University Writing Professors Abroad

Summer is often the time for academics to travel to conferences at home and abroad. This summer, two University Writing program faculty found themselves in England.

Professor Cayo Gamber gave a paper this summer at The Third Global Conference: Forgiveness – Probing the Boundaries, held at Mansfield College, Oxford. Her paper was entitled "Post-Holocaust ‘Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness’: Revisiting Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower".

Prof Gamber describes her experience. "The conference purposefully was kept to fifty participants. The ethos of the ‘Forgiveness’ project emphasizes dialogue with the issues raised by the conference as a whole and engagement with the people attending the conference. The success of the project is indebted to the continual interaction between delegates for the duration of the conference and beyond. Thus, all participants were called upon to be present for the duration of the conference so as to facilitate the exchange of perspectives for which the conference strives."


The collegial nature of the conference was fostered by the time spent together in the college dining hall, where participants gathered for their meals and conversation.
While at Mansfield College, Prof Gamber stayed in a converted Porter's Lodge, where the campus cat, Erasmus, treated her as an old friend (which meant jumping in and out of her window at will).
Prof Gamber's paper, under the title "“Post-Holocaust ‘Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness’: The Tensions between Remembrance and Forgiveness at Sites of National Conscience” has just been accepted for publication. Congratulations Prof Gamber!

While Prof. Gamber was in Oxford, Professor Katherine Larsen was in Liverpool at the Theorizing the Popular Conference held at Liverpool Hope University. The conference's aim "is to demonstrate the intellectual originality, depth and breadth of ‘popular’ disciplines, as well as their academic relationship with and within ‘traditional’ subjects".

Prof. Larsen's paper, "'Why Won't You Tell Me Your LJ Name?': Aca-Fans and Dirty Secrets," examined issues surrounding the study of popular culture. Prof Larsen spent some time in Liverpool examining the Beatles' early venue The Cavern Club. As she said, "It seemed only fitting."