A Queer Reading Of Octavia Butler’S Kindred, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
A Queer Reading Of Octavia Butler’S Kindred, Marietta Kosma
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Throughout Octavia Butler’s Kindred the author raises numerous tensions around the notions of accessibility, disability, equality, and inclusion, exposing the crisis of black futures. My analysis focuses on the way that queerness informs the protagonist Dana’s experiences in the context of slavery, her positioning in the contemporary discourse of neo-liberalism, and her positioning in the prospective future. Very few scholars perceive Dana’s subjectivity as an actual state of being that carries value both materially as well as metaphorically. The materiality of queerness has not constituted part of the larger discourse of the American slave system. By examining how Butler renders …
Sauron, Seduction, And The Queering Mechanism Of The Ring, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Sauron, Seduction, And The Queering Mechanism Of The Ring, Mercury Natis
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
It has often been argued that Sauron is barely present in the Lord of the Rings, existing as a villainous presence on the margins of the narrative. This paper will argue that Sauron is actually present throughout the entire narrative, as manifested in the Ring, and through the Ring’s presence as a queering device. The Ring acts out Sauron’s seduction mechanism, a defining character trait as portrayed in the Silmarillion. It is this seduction mechanism that allows the Ring to act as a queering agent throughout the narrative. Ring-lust is inherently queer as it projects a male-presented character’s seductive powers, …
Closeted Gays Take Hide, A Lamia Has Been Untied: Bbc Merlin And Queer Experiences Beyond Queer Joy, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Closeted Gays Take Hide, A Lamia Has Been Untied: Bbc Merlin And Queer Experiences Beyond Queer Joy, Anna Caterino
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
A decade after its finale, online fandoms have started labeling Merlin (2008-2012) as “date your bully 101” (theroundbartable), a story written by people “giving each other blowjobs while they talk about how much they deserve servants” (vhagarswattle). In light of the most recent models of queer representation, such takes are to be expected. Even so, Merlin is not a mere case of “hoyay” (Kohnen 201-2012) nor does it engage in queerbaiting or use the “Bury Your Gays” trope. The text is tied to the socio-political landscape of the late 2000s which serves as foundation for the show’s tragedy and, although …
Asexualities, Aromantics, And Autists In Epic Fantasy By Tolkien And Goddard, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Asexualities, Aromantics, And Autists In Epic Fantasy By Tolkien And Goddard, Robin Anne Reid, Rory Queripel
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The Mariner (and his wife): Rethinking Aldarion’s (A)sexuality Rory Queripel
“Aldarion and Erendis” (Unfinished Tales) is a rare example in Tolkien’s work of a marriage gone severely awry. Many readings of the tale apportion blame to Aldarion, who is seen as “unwilling” to make the marriage work (Fitzsimmons, 2015), cruel and unfeeling towards Erendis, who herself is characterised as resentful and unaccepting (Rosenthal, 2004). However, these readings rely on an assumption of a cisheteronormative and, more importantly, allosexual relationship between the couple.
This paper proposes an alternate view of Aldarion and his role in the story, suggesting the possibility that …
Gazing Queerly: The Art And Text Around Saruman’S Non-Normativity, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Gazing Queerly: The Art And Text Around Saruman’S Non-Normativity, Christopher Vaccaro
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The queer is often defined by its relation to normativity. Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal situates queerness in opposition to normalcy, even gay normalcy. Karma Lochrie’s Heterosyncrasies: Female Sexuality When Normal Wasn’t deconstructs a monolithic hetero-normativity. Within the fantasy genre, protagonists frequently reside in a queer relation to normative communities. J. R. R. Tolkien quite often depicts his major characters within his mythopoeic framework as in some way outside of the normal; they’re often odd, fringe outsiders in relation to the larger community to which they are a part. The texts of his legendarium present this queerness fairly clearly—so …
Our Flag (And Spaceship) Means Queer: Monstering The Majority Culture, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Our Flag (And Spaceship) Means Queer: Monstering The Majority Culture, Sara Brown, Kristine Larsen
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Although the television series Our Flag Means Death presents on the surface as a romantic comedy, it is enhanced by mythic elements that infuse the narrative with a clear sense of the fantastic. Here, the pirates exist in a Secondary World that openly draws upon the Primary (both in terms of historiography and legend); hence 18th-century piracy and British colonialism can interact seamlessly with human-to-animal-transformations (paying homage to the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone) without seeming either disconcerting or anomalous – all co-exist comfortably in Faerie. OFMD both inverts and deconstructs mythopoeia; the Primary World myths of the Gentleman …
Tolkien’S Queer Landscape: Three Papers On Middle-Earth’S Heterotopias, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Tolkien’S Queer Landscape: Three Papers On Middle-Earth’S Heterotopias, Will Sherwood, Marita Arvaniti, Mariana Rios Maldonado
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
The following papers will explore Tolkien’s queer landscapes of Middle-earth: from Arda’s highest peaks and hidden underbellies, to her liminal, fae places, using the lens of Michel Foucault’s heterotopias.
Marita Arvaniti will introduce the panel and discuss Tolkien’s Faerian Drama and its relationship to the much-maligned Tom Bombadil episode, focusing on the queer figure of Tom Bombadil himself and his heterotopic domain.
Mariana Rios Maldonado will analyse the Barrow-downs, Dead Marshes, and Paths of the Dead as symbolic sites of death created during harrowing moments in the history of Middle-earth. These are no-places: spaces of Otherness containing the evil and …
Welcome And Announcements, 2024 Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Welcome And Announcements, The Mythopoeic Society
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Join us for a screening of the Welcome and Announcements video in the 'Track 1' room, and have a cup of coffee before we get started!
Death, Dreaming, And Diaspora: Achieving Orientation Through Afro-Spirituality, 2024 Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge
Death, Dreaming, And Diaspora: Achieving Orientation Through Afro-Spirituality, Liz Johnston, Jaime Elizabeth Johnston
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Enslavement, colonization, and the systems that uphold racial injustice were and still are a series of new, unfathomable, and challenging experiences that prompt individuals within the diaspora to seek orientation. How does a human cope with centuries of attempts at the systematic destruction of their humanity, culture, and identity? How can they reclaim that identity, especially when so much of it seems lost? I address these questions by utilizing texts from the expansive body of work regarding ethnographic-historical-religious studies on Afro-spiritual practices to better analyze instances in literature in the ongoing practice of diasporic orientation. In this project, I argue …
When Communities Fall: A Critical Analysis Of Toni Morrison's Sula, 2024 Wayne State University
When Communities Fall: A Critical Analysis Of Toni Morrison's Sula, Sami Saigh
Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research
When women dare to self-actualize they frequently face barriers that tear their spirits down, leading to guilt, shame, and feelings of inadequacy. For the lineage of women in Toni Morrison’s Sula, these consequences are fatal for everyone. As these factors thwart fundamental social development, communal collapse becomes easier, leaving entire cultures vulnerable to erasure. Whether self-determination is expressed through promiscuity or properness, paradoxical moralism leaves no room for either. This essay explores how Morrison offers a retrospective look from the graveyard of a town while illustrating the impact of the loss of friends, lovers, and communities.
Double Consciousness, Mirrors, And The Children Within Them: A Conceptual Reading Of W. E. B. Du Bois's "As The Crow Flies", 2024 Wayne State University
Double Consciousness, Mirrors, And The Children Within Them: A Conceptual Reading Of W. E. B. Du Bois's "As The Crow Flies", Adeline Navarro
Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research
This research essay argues that W. E. B. Du Bois’s Crow from his magazine column “As the Crow Flies” is a figurative device for double consciousness and examines how aspects of double consciousness are present in the frequent motifs of dialectic doubleness in the column. Drawing from scholar Rudine Sims Bishop, this essay explores how the Crow functions as a mirror that children can use to realize their own double consciousness and thus see themselves. This insight into Du Bois’s news column provides a further understanding of the significance of accessible, multicultural children’s literature.
Course Design As Critical Creativity: Intersectional, Regional, And Demographic Approaches To Teaching Asian American Literatures, 2023 Kansas State University
Course Design As Critical Creativity: Intersectional, Regional, And Demographic Approaches To Teaching Asian American Literatures, Thomas X. Sarmiento
Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies
This essay offers a theoretical and reflective exploration of critically informed acts of creativity expressed in my course design for and teaching of Asian American literatures at a predominantly white, public land-grant, Midwestern university. I argue that teaching is both a creative and critical activity as it generates new ways of knowing and being through an assessment and curation of extant literary texts and scholarly discourses. Given my geographic, scholarly, and personal orientations, my course features intersectional, regional, and ethnically diverse perspectives that aim to queer what “Asian America/n” signifies. I hope my situated pedagogical insights inspire other scholar-teachers to …
Romancing The University: Bipoc Scholars In Romance Novels In The 1980s And Now, 2023 City University of New York (CUNY)
Romancing The University: Bipoc Scholars In Romance Novels In The 1980s And Now, Jayashree Kamble
Publications and Research
English-language mass-market romance novels written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers and starring BIPOC protagonists are a small but important group. This article is a comparative analysis of how recent representations of diversity in this sub-set of the genre, specifically the character of the Black academic and the language of racial justice, compare with the first group of BIPOC novels that were published in 1984 (Sandra Kitt’s Adam and Eva and All Good Things as well as Barbara Stephens’s A Toast to Love). In Adrianna Herrera’s American Love Story (2019), Katrina Jackson’s Office Hours (2020), and …
Trauma And Stigma In Aids Literature: Tony Kushner’S Angels In America (1995) And Colm Tóibín’S The Blackwater Lightship (1999), 2023 University of Almería
Trauma And Stigma In Aids Literature: Tony Kushner’S Angels In America (1995) And Colm Tóibín’S The Blackwater Lightship (1999), J. Javier Torres-Fernández
Journal of Franco-Irish Studies
This paper explores the representation of trauma and stigma tied to HIV/AIDS in The Blackwater Lightship (1999) by Colm Tóibín and Angels in America (1995) by Tony Kushner. Both works arguably respond to the socio-political and biomedical crisis that affected queer identities and international politics. These experiences of health and illness highlight the silenced and marginalized voices of those infected with HIV during the 80s and 90s. HIV/AIDS-related stigma and shame marked the LGBTQ+ community under the illness as punishment metaphor for their sexuality. The role of politics and religion remains fundamental in the historical silence around this illness and …
Symposium Review: The Highway And Me And My Earl Grey Tea—Emily Smucker, 2023 Washington & Franklin Counties Mennonite Conference
Symposium Review: The Highway And Me And My Earl Grey Tea—Emily Smucker, Julia Martin, Karen Conley
Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies
With its poetic lilt, The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea beckons with the lure of travel, comforting drink in hand. To Conservative Mennonite author Emily Smucker, it is time to explore. Her world of 28 years has been Willamette Valley, OR, a place of faith and family while dealing with West Nile Disease and finishing college. Moving beyond the educational structure to pursue a career in writing posed new questions. “Where should I live? Where do I belong? What is my purpose? What is my identity?” [First paragraph.]
Bedside Diaries And Caregiver Journals: Plain Authors’ Accounts Of Medical Experiences, 2023 Independent researcher
Bedside Diaries And Caregiver Journals: Plain Authors’ Accounts Of Medical Experiences, Jennifer Anderson
Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies
Plain populations (Amish and some Mennonites) write nonfiction accounts of their medical experiences as a means of networking and sharing knowledge about medical conditions and care. These stories serve as a means of creating space to normalize the condition. These accounts are written in the form of medical dramas, “bedside diaries” (such as autobiographies and caregivers’ journals), and reference books. In this article, I propose that healthcare providers read bedside diaries and medical experience stories to learn how plain people process their medical experiences, utilize community support systems, and create meaning based on their faith and beliefs. A select bibliography …
Chilean Canadian Literature In English: Memories Of Home And Belonging, From The Postcolonial To Decolonial Practice, 2023 Western University
Chilean Canadian Literature In English: Memories Of Home And Belonging, From The Postcolonial To Decolonial Practice, Luis Jaimes-Domínguez
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This dissertation aims to present a compelling exploration of identity and cultural hybridity, and of the intricate tapestry of diasporic experiences. As such, it delves into the significance of Chilean Canadian literature written directly in English, with a specific focus on the works authored by female writers as part and parcel of an emerging diasporic literature. Employing a postcolonial and hemispheric lens, this research employs a multidimensional methodology embedded in cultural memory, border studies, and representational intersectionality. Within this framework, this study attempts to unravel how Chilean Canadian literature written in English might contribute to a repository of Chilean Canadian …
Every Tongue Got To Confess: Zora Neale Hurston As Afrofuturist, 2023 Michigan State University
Every Tongue Got To Confess: Zora Neale Hurston As Afrofuturist, Nicole Huff
Third Stone
To understand Hurston’s influence on the black speculative practice and engagement in Afrofuturist practice, we must first understand the period she was working within— the Harlem Renaissance.
Mirroring Financial Speculation And Late Capitalism Through Speculative Fiction: Worker Gullibility And Guilt As Re-Imagination Of Human Value, 2023 Chapman University
Mirroring Financial Speculation And Late Capitalism Through Speculative Fiction: Worker Gullibility And Guilt As Re-Imagination Of Human Value, Ian Koh
English (MA) Theses
Charles Yu’s short story “Standard Loneliness Package” from the speculative fiction collection Sorry Please Thank You features a worker who conforms to the cultural logic of Wall Street and late capitalism. However, the privilege of working in a tech company in an up-and-coming industry does not shield him from experiencing the oftentimes destructive logic of financial speculation and in-built structural inequalities. This paper makes a case that a tragedy could be read into this worker’s seemingly stable situation in a way that can uncover the character’s truly sorry state from his illusion of privilege and choice. But first, readers must …
Poetic Tracks And Treading On Indigenous Lands: Examining Marlatt And Warland’S And Akiwenzie-Damm’S Literary Travels To Australia And Aotearoa, 2023 University of Northern British Columbia
Poetic Tracks And Treading On Indigenous Lands: Examining Marlatt And Warland’S And Akiwenzie-Damm’S Literary Travels To Australia And Aotearoa, Christine C. Campana
The Goose
This paper considers the work of poets who travel from the area of the Indigenous land of Turtle Island now known as Canada to the Indigenous territories of Australia and Aotearoa. The poets engage in different forms of movement on the land that reveal varying degrees of awareness of and respect for Indigenous sovereignty. In particular, I put “17:00 / coming into Port Pirie” and “30/5 8:50 / past Menindee” from Daphne Marlatt and Betsy Warland’s 1988 Double Negative, an understudied collection of poetry in which the lesbian poets traverse Australia by train while reflecting on travelling through “(ab) …