Associate Professor of English
Department of English, Bryn Mawr College

“Depth Perception: The Visual Experience of Writing Popular Fiction”

THE RIVER OF NO RETURN (Dutton 2013), an adventure novel I wrote under the pen name Bee Ridgway, is poised somewhere between so-called “high” and so-called “low” culture.  From one perspective, it is stuffed with historical detail and literary citation and has been critically well received, with the Washington Post naming it a notable book of 2013.  From another, it is resolutely frothy, with time travel, cliffhangers, sex scenes, and handfuls of exclamation points driving it forward.  I will discuss the visual stimuli and the visual experience of writing such a Janus-faced novel, and talk about how my own compromised depth perception, both literal and cultural, led me into the sparkling shallows of popular fiction.

Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Affiliated with American, East Asian, Gender and Sexuality, and Ethnic Studies
Brown University, Providence, RI 02912-1897.
Author of Brown Boys and Rice Queens (NYU Press, 2013)

“Future Island Sexuality”

Maeve Doyle, Ph.D. Candidate
History of Art, Bryn Mawr College

“Penitential Pleasures in a Late 13th-Century Book of Hours”

A series of historiated initials in a prayer book from northern France (Cambrai, Bibl. mun. ms. 87) shows a laywoman—presumably representing the book’s owner—rejecting a series of temptations presented by a monstrous figure. Her depicted self-denial of carnal pleasures seems at odds with the evidently pleasurable experience of owning and reading such a deluxe book. This paper explores the role of visual pleasure within the penitential function of this illuminated manuscript.

Carrie Robbins, Ph.D.
Bryn Mawr College
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Temple University and La Salle University

“Reproduced Reproductions: An Overlooked Iconography in Trompe l’Oeil Paintings”