Program

Friday, April 5th
Golden Auditorium (Little Hall)

8:00am Welcome and Introductions
8:15-9:30am Session I “Sense of Place and Preserving Dark Sky Places”
James Lowenthal (Smith College)
Wan-Chun Liu (Colgate University) “Effect of Chronic Exposure of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) On the
Development of Brain and Behavior in Songbirds”
9:30-10:00am Morning Break (coffee)/Art Exhibits
10:00-11:10am Session II “The Night Sky in Indigenous Culture”
Brett Riggs & Jane Eastman (Western Carolina U.) “The Sky at Watauga: A Cherokee Cosmoscape in Southern
Appalachia”
Anthony Aveni (Colgate University) “Where the Maya Eye Meets the Sky”
11:10-1:00pm Lunch
1:00-2:45pm Session III “Night Sky Poetics”
Crystal Good (Founder, Black By God West Virginian)
Ansel Elkins (Berea College) “Writing into the Darkness: Poetry and the Night Sky”
Ashlea Krasnansky (Marshall University) “Generations of Life in the Dark, Appalachian Mountains: Love
Stories to and with the Sky”
2:45-3:15pm Afternoon Break/Art Exhibits
3:15-4:15pm Session IV “The Night Sky: A Songwriter’s Muse”
The Sea The Sea, Wild Ponies, & Danny Schmidt – Writer’s in the Round Session
4:30-5:30pm Keynote Event – Ann Pancake (novelist and essayist)
5:30-7:30pm Dinner Break
7:30pm-late Dark Sky Star Party featuring Perry Ground, Haudenosaunee Storyteller and Cultural Educator (On the
hillside above Burke-Pinchin Quad)

Saturday, April 6th
Golden Auditorium (Little Hall)

8:00-9:45am Session V
Rich Stedman (Cornell University) “What does the dark mean? Sense of place and Appalachian dark skies”
Tim Ezell & Cat Wilt (U. of Tennessee-Knoxville) “A Dark Proposal: Creating a Vision for an Appalachian Dark
Sky Trail”
Kristin Kant-Byers (Rochester Institute of Technology) – Painting the Appalachian Sky: An Exploration of the
Sky Icon in Appalachian Tourist Destinations”
9:45-10:15am Morning Break (coffee)/Art Exhibits
10:15-11:30am Session VI “Appalachian Literature and the Night Sky”
Anna Creadick (Hobart and William Smith) “Falling Down, Looking Up: Nightscapes in Robert Gipe’s
‘Trampoline'”
Elijah Prewitt-Davis (Mt. Saint Josepth University) “In Darkness Together: Wendell Berry and the Human
Place”
11:30-12:30pm Lunch
12:30-1:45pm Session VII “Composition and the Night Sky “
Becky Hill “Extracting Variations from Appalachian Music & Dance Structures to Create an Experiential
Theatre Performance”
Ryan Chase (Colgate U.) & David Biedenbender (Michigan State University)
1:45-2:15pm Afternoon Break/Art Exhibits
2:15-3:30pm Session VIII “Up Above My Head”
Jason Tartt (EDGE)
Phyllis Owens (King University) “The Character of the Sky in Appalachian Works of Fiction”
3:30-3:45pm Break
3:45-4:15pm Session IX “Astrophotography: Bringing the Sky into Focus”
Dave Green & Abraham Jones (Astrophotographers) “Recording the Contours of the Appalachian Sky”
4:15-4:45pm Group Discussion/Takeaways/Future Directions
4:45-5:30pm Pre-dinner Break
5:30-6:00pm Cocktail Hour (@Parker Commons)
6:00-8:00pm Symposium Dinner w/ Lost Creek Farms (@Parker Commons)
8:00-11:00pm Concert and Community Square Dance (@The Palace)