Department of English hosts eighth Natures Conference

La Sierra University’s Department of English hosted the eighth annual Natures Conference. This year’s theme was “Habitats and Hazards,” a fundamental part of each presenter’s talk. Lora Geriguis, chair of the Department of English, served as the Natures Conference convener. Cassandra Hicks, graduate student in English, served as the Natures 2016 chair. This year’s speaker for two plenary sessions was Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook, an associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Natures Conference events began in 2009 as an opportunity to give the English graduate program a professional edge. Geriguis believed that it was important for graduate students to begin conferencing and engage in competitive analysis. One major trend with the conference is having a graduate student serve as conference chair to learn what it takes to organize a conference. This was an experience that Geriguis had when completing her graduate program at the University of California, Riverside.

The first few Natures conferences focused on creating the basic infrastructure of a professional conference. During its fifth year, the event evolved from a graduate to a professional conference. The department opened up the event to other faculty and graduate students from other institutions to join La Sierra in the study of ecocriticism.

Geriguis says that finding people to attend the conference was the easy part in planning each year. “Environmental issues are an important discussion and are of interest at La Sierra. It also complements the science side of our university,” said Geriguis. 

This year’s conference offered panels on various facets of ecocriticism ranging from literature to photography. During the panel called “Medieval Themes: Traversing Modern Landscapes,” La Sierra’s Katherine Parsons Koh, adjunct assistant professor of Church History and an assistant professor of history, presented a paper on the repurposing of medieval churches in modern England. The cost of maintaining churches has caused the Church of England to downsize. In response, they have begun selling churches for repurposing. They have been repurposed into homes, hostels, markets, cafes, and even a training ground for a trapeze artist. “This supports secular moralists rather than Christian moralists, and that is something we have to think about,” says Parsons Koh.

Grace Nambela, a graduate enrolled in La Sierra’s Master of Arts in English program, presented a paper that she wrote for one of her classes. The paper compared the romantic tragedy “Troilus and Criseyde,” by Geoffrey Chaucer and compared it to the 2009 film “(500) Days of Summer,” directed by Marc Webb. Nambela referred to the main male leads in both works as “puppy-eyed lovers.” Nambela’s presentation showed evidence that the portrayal of men in love has not changed much for the last 600 years. 

Geriguis claimed that her favorite presentation was “Liberating Legion: An Ecocritical, Post-colonial Reading of Mark 5:1-20,” by Kendra Haloviak Valentine, associate professor of New Testament studies at La Sierra. Haloviak Valentine argued that the biblical passage may cause readers to question Jesus’ destruction of nonhuman life. It is through this that they would be able to see the nature of his mission. Another presentation that Geriguis enjoyed was, “Smoke a Pack a Day: Images from the Gray Wolf Delisting Debate,” by Andrew Howe, associate professor and chair of History, Politics, and Society at La Sierra. Howe examined the battle between those who oppose and support the delisting of the gray wolf.

“We’ve done this conference for a while and I was beginning to feel weary, but when I heard Dr. Holoviak Valentine, our first speaker, I remembered that this is why we do this,” said Geriguis. 

The history of the plenary session began with the first conference when Geriguis requested two individuals serve as plenary speaker, not realizing that both would agree. She then split the plenary session into two sessions, the first as an academic presentation and the second session as a professional presentation. The professional presentation covers the field of ecocriticism and research methods, a quality that makes Natures unique from other conferences. In 2014, Cheryll Glotfelty, editor of the book titled “The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology” served as a keynote speaker. Geriguis cites Glotfelty as one of the few responsible for mainstreaming ecocriticism. Since 2014, Nature Conference organizers have been more strategic with what facet of ecocriticism they wanted to cover each year.

Cook, this year’s main speaker, in 2012 co-edited the collection titled “Invaluable Trees: Culture of Nature 1660-1830.” She has also been in the works of a book titled “Talking Trees: Others and Ethics in Long-Eighteenth-C. British Literature.”

During the first plenary session, Cook’s presentation was titled “Reimaging the Uninhabitable: Wilderness and Wastelands.” She compared the 17^th century epic “Paradise Lost,” by John Milton to the photography of Edward Burtynsky. She examined the way people felt about Milton’s depiction of hell and compared it to the reactions of Burtynsky’s photographs. Milton modeled the topography of hell to match or share similarities to the topography of 17^th century England. This assisted in making hell feel more diverse and relatable as opposed to his description of heaven.

Burtynsky’s images provide a similar feeling of cognitive dissonance as he photographs poor ecological landscapes that are both spellbinding and haunting. In conclusion, both authors used imagery to represent the prices that humanity has to pay.

The second plenary session was titled “Vertically Integrating Habitats: Collaboration in the Humanities,” and was also presented by Cook. She discussed how team projects are becoming more popular in the humanities field and scholars have learned to share space with faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Collaborative work has become an attractive skill set for the academic job market.

Geriguis hopes for the conference to reach the 10-year mark and beyond. The Natures Conference has become increasingly well known as a place for scholars to gather and discuss the environment. The next Natures conference will be held on February 17, 2017.