English Language and Literature Commons^™

‘How Little I Cared For Fame’: T. Sparrow And Women’S Investigative Journalism At The Fin De Siècle, Laura Vorachek

English Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the work of an overlooked female journalist, T. Sparrow, arguing that her career reveals the difficulties female journalists faced when negotiating between the expectations of middle-class gentility and the demands of investigative journalism.

Sparrow asserted her gentility rhetorically, in part because female reporters who took up investigative reporting were vulnerable to criticism for assaying beyond domestic subjects. Moreover, incognito investigative reporting often brought celebrity to its practitioners, which challenged the convention of middle-class female modesty.

Sparrow, therefore, strove for a delicate balance in her career—assuming the stance of a middle-class woman who lived among the poor, someone …

Entertaining Angels: Homelessness And The Hospitality Of Faith In Adams County, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

I first volunteered at a soup kitchen in the frigid depths of winter in very late 1981 or very early 1982, in the heart of the Rust Belt in the midst of a terrible recession. I should emphasize right from the onset that I didn’t want to be there: I was next to useless and very intimidated, forced to be there by the tradition of service at my all-boys Catholic high school. Still, the experience made quite an impression on me, and I tell that story to my students so that they will understand that I know what’s like to …

Opinion: Housing Our Homeless Vets Is A Duty We’Ll Always Owe, Christopher R. Fee, Joshua L. Stewart

English Faculty Publications

As we celebrate Veterans Day across America, we are reminded of President Abraham Lincoln’s powerful admonition in the Gettysburg Address regarding what we owe to those who have sacrificed and given of themselves in the defense of the common good. [excerpt]

Opinion: Too Many Veterans With Children Are Still Homeless, Christopher R. Fee, Joshua L. Stewart

English Faculty Publications

Don’t ignore homeless veterans.

As we pause this Veterans Day to reflect on those who have sacrificed in the service of our country, let us not neglect to address the plight of those who have returned to a civilian life with far less promise than they have every right to expect. [excerpt]

Jesus Lives, But Should He Live In My Front Yard?, Christin N. Taylor

English Faculty Publications

As I drove home from church, I eyed the bright foam sign my 6-year-old daughter held. “Jesus is Alive” it read in kid scrawl. “We’re supposed to put them in our yards!” Noelle beamed, eyeing her creation proudly through pink-rimmed glasses.

I imagined our wide, open yard in Pennsylvania, the green grass stretching without fences from one neighbor to the next. Our best friends in the neighborhood, secular humanists, would easily see it. I cringed. What would they think? [excerpt]

Putting A Human Face On The Minimum Wage, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

What is a “livable wage,” and should we strive to raise wages for American workers?

There are lots of conflicting studies and reports. The Congressional Budget Office projects that an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour would eliminate 500,000 jobs while raising the incomes of nearly 17 million Americans.

Even prominent economists like David Card and David Neumark diametrically disagree on the likely consequences of raising the minimum wage, and their studies of results in New Jersey have consistently yielded conflicting results for decades. [excerpt]

Appalachian Migrant Stances, Bridget L. Anderson

English Faculty Publications

The article explores the economic and industrial opportunities for Appalachian native speakers in the industrial Midwest countries after the World War I. Topics discussed include the characteristics of migration diaspora in Appalachian migrants, the Southern migrants metropolitan area lifestyle in Detroit, Michigan and the impacts of ethnographic factors to Appalachian migrants. Other topics include the social and identifiable factors for migrants.

Our National Shame, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

I spend a lot of time with my students working at soup kitchen and homeless shelters, and each winter, when it gets really cold and dark, my thoughts more often turn back to Dick. Dick died on Jan. 31, 1988. He was a veteran who served in Germany in the 1950s and was a graduate of St. John's University in New York, where his father has been an Engligh professor.

Dick had completed most of the work for his MBA during a career which included positions at Procter & Gamble, Federated Department Stores, and National Cash Register. At the time …

Speculation And The Emotional Economy Of 'Mansfield Park', Laura Vorachek

English Faculty Publications

At the midpoint of Mansfield Park (1814), the Bertram family dines at the Parsonage, and card games make up the after dinner entertainment. The characters form two groups, with Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant playing Whist, while Lady Bertram, Fanny, William, Edmund, and Henry and Mary Crawford play Speculation, This scene is central not only because Speculation reveals certain characters' personalities, but also because another type of “speculation” occurs during the game as the players contemplate or conjecture about one another. Moreover, “speculation” in the sense of gambling functions as a metaphor for the vicissitudes of …

Distanciation And The Recontextualization Of Space: Finding One’S Way In A Small Western Community, Lisa Gabbert

English Faculty Publications

In the 1990s, the city of McCall, Idaho, and the surrounding region implemented the Rural Addressing System. The system assigned a name to every street and a number to every house and erected visible signage for both. Although a seemingly minor bureaucratic operation, the Rural Addressing System is a concrete example of Anthony Giddens's concept of space distanciation, and as such, it is a significant component of modernity and globalization. By investigating the impact of the Rural Addressing System on this region—particularly on the ways in which people give directions and think about space there—this article sheds light on how …

English Ethnicity And Race In Early Modern Drama, By Mary Floyd-Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 (Book Review), Imtiaz Habib

English Faculty Publications

The article reviews the book "English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama," by Mary Floyd-Wilson.

I'Ll Take My Land: Contemporary Southern Agrarians, Suzanne W. Jones

English Faculty Publications

For many earlier southern white writers, the southern rural landscape was the repository of nostalgia for lost ways of life, whether it was the plantation fantasy that Thomas Nelson Page pined for in his stories In Ole Virginia (1887) or the segregated agrarian ideal that many contributors yearned for in I'll Take My Stand (1930). For modern southern white writers, beginning most prominently with William Faulkner, the rural landscape has conjured up unsettling guile about a way of life that flourished on the backs of the black people who tilled that land. And not surprisingly, for many black writers the …

"Under The Umbrella Of Black Civilization": A Conversation With Reginald Mcknight, Bertram D. Ashe

English Faculty Publications

Talking to Reginald McKnight is like scanning an imaginary worldwide radio dial. At any given moment he can transform his pleasant speaking voice into a raspy, aged, Middle Eastern-by-way-of-New York accent - or a deep Southern drawl. In an instant he can switch from a precise West African dialect to hip, urban street lingo, and then effortlessly segue back to his normal voice. McKnight says he "hit the ground running" as a mimic, and his talent was broadened as he lived all over the United States as the son of an Air Force sergeant. His time spent on the road …

Crossing Boundaries: Land And Sea In Jane Austen's 'Persuasion', Laura Vorachek

English Faculty Publications

Jane Austen suggests in Persuasion the pressures that the increased mobility of the middle class placed on the established aristocratic society in her time. Anne Elliot especially brings to light the inherited assumptions of her society. She can marry within her social rank (Mr. Elliot or Charles Musgrove) or marry below her (Wentworth at age 23), but either is a choice within the limits established by her society. One owns land or one does not. But when Wentworth returns a man of name and wealth, he is not a member of the landed gentry nor is he below Anne in …

"Why Don't He Like My Hair?": Constructing African-American Standards Of Beauty In Toni Morrison's "Song Of Solomon" And Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Bertram D. Ashe

English Faculty Publications

African-Americans, with their traditionally African features, have always had an uneasy coexistence with the European (white) ideal of beauty. According to Angela M. Neal and Midge L. Wilson, "Compared to Black males, Black females have been more profoundly affected by the prejudicial fallout surrounding issues of skin color, facial features, and hair. Such impact can be attributed in large part to the importance of physical attractiveness for all women" (328). For black women, the most easily controlled feature is hair. While contemporary black women sometimes opt for cosmetic surgery or colored contact lenses, hair alteration (i.e., hair-straightening "permanents," hair weaves, …