Modern Literature Commons^™

How Do You Build A Discipline From The Ground Up?, Robert H. Ellison

English Faculty Research

This is the keynote address delivered to the 21^st Annual WV undergraduate literary symposium, hosted by Marshall University on March 2, 2013. It presents a kind of "wish list" for scholars in sermon studies: we still need "a clear sense of the canon," places to "interact and network" with colleagues, and a dedicated journal "where scholars can publish their work." People working in other fields are fortunate in that they can usually take these things for granted, but sermon scholars still have some work to do to bring them to fruition.

Third Way Poets: Navigating The Streams Of Modern And Postmodern Poetic Uncertainty, James A. Richie

English Dissertations

This dissertation examines the career arcs of four representative current poets in order to develop a tentative narrative to account for recent and emergent poetic practice. Poets who began publishing between the 1970s and 1990s inherited two powerful aesthetic traditions. On the one hand, they write in the shadow of postmodern poets who find liberation in the embrace of radical linguistic, epistemological/ontological, or subjective uncertainty and exhibit intense skepticism about intellectual closure or claims of privilege for aesthetic production. On the other hand, they also find aesthetic reserves in the work of high modernists who felt they faced similar ...

Las Cadenas Del Hombre: Las Restricciones En Los Papeles De La Mujer En La Literatura Hispana, Rachel Cohen

University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Spice Sisters: Religion, Freedom And Escape Of Women In African American And Indian Literatures, Lovely Koshy

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on women in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and Rabindranath Tagore's three short stories. Hansberry writes during a period in America when racism, segregation, and black migration to the North weighed heavy upon the psyche of black women. Tagore writes during a time when British control, sati system, caste system, and dharma leave Indian women voiceless. Both express their disagreement with entrenched norms and institutions that have been in place for hundreds of years, a task that initially may seem to be an impossible undertaking, and unlikely to bring about expected change. This ...

Modernist Manipulation: Virginia Woolf's Effort To Distort Time In Three Novels, Carly Fischbeck

Antonian Scholars Honors Program

This paper explores three works by Virginia Woolf, studying her evolution as a modernist writer through Woolf’s experimentations with manipulating time in each novel. Woolf’s techniques are analyzed in the context of the modernist movement, including artistic and scientific influences, as well as being analyzed within the three works to note their development over time. Focusing on one aspect of Woolf’s work, the depiction of time, allows for an understanding of both the modernist techniques used to manipulate time and the author’s developing ability to manipulate those techniques. The seeds of modernism found in Woolf’s ...

Life Inside The Spectacle: David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, And Storytelling In The Age Of Entertainment, John Hawkins

Masters Theses

This project explores George Saunders's In Persuasion Nation and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as interventionary literature. The thesis asserts that the two works confront the problems of isolation and dehumanization created by entertainment-based consumerism; they do so by depicting satirically exaggerated consumer societies and placing well-developed, sympathetic characters in those settings. The thesis includes a consideration of Jameson and deBord's theories of spectacle and Wallace's stated concerns with postmodern irony as an ineffective form of critique.

No Greater Love: Recognition, Transformation, And Friendship In The Harry Potter Series, Stephen Parish

Masters Theses

Nobody today doubts the momentous influence the Harry Potter series has had on a generation of readers. Many scholars and critics assume Harry's place amongst other great works of children's literature, and indeed the series has brought about a revival in children's literature scholarship. Despite this popularity, many critics question the series' aesthetics, its attention to moral demeanor. Therefore, what element exists in Harry Potter that could enforce its aesthetic quality? Based on a rhetorical reading of the texts, my thesis upholds the aesthetic nature of the books through an analysis of the trio's friendship and ...

Ars Moriendi: A Selection Of Texts Concerning The Phenomenon Of Death, Andrew Osborne

Book Collecting Contest Essays

Ars Moriendi: A Selection of Texts Concerning the Phenomenon of Death was an entry in the 2013 Collins Memorial Library Book Collecting Contest. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

This book collection takes its title, Ars Moriendi (Latin for ‘the art of dying’), from a late medieval literary tradition consisting of texts that ‘guide’ readers through a rigorous programme that teaches the art of ‘dying well.’ (As the lore has it, if one were to follow the instructive dictates of an ars moriendi text verbatim, then one’s soul would be guaranteed salvation ...

Hunting The Dark Knight: Books On The Batman, Ian N. Fox

Book Collecting Contest Essays

My essay and annotate bibliography explores the many facets of Batman as both a cultural icon and as a morally and politically complicated character. I explore the merits of comics and superheroes as a modern mythology that deserves serious academic study. Ultimately this is the expression of my personal growth by learning about the Batman and hope that others will pursue their respective passions.

Intersections In Immanence: Spinoza, Deleuze, Negri, Abigail Lowe

Dissertations & Theses, Department of English

The connection between French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and Italian political theorist Antonio Negri has drawn attention in academic publications over the last decade. For both thinkers, the philosophical concept of immanence is central to how both respectively conceptualize the world. However, in order to consider their work with regard to a metaphysical grounding, one may benefit from turning to each thinker’s engagement with Jewish Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza whose immanent ontology, or monism, was indeed his Ethics. This essay concentrates on drawing out an ontological distinction between the philosophical projects of Deleuze and Negri by way of a close ...

Making Connections: Applying The Ap French Langauage And Culture Scoring Guidelines To Student Samples, Brian Kennelly

Modern Languages and Literatures

No abstract provided.

Jest In Time: The Problems And Promises Of The Holy Fool In Francesco, Giullare Di Dio, Ordet, And Ikiru, Peter L. Doebler

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper is a study of Roberto Rossellini’s Francesco, giullare di Dio (The Flowers of St. Francis, 1950), Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952), and Carl Dreyer’s Ordet (1955) through the theoretical lens of the religious figure of the holy fool. First, I assert that each film employs a foolish character in order to critique the contemporary culture, particularly resisting modern attempts to soften or ignore extreme elements of Christian teaching, such as sacrificial self-giving for others or the hope of bodily resurrection. Second, I argue that the content of a fool character affects the film’s form, creating ...

The Rise Of The Anti-Hero: Why Do We Prefer Pop Culture With A Dark Side?, Jaime Longo

Explorer Café

No abstract provided.

Wendell Berry's Imagination In Place: Affection, Community, And Literature, Joseph Wiebe

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

This thesis argues that Wendell Berry’s idea of a healthy community and his understanding of membership is embodied in his fiction. The imagined community of Port William is neither an ideal blueprint for instantiating a new form of collective life in modern society, nor is it a nostalgic recreation of lost rural communities for representing an alternative culture. Berry’s imagination—both the creative process and its material products—is a funding current for both analyzing North American democracy and its failings as well as cultivating pluralities of communities that address these inadequacies. The form and discipline of Berry ...

Contextos Y Prácticas En Las Humanidades Digitales, Joseba Moreno

Theses, Dissertations, Student Research: Modern Languages and Literatures

La aplicación de la tecnología a los trabajos enmarcados en el campo de las humanidades y la creación de un nuevo conjunto de prácticas denominado humanidades digitales, es el tema principal de este trabajo, que pretende servir de introducción a algunas de las prácticas y metodologías más recientes en el ámbito académico.

Ap French: Unpacking The Scoring Guidelines For Interpersonal Tasks, Davara Potel, Brian G. Kennelly

Modern Languages and Literatures

No abstract provided.

Designing Thematic Instruction With Authentic Resources: Alienation And Assimilation, Davara Potel, Brian G. Kennelly

Modern Languages and Literatures

No abstract provided.

"Just A Fool's Hope": J.R.R. Tolkien's Eucatastrophe As The Paradigm Of Christian Hope, Margaret A. Bush

Senior Honors Papers

In his essay titled “On Fairy-Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien uses the term “eucatastrophe” to describe the unexpected, fortunate turn of events for the protagonist in a fantasy story. Tolkien applies the word beyond its literary context to signify the Christian’s experience of joy, especially resulting from the Incarnation and Resurrection. Such an explicit link between fiction and theology seems absent from his more well-known work, The Lord of the Rings. Yet both Tolkien himself and critics of his writing have labeled the novel a modern-day classic of Christian literature. This thesis will defend the Christian label of The ...

De Chirico And The Dioscuri: Metahistory And A Conception Of Personal Mythology, Sean Theodora O’Hanlan

Colgate Academic Review

Giorgio de Chirico’s career as a modern painter was intrinsically linked to the past, as Hellenic references and classical mythology formed the core of his vision. However, his art was also intensely personal, seen in de Chirico’s continuous depiction of the particular myths of the Dioscuri and the Argonaut voyage. A look to his extensive memoirs and those of his brother, Alberto Savinio, reveals the artist’s preoccupation with the Argonaut and Dioscuri myths as a metaphor of self, central to his creation of a personal mythology. A chronological visual analysis of the recurring subject matter amplifies the ...

Reading Ineffability And Realizing Tragedy In Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, Michael E. Gray

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Victory Garden, Stuart Moulthrop’s 1991 classic hyperfiction, presents a nonlinear story of U. S. home front involvement in the First Gulf War in a way that facilitates confusion and mimics a "fog of war" sort of (un)awareness. Using Storyspace to build his complex narrative, Moulthrop incorporates poetry, fiction, historical references, and low-tech graphic novel type elements. Among the graphic components are all-black and all-white screens that function as variables. Overtly, these screens speak of closure and signify unconsciousness; however, their nonverbal role may also be linked to the ineffability trope as used by Dante Alighieri and re-interpreted by ...