Thursday, September 24th in the EIZ Theater, B192 JFSB
9:00 – 9:10 AM — Opening
Rex and Dean Chip Oscarson — Welcome
9:10 – 10:30 AM — Session: Touch and the Arts
- Michelle Kesler — “Listening through Touch”
- Kris Peterson — “Choreographing Consent: Intimacy Direction for the Modern Rehearsal Room”
- Marin Roper — “Body Knows, Spirit Dances: Felt Sensation as a Mechanism for Connection to Self, to Others, and to the Divine”
10:30 – 11:00 AM — Break
11:00 – 12:15 PM — Plenary
Jacob Sherman (California Institute of Integral Studies)
12:30 – 1:45 PM — Lunch provided for those who register
2:00 – 3:15 PM — Session: Touch and Divine Embodiment
- Rosalynde Welch — “No Cradle Without the Hand: Chieko Okazaki’s Hand-Made Ecclesiology”
- John B. White, Dr. Jenae M. Nelson, Joseph Blanchard — “Covenantal Touch: Embodiment and the Body as Medium in Latter-day Saint Ordinances”
- LaReina Hingson — “The Handkerchief Blessing: Embodying Spiritual Power in the Material World”
3:30-4:45 PM — Plenary
Johanna Winant (Reed College) — “Touching Reading”
Friday, September 25, in the EIZ Theater, B192 JFSB
9:00 – 10:30 AM — Session: Literary Approaches to Touch and Connection
- Bruce Jorgensen — “The ‘Healing Power’ of Touch in Reynolds Price’s ‘Good Night'”
- Heidi Lawrence — “Touch and the Human Connection to Nature in Children’s Picturebooks”
- Mac Wilson — “Do Trees Hug Us Back?”
10:30 – 11:00 AM — Break
11:00 – 12:15 PM — Plenary
Mark Paterson (University of Pittsburgh)
12:30 – 1:45 PM — Lunch provided for those who register
2:00 – 3:00 PM — Session: Touch and Technology
- Marc Killpack — “If we give robots a sense of touch, what will they do with it?”
3:15 – 4:15 PM — Session: Touch: Forms of Knowing and Connection
- Spencer Scoville — “Glancing Contact: The Poetics of Touch and Impermanence in Adania Shibli’s Masaas”
- Becky Schulthies — “A Synesthesia of Connection: Olfactic Haptics and Moroccan Fieldwork”
4:30 – 5:15 PM — Session: Touch and Healing
- Hyrum Johnson — “Healing Hands: Touch as Reconnection and Revitalization in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead”
- Logan Horita & Sefia Horita — “Touched by the Untouching”