholic’
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Panel 5D: Metagames: Rethinking the Magic Circle
MAPLE
Chair: Josephine Anstey, SUNY Buffalo
A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz RUST, LTD.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Team Fortress 2
Luke Noonan SUNY Buffalo/ RUST, LTD.
Technical Analysis of Gender in Videogames
Cayden Mak SUNY Buffalo
The Schema of Game Culture: The Gamification of Everyday Life and Adorno’s Culture Industry
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Panel 5E: Politics and the Popular in the Digital Era
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Dale Bradley, Brock University
Richard A. Lee Rutgers University
Can the Internet be as Effective for Governing as it has been for Campaigning?
Holly Nazar Concordia University
New Media, Old Tactics, and Student Organizing in the Crisis of Universities
John Sutcliffe University of Windsor
Martha Lee University of Windsor
The North American Union: Conspiracy Discourse and State Sovereignty in the Post-9/11 Era
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SESSION 6: 4:30pm-6:00pm
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Panel 6A: Philosophy and Popular Culture
SALON B
Chair: Tim Madigan St. John Fisher College
James Lawler SUNY Buffalo
Hegel’s Dialectics of Spirit: Feeling the Force in Star Wars
Tim Delaney SUNY-Oswego
Karl’s Specter: A Marxist Analysis of James Cameron’s Avatar
Tim Madigan St. John Fisher College
Rust-Belt Epiphanies: Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor as a Defense of the Extraordinary Aspects of Ordinary Life
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Panel 6B: Performing Otherness: Gender, Sexuality and Nation in Popular Culture
ONTARIO
Chair: Dirk Gindt, Stockholm University
John Potvin University of Guelph
Sweden’s Other – Modernism, Fashion and Sexuality in 1920s Paris
Katie Green University of Guelph
“It’s So We Know Who’s in the Club” – Punk Fashion and Identity in Canadian Culture
Alla Myzelev University of Guelph
Here Comes the Knitting Man – Gender in DIY (Do-it-yourself) Manuals
Dirk Gindt Stockholm University
Representations of Queer Masculinities in the Plays of Sky Gilbert
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Panel 6C: Gender, Genre and Performance in Film
NIAGARA
Chair: Barry Keith Grant, Brock University
Michael Meneghetti Brock University
Conduit For Sale: The Actor in Contemporary Hollywood’s Historical Fictions
Sarah JM Kolberg State University of New York at Buffalo
Looking Without Seeing and the Paradox of Vision: Hitchcock’s Suspicion in Dialogic Relation with Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Barry Keith Grant Brock University
High Tension, Feminism and the Horror Film
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Panel 6D: Digital Disruptions
MAPLE
Chair: Paul Aitken, University of Leeds
Alexandra Macgregor Brock University
Re-Tweeting the Revolution: Social Media and Social Change
Peter Hemminger University of Calgary
What’s good for the goose: A contemporary re-evaluation of Snow v. The Eaton Centre Ltd
Joe Lipsett Carleton University
Who is the Black Spark? Examining Social Media, Fandom and the Cult of Celebrity in Contemporary Pornography
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Panel 6E: Biography, Gender and Representation
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Julie Rak, University of Alberta
Vicki Cocca Counselor, M.S. Ed
Anne Lee Mercer County Community College
A Higher Calling: How Canadian Feminists Sought to Better Their Worlds
Jennifer Musial Trent University/Queen’s University
American Grotesque: ‘Octomom’ Nadya Suleman as Cyborg M/Other
Julie Rak University of Alberta
Gender and Death: Films and Life Writing about Climbing K2
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SATURDAY MAY 14th
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SESSION 7: 9:00am-10:30am
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Panel 7A: Music, Meaning and Identity
SALON B
Chair: Richard Sutherland, University of Calgary
Paul Sawchuk Brock University
Call of The Mastodon: Narratives, Distinction and Locality in Metal.
Brian Jansen University of Windsor
“Reconstruction Site:” The Weakerthans and the Reinvention of the Working Class
Lutz Schowalter Universität Trier
Postmodernism, Post-Postmodernism, and Metric
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Panel 7B: Youth Agency From the Margins
ONTARIO
Chair: Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, Texas Christian University
Joanna Wasiak Brock University
Bringing Zombies Back to Life: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Alienation and Political Dis/engagement of Young Adults in North America
Olga Klimova University of Pittsburgh
Optimism and Popular Soviet Youth Cinema: Generational Discord and Teenage Misfits in Dinara Asanova’s Films
Kylo-Patrick R. Hart Texas Christian University
Totally F***ed Up at the Living End in One’s Own Mysterious Skin: Gregg Araki’s Groundbreaking Representations of Gay Male Life in the (Homophobic) Age of AIDS
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Panel 7C: Governance and Coverage: Gender in TV and Magazines
NIAGARA
Chair: Sarah Mae Baxter, University of Western Ontario
Shelbi Robson Brock University
“Back off Stacy, I Can Dress Myself!”: Governance in Makeover Programming
Andrea Ruehlicke Brock University
Does She Deserve ‘Happily Ever After’?: The Bachelor as Prime-time Melodrama
Silvie Allard Laurentian University
Images of Violence and Portrayals of Domesticity: An Analysis of How A Popular Magazine Covers Issues of Violence Against Women
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Panel 7D: Online Identities
MAPLE
Chair: Danielle Soulliere, University of Windsor
Gillian Rothwell Brock University
An Army of Nerds: Agency, Community, and Participatory Fan Culture Online
Leisha Grebinski University of Regina
Outside and Online: Examining the Representations of Aboriginal teens on BEBO
Danielle Soulliere University of Windsor
Fan Culture Goes Online! Pop: The Merlin Fandom Community on LiveJournal
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Panel 7E: Haunted Pedagogies: History and Politics in Popular Culture
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Tyler Pollard, McMaster University
Andrew Reszytnik McMaster University
Spectral Authority and Revolution in V for Vendetta
Noa Reich McMaster University
Vampiric Histories: Race and Sex in True Blood
Tyler Pollard McMaster University
Learning to Live (with Ghosts and Vampires?): A Pedagogy of Conjuration, and Mediating the Space Between Past and Future in the Classroom
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SESSION 8: 10:45am-12:15pm
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Panel 8A: Comics and Graphic Novels
SALON B
Chair: Toni Pape, Université de Montréal
Ryan Lizardi Penn State University
Scott Pilgrim vs. Hegemony: Nostalgia, Remediation, and Heteronormativity
Luke Arnott University of Western Ontario
Myth, Epic, and the Bat: Comics Characters Across Media
Toni Pape Université de Montréal
Crossing Media Borders … Not! Autoreflexivity in Leo Ortolani’s Rat-Man
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Panel 8B: Networks of Meaning in Fantasy Fictions
ONTARIO
Chair: Sherryl Vint, Brock University
Deb Steele University of Queensland, Australia
The Importance of Being Costumed
Kristeen McKee Huntington University
‘Let There be Light’… in Times of Digital Darkness: Decoding the Entanglements of the Analog/Digital Binary in Disney’s TRON: Legacy
Sherryl Vint Brock University
Global Networks in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange
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Panel 8C: The Mediating of National Identities
NIAGARA
Chair: George Melnyk, University of Calgary
Yang Zhang University of Calgary
Constructing Harmony: English-Language Programming on China Central Television
Matt Ventresca Queen’s University
Every Nation is Leafs Nation: Hockey, Multiculturalism and a Different Kind of Nationalism
George Melnyk University of Calgary
Conceptualizing Diasporas in Postmodern Canadian Cinema: The Cultural Grammars of Minority Voices
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Panel 8D: Cultural Heritage: Sites of Meaning
MAPLE
Chair: Marian Bredin, Brock University
Tonya Davidson University of Alberta
Laura Secord’s Ottawa: The Flaneuse, Monuments and Paradoxical Space.
Erna MacLeod Cape Breton University
Identity and Cultural Work
Karen Stanworth York University
“Getting a Wriggle On”: Popular Culture, Identity Politics, and Local Ambitions in Montreal’s Jubilee Parade, 1897.
Marian Bredin Brock University
Fort Erie’s Freedom Park: Local Histories of Commemoration
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Panel 8E: Representations in Popular Literature
CHIPPAWA
Chair: Cecily Devereux, University of Alberta
Jasmine Elliott University of Windsor
Blondes Have More Fun: Female Sexuality & Agency in Twilight and True Blood
Cecily Devereux University of Alberta
The Nation of Chick: Chick Lit, Postfeminism, and the Globalization Sisterhood
Alan MacDonald Shepherd University
A Struggle for Intellectual Life in the Minnesota North Woods: An Analysis of Jon Hassler’s Rookery Blues and The Dean’s List
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