BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University will offer 35 students from 19 academic institutions the opportunity to present undergraduate work in literature during the third annual MUSE Undergraduate Literature Conference on Saturday, Oct. 6, with registration beginning at 8 a.m. and the first of three sessions to begin at 9:00 a.m. in the Center for Natural Science (CNS) (201 Beecher St., Bloomington).Wendy Wall, chair of Northwestern University’s Department of English, will deliver the keynote address titled “At Home with Shakespeare” at 12:30 p.m. in CNS E101.
The conference, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by IWU’s Alpha Eta Pi chapter of the international English honor society Sigma Tau Delta (STD) with the assistance of Illinois State University’s Lambda Delta chapter of STD and IWU’s Department of English.
Expanding significantly after its first two years, MUSE features students from IWU and ISU in addition to students from as near as Knox College and St. Francis University to as far away as the University of Pittsburg and the University of Montenegro.
Students will present works of literary analysis and criticism at MUSE that range from classic (“‘Stolen Rolls’ and Different Souls: An Examination of Plato’s Theory of Forms in the Lives of Levin and Oblonsky”) to contemporary (“What’s Wrong With Hogwarts?”) to seemingly bizarre (“‘A Backward Glance’ at The House of Mirth: How Future-consciousness is Necessary for the Creation of Fictional Memory”).
The conference will also feature a panel devoted to post-graduation options for literature students, including information on professional and graduate school opportunities, as well as careers in education.