Students head west to present papers

By Lauren Rothering
Copy Editor

Saint Mary’s University students Teresa Gill, senior; Ryan Briscoe, junior; and Lauren Rothering, sophomore, will attend the ACTC (The Association for Core Texts and Courses) Student Conference at Saint Mary’s College of California in Moraga, Calif., to present papers originally written for courses at SMU.

Gill, Briscoe and Rothering all submitted one-page proposals of their respective papers and their relation to the conference theme, “Core: Tradition and Arts, Culture, Justice,” to members of the ACTC board in early November. All three were notified of their acceptance to the conference in December.

The conference will host around 40 students from colleges and universities across the United States. Students will meet in groups of five, present their papers and have the opportunity to discuss ideas with other students outside the realm of the classroom from their home institutions. Three of the best papers delivered at the conference will be selected for publication in the online literary journal Agora, which is published out of Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Va.

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Gill’s paper is an adapted version of her senior thesis project, while Briscoe’s and Rothering’s papers were written for courses in the Lasallian Honors Program. The theme of the conference coincides with the Honors Program’s “Great Books” curriculum.

The proposals and papers themselves differ about as much as their authors. Briscoe will be speaking to “Dostoyevsky as reactionary to Western thought in his novel The Brothers Karamazov,” while Rothering will present a paper entitled “The ‘Wild Boys of Gilgamesh’: Truth in Humanity.”

Although their intellectual pursuits may differ, all three students seem to relish the thought of briefly escaping the Minnesota winter and hearing feedback from peers outside the sphere of SMU academia.

“I’m excited to travel,” said Briscoe, “but beyond that I’m looking forward to other criticisms of my ideas. I am also thoroughly excited to hear what our peers are thinking and writing about in their courses.”

While at the conference, Gill, Briscoe and Rothering will have the opportunity to participate in panels, listen to guest speakers and even explore Moraga and the surrounding San Francisco Bay area.

The conference will take place Feb. 6-8.