English Language and Literature Commons^™

Wordsworth And Milton: The Prelude And Paradise Lost, Colin Mccormack

English Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ua68/6/1 Potter College Of Arts & Letters English Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications created by and about the English Department.

Zephyrus is produced by the English Department and contains student creative writing.

"A literary magazine called Voices had been produced for a number of years prior to that, but in 1969 Professor Gatlin, with the help of Professor Will Fridy, came up with the title Zephyrus, the Roman name for the west wind, because Dr. Wood had asked that "Western" be included in the title." From A Centennial History of the Department of English of Western Kentucky University by James Flynn

"In 1979, Frank [Steele], along with his wife, Peggy, began publishing …

Human-Computer Interface Design For Online Tutoring: Visual Rhetoric, Pedagogy, And Writing Center Websites, Alice J. Myatt

English Dissertations

This dissertation examines the theory and praxis of taking an expanded concept of the human-computer interface (HCI) and working with the resulting concept to design a writing center website that facilitates online tutoring while fostering a conversational approach for online tutoring sessions. In order to foster a conversational approach, I explore the ways in which interactive digital technologies support the collaborative and communicative nature of online tutoring. I posit that my research will yield a deeper understanding of the visual rhetoric of human-designed computer interfaces in general and writing center online tutoring websites in particular, and will, at the same …

Ua68/6/2/1 Potter College Of Arts & Letters English Student Organizations Western Writers, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records of the Western Writers and issues of Voices magazine.

The Fashioning Of Fanny Fern: A Study Of Sara Willis Parton's Early Career, 1851-1854, Amy S. Porche

English Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to trace how Sara Willis Parton achieved unprecedented literary celebrity status as Fanny Fern during the first three years of her professional career, 1851-1853. While most critics point to her famously lucrative contract with the most popular newspaper of the 1850s, the New York Ledger, in 1854 as the beginning of her fame, I argue that she had already fully achieved that fame and had done so by writing for small Boston newspapers and publishing a highly successful collection of her articles by 1853. Further, Fern was able to achieve such a high level …

The James Brothers And The Tragic Beauty Of Individualism, Corey Plante

English Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Initiation In The Novellas Of Henry James, Collyn E. Milsted

English Theses

This Master’s Thesis seeks to explain the process of initiation undergone by Henry James’s characters. Characters are chosen for initiation into forbidden knowledge, and, like the Biblical Adam and Eve, are exiled as a result. Though initiation is erotic, it is not sexual, and society falsely perceives a sexually charged relationship between the initiator and the initiate, also called the complementary pair. The initiate faces exile and death because of his forbidden knowledge. He no longer has a place in his society, which leads to his social death and eventually physical death. James’s reader is initiated along with the characters, …

Writing And Wellness, Emotion And Women: Highlighting The Contemporary Uses Of Expressive Writing In The Service Of Students, Cantice G. Greene

English Dissertations

In an effort to connect women’s spiritual development to the general call for professors to reconnect significantly with their students, this dissertation argues that expressive writing should remain a staple of the composition curriculum. It suggests that the uses of expressive writing should be expanded and explored by students and professors of composition and that each should become familiar with the link between writing and emotional wellness. In cancer centers, schools of medicine, and pregnancy care centers, writing is being used as a tool of therapy. More than just a technique for helping people cope with the stresses of loss, …

The Southern Gentleman And The Idea Of Masculinity: Figures And Aspects Of The Southern Beau In The Literary Tradition Of The American South, Emmeline Gros

English Dissertations

The American planter has mostly been presented as the epitome of the romantic cavalier legend that could be found in the fiction of John Pendleton Kennedy to Thomas Nelson Page: a man of chivalric manners and good breeding; a man of good social position; a man of wealth and leisure (Concise Oxford Dictionary). A closer scrutiny of the cavalier and genteel ethos of the time, however, reveals the inherent ideological inconsistencies with the idea of the gentleman itself, as the ideal came to be more and more perceived as an illusion and as challenges to traditional gender stereotypes came to …

Early Medieval Rhetoric: Epideictic Underpinnings In Old English Homilies, Jennifer M. Randall

English Dissertations

Medieval rhetoric, as a field and as a subject, has largely been under-developed and under-emphasized within medieval and rhetorical studies for several reasons: the disconnect between Germanic, Anglo-Saxon society and the Greco-Roman tradition that defined rhetoric as an art; the problems associated with translating the Old and Middle English vernacular in light of rhetorical and, thereby, Greco-Latin precepts; and the complexities of the medieval period itself with the lack of surviving manuscripts, often indistinct and inconsistent political and legal structure, and widespread interspersion and interpolation of Christian doctrine. However, it was Christianity and its governance of medieval culture that preserved …

Liminal Resistances: Local Subjections In My Story, Vidheyan, And The God Of Small Things, Priya Menon

English Dissertations

This project investigates various ways in which resistance is explored by Kamala Das, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Arundhati Roy in My Story, Vidheyan, and The God of Small Things respec-tively. “Liminal Resistances: Local Subjections in My Story, Vidheyan, and The God of Small Things” aims to examine the workings and creative subversions of hegemonic discourses of caste, class, gender and color within the local milieu of Kerala, India. By exploring the theoreti-cal apparatuses employed in three diverse texts set in Kerala, this project identifies: firstly, Das’s subversion of Nair Kerala’s sense of gendered and casted normativity in My Story; secondly, Adoor’s …

Ua1b Wku University Wide Committees/Events, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records regarding university wide events such as lecture and concert series. See individual departments for smaller co-sponsored events.

Review Of Inception, Directed By Christopher Nolan, Douglas Keesey

English

No abstract provided.

A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook

Theses and Dissertations

The Richmond Outreach Center “The ROC” is an independent soulwinning megachurch in Richmond, Virginia. This thesis explores how rhetoric plays a role in the rapid growth of this urban church and considers the church’s response—rhetorically and politically—to the city’s social issues. Through a rhetorical analysis of sermons and written texts by Geronimo Aguilar, the ROC’s founder and pastor, it is concluded that Aguilar has generated a rhetoric of change that says social change must come to Richmond and that everyone, both rich and poor, are responsible for change. Aguilar galvanizes an audience to seek social change because he articulates roles …

The Grotesque Gospel Of Buechner’S Godric, Emily Burris Geary

English Seminar Capstone Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Multiple Factors Of “Insideness” And “Outsideness”: Exploring Why Gilead Is Both A Place Of Insideness And Outsideness For Ames And Jack, Whitney Burch

English Seminar Capstone Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Examining Early And Recent Criticism Of The Waste Land: A Reassessment, Tyler E. Anderson Mr.

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

My thesis will closely examine recent trends in criticism of "The Waste Land," namely the ideological rebuttal against the New Critics proposed by recent historicists such as Lawrence Rainey. I will show that Rainey has unfairly characterized the so-called New Critics as supporting a reading of the poem that only sees it for a work of order and unity while in fact they acknowledged many organizational inconsistencies within the text. A central tenet of my thesis will be that ideological characterizations of earlier critics should never substitute actual close readings of the texts themselves. My findings will lead to broader …

Ambiguous Recognition: Recursion, Cognitive Blending, And The Problem Of Interpretation In Twenty-First-Century Fiction, Christopher David Kilgore

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation uses theories of cognitive conceptual integration (as outlined by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner) to propose a model of narrative reading that mediates between narratology and theories of reception. I use this model to demonstrate how new experimental narratives achieve a potent balance between a determinate and open story-form. Where the high postmodernists of the 1970s and 80s created ironic, undecidable story-worlds, the novels considered here allow readers to embrace seemingly opposite propositions without retreating into ironic suspension, trading the postmodernist “neither/nor” for a new “both/and.” This technique demands significant revision of both descriptions of radical experimentation in …

The Gendered Soul: Victorian Women Autobiographers And The Novel, Robbie E Spivey

Doctoral Dissertations

This project considers ways mid-Victorian fictional autobiographies created new models for women's spiritual formation, testing Nancy Armstrong's theory that novels are antecedent to the cultural conditions they describe. I pair three mid-Victorian fictional texts Jane Eyre, Aurora Leigh, and The Mill on the Floss with three later non-fictional autobiographies written by women near the end of the Victorian Era: Annie Besant (1847- 1933), Mary Anne Hearn (1834-1909) and Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904). These women came to spiritual maturity during the same time period in which the fictional heroines Jane Eyre, Aurora Leigh and Maggie Tulliver became prominent in the popular …

Saint Oswald, Christ And The Dream Of The Rood: Mutable Signs At A Cultural Crossroad, Scott Hutcheson Mac Kenzie

Doctoral Dissertations

The first decades following a country’s conversion to Christianity are sometimes marked by experimentation with native expressions of piety. Out of the multicultural environment of early Christian Northumbria such experiments created an insular Germanic version of sanctity. In the mid-seventh century, Oswiu of Northumbria (642-670), the younger brother and successor to King Oswald, constructed an elaborate narrative of God’s plan for England (without consent or guidance from the Roman Church). His narrative would weave his family into the sacred fabric of his nascent, Christian kingdom. Through skillful manipulation of oral tradition, material culture and sacri loci he crafted a unique …

Split Identification: Representations Of Rape In Gaspar Noé’S Irréversible And Catherine Breillat’S A Masoeur!/Fat Girl, Douglas Keesey

English

This article critically examines rape scenes in two films of the new extreme cinema, Gaspar No's Irrversible (2002) and Catherine Breillat's A ma sur!/Fat Girl (2001). On the surface, No's disturbing long-take rape scene is clearly designed to foster empathy with the woman's experience and to induce a physical aversion to rape. However, a deeper examination of the scene's ambiguous techniques reveals that they actually work to split the viewer's identification between the rapist and the woman he attacks. One function of this split is to lead the viewer who is presumed to be male along an emotional path from …

“The Translatability Of Interjections: A Case Study Of Arabic-English Subtitling”, Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh Mat

Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh MAT

This paper examines the translatability of Arabic interjections into English subtitling, illustrated with a subtitled Egyptian film, State Security subtitled by Arab Radio and Television (ART). Theoretical framework regarding both Audiovisual Translation (AVT) and interjections is first discussed. The significance of interjections is approached from the perspective of technical and translation paradigms. The study shows that although technical issues limit the subtitler’s choices, they have very little to do with translating interjections because they are typically short words. With regard to translation, the study shows that the subtitler may opt for three major translation strategies: 1) an avoidance of source …

"Writing 6 Days Out Of 7": The Publishing History Of Mrs. E. Burke Collins, Deidre A. Johnson

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Bohemia In America, 1858-1920 By Joanna Levin, Sarah Wadsworth

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Young Adult Addiction Novel: A Modern Tragedy, Carrie Rosson Hicks

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis defines tragedy and introduces the young adult addiction novel as a form of modern tragedy. The tragedy genre has altered drastically throughout the ages. The new brands of tragedy reflects the vastly different society in which modern readers live, whereas, original tragedies focused on royalty or political leaders and were often written in verse until the eighteenth. This thesis examines Ellen Hopkins’ Crank (2004) and Melvin Burgess’ Smack (1996). The examination found that Crank is written in free verse, not as a tribute to the great poets of old, but as a way to add emphasis to words, …

Boxed Up, Alicia Raymond

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an examination through creative nonfiction of the definition of home and how I personally define and apply this definition to my own life. In the nine essays serving as my thesis, collectively entitled "Boxed Up," I have delved into the definitions of home and how it applies to my family, my experiences and encounters with people around me, and the twelve times that I have moved. The sense and definition of a home has a strong tie to where someone grew up and to what culture one acclimates oneself. There is also …

Composing Ourselves: Utilizing Literacy Narratives To Promote Knowledge And Reflection In Preservice Secondary English Teachers, Cheryl Henderson Almeda

Dissertations

My research entails examining and interrogating the literacy narratives written by six preservice secondary English teachers before their first semester of teaching. After writing their literacy narratives, these teachers worked together in two focus groups to consider, celebrate, and interrogate their memories they recorded in their narratives. They shared conversations which focused on their reflections, their teaching strategies, and the ideas they embraced as newly forming teachers.

This study considers claims made by Dewey (1933), Lortie (1975), Schulman (1986), and others, who emphasize the importance of learning through observation and the intuitive nature of reflective learning and teaching. It emphasizes …

Wordsworth's Decline: Self-Editing And Editing The Self, Kenneth E. Morrison

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In critical discourse surrounding the poetry of William Wordsworth, it has become generally acceptable to describe the course of the poet’s career by means of a theory of “decline.” In its most common form, this theory argues that Wordsworth’s best poetry was written during one “Great Decade” (1798-1807)—an isolated epoch of prolificacy and genius. His subsequent works, it is argued, neither surpass nor equal his initial efforts; the course of his career after 1808 may be best described in terms of declivity, ebb, and decline.

Due to its ideological complicity with the very texts it engages, and due to its …

The Crooked Median, Monica Zarazua

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Words search. There are specific points designated by written language, where one might stand for just a little while until the satisfaction of a pattern is revealed. In this collection of stories, one of the forces that serves as a catalyst for this search is the outside gaze. The gaze exerts itself onto characters. The characters may or may not be conscious of it, may or may not welcome it, but they must grapple with it. The gaze projects its needs and desires onto the characters. It seeks to control them, and it desires to be viewed with admiration, lowered …

And When I Die And Other Prose, Ralph Brandon Buckner Iii

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis consists of the first chapter of my novel, two short stories, and two nonfiction essays. These pieces explore the tensions of family, love, and sexual orientation. The most prominent theme that connects each work is the main character’s search for control in his life. In the introduction to this thesis, I critically analyze three novels that focus on characters trying to regain stability in their lives after the death of someone close to them, and then I have discussed how these novels shaped my thesis in terms of theme, mood, and conflict.