Faculty Short Talks: The Research of Karla Kelsey, Monica Prince & Coleen Zoller

One of the things that I love most about attending Susquehanna University is the number of opportunities the university gives. As a student, there is never a moment where I am not hearing about new research, internships, or job opportunities. However, Susquehanna does not just give these opportunities to its students. The school’s slogan of “Be Impossible to Ignore” also extends to its faculty. 

The Committee on Faculty Scholarship gives Susquehanna professors across all departments the ability to apply for grants and scholarships to complete research projects. It is an excellent opportunity to give our professors a chance to keep learning alongside us. To showcase our faculty’s research, the Committee on Faculty Scholarship collaborates with the Blough-Weis Library to hold Faculty Short Talks – an event where professors come to share their findings to students and faculty. 

I had the opportunity to attend our most recent showcase and hear all about the hard work our wonderful professors have been doing. 

Faculty Short Talks  – Introducing our Speakers 

Our most recent Faculty Short Talks happened on Wednesday, November 19th at 4:15 PM in Library Room 104. In this reading, we heard the works of Karla Kelsey, Monica Prince, and Coleen Zoller. 

Karla Kelsey (Department of English & Creative Writing) 

Karla Kelsey is a Professor of English & Creative Writing, the Interim Director of the Honors Program, and part of Susquehanna University’s Writers Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Denver, an M.F.A. in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a B.A. in Literature and Philosophy from UCLA. A prolific author, Kelsey has published five poetry books, including On Certainty, a collection of speculative essays titled Of Sphere, and an experimental novel called Transcendental Factory: For Mina Loy. She also edited Lost Writings: Two Novels by Mina Loy for Yale University Press. Her work has appeared in major literary journals such as Bomb, Fence, Conjunctions, and The Boston Review. Kelsey co-publishes SplitLevel Texts, a press focused on hybrid-genre work, and previously edited The Constant Critic, an online poetry review journal. She has taught internationally, including in Budapest on a Fulbright, and her academic interests include women’s experimental writing, ecopoetics, lyric prose, and small-press publishing. More information can be found on her website. 

Monica Prince (Department of English & Creative Writing) 

Monica Prince is an Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing at Susquehanna University, where she specializes in activist and performance writing. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University. In addition to her faculty role, she serves as the Director of Africana Studies at Susquehanna. Prince is also a published poet and choreopoem artist; her creative work includes Roadmap: A Choreopoem, How to Exterminate the Black Woman: A Choreopoem, Instructions for Temporary Survival, and Letters from the Other Woman. Her writing has appeared in outlets such as Wildness, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, and American Poetry Journal. Beyond writing, she teaches and performs choreopoems nationally, bringing together poetry, drama, and performance in her scholarship and pedagogy. 

Coleen Zoller (Department of Philosophy) 

Coleen Zoller is a Professor of Philosophy at Susquehanna University and serves as the Program Director for its GO Greece program. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Philosophy from Emory University and holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Greek Studies from Bucknell University. Her areas of specialization include ancient Greek philosophy, feminist philosophy, and ethical theory. She has published Plato and the Body: Reconsidering Socratic Asceticism (SUNY Press, 2018) and numerous articles exploring topics such as Plato’s views on appetite, ethics, and the soul. Zoller also teaches courses on ancient philosophy, feminist ethics, and social justice, and leads immersion experiences in Greece. She is deeply committed to applying philosophical inquiry to contemporary moral issues, such as global poverty and social responsibility. In 2025, she received Susquehanna’s John C. Horn Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Creative Activity. 

“Camera-Body Choreographics: Maya Deren’s Modernist Dance Films as Models for Human-AI Co-Creation.” 

Karla Kelsey spoke first with her presentation “Camera-Body Choreographics: Maya Deren’s Modernist Dance Films as Models for Human-AI Co-Creation.” Drawing on archival work and research presented at the Modernist Studies Association, Kelsey talked about the works of Maya Deren, an experimental American filmmaker that was influential in the avant-garde 1950s and 60s. Kelsey explained that Daren created a hybrid form of machine and human experience in her films, one of the first early models of human-machine co-creation.  

Kelsey focused her talk on Deren’s 1945 film A Study in Choreography for Camera, explaining that the filmmaker treated her cameras as an active collaborator in the process rather than a passive recording tool. Unlike the Hollywood films and documentaries of the time, Deren’s works did not hide the production process. She made sure to include visible cuts, jumps, and overlaying films to highlight the technical input. These techniques are early examples of human-machine partnerships and challenge the need for Artificial Intelligence. Kelsey pursued the idea that many of the AI techniques and technology that are being used in film today can be accomplished through careful and creative filmmaking.  

To support this idea, Kelsey recalled her experience in seeing Martha Graham Dance Company’s recent performance Letter to Nobody. This dance blends live dance with archival footage, using video and image layering done by a human hand to explore the message of the dance. The combination of human and technological input rather than pure AI usage makes this dance a beautiful watch, and echo’s Deren’s insistence that art should reveal rather than conceal its making.  

As Kelsey concluded her talk, she reinforced Deren’s ideals. While AI is becoming more prevalent in the film industry, filmmakers should focus on trying to combine humans and machines rather than picking one over the other. “Technology should not be facing mediation,” Kelsey said at the end of her talk, “but reveal it, creating conditions for death; death and questioning rather than surface realism.” 

“A Good Ancestor: Creating the Audio Book for Roadmap: A Choreopoem.” 

Next up was Monica Prince. In 2023, Prince published her book Roadmap, a choreopoem about a young Black man named Dorian as he explores his family history and tries to defy a predicated violent death. In her talk “A Good Ancestor: Creating the Audio Book for Roadmap: A Choreopoem,” Prince talked about the difficult yet rewarding two-year process of recording the audio book for Roadmap.  

Prince explained that because her book was a choreopoem, it was essential to include multiple voices, music, sound effects, and other audio elements to bring the story to life. After traditional audio publishers declined to take on such an ambitious project, Prince decided to record the work independently. While there were many challenges that came with this task, she recounted one of the hardest parts was finding actors. Prince needed multiple voices, but had difficulty in reattaining actors, especially given the scarcity of Black performers in the region. Despite this, she remained committed to racially conscious casting. 

Over two years, she gathered Susquehanna faculty, alumni, and community members to be the voices behind her work. Her final cast was a collection of talented individuals that came together to create something beautiful. Prince explained that creating a chorepoem is very collaborative, and her cast allowed her to expand her network of artists of color and spark new creative ideas. Through feedback she received in rehearsals, Price was able to expand her work by writing new poems and getting new ideas for future projects. 

When it came to finally recording the book, Price collaborated with WQSU, our campus radio station, to create an immersive and emotional listening experience. Price shared an excerpt of the audio in her talk, and we got to one of the four songs featured in the book, “On the Outside.” The actors brought the story somewhere beyond just the words they were singing, and it sounded amazing! Now, the audio book is in post-production, where the final sound effects will be placed. Prince shared that although the process was difficult at times, it was a uniquely rewarding experience and allowed her to explore a new side of directing actors. This project was not only an experiment in alternative audiobook production, but also served as an example of how Black creativity can build community and open new artistic pathways. 

The audio book is set to be released in January of 2026. You do not want to miss taking a listen! 

“Diotima’s Two Humanistic Lessons About Pregnancy and Philosophy in Plato’s Symposium.” 

Finally, we heard from Coleen Zoller and her presentation “Diotima’s Two Humanistic Lessons About Pregnancy and Philosophy in Plato’s Symposium.” Her research explained how Plato uses his Symposium to express two major humanistic lessons about pregnancy and philosophy. Zoller explained that although Plato was not a feminist by modern standards, his correlation of pregnancy and philosophy works to empower women, both in their personal life and in their relation to being philosophers.  

In the Symposium, Plato includes the character of Diotima, a high priestess who is a mentor to Socrates. Zoller said that unlike other Plato characters, which are often based on real people, Diotima is likely fictional. While this is speculated, Zoller explained that if Diotima is fictional, that means that Plato intentionally included a strong, wise female philosopher, something that was more than abnormal at the time. Diotima is stated to be wiser than Socrates, and teaches him two important lessons, all while using pregnancy to do it. 

Diotima first teaches Socrates about the versality of pregnancy. Something that I found particularly interesting was when Zoller explained that the Greek word for pregnancy, κύησις, was actually gender neutral, and referred to both the conceiving and carrying of a fetus, something that both women and men participate in. As Diotima tells Socrates that both men and women are involved in pregnancy, Plato is promoting the idea that pregnancy is not just a woman’s domain. Instead, pregnancy is something that is shared between the two sexes. With this concept in mind, Diotima then tells Socrates that some people have “soul pregnancy,” and instead of bearing a child, they bear their knowledge and wisdom. 

Zoller explained that by defining pregnancy as something that is done by both men and women, Plato comparing it to philosophy implies that he believed that both men and women could be philosophers. This analogy is used to challenge the belief that philosophy belongs primarily to men and highlight that philosophical creativity is a universal trait. Zoller situates this within her research of reconsidering women’s capacities in Plato’s work, drawing attention to his acceptance of women into his Academy and his depiction of female warriors and intellectuals. Zoller highlights how Diotima stands as a symbol of philosophical women and her definition of “soul pregnancy” connects women as full participants in rational and intellectual life. As she concluded, Zoller shared information about her upcoming talk in Ancient Oria where she will continue to spread her ideas and illuminate the place women have in philosophy. 

I hope that you found our professors research as interesting as I did! If you have any questions or want to discuss one of these topics, don’t hesitate to reach out to our professor. They always love to talk about their work, and to help share their knowledge.  

Make sure to look out for our next Faculty Short Talks in the spring for more fun professor research! 

Madeline Davis (’28) is a sophomore at Susquehanna University.  She is a Marketing and Advertising & Public Relations dual major. In addition to her marketing work at the Blough-Weis Library,  Madeline serves as the Public Relations manager for Susquehanna’s Best Buddies chapter and as an editor for Ginkgo Magazine. Outside of school, she enjoys reading, writing, and antiquing with friends.