Other English Language and Literature Commons^™

Diversity In Publishing: Does Author Identity Affect Author Treatment In The North American Fiction Publishing Industry?, Chloe Comeau

Academic Leadership Journal in Student Research

The fiction publishing industry has a long history of promoting only straight, white, cisgender voices in the books they publish and the staff they hire. This study employed the Delphi method to investigate the connection between author identity and author treatment in publishing. In a series of questionnaires, 11 participants answered questions and shared their experiences with diversity in publishing. The results indicated that sexism, homophobia, and racism all exist in the industry, and author identity impacts author treatment in North American fiction publishing. Moreover, the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality of authors combined with publishing’s long history of …

Zombies From Cultural Origin To Contemporary Uses, Conor Davenport

University Honors Theses

This piece explores the evolution of the Western cinematic zombie, from its spawning to its reappropriation and echoes that are seen throughout the current landscapes of cinema today. It presents the axiom of the genre with White Zombie (1932) and how it has evolved into the contemporary creature we know and love today. The paper examines a throughline from cultural origin and how this has developed and becomes a critical lens for widely spread bureaucratic systems currently in place.

Marvelous Ordinariness: Re-Engaging With Realism’S Social Function, Miranda Ochoa Natera

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

Against Romanticism, European literary realism of the 19th century aimed to provide an objective representation of reality through mimesis that could capture the truth in an objective way. Yet, its positivist approach severely narrowed down the complexity of truth, reality, and the mundane by wrongfully drawing the universal from the particular. A new way of engaging with realist literature from any time period, called Marvelous Ordinariness, rearranges this triad in ways that expand our understanding of our own and other realities portrayed. Using Alejo Carpentier’s description of “lo real maravilloso,” Marvelous Ordinariness unfolds in three layers that resemble Carl Jung’s …

An Industrious Little Devil - Tolkien’S Development Of The Elvish Languages At Leeds, Andrew Higgins Dr

Journal of Tolkien Research

Conference paper given at Medieval Conferences in Leeds and Kalamazoo which explore Tolkien’s development of the Elvish languages at Leeds (1920-1925).

“Class And Consciousness”: An Application Of Marxist Theory And Posthumanism To Kazuo Ishiguro’S The Remains Of The Day, Never Let Me Go And Klara And The Sun, Renee Elizabeth Samuel

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s works are introspective explorations of how one’s prescribed role in society shapes one’s identity; this self-reflection is evident in three of his novels, The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and Klara and the Sun. All three novels heavily rely on the point of view of a member of the subservient class, and this perspective provides insight into the unnamed hierarchies within society and the relationship, or lack thereof, between divided classes. Despite their similarities in structure, each novel explores class relationships in different ways. The Remains of the Day focuses on an individual living …

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 …

Navigating Identity Through Education In Literature And In The Classroom, Sofia Sakzlyan

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores the intricate relationship between education, identity formation, and oppression, drawing from psychosocial and sociocultural perspectives. I delve into how education serves as a critical arena where individuals encounter various internal psychological conflicts and external social influences that shape their sense of self. By analyzing the perspectives of writers such as Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Kate Chopin Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Erin Gruwell, the thesis seeks to answer how education impacts the self and how it intersects with systems of oppression. Furthermore, I explore the role of education in fostering critical consciousness and empowerment, particularly in the face …

Visibility In The Redacted Space: What Censored Poetry Reveals About Guantanamo Bay Prison And The Individuals Trapped Inside, Chase Portaro

English and Creative Writing Capstone Projects

This paper discusses what readers can understand about Guantanamo Bay and the larger setting of America's Islamophobic "War on Terror" through the poetry of individuals detained inside of Guantanamo Bay Military Prison. In 2002, Mark Falkoff, with the help of a team of lawyers, translators, and human rights advocates published a collection of twenty-two detainee-authored poems, titled Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak. This paper discusses the emerging neo-colonial subjectivity of America's War on Terror, as it analyzes the available writings of Guantanamo poets. The new language of subjectivity of victims of contemporary American empire is defined by suppression, as …

"Old Cod": The Power Of Storytelling In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir, Sarah Johnson

English (MA) Theses

This paper examines the representation of Irish storytelling in Conor McPherson’s 1997 play The Weir. Drawing on postcolonial theory as well as the historical context of Ireland during the play’s release, I argue that The Weir is uniquely positioned at the intersection of traditional and modern values. Further, I assert that fairy legend is a tool used by the play’s characters to both understand and escape a fluctuating cultural landscape, and ultimately, a way to articulate their own values. Using textual analysis, I examine the rhetorical choices of the play’s storytellers and compare it with established conventions of Irish …

Cloaked Trannies On The Silver Screen: "Evolutionary Derangement" And Cronenberg's Approach To Shaping A Critical Mindset Towards Trans Bodies, John David Hunter

All Theses

This thesis engages David Cronenberg’s 2022 film, Crimes of the Future, analyzing the text through the lens of Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensten) as a transgender allegory. Through this, the project investigates the way in which Cronenberg’s text visually creates a Deleuzian language of the body, which is the body of becoming. This queer analysis of the film does so by utilizing the perspective of the trans body, through the character of Tenser, which more clearly illustrates the human body as one which is in a continual process of evolution. Following in the footsteps of scholars such as Susan …

Creative Writing Pedagogy: Building Curriculum For High School Students, Elizabeth Lengel

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis serves as a rationale for the creative writing pedagogy I use and how it serves my high school creative writing class. As my school district made the decision to overhaul our English curriculum, the English department decided to add Creative Writing as an English class elective.

The work for planning these new classes was spread around the English Department, and I was assigned to design the curriculum for the new Creative Writing class. Designing an entire class from scratch leaves a lot of room for creativity and innovation. However, as excited for this new course as I was, …

Victim Or Villain: Female Resilience And Agency In The Face Of Trauma In Chimamanda Adichie’S, Purple Hibiscus (2003) And Tsitsi Dangarembga’S, Nervous Conditions (1988), Adaobi Juliet Chukwuma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As long as disparities persist in the way women are treated as compared to their male counterparts, the issue of gender will continue to call forth literary productions. For this reason, female writers are on a mission to dismantle the stereotypes that keep women confined to societal roles. Grounded in a feminist framework, this study focuses on the gender disparity theme in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The aim is to examine how these writers represent the trauma of women living in an African patriarchal system. The traumatic experiences of the female characters in both texts …

Anti-Thesis: When Your Worst Moments Become Your Best Work, Abigail Williamson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

My honors capstone project expands the creative work of a major writing assignment in English 3170: Successful Freelance Magazine Writing, which was modeled after Susan Shapiro’s “Humiliation Essay.” Shapiro’s signature assignment encourages students to write about an embarrassing or upsetting moment with the aim to force sincerity and humility. She writes, “It encourages students to shed vanity and pretension and relive an embarrassing moment that makes them look silly, fearful, fragile or naked.” The humiliation essay, she claims, often leads to publication because the conflict of the assignment inspires writers, and the narrator’s self-insight that occurs during the process of …

Eng101 Research Essay Using Oral History As A Primary Source, Jayashree Kamble

Open Educational Resources

This assignment was included as the research essay component in an introductory composition course. The topic was the impact of AI on their desired career or profession. Students were required to find four sources: a primary source with whom they conducted an oral history, and three secondary sources; one from social media, one from a reliable but not peer-reviewed source, and one peer-reviewed scholarly source. They had to submit the oral history transcript and incorporate data from it into the essay. At the end of the semester, they also had an option to do a dramatic reading of the oral …

Visions Of Our Future: A Manifesto For Environmentalist Cinema In The Climate Era, Daniel Milovic

Honors Scholar Theses

Environmentalism has strengthened as a discipline during the climate era, a period defined by the ongoing effects of climate change, and it is time for a fully environmental activist cinema to emerge. This type of filmmaking must be committed to generating images of our future along a utopian or apocalyptic continuum. This approach allows filmmakers to maintain the gravity of the climate crisis while generating inspiring, alternative futures that are not tied to the current global culture of capitalist exploitation of natural resources and marginalized peoples. Environmentalist filmmakers must then articulate climate change as a cultural issue—one that is produced …

Exploring Trauma In The Writing Of Incarcerated Women, Madeline Hagedorn

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project examines memoirs and short narrative pieces written by incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women, specifically focusing on trauma experienced before incarceration. Through analysis of one anthology and two memoirs, this project addresses how writing can facilitate healing in justice-impacted women who have experienced physical and/or sexual trauma, looking at writing conducted inside or outside of the prison environment and writing conducted in a prison writing group or alone. Analysis of these three texts shows that writing, regardless of the environment conducted, can facilitate healing in incarcerated women who have experienced past trauma. The literary techniques employed by the authors …

Fantastical Fate: Contemporary Works Depicting Enlil, Daylen Motamed, Marissa Becher

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

It is known that the creation of Gods is prevalent, and almost essential to worldbuilding in fantasy novels. Some examples are the dwarves' Durin in Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings and Djel of the Fjerdans in Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse novels. However, there is one popular god present in many modern fantasy series; the God of fate. In Ancient Mesopotamia, a God of fate was named Enlil. Enlil is known as the king of all Gods, as well as the God of wind and air. He decrees the fates and his word cannot be changed, as Enlil guards the tablets …

"My Hideous Progeny": Complicating Preconceived Notions Of Monstrous Beings In "Frankenstein" And "Jurassic Park", Megan Engstrom

English

This project examines and complicates preconceived notions of the monstrous in Frankenstein and Jurassic Park. By engaging with monster theory, I interrogate how the creators are destructive beings and their creations are only trying to fit into their made bodies. I also complicate the ideas of family when interacting with monsters or monstrous places – specifically looking at how isolation/creation of them will affect people. These ideas are questioned to confront a normalized perception of monsters as the villains. By examining the monstrous in Frankenstein and Jurassic Park, I am questioning the very idea of how a monster is created …

Epistolary Glossopoesis Tolkien’S Letter Writing And Language Invention, Andrew Higgins

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper was given when I was the Guest Speaker at The Annual Meeting of the UK Tolkien Society on 13 April 2024.

0887: Gwenyth E. Hood Collection, 1889-2023, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

Gwenyth Elise Hood was born on December 10, 1955, to Thomas Arthur Hood and Marion Louise Snee Hood in White Plains, NY, but moved with her family to Brandon, Vermont at the age of seven. She developed a love of reading and writing at an early age, discovering some favorite authors—Rudyard Kipling, Shakespeare, and J.R.R. Tolkien—at roughly the same time, in early adolescence. Then came Dante. Dante drew her to learn Latin and Italian; she had already started on French due to family heritage and the availability of the language in High School. In 1979 she won a University of …