This year’s Rachel Carson Conference: Facing the Horrors, Together
Group photo of presenters for Rachel Carson Conference 2023
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be an organizer, workshop leader, and guest at this year’s Rachel Carson conference. As a member and Co-President of the International English Honors Society Sigma Tau Delta in the chapter Alpha Delta Lambda, I was excited to get the chance to hear the papers and conversations being had this year in the Mellon building. This year’s 8th Rachel Carson Conference was held on October 21 and had a wonderful group of students and faculty who participated in a day of food, writing and literature.
The theme this year was Facing the Horrors, which was originally decided to appeal to the October aspect of the conference, but later became an important exploration of the horror genre. Students from different colleges were invited with the opportunity to have a beginner’s conference experience. This did not just include those who write specifically horror fiction or study horror in academia; everyone had original takes and ideas on how their own scholarship could be seen as horror.
Sigma Tau Delta members and conference organizers
The Rachel Carson Conference was originally created by Dr. Allie Reznik, who attended Chatham and now teaches here. Dr. Reznik wanted to create a space for students to experience their first academic convention. This year, faculty members and students of institutions within Pittsburgh were encouraged to submit “20-minute conference papers, performances and presentations, panels, and multimedia projects that center horror, fear, silence, and the unknown.” according to the conference website’s call for papers this year. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was used in the original call for papers, demonstrating how the text, which outlines the effects of pesticides on our environment, could be read as horror. The conference was broken into four concurrent sessions, creative and academic.
Content submitted to this year’s conference ranged from papers on Lemony Snicket, to the Blair Witch Project and more. Each accepted submission got the opportunity to present their work throughout the Mellon Building followed by questions from participants. I was especially fascinated by the presentations about the xenophobic history of zombies, women’s traumatic medical history throughout time, and understanding the Palestinian conflict through a work of historical fiction.
The Evil Art of Reality TV: 90 Day Fiancé by TLC
Fear the Other: American Xenophobia and the Modern Day Zombie
“Who's Afraid of Women's Medical Autonomy?”
“A Marketing Nightmare: A Cultural Business Analysis of ‘A Loaf of Bread’”
“Billy Joel, Fall Out Boy, and Critical Theory: Facing the Horrors of the Human Heart”
Keynote speaker Dr. Jihyeon Choi
This year included panels, workshops, and presentations from students all over the greater Pittsburgh area. Co-President Hannah Klepsky ’24 especially looked forward to this aspect of the conference. “I’m hoping it will open communication between the Pittsburgh universities, because we’re all neighbors.” Klepsky also presented the beginnings of her own capstone project at the conference this year on Frankenstein. Keynote speaker Dr. Jihyeon Choi gave an important presentation surrounding the horrors of the rape myth. This keynote was organized in partnership with Chatham’s Women’s Institute where Dr. Choi is a visiting scholar. Visitors of the conference observed information on Dr. Choi’s research in South Korea and the United States, and participated in a follow-up Q&A.
Event program for Facing the Horrors
Since this was a student-led event, members of Alpha Delta Lambda really led the charge for a lot of how this event came to be. Vice President of Communications for Alpha Delta Lambda Douglas Bensch ‘25 explained how the conference has influence on students but also for the humanities faculty in general, “This is our humanities department flagship conference; this is our chance to shine in front of the entire university.” Bensch worked on correspondence between colleges, organizing crucial documents for the conference and overall communication.
My personal involvement in the conference included a workshop on this year’s Common Reader for Sigma Tau Delta. The common reader is a piece of text chosen by Sigma Tau Delta organizers for the yearly convention. This year’s Common Reader was Then the War by Carl Phillips. I prepared a short creative writing workshop to explore the horrors within this collection of poetry about queerness, the environment and the self. My workshop, titled “Trees of Literature” gave participants the opportunity to explore passages of text and reread them as horror. After a short lecture, there was also time to free write the thoughts folks had about the conference at the end of the day. Overall, the conference was a wonderful success. Members of Sigma Tau Delta from Pittsburgh and beyond got to connect and experience an event that challenged the ways in which we think about horror as it relates to academia.
The conference continues to be an important event within the humanities department as a display of it’s academic achievements, but also of the thoughtful students who work hard to share their love of the subject. Vice President of Social Media Arden Begley ’25 worked with Dr. Reznik leading up to the conference, making programs and adjustments for presenters. “...it’s been overwhelming since we didn’t know what to expect but now it feels good to know we planned it.” The event simply could not have been possible without all of the Chatham students who worked together to sculpt the day.
If you’d like to learn more about joining Sigma Tau Delta this year, you can email Dr. Allie Reznik A.Reznik@chatham.edu. To see more of the program and papers submitted to this year’s Rachel Carson Conference: Facing the Horrors, you can click here.
Lirit Gilmore is a Creative Writing and Food Studies student. Lirit’s academic focus is centered in food writing and how it intersects with social location and identity. She is from the DMV and the Midwest, and enjoys baking in her free time. See all her work on Pulse@ChathamU here.