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Conference Chair's Introduction, Glen Goodknight

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Introduction by conference chair Glen GoodKnight.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Series Editor's Introduction, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

An introduction by the Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings Series Editor Janet Brennan Croft.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

“To A Cupped Hand’S Size”: Reading Poetics Of Scale In Edith Tiempo’S Poetry, Thomas Leonard D. Shaw

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

Edith Cutaran Lopez-Tiempo’s body of work, alongside her stature as Philippine National Artist for Literature, has generated substantial scholarship on the fertile imaginaries and intersections of formalist poetics, the institutionalization of the writing workshop, and Philippine poetry in English. Building on these contributions, I turn instead to Tiempo’s negotiation of self-fashioning, memory work, and imaginative practice as a way of articulating questions of scale in her oeuvre. By reading a selection of poems from several of her poetry collections, I argue that reading Tiempo’s sustained engagement with strategies of disclosure and scale, as well as her preoccupation with the intimacy …

Essentializing The Ifugao For The National Allegory In F. Sionil Jose’S “The God Stealer”, Lioba E. Piluden

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

Postcolonial writing in the Philippines turned towards the indigenous Filipino, “the tribal Filipino, or the poor Filipino least touched by colonial culture” (Roces 1994, 300) to become a vessel for an elusive national identity. One of the creatures to arise from this milieu of Philippine literature was F. Sionil Jose’s “The God Stealer” (1959), a short story often read as an allegory of Philippine-American relations or the Filipino native rejecting colonial power by returning to their roots. It is also Jose’s most anthologized short story. Despite readings of “The God Stealer” generally falling into the groove of postcolonial analysis, little …

“And Why Here?” Reading Hong Kong In Nick Joaquin’S The Woman Who Had Two Navels, Raymon D. Ritumban

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

Nick Joaquin (1917–2004) is a Filipino literary master and national artist whose numerous works include the prize-winning novel The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961). Its plot revolves around the Manilan protagonist Connie Escobar’s flight into Hong Kong and her insistence that “she [has] two navels” (1). Her assertion is complicated by her request for Hong Kong-born-and-based Pepe Monson to perform “an operation” on them (1). While this curious premise has generated numerous analyses over time, the novel’s setting—that is, post-1945 Hong Kong—remains understudied. Addressing this gap, the paper offers a geocritical intervention examining the historical conditions and spatial production …

“The River’S Tent Is Broken/Wasak Ang Kubol Ng Dagat”: The Modern And The Nation In Bienvenido Lumbera’S Ang Pagas Na Lupain, Susan Mila P. Alvarez-Tosalem

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

In 1971, Philippine National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera translated one of the most outstanding examples of world literature, T. S. Eliot’s modernist poem, The Waste Land, into Filipino. At the time, Lumbera had just earned his PhD from Indiana University as a Fulbright scholar. Naturally, his colonial education and aesthetic preference shaped his approach as a critic and scholar. However, Lumbera’s “radical transformation” became evident in 1968, in the midst of growing discontent with the neocolonial government (Veric 140). This paper underscores, therefore, the centrality of translation in world literature, especially in the context of a single “world literary system” (Moretti …

Gender-Based Violence, Legal Protection, And Intersecting Narratives: A Conversation With Flavia Agnes, Barnana Baidya, Partha Bhattacharjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Flavia Agnes is a leading advocate for gender justice because of her legal expertise in marital law, divorce, and property law and her activism as an Indian women’s rights lawyer. Her scholarly work on systemic and legal gender-based oppression has appeared in the journals Subaltern Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, and Manushi. Her book, My Story...Our Story of Rebuilding Broken Lives, released by her non-profit organization named Majlis, depicts how Agnes battled domestic violence while addressing the law’s restrictive abilities to offer protection. We conducted an interview through Google Meet with Agnes to discuss her work as a legal activist …

Sanitized For Public Viewing: Review Of William Shakespeare’S The Tempest, Allison Meyer

Best Integrated Writing

This review analyzes the Stratford Festival’s 2026 production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, directed by Antoni Cimolino, and argues that the production minimizes the play’s political and colonial themes. The article examines how specific production choices, including Caliban’s costume design, the comic treatment of Stephano and Trinculo, and Prospero’s final interaction with Ariel, obscure questions of power and colonization. Through detailed analysis of staging, characterization, and directorial decisions, the review evaluates the consequences of presenting Shakespeare’s play as a story of personal forgiveness rather than political conflict. It interrogates this erasure of colonial power struggles within the framework of the Stratford …

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2026 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

From Linguistic Domination To Counter-Power: The Weaponisation And Reappropriation Of Language In Shakespeare's Drama, Md. Abu Bakkar

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

Studies of language and power in Shakespeare usually treat colonial, psychological, political, and familial domination as separate problems belonging to separate plays. This article asks what happens when the target of linguistic domination takes up, repeats, or withholds the discourse through which domination is exercised. It proposes linguistic counter-power as a comparative analytical concept: a change in who can define, command, or be believed within the dramatic world that outlasts and exceeds the speaker’s own act of resistance. The concept is distinguished from discursive resistance, linguistic agency, counter-discourse, and resignification, and is operationalised through three tests: uptake, durability, and structural …

Book Review: Vigil: A Novel, Stephen Woodgeard

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

George Saunders’s Vigil is presented as a sharp, unsettling novel about climate ethics, corporate power, and the stories people use to excuse harm. The review argues that the book’s magical-real realist structure turns a dying oil executive’s final night into a moral reckoning, while also showing how family myth, corporate language, and public discourse shape denial. It also notes that the novel’s allegorical design can feel heavy-handed at times, but its central strength is its forceful critique of complicity and the difficulty of moral awakening.

J.R.R. Tolkien And G. B. Smith: With Wind In Our Ears, Edited By Giuseppe Pezzini (2026), Gabriel Schenk

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Gabriel Schenk, of J.R.R. Tolkien and G. B. Smith: With Wind in Our Ears (2026), edited by Giuseppe Pezzini

2026 Persimmon Creek - Full Journal, Beth Keefauver, Wayne C. Robbins

Persimmon Creek

Dear Readers: Literary journals are a common component of colleges and universities spanning across many continents. As many students experience the drastic transition from childhood to independence, emotions can feel overwhelming, and life can quickly become flooded with anxiety. Writing is an outlet for many; a place humanity turns to as a form of secure therapy.

In William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, Berowne muses, “Never durst poet touch a pen to write until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs” (Act 4, Scene 3).

Without emotion, writing has no depth. The words on the page might seem eloquent, but the …

The Quilt On The Roof, Janny G. Santos

Persimmon Creek

This creative nonfiction essay explores the meaning of home, stewardship, and healing through the story of a veteran who restored a neglected house on a hill in Greenville County, South Carolina. Built in the 1950s by another veteran on land once belonging to the Perry family, the home becomes a place of repair for both the structure and the person caring for it. When the roof fails after years of restoration, the author creates a massive quilt to protect the house, transforming scraps of fabric into a signal of distress and resilience. The essay reflects on land, memory, family, and …

Meet Phoenix, Feng Jiang

Persimmon Creek

One act play

Roadkill, Kristi S. Miller

Persimmon Creek

Dear Beth Keefauver,

Thank you for considering my short story “Roadkill,” a 3371-word short story, for inclusion in Persimmon Creek. Below is my biography:

“Could you kill someone?” is Kristi Miller’s favorite question. It divides the keepers from the bores, and she can’t tolerate boredom. After growing tired of being a molecular biologist, she moved to Western North Carolina to teach kayaking and live in a van down by the river. Now she’s a professor of nursing. Her husband supports her need for drama – when their biological daughter was almost two, they adopted a sibling group of three. If …

Moths In The Closet, Brandi E. Shuler

Persimmon Creek

a Work of Flash Fiction
This is a personal reflection about clothing and what makes something important. Why do people hold onto things in a world where replacing them would be so easy?

The Tea Party, Adrienne D. Fuehrer

Persimmon Creek

Molly, Erika, Mauve, and Mr. Snuggles are having a tea party. With a focus on imagery and childhood whimsy, “The Tea Party” embraces the restraints of flash fiction to tell a story within a moment.

Built To Last, Jack Andrew Hines

Persimmon Creek

A young man embarks on a career as a carpenter in South Carolina's Lowcountry. He falls under the tutelage of a heavy drinking master carpenter and, together, they strive to master their craft while holding onto their pride in an environment where their culture is being degraded and appropriated.

Cellphone, Kasey Waters

Persimmon Creek

this work describes the toxic relationships that many of us have with our phones and technology.  i wrote this post hurricane helene.