On behalf of the UMEGO executive board and the University of Memphis faculty, staff, and students, welcome to the second annual UMEGO conference in Memphis, TN.

Executive Board: 

President – Korbyn Peebles | PhD Student, Writing, Rhetoric, & Technical Communication 

Treasurer – Ifeoluwa Priscilia Awopetu | PhD Student, Applied Linguistics 

Secretary – Ashton Alexander | PhD Student, Writing, Rhetoric, & Technical Communication

Media Coordinator – Emily Gillo | PhD Candidate, Writing, Rhetoric, & Technical Communication  

Faculty Advisor – Sarah Ellis | English Graduate Office Coordinator 

Click here to download a PDF version of the program

The University of Memphis English Graduate Organization (UMEGO) is a long-standing English department student organization that supports the advancement of the academic and professional goals of its members and provides opportunities for networking with other graduate students and faculty in the department. UMEGO proudly provides quality services to the English major graduate students. What differentiates UMEGO from other organizations is the ability to truly connect with graduate students, faculty, and the University of Memphis through events such as the UMEGO Graduate Student Conference. 

This year’s conference theme, Learning from Fear, was inspired by a few driving factors: one is the organizers’ growing distaste for conventional academic practices and the exclusion, inadequate representation, and general sense of superiority that comes with them; another is the pervasive sense of fear and anxiety felt by so many of us since the COVID-19 lockdowns; yet another is a noticeable lack of discussions surrounding horror – particularly internet horror – in traditionally academic spaces. 

Thus, the organizers sought to bridge gaps with this theme: bridge the gap between popular media and academic media studies, bridge the gap between academics and their surrounding communities, bridge the gap between lofty and sometimes unattainable academic expectations and real-world execution. With this theme in mind, this year’s conference brings together industry professionals, faculty, and graduate students across numerous disciplines such as Applied Linguistics, Communication, Literature, Creative Writing, Technical Communication, and Theatre Studies to present panels on fear as a pedagogical tool, the rhetoric of horror, fears of surveillance, the politics of fear, fear and race, fear and sex, and horror/fear aesthetics.

Additionally, the conference’s keynote speakers – Dr. Stephanie Graves of Vanderbilt University and Dr. John Edgar Browning of the Savannah College of Art and Design – are joining us to hold a roundtable discussion with graduate students from the English Department’s Applied Linguistics and Writing, Rhetoric, & Technical Communication concentrations. 

The organizers would like to extend their sincere gratitude to all of those whose work and dedication brought this conference to life: Ms. Deb Talbot (sponsor of the Talbot Roundtable Fund) and Dr. Donal Harris, Director of the Marcus W. Orr Center for the Humanities (co-sponsor); the English Department Chair and Graduate Faculty Committee; Sarah Ellis, Alonna McClendon, and Bridget Wells; and UMEGO members Ashton Alexander, Ifeoluwa Awopetu, Emily Gillo, and Korbyn Peebles. 

The 2025 UMEGO Conference will be held in Patterson Hall. Patterson Hall’s address is 530 Patterson Street Memphis, TN 38152. Sign-in and breakfast will be held in the Patterson Hall lobby. Panels will be held throughout the building, room numbers can be found in the program summary section.

Membership: No membership is required for proposal submission or conference attendance in 2025. 

Registration: No registration is required for panelist attendance for the 2025 conference. There is no registration fee for the 2025 conference. Each panelist will receive a badge, which must be worn while attending conference sessions and events, and a conference program at the entrance table. The facilities and services of the conference are available only to panel participants, their guests, and administrators, faculty, and students from the local host institution and local host community. The Executive Board reserves the right to deny future participation in the conference to any chair or presenter who does not follow guidelines and procedures. 

Conference registration for non-presenters: Administrators, faculty, and students from the local host institution and the local host community who are not Chairing or presenting at the conference may attend sessions and activities/events. They will receive a program and badge at the entrance table.  Family members and friends who wish to attend only the session in which their relative or friend is presenting may attend and are asked to come to the entrance desk to get a badge. 

Types of Sessions: Regular Sessions are open-topic sessions lasting sixty minutes at which members present scholarly papers, presentations, or otherwise interactive engagements with the audience on topics related to the conference topic of fear and pedagogy. Each regular session has a Session Chair. Session Chairs may present in their own session, and are responsible for keeping time for the other panelists.  

Guidelines for Session Chairs: Session Chairs are initially chosen by the Executive Board, and each year following, will be selected by the current Session Chair at the end of their panel for the next year’s conference. Session Chairs are responsible for keeping time for each panelist and assisting with technology as needed. Beginning with the 3rd annual conference, Sessions Chairs will also assist the conference hosts with proposal selection for their assigned panel. 

Guidelines for Presenters: One does not have to register to the conference to submit a proposal, but one must confirm their attendance by March 28th, 2025 to appear in the program. Proposals based on 300-word abstracts are due on February 21st, 2025. The Session Chair and/or conference host and/or Executive Board is responsible for notifying applicants by March 7th, 2025. Please limit remarks to the time allotted, in order to leave time for questions - approximately 20 minutes per presenter. 

Accepted panelists are expected to attend the conference to read at their scheduled time. If an applicant has a proposal accepted for the conference, we ask that they plan to attend and share their research or work. If one must cancel, please inform the Session Chair and/or conference hosts in a timely manner so that a replacement can be found. Papers cannot be read in absentia. If the Session Chair does not arrive, please delegate someone as a temporary chair/moderator and continue with the session, both for the sake of the audience and for the sake of the presenters who have made efforts to travel to the conference and present their work. In such situations, senior faculty/professionals are urged to take on this responsibility, modeling professionalism to junior faculty and students who may be participating.  

The University of Memphis English Graduate Organization is committed to making arrangements that allow all members to participate fully in the conference. All Session Chairs and presenters are asked to review the following information and take the necessary steps to make their sessions accessible to attendees who need them.  

Room Setup 

All panel rooms, the registration area, and the poster session area are set up to accommodate wheelchairs. Patterson Hall is equipped with two elevators, as is the University Center. Please keep the entrance of each room clear for persons who may be using wheelchairs, canes, crutches, or motorized vehicles. People who are d/Deaf or Hard of Hearing and who use sign language interpreters or read lips need to sit where they can see both the speakers and the interpreter. Speakers should avoid speaking from a darkened area of the room so their lips and faces can be visible. Interpreters may stand close to the speaker or within a direct line of sight to allow the audience to view both the speaker and the interpreter. 

Papers, Handouts, and Audiovisuals 

Speakers who bring an extra copy of papers or handouts for the audience should ensure that their font is no smaller than 12-point, and are asked to bring a few extra copies in large-print format (boldface, 14-16-point font size on white paper with black text) and briefly describe the materials to the audience and allow ample time to distribute them. Speakers should indicate whether they want their materials returned. Consider the possibility that persons in the audience may have vision impairments. Allow ample time when referring to a visual aid or handout, or when pointing out the location of materials. Briefly describe the materials.  

Communication and Presentation  

Speak clearly and distinctly, but do not shout. Use regular speed unless asked to slow down by members of the audience, sign interpreters, or persons using real-time captioning. Practice timing your presentation to avoid having to speak too quickly. Since microphones can fail to pick up voices in the audience and because voices from the front of the room may be hard to hear from the back of the room, speakers should repeat questions or statements made by the audience. In dialogues or discussions, only one person should speak at a time, and questioners should identify themselves. We appreciate your consideration and implementation of these requests. 

Should any attendee require or prefer any additional accommodations, those may be requested by emailing learningfromfear@gmail.com no later than 5 business days prior to the conference dates - April 21st, 2025. 

Please note that unless otherwise stated, all sessions are open to all conference participants. Rooms are set up for audio-visual accompaniments and have been prepared in advance to accommodate specific requests by the Session Chair and/or panelists.  

Saturday, April 26th

Registration and Catered Breakfast | 7:30am-8:30am | Patterson Hall lobby

Fear & Pedagogy is a hybrid panel; Horrors of the Body and The Aesthetics of Fear are virtual panels. Click the panel titles to join the Teams meeting. Meetings are recorded.

Fear & Pedagogy | Patterson Hall 229 | 8:30am-9:30am  

Session Chair: Jennifer Byrd

Jennifer Byrd, University of Memphis: "Modeling Risk: Why Teachers Shouldn't be Afraid of Failing in Front of Their Students"

Natalie Brown, Mississippi State University: "You Don't Scare Me: Fear as a Pedagogical Tool in Picture Books"

Cheyenne LaRoque, University of North Texas: "Say it Well: Combatting Engfish and AI’s Artificial Engfish by Embracing Translingualism in the FYW Classroom" 

Horrors of the Body (Virtual) | Patterson Hall 229 |  9:45am-10:45am

Session Facilitator: Korbyn Peebles

Mak Johnston, University of North Florida: "Crown Pig"

Mercy McAndrew, University of Wyoming: "Flicker and Fade: The Fears of Forgotten Bodies"
Sasha Ravitch, Sarah Lawrence College: "Body Betrays Itself: Fear, Grief, and Chronic Illness Represented Through the Posthumanist Gothic in Film"

Is Rhetoric a Dying Discipline? Fear, Disciplinary Tensions, and the Future of Rhetorical Studies Roundtable | Patterson Hall 227 | 11:00am-12:00pm 

Session Chair: Samantha Guajardo, University of Memphis

AD Alston, University of Memphis

Kyle Chitwood, University of Memphis

***Break for lunch from 12:00pm-1:00pm*** 

Interactive Exhibits & Poster Presentations | Patterson Hall 2nd Floor | 1:00pm-2:00pm  

Gabrielle Alston, University of Memphis: "Digital and Technical Communication: The Rhetoric of Fear in the Digital Age" Interactive Exhibit 

Samantha Guajardo, University of Memphis: "Surveilling Borders: Rhetoric, Fear, and Immigrant Criminalization during the Trump Administration" Poster Presentation

Jacob Williams, University of Memphis: “Neighborhood Games: A Workshop on Writing Fear from the Places You Call Home” 

Representations of Horror in Media | Patterson Hall 227 | 2:15pm-3:15pm 

Session Chair: David Rosenberg

AD Alston, University of Memphis: “‘You’re Practically One of Us!’: Incorporating a Womanist Horror Framework in African American Literature”
Rachell Berry, University of Memphis: "The Hyperobject out of Space: Materializing the Rhetoric of AI Fear"  

David Rosenberg, University of Memphis: "From High Places to Sunken Places: Transplanting the Jamesonian Text "

The Aesthetics of Fear (Virtual) | Patterson Hall 229 | 2:15pm-3:15pm   

Session Facilitator: Korbyn Peebles

Elizabeth O’Malley, University of North Florida:  “A Bad Taste in your Mouth: Fear of Identification in Mouthwashing” 

Suparna Ghosh, English University of Calcutta, India: "Beauty that Kills: Tomie, the Male Thirst, and the Horrors of Desire"

Cicek Usumezgezer, Kirkareli University, Turkey: "Don't be Afraid of the Dark: The Entanglement of Horror and Sociology in the Classroom, the Screen, and the Anthropocene"

Politics of Fear and "Otherness" | Patterson Hall 227 | 3:30pm-4:30pm 

Session Chair: Chloe Robertson

Ifeoluwa Awopetu, University of Memphis: "Hate Speech and the Fear of 'Otherness'"

Ayesha Ahmed, University of Tennessee Knoxville: "The Rhetorics of the Hijab: The Angles of Islamophobia and Fear"
Chloe Robertson, University of Memphis, "Trump’s Counterpublic: A Study of (D/M)isinformation on Twitter/X and the Abuse of Rhetorical Velocity and Genre to Generate Fear"

Ahmed, Ayesha | “The Rhetorics of the Hijab: The Angles of Islamophobia and Fear”

Alston, AD | “‘You’re Practically One of Us!’: Incorporating a Womanist Horror Framework in African American Literature”

Roundtable participant: “Is Rhetoric a Dying Discipline? Fear, Disciplinary Tensions, and the Future of Rhetorical Studies”

Alston, Gabrielle |  "Digital and Technical Communication: The Rhetoric of Fear in the Digital Age"

Awopetu, Ifeoluwa | “Hate Speech and the Fear of ‘Otherness’”  

Berry, Rachell | "The Hyperobject out of Space: Materializing the Rhetoric of AI Fear"  

Brown, Natalie | “You Don’t Scare Me: Fear as a Pedagogical Tool in Picture Books”

Byrd, Jennifer | “Modeling Risk: Why Teachers Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Failing in Front of Their Students”

Chitwood, Kyle | Roundtable participant: “Is Rhetoric a Dying Discipline? Fear, Disciplinary Tensions, and the Future of Rhetorical Studies”  

Ghosh, Suparna | “Beauty that Kills: Tomie, the Male Thirst, and the Horrors of Desire”

Guajardo, Samantha | “Surveilling Borders: Rhetoric, Fear, and Immigrant Criminalization during the Trump Administration”
Roundtable participant: “Is Rhetoric a Dying Discipline? Fear, Disciplinary Tensions, and the Future of Rhetorical Studies”

Johnston, Mak | “Crown Pig”

LaRoque, Cheyenne | "Say it Well: Combatting Engfish and AI’s Artificial Engfish by Embracing Translingualism in the FYW Classroom" 

McAndrew, Mercy | "Flicker and Fade: The Fears of Forgotten Bodies" 

O’Malley, Elizabeth | “A Bad Taste in your Mouth: Fear of Identification in Mouthwashing”

Park, Yune | “Hybrid Theater and Audience Interactivity: Political Dramaturgy as Conceptual Deterritorialization in the Fish-Bird Series” 

Ravitch, Sasha | “Body Betrays Itself: Fear, Grief, and Chronic Illness Represented Through the Posthumanist Gothic in Film”

Robertson, Chloe | “Trump’s Counterpublic: A Study of (D/M)isinformation on Twitter/X and the Abuse of Rhetorical Velocity and Genre to Generate Fear”

Rosenberg, David | "From High Places to Sunken Places: Transplanting the Jamesonian Text "

Usumezgezer, Cicek | “Don’t be Afraid of the Dark: The Entanglement of Horror and Sociology in the Classroom, the Screen, and the Anthropocene”
Williams, Jacob | “Neighborhood Games: A Workshop on Writing Fear from the Places You Call Home”