UIGEC 2026
University of Idaho Graduate English Conference
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(K)NO(W) BOOKS (K)NO(W) PEOPLE
Multidisciplinary Studies of Narrative, Media, and the Anthropocene
Conference Schedule
The ninth annual Graduate English Conference at the University of Idaho will take place on April 11th, 2026 from 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. PST at the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho.
The day will feature graduate student panels, a keynote address from Washington State University Professor of English Jon Hegglund, and opportunities to meet graduate students from across the West. We are delighted to host students from thirteen universities and seven states this year, including Idaho, Montana, Washington, California, Oregon, Nevada, and California.
This year, we'd also like to invite you to join us on Friday, April 10th at 7:00pm for a graduate student mixer and multimodal poetry workshop/craft hour in the fireplace room of The Garden, a local bar and lounge. The workshop will be run by Utah State University M.A. student basil payne. basil's multimodal poetry was recently awarded Best Graduate Student Paper at the 2025 Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Conference, and we are honored and delighted to have basil join us in Moscow. No experience with poetry or crafting is necessary.
Click here to view complete schedule
Click here to view complete schedule
SCHEDULE OVERVIEW
SCHEDULE OVERVIEW
Friday, April 10th
Graduate student mixer and multimodal poetry workshop with Utah State University M.A. student basil payne
The Garden Lounge (313 S Main St, Moscow, ID 83843)
7pm-9pm
Saturday, April 11th
All events will take place at the Integrated Research and Innovation Center, located on the University of Idaho Campus (85 Line St, Moscow, ID 83844).
9:00 - 10:15 - Session 1
10:30 - 11:45 - Keynote Address by Jon Hegglund
12:00 - 1:30 - Lunch
1:30-2:45 - Session 2
3:00-4:15 - Session 3
SESSION 1
SESSION 1
9:00 - 10:15
Panel A - Love, Sex, & Robots
Panel A - Love, Sex, & Robots
IRIC 305
Sam Hwang (University of Idaho): "Go Fuck Yourself”: Negotiating Selfhood, Pleasure, and Alterity through Intimate Relationships with AI Chatbots
Ben Logue (Western Washington University): The Language of Queer Desire and Clandestine Marriage in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus
Mia Nelson (University of Washington): Can You Be Heterosexual and Free?: Love, Freedom, and The Cybrog in Sierra Greer’s Anniebot
Victoria Kingsmore (University of Idaho): (Im)possible Love in the Climate Crisis: Reclaiming Love as Ecological Ethic in Climate Change Fiction
Panel B - Landscape as Narrator & the American West
Panel B - Landscape as Narrator & the American West
IRIC 105
Aaron Lavery (University of Idaho): American Cli-Fi & the Western as Sister Genres
Megan Poe (University of Idaho) : Strata Optica: Storying Earth History as New Materialist Co-Creation
Christopher Boggs (Montana State University): The Desert Wasteland Myth
Kyle Stolcenberg (University of Utah): The Destructive Power of Reading: Wilderness Authorship in Blood Meridian
Panel C - Storied Systems: Emergent, More-Than-Human Narratives in the Anthropocene
Panel C - Storied Systems: Emergent, More-Than-Human Narratives in the Anthropocene
IRIC 321
Pre-arranged panel by Austin Eldridge, Jason Leedle, and Lexi Arritt-Edwards (University of Idaho)
Keynote Address by Jon Hegglund
Keynote Address by Jon Hegglund
10:30 - 11:45
IRIC Atrium
LUNCH
LUNCH
12:00-1:30
IRIC Atrium
Lunch provided for presenters!
SESSION 2
SESSION 2
1:30-2:45
Panel D - Choose Your Own Adventure: Audience Interaction in Modern Narration
Panel D - Choose Your Own Adventure: Audience Interaction in Modern Narration
IRIC 310
Annie Sheneman (University of Idaho): Collective Selections: Narrative Nonfiction and Audience Interaction
Hoyeon "Nick" Na (University of Utah): Ludonarrative and Identity in Gundam Card Game and Magic: The Gathering
Megan Farmer (University of Oregon): Warning for This Chapter:” Crimson Rivers, Chapter Notes, and the Reader’s Control
Kisa Schultz (University of Oregon): “Together we climb…We find our way!”: Environmental Crisis and Player Complicity in Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight: Silksong (2025)
Panel E - Constructing the Land, Constructing Ourselves through Narrative
Panel E - Constructing the Land, Constructing Ourselves through Narrative
IRIC 105
Callie Galford (University of Idaho): Meadow Road
Dax Gove (Utah State University): Ecological-Rhetorical Listening: (Un)settling Place Rhetorics of Cache Valley
Cadaxa Chapman Ball (University of Washington): Discarding Colonizer Fantasies and Choosing Better Relational Narratives
Shelley Walker-Harmon (University of Idaho): Naming as Narrative: the case of Archie Phinney Hall
Panel F - ‘It's Alive!' : Monsters and Horror in Eco/Queer Literature
Panel F - ‘It's Alive!' : Monsters and Horror in Eco/Queer Literature
IRIC 321
Antonio Isiordia (University of Idaho): Horror Elements in Climate Fiction
Cecil Decker (Washington State University): The Creation of a Cultural Monster: Transgender Narratives
Sarina Schwartz (University of Oregon): “The Swamp’s Echolalia:” The EcoGothic in the Everglades and Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!
Panel G - Narratives of Liberation and Resistance
Panel G - Narratives of Liberation and Resistance
IRIC 305
Abby Cheng (University of Washington): Funerals on a Beautiful Day: A Nonfiction Reading Reflecting on (More Than) a Year of Genocide
Riley Hanna (University of Oregon): Amphibious Antifascism: Humor, Irony, Reclamation, and the Portland "Freedom Frog"
Isaac Carpenter (Utah State University): Creative Nonfiction, Queerness, and Religion: The Revolutionary Power of Speaking Out
Sumaya Mashrufa (Oregon State University): Rhetoric of Razakar: Through Two Social Movements in Bangladesh
SESSION 3
SESSION 3
3:00-4:15
Panel H - Feminist Trauma Narratives and the More-Than-Woman
Panel H - Feminist Trauma Narratives and the More-Than-Woman
IRIC 305
Kailyn Carr (University of Oregon): Woman, Mother, Monster: Transgressing Pregnancy and the Maternal Body in Contemporary Feminist Speculative Fiction
Sneha Chakraborty (Idaho State University): Bones, Bodies, and Borders: Feminist Trauma Narratives in an Anthropocenic Landscape
Briley Wyckoff (University of Utah): Presumed Evil: Anomalous Embodiment and the Witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Valanci Villa (Washington State University): The Role of Feminist Rhetorica in Courtroom Narratives
Panel I - Blissful, Wild, & Migratory Poetics
Panel I - Blissful, Wild, & Migratory Poetics
IRIC 310
basil payne (Utah State University): Specimen
Miriam Milena & Luke Chavez (Western Washington University): Every Text a Text of Bliss: Erotics / Research / Poetics
Elliot McMillin (University of Oregon): Ars Poeticas of Counterwitness: How Contemporary Poets Challenge Media Narratives of Migration
Panel J - Book Banning, Censorship, & the Power of Story
Panel J - Book Banning, Censorship, & the Power of Story
IRIC 105
Seth Callor (Utah State University): The Eyes Have It: Examining Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye Through Ways of Seeing, Uncanniness, and Book Banning
David Michael Austin (Utah State University): “Happily Ever After”: Fiction’s Potential in Conflict Mediation
Susmita Saha (Idaho State University): Whose Stories Count? Narrative Authority and Linguistic Justice in Diverse Writing Classrooms
Andrew Moore (University of Montana): Erasing the Self to Survive: Memory, Forgetting, and Ecological Identity in Karen Russell’s The Antidote and the New Weird
Panel K - Posthuman Agency, Mobility, & Freedom
Panel K - Posthuman Agency, Mobility, & Freedom
IRIC 321
Madeline Lee (University of Nevada, Reno): Virtual Escapism: Ready Player One Uses Virtual Reality to Discuss the Role of Agency in Dystopian Society
Christopher Finley (California State University, Stanislaus): Reaching a Destination but Arriving Somewhere Else: The Automobile and Queer Knowledge
Madeleine Hearn (University of Washington): Bodies of/among Water: Analyzing Oceanic Trans-corporeality and Posthumanism in Joan Slonczewski’s 'A Door into Ocean' (1986)
Josie Cohen-Rodríguez (Washington State University): Deconstructing Narratives of Techno-Utopian Activism: The “Visual Failure” of Damage Centered Media
Keynote Speaker: Jon Hegglund
Keynote Speaker: Jon Hegglund
Professor of English at Washington State University
Workshop Leader: basil payne
Workshop Leader: basil payne
M.A. Student at Utah State University
basil payne's Poetry
basil payne's Poetry
basil will be leading a poetry workshop and craft hour on Friday, April 10th at the Garden Bar and Lounge. Come by to meet fellow graduate students and create your own multimodal poetry!
Location
The conference will take place at the Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC) at the University of Idaho, located at 685 Line Street, Moscow, ID, 83844.
More information about panel locations will be provided at the registration booth, which will be stationed in the IRIC atrium.
We will also be hosting a multimedia poetry workshop, craft hour, and social mixer in the fireplace room at the Garden Bar and Lounge on Friday evening (April 10). The Garden is located at The Moscow Hotel Building, 313 S Main St, Moscow, ID 83843.
IRIC is an ADA accessible building. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns about ADA accessibility.
Getting Here
Moscow is conveniently located near the Pullman-Moscow Airport (3625 NE Airport Dr Building 230, Box 1, Pullman, WA 99163). The University of Idaho campus is a 10-minute drive from the airport.
Spokane International Airport is about a 1.5-hour drive, and oftentimes offers cheaper flights than Pullman-Moscow. Rental cars are available, as are buses/shuttles. Starline Express runs shuttles a few times a day from Spokane Airport to Moscow, as does Greyhound.
Parking
The University of Idaho is a short (10-15 minute) walk from town and most hotels. Parking is free in most university lots on the weekends. The closest free lots to the conference and IRIC building are (click lot name for Google Map location) :
A complete campus parking map can be found here.
There is ADA parking adjacent to the IRIC. A map can be found here, and please feel free to contact us if you would like more detailed directions for ADA parking.
Conference Costs
There is no cost to apply to or attend this conference, but you should budget for your own housing, meals (outside of the catered lunch), and transportation. Sadly, we do not yet have the budget to offer funding for participants. See below for housing and meal suggestions.
Technology Accomodations
We strongly encourage participants to bring their own devices for their presentations. We will provide more information shortly about technology specifications. Please reach out to us if you need technology support or need to borrow a laptop for your presentation.
Where to Stay
We cannot provide accommodations, but see below for local hotel suggestions.
The Monarch Motel
Located at 120 W. 6th Street about 0.5 miles from campus. This option is closest to the IRIC, making it locationally the most convenient lodging. It is also incredibly close to downtown Moscow.
Phone: 208-882-2851
Website: Monarch Motel
Moscow La Quinta Inn
Located at 185 Warbonnet Drive about 1 mile from campus and a two-minute drive from downtown.
Phone: 208-885-5365
Website: La Quinta Inn
Moscow Best Western Inn
Located at 1516 Pullman Road about 1 mile (a ten-minute walk) from campus.
Phone: 208-882-0550
Where to Eat
Light refreshments will be provided at the conference, and possibly a light lunch for presenters (pending an additional funding confirmation), but you should plan on purchasing most of your own meals. Downtown Moscow is a short (10-15-minute) walk from campus and is home to many delicious and affordable restaurants. There are also grocery stores (and a local co-op) within walking distance of most hotels. Some of our favorite restaurants are:
Mikey's Gyros
Greek food. Vegan options available.
Website: Mikey's Gyros
Humble Burger
Burgers and chicken sandwiches. Vegan options available.
Website: Humble Burger
One World Cafe
Cafe with pastries, salads and sandwiches, and drinks. Vegan and GF options available. This is among the English Department's favorite coffee shops/pubs to frequent!
Website: One World Cafe
Taqueria Las Torres
Beloved taco truck located at 625 S Jackson Street, in the parking lot of Silos and Social. Vegan and Gluten Free options available.
Questions? Contact: uienglishgradassociation@gmail.com
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