On November 6-8, IC undergraduates Andrew Poma (English/Drama IC 2026) and Anna Werts (English IC 2027) and Professor Katharine Kittredge (Literatures in English) traveled to Philadelphia, PA to present at the annual conference of the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Conference Association.
Anna Werts presented in the Comics/Graphic Novels area with a paper entitled “Supertrauma: Gender Roles in the Superhero Grieving Process and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow .” Anna’s presentation looked at gender-related conventions concerning trauma, and the ways that this new title overturns expectations.
Poma presented in an LGBTQ+ Studies panel. His paper “A Happy Haunting: Creating History through the Dead Queer Subject” discussed the play “Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew (2025) by Coral Wylie that depicts a young person’s hunt for queer history against the backdrop of their family’s long-standing struggle with grief.
Katharine Kittredge presented in the field of Childhood Studies. Her paper “G is the Gas-mask: A.A. Milne’s ‘Light’ WWII Verse” examines the way that the author of Winnie-the-Pooh used the cultural power that he had acquired through his children’s books to help the British war effort.