{"id":149,"date":"2023-04-28T18:16:44","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/?page_id=149"},"modified":"2026-02-25T16:56:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T00:56:02","slug":"conferences","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/opportunities-2\/conferences\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual Research Conferences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n Scholarship in Community\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Thematic Option’s annual conferences grant our students the opportunity to enrich their academic experience by publicly presenting their original ideas and research. In response to a general call for papers, Thematic Option students develop topics under the given theme to be presented as part of a panel. Topics are reflective of students\u2019 various disciplines and interests and focus on issues ranging from politics to popular culture. Each panel is composed of four to five students, with a USC faculty member or Thematic Option writing instructor serving as the panel\u2019s chair and respondent. A question and answer session follows the presentation of papers in each panel, allowing panelists to defend their positions, draw new connections, and participate in collaborative dialogue with their peers.<\/p>\n

Click on a conference title or poster for program details and students’ abstracts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n The Abyss Gazes Back<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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28th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 23 & 24, 2025<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.<\/em>
\n\u2014Friedrich Nietzsche<\/p>\n

Watching and being watched; the panopticon; the observer effect; nakedness; dreams and nightmares; the mind and mindfulness; self-reflection; mirroring; mortality; fascination and obsession; existence and essence; nothingness, emptiness, and nonbeing; depth, limitlessness, and the unfathomable; strangers; monsters; demons, personal or otherwise; corruption; awakening; evolution and revolution; transformation and transcendence; obscurity, weirdness, and the uncanny; interdependence and mutual shaping; righteousness and the greater good; ends and means; infinite regress; folly; despair; provocation; war and crisis; bravery; voyaging and exploration; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Play<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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27th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 16 & 17, 2024<\/h5>\n

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I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world\u2019s soul, I am the dialogue between my Self and <\/em>el esp\u00edritu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world.<\/em>
\n\u2014Gloria Anzald\u00faa<\/p>\n

Imagination, creativity, fantasy, and make believe; childhood and the child-like; sports, games, and toys; rules and boundaries; interaction, cooperation, and team work; competition; warfare; winning and losing; storytelling; satire and parody; drama, acting, and performance; costumes; rituals; the natural and the constructed; exaggeration and camp; distraction; deception; manipulation and exploitation; puppets and puppeteers; flexibility; nimble thinking; resistance; foolishness and mischief; free will; leisure and spontaneity; indulgence and frivolity; (ir)responsibility; gambling; risk and reward; desires, conscious and unconscious; dreams; good sense and nonsense; whimsy; fun; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Trojan Horse<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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26th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 19 & 20, 2023<\/h5>\n

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Now, come, change your theme, and sing of the making of the Wooden Horse, that Epeius fashioned with Athene\u2019s help, that noble Odysseus contrived to have dragged inside the citadel, filled by cunning with warriors who then sacked Troy. Tell the tale as it happened, and I will say to all mankind that the god has given you freely of the power of divine song.
\n\u2014The Odyssey<\/em><\/p>\n

Subterfuge; subversion; concealment; a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing; a cat\u2019s paw; sugarcoating the pill; smuggling; viruses and infection; malware; infiltration; the con and the trickster; the long game; gullibility and the mark; delusion; misunderstandings; miscommunication; illusion; disguises and costumes; passing; camouflage; stealth; war; us versus them; laying siege; lying in wait; sneak attacks; violence; death; revenge; heroism; underdogs; intelligence, ingenuity, and genius; hubris; winning at all costs; futility; overreaction; anything for love; construction; creativity; art; loyalty; teamwork; pride; legacy, myth, and legend; prophecy; storytelling; truth and lies; stalemate; inside\/outside or within\/without; surprise; plot twists; gotcha moments; layers; don\u2019t look a gift horse in the mouth; beware Greeks bearing gifts; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Body & Soul<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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25th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 20 & 21, 2022<\/h5>\n

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We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.<\/em>
\n\u2014Albert Einstein<\/p>\n

Dualities\/binaries; inseparability; life and death; the mortal and immortal; reincarnation; the supernatural; anima and animals; vulnerability; sincerity and wholeheartedness; faith, religion, and spirituality; salvation; identity; mental health; neuroscience; identity; dis\/ability; the organic and the synthetic; cyborgs; artificial intelligence; the ghost in the machine; altruism; existence; existentialism; embodied experiences; out-of-body experiences; near death experiences; drug use and abuse; illusion and reality; virtual realities; survival; essence; the essential; race and ethnicity; sex and gender; sexuality; love, lust, and sex; pleasure and pain; synesthesia; psychosomatic response; health and medicine; torture; enslavement; creation; the unknown and unknowable; inside versus outside; the body politic; body politics; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Roots<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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24th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 20 & 21, 2021<\/h5>\n

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When I am most deeply rooted, I feel the wildest desire to uproot myself.<\/em>
\n\u2014Ana\u00efs Nin<\/p>\n

Rooted in place; the roots of injustice; rooting out; root root root for the home team; family; home; epigenetics; sources and origins; foundations; causality; growth and regrowth; connections, intimacy, and loneliness; intertwinings; separations; twists; things unseen; support systems; immigration; travel; settling down\/in; immobility; terroir; life and death; nodes; speaking out and activism; essences; control; beginnings; inheritance; thirst and hunger; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Fall Out<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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23rd Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 22 & 23, 2020<\/h5>\n

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My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.<\/em>
\n\u2014Alfred Nobel<\/p>\n

Consequences, intended or unintended; estrangement and falling out; aftermath and backlash; response; residue, debris, and traces; mutation and transformation; protection and safeguards; opportunism; war and defense; detente; mutually assured destruction; hope; falling in and out of love; familial conflict; weapons and weaponizing; scandal; retribution and revenge; reconciliation; karma; collateral damage; the butterfly effect; prophecy; disruption; cause and effect; half-lives; natural and unnatural; apocalypse; survivors and survival; discovery versus application; physical and mental health; side effects that vary; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Gray Area<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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22nd Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 17 & 18, 2019<\/h5>\n

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In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic, or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated. Fiction writers are particularly suspect because they write about human beings, and people are morally ambiguous. The aim of ideology is to eliminate ambiguity.<\/em>
\n\u2014Margaret Atwood<\/p>\n

Stark contrasts and absolutes; complexities and complications; nuance; ambiguity; right and wrong; justice and righteousness; reciprocity; relativism; self and social responsibility; unreliable narrators; truth versus fiction; subjectivity; morals and ethics; equivocation; boundaries and liminal spaces; binaries and spectra; identity fluidity; ambiversion; compromise; uncertainty; heroes and monsters; vigilantism; realpolitik; power and its discontents; high, low, and popular culture; postmodernism; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Normal<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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21st Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 18 & 19, 2018<\/h5>\n

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Normalcy was declared. (Normalcy was always a declaration.)<\/em>
\n\u2014Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness<\/em><\/p>\n

Critiques and defenses of normativity; the figure of the outcast or pariah; the family; societal expectations surrounding gender, sexuality, and race; disability; good and evil; normative concepts that have organized thought over time, such as justice, truth, freedom, nature, and progress; the strange, the familiar, and the uncanny; standards and standardization; law, order, and chaos; the center and the periphery; aesthetic conventions; the category of the human; \u201cnormcore\u201d fashion; the rhetoric of the \u201cnormie,\u201d the \u201cbasic,\u201d and the \u201crandom\u201d; sanity and insanity; the pure and the grotesque; the ideal, the average, the ordinary, and the insignificant; desire, the forbidden, and the taboo; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Siren’s Call<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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20th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 17 & 18, 2017<\/h5>\n

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I generally avoid temptation unless I can\u2019t resist it.<\/em>
\n\u2014Mae West<\/p>\n

Temptation; desire; ambition; progress; hubris; silence; warnings and danger; the forbidden; dreams and nightmares; monsters; fear; love; confrontation; listening and hearing; communication; technology and technophobia; social media; journalism; accidents; tragedy; triumph; the hero\u2019s journey; sanity and insanity; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Something Must Be Done<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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19th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 12 & 13, 2016<\/h5>\n

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Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.<\/em>
\n\u2014Toni Morrison, Beloved<\/em><\/p>\n

Revolution; progress; protest; power to the people; crisis; stagnation; -isms and -ologies; fixed\/fluid identities; aid; self-help; intervention; evolution; war and peace; conflict and resolution; political, social, cultural, and artistic movements; rise and fall; procrastination or go time; law and justice; revenge; courage; technology; love and lust; truth and revelation; lies, white or otherwise; the press and media; sustainability and alternatives; the final countdown; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n What’s Past Is Prologue<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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18th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 14 & 15, 2015<\/h5>\n

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The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.<\/em>
\n\u2014Stephen Hawking<\/p>\n

Past, present, and future; origin stories; evolution; genetics; psychoanalysis; progress; myth and mythmaking; fate and destiny; nostalgia; cultural construction, destruction, and reconstruction; reformation and restoration; hegemony; the canon; the new; revolution; the American Dream; family; childhood and coming-of-age; identity; memory; hindsight; tradition; plans and schemes; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Down the Rabbit Hole<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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17th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 15 & 16, 2014<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thinking of a series of dreams
\nWhere the time and the tempo fly
\nAnd there\u2019s no exit in any direction
\n\u2018Cept the one that you can\u2019t see with your eyes<\/em>
\n\u2014Bob Dylan, \u201cSeries of Dreams\u201d<\/p>\n

Illusion; hallucination; imagination; obsession; ambition; love and lust; chaos and confusion; mystery; conspiracy; cultural construction; anthropomorphism; transformation; altered states; body and soul; the mind; politics; faith; technology; social media; the unknown; absurdity; insanity; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n The Ties that Bind<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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16th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 8 & 9, 2013<\/h5>\n

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Our human compassion binds us the one to the other\u2014not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.<\/em>
\n\u2014Nelson Mandela<\/p>\n

Allegiances; connections, positive and negative; friends and family; romantic attachment; religion; ethnicity; geographical location; politics; career; technology and social media; to make secure; to confine or restrict; to put under obligation; to bandage; to group; the role of tragedies in bringing communities together while seemingly tearing them apart; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Icarus<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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15th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 10 & 11, 2012<\/h5>\n

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Never regret thy fall,
\nO Icarus of the fearless flight
\nFor the greatest tragedy of them all
\nIs never to feel the burning light.<\/em>
\n\u2014Oscar Wilde, “Icarus”<\/p>\n

Hubris; ambition; invention, creativity, and art; the rise and the fall; liberty; imprisonment; fatality; beauty; wonder; lust; temptation; flights (of fancy); parents and children; youth and age; heaven and earth; myth; the natural and the unnatural; liminal states; leaders and followers; rebellion; loss; success and failure; courage; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n The Lies We Tell<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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14th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 12 & 13, 2011<\/h5>\n

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When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.<\/em>
\n\u2014William Shakespeare, Sonnet 138<\/p>\n

Truth; fiction; narrative; religion and belief; science and hypothesis; white lies; news media; politics, politicians, and political campaigns; war; family; love and romance; betrayal and treason; propaganda; advertising; acting and performance; interrogation; confession; witness; perjury; myth; the American Dream; hyperreality; childhood and adulthood; education; common sense; crime; con artists; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n On the Road<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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13th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 13 & 14, 2010<\/h5>\n

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Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.<\/em>
\n\u2014Jack Kerouac<\/p>\n

Departure and arrival; obstacles; the quest; travel; immigration and emigration; runaways; permanence; escape; self-discovery; life and death; home; marginalization; liminal spaces; borders and borderlands; progress; technology; past and future; the chase; tripping; signposts and milestones; transcendence; the path to success; innerspace; transients and transience; gates; tolls; freewill and fate; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Dreams, Illusions, and Other Realities<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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12th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 7 & 8, 2009<\/h5>\n

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Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu.<\/em>
\n\u2014Chuang Tzu<\/p>\n

Imagination; the self and the other; magic; interpretation and meaning; truth and lies; fantasies and nightmares; ghosts; faith and religion; communities, collectives, and cults; marginalization; liminal spaces; utopia; artificial intelligence; normal and abnormal; the flesh and the spirit; the American Dream; drugs and altered states; art and the artist; love; escape; alternate dimensions and the multiverse; social networking; gaming; virtual reality; hope; heroes; monsters; permanence; innocence; memory; advertising; through the looking glass or down the rabbit hole; all that can be dreamt of in your philosophy; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Barbarians<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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11th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 8 & 9, 2008<\/h5>\n

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First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric.<\/em>
\n\u2014Ryszard Kapu\u015bci\u0144ski<\/p>\n

The self and the other; the raw and the cooked; cannibalism; biology; peace and conflict; instinct versus intellect; the savage within; interpretation and meaning; allegiances and community; liminal spaces; normal and abnormal; the flesh and the spirit; mechanization; raging against the machine; art, madness, and isolation; taming the beast; sexual identity; the Apollonian and the Dionysian; permanence; personal and collective devastation; memory; fanaticism and terrorism; civilization and its discontents; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n This Mortal Coil<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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10th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 10 & 11, 2007<\/h5>\n

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To be human is to be in the tense condition of a death-foreseeing, consciously libidinous animal. No other earthly creature suffers such a capacity for thought, such a complexity of envisioned but frustrated possibilities, such a troubling ability to question the tribal and biological imperatives.<\/em>
\n\u2014John Updike<\/p>\n

Biology and brain; peace and conflict; storytelling; psychology; interpretation and meaning; allegiances and community; the body; the flesh and the spirit; consumption; mechanization; raging against the machine; art; madness; isolation; sexual identity; passion; permanence; personal and collective devastation; memory; fanaticism and terrorism; claiming the \u201chere and now\u201d for the \u201cever after\u201d; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Translation<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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9th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 10 & 11, 2006<\/h5>\n

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Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else. What is the other text, the original? I have no answer. I suppose it is the source, the deep sea where ideas swim, and one catches them in nets of words and swings them shining into the boat… where in this metaphor they die and get canned and eaten in sandwiches.<\/em>
\n\u2014Ursula K. Le Guin<\/p>\n

Merging\/converging cultures; the original and the reproduction; mutation; interpretation and meaning; the brain; language acquisition; theories of representation; technology; globalization; peace and conflict; nonverbal communication; miscommunication; immigration; visual culture; cloning; music theory; emotion; art; intention; Babel; universality; semiotics; linguistics; subversion; mass communication and the media; espionage; adaptation; the internet; gender; film theory; psychology; memory and dreams; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

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\n Pandora’s Box<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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8th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 13 & 14, 2005<\/h5>\n

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Curiosity is the thirst of the soul.<\/em>
\n\u2014Samuel Johnson<\/p>\n

Knowledge; disease; desire; imagination; the unconscious; manipulation; the human condition; sex; blame; the Human Genome Project; the internet; engendering; hope; cultural myths; original sin; femmes fatales<\/em>; the hidden; the invisible; translation; new world order; globalization; free will; evil; gender; moral ambiguity; international politics; limitation; conundrum; alienation; information; security; postlapsarian disappointment; paradox; the gaze; the forbidden; chaos; nation building; thinking inside and outside the box; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n Rank-o-philia<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
7th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 7 & 8, 2004<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Discipline is an art of rank, a technique for the transformation of arrangements. It individualizes bodies by a location that does not give them a fixed position, but distributes them and circulates them in a network of relations.<\/em>
\n\u2014Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish<\/em><\/p>\n

Lists; obsessions; databases; histories; epistemologies; the canon; the masses; zombies; docile bodies; leaders and the led; subjectivity; society; cultural value; esprit de corps<\/em>; fetishization; competition; pageants; picket lines; achievement; nationalism and globalization; conformity and nonconformity; membership and alienation; regulation and resistance; activism; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n The Tower of Babel<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
6th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 9 & 10, 2003<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, \u201cBehold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another\u2019s speech.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2014Genesis 11:1-9<\/p>\n

Yearning; curiosity; fascination; myth and metaphor; permanence; community; understanding; peace; hegemony; difference; nostalgia; homeland; exiles and displaced others; fortresses and strongholds; ordering and overreaching; desire and regulation; transgression and power; wish-fulfillment; fantasy; gothic nightmares; globalization; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n Dissolving Boundaries<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
5th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 12 & 13, 2002<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

He who will one day teach men to fly will have displaced all boundary stones; the boundary stones themselves will fly up into the air to him, and he will rebaptize the earth\u2014as “the weightless.”<\/em>
\n\u2014Friedrich Nietzsche<\/p>\n

Limits; edges; blurred lines; in-betweenness; liminality; hybridity; transgression; erosion; border crossing; permeability; transcendence; multiplicity of self; interdependence; entanglement; simultaneity; cultural fusion; shifting perspectives; meaning and meaninglessness; cognitive dissonance; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n Anarchy<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
4th Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 13 & 14, 2001<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

She was a committed romantic and an anarcha-feminist. This was hard for her because it meant she couldn’t blow up beautiful buildings.<\/em>
\n\u2014Jeannette Winterson, Written on the Body<\/em><\/p>\n

Domination, power, and control; rejection, resistance, and revolution; disruption, agitation, and subversion; utopias and dystopias; unpredictability; self-reliance; change; co-option; pacification; fashion; radicalism; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n High\/Low: Culture, Class, Technology<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
3rd Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nMarch 31 & April 1, 2000<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like to a cement fix
\nBe a standing cinema
\nDress my friends up just for show
\nSee them as they really are
\nPut a peephole in my brain
\nTwo New Pence to have a go
\nI’d like to be a gallery
\nPut you all inside my show<\/em>
\n\u2014David Bowie, “Andy Warhol”<\/p>\n

Taste and tastemakers; opinion; fashion; the serious and the frivolous; the few and the many; entertainment and edification; inclusion and exclusion; gatekeeping; relegation; elevation; heritage; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n Meaning of the Millennium<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
2nd Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 9 & 10, 1999<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oops, out of time.<\/em>
\n\u2014Prince, “1999”<\/p>\n

Anxiety and hope; endings and beginnings; paradise and apocalypse; exponential change; prophecy; promise; the unknown; Y2K; virtual capital; telecommunication; cyberpunk; cyborgs and prosthesis; genetic mapping and cloning; germ-warfare; the real and the virtual; the self and the other; public and private; boundaries; frontiers; self-definition; consumerism; myth; the supernatural; skepticism; cynicism; celebrity; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n
\n\n
\n\n \n
\n\n \n

\n Postmodernism: Identity, Space, Truth<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n\n \n
1st Annual Thematic Option Research Conference
\nApril 17 & 18, 1998<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Postmodernity is said to be a culture of fragmentary sensations, eclectic nostalgia, disposable simulacra, and promiscuous superficiality, in which the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence, meaning, originality, and authenticity are evacuated or dissolved amid the random swirl of empty signals.<\/em>
\n\u2014Jean Baudrillard<\/p>\n

Instability; deconstruction; disillusionment; broken promises; subjective realities; hyperreality; difference and diversity; pluralism; self-reflexivity; the myth of progress; shades of gray; unreliable narrators; ambiguity and paradox; metafiction; pastiche, play, and irony; simulacra; bricolage; technoculture; identity politics; media saturation; and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n \n \n \n

\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n \n\n<\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"parent":665,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-149","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnnual Research Conferences - Thematic Option Honors Program<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/opportunities-2\/conferences\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Annual Research Conferences - Thematic Option Honors Program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/opportunities-2\/conferences\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thematic Option Honors Program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-26T00:56:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/opportunities-2\/conferences\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/thematic-option\/opportunities-2\/conferences\/\",\"name\":\"Annual Research Conferences - 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