WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., March 1, 2018 — West Liberty University students Abby Reeves and Natasha Muhametzyanova will join 18 students from colleges around the Mountain State at the annual West Virginia English Symposium taking place this weekend at Fairmont University.
Abby Reeves
To be picked to present work at this selective academic event, students submitted literary research that went through a blind review process.
“The symposium has historically been an opportunity for students from around the state to share their scholarship on literature. It gives our students a chance to meet other people who study similar things and to showcase their hard work,” said associate professor of English Dr. Angela Rehbein, who was a symposium organizer in 2017 when WLU hosted the even and serves as one of the judges in this year’s symposium.
Senior Abby Reeves, who is from Wheeling, will present a paper titled The Importance of Relationships in Young Adult Literature: Making Connections with Diversity.
“My paper is shaped around the notion that young adult literature allows children to see life experiences through a perspective other than their own,” Reeves said. An English education major, who is minoring in social studies education, her paper was the result of a revision project for her Advanced Composition course.
Natasha Muhametzyanova
“I am very passionate about this topic. Being a future English educator, I really care about the way that literature and reading can impact young adults,” Reeves added.
Senior public relations major Natasha Muhametzyanova, an international student from Turkmenistan, will present a paper titled Modernism Is On: Representation of Modernism in BBC’s Sherlock.
“This paper came as a result of my research for American Modern and Postmodern Literature course,” Muhametzyanova said. “For this project I had to analyze either video or audio content through the lens of modernism. So I immediately thought of BBC Sherlock. To me, this show is a perfect representation of modernism in contemporary entertainment.”
WLU hosted the West Virginia English Symposium for two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017.
“As far as I can tell, the symposium has influenced many professors in our Department of Humanities during their undergraduate studies. Now these same professors continue the tradition encouraging more students to enter the world of literary scholarship,” said Muhametzyanova.
“I presented at this symposium myself twice. The first year that I went, I somehow won the first prize. For me it was the first time I gave such a presentation,” Rehbein said. It also inspired Rehbein to start her career in academia.
“I didn’t know people did that, just getting together, sharing their research. It was all new to me! It was around the time when I decided to change my major to English. For me that was a kind of a turning point when I realized that literary scholarship was something I would enjoy doing,” she added.
Other participating West Virginia colleges and universities include: Concord University, Davis and Elkins College, Lincoln University, Marshall University, Shepherd University and Wheeling Jesuit University.
The Department of Humanities is housed in the College of Liberal Arts. For complete information, please call 1.866.WESTLIB or visit westliberty.edu.
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