From Lisa Barlow’s claim of being “Mormon 2.0,” to Meredith Marks’ immortal declaration about “the rumors and the nastiness,” The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City has captured imaginations far beyond Utah. The show is at once high drama, cultural export, and local funhouse mirror—inviting us to think seriously (and playfully) about how Salt Lake City is represented, interpreted, and mythologized.

This event will bring together fans, critics, scholars, and community members for a day of lively discussion, re-enactment, and reflection. We are less interested in the strict application of academic methods than in thoughtful, stimulating insights rooted in local culture, fandom, and appreciation.

Abundant Silences: Artistic Strategies of Witness in Public Narratives    

This seminar builds on successful past seminars on the roles and limits of narrative silences in showing care toward  trauma and injustice. 

The CUNY Graduate Center French Department invites submissions for our Spring 2026 student conference on the theme of “étrangeté.”

Étrangeté evades easy translation. It encompasses "strangeness," "foreignness," and "otherness," offering expansive variability. Etrangeté inhabits both the self and the other. It arises through external judgment and internal reflection alike. It can be unsettling, absurd, and beautiful.