Comparative Literature Commons^™

A Multiple Perspective Analysis On Urban Poverty In Developing Nations: A Case Study On Nigeria, Colonial Implications, And Modern-Day Outcomes, Julian Rivera-Williams

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will dissect urbanization and poverty in Nigeria as a case study of the challenges of underdevelopment and the lingering effects of colonialism in Africa. To draw a complete understanding of challenges faced by developing nations facing systemic underdevelopment, high poverty, and low productivity– nations like Nigeria, my research will uncover colonial impacts and post-colonial policies that initiated urban poverty and underdevelopment outcomes we see today. The purpose of my thesis is to encompass existing fragmented academia on the causes and consequences of underdevelopment and connect historical implications to current impacts of global development today including the influence of …

“The Old Lie”: The Effect Of Classical Heroism On The Wwi Soldier, Sage Fikse

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Before the outbreak of World War I, poet Wilfred Owen studied Greek and Roman literature, which presented him with idealized notions of patriotism, glory, and sacrifice. Influenced by classical texts such as The Iliad and the writings of Horace, these ideals of heroism left him unprepared for the brutal realities of anonymous warfare and for what it meant to be a “hero” in the twentieth century. In his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Owen draws on his classical education to challenge the romanticized ideals of heroic sacrifice and glory. However, through the poetic nature of his death, dying exactly one …

Narrative (In)Completion In Chaucer’S The Canterbury Tales And Woolf’S The Waves, Ananya Ramkumar

Pomona Senior Theses

I examine how narrative and personal completion manifest—and are continually unsettled—in The Canterbury Tales and The Waves. Though separated by centuries and written within vastly different literary traditions, both texts explore the tension between fragmentation and wholeness: the ways in which stories and characters can be constructed from partial, shifting materials, and the ways in which the illusion of completeness can mask deeper absences (holes). Drawing on Woolf’s own theories of reading and character—and her sense that readers instinctively create “rickety and ramshackle” wholes from scattered impressions—I will consider how each text engages with the paradox of narrative closure. …

Beyond Catharsis: The Evolution Of Popular Tragedy In Video Game Narratives, Nicole E. Chancey

Master’s Theses

“Beyond Catharsis: The Evolution of Popular Tragedy in Video Game Narratives,” establishes a connection between traditions of Tragedy and video game narratives, arguing that the ways in which tragedy manifests within interactive media is an extension and development of previous, more formal understandings of Tragedy. Using Oxenfree (2016), Elden Ring (2022), and Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), this thesis claims video games feature adaptations of traditional tragedy and catharsis that expand the genre. Through players directly instigating the action of the game, the allowances and limitations of the player’s agency, and the instances of misfortunate fates, interactive narratives translate tragic concepts—outlined …

The Rescue Of Wahutedew’Á And The Epistemological Reforestation: An Analysis Of Time In A Terra Dos Mil Povos, By Kaká Werá Jecupé, Ivo Cruz

The Coastal Review

It is estimated that in 1500, the year the Portuguese arrived in America, there was a population of 2,431,000 inhabitants, according to historian John Hemming (1978), who occupied the lands that we now know as Brazil. These peoples had their own culture whose cosmology was destroyed and erased over time by a violent process of colonization. Even though entire groups were decimated, much of their influence is still alive in Brazilian culture. This influence can be found in vocabulary, cuisine, and even religious practices. With the aim of rescuing ancestral narratives and knowledge of various native peoples, Kaká Werá Jecupé …

Light And Darkness For Aesthetic Pleasure: An Exploration Of J.M.G. Le Clézio’S Early Writings And Jun’Ichiro Tanizaki’S In Praise Of Shadows, Kenichiro Otani

The Coastal Review

Building upon comparative principles, this semantic reading of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s essay In Praise of Shadows and J.M.G. Le Clézio’s early writings illustrates how both the Franco-Mauritian author and the Japanese writer problematize modern Western perception laden with concepts stifling flexible imagination through the mysterious worldview of light/darkness. They also simultaneously express the hope that another way of life leading to liberation is possible. Delving into the spiritual confinement of the subject, they demonstrate how keeping rich creativity within one’s heart can be an escape from a stagnant society. Albeit in very different mediums, Tanizaki and Le Clézio assert that the …

Teaching Cuba In Georgia Today, Eric Kartchner

The Coastal Review

This essay details a college professor's approach to teaching a course on Cuban history and culture. The professor's pedagogical choices were influenced by Ada Ferrer's book, Cuba: An American History, and José Antonio Bowen's work on fostering independent thinking. The syllabus covered pre-Columbian Cuba, Spanish rule, the wars of independence, the Castro era, and significant cultural aspects like music and religion. The course emphasized multiple perspectives and encouraged student-led research, challenging preconceived notions about Cuba's complex relationship with the United States. The professor aimed to promote critical thinking and understanding through student-driven inquiry.

Worlds Built And Borrowed: A Paracosmic Exploration Of The Metatextual Unconscious, Ryleigh Michele Roberts

Master’s Theses

This thesis explores literary phenomenology through the lens of fictional world-building and borrowing, integrating psychoanalytic play theories and reader response criticism, primarily through the works of D.W. Winnicott, Stanley Fish, and Wolfgang Iser. In applying this theoretical approach, the thesis investigates how fictional worlds function as intermediary phenomena through which creators can externalize and process their individual or collective experiences of being. Employing a comprehensive literary survey framework, the project spans a diverse range of texts, from canonical literature, such as the Brontës’ juvenilia and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, to contemporary works like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and E.L. James’ Fifty Shades …

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"Gladly Wolde He Lerne And Gladly Teche": Balancing Humanity And Pragmatics In Teaching, Peter Steffensen

Quidditas

Teachers of AP courses have to balance passing on love of the subject matter and accomplishing the more pragmatic goals of the course. I have found that in the English classroom those two goals can complement one another when specific approaches are taken to teaching. This article explores those moments when humanity and pragmatics collide in the classroom and provides suggestions for navigating these sometimes conflicting goals.

Review: Out Of The Mouths Of Babes: Infant Voices In Medieval French Literature, Alani Hicks-Bartlett

Quidditas

Voicing a stirring call for readers to reconsider the silence and lacunae that are traditionally attributed to infancy, in her latest monograph, Julie Singer situates infancy as both an essential critical framework and an instructive, illuminative methodology through which a gaping archival silence can be rectified-that silence being literary representations of the medieval child, and specifically, the spoken life of the medieval child. As Singer argues, infancy and childhood entwine rather indiscernibly with each other in accordance with the medieval attribution of a longue dureé to infancy (Isidore of Seville, for instance, posited infancy as a stage lasting for about …

Review: Shaping Intellectual Disabilities In Early Modern England, Mardy Philippian

Quidditas

In Shaping Intellectual Disabilities in Early Modern England, Alice Equestri has assembled an impressive collection of essays by researchers interested in early modern conceptions of intellectual disability. Like Hobgood and Wood's groundbreaking collection Recovering Disability in Early Modern England (2013) and Leslie C. Dunn's edited collection Performing Disability in Early Modern English Drama (2020), Equestri's volume will benefit scholars for some time to come. Of use to both early career scholars and those well established in the field of early modern disability studies, Shaping Intellectual Disabilities in Early Modern England invites readers into twelve individual studies of a diverse …

One Thing Leads To Another: A New Approach To Teaching Medieval Literature In The Twenty-First Century, Nicholas Markellos

Quidditas

Part of the problem with defining the "Middle Ages" stems from nineteenth-century historians' attempts to distinguish the Renaissance as a unique period that brought about modernity. In examining the literature of this period, however, it is clear that there was a certain element of queerness that surrounded this bewildering age. As a literature teacher, I found that my students do not always see these strange and important elements in the antiquated translations of the texts. To that end, I designed a new curriculum unit that approaches the reading of several medieval stories through a queer perspective, as well as a …

Medieval Old Age As Discourse: Conflicting Views And Perspectives In Pre-Modern German And European Literature From The Early To The Late Middle Ages, Albrecht Classen

Quidditas

This article revisits and reviews the broad and intense discourse on old age in the medieval and to some extent early modern worlds and examines the major scholarly contributions to this extensive topic. The discussion of old age during the Middle Ages found expression in fields such as history, philosophy, medicine, theology, literature, the visual arts, pharmacy, and military studies. It is not that long ago that old age itself finally gained more interest in historical research, but we can by now rely on a number of well-researched monographs and edited volumes dealing with this highly complex topic. Previous scholarship …

Allen D. Breck Award Winner

Quidditas

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Recipient of the Breck Award 2025

Kierra E. Burns

Dante And The Nine Worthies: Glory Or Fame?, Thomas L. Cooksey

Quidditas

In Paradiso 18, Dante is introduced by Cacciaguida, to eight martial heroes: Joshua, Judas Maccabaeus, Roland, Charlemagne, William of Orange, Renouard, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Robert Guiscard. Joined by Cacciaguida they form a group of nine, suggesting that Dante is playing with the topos of the Nine Worthies, popular in chivalric literature. While there are various prototypes, the canonical version of the Nine was codified by Jacques de Longuyon in his romance Voeux du paon (The Vow of the Peacock), appearing around 1312, a date tantalizingly close to the composition of the Paradiso. A comparison is instructive both …

Mythogenesis In As I Lay Dying: A Comparative Exploration Of Mythmaking And Counter-Myths, Allison K. Groupp

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis explores William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through the lens of comparative mythology, arguing that the novel constructs a counter-myth that challenges dominant Western narratives. By engaging with non-Western mythological traditions—particularly Proto-Indo European, Hindu, and Indigenous cosmologies—the study reveals how Faulkner embeds symbolic structures that transcend Christian and Greco-Roman frameworks. Using semiology and structuralist frameworks developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes, the analysis deciphers a mythopoetic narrative that refocuses marginalized myths to destabilize binary oppositions such as Christian/Pagan, civilized/uncivilized, and male creation myths with female creation myths. Each chapter examines a different mythic layer: …

Mirrors Of The Reel: Black Women's Identity In American Cinema (2009-2024), Melanie-Penny Harrison

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study investigates whether white supremacy structures, embodied in Hollywood’s predominantly white leadership, drive negative portrayals of Black women in 31 mainstream American films from 2009 to 2024. Employing a mixed-methods approach—quantitative content analysis, qualitative content analysis (QCA), and narrative methodology—I code portrayals for racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, colorism, and internalized racism, classifying them as progressive (e.g., empowered roles), regressive (e.g., subservient stereotypes), or hybrid. Guided by Critical Race Theory and intersectionality, the analysis examines narrative structures, character agency, symbolism, and dialogue to uncover intersectional patterns (e.g., race, gender, class) across three periods: 2009–2013, 2014–2018, and 2019–2024. Across these periods, cultural …

Eros And The Sublime: Tools For Reaching Toward An Altered Ecological Consciousness, Aineka Carlson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores connections between the Kantian sublime and Anne Carson’s ideas regarding “eros.” Since Kant’s Critique of Judgement was published in 1790, the Kantian sublime has grown in popularity and been utilized by theorists and creative writers alike. While the Kantian sublime is often associated with nature in popular culture, there are certain egocentric and phallocentric elements of this mode of thinking that might inhibit a biocentric mindset. Through a character study of Oryx from Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake, this thesis draws relations between the subjugation of women, nature, and the ways in which the popularized …