Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Modeling The Writing Assignment On Literature, Charlie Sweet, Hal Blythe

Hal Blythe

Charlie has been teaching his junior-level American Lit Survey II for 36 years, but last summer after reflecting on the course with Hal, he decided to try a new way of teaching students to write. He set up critical writing communities in his class and then he created one for himself in order to model a particular writing skill.

The Biblical Foundation Of James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues", James Tackach

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the critical analysis of two main biblical texts that form the foundation of Baldwin’s "Sonny's Bules": the Cain and Abel story from the Book of Genesis and the parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke’s gospel.

Hearing Adam: Gender Relationships In The Short Fiction Of Caroline Gordon., Linda Elaine Hipple

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Writer and critic Caroline Gordon has been a participant on the Southern literary scene since the early 1930s, yet her works have been neither studied nor appreciated as frequently as the works of her male contemporaries. Her novels and short fiction never received the critical acclaim that they merited due to the perpetuation of the erroneous idea that women have little to say. While at the time other female writers were exploring their emancipation, Gordon retreated to the consistent confines of male-dominated tradition and created fiction embodying her conservative philosophy. This thesis will examine five pieces of her short fiction, …

Picture Postcard, Anthony Fife

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Anthony Fife on December 14, 2007.

E. B. White’S Environmental Web, Lynn Overholt Wake

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

E. B. White called Walden his favorite book and found in it “an invitation to life’s dance.” To read White ecocritically is to accept a similar invitation to broaden our environmental imagination. Although one or two of his essays are often anthologized as nature writing, critics have not read White environmentally. While emphasizing White’s three books for children, this dissertation reads across genre lines to examine his lifelong work. Drawing on Laurence Buell’s prismatic term, the study explores how White’s engagement with the natural world contributes to the renewal of our collective environmental imagination. Examining White’s affinity for animals, evident …

Katherine Anne Porter's Adaptation Of Joycean Paralysis In The Pale Horse, Pale Rider Collection, Jamie Colwell

All Theses

This thesis is a study of Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider collection in relationship to James Joyce's Dubliners. The main focus of this study is Porter's use of Joycean paralysis in the three stories 'Old Mortality,' 'Noon Wine,' and 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider.' There is evidence in interviews and letters of Porter's admiration of Joyce, and her characters' states of hopelessness reflect a similar paralysis to those found in the following selections of Dubliners: 'The Dead,' 'Grace,' and 'Eveline.' Porter's collection of stories is not an imitation of Joyce's work; her voice and story setting remain distinct. However, …

The Home Tie, Christina Davenport

All Theses

The Home Tie is a collection of short fiction that utilizes place as a vital literary element by exploring the southern landscape and giving a candid rendering of the people who live in the region. Outsiders' conceptions of the South are varied, from the genteel southern belle strolling beneath the Spanish moss of her Savannah plantation to the unrefined redneck blaring country-western music from his oversized pick-up truck; from the clergyman greeting his long procession of faithful church-goers to the Klansman still calling his secret meetings somewhere in the backwoods of Appalachia. There is a feeling, both within and without, …

It's Alive! The Gothic (Dis)Embodiment Of The Logic Of Networks, Anna Katharine Bennion

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis draws connections between today's network society and the workings of gothic literature in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century. Just as our society is formed and affected by the flow of information, the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility was formed by the merging and flow of scientific "technology" (or new scientific discoveries) and societal norms and rules. Gothic literature was born out of this science-society network, and in many ways embodies the ruptures implicit in it. Although gothic literature is not a network in the same sense as informationalism and the culture of sensibility are, gothic literature works according …

Cognitive Dissonance: The Apocalyptic Poetics Of Spenser’S Faerie Queene, April Phillips Boone

Doctoral Dissertations

While sixteenth-century citizens of England and the Continent read, interpreted, and appropriated The Book of Revelation for a number of purposes, Edmund Spenser’s primary motivation was to find a source of his poetic theory and practice, as well as his poetic themes and imagery. Spenser began his literary career in 1569 with the anonymous publication of his English translation of Jan van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings, which concluded with four sonnets based on scenes from Revelation. My project examines the ways in which Revelation, or Apocalypse as it was frequently called in the period, remained a significant creative fountainhead …

The Roots Of Middle-Earth: William Morris's Influence Upon J. R. R. Tolkien, Kelvin Lee Massey

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the influence of William Morris (1834-1896) upon J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973). It concentrates specifically upon the impact of Morris’s romance, The Roots of the Mountains, upon Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. After surveying the scholarly literature pertaining to this topic, it proceeds to discuss their work within the context of the nineteenth-century revival of interest in the medieval period and in folkloric and mythological narratives. It then analyzes numerous parallels between the two works in characterization; plot motifs; archaic diction, syntax, and semantics; and topographical description and reanimation are then analyzed. These parallels …

Review Of Professing And Pedagogy: Learning The Teaching Of English By Shari J. Stenberg, Tim Taylor

Tim Taylor

No abstract provided.

Delarivier Manley's Possible Children By John Tilly, Rachel Carnell

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Professing And Pedagogy: Learning The Teaching Of English By Shari J. Stenberg, Tim Taylor

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Review Of Professing And Pedagogy: Learning The Teaching Of English By Shari J. Stenberg, Tim Taylor

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

The Sleepy Hero: Romantic & Spiritual Sleep In The Gawain-Poet, Erin Kathleen Turner Hepner

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This thesis examines two accepted styles of writing in the Middle Ages, the romance and religious genres, and what purpose they perform in the Gawain-poet’s religious poem, Patience, and his romance poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK). One recently popular line of research among medieval scholars is examining the way medieval authors, such as the Gawain-poet, combine elements of romance and spiritual writings. By funneling the Gawain-poet’s intermingling of the medieval romance and religious genres through the specific lens of sleep, which is represented differently in medieval romance texts than in medieval religious …

Rhyme And Reason In Language Acquisition: Incorporating Poetry Into The Esl Classroom, Kimberly Call Gleason

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Utah is seeing a rapid increase in K-12 students whose native language is not English. With this increase, teachers face the challenge of finding new and effective teaching methods to reach their ESL (English as a Second Language) students. This research explores the study of poetry as an instrument to improve ESL students' pronunciation of English. When read out loud, poetry can be an exercise in pronouncing consonant sounds (from alliteration), decoding vowel sounds (from rhyme), and acquiring the natural speech rhythm of the English language (from meter). Poetry was selected not only because of its exaggerated sound elements (alliteration, …

Wordsworth's Evolving Project: Nature, The Satanic School, And (Underline) The River Duddon (End Underline), Kimberly Jones May

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss Wordsworth's evolving nature project, particularly during the Regency, when his sonnet collection The River Duddon offered an alternative view of nature to that found in the works of Byron and Shelley. This thesis argues that The River Duddon deserves renewed critical attention not only because of the acclaim it received at its publication in 1820, but also because it marks yet another turn in Wordsworth's evolving nature project, and one that comes in opposition to the depiction of nature given during the Regency by Byron, and Shelley. Wordsworth's portrayal of nature dramatically …

A Virginia Woolf Of One's Own: Consequences Of Adaptation In Michael Cunningham's The Hours, Brooke Leora Grant

Theses and Dissertations

With a rising interest in visual media in academia, studies have overlapped at literary and film scholars' interest in adaptation. This interest has mainly focused on the examination of issues regarding adaptation of novel to novel or novel to film. Here I discuss both: Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours, which is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and the 2002 film adaptation of Cunningham's novel. However, my thesis also investigates a different kind of adaptation: the adaptation of a literary and historical figure. By including in The Hours a fictionalization of Virginia Woolf, Cunningham entrenches his adaptation with Virginia …

Sound Of Terror: Hearing Ghosts In Victorian Fiction, Melissa Kendall Mcleod

English Dissertations

"Sounds of Terror" explores the interrelations between discourses of sound and the ghostly in Victorian novels and short stories. Narrative techniques used by Charles, Dickens, George Eliot, Henry James, and Charlotte Mew are historically and culturally situated through their use of or reactions against acoustic technology. Since ghost stories and nvoels with gothic elements rely for the terrifying effects on tropes of liminality, my study consists of an analysis of an important yet largely unacknowledged species of these tropes: auditory metaphors. Many critics have examined the visual metaphors that appear in nineteenth-century fiction, but, until recently, aural representations have remain …

Medias Res, Temporal Double-Consciousness And Resistance In Octavia Butler's Kindred, Roslyn Nicole Smith

English Theses

Dana, the Black female protagonist in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred (1979), finds herself literally and figuratively in medias res as she sporadically travels between her present day life in 1976 and her ancestral plantation of 1815 – two time periods that represent two converse concepts of her identity as a Black woman. As a result, her time travel experiences cause her to revise her racial and gendered identity from a historically fragmented Black woman, who defines herself solely on her contemporary experiences, to a Black woman who defines herself based on her present life and her personal and ancestral history …

The Play's The Thing: Investigating The Potential Of Performance Pedagogy, Tamara Lynn Scoville

Theses and Dissertations

In the last ten years there has been a resurgence of interest in teaching Shakespeare through performance. However, most literature on the topic continues to focus on the pragmatic selling points of how performance makes Shakespeare fun and understandable while remaining surprisingly silent on issues of theory and ethics. By investigating the ethical implications of performance pedagogy as it affects our students' construction of identity, empathy, and pluralistic tolerance we can better understand and discuss the potential of performance pedagogy in relation to the ethical goals of the Humanities. Performance Pedagogy has particular ethical potential due to the structure of …

Images Of Loss In Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman, Marsha Norman's Night, Mother, And Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive, Dipa Janardanan

English Dissertations

This dissertation offers an analysis of the image of loss in modern American drama at three levels: the loss of physical space, loss of psychological space, and loss of moral space. The playwrights and plays examined are Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie (1945), Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), Marsha Norman's 'night, Mother (1983), and Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive (1998). This study is the first scholarly work to discuss the theme of loss with these specific playwrights and works. This dissertation argues that loss is a central trope in twentieth-century American drama. The purpose of this …

The Ur-Quiver In The Pro-Stiff Upper Lip: Secrecy And Reserve From Keble To Clough, Patrick Scott

Patrick Scott

Voice In Writing Again: Embracing Contraries, Peter Elbow

English Department Faculty Publication Series

"Voice in writing" has fallen into a kind of limbo as a topic: it's vexed; it's discredited by most composition scholars; it's not much written about recently; and yet it remains widely used by readers, teachers, and writers. I examine good reasons for paying lots of attention to voice when we read and teach writing; and also good reasons for ignoring it. And finally insist that we can usefully do both.

Realists And Reformers In The Nineteenth Century, Claudia Stokes

English Faculty Research

Amid the violence and tensions of contemporary globalization, it is perhaps unsurprising that American literary historians of the last decade have been preoccupied by literary transnationalism. As with the work of such critics as Anna Brickhouse, Wai Chee Dimock, and Kirsten Silva Gruesz (among many others), this field of research has carefully exposed the international contexts of American literature and put pressure on the nationalist borders that have always delimited literary history. Amanda Claybaugh’s new book, The Novel of Purpose, is a worthy contribution to this growing field of transnational literary history.

Review Of "Teaching The Gothic," Edited By Anna Powell And Andrew Smith, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

In recent years there has been a considerable growth in scholarship on the Gothic and on supporting reference materials. There has also been a growth in single volume introductory guides to the form which have been crucial in supporting our pedagogic practices (at least in the early weeks of Gothic courses). However, this book, published as part of the MLA's Approaches to Teaching series, provides a much needed analysis of how we go about teaching the Gothic. The content is almost exhaustive and encompasses accounts of teaching the Gothic in fiction and in film and has chapters on a range …

Voice In Writing Again: Embracing Contraries, Peter Elbow

Peter Elbow

"Voice in writing" has fallen into a kind of limbo as a topic: it's vexed; it's discredited by most composition scholars; it's not much written about recently; and yet it remains widely used by readers, teachers, and writers. I examine good reasons for paying lots of attention to voice when we read and teach writing; and also good reasons for ignoring it. And finally insist that we can usefully do both.

Tolkien As A Child Of The Green Fairy Book, Ruth Berman

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Considers the influence of some of Tolkien’s earliest childhood reading, the Andrew Lang fairy books, and the opinions he expressed about these books in “On Fairy-stories.” Examines the series for possible influences on Tolkien’s fiction in its portrayal of fairy queens, dragons, and other fantasy tropes.

“Deep Lies The Sea-Longing": Inklings Of Home, Charles A. Huttar

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Scholar Guest of Honor speech from Mythcon 35. Insightful study of the pattern of references to sea-voyages and the earthly paradise in Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams traces the influence of Arthurian, Celtic, and Greek legends in their writing.

The Centre Of The Inklings: Lewis? Williams? Barfield? Tolkien?, Diana Pavlac Glyer

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Considers which of the Inklings might be considered the “centre” of the group through a discussion of the dynamics of the writing workshop. On the basis of studies of successful writing groups, concludes the Inklings are a model of the type of group which includes several different types of leaders, but no authoritative overall leader.