2026 UCF English Symposium: Disruption

Thursday, March 12, 2026 9 a.m. to Friday, March 13 at 2:15 p.m.

Thursday, March 12th

9-10

Registration and Coffee & Bagels

10-11:15

Special Session

  • Professor Zahi Zalloua, "Violence, Resistance, and Disruption in Fanon and Žižek"

11:30-12:15 

Session 1: Cycles of Harm and Healing

  • Lisa Faith Jordan, "Chasing Dragons: Drugs and Greif in 'Demon Copperhead'"
  • Olivia Peters-Rivera, "Breaking the Chain: Creative Writing as a Tool for Disrupting Patterns of Inheritance
  • Dylan Cohen, "Resounding Birthright"

Session 2: Technology, AI, and the Disruption of the Human

  • Julia Annunziato, "The Overrated Flesh and Blood: SOMA's Redefining of What it Means to be Human"
  • Alyssa Marquez, "What Gives Fanwork Value? Fan Perceptions of AI, Labor and Authenticity"
  • Jonathan Hawks, "Reflection in Still Waters: A Production of Language

1-2:15

Session 3: Entangled Worlds

  • Monyka Manoyrine, "Medium as Ecosystem: Portraying the Anthropocene Through Novel and Film Annihilation"
  • Dr. Amrita Ghosh, "Multispecies Cohabitation and Ethics of Care in All that Breathes"
  • Ana Valdes: "Interspecies Entanglement and Anthropocentrism in 'The Squire's Tale' by Chaucer"

2:40-3:45

Session 4: Rage and Resistance

  • David Schwartz, "The Binding Thing"
  • Dr. Christian Beck, "Views of Violence; Images that Disrupt and Pacify
  • John Alloway, "Ten Pounds of Rage: David Wojnarowicz's 'Life of Disruption'"

Friday, March 13th

9-10

Registration and Coffee & Bagels

10-11:15

Session 5: Queer Bodies and Gender Revolt

  • Amina Kotenko, "The Forbidden Fruit of Hedonism: Gender Fluidity and Moral Disruption in The Picture of Dorian Gray"
  • Sara Grace Westmoreland, "Monster Fucker: Monster Romance as a Depiction of Accepted Feminine Rage"
  • Isabelle Parm, "The Disneyfication of Snow White: Reimagining the Female Fairytale Protagonist"

Session 6: War, Time, and Ideological Fracture

  • Fotima Akbarova, "War and Temporal Dislocation in Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'"
  • Dr. Joseph Shack, Temporal and Narrative Disruption in the Gnomic Digressions of 'Beowulf'"

11:30-12:15

Session 7: Disrupted Perception

  • Kassadra Faylun, "Disrupting the Fear of the Other in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness"
  • Favour Boluwade, "Poetry as Data: Exploring the Impact of Migration on International Students' Identity"
  • Dr. Sonia Stephens, "Disrupting the Experience of Nature: How AI-driven Species Identification Apps Affect Nature Observing Practices."

Session 8: Bounded Bodies and Worlds

  • Karrington Tabor, "Laced Bodies, Oriented Desires: Corset and Romantic Legibility"
  • Seven Garcia, "Fantasy Fiction and Utopia: A Close Reading of Kamome Shirahama's 'Witch Hat Atelier' and Its Usage of Fantastic Elements as a Vehicle for Social Criticism"
  • Sarah Gilley, "Reclaiming the Orchard: Sustainable Ecofeminist Practices in 'Prodigal Summer'"

1-2:15

Session 9: Colonialism and Structural Violence

  • Minah Patel, "Disruption of the Dalit Mind: the Double Colonized Subject in Mulk Raj Anand's Untouchable"
  • Rhys Plantilla-Petit, "A Postcolonial Examination of the Unreliable Narrator in Tagore's 'Kabuliwala'"
  • Grace Amui, "Eden"
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