Comparative Literature Commons^™

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Comparative Civilizations Review

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Literary Didacticism In Indigenous & Latinx Human Rights Literature, Tereza M. Szeghi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This presentation offers a survey of the complex strategies literary advocates for indigenous and Latinx human rights have used for successfully educating, persuading, and engaging readers. I argue that the history of human rights literature demonstrates that finding an effective balance between political persuasion and constructing an engaging piece of fiction is quite challenging, while also suggesting strategies that have been proven over time to be more effective than others.

Walt Whitman At The Aurora: A Model For Journalistic Attribution, Kevin Mcmullen, Stefan Schöberlein

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Relatively little manuscript material exists to definitively tie Walt Whitman to the bulk of the journalistic writing attributed to him, particularly the writing in the early years of his career. Because the vast majority of his early journalistic work was unsigned, attribution is most often based on the knowledge of Whitman’s involvement with a given paper, coupled with the identification of some sort of Whit- manic voice or tone in a given piece of writing. However, a writer’s style and tone are often affected by the form and context in which they are writing, meaning that Whitman’s journalistic voice is …

Do We Have Enough Bibles Yet? English Bible Translations And The Transitions Through Time, Allison C. Stephan

Selected Honors Theses

The Bible is read in a variety of contexts, but with the hundreds of translations in English and controversy over which is “most accurate” or “best,” this thesis examines a brief history of Bible translation, a few translation theories such as formal and functional equivalence, what to look for in a Bible translation, and some of the most common English Bible translations. A study was conducted with college students, focusing primarily on the purpose of each translation and the people who read a specified version. Finally, this thesis supports the usage of different translations in different contexts, according to the …

“This Damned Act”: Walt Whitman And The Fugitive Slave Law Of 1850, Kevin Mcmullen

Department of English: Faculty Publications

“THERE IS A SIN OF OMISSION often laid at [Walt] Whitman’s door by ardent humanitarians,” Clifton Furness wrote in 1928; “‘How is it,’ they say, ‘that a poet of democracy and humanitarianism did not express himself on the subjects of abolition, ill-treatment of slaves, the Missouri Compromise, and the national issues leading up to the Civil War?’”1 For all his expansiveness of both form and content, Whitman was indeed, on certain key matters, a poet of omission. As Kenneth M. Price, Martin Klammer, Ed Folsom, and others have demonstrated, the poet repeatedly grappled with issues of slavery and race in …

A Secret In The Words Tales Of Literature And Dissent In Communist Czechoslovakia, Thea Toocheck

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In order to better understand the parallel culture of the 1970s and 1980s Czechoslovakia, this paper aims to tell the stories of six members of the Czechoslovak samizdat community: Marie Klimešová, Ivan Lamper, Ladislav Šenkyřík, Tomáš Tichák, Jáchym Topol, and Jarka Vrbová. Through personal interviews with these individuals, we understand how editors, typists, artists, writers, translators, and readers played significant parts in this parallel culture as well as how these people continue to play important roles in society today. While the tales told here are only parts of the lives of six individuals, they help reflect the impact of an …

Emerging Populations: An Analysis Of Twenty-First Century Caribbean Short Stories, Jeremy Patterson

Theses and Dissertations

The Caribbean has always been a contested space, a space difficult to define, and the literary genre of the short story has always been difficult to define as well. As a region and as a genre, what they share is less prestige, and less development, than other regions and genres. This dissertation brings both of these elements together in a comparative literature study of three twenty-first century Caribbean short story anthologies from the three major linguistic traditions of the Caribbean (English, French, and Spanish). The distinguishing characteristic of these short stories, and the overarching framework for this study, is that …

Linguistic Ideologies In The Performance Of Bulgarian Identity, Chelsey Norman

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

Since the end of Communism in 1989 and joining the European Union in 2007, Bulgarians have experienced much greater mobility and access to the global community. Despite this more global perspective, Bulgarians maintain a strong sense of national identity. Given this interplay between global and national identities, Bulgaria is an apt location to conduct this ideological research. Using a combination of ethnographic observations (June-July 2018) and semi-structured interviews with bilingual Bulgarians in Sofia, this study examines how large-scale phenomena like nationalism and globalization are found in the micro-scale interactional construction of identity. Results show that a great deal of ideological …

The Acquisition Of Diminutives In Moroccan Heritage Speakers In France, Amal El Haimeur

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

This study addresses the acquisition of diminutive forms by Moroccan heritage speakers in France. Diminutive formation depends on stem modification. 15 Moroccan-French participants took part in this study. In a production experiment, participants were asked to form diminutives for 6 types of stems, since the stem type determines the diminutive pattern. The findings of this study show that the mean percentage of source-like use of the diminutive forms is 38%. The results revealed that just two patterns that were acquired by a significant number of participants: CCiCa and CCiCjCjəC. Diminutive forms that do not require complex processes are acquired by …

Exploring The Emotional Language In The Twilight Novel As A Literary Discourse: An Appraisal Theory Analysis, Susan Ataei

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

Emotions have always been a mysterious realm of human beings gaining an understanding of which requires the collaboration of scholars from multiple disciplines. This study employed the Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005) of evaluations and emotions to explore the manifestation of emotions in a popular modern prose fiction, the first book of the twilight series by Stephenie Meyer (2009) - Twilight. The objective of the study was to gain a deep understanding of how a bestselling literary prose fiction, Twilight, employs human emotions, and thus “affect”, to impose its “effect” on the reader. I applied the affect sub-system of …

Optimizing L2 Vocabulary Acquisition: Applied Linguistic Research, George H. Borawski

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

Any acquisition in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) starts as word recognition; as such vocabulary acquisition is integral to language learning as a whole and is a precursor to fluent communication (Ellis, 1996; Moore, 1996). To maximize SLA, vocabulary acquisition must be optimized. However, vocabulary acquisition is understudied and underutilized, especially compared to other aspects of SLA (Paribakht & Wesche, 1997). Cook states, “…the vast bulk of examinations, syllabuses, and course books around the globe show little overt influence from SLA research” (1998, p.10). Courses, teachers, and students would benefit from directly addressing SLA research, rather than utilize inefficient methods (Cook, …

Ellipsis In Iraqi Arabic: An Analysis Of Gapping, Sluicing, And Stripping, Saja Albuarabi

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

The purpose of this paper is to explore the syntax of ellipsis in Iraqi Arabic. The paper sheds light on three types of ellipsis in Arabic and English, namely: sluicing, gapping, and stripping and puts each of them in a comparison between Iraqi Arabic and English languages in addition to Arabic dialects. To the best of my knowledge, these elliptical structures have not been studied in Iraqi Arabic before. Therefore, this study offers the first description of these phenomena from a generative standpoint. The paper argues that the three types of ellipsis mentioned above can be the result of Phonological …

"A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, And So Is An Emojis 🙂" Emojisfication Of Language: A Pragmatic Analysis Of Facebook Discourse, Alienna Kazmi, Arooj Rana, Uzma Anjum, Madiha Khan

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

This research study aims to examine language change occurring in written discourse due to increase in the usage of emojis and the way emojis, in comparison to words, are performing communicative functions on social media platforms such as Facebook. The study focused on Pakistani Facebook users. For the study, Facebook is one of the most authentic social media platforms because 71.75 % (Internet Word Stat) of Pakistani internet users use Facebook which is the highest statistics among all social media applications. In order to investigate the recent language change and communicative functions performed by emojis, we utilized Speech act theory …

Bridging The Divide Through Graphic Novels: Teaching Non-Jews’ Holocaust Narratives To Jewish Students, Matt Reingold

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The following paper considers how integrating Holocaust graphic novels that prominently feature non-Jewish characters can be effective in introducing Jewish students to new perspectives on contemporary understandings of the Holocaust. Drawing on the results of recent studies about rising anti-Semitism and Jews' concerns for their safety, feelings of insularity are understandably becoming more pervasive within the Jewish community. The author argues that in order to combat the negative aspects of this entrenchment, Jewish students need to be introduced to thoughtful and complex narratives that relate to historical anti-Semitic incidents which also model ways of building relationships between the disparate communities …

Statement Of Creative Practice: Creative Making And Vr Literature, Mez Breeze

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Editor's Note
Mez Breeze authored her artist’s statement in virtual reality. You can view Mez’s artist’s statement even without a VR headset. Just click this link: https://bit.ly/2Kov372
You’ll need this password to access it: XR_PlayG

Abstract
Constructing creative writing in XR (aka Extended Reality: an umbrella term that covers Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, and a fourth category called Synthetic Reality), and VR in particular, is an exciting and recent phenomenon in the Electronic Literature field. This proposed Statement of Creative Practice will examine the scope and reach of XR artforms while focusing in particular on the subset of …

Basho & Friends Literacy Game For Tablet, Joshua Korenblat

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Basho & Friends is an in-progress prototype for an interactive children’s book. Here, children ages 8-13 collaborate with young Basho, the legendary founder of haiku poetry, to become poets themselves. This project exemplifies a “convivial tool,” defined by philosopher Ivan Illich as a platform designed to promote creative expression. Here, we imagine new possibilities for reading, sensemaking, and creative writing based on past forms and ideas. Through poetry, Basho promotes meaningful principles of literacy and sustainability today. Children can engage with Basho’s story in an historical context and practice haiku to see themselves as authors of their life stories.

Fanfiction As Performative Criticism: Harry Potter Racebending, Khaliah A. Petersen-Reed

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Fanfiction anatomizes a text and in this textual nakedness fanfiction writers recognize gaps in their chosen source texts and seek to supplement these deficiencies through literary disruption. This essay focuses on the kind of fanfiction that critically disrupts through artistic cultural production—a practice that I am labeling performative criticism. I look at Racebending fanfiction that intervenes in the gaps of the Harry Potter series—specifically the gaps related to race. Using fanfiction produced by Harry Potter fans, I will show that by reading and writing fanfiction these writers are blurring demarcation between creative writing and literary criticism.

This Is (Not) A Game: The Adjunct Experience As Playable Fiction, Lee Skallerup Bessette

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

How can a never-ending running 8-bit game be a piece of protest art? In examining her own experience in a related netprov protesting the treatment of adjuncts, the artist explores issues of agency, exploitation, and the very nature of games and playing in her artist’s statement on her game, Adjunct Run: https://adjunctrun.readywriting.org/.

Machine Co-Authorship(S) Via Translative Creative Writing, Aaron Tucker

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This paper argues that machine translation and a symbiotic ecosystem of authorship are central to the poetic works of Aaron Tucker and reveal larger ethical paths for machine-human relationships. In particular, the elements of chance alongside the intersemiotic translative acts that are the nature of human-computer relationships give space to a potential futurity that challenges a human-centric understanding of “reading” and “writing” and generates a type of literature that encourages a reader to better understand their own interactions within their daily digital environments.

The Many Authors Of The Several Houses Of Brian, Spencer, Liam, Victoria, Brayden, Vincent, And Alex: Authorship, Agency, And Appropriation, Zach Whalen

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

The Several Houses of Brian, Spencer, Liam, Victoria, Brayden, Vincent, and Alex is a computer-generated children’s book of 53,651 words and 350 unique illustrations arranged over 800 pages. The text is a cumulative poem in the style of the nursery rhyme “This is the House that Jack Built,” but with a house for each of the eponymous seven individuals, and with each of their houses containing many more types of things. These houses, these things, and these words were chosen by a Python script that I wrote, and the resulting novel--which can be viewed on my Github repository--is …