The Journey In Hisham Matar's The Return: Between Freedom And Confinement,
2024
The British University in Egypt
The Journey In Hisham Matar's The Return: Between Freedom And Confinement, Noha Hanafy
English Language and Literature
Abstract The paper explores Hisham Matar’s journey in his 2016 memoir, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between. In the book, Matar undertakes a journey back to his homeland in Libya to uncover the truth of what happened to his father, who was targeted by the Gaddafi regime during the sixties and was subsequently imprisoned for 20 years. While the memoir primarily focuses on the journey "back" to Matar's homeland in Libya, the memoir's depiction of "home" problematizes the concept, raising questions about its limitations beyond being merely geographical. Therefore, home becomes elusive and not necessarily at all …
Mythos And Meaning: Medieval Appropriations Of Mythological Types In The Consolation Of Philosophy And Later Western Literatures,
2024
Seton Hall University
Mythos And Meaning: Medieval Appropriations Of Mythological Types In The Consolation Of Philosophy And Later Western Literatures, Francis J. Hunter
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
Often referred to as the last Roman and first medieval, Boethius, author of The Consolation of Philosophy, has been widely received as an unoriginal philosopher who sought to preserve Platonic thought as the Western Roman Empire fell. However, this essay features an investigation into the literary originality of Boethius who initiates a line of Christian and Platonic literatures to follow in the medieval European tradition. Boethius demonstrates himself to be a poet who makes great use of philosophy rather than as a philosopher writing poetry. Boethius’ poetic influence is felt most strongly in major aspects of Dante’s Divine Comedy and …
Eng 155: Introduction To Literary Studies,
2024
City University of New York (CUNY)
Eng 155: Introduction To Literary Studies, Joseph Donica
Open Educational Resources
An OER syllabus covering the ways humans have read and continue to read literature from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. An emphasis is placed on the application of critical thought to writing expository essays and responding to readings.
Increasing The Accuracy Of The Military‟S Post-Deployment Mental Health Screening Strategies,
2024
Indiana State University
Increasing The Accuracy Of The Military‟S Post-Deployment Mental Health Screening Strategies, Daniel Fass
All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The author investigated the prevalence rates of mental health problems reported by college students and compared them with previously existing data on active duty, reserve, and National Guard Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans. Participants completed the mental health portion of the Post-Deployment Health Re-Assessment and an additional questionnaire in which the effect of a drug use screen was explored. Subjects were also asked about their intentions to seek mental health or substance abuse treatment and how anonymity affected their treatment seeking and reporting accuracy. Results indicate similar and at times higher rates of mental health problems in the sample of college …
With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential,
2024
Whittier College
With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner
Whittier Scholars Program
My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …
Final Master's Portfolio,
2024
Bowling Green State University
Final Master's Portfolio, Ayotunde Afolabi
Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects
This portfolio explores themes of gender and race, identity representation, and agency within various literary texts. It encapsulates a series of analytical essays that scrutinize how these themes intersect and manifest across diverse literary landscapes, emphasizing the ways in which authors address and challenge societal norms and structures through their narratives. Each essay within the portfolio not only mirrors the engagement with these themes but also showcases the development of a theoretical approach that bridges classical literary analysis with contemporary issues of identity politics and social justice.
Posthumanism In Literature: Redefining Selfhood, Temporality, And Reality/Ies Through Fiction,
2024
Chapman University
Posthumanism In Literature: Redefining Selfhood, Temporality, And Reality/Ies Through Fiction, Eileen Kelley Pierce
English (MA) Theses
While fictional novels are often seen as a way to escape reality, their relation to reality and the ways in which they distort or reinforce our understandings of reality can provide significant insights into our cultural values and beliefs. Using posthumanist theory, I examine how understandings of selfhood and its relations to time and reality are complicated within three works of fiction and how those complications represent and articulate a societal shift in meaning and knowledge that is supported by posthumanist ideologies. The three works, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, Wolf in White Van by John …
Homemade Language, Conservative Fro-Yo, And Sci-Fi Sloths: How Speculative Migration Fiction Confronts The Ends Of Worlds By Challenging The Nation-State,
2024
Macalester College
Homemade Language, Conservative Fro-Yo, And Sci-Fi Sloths: How Speculative Migration Fiction Confronts The Ends Of Worlds By Challenging The Nation-State, Zoe R. Scheuerman
English Honors Projects
This English literature thesis project explores an emerging, genre-defying body of fiction which I call “speculative migration fiction.” Speculative migration fiction imagines how ongoing global developments like climate change, technological development, and war may shape future migrations. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s conception of national culture, Wendy Brown’s theory of the border, and Caroline Levine’s understanding of literary form, as well as close readings from Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, and 2 A.M. in Little America by Ken Kalfus, I argue that transnational migrations move toward becoming postnational migrations as migrants evade border …
Rewrite The Past And Remember The Future: How Expatriates Built An Independent Ireland,
2024
Ursinus College
Rewrite The Past And Remember The Future: How Expatriates Built An Independent Ireland, Morgan Grabowski
English and Creative Writing Honors Papers
This paper seeks to answer the question “How did Ireland create a unique identity after gaining independence from England?” In order to answer that question, I analyzed five different Irish authors who wrote in a timeframe spanning the first half of the twentieth century. These authors are W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett. These authors, at one point or another, wrote texts which are considered Irish, while living abroad. Because of this, this paper focuses on their status as expatriates, and how that influenced their contributions to the Irish Literary Revival, which is the literary …
Daughters And Fathers In Memoirs: Najla Said And Fatima Bhutto,
2024
American University in Cairo
Daughters And Fathers In Memoirs: Najla Said And Fatima Bhutto, Yasmina Bakry
Theses and Dissertations
The father-daughter relationship has always been crucial in shaping the identity of the daughter. Daughters inevitably inherit their fathers’ personal trauma, and in the case of the daughters of activists, national trauma as well. Throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, daughters struggle to depoliticize their famous fathers, as well as assert their individuality amidst the overshadowing activism of their fathers and conflictual history of their nations. To heal the daughters’ identity fissures, they embark on a journey to chronicle memories of their fathers throughout their lives and critically assess their fathers’ cultural, social and political heritage and identity. This thesis will …
Queering The Family In Zoraida Córdova’S Labyrinth Lost,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Queering The Family In Zoraida Córdova’S Labyrinth Lost, Rebekah Rendon
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova focuses on Alex Mortiz, a Mexican-American bruja and her journey to a fantastical otherworld to rescue her family. Alex begins to understand the love and unity that exists in her own blood family, while forging new relationships, thereby creating a found family, or queered family. The topic of this paper addresses queerness and found family dynamics in Labyrinth Lost. While many scholars have written on themes in fantasy and magical realism texts by Latino/a and Hispanic authors, these genres tend to be under-researched in literature for young adults. My argument analyzes Labyrinth Lost as emblematic …
Queen's Pride: A Queer Reading Of Star Wars Character Padmé Amidala,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Queen's Pride: A Queer Reading Of Star Wars Character Padmé Amidala, Madeleine Loewen
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Ever since Luke Skywalker and Han Solo first appeared onscreen together in 1977, LGBTQ+ Star Wars fans have harnessed the power of queer reading to write themselves back into a galaxy far, far away, despite Lucasfilm’s long-term disapproval of such practices. Nonetheless, there exists little scholarly literature on queerness in the franchise, and even less on the potentially sapphic characters. Queen Padmé Amidala, first introduced onscreen in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, proves a surprising—but no less salient—queer figure in Star Wars. From her intimate relationships with her handmaidens, to her experimentation with gender performativity, to her quiet yet intense …
Queerness In Hirohiko Araki's Jojo's Bizarre Adventure,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Queerness In Hirohiko Araki's Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Minna Nizam
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
This paper will explore Queerness in the series Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The presentation/paper will dive deep into the queer aspects of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, examining tropes throughout the series and its LGBTQIA+ representation. We will be delving into queer protagonists, queer side characters, and LGBTQIA identities present throughout the anime/manga. We will explore the relationships each main character of the franchise has with side characters, to analyze queerness and queer subtext. Quotes and posts/comments made by the series creator, Hirohiko Araki will be used as evidence to prove that the series is in fact Queer with its LGBTQIA …
Queer Paths Toward Home: Kinship In Speculative Fiction,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Queer Paths Toward Home: Kinship In Speculative Fiction, Audrey Heffers
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
How are we related? Queer(ed) families—typically framed through terms such as Found Family, Chosen Family, or Family of Choice—are more often formed by agency and voluntary participation than they are by legal or genetic connections. For the purposes of this paper, kin will be defined by affect, behavior, and declaration. The three fictional texts—Are You Listening? by Tillie Walden, Life of Melody by Mari Costa, and I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane—will serve as a basis to illustrate how kinship is defined, particularly in queer speculative narratives. Speculative fiction allows for particular metaphors of power. These metaphors …
Introduction To Eleanor Arnason, Works & Reception,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Introduction To Eleanor Arnason, Works & Reception, David Lenander
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Eleanor is a guest of honor at next summer’ s Mythcon 53, and I’ve been reading her work for many years. I think her novel, and the associated short stories of Hwarhath Stories, provide a fine set of texts for your purpose. There are also queer aspects to many of Eleanor’s other books and stories, for instance in To the Resurrection Station, and some of her shorter fiction. I would certainly review the existing critical literature, and also present some critical comments and reflections on reception of Arnason’s work, and suggestions for further study.
The Gay Bat Of Gotham: Depictions Of Common Queer Stereotypes And Tropes In The Dc Comics Character Batwoman,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
The Gay Bat Of Gotham: Depictions Of Common Queer Stereotypes And Tropes In The Dc Comics Character Batwoman, Tim Lenz
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Expansive superhero comic book universes can be thought of as collective, accretional works of Mythopoeia, generating modern mythologies of fantastical characters while also drawing inspiration from ancient myths of the primary world. The DC Comics’ character Batwoman was initially introduced in 1956 as a love interest of Batman/Bruce Wayne, in part to combat scandalous allegations of Batman’s homosexual tendencies towards his young male sidekick Robin. In 2006, writers Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, and Mark Waid reinvented the Batwoman character for modern audiences as the alter ego of ‘Kate Kane,’ Bruce Wayne’s cousin, who was a lesbian of Jewish …
Queering The Problem: Destabilizing Normative Tropes In Jonathan Stroud’S Lockwood And Co. ,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Queering The Problem: Destabilizing Normative Tropes In Jonathan Stroud’S Lockwood And Co. , William Thompson
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Holly Munro, the office assistant come agent in Jonathan Stroud’s young-adult series Lockwood and Co., is the sole character in the five books to hint at living in a queer relationship. Lockwood and Co. is a small agency in London, fighting against the Problem, the nightly recurrence of ghosts and specters. In The Empty Grave, the final book in the series, Holly and Lucy Carlyle are crouched in the kitchen at 35 Portland Row, waiting for an attack of a group of thugs on the house. Holly and Lucy are nervously exchanging confidences, and Holly makes the point that Antony …
“Foul In Wisdom, Cruel In Strength”: Gendered Evil In Tolkien’S Legendarium,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
“Foul In Wisdom, Cruel In Strength”: Gendered Evil In Tolkien’S Legendarium, Alicia Fox-Lenz
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
In “The Feminine Principle in Tolkien,” Melanie Rawls creates a framework for reading masculine and feminine drives in the characters of Tolkien’s legendarium. Feminine characteristics are inward-facing, focused on the self and inner life, whereas masculine characteristics are outward-facing, focused on affecting the wider society. Shelob and Sauron are used as two examples of the negative expression of these gendered drives: Shelob being so inwardly focused she only devours, and Sauron being so outwardly focused he cares only for world domination. However, other than his outward focus, Sauron doesn’t neatly align with the other negative masculine traits — he is …
Roundtable: Diversifying Our Mythopoeic Bookshelves,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Roundtable: Diversifying Our Mythopoeic Bookshelves, Grace Moone
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
2024 is a year in which we’ve all been encouraged to be intentional about reading diversely, and seeking out stories and authors whose perspective differs from our own. During this roundtable discussion, we’ll touch briefly on why diversifying our reading matters, discuss strategies for finding diverse books in mythopoeic genres, share some of our favorite book recommendations, and ask attendees to share some of theirs. This discussion will also be open during the upcoming meal break.
More To The Hobbit Than Meets The Eye: Locating The Feminine In Tolkien’S World,
2024
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
More To The Hobbit Than Meets The Eye: Locating The Feminine In Tolkien’S World, Pieter Conradie
Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)
Fantasy is finally learning to embrace its power to create and celebrate queerness. Works such as The Forever Sea by Joshua Philip Johnson and The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon feature queer leads, revealing creative capacities to imagine worlds where queerness is at the centre. But something mighty queer is already present in 1937 at the very dawn of modern fantasy. Following emerging interpretations of The Hobbit, I argue that the hero, Bilbo Baggins, exhibits significantly queer characteristics. In this deconstructive reading, Bilbo’s gender will first be reversed, arguing that his domesticity, intense emotional responses and his …
