English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Lady’S Museum Project, A Digital Critical And Teaching Edition Of Charlotte Lennox’S Lady’S Museum (1760-61), Completes Phase Two Of Its Three-Phase Development Schedule, Karenza Sutton-Bennett

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

The Lady’s Museum (1760–61) was among the most important early periodicals largely written by one of the most important eighteenth-century authors, Charlotte Lennox, whose multigenre, proto-feminist writing is beginning to receive the critical and pedagogical attention it deserves. Yet no modern edition of the text has existed—until now. Launched in 2021, the Lady’s Museum Project is presenting the first critical edition of—and learning community around—Lennox’s Museum in three open-access formats to encourage the widest possible readership: a non-specialist digital, interactive edition of the text and LibriVox audiobook intended for public and undergraduate-student audiences, and a specialist digital edition intended for …

Review Of On The Digital Humanities: Essays And Provocations, By Stephen Ramsay, Michelle Lyons-Mcfarland

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A review of On the Digital Humanities: Essays and Provocations by Stephen Ramsay.

Review Of The Oxford English Literary History: Volume 5: 1645–1714: The Later Seventeenth Century, By Margaret J. M. Ezell, Karen Griscom

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A review of The Oxford English Literary History: Volume 5: 1645–1714: The Later Seventeenth Century by Margaret J. M. Ezell.

Review Of The Cambridge Edition Of The Works Of Anne Finch, Countess Of Winchilsea, Edited By Jennifer Keith Et Al, Melissa Schoenberger

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A review of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, edited by Jennifer Keith et. al.

Out Of The Closet And Into The Classroom: Teaching Anne Finch's Plays, Diana Solomon

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

The publication of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea makes it possible to teach not only a much wider assorted of her edited poetry, but also Finch’s two dramas: the tragicomedy The Triumphs of Love and Innocence, and the tragedy Aristomenes. This essay proposes integrating Finch’s plays into a course on Restoration and eighteenth-century drama by proposing a class, “Genre Trouble,” which sets them in dialogue with frequently-taught plays of the era. Included herein are a syllabus of primary and secondary sources, suggestions for discussing Finch’s plays and dramatic paratexts in comparison to works …

Teaching Finch And / In Performance: A Media Studies Approach (With Toolkit), Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Teaching the birdsong poems and compositions for musical settings of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, through media theory allows students to connect their own social-media-based expressive arts practices with the multimedia practices of early modern women writers.

Introduction: Teaching The Works Of Anne Finch, Part Ii, Jennifer Keith, Tiffany Potter

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay introduces Part Two of the two-part “Concise Collection on Teaching the Works of Anne Finch," guest edited by Jennifer Keith (Aphra Behn Online, vol. 14, no. 1, 2024). The first part of this collection appeared in Fall 2023.

Politics, Authorship, And Philosophy: Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S The Blazing World In The Diverse Graduate Classroom, Martine Van Elk

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay explores how Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World works differently when taught and read on its own and in combination with Cavendish’s other works. Focusing specifically on the graduate classroom, I examine and present strategies for teaching the book alongside works by other early modern women and for teaching it in a single-author course. While in isolation, The Blazing World allows for discussions that focus primarily on questions of gender, genre, class, and politics, read in tandem with Cavendish’s other works, in particular her philosophical writings, The Blazing World becomes a source for reflections on questions of creaturely identity, …

Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S Philosophy: Early Modern Women And The Question Of Biography, Peter West

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the learning experience.

Teaching Queer Theory And The History Of Sexuality With Margaret Cavendish’S The Convent Of Pleasure, Valerie Billing

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This article summarizes my approach to teaching Cavendish’s play The Convent of Pleasure in my course “LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture,” which I teach at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. I demonstrate how I teach the play with excerpts from literary scholarship in queer theory in order to help students sharpen their close reading skills, teach scholarly engagement, and deepen students’ understanding of early modern and Restoration comedy and the history of sexuality.

“A World Of Her Own Invention”: Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S Blazing World In The Early British Literature Survey And Beyond, Vanessa L. Rapatz

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Margaret Cavendish has only recently been included in the canonical literature anthologies and even then, the samplings of her prolific writings are severely truncated. However, even this small taste of Cavendish’s poems and excerpts of A Description of a New World called The Blazing World leave early British literature survey students hungry for more. Frequently, students in the survey choose to focus on Cavendish’s writing for their research projects in which they practice feminist and queer readings and engage with Cavendish as a key player in utopian and science fiction genres. Beyond the survey course, Blazing World works wonderfully in …

Relocating Early Modern Women: Teaching Margaret Cavendish To A Broader Audience, Jennifer Topale

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, can be called many things: writer, poet, philosopher, woman, Royalist, eccentric rule-breaker, scientific collaborator, utopian thinker, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, access to her writings, typically her The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World, are often limited in academic settings to courses centered on the seventeenth century, early modern utopian literature, Restoration literature, and possibly an early modern women writers class. Though these are all wonderful course topics, they are often upper-division courses specifically designed for English majors of the early modern period. Limiting Cavendish to only these courses means that …

Concise Collections: Teaching Margaret Cavendish, Part I, E Mariah Spencer

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This is the introduction of Part I of the "Concise Collection on Teaching the Works of Margaret Cavendish."

“Always Unguarded And Often Uncivil”: A Case For Lydia In The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Leah Benedict

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Despite decades of feminist scholarship, Lydia Bennet has consistently been taken at Jane Austen’s word: she is viewed as capricious, difficult, and silly, and in most cases found to be deserving of her fate. But with the adaptation The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Lydia became the character most likely to inspire a heightened emotional bond with viewers. Because of the show’s format, Lydia’s voice and experiences became more central, and were conveyed with greater sympathy than prior adaptations. Against all anticipation, many viewers immediately identified not with Lizzie, but with Lydia. My paper explores the cultural contexts surrounding the web …

"Old Cod": The Power Of Storytelling In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir, Sarah Johnson

English (MA) Theses

This paper examines the representation of Irish storytelling in Conor McPherson’s 1997 play The Weir. Drawing on postcolonial theory as well as the historical context of Ireland during the play’s release, I argue that The Weir is uniquely positioned at the intersection of traditional and modern values. Further, I assert that fairy legend is a tool used by the play’s characters to both understand and escape a fluctuating cultural landscape, and ultimately, a way to articulate their own values. Using textual analysis, I examine the rhetorical choices of the play’s storytellers and compare it with established conventions of Irish …

‘Faults To Make Us Men’: Shakespeare In The Prison System, Hannah Boyle

Honors Projects

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the positive impact of Shakespeare in prison programs on incarcerated individuals, utilizing empirical data, anecdotal evidence, and scholarly insights. It underscores the educational benefits of engaging with literature and performance arts within prison settings, as well as the various social-emotional learning opportunities, especially the ability to reduce recidivism rates and enhance incarcerated individuals' quality of life.

Drawing on the experience and narrative of many practitioners of theatre in prison and Shakespeare in prisons programs, this paper works to show Shakespeare's unique capacity to connect incarcerated populations with those who have gone through the …

Two Roads To Hell: Rebirth And Relevance In Musical Adaptations Of Katabatic Myth, Jarrod Deprado

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

The paper examines two myth-inspired musicals—The Frogs by Burt Shevelove and Stephen Sondheim and Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell—concerning journeys to the underworld that benefit society. Both musicals undergo adaptation and revision processes that reflect the political and social concerns of the day. The Frogs depicts Dionysus’ journey to Hades to bring back a poet (originally Euripides, now George Bernard Shaw). However, it was not until the 2004 Broadway adaptation that overtly anti-authoritarian messages were added, aimed at the Bush administration. As a “folk opera,” Hadestown retells Orpheus’ descent to the Underworld to rescue Euridice as a commentary on economic …

You’Re Invited! Collaborating With Faculty And Students To Create A Successful Library Event, Laura Semrau

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

To celebrate the 400^th anniversary of the printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the Baylor University Libraries hosted a three-day celebration; “Shakespeare 400” drew faculty members from six academic departments and leveraged the talents of both graduate and undergraduate students. The four main events drew a cumulative crowd of over 200 people. Graduate students contributed to the events through music performance, a dramatic reading, enthusiastic promotion, and engaged participation. This presentation will explore key take-aways for including graduate students in library events.

The success of Shakespeare 400 was largely due to collaborations between the library, faculty members, and graduate …

When Language Fails: A Critical Analysis Essay Of Kathryn Stockett’S The Help:, Evan Mccreary

Black Album Mixtape

A critical analysis essay of Kathryn Stockett's New York Times Bestselling book, The Help, and it's subsequent film adaptation, and how in recent years, particularly following the murder of George Floyd, the story has been used as a classroom tool for teaching students about racism and its effects. Written by a Black student in a primarily white school community, this essay was written as an antithesis to the ideology that the book and movie exceed their intended intentions of being a beneficial teaching tool to youth.

The Ghost Of John Nisbet: Hugh Macdiarmid’S First Published Work, Alan Riach

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the first published item, a short play, signed with the name 'Hugh M'acDiamid', and sets in its biographical and historical context just after the First World War and in the literary context of 1922 and international modernism, in 1922, viewing it as 'an encapsulation of its moment, and most importantly as an elegiac tribute to a friend,' arguing that 'Performing "Nisbet" as a play intimates the drama of fractured modernist selfhood implicit in the written text,' and concluding that it should be seen 'in the whole national context of Scotland finding a way towards a reconstruction of itself, a …

Introduction: Conversations On Abortion Rights And Bodily Autonomy In The Eighteenth Century And Today, Vicki Barnett Woods, Manushag N. Powell

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This piece serves as an introduction to the discussions of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, revised from roundtable presentations held at ASECS 2023. This collection of essays contributes to the resounding responses of frustration and anger toward the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The collection was written and presented by eighteenth-century scholars who have a comprehensive knowledge of the eighteenth-century legal, social, and medical histories that center around reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.

Review Of Reckoning With Slavery, By Jennifer L. Morgan, Brigitte Fielder

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of Reckoning with Slavery, by Jennifer L. Morgan,

Review Of An Archive Of Taste, By Lauren Klein, Parama Roy

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of An Archive of Taste, by Lauren Klein

Review Of Sister Novelists, By Devoney Looser, Katherine Binhammer Prof.

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of Sister Novelists by Devoney Looser.

Teaching Anne Finch In "Partisanship In Restoration And Eighteenth-Century Britain", Jennifer Wilson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

The works of Anne Finch, a writer doubly exiled as a female poet and Jacobite, stand out as eminently teachable examples of a compelling political outsider view that provokes us to consider how we can better attend to perspectives of principled opposition. Her poems in response to what has been called the "first modern revolution," together with her odes upon the deaths of King James II and Queen Mary Beatrice, showcase the subversive power of indirect articulation, expressing values through emotions and affects in veiled forms such as allegory and alternate history.

Laughter In The Shadows: Navigating Comedy And Tragedy In Much Ado About Nothing, Mary Kelly

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

I Was Crazy Once: An Examination Of Elizabethan Insanity In Shakespeare’S Work, Hope L. Kobus

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

William Shakespeare wrote numerous works, diving into the common motifs of love, revenge, power, but most importantly, madness. While Elizabethan audiences were more accustomed to seeing madness as a ploy for comedy, Shakespeare changed the appeal through shows such as King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth. He presents the power and ambition of women, as well as the failings of the upper-class, but he disguised them through the idea of insanity. At a time when the public had little understanding of mental health, it was easy to blame madness on gender, social status, and even the supernatural. Through …

Resistance Narratives: Storytelling Of Transnational Insurgencies In 1960-70s Us And Mexico, Tania Libertad Balderas

English Language and Literature ETDs

Resistance Narratives: Storytelling of Transnational Insurgencies in 1960-70s US and Mexico emphasizes how the narratives from the Mexican Insurgency, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the leftist faction of the Chicana/o Movement in the 1960s and 1970s articulate intersecting notions of resistance, liberation, and transnational solidarity. The comparative analysis of the testimonial novel Las mujeres del alba (2019) by Chihuahuan novelist Carlos Montemayor, the autobiographies Lakota Woman (1991) and Ohitika Woman (1993) by Sičháŋǧu Lakȟóta writer and AIM militant Mary Brave Bird (formerly Crow Dog), and the memoirs and plays by the San Diego-based group Teatro de las Chicanas, collected …

Gerontology In Bryony Lavery’S A Wedding Story (2000) And Sebastian Barry’S Hinterland (2002), Rania M Rafik Khalil

English Language and Literature

Old age is perceived as a narrative of decline, recently, an alternative perspective was introduced known as positive aging or Gerotranscendance. This paper examines ageing in Bryony Lavery’s A Wedding Story (2000) and Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland (2002) through the theory of gerontology. Gerontology in British and Irish modern theatre, according to Giovanna Tallone (2020) and Heather Ingman (2018), is a new category in literary studies and theory. The paper aims to examine the challenges of retaining agency in old age in comparison to the notion of aging as a process of inner harmony further proving that despite the process of …

Review Of Figurations Of The Feminine, By Siobhán Mcilvanney, Tonya J. Moutray

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A review of Siobhán McIlvanney's Figurations of the Feminine, by Tonya J. Moutray