This week, many of us are preparing for the MEGAA (Miami University English Graduate and Adjunct Association) symposium, “Dangerous Spaces.” This is the twelfth symposium MEGAA has hosted here in Oxford, and features not only many talented members of the Miami community, but several students from other institutions from around the Midwest, as well as two from our graduate partner program at Fudan University.
The theme itself is intriguing, but upon further contemplation, conversation, and reading over the titles of panels and papers, the question centers on the word ‘dangerous.’ Obviously, there are those physically harmful environments which are easily digested as dangerous, but some panels are exploring the hostility in the everyday for many people: race, nationality, domesticity, living with trauma, gender and sexuality, and classrooms. For these areas of interest, we must maintain a positive view—one focused on moving forward.
I expect the symposium to largely use a more optimistic lens on danger, through the idea of the subversive equating progress. Even Socrates saw youths in his time as raucous and without respect. My father, not a fan of my music, knew his father had hated the Beatles, and that his grandfather had hated Sinatra. But each generation’s subversive nature is eventually seen as progress (what would a world without Sinatra or the Beatles sound like?), each foray into danger, a risk for betterment of society.
The MEGAA Symposium begins with breakfast and registration at 8:00 a.m., March 13th, in Room 337 of Bachelor Hall. If you are intrigued by the idea of danger equating with progress, or any of the possible interpretations of “Dangerous Spaces,” we encourage you to join us!
-Jess Marshall
MEGAA Symposium Poster 2015 Version 2
Poster art, “Through Glass Eyes” by Beth Haselby