Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Queer Ecologies: A Final Syllabus/Zine Product Of Our Independent Study, Yeh Seo Jung, Ray Craig

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

This zine is the product of our independent study course Queer Ecologies, which is an exploration of bio-social systems using a queer and feminist theoretical lens. We aim to look critically at knowledge formation and construct alternative visions for more just and sustainable relationships between science, nature, and ourselves. While queer theory most directly interrogates the normative structure of heterosexuality both in humans and in biology more broadly, these studies include analyses of hierarchy, power, and value. Queer Ecology can be used to examine phenomena such as climate change, extinction, pollution, species hierarchies, agricultural practices, resource extraction, and human population …

A Shift In Perspective: Temptress Witch To Realistic Woman, Caroline Conroy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In mid-20th century Anglo-American translations of The Odyssey, Odysseus is painted as a courageous, clever king while the briefly-featured Circe is portrayed as a temptress witch. This dichotomy changes, however, by the time these characters are featured in early 21st-century adaptations of Homer’s work; both released in 2018, Madeline Miller’s Circe and Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing reclaim Circe’s depiction by portraying a Circe-like character as a powerful protagonist, aware of her strengths and weaknesses. By analyzing the archetype of the witch and how it is reflective of patriarchal society’s efforts to reduce and isolate women’s power, I argue …

Olympia, Wilderness, And Consumption In Laird Barron’S Old Leech Cycle, John Glover

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This book chapter considers the cosmic horror fiction of Laird Barron through a blended ecocritical/postcolonial lens, focusing on its representation of the Pacific Northwest and Olympia, Washington. Wilderness and consumption are both strongly represented concepts in Barron’s Old Leech Cycle of stories, aligning with colonial perceptions of the American West as a largely unpeopled space ripe for exploitation. The eldritch horrors of these tales align with well-established traditions in weird fiction, and they are also perfectly suited to locations historically identified with resource extraction.

Religion, Reason And Reconciliation In Louise Gluck’S The Wild Iris, Vincent Sergiacomi

Capstone Showcase

In a world where reason is king, what is the role of faith? Louise Gluck does not claim to have an answer, but she does explore the question. The Wild Iris gives us a god who is utterly convinced of the singular appeal of faith, countered by a worshipper who finds their rational worldview too reasonable to abandon. Yet over the course of the text, neither is able to demonstrate the singular primacy of their point, both arguments leaving their arguers unsatisfied in one way or another. This paper will explore the debate between the human and divine speakers of …

Topics Of The Sky: Ashbery's Involving Search For The Poem, Tom M. Carlson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An essay lived by John Ashbery's Three Poems with special attention to the possibility of cosmic relevance. This paper attempts to imagine priorities and needs proper to celestial bodies. Three Poems is the consciousness that gives possibility to the text, while Blanchot, Nietzsche, and other thinkers ground its exploration in philosophical analysis.

Emerson's Idealist Poetics: Emerson, Rödl, And The Life Of Nature, Robert Darren Hutchinson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I articulate a hermeneutics for reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s seminal text Nature through drawing on the insights of the contemporary philosopher Sebastian Rödl. Particularly, the performative, literary characteristics of Rödl’s quite conceptual work resonate with the poetic strategies that Emerson employs in Nature. In the section on the work of Rödl, I make the performative aspects of his philosophy explicit through a close reading of the way self-consciousness happens in his texts through the language he employs. Rödl refers to his elucidation of self-consciousness as idealism. In the section on Emerson, I show how Emerson’s project …

Emily Dickinson's Echology: A Listener's Reconceptualization Of Citizenship, Consciousness, And The World, Beth Ann Staley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

What I call Emily Dickinson’s “echology” combines the terms “echo” and “ecology” to understand how Dickinson’s work echoes – and is an echo – of the world and how, consequently, her work resides not just in her handwritten documents and their publication in various editions but in an ecology that’s tied to the earth that hosted her, the air that faced her, and the sea kept her listening. To assess the critical value of Dickinson’s echology, this dissertation begins by apprehending how the story of the echo is a story about sound masking, specifically about how the echo that is …

The Environmental Imaginations Of Moby-Dick: Technology And Vulnerability In Human/More-Than-Human Relationships, Jensen A. Lillquist

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the twenty-first century, the relationship between the human and the more-than-human is a problem of massive proportions, as we live in an age of climate change, mass-extinction, over-population, and resource depletion. Evaluating how we have arrived where we are and re-thinking the issues at play as we move forward is crucial for future adaptation of human/more-than-human relationships; this is the primary goal of my analysis of the environmental imaginations of Moby-Dick.

I argue that the four primary environmental imaginations—the providential, the utilitarian, the Romantic, and the ecological—that have influenced United States culture since European settlement are represented by Herman …

“Where Is The Essence That Was So Divine?”: The Nostalgia Of Moore’S Minutemen, Amanda Piazza

Undergraduate Research

The research seeks to identify the purpose of nostalgia within Alan Moore’s Watchmen. The characters Laurie Juspeczyk and Adrian Veidt look to the past for truth and inspiration, whereas Dr. Manhattan stands as a figure rejecting the past as humans perceive it. Laurie and Adrian seek to regain the feelings held by the past, but are met with the grim state of the present. Each of these characters has a specific relationship with the past that shapes their perceptions on life as they know it. To figure out why Laurie and Adrian hold onto nostalgia and why Dr. Manhattan …

Permanent Weekend: Nature, Leisure, And Rural Gentrification By John Michels, Cameron M. Butler

The Goose

Review of John Michels' Permanent Weekend: Nature, Leisure, and Rural Gentrification.

Better Nature By Fenn Stewart, Claire Caldwell

The Goose

Review of Fenn Stewart's Better Nature.

The Oxford Handbook Of Environmental History Edited By Andrew C. Isenberg, Lorelei L. Hanson

The Goose

Review of Andrew C. Isenberg's The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History.

Winter Wren By Theresa Kishkan, Vivian M. Hansen

The Goose

Review of Theresa Kishkan's Winter Wren.

Niche By Basma Kavanagh, Vivian M. Hansen

The Goose

Review of Basma Kavanagh's Niche.

The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Towards A Greener Future By David R. Boyd, Janet Grafton

The Goose

Review of David R. Boyd's The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Towards a Greener Future

Hill By Jean Giono, Jody L. Ballah

The Goose

A review of Jean Giono's Hill.

Towards A Prairie Atonement By Trevor Herriot, Gillian Harding-Russell

The Goose

Review of Trevor Herriot's Towards a Prairie Atonement.

The Duende Of Tetherball By Tim Bowling, Gillian Harding-Russell

The Goose

Review of Tim Bowling's The Duende of Tetherball.

Searching Cézanne’S Provence, Robert M. Girvan

The Goose

This personal essay describes the author's visit to Provence to see the sites where Cézanne painted a number of well-known landscape paintings. He compares the paintings with the landscape as it existed when the paintings were painted, and as exist today, to trace the connections between landscape, and art, and in particular, Cézanne's artistic techniques. Finally, the author suggests that Cézanne's close observation of the natural world, and commitment to studying the old masters still has something important to teach us today in our digital age.

An Environmental History Of Medieval Europe By Richard C. Hoffman, Geneviève Pigeon Dr

The Goose

Review of Richard C. Hoffman's An Environmental History of Medieval Europe.

Timing Canada: The Shifting Politics Of Time In Canadian Literary Culture By Paul Huebener, Cheryl Lousley

The Goose

Review of Paul Huebener's Timing Canada: The Shifting Politics of Time in Canadian Literary Culture

Selected Nick Adams Stories: Ernest Hemingway’S Sense Of Place, Brendan M. Raleigh

Student Publications

This thesis examines how Ernest Hemingway’s use of natural imagery and physical elements in several of his semi-autobiographical Nick Adams stories offer insights into his character, especially Nick Adams. It analyzes Adams’s interactions with the physical world and compares these interactions with his interpersonal relationships and his own development. The short stories that this thesis examines include “Indian Camp,” “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” “Now I Lay Me,” “The End of Something,” “The Three Day Blow,” and “Big Two-Hearted River.” In these stories, Hemingway uses the natural world as a defense mechanism for Nick Adams, a character who turns …

Imitation, Kathryn M. Rogers

The Goose

Poetry by Kate Rogers

Two Poems, Andrew Taylor Dr

The Goose

Poetry by Andrew Taylor

Three Poems, Pearl Pirie

The Goose

Poetry by Pearl Pirie

Gooseworld, Marella Hoffman

The Goose

Poetry by Marella Hoffman

Two Poems, Brook Wr Pearson Phd

The Goose

Poetry by Brook Pearson

Counteredpoint, Gary Barwin

The Goose

Poetry by Gary Barwin

Gory, Ariel Gordon

The Goose

Poetry by Ariel Gordon

The Discreet Charm Of The Megafauna, Tanis Macdonald

The Goose

Poetry by Tanis MacDonald