Annual LANGSA Conference
The Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages alongside the Languages Graduate Student Association (LANGSA) is proud to announce the revitalization of the annual graduate conference. This year, we will explore the theme of empathy through different interdisciplinary lenses.
Conference Abstract
This year, the Languages Graduate Student Association’s annual conference explores empathy within and across various contexts. In an era marked by social fragmentation, cross-cultural tensions, and increasing digital communication, empathy emerges as an essential skill for bridging gaps and facilitating deeper understanding of one another. We invite graduate students in the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at the University of Connecticut, as well as graduate students from other nearby universities, to explore how empathy is conceptualized, enacted, or challenged in literature, linguistics, pedagogy, translation studies, intercultural communication, performance studies, and beyond. By examining empathy as a transformative force, presenters will discuss its potential to foster inclusivity and collaboration in academic and community settings alike.
The conference will take place on April 4, 2025 in Susan V. Herbst Hall, Room 236.
We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Anke Finger will give the keynote address.
Panels
- Empathy Across Languages and Cultures (annabelle.hicks@uconn.edu)
- Empathy and Pathos: Navigating Conflicts (joshua.duvall@uconn.edu)
- Empathy in Performance Studies (rahul.koonathara@uconn.edu)
- Empathy and Literary Form (hwz24001@uconn.edu)
Application Process
To apply, please submit a single Word document that includes:
- An abstract of 150–200 words outlining the main argument or focus of your presentation.
- A brief academic bio (100 words).
- Any AV or scheduling requests.
Submissions are due by March 21, 2025. All materials should be sent to the presiding officer of the panel you are applying to. Please see above for contact information.
Panel 1: Empathy Across Languages and Cultures
Panel 1: Empathy Across Languages and Cultures
(In-Person Panel)
Primary Area / Secondary Area
Interdisciplinary Studies / Other Languages & Literatures
Presiding Officer
Annabelle Hicks (University of Connecticut)
annabelle.hicks@uconn.edu
This panel is open to discussions on empathy in language, literature, and culture worldwide, aiming to explore strategies for interpreting and promoting empathy in diverse contexts and disciplines. From narratives that illuminate marginalized voices to pedagogical approaches that foster global citizenship, empathy offers a pathway for meaningful human connection. This panel seeks to examine the mechanisms, challenges, and transformative potential of empathy in diverse linguistic, literary, and cultural arenas. Presentations may address (but are not limited to) questions such as:
- How do literary or cinematic texts cultivate empathy for individuals from different cultural or historical backgrounds?
- What role does empathy play in second-language acquisition or translation studies?
- In what ways can empathy-based pedagogies model more inclusive classrooms and campus environments?
- How might digital and social media platforms both enhance and impede empathy across cultural or linguistic boundaries?
Panel 2: Empathy and Pathos: Navigating Conflicts
Panel 2: Empathy and Pathos: Navigating Conflicts
(In-Person Panel)
Primary Area / Secondary Area
Interdisciplinary Studies / Other Languages & Literatures
Presiding Officer
Joshua Duvall (University of Connecticut)
Empathy serves as a bridge between differences, often cultivating social cohesion. Pathos, a rhetorical appeal to emotion, is deeply connected to an individual’s empathetic response, influencing how one connects, persuades, and responds to others. This panel seeks to explore empathy in conflicts at different levels (e.g., personal dispute, political division, cultural tension), and how its relationship with pathos shapes the rhetorical narratives in our communities—past and present. We encourage submissions with novel and diverse interdisciplinary approaches across cultures, periods, and traditions.
Presentations may address (but are not limited to) questions such as:
- How does empathy function as a bridge between differences in various types of conflict?
- How do cultural and social factors shape the way empathy is expressed and received?
- In what ways does pathos influence empathetic responses and shape conflict resolution?
- How do rhetorical narratives driven by pathos impact social cohesion and division?
- How have past and present communities used empathy and pathos to navigate cultural, political, and personal disputes?
- How can we cultivate empathy without falling into emotional manipulation or bias?
- How can pathos be used to foster genuine empathy rather than manipulation or division?
- Are there limits to empathy in resolving deeply entrenched conflicts?
- How does empathy contribute to social cohesion in times of conflict?
- Can too much empathy be counterproductive in certain conflicts?
- What strategies can individuals and communities use to foster empathy while maintaining critical engagement with conflict?
- How can empathy be balanced with justice and accountability in reconciliation efforts?
Panel 3: Empathy in Performance Studies
Panel 3: Empathy in Performance Studies
(Panel (traditional) / In-Person)
Primary Area / Secondary Area
Interdisciplinary Studies / Other Languages & Literatures
Presiding Officer
Rahul Koonathara (University of Connecticut)
Empathy lies at the heart of performance, shaping the ways in which individuals connect, communicate, and experience the world through embodied practices. This panel invites submissions exploring empathy as a vital element in the study of performance, examining how it contributes to connection, understanding, and transformation within performer-audience relationships and beyond. We seek papers that investigate how empathy is enacted, cultivated, or challenged in live performance, digital media, rituals, and other performative spaces. How do performances generate empathy across cultural, social, and political divides? What methodologies and frameworks illuminate the dynamics of empathy in performance creation, reception, and pedagogy? We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and innovative approaches to the study of empathy within performance contexts.
Potential topics include (but are not limited to):
- The aesthetics and ethics of empathy in theatre, dance, or multimedia performance.
- Empathy as a tool for social change: activism, identity, and representation.
- Embodied empathy: training performers to evoke and connect with others.
- Audience engagement and participatory practices in fostering empathetic connections.
- Empathy, trauma, and healing in performance contexts.
- The role of empathy in actor- audience relationships
- The ethics of empathy in immersive or participatory performance
- Cross-cultural perspective on empathy in performance
- Empathy as a pedagogical tool in performance training.
- How playwrights build empathetic characters.
Panel 4: Empathy and Literary Form
Panel 4: Empathy and Literary Form
(Panel (traditional) / In-Person)
Primary Area / Secondary Area
Interdisciplinary Studies / Other Languages & Literatures
Presiding Officer
Rojda Idil Arslan (University of Connecticut)
This panel examines the relationship between empathy and literary form, focusing on how innovations in form invite, challenge, or complicate empathetic engagement. Formal disruptions, such as fragmentation, nonlinearity, and polyvocality, can reflect or resist the dynamics of empathy. At the same time, seemingly conventional forms may also promote empathy. We invite papers examining how authors and texts use form to shape the experience of empathy. Submissions engaging with diverse literatures, periods, and languages are welcome, as are interdisciplinary approaches.
Presentations may address (but are not limited to) questions such as:
- How do narrative perspectives, such as first-person, unreliable narrators, or collective voices, shape our empathetic engagement with characters and stories?
- In what ways do different genres (e.g., lyric poetry, speculative fiction, autofiction, historical fiction, the testimonio, creative non-fiction) expand or limit the possibilities for empathy?
- How do formal experiments amplify or disrupt the voices of marginalized communities or histories?
- What role does temporal play, such as fragmented timelines or flashbacks, have in layering or complicating empathetic experience?
- Where are the limits of empathy in formal structures that defy resolution or coherence?
- How does intertextuality create dialogue between texts that promotes or challenges empathetic connection?
- How do archival practices and the forms in which archives are constructed or represented shape empathetic engagement with the past?
- How do literary forms mediate empathy across cultural boundaries and experiences rooted in different linguistic or social contexts?
- In what ways do non-Western literary traditions or global literary forms challenge dominant understandings of empathy and its representation?