Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Libraries And Changing Humanities Fields, Peter Hesseldenz

2024 R&I Day

A description of a project which explores how Humanities fields are changing as they grapple with diversity and inclusion issues, focusing particularly on curricula and teaching methods. The project also seeks to understand how well libraries are working with and supporting these changes with particular emphasis on the role of Academic Liaisons.

The Royal Astronomer And The Astronomer Royal: Tar-Meneldur And Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

Elsewhere I argued that there are parallels between Tar-Meneldur and the lives of several pre-20^th century astronomer-nobles (Ulugh Beg, Johannes Hevelius, Wilhelm IV, Tycho Brahe, and James Ludovic Lindsay) and noted several real-world astronomical events that may have informed/motivated Tolkien’s development of Tar-Meneldur’s avocation, including political controversies concerning the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford and the Royal Observatories at Greenwich and Edinburgh. Since that publication I have continued to ponder Tolkien’s depiction of Tar-Meneldur as an astronomer (and king), and offer another possible source of inspiration for the royal astronomer in the form of the tenth Astronomer Royal, Sir Harold …

The Divided Self: Internal Conflict In Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, And Neuroscience, Yulia Greyman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thematic project examines the notion of self-division, particularly in terms of the conflict between cognition and metacognition, across the fields of philosophy, psychology, and, most recently, the cognitive and neurosciences. The project offers a historic overview of models of self-division, as well as analyses of the various problems presented in theoretical models to date. This work explores how self-division has been depicted in the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe, Don DeLillo, and Mary Shelley. It examines the ways in which artistic renderings alternately assimilate, resist, and/or critique dominant philosophical, psychological, and scientific discourses about the self and its …

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations Of “Peau D’Âne” In Contemporary French And English Texts, Amy M. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations of “Peau d’Âne” in Contemporary French and English Texts explores trans-genre and transmedia adaptations of Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale using feminist and narratological theories to examine gendered aspects of storytelling and the treatment of father-daughter incest and blame in the work of selected French, British, and American creators. Texts are read comparatively, with analyses of the adaptations’ plots, motifs, characterizations, and modifications, both in relation to Perrault and to the other adaptations. This dissertation features prose and poetry texts by female authors—including Christine Angot, Catherine Cusset, and Emma Donoghue—in the first two chapters. Reading these …

Against Conflict, Against Occupation: Protest Songs In India And Kashmir, Mridula Sharma

Comparative Woman

The establishment of All India Progressive Writers’ Association in colonial India encouraged artists to articulate and examine social realities. Literary-cultural productions, particularly popular songs in Hindi films, in independent India continued to remain preoccupied with social conflicts such as religious bigotry and communalism. Sahir Ludhianvi’s “Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye” (trans. “What can one gain, even if one gains this world?,” 1958 ) and “Yeh Kiska Lahu Hai, Kaun Mara” (trans. “Whose Blood Has Spilled? Who Died?,” 1961) are early examples of a lasting tide of pessimism owing to communal violence during the 1947 India-Pakistan …

Ladybugs, Gabrielle Bologna

Comparative Woman

No abstract provided.

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 …

Rayed Arcs And The ‘Rory Bory Aylis’: Primary World Aurorae And Tolkien’S 'Father Christmas Letters', Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

Previous research has demonstrated that Tolkien was well-versed and well-practiced in the use of etiological myths in his world-building activities. But we should remember that Middle-earth was not his sole Secondary World; in fact, one of the most interesting can be found at Tolkien’s version of the North Pole, in his Father Christmas Letters. As might be expected of Tolkien the impressive collection of astronomy in the letters is largely scientifically accurate, especially concerning the aurora borealis, the northern lights. This paper explores the instances of auroral references (in text and illustration) in the Father Christmas Letters and connects …

Japanese-English Translation: Three Poems By Takeuchi Kozo: Death In Winter; To The North Sea; Sunset (「冬に死す」・「「北海に」・「夕焼け」), Translated By Christopher Southward, Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty Scholarship

Japanese-English Translation: Three Poems by Takeuchi Kozo: Death in Winter; To the North Sea; Sunset (「冬に死す」・「「北海に」・「夕焼け」), Translated by Christopher Southward

Pedro Mexía And The Politics Of Translation In The Early Modern World, Erin Fairweather, Robert Fritz

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Spanish humanist Pedro Mexía (1497-1551) wrote two highly influential texts in the sixteenth century, the Silva de varia lección (1540) and the Historia imperial y cesárea (1545), which were, notably, written in Spanish, a vernacular language, as opposed to Latin, the academic language of the age. As these books presented previously inaccessible scientific and historical knowledge to the common person, they were soon translated into several languages, achieving widespread fame and influence. However, the texts have been mostly forgotten and have seen little study in recent times. Nevertheless, the Silva and the Historia can help us better understand the politics …

The Power Of Words: A Study Of The Origins And Employment Of The Terms إسلامي, إسلاموي And إسلامجي In Modern Arabic Political Discourse, Ayman Haj-Yasīn

Journal of the Arab American University مجلة الجامعة العربية الامريكية للبحوث

This study discusses the coinage and uses of the terms إسلامي , إسلاموي , and إسلامجي in modern Arabic political discourse. It aims to show that the construction and employment of these terms is connected to specific 'developments' in Arabic language and in modern Arab history, and that these 'developments' cannot be separated from the Western impact on Arabic thought and modern Islam. The study strives to uncover the logic behind the construction of each term in relation to the other terms and to certain developments in modern Arabic discourse. It also shows the important role translation, as a linguistic …

Signifying And The Feeling Of Differences, Samuel Weber

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

What does Werner Hamacher's concept of archiphilology have in common with Saussure's view of intralinguistic， differential function in language? Perhaps the way in which the indefinite of language itself “slowly defines itself，” both in response to past acts of appropriations， and appealing for new signifieds the meaning of which can only be seized and unseized over time. Several of Kafka's short stories illustrate how literary works play out the same tension within what can be called a “progressive and digressive” narrative， warding off any internal principle of closure or conclusiveness while continuing to require endings and answers. Holderlin's “Remarks on …

Guest Editor's Overview, Yue Zhuo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

Developing And Sustaining A Graphic Scholarship Collection For Academic Libraries, Stewart Brower, Toni Hoberecht, Zane Ratcliffe, Bethie Seay

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

In early 2021, the Schusterman Library at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa satellite campus took a new step towards building a culture of interest by creating the Graphic Scholarship Collection. This new endeavor is a curated collection of graphic novels, primarily non-fiction, aligned with the academic programs on campus, as well as promoting University initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion. A new organizational structure for the collection materials and their circulation metrics will be examined in detail. There will also be consideration of the challenges of selection and acquisition by a mixed team of selectors, some of whom have no experience …

Women, Animals, Food: Planetary Perspectives On The Non-(Hu)Man, Samu/Elle Striewski

Comparative Woman

The paper comparatively reads Mahasweta Devi’s Pterodactyl, Pirtha, and Puran Sahay (1995) and Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood (2009) to trace the ways in which both novels show the complex intertwinement of the climate crisis with gender, class, race, subalternity, anthropocentrism, and veganism. Bringing together Gayatri C. Spivak’s notion of “planetarity” with ecofeminist philosophy and literary criticism, the article proposes a planetary ecogender reading of the two texts and their representation of the non-man, non-human, and non-subject. Building up further on Jacques Derrida’s critique of carno-phallogocentrism, the pedagogy of a relational ethics of “nurturing” is hence presented …

"Too Immoral To Be Narrated By A Woman": Censoring Erotic Fiction Of Arab Women Writers In Girls Of Riyadh And Distant View Of A Minaret And Other Stories, Muhammed Salem

Comparative Woman

In the Arab world, bargaining with censorship has been an ongoing struggle for writers, particularly female authors. How could we explain that only male writers were allowed to discuss sexuality in the Arabic canon, insofar as female characters are portrayed as passive sexual objects? Are Arab women writers victims of double censorship? One is imposed on their fellow male writers, and another is tacit censorship which judges women’s morality based on their writing. Girls of Riyadh (2007) by Saudi novelist, Rajaa Abdullah Alsanea, and Distant View of the Minaret and Other Stories (1987) by Egyptian novelist, Alifa Rifaat, are two …

Interculturality, Creolization, And Globalization In "Ángeles Nómadas" By Minelys Sánchez, Cecily Bernard

Comparative Woman

No abstract provided.

Madness As Response To Inherent Cultural Conflicts In Anglophone Fiction From 1700 To 2020, Anna Klambauer

Comparative Woman

Madness in literature has a long and colourful history. While its representation varies significantly in different literary periods, madness is nonetheless a consistent theme responding to inherent conflicts of civilisation. Thus, in the eighteenth-century novel, madness is subdued and forced to express itself in the language of rationality, while in the nineteenth century the theme becomes increasingly subversive. In the form of the madwoman trope (Gilbert and Gubar 1979), madness is simultaneously a reaction to restrictive patriarchal norms, and a frame in which the gender conflicts of the time can be safely and effectively played out. In the twentieth century, …

Learning Chinese Vocabulary: Understanding Students' Perspectives, Austin Gasiecki, Zuotang Zhang

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This study used a survey to investigate self-study and university-enrolled Chinese learners’ habits in studying Chinese vocabulary in order to determine what study methods influence a.) learners’ confidence in learning Chinese vocabulary and b.) what aspects of Chinese vocabulary they consider easy or difficult. We were particularly interested in seeing what the data had to say about students’ attitudes towards characters and the written language, given that the field of Chinese language pedagogy is known for a stronger focus on the written language as opposed to the spoken language. We found that aspects of Chinese vocabulary associated with the spoken …

Practicing Hedonism In The Face Of Nihilism: Onfrayian Insights On Individualism And Autonomy, Scott Truesdale

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

Where many define nihilism as the belief that life and all moral principles are meaningless, the French philosopher, Michel Onfray, expounds on this classic definition and argues that true nihilism is the refusal to accept the world as it is. Unlike monotheistic religions and totalitarian regimes that urge their followers to practice asceticism now to attain happiness in the future, Onfray believes that hedonistic pleasure can be found when the individual rediscovers autonomy and returns to an atomistic worldview that is immersed in the imminent.

Between Pain And Glory: Memory Disputes Of The Brazilian Dictatorship In Retrato Calado And O Que É Isso, Companheiro?, Angela R. Mooney

The Coastal Review: An Online Peer-reviewed Journal

This article analyzes Luiz Roberto Salinas Fortes’ Retrato calado (Silent Portrait) published in 1988, considering the theoretical discussions on testimonio's epistemology—addressing the challenge of narrating trauma and the risk of stylization. It compares Fortes' memoir with Fernando Gabeira's O que é isso, companheiro? (What's This, Comrade?) from 1979, examining diverse approaches to capturing historical trauma through literature and its impact on collective memory about Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-1985).

The Controversy Of Teaching World Literature And The Importance Of Translation In The Field Of English Studies, Samirah Almutairi

English Faculty Publications

For literary texts to be taught in World Literature courses in the Departments of English Literature, they must be translated into English as a general rule. Some scholars advocate for translating literary texts, and others believe that translation as a methodology does not do justice to these texts. This study aims to lay out the arguments for each position and evaluate them. The significance of this study is to show that World Literature remains an essential field and to highlight the importance of translation. This study questions the modes and purpose of translating literary texts. The result of this study …

Doctors And Saints: Preparing Albert Camus’S The Plague To Address The Dangers Of Christian Nationalism, Christopher J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

My project is focused on identifying and responding to Christian nationalism in United States politics by utilizing Albert Camus’s novel The Plague. The Plague found heightened popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and its lasting legacy points to what should be long-term prominence in the public eye. With its popularity and anti-fascist content, The Plague is an appropriate text to utilize for addressing America’s Christian nationalism. My paper functions with a foundation on the work of Kenneth Burke, particularly his focus on literature’s utility as equipment for living.

I use my project to suggest that The Plague is not in an …

“I Know What Nothing Means”: Nostalgia, Hope, And The Postmodern Search For The Sublime, Kathryn L. Donati

Theses and Dissertations

Amid simultaneous crises of self, nation, digital citizenship, global health, climate change, and socio-political polarization, to name but a few of the catastrophes that seem to define life in the global West in the twenty-first century, where do we find hope? Do we find it at all? Is there any hope to be found? These are the questions that serve as the genesis for this undertaking in which I locate the origin of these crises far before the events of the 2016 and 2020 elections, far before even the panic of Y2K. I begin my examination of hope in contemporary …

Translating Heimat In Multilingual Dortmund, Kristin Dickinson

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Named for the people of 132 different nationalities photojournalist Peyman Azhari encountered in northern Dortmund over the course of a year, the photo collection Heimat 132 (2014) stands as testament to the many ethnicities, religions, and languages this neighborhood is home to. In my paper, I read Azhari’s photographs as sites of translation capable of reclaiming a critical understanding of Heimat (home or homeland) that is fundamentally multilingual. I do so by first exploring the link between racially and ethnically exclusionary definitions of Heimat and the all-too-common assertion that Heimat is an untranslatable word. Each approach, I argue, rests on …

The New Old Logic Of Ai: A Review Of Mark Coeckelbergh’S The Political Philosophy Of Ai And Calvin Lawrence’S Hidden In White Sight, Steven Wandler

Critical Humanities

The New Old Logic of AI: A Review of Mark Coeckelbergh’s The Political Philosophy of AI and Calvin Lawrence’s Hidden in White Sight by Steven Wandler, St. Catherine University

Humanities In The Time Of Chatgpt And Other Forms Of Ai, Puspa Damai, Barbara Postema

Critical Humanities

Humanities in the time of ChatGPT and other forms of AI

Treating Traum(A): Examples In The Tanakh That Mirror Events During The Life Of Bonhoeffer And Crimes Of The Ian Rankin Novel Knots And Crosses, Geraldine Mitchell

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contains a wealth of stories reflecting life in the ancient world including struggles and wars that prove(d) traumatic. It is shown time and again that history repeats itself, and the stories of the Bible reappear in the modern world, both real and (crime) fictional. In this paper, traumatic experiences associated with the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer as well as the fictional character DI John Rebus created by the crime writer Ian Rankin, are linked with similar incidents recorded in the Tanakh. The first novel in the Rebus series, Knots and Crosses, also forms the basis …

Tess Of The D'Urbervilles -- A Pure Survivor An Analysis Of Thomas Hardy, Victorian Women, & Modern Media, Jesse C. Marin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Context is vital to understanding the circumstances and the society that produced Thomas Hardy’s novel. As such, I will be reviewing the era through canonically established authors, the literary trope that would condemn women and firmly entrench itself in England’s national identity, and political movements guided by the law of Victorian England. This will showcase the hurdles of basic women’s rights that would continue throughout the reign of Queen Victoria, as well as the dangers that would be faced in the public and domestic spheres, endangering a woman’s very life. When tied together W.T. Stead’s expose in the Pall Mall …

From Periphery To Center: Re-Presenting Black And Afro-Arab Characters In Contemporary Arabic Literature, Samer Ahmad Mayyas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Black Arabs and Afro-Arabs tend not to be centered in Arabic discourse, especially modern Arabic literature, and Black people of other ethnicities are marginalized, as if Black peoples and Afro-Arabs were not part of the history and present-day of the Arabic-speaking world. I explore in this dissertation project the representations and experiences of Black and Afro-Arabs in contemporary Arabic fictional narratives. I argue that the contemporary literary era sees a shift in re-presenting Black peoples and Afro-Arabs in the Arabic fictional discourse. By moving Black and Afro-Arab characters from periphery to center, contemporary Arab writers challenge and disrupt, in an …