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American Literature Commons

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Full-Text Articles in American Literature

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky Oct 2017

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky

Theses and Dissertations

This paper theorizes that authors, in an act I have termed “literary exorcism,” project and expunge parts of their identities that are in conflict with the overriding political agenda of their texts, into the figure of the villain. Drawing upon theories of power put forth by Judith Butler, I argue that this sort of projection arises in reaction to dominant ideas and institutions, but that authors find ways to manipulate this process over time. By examining a broad cross-section of English-language literature over several centuries, this phenomenon and its evolution can be observed, as well as the means by which …


Woman Energy: How Our Lesbian Past Informs Our Lesbian Future, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz Jul 2017

Woman Energy: How Our Lesbian Past Informs Our Lesbian Future, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Sinister Wisdom Issue 3, published the year 1977 holds an essay by poet Adrienne Rich, titled, “It is the lesbian in us...”; The cover of the same issue has art by photographer Tee Corinne. Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal. This non-fiction creative essay written by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz reflects on the first year of Sinister Wisdom's publication as a celebration of 40 years through this special edition anniversary print for which only 1000 have been printed. The essay remarks on the shift in lesbian identity and community and the potential impact of the Sinister Wisdom journal …


Bricolage Propriety: The Queer Practice Of Black Uplift, 1890–1905, Timothy M. Griffiths Jun 2017

Bricolage Propriety: The Queer Practice Of Black Uplift, 1890–1905, Timothy M. Griffiths

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bricolage Propriety: The Queer Practice of Black Uplift, 1890-1905 situates the queer-of-color cultural imaginary in a relatively small nodal point: the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Through literary analysis and archival research on leading and marginal figures of Post-Reconstruction African American culture, this dissertation considers the progenitorial relationship of late-nineteenth century black uplift novels to modern-day queer theory. Bricolage Propriety builds on work about the sexual politics of early African American literature begun by women-of-color feminists of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Hazel V. Carby, Ann duCille, and Claudia Tate. A new wave of …


Arnold Whitridge: Scholar And Veteran Of Two Armies And Two Wars, Keith J. Muchowski Jan 2017

Arnold Whitridge: Scholar And Veteran Of Two Armies And Two Wars, Keith J. Muchowski

Publications and Research

This is an invited blog post written for Roads to the Great War, a site dedicated to the study of the First World War edited by historian Mike Hanlon. The article discusses the life and career of Arnold Whitridge, a soldier, scholar and grandson of British poet Matthew Arnold.

This is the url:

http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/2017/01/arnold-whitridge-scholar-and-veteran-of.html