Assistant Professor Sarah L. Townsend presented a paper, “The Drama of Bildung: A Postcolonial Genre Study,” at the 2016 American Comparative Literature Association conference at Harvard University. The paper was part of a three-day seminar on “Global Genres: Literary Form and Circulation in the Modern and Contemporary Period” that focused on examining literary genres as social contracts, exploring the question: “What makes us associate a literary form or genre with a particular nation or culture, and can some genres and forms be considered better ‘travelers’ than others?”
Townsend also presented a paper, “Revolutionary Time: Joyce,Ulysses, and Irish Political Theater,” at the 2016 American Conference for Irish Studies held at the University of Notre Dame. The panel, which she co-organized, presented reassessments of the critical study Irish Times by David Lloyd, who also served as a respondent. Townsend also co-convened a publishing workshop for graduate students, and chaired a panel featuring UNM M.A. students Elizabeth Benedict, Kelsey Byrne, and Sunny Diaz.
