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James Fenimore Cooper, Professional Authorship, And The American Literary Marketplace, 1838-1851, Steven P. Harthorn

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a primary-source-intensive literary history that makes use of publishers' records, correspondence, manuscript evidence, and literary works to study how James Fenimore Cooper refashioned his career as a professional author during its last major phase, approximately 1838 to 1851, to adapt to changing conditions he faced in the literary marketplace and to confront challenges-both externally- and self-imposed-to his status and reputation.

Chapter One, "The Tortured Profession of Authorship: Novelist Again," narrates Cooper's return to fiction in 1837-38, considering the professional issues confronting him at the time, such as economic uncertainties, constraints of the typical two-volume format, and alienation …

Race, Women, And The South: Faulkner’S Connection To And Separation From The Fugitive-Agrarian Tradition, Brandi Stearns

Masters Theses

“Race, Women, and the South: Faulkner’s Connection to and Separation from the Fugitive-Agrarians” examines the similarities of circumstance, thought, and literature that existed between William Faulkner and the members of the Fugitive-Agrarian group despite the lack of communication between them. The initial chapter elucidates the biographical similarities between Faulkner and the Nashville group. The information in that chapter was chiefly drawn from biographies, William Faulkner: His Life and Work by David Minter, The Southern Agrarians by Paul Conkin, and The Fugitive Group: A Literary History by Louise Cowan.

The second chapter explains Quentin Compson, a character in Faulkner’s novels Absalom, …

The Making Of James Agee, Hugh Rollin Davis

Doctoral Dissertations

When James Agee died in 1955, all of his major works were out of print or not yet published. The posthumous 1957 publication of Death in the Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1958, began a twelve-year period that saw editions of Agee's collected film reviews, screenplays, letters, short prose, and poetry, as well as re-issues of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and The Morning Watch. As these works came into or back into print, establishing a de facto Agee canon, an Agee myth also emerged. Agee came to be seen as the epitome of the …

Embodying Nature: Medicine, Law, And The Female Gothic, Mercy Cannon

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, I analyze eight novels from the tumultuous decade ofthe 1790s: Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1793) and The Italian (1798); Eliza Parsons' The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) and Eleanor Sleath's The Orphan of the Rhine (1798); Regina Maria Roche's The Children of the Abbey (1796) and Clermont (1798); Eliza Fenwick's Secresy; or, the Ruin on the Rock (1796) and Mary Wollstonecraft's The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (1798). The novels I examine are unified not only by the decade in which they were written, but also by the discursive fields that shape their presentation of the …

Science And The Spirit Of The Age: Blake, Wordsworth, And The Romantic Scientific Paradigm, Thomas C. Call

Doctoral Dissertations

The reaction of the first wave of English Romantic poets to the Enlightenment scientific establishment is by this point well understood. As Blake once noted, "All that is Valuable in Knowledge is / Superior to Demonstrative Science such as is Weighed or Measured," a view subsequently echoed by Wordsworth: "How insecure, how baseless in itself, / Is the Philosophy whose sway depends / On mere material instruments." Not quite so clear, however, is the relation between these pre-eminent Romantic poets and the Romantic scientific paradigm emerging at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Both in its mainstream version, which would …

Bins Of Plums, Erin Elizabeth Mulert

Masters Theses

This collection of poems represents work revised and completed during my tenure in the M.A. program in English. The pieces deal with themes of identity, family, and love, and the nature of poetry itself. An introduction is included that identifies my major influences and my purpose in writing poetry.

Piety And Politics: John Capgrave's The Life Of Saint Katherine As Yorkist Propaganda, Michael M. Baker

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the political undertones of John Capgrave's The Life of Saint Katherine of Alexandria. In recent years, various scholars have regarded the Life as political propaganda for either the House of Lancaster or the House of York. I have attempted to reach my own conclusion regarding Capgrave's political beliefs by navigating some of the primary arguments purported by those scholars and adding some observations of my own.

I have considered not only the text itself, but also some of the aspects of Capgrave's life that were most likely to have influenced him: …

The Crisis Of The Marital Institution In Henry James: An Analysis Of James's Experiments In Marriage In The Bostonians, The Portrait Of A Lady, And The Golden Bowl, Amy Sloan

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine Henry James’s novels The Bostonians, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Golden Bowl in an effort to create a wider picture of the threats that James perceived were closing in on the institution of marriage at the end of the nineteenth century. The paper begins by attempting to place James’s narrative style in a suitable context by comparing it to that of other American realists and to the popular genre of domestic fiction. Then it translates the more generic discussion of his narrative stylings into a more honed focus …

Renaissance Woman: The Works And Critical Reception Of Dorothy West, Tamara Jenelle Williamson

Masters Theses

Dorothy West’s literary career spanned seven decades, beginning with the publication of "The Typewriter" in 1926. West published her second novel,

The Wedding, in 1995. The following year, the author published a collection of short stories and non-fiction, entitled The Richer, the Poorer. However, in discussions of American modernism and African-American women’s literature, Dorothy West is excluded.

The focus of this project will be to explore the themes in West’s two novels,

The Living Is Easy and The Wedding. I also analyze several of her short stories and a non-fiction piece. In the last chapter of this …

Angel On The Mountain: Homestead Heroism In Appalachian Fiction, Nicole Marie Drewitz-Crockett

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to offer homestead heroism as a model for analysis in Appalachian fiction. Homestead heroism provides specific criteria for evaluating images of women in Appalachian fiction. In contrast to long-standing stereotypes of mountain women, homestead heroes achieve economic equality, and thereby autonomy, through labor production. In order to offer homestead heroism as a viable means of critical study, I have traced its presence in Appalachian fiction from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century.

Glass-Blue Days: A Collection Of Poetry, Steven Paul Sparks

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Mobius Strip, Tory Killian Niemann

Masters Theses

This collection of short stories explores the moments of change in a variety of human experiences. Change is embodied in the stories not only in the literal action of the characters and through the expressions of prose, but also in the uses of certain formal devices, such as point of view, narrative control, and genre. Through unexpected redirection of these formal devices, the impact of change is given a different significance in order to better reach the reading audience. Each of the seven stories looks at the different experiences of change, for good and for ill, in human life, showing …

Their Old Kentucky Home: The Phenomenon Of The Kentucky Burden In The Writing Of James Still, Jesse Stuart, Allen Tate, And Robert Penn Warren, Christian Leigh Faught

Masters Theses

The focus of this project is to investigate the phenomenon of the Kentucky burden, and to explore the impact of that burden on four Vanderbilt-educated Kentucky authors of the early twentieth century. The works of James Still, Jesse Stuart, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren reveal not only characteristics common to Southern regionalism in general but also traits radically particular to Kentucky. Through an exploration of the poetry and prose of these prominent Kentucky writers, we can gain a better understanding of the significance of their identities as Kentuckians and recognize the many obstacles and challenges the Kentucky burden posed …

Poetic Performances: Tracing Castiglione's Theory Of Courtliness In The Poetry Of John Donne And John Wilmot, The Earl Of Rochester, Lauren Holt Matthews

Masters Theses

In The Book of the Courtier, Baldesar Castiglione outlines the three criteria that courtiers and would-be courtiers must implement to fashion a successful performance, one that helps them maintain or strengthen their social status: grazia, sprezzatura, and dissimulazione. Each of these elements enables and supports the others; the success of the performative act relies on the courtier’s mastery and manipulation of these three characteristics. Their poetry indicates that John Donne and John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester both attained that high level courtly skill – Donne through his novel use of the metaphysical conceit and Rochester through his representations …

The Position Of The Intellectual In The 1950s: Case Studies Of J. D. Salinger And Ayn Rand, Stephen J. Bain

Masters Theses

The purpose ofthis study was to examine the historical and social factors that influenced American intellectual life in the 1950s, and to apply these broader, cultural influences to case studies on two American writers working in the 1950s: J. D. Salinger and Ayn Rand. Research involved diverse readings in biography and literary criticism concerning the two authors as well as interpretation ofthe authors' works themselves. Despite having opposing philosophical, aesthetic, and intellectual ideals, J. D. Salinger and Ayn Rand typify the position ofthe intellectual in the 1950s because they share the conflicting needs ofacceptance and superiority. While the two authors …

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Malcolmx: The Power And Legacy Of Prophetic Discourse In The Civil Rights Movement, Shannon Marie Metz

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Form B: Embodied Literacies Project, Jenn Fishman

English Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Jaepl, Vol. 11, Winter 2005-2006, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Kami Day. We Learn More Than Just Writing.

In a composition class, students learn a great deal more, for good or ill, than just strategies for writing. This article shows that, as students and teachers learn to recognize and value their own inner teachers, they can also develop relationships with each other that nourish their spirits as well as their intellects.

Gina DeBlase. 'I Have a New Understanding': Critical Narrative Inquiry as Transformation in the English-History Classroom.

This case study highlights what roles classroom discussion and activity around literature, history, and society play in developing one student’s …

We Learn More Than Just Writing, Kami Day

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

In a composition class, students learn a great deal more, for good or ill, than just strategies for writing. This article shows that, as students and teachers learn to recognize and value their own inner teachers, they can also develop relationships with each other that nourish their spirits as well as their intellects.

“I Have A New Understanding”: Critical Narrative Inquiry As Transformation In The English-History Classroom, Gina Deblase

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This case study highlights what roles classroom discussion and activity around literature, history, and society play in developing one student’s understanding of complex social issues, and what ways of talking and thinking develop over time.

Headstands, Writing, And The Rhetoric Of Radical Self-Acceptance, Geraldine Deluca

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

By emphasizing the importance of patient practice as an end in itself, yoga offers a model teaching and learning writing that can help students move forward in a context of self-acceptance and find the sources of their own talents and values.

Idioms As Cultural Commonplaces: Corporeal Lessons From Hokkien Idioms, Sue Hum

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay uses idioms, especially Hokkien idioms, to counter the western predisposition of separating mind and body, arguing that they underscore the mind-body shift that occurs with the acquisition of academic discourses.

Mindfulness, Buddhism, And Rogerian Argument, Alexandria Peary

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Use of Buddhist mindfulness practices with Rogerian argument highlights Roger’s ideas of empathy and conscious listening which help develop a rhetorical imagination in the student.

Poetry And The Art Of Meditation: Going Behind The Symbols, Stan Scott

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Combining reader-response theory with spiritual teachings, this article explores how reading poetry may serve as an introduction to the art of meditation.

Connecting, Helen Walker, Louise Morgan, Amy Wink, Marcia Nell, Gergana Vitanova, Judy Huddleston

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Louise Morgan—Street Science: An English Teacher’s Introduction to Street Life.

Amy Wink—'In the Middle of Difficulty Lies Opportunity'— Albert Einstein

Marcia Nell—The New Partnership

Gergana Vitanova—Negotiating an Identity in Graduate School as a Second Language Speaker.

Judy Huddleston—A Cat in the Sun: Reflections on Teaching.

Reviews, Edward J. Sullivan, Gabriele Rico, Megan Brown, Kim Mccollum-Clark

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Edward J. Sullivan. Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion. (Frank Visser, 2003).

Gabriele Rico. A Way to Move: Rhetorics of Emotion and Composition Studies. (Ed. Dale Jacobs and Laura R. Micciche, 2003).

Megan Brown. Living the Narrative Life: Stories as a Tool for Meaning Making. (Gian S. Pagnucci, 2004).

Kim McCollum-Clark. Personally Speaking: Experience as Evidence in Academic Discourse. (Candace Spigelman, 2004).

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

What Happens When We Read: Picturing A Reader’S Responsibilities, Laurence Musgrove

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

A graphic representation of reading as a process enables students to respond more fully and responsibly to literature by attending to what they contribute to the act of reading, what the world to the text can offer, what kinds of responses are available to them, and what they can do to make sure they have responded as thoughtfully as possible.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

Inner Work: Teaching and Learning (from) Within

”There lives the dearest freshness deep down things,” Gerald Manley Hopkins writes in God’s Grandeur, capturing in this line, as he sought to reveal through the marvelously unique sounds and rhythms of his poetry, the “inscape” or the unique inner essence of all natural things. “The dearest freshness deep down things” is also Parker Palmer’s focus in The Courage to Teach, where he argues for a teacher’s and a learner’s inner work: exploring “the inner landscape of the teaching self” because “[t]he more familiar we are with our inner …