Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Symbolic Capital And The Performativity Of Authorship: The Construction And Commodification Of The Nineteenth-Century Authorial Celebrity, Whitney Helms

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Victorian and Antebellum writers were the first literary figures to construct and perform their authorship within the sphere of celebrity. Unlike their Romantic predecessors who endured fame as an unexpected consequence of their popularity, the Victorians and their contemporaries understood celebrity as a condition of authorship. This dissertation takes as its subject the origins and development of symbolic power for authors as it was expressed in the trappings of celebrity and mass culture and argues that authorship became no longer strictly a profession of writing, but rather a performative endeavor that could be presented through diverse commercial markets. Investigating the …

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 …

Censorship And Fahrenheit 451, Natalie S. Grinnell, Michelle Stinson, Susan Miles

Arthur Vining Davis High Impact Fellows Projects

The goal of this project was to apply the censorship found in Fahrenheit 451 to other situations present in different areas of “the real world”. The students, after doing so, would then create a video of images and their voice, discussing themes of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451and how it’s used in other areas outside of the book. The purpose is to have students use analysis in literature and applying it in different areas as well as to do so in a different way other than through writing. By using the video software, they are changing the way that traditional …

“Digital James Dickey” Developing An App For The Ipad Based On A Poem By James Dickey (Grade Level 11 & 12), Deno P. Trakas, Ed Epps, Caroline Odell, John E. Lane, David A. Sykes

Arthur Vining Davis High Impact Fellows Projects

The purpose of our project was to create an app for the ipad based on a nature poem by James Dickey that could be used by a high school teacher in a classroom. The app includes a poem, video readings by the poet, perspectives (comment and literary criticisms) by a number of experts, biography, a gallery of photos, and a resources page. In fall of 2013 we will test the app in the high school classroom

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.

Mammal Skull: A Digital Poem, Brian Pals

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

A poem.

Bibliography For Work In Digital Humanities And (Inter)Mediality Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Deterring A Critical Catharsis: An Inquiry Into The Rhetoric And Ethics Of Punishment In Wieland; Or The Transformation, Mike Haen

Maria Dittman Library Research Competition: Student Award Winners

From Hammurabi’s Code to modern-day penitentiaries, a society’s chosen punishment models contribute to that society’s ethics. In Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; or the Transformation (1798), characters interact with one another in an isolated community. These interactions center on Wieland’s murder of his family, and how his mind was influenced toward murder by Carwin, an ex-convict. Here, a reader is faced with deciding who to blame. However, solely focusing on criminal culpability ignores a rhetorical problem left unexamined by past scholars—that of criminal punishment in the novel. This problem involves two issues—first, the factors that motivate a society to choose …

There Is No Normal, Meghan Donohoe

Common Reading Essay Contest Winners

Honorable Mention

Gender Performance And The Reclamation Of Masculinity In Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, John William Salyers Jr.

MA in English Theses

Salyers analyzes Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as both a product of and a commentary upon the American 1980s. The text focuses on analysis of key characters and their performance of socially assigned or accepted gender roles. Chief among these are James Gordon, seen as a nostalgic clinging to an antiquated masculinity, and Ellen Yindel, a woman who feels pressured by society to abandon her own gender identity in favor of a more socially acceptable one. The text posits that, against these two, Miller's work seeks to recognize a more modern, empowered, feminism in the character of Robin, …

Visualizing Hate: Maus As Holocaust Literature, Geoffrey Daniel Curran

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus affected traditional classifications of Holocaust writings, specifically literary memoir. Genre studies use Holocaust writings especially those classified as "literary memoirs", to define a narrow group to exclusion of texts like Maus. If Maus was not 'allowed' to be defined as memoir then was it solely cast as fiction? To view it as fictional would have denied that Maus was a graphic novel which interlaces both received testimonial 'truth' and receptive 'truth'.

Review Of Clabough's "Inhabiting Contemporary Southern And Appalachian Literature", Bill Jolliff

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

"Always Something Of It Remains": Sexual Trauma In Ernest Hemingway’S For Whom The Bell Tolls, Natalie Carter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Following his completion of Tender is the Night in 1934, F. Scott Fitzgerald sent a copy of the manuscript to his friend, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway replied with a long, thoughtful letter detailing the reasons he both “liked it and didn’t like it” (SL 407). He instructed Fitzgerald: “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it” (408). The often-troubled friendship between these two masters of modernism has been the subject of …

Making Gatsby Great: Fitzgerald’S Revisions, Michael W. Hancock

The Great Gatsby Unit

This discussion-based activity asks students to evaluate how effectively successive drafts of a passage of dialogue in fiction communicate tone and character. Working in small groups, students read three versions (manuscript, unrevised galley proof, and first edition) of a famous passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Examining dialogue tags and dialogue, students identify the strengths and weakness of each version and explain why the final version is (or isn’t) the best. Students may be invited to write their own version of Fitzgerald’s passage. They will recognize the importance of revision in the writing process.

The Road To The American Dream - Analysis Of Its Distortions Through The Grapes Of Wrath And Little Miss Sunshine, Autumn Murphy

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

While most book-to-movie adaptations are transparent, this project explores the nuanced adaptation of the novel The Grapes of Wrath into the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Little Miss Sunshine promulgates a unique approach to adaptation; additionally, the analysis of these two works provides conclusions for matters beyond literature. The project addresses the “American Dream” and differing perspectives on “winning” and “losing.” The initial step was a close reading of The Grapes of Wrath and a critical viewing of Little Miss Sunshine. From there, a research plan was developed, focusing on distortions of “The American Dream.” The research materials included …

Observing Art Through The Lens Of Oscar Wilde, Brian Hancock

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

Oscar Wilde was a fascinating literary figure who took center stage in England near the end of the nineteenth century. He not only created popular art, but discussed and defined art in original and inventive ways as well. An observance of five of Wilde’s more popular works, including four essays and his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, was performed with the intention of deciphering his complex views on the subject of art. While Wilde arguably arrogantly attempts to alienate art from society, it can ultimately be discerned that he believed the purpose of art was to inform …

Impossible Storyworlds And The (Unnatural) Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym, Mitchell C. Lilly

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The following thesis defends reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as an early example of an “unnatural narrative” in American literature. Adapting unnatural narrative theory, a recent area of study in narratology developed to analyze the existence of unnatural storyworlds, minds, and acts of narration prevalent in postmodern fiction, this thesis analyzes the unnatural dynamics at play in Pym’s storyworld and storytelling that do not comply with what the reader knows is otherwise physically, logically, or humanly impossible in the physical world. Legitimating Poe’s novel as a work of unnatural narrative coincides with arguing how the …

Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, And Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives Of Teenage Girls In The 1940s, Carly Anger

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study establishes a more nuanced look at fictional teenage girls of the 1940s. With the beginning of World War II many teenage girls took on jobs that were left vacant by men. With these new jobs came the opportunity to gain financial independence. However, teenage girls, along with their mothers, were expected to leave their jobs once soldiers returned from war. Thus, there was a gap between the actual experiences of teenage girls and what they were expected to be--Rosie the Riveters who were willing to become housewives at the end of the war.

This gap between actual experiences …