The following article was written in May of 2025:

On Saturday April 5th, the WIU English Graduate Organization (EGO) hosted its annual colloquium.

This event, held as an opportunity for English graduate students to share their course research and exit options over the course of three panels, drew a supportive audience of faculty, fellow students, and family members.

The first panel, “It’s Alive: Monstrosity, Trauma, and Media,” featured two students. Blake Traylor analyzed collective consciousness and community monstrosity in manga artist Junji Ito’s “Shirosuna,” considering it in light of endosymbiosis and cyborg theory. Shifting the conversation from fictional monsters to the horrors of reality, Thomas Boyd discussed the complicated yet ultimately destigmatizing depiction of male sexual abuse in Netflix documentary Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

Next, the “State of Our Play” panel was held. Chris Perez explored the complicated fatherly portrait of God of War‘s Kratos; Maggie Talbot argued that Kristen Applebees, one of the protagonists of Dungeons and Dragons actual-play series Fantasy High, embodies the challenge of coming-up queer within fundamentalist Christian Nationalism; and Joshua Stinson extolled the many virtues of disc golf.

After a verbose (and delicious!) lunch, a third and final panel entitled “Past and Present Reflections” was heard. Marie Watson contended that lyric poetry transcendently recalls experiences personal and impersonal, distant and near; Jailene Gonzalez highlighted the major findings of her exit option: a website dedicated to centering Puerto Rican culture and history, which often goes ignored in classrooms; Maram Alsufyan wrestled with untying the inextricable relationship of aesthetic beauty and political ideology; and Grace Wright entered the battle between academia—a system, she argues, which proves resistant to revising tradition—and fanfiction on the side of fanfiction.

Each of the panels generated extensive discussion; during lunch, lingering attendees were lovingly prompted to move their Panel II discussions from the classroom to the lounge. Clearly, the compelling questions raised at the Colloquium instigated an intellectual hunger that grumbled louder than the stomachs in the room.

Each graduate student presented on their respective topic earnestly and articulately; attendees responded in kind. We here at The Mirror & the Lamp are already looking forward to next year’s EGO Colloquium!

Thank you to event moderators Dr. Rebekah Buchanan, Professor Barbara Lawhorn, and Dr. Dan Malachuk for their excellent work in guiding the conversation and ensuring that the event proceeded smoothly. A great thanks is also owed to the students for sharing their scholarship, and to those who turned out to support it.