Presentations

Invited Talks

“Why Regionalism and Place, and Why Now?” Opening Plenary Panel. American Literature Association Symposium on Regionalism and Place in American Literature. New Orleans, Louisiana. September 8, 2017.

“Looking for Belle: Belle Kanaris Maniates.” Greater Lansing Historical Society. Library of Michigan, June 8, 2017.

“Finding a Lost Author: Belle Maniates.” Faculty Development Award Lecture. Hastings College, March 13, 2017.

Conference Presentations (select)

“Monuments to the Pioneer Woman in O Pioneers! and My Ántonia.” Willa Cather Spring Conference. Red Cloud, Nebraska. June 6, 2025.

“Cather’s Pioneer Mothers.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. East Lansing, Michigan. May 29, 2025.

“An Ethical Case for Multimodal Projects in Literature Courses.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. East Lansing, Michigan. May 30, 2025. 

“Preserving and Shaping the Cultural Memory of Slavery in the Poetry of Priscilla Jane Thompson.” Midwestern History Conference. Des Moines, Iowa. May 16, 2025.

“‘Amarilly Again’: The Publication History of Belle Maniates’s Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley.” Midwest History Conference. Grand Rapids, Michigan. May 31, 2024.

“Indigenous Horror.” Presidential Roundtable: Midwestern Culture in the 21st Century: Recent Trends in Literature, TV, and Film, 2000–2024. A Symposium of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. East Lansing, Michigan. May 29, 2024.

“Publishing the Short Stories of Belle Maniates: Behind the Scenes at Hastings College Press.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. East Lansing, Michigan. May 28, 2024.

“Tracing the Origins of the Thompson Poets’ Rejection of Plantation School Tropes.” American Literature Association. Chicago, Illinois. May 25, 2024.

“The Gothic Pioneer Woman: Nationalist Myth and Frontier Violence During and After WWII.” American Nightmares: The Inaugural Symposium of the Society for the Study of the American Gothic. Salem, Massachusetts. March 22, 2024.

“Reading Lost Authors Through Genealogical Research: Clara Ann, Priscilla Jane, and Aaron Belford Thompson.” The Cultural Heritage of the Midwest: A Symposium of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. East Lansing, Michigan.  June 1, 2023.

“Clara Ann Thompson, Priscilla Jane Thompson, and Aaron Belford Thompson: Republishing Post-Reconstruction Black Poets in the ‘Post-Now.’” Midwestern Modern Language Association. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Presented virtually November 17, 2022.

“'Dot vos a funny thream!': The Deconstruction of Plantation School Tropes in the Poetry of Aaron Belford Thompson and Clara Ann Thompson. " Writing the Midwest: A Symposium of Scholars and Writers. East Lansing, Michigan.  June 3, 2022.

“The recitations of Miss Priscilla J. Thompson and Miss Clara A. Thompson were very highly appreciated”: Community Influence on the Poetry of the Thompson Siblings." Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Virtual. November 4, 2021.

"U.S. Regions, Nationalism, and Intersectionality." Roundtable: Regionalism in Film, Television, and Media Studies: Methods and Practices. Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Virtual. March 20, 2021.

“Theorizing the Midwest Gothic.” Western Literature Association. Estes Park, Colorado. September 20, 2019.

“The Pioneer Woman Versus Modernism: Post-1930s Ambivalence Toward an American Nationalist Myth.” Finding the Lost Region V: Midwestern History Conference. Grand Rapids, Michigan. May 31, 2019.

“The Midwest Gothic in Visual Form.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium for Scholars and Creative Writers. East Lansing, Michigan. May 17, 2019.

“Assembling the Voluminous Short Fiction of Belle K. Maniates.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Denver, Colorado. November 11, 2018. 

“The Pioneer Woman Versus Modernism: Post-1930s Ambivalence Toward an American Nationalist Myth.” Western Literature Association. St. Louis, Missouri. October 27, 2018.

“Carolyn Renfrew: A Nebraska Writer Living in Cather’s Shadow.” Willa Cather Spring Conference. Red Cloud, Nebraska. May 31, 2018.

“Foreign Born: Discovering John Herrmann’s Unpublished Word War I Home Front Novel.” Round Table. Writing the Midwest: A Symposium for Scholars and Creative Writers. East Lansing, Michigan. May 19, 2018.

“In Cather’s Shadow: The Almost-Successful Career of Carolyn Renfrew.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium for Scholars and Creative Writers. East Lansing, Michigan. May 17, 2018.

“Editorial Meddling and Historical Erasure in a New Edition of H.W. Foght’s Trail of the Loup.” Western Literature Association. Minneapolis, Minnesota. October 26, 2017.

“Nationalist Nostalgia: The Midwestern Small Town in the Mid-Twentieth Century.” American Literature Association Symposium on Regionalism and Place in American Literature. New Orleans, Louisiana. September 9, 2017.

“Belle Maniates’s Novel David Dunne: Champion of the Progressive Movement?” The Lost Region III: Midwestern History Conference. Grand Rapids, Michigan. June 7, 2017.

“Belle Maniates’s David Dunne: Romance or Political Commentary?” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium for Scholars and Creative Writers. East Lansing, Michigan. June 2, 2017.

“Belle K. Maniates and the Feminist Trail.” Western Literature Association. Big Sky, Montana. September 22, 2016.

“Lansing’s Most Beloved Forgotten Author: Belle K. Maniates.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium for Scholars and Creative Writers. East Lansing, Michigan. June 2, 2016. 

“Publishing from Flyover Country: The Design and Distribution of Contemporary Midwestern Literary Magazines.” Writing the Midwest: A Symposium for Scholars and Creative Writers. East Lansing, Michigan. June 3, 2016.

“Selling Modern Gadgets with Nostalgia: Creating Midwestern Consumers at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.” The Lost Region II: Midwestern History Conference. Grand Rapids, Michigan. June 1, 2016.

(with Liz Frombgen) “This Book Sucks! An Alternative to the Common Reading.” 35th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience. Orlando, Florida. February 23, 2016.

“Publishing from Flyover Country: (Re)Designing the Audiences for Midwest Publications.” Modern Language Association. Austin, Texas. January 7, 2015.

“A Midwestern Belle: The Unlikely Literary Career of Belle K. Maniates.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. November 5, 2015.

“Plows on the Plains: Cather and 1930s Regionalism.” 60th Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference and International Seminar. Lincoln, Nebraska. June 10, 2015.

“Hastings College Press.” Roundtable: The Revival of Midwestern Writing. The Cultural Heritage of the Midwest: A Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. June 1, 2015.

“Pop-Midwest: Adventures in Interdisciplinary Teaching.” The Cultural Heritage of the Midwest: A Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. June 1, 2015.

“Badger in Nebraska: Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! and Children’s Literature.” 59th Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference. Red Cloud, Nebraska. June 5, 2014.

“E.B. White and Middle America.” The Cultural Heritage of the Midwest: A Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. May 10, 2014.

“Theorizing the Midwest.” Presidential Panel: The Future of Midwestern Literature. The Cultural Heritage of the Midwest: A Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. May 9, 2014. 

“The Child Is the Animal in Randall Jarrell’s Animal Family.” Modern Language Association. Chicago, Illinois. January 10, 2014.

“The Moving Was Over and Done”: Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House and Middle America.” Writing the Midwest Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. May 11, 2013.

“The Regional Form of Disney: Song of the South and Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus Stories.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Chicago, Illinois. March 7, 2013.

 “‘He Who Walks Behind the Rows’: Industrial Agriculture and Heartland Horror.” Writing the Midwest Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. May 12, 2012.

“There’s No Place for Home: Defining Middle America in the 21st Century.” Rethinking Mid-America in a Time of Crisis (Mid-America American Studies Association 2012 Annual Meeting). Tulsa, Oklahoma. April 3, 2012.

“Stories by Heart in Field(s) of Dreams—Finding the Midwest in the 21st Century.” Writing the Midwest Symposium. East Lansing, Michigan. May 13, 2011.

“A New Green Order in War of the Worlds’ Post-America.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. New Orleans, Louisiana. March 12, 2011.

“Baseball in Paradise: Field of Dreams and Agricultural Trauma.” Graduate Research Forum. University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. April 31, 2010.