By Taylor Breckles (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 9, 2014
Six soon-to-be alumni shared their research with a gathering of students, professors, and family at the English Honours Colloquium on April 4.
These honours English students, before moving on to further education or careers, had to write a research paper about a subject of their choosing with the help of a mentor. This research paper — or creative piece, in some cases — was produced over the span of the past two semesters: one for research, and the other for writing.
The students shared a rough outline of their projects, as well as their research methods, some findings, and some excerpts.
Dessa Bayrock shared first. Her project was titled “Cloudgänger: Douglas Coupland’s Split between the Digital and Physical, the Individual and the Community.”
While delivering her presentation with a hint of nerves, Bayrock explained her process.
“Read a lot, write a lot about it, and then Carl [Peters, her mentor] reviews it.”
She addressed topics such as the conflict between the digital and the natural world, how literature and technology work together, and the concept of Coupland’s “Cloudgängers” (doppelgänger of the virtual world which houses all your online information).
The second presenter, Megan Davies, outlined her research for “Historical Pageants, Flags, and Q’owet: Contesting Identities, History, and Land in Fort Langley, B.C.”
Davies’ interdisciplinary research was partly inspired by something she noticed in the re-enactment of an historical proclamation at Fort Langley, B.C. centennial celebrations: “First Nations” was a single character. This led her to eventually conclude that Canada is not, in fact, post-colonial.
“Fallen Poetics: The Satanic, Erotic, and Tragic in Mary Robinson’s Sappho and Phaon,” was the title of Kirsten Nickel’s project. The idea behind Nickel’s paper was to highlight the limitations of gender studies in studying female authors from the Victorian period.
Nickel discussed two of Robinson’s sonnets in her presentation: “Sonnet II The Temple of Chastity” and “Sonnet III The Bower of Pleasure.”
The colloquium was divided into two parts, and following each block of three presenters, guests were invited to ask questions. There was also a brief break at the halfway point, during which both the attendees and the presenters were free to eat some food and mingle.
Lane Anderson opened his talk following the break stating that “industrialization … is the basis for consumerist ways of today.”
He then segued into his topic, Charles Dickens’ early works, in his paper entitled “Sketches by Boz: A Lesson in Perceptiveness.” After explaining that Dickens wrote under the pseudonym of Boz during his early career, Anderson continued to explore the hidden meanings and symbolism in the works.
Anderson also provided a handout, as a few of the students did to help contextualize their work. In his case, it was an illustration from the work. In order to show some of the features discussed in his paper, Anderson provided the audience with an engaging way to understand his point.
Lacey Hall, the fifth presenter, discussed “The Implied Author and the Real Reader: A Relationship Stimulated through the Fallible.” She was one of two students to present a creative piece rather than an essay.
Hall outlined the concept of an unreliable narrator in children’s literature: a narrator which either purposefully or unintentionally withholds information which marks them as untrustworthy, or a narrator who has limited life experience and is thus too naïve to be considered trustworthy. This was the focus of her first research semester in the honours program.
Hall also read a passage from her novel involving a girl named Josie who has to go to a naughty boot camp in the North Pole for some behavioural correction, which was the focus of her second writing semester.
Jess Wind was the final student. She discussed her project, “The Survivors: Violence, Sexuality and Media through the Lens of a Young Adult Novel.”
As the second student to present a creative work, Wind also read an excerpt. The theme of her novel surrounded the idea of teen violence and sexuality through the uses of bullying and rape.
Unlike typical stories, however, Wind decided to make her main character both a victim and a villain in the sense that he gets bullied but also surrenders to his temptations. This is a perspective in which Wind said she had to be aware of boundaries.
Over the course of two hours, all of these ideas were shared, insightful questions were asked, and conversation was had over a couple Timbits and some coffee. Quite a literary end to the final semester at UFV for these graduates.
Editor’s note: Dessa Bayrock is the Editor-in-Chief at The Cascade. Jess Wind is the News Editor.
