Presented by the Department of English, Philosophy and World Languages and Black River Technical College
Delta Symposium 30: It’s About Time
2025 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Events will be held in the Arkansas State University Museum, Carl R. Reng Student Union, and Bradbury Art Museum
Wednesday, April 9
12:30 – 1:15 Middle Eastern Connections
Presentations
“A Journey from Jordan to Jonesboro” Dua Faouri (Arkansas State University)
“The Role of Media in Promoting Islamophobia”
Saba Jamshed (Arkansas State University)
Moderated by Kerri Bennett
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
1:30 – 2:45 News and Media in Changing Times
Research Presentations
“Making Old News Relevant Again: The Arkansas Digital News Project and the Arkansas Delta ” Darren Bell (Arkansas State Archives)
“Newspapers and the Evolving Digital Landscape: Will They Survive This Time?”
Lillie M. Fears (Arkansas State University)
Moderated by Kerri Bennett
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
3:00 – 4:30 Challenges and Opportunities in Supporting Communities
Presentations and Applied Research
“A Few Months in the Delta: The Arkansas State University Heritage Sites as a Window into the Rapid Changes of the New Deal” Adam Long (Arkansas State University)
“Bridging Barriers: Philanthropy’s Role in Economic Empowerment in the Delta
”
Cedric Williams (Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation)
Moderated by Kristen Ruccio
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
5:00 – 6:30 Listening to Writers
“Cover Me Up: Quilts and their Substitutes in Southern Fiction” Kay Walter and Arley-Beth Cravey (University of Arkansas at Monticello)
Creative Writing
“.357 Magnum” Alice Kinder (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)
“The Velda Rose” Joseph William Thomas (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)
Tributary Preview
Moderated by Jack Bonds
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
Thursday, April 10
9:00 – 9:30 Honoring a Lifetime of Contributions
Special Presentation
“State Heritage Award Programs and the NEA Heritage Fellowship Program ” Gregory Hansen (Arkansas State University)
“Celebrating Pat Johnson: 2024 Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellow
”
Lauren Adams Willette
Guest of Honor: Pat Johnson
Moderated by Kristen Ruccio
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
9:45 – 11:15 Hard Times
Research Presentations
“Time Among the Powerless” Richard Burns (Independent)
“Time and Punishment, or the Significance of Killing Time” James Deutsch (Smithsonian Institution)
“The Convergence of Five Events in Time That Lead to Timber Harvesting, Drainage, and Development of the Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas Lowlands
”
John C. Fisher (Independent)
Moderated by Gregory Hansen
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
11:30 – 12:10 Visual Images and the Preservation of the Past
Photography Presentations
“Living in the Past” Patty Sue Camp (Independent)
“Poetry after Leo Touchet’s Photographs of Jazz Funerals and Festivals
”
John Zheng (Mississippi Valley State University)
Moderated by Mike Spikes
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
12:15 – 1:15 Time and Extinction
Panel Presentation
“Time to Die? -- Complex Rhetorics of Extinction Across Space and Time”
Kristen Ruccio, Leslie Reed, and Chase Weller (Arkansas State University)
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
1:30 – 2:15 Representing Cultural Expression in Print and in Music
Research Presentations
“Mississippi in Blue Cyanotype – Continuing the Legacy of Harry Peter Bosse” M. E. Posey (Christian Brothers University)
“Donald Lawrence: The Performer and the Pedagogy”
Emorja G. Roberson (Oxford College of Emory University)
Moderated by Cathey Calloway
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
2:30 – 3:45 Media and Representations in Time and Space
Research Presentations
“Peeling Back the Layers of Time: "The Yellow Wallpaper" in Virtual Reality” Juli Jackson (University of Mississippi)
“New Orleans, Louisiana and Fairbanks, Alaska in Photographic Documentation ” Miles B. Jordan (Louisiana State University)
“Telling Time in Depression-era Art: The Pocahontas Post Office Mural”
Gayle Seymour (University of Central Arkansas)
Moderated by Leslie Reed
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
4:00 – 5:30 Time and Literary Expression
Research Presentations
“Saying Good-bye to the Antebellum South in Literature and Film ” Alan Brown (University of West Alabama)
“The Tenacity of the Past in Michael Farris Smith’s Speculative novel Rivers” Peter J. Ingrao (The University of Texas at Dallas)
“I Temporary: Faulkner and McCullers’ Clocks without Hands” James Stannard (University of Essex)
“The South through Lenses: Photographs by Eudora Welty and William Ferris”
John Zheng (Mississippi Valley State University)
Moderated by Marcus Tribbett
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
7:00 – 8:00 Delta Symposium Reading
Welcoming Remarks by Cherisse Jones-Branch (Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Communication)
The Scientist as Writer
Alan Lightman
Bradbury Art Museum
201 Olympic Drive, Jonesboro
12:15 – 1:15 Time and Extinction
Panel Presentation
“Time to Die? -- Complex Rhetorics of Extinction Across Space and Time”
Kristen Ruccio, Leslie Reed, and Chase Weller (Arkansas State University)
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
Friday, April 11
8:30 – 9:45 Local History and its Contemporary Presence
Panel Session
“Hoxie the First Stand: A Small Town Ahead of its Time”
Hoxie the First Stand Executive Board Members
- Ethel Tompkins, President
- Frances Green
- Andrea Allen
- Leslie Reed
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
10:00 – 10:50 Media in the Time of Folklore
Research Presentations
“Atemporality within a Storyworld at Crowley’s Ridge Raceway” Gregory Hansen (Arkansas State University)
“Podcasting: The New Oral Tradition (Preserving Folklore and Heritage through Podcasting”
M. Amber Bramlett (Arkansas State University Beebe)
Moderated by Lauren Adams Willette
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
11:00 – 12:15 A Timely Presentation of Folklore
Multimedia Presentation
“These Ghost Towns Are Full: Drawing the Haints and Monsters of Arkansas
”
Gustav Carlson (Backwood Folk)
Moderated by Andrew Gadberry
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
12:30 – 1:45 Keynote Presentation
“Einstein and His Theory of Time”
Alan Lightman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Introduced by Martin Eggensperger (President of Black River Technical College)
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Auditorium
2:00 – 3:15 Time and Philosophy
Presentations and Forum Discussion
Kambree Jackson and Jacob Caton (Arkansas State University)
Open discussion to follow
Moderated by Gregory Hansen
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Auditorium
3:30 – 5:00 Timely Readings
Multi-Genre Reading by Delta Authors
- Jeffrey Condran
- Damon McKinney
- Samyak Shertok
Moderated by Khem K. Aryal
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
7:00 – 8:15 Movement in Time
World Premiere Dance Performance
Facet Dance Collective of Arkansas
Moderated by Khem K. Aryal
A-State Carl R. Reng Student Union, Mockingbird Room
The Delta Symposium is made possible with generous support from Black River Technical College
