American Literature Commons^™

Thornton, James Bankhead, 1806-1867 (Sc 2696), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2696. Letter, 9 February 1847, of lawyer James B. Thornton, Memphis, Tennessee, to John M. Thornton, Newport, Kentucky. He asks John to deliver a circular and notice about a book he has written to a bookseller in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also provides an update on the search for an estate heir and mentions his poor health.

Fishing For A Hero, Simona Stancov '15

2013 Spring Semester

On national holidays like Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, people all over the United States honor heroes who have protected their country and its residents. While some people receive public recognition for their deeds, others serve as heroes for just a few people. Regardless of their popularity, all heroes possess certain qualities that make them esteemed and respected. The coinage of the term “Hemingway code hero” supports this idea. The expression represents a character in one of Ernest Hemingway’s works that personifies values like bravery, honor, and perseverance and maintains poise in the face of overwhelming …

The Mask Of The 'American Dream', Saraswathi Nookala '15

2013 Spring Semester

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology are heralded as some of the greatest insights into human nature in American literature. Both authors ask the reader to scrutinize the actions and emotions of the characters in their books to understand the true meaning behind their double-sided statements. From analyzing the characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Lambert Hutchins, the reader can conclude that although they have the inordinate amount of wealth everybody in America works toward, they are dissatisfied, and use their money and aristocratic position to project the exterior of contentment. Fitzgerald …

The Marriage Of Science And Religion, Saurabh Kumar '14

2013 Spring Semester

At the end of A Canticle for Leibowitz, written by Walter M. Miller, Jr., the dropping of Lucifer and the resulting repetition of past destruction displays that there is an inherent flaw in the book’s futuristic society. The technological and scientific revival of a world that once repudiated knowledge is remarkable. However, the divergence of science and religion has caused humanity to use the power that comes with knowledge as irresponsibly as it did in the Flame Deluge. Mendelsohn states that, in speculative fiction, “religion is repeatedly depicted as dangerous, diverging humans from the path of reason and …

Roberts, Elizabeth Madox, 1881-1941 (Sc 959), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below" for Manuscripts Small Collection 959. Letter, 9 September 1920, written by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Springfield, Kentucky, to "Marjorie," evidently a fellow student at the University of Chicago. Roberts mentions the Poetry Club, the problem of finding suitable housing, and comments about fellow students Janet Loxley Lewis and Maurice Lesemann.

19th Century American Rhetoric: Figures, Techniques, And Informational Texts, Adam Kotlarczyk

Rhetoric Unit

Ward Farnsworth writes in his 2011Classical English Rhetoric “figures sound splendid when used to say things worth saying,” and nineteenth century Americans, it seems, had many things worth saying. The nineteenth century was a high-water mark for oral and written rhetoric in English; this was especially true in America. Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison wrote eloquently and passionately on abolition, even as the nation plunged into Civil War. Abraham Lincoln articulated his vision for the reunification of a country shattered by that war, while Henry David Thoreau explained the ethical need for the occasional disobedience to civil law …

Hawthorne’S “The Minister’S Black Veil”: Group Activities And Interpretations, Adam Kotlarczyk

The Short Story

Although the better-known The Scarlet Letter (1850) still draws more attention from many high school English teachers, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s darkly enigmatic short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” (1836) touches on similar themes and provides readers with diverse avenues for exploration, discussion, and analysis. Containing dramatic, psychological, and moral elements, in addition to its literary ones, it is a complex text that can confound teachers and students alike with its range of interpretations and ambiguity. This lesson allows students in small groups to choose and focus on one interpretive element. It also accommodates different learning styles, offering both creative and analytical …

Text And Technology: Creating Open Educational Resources For Students And Teachers Of American Romanticism, Jeff Everhart

Theses & Honors Papers

American Romanticism Online (ARO) is an open educational resource that provides students and teachers with access to annotated primary texts, standards based lesson plans, and other multimedia resources. ARO leverages open source technologies on the WordPress content management platform to create interactive assessments and curricular materials that students and teachers can use, download, and repurpose to fit a variety of classroom situations. The goal of ARO is to create and curate a store of primary sources and curriculum resources based on the needs of classroom teachers in public institutions. Although electronic editions of canonical texts exist, there is no other …

Connecting Literature And History: Fitzgerald’S The Great Gatsby Museum Project, Adam Kotlarczyk

The Great Gatsby Unit

Despite mixed reviews at the time of its 1925 publication, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has come to be one of the most widely taught American books and has become a popular candidate for the title of the “Great American Novel.” Uniquely intertwining social history, biography, and literature, the text challenges readers to understand the culture and history of the Jazz Age and to see its interrelationship with the lives and motivations of the characters, as well as with the author himself. This project encourages students to engage and work closely with one of the historical elements that influenced …

The New Man: Evolving Masculinity In F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side Of Paradise, "Winter Dreams," And "The Swimmers", Adrian Nicole Coursey

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The evolving culture and ethos of American capitalist modernity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was marked by a nervousness, or neurasthenia. Strongly gendered, it was characterized among men by effeminacy and an anxiety about masculinity. Confronted by the eroding ideals of Victorian American self-reliance and independence, a stout-hearted willingness to labor to establish one's masculinity seemed an increasingly doubtful prospect for men in the new modern age. Under the twin influences of industrial capitalism and a market economy and a fledgling women's movement, affecting, especially, the work place, the American male felt nervous, anxious, and emasculated. In …

Narrating Literary Transnationalism In Zake Smith And Dave Eggers, Nelson Shake

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This work argues for a greater reception of transnationalism in literary studies. Though the steady rise of transnationalism has already been studied in many areas of academia, literary studies has only begun to pay attention to it, and scholars appear to remain largely rooted in postcolonial or nationalistic thought. Refusing to read current texts through the lens of transnationalism hinders the literary academy's relevancy since creative writers today are addressing changes to the national structure in their fictive works. This study suggests why a new theoretical construct is needed to understand those texts, and it uses two representative examples: Zadie …

Nobody Here Does Anything For Nothing: Reciprocity And Gender In The Wings Of The Dove, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The article discusses the work of author Henry James in his novel "The Wings of the Dove." It discusses the comment of aristocrat Lord Mark on heroine of the novel Milly Theale who summarizes the central themes of the story, social exchange. It informs that social exchange is a perspective that motivates people that maximize benefits and minimize costs in their relationships with others.

American Exceptionalism And The Historical Fiction Of Chabon And Delillo: Media Identity Commodification And The Truth Of Lies, Samm Yeakel

English Theses & Dissertations

At the heart of any democratic nation lie the individuals that inhabit its borders, heed allegiance to its flag, comprise its political and economical bodies, and fight the very wars that disrupt its political ideals. Max Weber, who is revered not merely as a great sociologist, but the sociologist, contends that any sociological explanation regarding the w1derlying will and motives of these individuals must relate to their self-conscious actions. But, however self-conscious these actions may appear, they are decidedly influenced by external factors, and, as will be shown, a well-constructed novel captures the interplay between the individual, the nation, and …

Word~River Literary Review (2013), Ross Talarico, Anne Stark, Susan Evans, Gary Pullman, Andrew Madigan, Christin Taylor, Jerome Melancon, Jennie Evenson, Judith Mansour, Mary Didomenico, Annie Lampman, Maureen Foster, M. V. Montgomery, Rowan Johnson, James Hanley, Michael K. Brantley, Brooks P. Rexroat, Deborah Stark, Rachel Rinehart Johnson, Joan Crooks, Jefferson Navicky, Ed Higgins, Mike Bezemek, Leatha Fields-Carey, Maria Winfield

word~river Literary Journal

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction of adjunct, part-time and fulltime instructors teaching under a semester or yearly contract in our universities, colleges, and community colleges worldwide. Graduate student teachers who have used up their teaching assistant time and are teaching with adjunct contracts for the remainder of their graduate program are also eligible.

We’re looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

Manifest Content Without A Dreamer: A Freudian Analysis Of Percival Everett’S Erasure, Irene Rose De Lilly

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

This paper will provide a Freudian analysis of Erasure in order to prove that Everett is, in fact, the two main characters he has created, as well as attempt to challenge the stigma of interpreting through a psychoanalytical lens, rather than treating writing and literature as manifest content without a dreamer.

Godly Heretics: Essays On Alternative Christianity In Literature And Popular Culture, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

"When computers freeze, they are "rebooted" and soon working properly again. Similarly, legendary thinkers throughout history have argued that Christianity should start fresh by recapturing the humanitarian spirit of Jesus' original message. These include such disparate individuals as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, and the religious leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Surprisingly enough, even classic television shows and films meant to be entertaining--Lost, Battlestar Galactica, It's a Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Decalogue, and A Charlie Brown Christmas--are attempts to apply the basic principles of Christianity to modern times. …

Stuart, Jesse Hilton, 1907-1984 (Sc 2686), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2686. Letter of Jesse Stuart, 16 April 1960, to Elizabeth Coombs, librarian at the Kentucky Library, Western Kentucky University (then Western Kentucky State College). He recalls his first meeting with the college’s late president, Paul L. Garrett, and praises Garrett’s personal qualities and the breadth of his reading.

Giles, Janice (Holt), 1905-1979 (Sc 988), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 988. Wills of Janice (Holt) and Henry Giles, Knifley (Adair County), Kentucky, including rights to Janice's books, royalties, papers, etc.

Caudill, Rebecca, 1899-1985 (Sc 991), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 991. Letters (2), written to Evelyn Thurman, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Rebecca Caudill, Urbana, Illinois, discussing her and her husband’s writings and day-to-day activities and showing her friendship with Thurman, who later wrote a biography of Caudill.

Morton, David, 1886-1957 (Sc 684), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 684. Holograph poem entitled "Look With Love," by David Morton, a native of Elkton, Kentucky.