Six faculty members — four of whom are recent alumni — and one student from the St. Joseph’s College English department presented at the 29th annual Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA) Conference earlier this month in Baltimore, Maryland.
Started in 1990, MAPACA’s annual conference has grown into one of the largest regional branches of the national Popular Culture and American Culture Association. Thomas Grochowski, Ph.D., associate professor of English, has attended the conference the last six years, becoming a conference advisory board member in 2014 and encouraging colleagues and students to present at the conference.
“One of the things that I am very excited about in terms of this organization is my encouraging of all these really great people to come to this conference, whether they’re undergraduates or recent alum and now adjunct faculty,” Dr. Grochowski said. “It’s also been great getting them involved in the organization by doing things like being an area chair.”
An SJC Family
Greg Bruno ’12 and Jennifer Gagliardi ’15, adjunct professors at St. Joseph’s, served as a chair and co-chair, respectively, at this year’s conference. Bruno took over as the chair of the Working-Class Culture Panel, and Gagliardi joined Dr. Grochowski as co-chair of the Film Studies panel.
Conferences like these give one the chance to focus on improving one’s own scholarship, to share it with fellow academics and to get some good feedback.” — Peter Mascuch, Ph.D., associate professor of English
Associate professor of English Peter Mascuch, Ph.D., adjunct professors Brian Hicks ’13 and Stephanie Reese ’13, and English major Andrew Schlosser ’19 also presented at the conference.
“I have always enjoyed being a part of diverse panels and learning so much from the other presenters,” said Gagliardi, who has presented at the last three MAPACA conferences. “This year as the Film Studies co-chair, I got to spend even more time interacting with scholars from across the country, which was a really rewarding experience. I learned just how much goes into making a conference run efficiently, and I can’t wait to be back next year.”
#SJCNY English instructors Reese, Hicks, and Gagliardi eagerly awaiting next Film Studies panel at #mapaca18! pic.twitter.com/6mDBDcU5oj
— Dr. T. Grochowski (@Unhealthyoffice) November 9, 2018
Hicks, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. at St. John’s University, presented alongside Gagliardi and Reese.
“I really enjoyed presenting with my colleagues,” Hicks said. “There was such an air of camaraderie on the panel that it just felt like talking to a bunch of friends.”
Presenting Professors
Schlosser, who presented on the Working-Class Culture panel, enjoyed watching his professors present.
“It’s fun to see them outside the classroom participating in discussions with their peers,” he said. “It’s also interesting to get a view into their ‘wheelhouse’ so to speak — getting to see them talk about something that they usually wouldn’t get the opportunity to in class is interesting, too!”
Dr. Mascuch presented a book idea he’s working on.
“Conferences like these give one the chance to focus on improving one’s own scholarship, to share it with fellow academics and to get some good feedback,” Dr. Mascuch said. “They also provide an opportunity to catch up with current scholarly work being done in one’s field. They’re a chance to recharge and refresh your scholarly batteries.”
Papers
Below are the titles of the papers presented by the members of the SJC English department.
Greg Bruno: “Hacking Baseball 2.0: Social Media, End Users, and The New York Mets”
Jennifer Gagliardi: “The Visual Landscape of Stanley Kubrick”
Dr. Grochowski: “‘When it Has Elvis Presley In It’: Toward a Taxonomy of Rock and Roll Films”
Brian Hicks: “Much Ado About The Tempest: Staging Shakespeare’s Comedies in 21st-Century Cinema”
Dr. Mascuch: “Finks, Mistresses, Players, and Ed Wood: the Hollywood-on-Hollywood Film of the 90s”
Stephanie Reese: “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Mr. Collins: Creating a Clergyman Audiences Will Like”
Andrew Schlosser: “American Hypocrisy”
