Conference Participants

Conference Participants (in order of appearance)

Tuesday, March 21

10:00  Keynote Address

Dr. Nell Irvin Painter, a leading historian of the United States, is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University. In addition to her earned doctorate in history from Harvard University, she has received honorary doctorates from Wesleyan, Dartmouth, SUNY-New Paltz, and Yale. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Nell Painter has also held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Antiquarian Society. She has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the Southern Historical Association.  A prolific and award-winning scholar, her most recent books are The History of White People (W. W. Norton, 2010, paperback, March 2011), Creating Black Americans (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Southern History Across the Color Line (University of North Carolina Press, 2002). A second edition of Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919 and a Korean translation of Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol appeared in 2008.  (Source: nellpainter.com)

               

11:30  Session I – Deconstructing Colonial/Postcolonial Africa

“Era Bell Thompson and Richard Wright: Radical Perspectives of Africa” 
Dr. Eileen De Freece is an Associate Professor of English at Essex County College. Besides having earned Masters’ degrees in Creative Writing and English, respectively, she also holds a Ph. D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers University. Dr. De Freece teaches writing and literature courses that explore issues of diversity that include race, class, gender and sexuality. Her doctoral dissertation, “Era Bell Thompson: Chicago Renaissance Writer” focuses on an overlooked, historically suppressed 20th century black woman writer who spent her life as a journalist studying issues of diversity from a global perspective. Dr. De Freece's most recently published work on Era Bell Thompson appeared in the journal Africalogical Perspectives. 

“Deconstructing the Effects of Hierarchical Structures—Women Against Colonialism and Traditional Patriarchy: Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood”
Dr. Nessie Hill is from Cameroon, West Africa. She is an educator, journalist, mentor, and community activist. She holds a B.A. in Journalism and an M.SC. in Communications from Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies and Development from the Union Institute and University at Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Hill is currently an Associate Professor in the Humanities at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey, and she teaches English, Journalism and Women’s studies. Highly motivated, dedicated and committed to promoting gender sensitivity, Dr. Hill, has facilitated and presented in several workshops, seminars and conferences on pedagogy, education and training, and development initiatives at the United Nations, United states and Internationally.

1:00   Session II – Radical Approaches to Women and Film

“She Got the Shot! Documenting Women Cinematographers, a Digital Humanities Project”

Prof. Jennifer Wager is an Assistant Professor of Communications at Essex County College. She coordinates the Communications A.A., New Media Technology A.A.S., and the Digital Media and Electronic Publishing Certificate programs at Essex County College, and serves as co-advisor to the Gay Straight Alliance, the ECC Observer, and the Short Films Club. Prof. Wager has taught video production to various arts and youth organizations and has facilitated several community media projects in New York City, including Nuestras Voces, a video series made by and about undocumented immigrant women residents on the Lower East Side. Prof. Wager’s current film is Dare to Dream: Cuba’s Latin American Medical School.

“Feminist Inquiry and Female Corporeal Agency in Haifaa al-Mansour’’s Wadjda”
Dr. Viral Bhatt is the Assistant Professor of French and Coordinator of French Studies at Essex County College. She received her PhD in French from the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Dr. Bhatt also serves as the Coordinator of World Languages. She is currently working toward a Master’s Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Dr. Bhatt’s dissertation, Nomadic Impulses, De-Centered Bodies: Female Agency and Corporeality in the Cinema of French and Francophone Women Directors (1962-2007), reflects and underscores the interdisciplinary nature of her academic training, teaching methodology, and scholarly interests. Dr. Bhatt will be presenting a paper entitled Female Corporeality at the Heart of Cinematic Resistance: A Nomadic Inquiry at the upcoming Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Conference in Baltimore, MD.

“Women in Media”
Prof. Lisa Durden is an Adjunct Professor in the Humanities Division at Essex County College, teaching Mass Communications and Popular Culture as well as Developmental Reading and Writing. With a degree in Journalism, Prof. Durden is also a well-known television personality and pop culture commentator with frequent appearances on FOX television, BET, MTV, WPIX, and other media. She has also worked as Broadcast Manager for the National Black Programming Consortium, and remains passionate about sharing her expertise and opinions on pop culture and social issues.

Wednesday, March 22

10:00  Session I – Filming History’s Gaps

“The Black Eagle of Harlem”

Dr. William (Billy) J. Tooma is the award-nominated documentary filmmaker of Fly First & Fight Afterward: The Life of Col. Clarence D. Chamberlin and Poetry of Witness. His work focuses on bringing to light the stories of those who have been forgotten and marginalized by history. It is his belief that the study of biography is the key to revitalizing education across the disciplines. Just recently he earned his Doctor of Letters degree from Drew University; his dissertation was the documentary The Black Eagle of Harlem.  

Dr. Akil Kokayi Khalfani is Director of the Africana Institute and Associate Professor of Sociology at Essex County College. He is President and Founder of ATIRA Corp, a Think Tank that develops solutions for the problems that people of African descent face globally. Dr. Khalfani has a Ph.D. and a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania, from which he also earned a Certificate in African Studies. His areas of expertise are Africana Studies, race relations, social stratification, and comparative history.

Najee R. Smith is an Art Major at Essex County College. He will be graduating this spring, and will be transferring to Montclair University. Mr. Smith intends to pursue a career in animation.

   

11:30  Session II – Reimagining Revolution

“Revolution through the Lens of the Humanities: Literature, Art, and Music—1800s to the Present”
Prof. Donna Hill Donna Hill is a former long-time Adjunct Lecturer at Essex County College and is currently an Assistant Professor of Professional Writing at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, NY. Donna recently celebrated 25 years as a published author with more than 70 titles in print, three of which were adapted for television. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She is a Brooklyn native and resides there with her family.

“The World Turned Upside Down”        
Prof. Elizabeth Sanderson received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2009, her MA in Art history from UIC in 2012 and her MLIS from Dominican University in Archiving in 2016. She teaches at Trinity Christian College. Her research focuses on Black Art and Art of the Black Diaspora. Her upcoming peer-reviewed book Alternate Historiographies focuses on the work of Spike Lee and Michael Ray Charles among others. She presented her research for this text at the centennial symposium on Birth of a Nation at the University College of London in association with The British Film Institute in 2015.

“The Kinetics of Our Discontent: Towards a History of Social Arrest”
Dr. Mehmet Döşemeci is an intellectual and cultural historian of modern Europe and the Middle-East. His latest project explores modern social struggle in the transatlantic world through a kinetic register. It details the emergence of an economy of movement in the 18th century transatlantic world and uncovers the practices and mentalities of disruption that have sought to arrest this economy ever since. His previous research explored the ways Turks and Europeans have approached, understood, and reacted to one another over the course of the world's most recent globalization. Dr. Döşemeci has published on various aspects of this entangled history, examining: Turkey's relations with the European Union; development, dependency, and state directed industrialization; Turkish anti-westernism; and Turkey's place in the cold-war Mediterranean. His book, Debating Turkish Modernity: Civilization, Nationalism, and the EEC, was published in 2014 through Cambridge University Press.

1:00   Session III – Dance Performance

Sen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Shen Yun was established in New York in 2006 by elite Chinese artists. They came together with a shared vision and passion—to revive the lost world of traditional Chinese culture and share it with everyone. The name “Shen Yun” means “the beauty of divine beings dancing,” and that is what the audience experiences. Shen Yun now has five equally large companies that tour the world simultaneously, bringing an all-new performance of dance, costumes, animated backdrops, singing, and music to over 150 theaters every year.

Thursday, March 23

10:00  Session I – Radicalism in Literature

“Revolutionary Figures: Transcendentalists of Concord”

Prof. Richard Marranca teaches Creative Writing, World Literature, Children’s Literature, Critical Thinking, Introduction to Literature, and English Composition at Passaic County Community College. Since 2014, he has been a Trustee of the NJ College English Association. He is also a recent past president of the NJ Fulbright chapter. A former Fulbright scholar, Prof. Marranca has also received six National Endowments for the Humanities summer study grants. He has two books in print: Dragon Sutra (Southeast Asia novel) and The New Romantics: 10 Stories of Mystery, Passion, Travel and Vampires (both from Oak Tree Press, California). He has four online books. His fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in the Paterson Literary Review, Minerva, Shambhala Sun, Sufi, Quadrant, Indiana Review, The World’s Religions by Huston Smith (50th anniversary edition;  interview with author), and more.

“The Classic Radical: Finding the Mile in the Minutiae, E Pluribus Unum”

Prof. Laura Close is a member of the teaching faculty at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale. She earned a Master of Arts in English in the Teaching and Writing of Literature from George Mason University in 2007 and a degree in Creative Writing in 2010. Her self-published book of acrostic poems, T Party, was published in 2012 by iUniverse.

11:30  Session II – History, Fiction, and Rewriting Trauma

“Alternatives to Empire: Social Justice and Historical Memory in Alternate History Fiction”

Prof. Liamog Drislane is an Adjunct Professor who teaches writing and literature classes at Essex County College and Fairleigh Dickinson University. His MA thesis addressed conventions of race in science fiction and the racial imaginations of Mary Shelley (as seen in Frankenstein) and Octavia Butler. Liam’s research interests include speculative fiction, feminist and gender criticism, and critical race theory. He is currently pursuing a Master’s of Teaching at FDU.

“Black Lives Matter: 19^th Century Redux”

Prof. Rebecca Williams is an Assistant Professor in the English Dept. at Essex County College, where she teaches American Literature, African American Literature, Women’s Literature, Modern Literary Masterpieces, and Composition. She is also co-chair of the Micheaux/Washington Black Film Series, and serves as faculty co-advisor to the college’s Gay/Straight Alliance. Her other academic interests include early American crime narratives, antebellum literature, African American modernism, popular culture, and memoir.

1:00   Session III – The Aesthetics of Black Radicalism

“Revolution Incarnate: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Assembly of the Radical Black Aesthetic”

Matthew Stumpf is a PhD student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he is studying the American Revolutionary Aesthetic. Through his scholarship, Matthew hopes to outline the ways in which a revolutionary spirit has always been an inherent part of American literary production. Recently he been working on a larger piece concerning the Black Aesthetic and Gwendolyn Brooks, which is slated for inclusion in a comprehensive volume concerning the Black Arts Movement in 2017. Matthew enjoys gritty literature that leaves its readers wanting to be the force of betterment in a world that desperately needs it.

“Rooted in Brick: Newark’s Grassroots Politics as ‘Traditional-Radical’ Discourse—Big City Blues…Small Town Strong”

Prof. Eunice D. Singleton, M.Ed., was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. As well as her position as Adjunct English Faculty, Professor Singleton is also a Newark Public Schools teacher of English at University High School in Newark’s South Ward, where she lived most of her youth. Professor Singleton’s life as Newark resident has been an experience of pain, perseverance, revelation, and reverence, with and of the city she loves deeply. Professor Singleton’s singular daily focus is rooted in the uplift of our youth through education, and she has pledged a lifelong devotion unto this endeavor. Professor Singleton is currently penning her memoirs in her soon to be completed book “K 2 13”: One Teacher's Epic Journey Through Education.

Friday, March 24

11:30  Session I – Narratives of Revolution

“The Show that Never Ends: Crime Scenes and Communal Narratives in Spike Lee’s Clockers and Chi-Raq”

Brian Plungis is a graduate of New York University’s Cinema Studies Master’s program and is currently pursuing a second graduate degree in NYU’s Near Eastern Studies M.A. program. Prior to NYU, Plungis received dual B.A. degrees in Film Studies and Political Science from Trinity College (CT). Outside of academia, he has experience in filmmaking and directing and has worked in film and television production at Lionsgate Entertainment and CBS News. His primary research interests include post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, disability studies, cross-cultural representations of suffering, and the construction of social justice narratives and universal human rights.

“The Counter-Culture and Revolution in Films of the New Hollywood (1967-1969)”

Prof. Victoria Timpanaro is a filmmaker, musician, and the Manager of Production Services at Essex County College. She also runs the college's Educational Access stations for Cablevision (Ch. 77) and for Verizon Fios (Ch. 37), and teaches CIN 101: Introduction to the Art of Film. Prof. Timpanaro‘s academic career started at Brookdale Community College, where she received an AA in Music and an AAS in TV/Video Production' She was also an active member of the Alpha Pi Theta Chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. At Ramapo College, she earned a double BA in Electronic Music and Digital Video Art, while minoring in Women's Studies. Prof. Timpanaro completed her MA in Media Studies at The New School. Her thesis work, a documentary entitled Indie/Cult/Horror, examined underground horror films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. She is currently working on a new documentary series titled, Reel Women: Looking at Women in Horror and Sci-Fi Films.

“Orisa in the Ghetto: A Digital Humanities Project”

Dr. Kaia Niambi Shivers is a clinical Assistant Professor in the Global Liberal Studies Department at New York University. She earned a Ph.D. from the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University. Dr. Shivers is a media professional and scholar living in the New York metropolitan area. Her work focuses on race/ethnicity and media, social media, gender, and the African diaspora.