Below is a draft schedule of the 2026 conference. A final schedule will be printed and available to attendees on Friday, April 17th.
Check-In
Time: 8:30–9:00 a.m.
Location: Student Union 367
Asynchronous Room
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Location: Student Union 360
- Welcome, coffee at 8:30
- “Digitalising Indian Culture: A Step towards Performing the Pan-Asian Identity?”
- Aditi Basu
- “What About the Intergenerational Processes and Features of Writing?”
- Md Mozaffor Hossain
- “Meaningful Writing in the Age of AI. Between Practice and Performance.”
- Raluca Simion
Panel 1 Sessions – Performance in Higher Education
Time: 9:00–10:15 a.m.
Student Union 362 A
Moderator: Liza Komkova
- “Refusals and Conformity: Performances of Negotiation among International Students”
- Mariam Mohammed & Ben Ashley
- “Investing in Local Creative Production through University Education”
- Emily Pope
- “‘You’re Very Well-Spoken, You Just Sound Country’: Reclaiming Accent to Redefine Professor Ethos”
- Kristen LeFevers
Student Union 362 B
Moderator: TBD
- “Practice as Action, Performance as Proof: Dumpster Treasures and ‘Trash into Art’ at UTK”
- Chris Mayer, Hannah Trammell, Jasmine Flowers, Talia Marshall
Student Union 362 C
Moderator: TBD
Topic: Performance Online
- “A Literary Legacy – the Craft of Fanfiction”
- Christian Henderson
- “Discouraging a Practice: Performative Reading in the Age of Declining Literacy.”
- Macy Black
- “Online Roleplay: Political and Social Performativity Through a Virtual, Disembodied Theater”
- Nico Houser
Panel 2 Sessions – Performance in Film and the Novel
Time: 10:30–11:45 a.m.
Student Union 362 A
Moderator: TBD
- “A Theater of Care: The Last Black Man in San Francisco as ‘Wake Work’”
- Bronwyn Luitwieler
- “Remainder: Evolving Citizen Kane’s Memory Performance”
- Jordan Hoyos
- “‘Lowick Cicero’: Mr. Casaubon’s Shallow Scholarly Performance in George Eliot’s Middlemarch”
- Maggie Turbyfield
Student Union 362 B
Moderator: Liza Komkova
- “Practicing Politics: Civic Habits and Civic Transfer in Composition”
- Jake Buller-Young
- “I’m (Not) Okay: How taking suicidality less seriously can seriously help us be less suicidal”
- Kaitlyn Alford
Student Union 362 C
Moderator: TBD
Topic: Performance in the Premodern World
- “‘A Cloth That Was Wordylye Wroght:’ Embroidery and Performance of Race in Emaré”
- Abigail Page
- “Christian Love, Jewish Justice:Models of Oppression and Justice in The Merchant of Venice”
- Braden Burton
- Title TBD
- Jessica Wright
Lunch
Time: 11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Lunch on your own – there are dining options on the first and lower floors
Keynote
Time: 1:30–2:30 p.m.
Location: Student Union 362 B
Panel 3 Sessions
Time: 2:45–4:00 p.m.
Student Union 362 A
- “Gender Drama: The Poetics of Performative Embodiment & Queer Resistance” (Panel)
- Kas Armstrong, Atlas Roberson, Makenzie Anderson, Lauren Emo
Student Union 362 B
Topic: Embodied Performance
Moderator: TBD
- “Embodied Untranslatability: Feminist Refusal and Performance as Practice”
- Razan A. Naseb
- “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies: Exploitation, Embodiment, & Audience Positioning in True Crime Podcasting”
- Miracle Gardner
- “Performing Wrong: The Female Athletic Body as Injury/Injured”
- Izzy Alexander
Graduate Student Mixer
Location: McClung Tower 1215
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Registration Required
Saturday, April 18th
Check-In
Time: 8:30–9:00 a.m.
Location: Student Union 367
Asynchronous Room
Time: 8:30–11:45 a.m.
Location: Student Union 360
Panel 4 Sessions – Confessions and Erasures as Performance
Time: 9:00–10:15 a.m.
Student Union 169
- “Lady Macbeth’s ‘Confessions’ as Performative Improvisations”
- Melanie Werner
- “Expecting Moral Perfection: The Slow Violence of Religious Institutions and Sainthood in Miguel de Unamuno’s ‘Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr’”
- Camille Sydney Malone
- “A Poet, a Ladder, a Happening: M.C. Richards’ Self-Erasure in Theater Piece No. 1”
- Maggie Warren
Panel 5 Sessions – Performance in Practice
Time: 10:30-11:45 a.m.
Student Union 169
- Informal session, Open-mic
Reception
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: McClung Tower 1215
Registration Required