English Language and Literature Commons^™

A Hero For A Good War: Captain America And The Mythologization Of World War Two, Ella Donnelly

History Theses

March, 1941, months before the United States officially entered the Second World War, marks one of the first attacks made by an American force against Adolf Hitler. This literal strike was the cover of the first issue of Captain America, which featured a star-spangled superhero punching Hitler in the face. The trend of putting real people (like Hitler) into fiction (like comic books) contributed to the mythologization of WWII. That is, blurring the lines between fiction and reality made it easy for popular American history to ascribe morality to a historical event. This paper examines the ways in which …

Poems For My Woofie The Story Of Lt. Wilfred V. Michaud, 1st Parachute Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Allison Orr

Honors Projects in English and Cultural Studies

My senior capstone project is the creation of a book of investigative poetry. The subject of the work is my grandfather, Wilfred V. Michaud. He was a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. The poetry addresses the history of Michaud’s battalion and the battles it fought, as well as personal stories of Michaud’s life and experience in the service. Several secondary sources were used to gain historical context for the poetry. Additionally, primary sources were used to provide information about Michaud’s personal experiences. The combination of primary and secondary sources established the necessary background and …

Back To The Future: Student Time Period Analyses, Jordan Barge, Sarah Ebert, Anna Gaskin, Renay Gladish, Quinn Hamilton, Morgan Hanson, Hannah Markham, Mark Mclean, Callie Smith, Bertha Vega, Shelby Watkins, Jamie Weihe, Jillian Whitney

Student Publications

This newsletter began with the Fall 2015 Honors English class. These students were challenged to initiate research over a topic they thought was interesting and show how it related to our campus, Stephen F. Austin State University. It is our hope that this cumulative research will help readers look at SFA a little differently.

"Persephone's Contemporary Dilemma: Consent, Sexuality, And "Female Empowerment." [2015], Cassandra Elizabeth Cerjanic

Master's Theses

Greek mythology never strays very far from Western imagination. Though every few years literature involving the infamous Gods tapers off into the back of our collective minds, a resurgence soon follows. The late Romantic literary movement (as popularized by Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelly, and John Keats) depended heavily upon Greco- Roman mythology to help illustrate characters that existed somewhere between the shadow of imagination and the truth of humanity. Perhaps in an attempt to harken back to Romanticism, contemporary poetry has once again given life to the Greek Gods. Mythological characters can be seen throughout the works of modern …

A Supplication For The Beggars: The Arguments Of Simon Fish And The Cultural Relevance Of His Writing In Sixteenth Century England, Charlotte Mcfaddin

Student Research

No abstract provided.

Advocating For Mother Earth In The Undergraduate Classroom: Uniting Twenty-First Century Technologies, Local Resources, Art, And Activism To Explore Our Place In Nature, Christina Triezenberg, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Christina Triezenberg

Despite the growing evidence of humanity’s impact on the natural world and the urgent need to shape citizens who understand the impact that their choices and actions have on their local and global environments, colleges and universities throughout the United States have been slow to add environmental education as a core component of their undergraduate curricula. Harnessing our shared interest in environment issues and the humanities, we designed and taught an experimental course in environmental literature for the honors program at Western Michigan University that we hope will become a template of what is possible in postsecondary environmental education. Using …

Race Patriots: Black Poets, Transnational Identity, And Diasporic Versification In The United States Before The New Negro, Jason T. Hendrickson

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the contributions of black poets in the United States before the New Negro / Harlem Renaissance Movement. Specifically, it focuses on their role in creating and maintaining a tradition of regional transnationalism in their verses that celebrates their African ancestry. I contend that these poets are best understood as “race patriots”; that is, they at once sought inclusion within the nation-state in the form of full citizenship, yet recognized allegiances beyond the nation-state on account of race through a recognition of shared African ancestry across borders. Their verses point to a shared kinship – be it through …

"Casting Aside That Ficticious Self.": Deciphering Female Identity In The Awakening 2015, Anne L. Dicosimo

Master's Theses

Kate Chopin’s female protagonists have long since fascinated literary critics, raising serious questions concerning the influence of nineteenth-century female gender roles in her writing. Published in 1899, The Awakening demonstrates the changeability of the various representations of woman. In the nineteenth century, the subject of women may be divided into two categories: the True Woman and the New Woman. The former were expected to “cherish and maintain the four cardinal virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity” (Khoshnood et al.), while the latter sought to move away from hearth and home in order to focus on education, professions, and political …

The Muslim Mystique: The Use Of Rushdie’S Imaginary Homeland To Combat Prejudice Against Muslim Peoples Explored In Three Semi-Autobiographical Works Of Popular Fiction By Muslim Authors Of An American Immigrant Background, Lauren E. Nadolski

Selected Honors Theses

There is a largely unexplored trend in recent popular fiction that regards the semi-autobiographical work of authors of an immigrant or refugee background. These works seldom fall into the trap exposed by Said’s Orientalism, but instead present the author’s native country and culture through a lens similar what Salman Rushdie described as “imaginary homelands.” This thesis examines three primary texts that fit that description: The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseni, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid, and Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye for their inclusion of the Islamic faith and their portrayal of America. The texts are analyzed and recommended …

“Inhumanly Beautiful”: The Aesthetics Of The Nineteenth-Century Deathbed Scene, Margo Masur

English Theses

Death today is hidden from our everyday lives so it cannot intermingle with the general public. So when a family member dies, their body becomes an object in need of disposal; no longer can they be recognized as the familiar person they once were. To witness death is to force individuals to confront the truths of human existence, and for most of us seeing such a sight would fill us with an emotion of disgust. Yet during the nineteenth century, the burden of care towards the sick or dying was shared by a community of family, neighbors, and friends; the …

Review Of Marjo Kaartinen, Breast Cancer In The Eighteenth Century, Marie Mulvey-Roberts

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

No abstract provided.

Tempering Romance, Katherine R. Larson

Criticism

The Fabulous Dark Cloister: Romance in England after the Reformation by Tiffany Jo Werth. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. Pp. 248, 8 illustrations. $65.00 cloth.

Pusey's Sermons At St. Saviour's, Leeds, Robert Ellison

Robert Ellison

"E . B. Pusey as a Preacher." It would not be surprising to find such a phrase as the title of a nineteenth-century work. Authors in both Britain and America used it in books and articles about numerous ministers, literary figures, the Apostle Paul, and even Jesus himself.1 Edward Bouverie Pusey, in fact, was the subject of one such piece: a review of Sermons for the Church's Seasons from Advent to Trinity, published in the Spectator on 11 August 1883. Such a scope would, however, be too broad for a scholarly study in the twenty-first century. Pusey's canon is simply …

Chasing Ghosts: A Memoir Of A Father, Gone To War [Table Of Contents], Louise Desalvo

History

When literary biographer and memoirist Louise DeSalvo embarked upon a journey to learn why her father came home from World War II a changed man, she didn’t realize her quest would take ten years, and that it would yield more revelations about the man—and herself—and the effect of his military service upon their family than she’d ever imagined. During his last years, as he told her about his life, DeSalvo began to understand that her obsession with war novels and military history wasn’t merely academic but rooted in her desire to understand this complex father whom she both adored and …

A Critical Analysis Of The Killer Angels, Andrea Nicholson

Student Writing

No abstract provided.

Bayard Vs. Drusilla: The Burden Of War And Legacy, Kate Shillingford

Student Writing

No abstract provided.

The Beast Inside: Trauma Theory And William Golding's Lord Of The Flies 2015, Emily Paccia

Master's Theses

Following World War II and the horrible devastation in Europe, especially in London, Britain began to rebuild. The country was attempting to come back from war, and the culture reflected a bleak, disheartening feeling. Literature written during this time period, which so often reflects the culture directly, showed that very same bleakness. British novelist, and one who lived through that time, William Golding, writing in the 1960's, recreated the dystopia brought into European countries from living through the destruction of the war. Creating a vision of the future -- one of dysfunction and chaos -- Golding’s characters from Lord of …

Changing Roles In William Faulkner’S The Unvanquished, Bailey George

Student Writing

No abstract provided.

'We Are All Greeks:' Sympathy And Proximity In Shelley‘S Hellas, Kyle J. Klausing

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

The outbreak of the Greek Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire animated the radical European intelligentsia in a way unseen since the French Revolution 30 years before. The British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley joined the chorus of philhellenes (meaning one who loves Greece) by extolling the Greek cause in his epic poem, Hellas. Scholarship has traditionally seen Shelley’s representation of the revolution either as an overly classicized literary indulgence or as a purely polemical defense of a political event. By identifying ways in which Shelley uses the classical past to engage the reader with the subject, I will …

The (Dis)Ability Of Color; Or, That Middle World: Toward A New Understanding Of 19th And 20th Century Passing Narratives, Julia S. Charles

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation mines the intersection of racial performance and the history of the so-called “tragic mulatto” figure in American fiction. I propose that while many white writers depicted the “mulatto” character as inherently flawed because of some tainted “black blood,” many black writers’ depictions of mixed-race characters imagine solutions to the race problem. Many black writers critiqued some of America’s most egregious sins by demonstrating linkages between major shifts in American history and the mixed-race figure. Landmark legislation such as, Fugitive Slave Act 1850 and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) are often plotlines in African American passing literature, thus demonstrating the …

Denis Kevans: Poet, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

A brief account of the poetry of Australian social movement poet Denis Kevans (1939-2005).

Libraries And The Apocalyptic Imagination, Michael J. Paulus Jr.

SPU Works

Books and libraries figure prominently in apocalyptic and related forms of literature. The representations of libraries in these imagined, catastrophic futures reveal important roles libraries have had and continue to have in helping individuals, communities, and cultures find ways forward through time. This paper explores the long history of library eschatologies—including ancient apocalypses of the Dead Sea Scroll Library and the book of Revelation, modern apocalypses from Mary Shelley to Margaret Atwood, and the dystopian anti-libraries of Jorge Luis Borges’s Babel and Tlön—and highlights deep continuities connecting our historical memories, future expectations, and present experiences of libraries. In the apocalyptic …

Libraries And The Apocalyptic Imagination, Michael J. Paulus Jr.

Michael J. Paulus, Jr.

Books and libraries figure prominently in apocalyptic and related forms of literature. The representations of libraries in these imagined, catastrophic futures reveal important roles libraries have had and continue to have in helping individuals, communities, and cultures find ways forward through time. This paper explores the long history of library eschatologies—including ancient apocalypses of the Dead Sea Scroll Library and the book of Revelation, modern apocalypses from Mary Shelley to Margaret Atwood, and the dystopian anti-libraries of Jorge Luis Borges’s Babel and Tlön—and highlights deep continuities connecting our historical memories, future expectations, and present experiences of libraries. In the apocalyptic …

Bridging The Distances: Women Writers Exploring The Nightmare Of Vietnam, Christina Triezenberg

Christina Triezenberg

This essay seeks to challenge the now-common practice of excluding Vietnam-era antiwar verse from contemporary literary anthologies by exploring the works produced by professional and amateur female poets who, in many cases, had witnessed the war firsthand and reflected on their experiences in verse that depicts the often harsh realities of this still-contested conflict. By exploring poetry written by women who served in a variety of capacities during the war, this essay underscores the repeated attempts made by women writers to bridge the distances between the home front and the battlefront and offers a compelling argument about the importance of …

Literary Note On: Donna Tartt; The Secret History: New York: Vintage, Paperback, 569pp, Nadya Chishty-Mujahid

Business Review

Donna Tartt's postmodern classic gained great fame when published in 1992, and additional, well-merited recognition when its author won the Pulitzer Prize for her more recent novel The Goldfinch in 2014. Originally from Mississippi, Tartt relocated to the East Coast during her college years and struck up friendships with notable literary figures such as Bret Easton Ellis-a move that enabled her to indulge in her passion for writing and bring her undeniable creativity to the public's attention. For sheer twisted machinations, The Secret History has few comparable rivals in postmodern literature, with the exception of great works such as Katherine …

Dialogical Interspecies Ethics: Ataraxia, Desire And Hope In The Post-Human World Of Anne Carson's Pastoral, Thomas Bristow Dr

The Goose

This review essay implicitly revisits human and non-human power relations within a critical animal studies context that understands the affective conjunction between the manipulation of our worlds (action, partly through knowledge) and degrees of involvement with these others that live in our worlds (comportment via emotions). I take Louise Westling’s new study as the platform for an analysis of two book-length poems, The Autobiography of Red (1998) and red doc> (2013), which centre on the life of a shepherd, Geryon. Rather than revisit classical pastoral, these texts extract power-relations that classical myth and pastoral spatialise. In so doing, I argue, …

Mythological Influences On Southern American Authors, Natalie L. Hayden

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

A major influence upon many parts of society is that of Greek and Roman mythology. While there are several interpretations of what myths are, this study will define them as stories from Greek or Roman origins that seek to explain some natural or social phenomena or to provide moral lessons. Myths were especially influential during the Southern Renaissance, a period of literary reinvention in America during the 1920s and 1930s. Authors used myths to give deeper meanings to their works as they struggled with issues of race, religion, and social changes. Myths appeared in plot lines, as major symbols, and …

Capitalism And "Blithedale": Exploring Hawthorne's Response To 19th Century American Capitalism, Kyle G. Phillips

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

With the intensive migration of the American public from rural to urban settings in the mid-nineteenth century came many logistical problems. Chief among them was the contention that the city was a place fundamentally void of, or else lax with morals. The examination into these issues explores why Americans felt the city was a catalyst for immorality, specifically examining prostitution and the exploitation of the working poor. It seeks to answer these questions within the framework of the anchor text, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Blithedale Romance”.

"So Vexed Me The Þouȝtful Maladie": Public Presentation Of The Private Self In Hoccleve's My Compleinte And The Conpleynte Paramont, Lauren M. Silverio

Honors Scholar Theses

The scholarship surrounding the life and work of Thomas Hoccleve is relatively young and lean compared to the tomes of knowledge that have been circulated about the slightly older and vastly more popular Geoffrey Chaucer. Up until the second half of the 20th century, Hoccleve came through history with the unfortunate moniker of the "lesser Chaucer." What this insult neglects, however, is that Hoccleve was more than just a lowly clerk who spent his days admiring and emulating the so-called Father of English Literature. Thomas Hoccleve deserves recognition for conceiving and creating works that are impressive both in their form …

English National Identity In English Colonial And Imperial Literature And Undergraduate Publication Research, Megan A. Medeiros

Senior Honors Projects

This project is divided into two parts. The purpose of the first part was to construct, research and write a substantial historical thesis paper on a topic relevant to nationalism and national identity in Modern European history. The purpose of the second part was to research and explore the process of publishing a historical paper in an academic journal.

In reference to the first part of the project, the thesis paper concerns English national identity as represented by several renowned and well-read English authors in their works of literature. In doing so, the paper considers the characteristics, norms, and structures …