Sponsored Sessions at NEPCA 2018

Full schedule at https://nepca.blog/2018-conference/.



40th Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Worcester State University (Worcester, Massachusetts)

19-20 October 2018



Friday, 19 October at 2-3:15

Session 8: Women Warriors and Popular Culture: Representations across Time and Space I (S-232)

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Chair: Scott Manning (American Military University)



Joan of Arc’s Cinematic Siege Arsenal in Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman (1916)

Scott Manning (American Military University)

Scott Manning serves on the board for the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association and the advisory board for the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture. He regularly writes book reviews for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Scott is currently a history graduate student at American Military University, focusing on cinematic medievalism including portrayals of trebuchets and Joan of Arc in battle. His undergraduate degree is in military history.


Stranger Weeping: Considering Margery Kempe through Eleven in Stranger Things

Anna McGill (Louisiana State University)

Anna McGill is a PhD candidate in English at Louisiana State University, focusing on medieval studies, with particular interests in Arthuriana, medieval women, and medieval portrayals and perceptions of magic. She received her undergraduate degrees in English and psychology from East Tennessee State University, a short drive up into the mountains from her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee.


Red Widows and Nihilist Queens: Russian Women in the American Imagination

Chelsea Gibson (Binghamton University)

Chelsea Gibson is a PhD candidate at Binghamton University, where she also serves as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Women’s History. Her dissertation examines the interplay between female Russian revolutionaries and American reform efforts in the decades before 1917.




Friday, 19 October at 3:30-4:45

Session 16: Women Warriors and Popular Culture: Representations across Time and Space II (S-232)

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Chair: Cheryl Hunter (UMASS Lowell and SNHU)


“If I Am to Die Tonight, Let Me Die a Fighter”: Gail Simone’s Reconstructing of Red Sonja

Peter Cullen Bryan (Penn State University)

Peter Cullen Bryan is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Penn State University. His areas of study include transnational American Studies, International Communications, and 21st Century American culture, with a focus in comic art and digital communities. His master’s thesis considers the impact of early cartoonist Windsor McCay upon the creation of comics as a genre, and his dissertation work focuses on the cultural impact of Donald Duck comics in Germany, emphasizing Erika Fuchs’s translations and digital fan communities that arose in response. With regards to his current project, he considers Gail Simone a personal hero, just as Red Sonja was for her so many years ago.


Correcting Wonder Woman: The Power of Patty Jenkins

Erin Lafond (Boston College)

An avid enthusiast of Hollywood superhero movie, Erin Lafond is a master’s candidate in English at Boston College, where she studies pop culture and Victorian novels with a focus on feminism. She received her BA in English from Southern New Hampshire University. During her time at SNHU, she received an award for “Outstanding Achievement in Research” for her senior thesis “Writing a Novel: Research and Execution.”