A group of four University of Winnipeg students have been talkin’ trash in Regina.

Justin Van Damme, Kelly Nickie, Trevor Graumann and Brietta O’Leary were in Saskatchewan’s capital Feb. 27 and 28 for a conference at the University of Regina titled Trash Talkin’: New Directions in Popular Culture and Contemporary Writing.

University students from Manitoba and Saskatchewan gave creative presentations relating to pop culture. True to its name, the conference really was a new direction in popular culture studies because it showcased pop culture in an academic atmosphere through the medium of creative writing.

Van Damme and Graumann presented a short story they wrote titled Call Me Michael, a play on the line “Call me Ishmael” from Moby Dick. The story consists entirely of clichés.

“The exercise was to take the clichés out of their original context and try to make them something fresh, new and funny,” Van Damme said.

Margaret Sweatman, the U of W English professor who urged the students to submit something for the conference, praised Call Me Michael.

“It’s a hilarious satire, mostly of film language,” she said. “It’s a duet, so it’s a bit of a performance piece as well. They both have very good performative talent.”

An Ideal Moment, a short story that questions the depiction of relationships in popular romance movies, was the basis of Nickie’s presentation.

“I think the movies display an unreal expectation of what should be in relationships, and that human emotions are a lot more complicated than what can be summarized in an hour and a half,” said Nickie, who based the story on her own observations.
“Things take time to progress, and what you see on the screen doesn’t have to be reflective of your current relationship,” she added. “I mean, people write this stuff!”

The conference was hosted and organized entirely by undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Regina. The U of W research and development office and the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association funded the students, and they were billeted in Regina so they didn’t have to pay for room and board.

When asked why studying pop culture is important, Van Damme’s answer was simple.

“Often it’s a good reflection of our society.”

Sweatman said pop culture isn’t her area of study, but she appreciated the students’ efforts.

“I think they were trying to reflect and analyze their own circumstances, their own culture. I liked it a lot because it belonged to them. It was about their world.”