English Symposium Shenanigans

I call them shenanigans, but it was more like "Jonah having no idea what any of the session titles meant and panicking, or that the only session he could attend was Friday morning and he still didn't know what to pick so he went to a Creative Writing session instead of a criticism one."
Anyway.
So yeah, that was my symposium story. I went to the session of Creative Writing based on the topic of grief, and it was actually really interesting. "Creative Writing" as a phrase is fairly ambiguous, and so a lot of different styles were presented. The first girl read a really cool horror short story she'd structured as the diary of the main character, another girl did a poem, and the last presentation was an excerpt from a graphic novel the presenter was both writing and drawing herself. To be honest, just the sound of well-written pieces helped me get into a better mindset for writing my final paper. Other than that, it might not have been as helpful as other sessions may be for my paper, but since Creative Writing is the focus of my major, it certainly helped in that regard.

Shakespeare Symposium

So let's be real, I didn't think Shakespeare had a whole lot to do with my paper (Gender roles in Harry Potter), but I was pleasantly surprised and proven wrong. However, the Symposium schedule was not ideal for Sage's schedule. I work until noon, and then I have classes starting at one and so things were looking a smidgen bleak. Nothing was going to work, but sitting around crying about how much my life (and schedule) stinks wasn't going to solve any of my problems.

So I put on my big girl pants and made something work. There weren't a lot of options for me time-wise, but I noticed that the Shakespeare session started at 12:15, so I begged and pleaded with by boss and she let me leave a few minutes early.

Symposium: Killer Presentations

I was able to attend the symposium on Friday morning in one the lecture rooms with the Criterion Winners. I was able to hear two of the presentations. The first (and I'm embarrassed to say that I wasn't paying enough attention at the beginning to catch her name) gave a fascinating lecture about the use of murder in the work of Edgar Allen Poe, Alfred Hitchcock, and Thomas De Quincy. De Quincy was influential in the ideas of Poe and Hitchcock, and all three were intrigued and even full of admiration for the art of killing, as they "saw murder as an artistic opportunity." The speaker talked about how murder is used in their literary works to improve or humanize the hearts of the characters. For example, in Hitchcock's Psycho, the character Norman believes that his murderous actions are preserving his heart's love for his mother. One of Poe's characters, Hop Frog, commits a murder of revenge for his own freedom and peace of heart.
This was the most helpful presentation for me in terms of progressing my own paper, which is an analysis of East of Eden. Because murder is such an important part of the original Cain and Abel story, it is also something that should be considered in this retelling. I loved the idea that murderous characters are trying to preserve or better a heart, whether their own or someone else's, since Cal's actions always come from a place of sincere desire to protect his own heart. This brought a new perspective to this book, which gives me other subjects to research.

English Symposium Finals

Despite having a hectic schedule and not being able to attend the presentations I had wanted to and that I thought most directly could have helped me on my assignment (due to being called in to work from 7am-5pm on Thursday), I was pleasantly surprised by some of the insight I got from listening to the contestants in the final 3MP Competition.

I have actually started writing this while waiting to hear the winners (I hope they choose the people I voted for). Anyway, I'm just going to talk about some parts that stood out.

Shel's Trip to the Symposium

I was fortunate enough to attend the address of the keynote speaker, Riley Lorimer, for BYU’s English Symposium in March of 2016.  The session was held at 11:00am in room 1060 of the Harold B. Lee Library.  Ms. Lorimer is a professional editor and works for the Church on The Joseph Smith Papers project in Salt Lake City. She described her work as ensuring that the Papers were accurately and elegantly presented to the public. Her work, to me, seemed really intense, though tedious at times.  She talked about how she and her staff had deliberated for hours over the correct placement of a comma when referring to the polygamist wives of Brigham Young.  It blew me away to realize how much thought goes into the preparation of documents for the Church.

Ms. Lorimer’s main focus in her address was about learning to ask questions.  She talked about how, through her work, she has learned to question and interrogate people so that their stories can come through clearly.  She then related the questions that she asked to the work that she did on The Joseph Smith Papers at work.  She talked about how the deep investigation on historical records often led to some uneasy questions, but we cannot be afraid of them. I loved when she talked about learning to be comfortable with unanswered questions, because I believe that’s part of maturely looking at the world.  She stated that “The best response to black and white thinking isn’t shades of gray, it’s vibrant color.” By looking at the world with color, we are able to learn so much more and avoid the muddled middle-ness of grays.

Riley finished up by talking about the power of empathy.  She said that by asking questions, we learn that the struggles that we think make us “unique” actually end up connecting us to the rest of humanity.  By coming to understand the ideas of others and their pasts, dreams, and insights, we are able to become more compassionate.  I loved listening to her opinions and learned so much from this session!