American Literature Commons^™

Indigenizing King Lear, Michael K. Johnson

Western Writers Online

Staged with an all‑aboriginal cast, the 2012 production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear at Canada’s National Arts Centre creatively reimagined the play in a frontier New World setting. Directed by Peter Hinton, and starring August Schellenberg (Mohawk) as Lear, the production placed Shakespeare’s drama in seventeenth‑century Canada, amongst a group of Algonquin people on the outer edge of European colonialism and cultural contact. The idea for this resetting of the play originated with August Schellenberg—some 45 years ago—who thought that Lear would be particularly adaptable to an indigenous / First Nations setting. That it took nearly half a century to …

From The Dust Bowl To Frederick Manfred’S The Golden Bowl—A Journeyman’S Masterpiece, Randi Eldevik

Western Writers Online

The time and place of Frederick Manfred’s birth—1912, on a farm in a corner of northwestern Iowa close to the South Dakota and Minnesota borders—gave him several perspectives on American life, resulting in the creation of several kinds of fiction. Manfred’s most celebrated novels, the five Buckskin Man tales, take place in the nineteenth century and have a wild west (mostly South Dakota) setting: they arose out of Manfred’s awareness of the dramatic and tumultuous events that had occurred near his home during the hundred years before his birth. But Manfred’s own childhood and youth in a settled agricultural community …

"I Have Thought Proper To Inform The World": Reading Unconventional Testaments Of 18th-Century New England Women, Elyssa Tardif

Open Access Dissertations

Early New England women chose to pass down what they owned and valued: clothing, cupboards, pewter dishes, commonplace books, etc. But some women passed down something more: a written testament, which sought to shape public opinion in colonial New England. A "testament" usefully suggests a text that both serves as a witness to lived experience as well as the means by which the individual herself can frame the narrative for those who come after. This project aims to examine not only written records but also their audience: who were the heirs to these testaments and how were the records preserved …

Montell, William Lynwood, 1931-2023 - Collector (Sc 2765), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2765. Program of The Sixth Annual Gathering of Authors, presented by the Paul Sawyier Public Library and held in Frankfort, Kentucky, on 24 August 2013. The program is autographed by the attending authors, some of whom include inscriptions to Dr. Lynwood Montell.

Azzan, Edward Anthony Belly Iii

Student Theses and Dissertations

In an endeavor to improve my writing skills, I chose to write a full-length fantasy novel. The editing of which, as well as the critical feedback from my committee, would allow me to more fully understand the writing process and more accurately evaluate my abilities as a writer. The piece is meant as an entertaining work, though it also exhibits multiple themes that lend themselves toward a deeper meaning. The story explores oppression, parental abandonment, religious persecution, and the dangers of blind devotion to creed. The writing of this work was both fulfilling and affirming for me. I received valuable …

Brown, Phil (Mrs.) - Letter To (Sc 2759), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2759. Letter, 24 September 1927, to Mrs. Phil Brown, Kansas City, Missouri, describing a trip to Pewee Valley, Kentucky. The unnamed writer describes visiting sites associated with Annie Fellows Johnston’s Little Colonel series and conversing with residents familiar with its characters. Includes photographs of the approach road to “The Locust,” home of the “Little Colonel,” and the Pewee Valley railroad station.

Vampirism In Hawthorne’S “The Birthmark,” The Scarlet Letter, And “The Minister’S Black Veil”, Amanda D. Baudot

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Erik Butler’s predicates for vampirism apply in some degree to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s male protagonists who skulk in the margins of “The Birthmark,” The Scarlet Letter, and “The Minister’s Black Veil.” As metaphoric vampires who seek weak prey in order to manipulate power structures, these monomaniacal parasites assume paternalistic positions in order to control and manipulate their victims, and they disguise their exploitive and egotistic sides with idealistic and altruistic passions for science and religion. This thesis explores how Hawthorne’s protagonists’ corrupt and consuming spirits echo traditional vampiristic characteristics.

Dams, Roads, And Bridges: (Re)Defining Work And Masculinity In American Indian Literature Of The Great Plains, 1968-Present, Joshua Tyler Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the study of contemporary American Indian literature, the definition of work and the characterization of Native and non-native laborers—farmers, ranchers, lawmen, smugglers, Indian Affairs agents, academics, activists, "traditionalists," tour guides, artists, among others—are rarely the lenses that scholars use to interpret the texts. Instead, issues of class and labor often take a backseat to those of cultural survivance and traditional and/or "mix-blood" identity, resistance to historical and ongoing acts of colonialism, reassertion of treaty rights and cultural practices, and reclamation of land and cultural artifacts. However, although the canon of contemporary Native literatures warrants close attention to these issues, …

A Slow Reading In Matthew Dickman's Elegiac And Nostalgic Poetry, Sumood Almaowashi

All Theses

This thesis argues the necessity of post modern elegy to adapt to new forms in writing in response to the indifference to death in modern societies, and the recklessness towards such an event. The cotemporary style of writing depends on series of elegies, which express an extended form of mourning as opposed to the circumscribed grief of an individual elegy. Postmodern analytical writings that discuss grief and mourning provide an ethical insight towards the continuous commemorations of the dead. It invites us to rethink the concept of mourning outside the clinical analysis of Freud. Emerging from the theories that study …

Decoding Literary Aids: A Study On Issues Of The Body, Masculinity, And Self Identity In U.S. Aids Literature From 1984-2011, Alexander Shimon Abrams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rather than waiting decades to respond, novelists of nearly every literary genre began conceptualizing the AIDS epidemic shortly after the first documented case of the virus in the United States in 1981. Writers, feeling a sense of urgency, wasted little time constructing didactic texts that differ from much historical fiction in that they were written as the tragedy they are commenting on occurred. However, AIDS literature has changed as the disease has spread well beyond the gay communities of San Francisco and New York, causing people to reexamine their longstanding beliefs on masculinity, sexuality, and body politics.

My Master's thesis …

Fire-Lookout Literature, Austin Schilling

2013 Projects

The Keck Summer Collaborative Research Program provides opportunities for Linfield College students and faculty to conduct research on issues related to the Pacific Northwest, and to bring the research findings back into the classroom within the subsequent academic year. Students partner with faculty to conduct research and present their work to other students, Linfield staff and faculty, and community members during a series of brown bag lunches. Austin Schilling conducted research with David Sumner and gave this presentation during the summer of 2013.

Meers, Nora Florence, 1888-1951 (Sc 1040), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1040. Two poems in Southern dialect by Nora Meers, former Western Kentucky State Normal School student, titled “Southern Lullaby,” and “Li’l Lizy Jane.” In 1912 Miss Meers was a member of the junior class.

Stuart, Jesse Hilton, 1907-1984 (Sc 1043), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1043. Letter, 30 October 1974, from Jesse Stuart, Greenup, Kentucky, to English professor O.J. Wilson, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, regarding Stuart’s recent talk at WKU; Christmas card, 1975, from Stuart to WKU Library Director, Sara Tyler; and poetry magazine Seven, containing one of Stuart’s poems, 1968. The magazine is autographed by Stuart.

Setting As Character, Tracy A. Townsend

The Short Story

This lesson uses Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” to explore tone and characterization in short fiction. It requires students to demonstrate an understanding of the role character plays in fiction and to use specific textual evidence to support a claim. The lesson can be completed in a single class period of fifty to seventy minutes and is suitable for grades 9-12.

Explaining The Unexplainable: A New Cultural Outlook On H. P. Lovecraft’S Cthulhu Mythos, Erika L. Mutter

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Although the majority of the scholarship on H. P. Lovecraft focuses on the idea of nihilism as the purpose of the Cthulhu mythos, the exploration of three stories The Nameless City, The Whisperer in Darkness, and The Shadow over Innsmouth disproves this overly basic and irrelevant reasoning. Through a cultural studies lens, there is a parallel between the curiosity and fear surrounding the other within the text and those same emotions felt towards the immigrants coming into America during the 1920s. This argument analyzes the transformation of the relationship between the narrator and the aliens, showcasing how this otherness can …

William Beer: An Englishman's Role In Libraries, Literature And Society In New Orleans, 1891-1927, Remesia Shields

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 1891, an Englishman named William Beer arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, to take up the position as librarian of Tulane University's Howard Library. Beer quickly gained a reputation as a competent and knowledgeable librarian by bolstering the Louisiana collection at the Howard Library with maps, rare books and Louisiana historical documents. In 1896, Beer played a central role in the organization and opening of the first free and public library in New Orleans, the Fisk Free and Public Library. Beer befriended many well-known authors of New Orleans literature including George Washington Cable, Grace King, Mollie Moore Davis and Mary …

Sinking Your Teeth Into Popular Culture: Why Reading Twilight Could Kill You, Carolyn Eve Friedman

Honors Scholar Theses

A scholarly criticism of the themes and styles utilized in the popular series Twilight and their implications. Inspects the Twilight series incorporation of values and literary concepts commonly found in romance, young adult, and vampire literature in an attempt to understand the foundation of the series.

Melville In Tahiti: A Gis Approach, Jessica Ewing

Student Research Initiative

This presentation will focus on Melville's period in and around Tahiti in 1842, a part of the biographical record vexed by conflicting scholarly accounts of Melville's whereabouts and actions, and by inconsistencies—as well as outright falsehoods—among surviving documents and the author's own account of his experiences in his second book Omoo. Digitally expanding on methods of traditional scholarship, I will present the evidence in visual, electronic form by using ArcGIS software to map Melville’s movements, supplying relevant data and documentation and mapping alternate interpretations of the author's travels. The layered digital maps will locate the author at specific dates and …

The Akron Offering: A Ladies' Literary Magazine, 1849-1850, Jon Miller

University of Akron Press Publications

FREE FULL-TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD

From 1849 to 1850, Calista Cummings edited and published Akron's first literary magazine, The Akron Offering. At the time, Akron was a booming canal town on the verge of even greater prosperity. By turns religious, comic, romantic, and political, this extraordinary collection of early midwestern creative literature expresses a wide range of sometimes contradictory opinions on both the important questions of its day and the important questions of today: historical events such as the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the 1848 revolutions in Europe are considered alongside more timeless contemplations on truth, justice, and …

How The West Was Lost, Ashish Chand

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

No abstract provided.