English Language and Literature Commons^™

On The Instability Of Disciplinary Style: Common And Conflicting Metaphors And Practices In Text, Talk, And Gesture, Andrea R. Olinger

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This article explores how three writers in ecology understand and enact a disciplinary writing style. To accomplish this, it draws on theoretical approaches to style from sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, as well as analyses of drafts of coauthored texts and video-recorded literacy history and discourse-based interviews. This study finds that metaphor and embodied actions such as gestures are valuable sites for comparing writers’ stylistic understandings and practices. The three writers expressed broad agreement when describing the qualities of good scientific writing, using similar verbal and gestural metaphors, such as Communication as Journey and entailments of the Conduit Metaphor. Yet in …

Gaines's Preachers And Their People: Personalism, Community, And Social Action In A Lesson Before Dying, In My Father's House, And A Gathering Of Old Men, Brooke Light

Masters Theses

Personalist theology, along with Ernest J. Gaines's fiction, resists the idea of isolation and instead highlights the importance of the communal good, criticizing social and religious institutions that fail to uphold the value of human dignity and community. In "Personalism and Traditional Afrikan Thought," Burrow argues that "the church exists for the person and not the other way around" (347) and that churches should be judged and evaluated on the extent to which they meet the needs of the community. Representing their churches, the preachers in three of Gaines's novels (A Lesson Before Dying, In My Father's House, and A …

Flock, Erin K. Schulz

English Honors Projects

Fourteen-year-old Gracie Corbin has the power to fix up sheep, but she can’t fix the farm’s finances, make the bullies at school leave her alone, or pass her classes. When someone sabotages her sheep, she decides it’s up to her to fix things. She teams up with her neighbor Jordan, a basketball player who moved next door from the Spokane Indian reservation, and the two of them face bullies, bank managers, and their own biases as they track down the saboteur. Flock explores bullying on the basis of socioeconomic class, the challenges of defending what you love, and racial tension …

Scientism, Satire, And Sacrificial Ceremony In Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground" And C.S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength", Jonathan Smalt

Masters Theses

Though the nineteenth-century Victorian belief that science alone could provide utopia for man weakened in the epistemological uncertainty of the postmodern era, this belief still continues today. In order to understand our current scientific milieu--and the dangers of propagating scientism--we must first trace the rise of scientism in the nineteenth-century. Though removed, Fyodor Dostoevsky, in Notes From Underground (1864), and C.S. Lewis, in That Hideous Strength (1965), are united in their critiques of scientism as a conceptual framework for human residency. For Dostoevsky, the Crystal Palace of London's Great Exhibition (1862) embodied the nineteenth-century goal to found utopia through the …

Poem No.111, May 2014, Huntsville Literary Association (Huntsvile, Ala.)

POEM

The Huntsville Literary Association was founded in 1967 to provide a community for writers, readers, and artists through workshops, readings, and educational programs. One of their key contributions is the literary magazine titled POEM which showcases original writings from both established and emerging writers. This issue features poems from various writers.

On The River’S Surface, Ashten Landry

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Honors Student Wins Competitive Scholarship, Becky St. Clair

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

The Fallacy Of Cultural Authenticity: The Simulacra And Cultural Appropriation In The Free Market Through The Lens Of Literature, Christopher Amuzzini

Master’s Theses and Projects

I. The Individual’s Pursuit of Cultural Authenticity: Music and Materialism in E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime and Nella Larsen’s Quicksand

II. ‘Buying’ Into Culture: The Effect of Commoditization on the Cultural Artifact in Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House

III. Selling Experience: The Fallacy of Memory & Influence of Late Capitalism on the Cultural Experience in Julian Barnes’ England, England

Visions Of Terror : Reconstructing Literature Through 9/11 Texts, Jennifer Michelle Agens

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The shift in communication since the turn of the century necessitates an understanding of visual rhetoric. Critics claim that verbal communication is more effective than using images to communicate ideas. However, visual rhetoricians argue that images appeal to the reader’s emotions, thus making an immediate, truthful, and powerful impact. The purpose of my research is to examine the functionality of visual rhetoric and to determine how this field enhances 21 st century communication. In consideration of how visual rhetoric has shaped literature since the turn of the century, I have concluded that the September 11th terrorist attacks have made an …

Optical Misperception And Shakespearean Drama, Lisa Marie Castelluber

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Shakespeare’s appropriation of the scientific advancements of his contemporaries illuminates the interconnectivity of Renaissance science and literature. Heightened cultural interest in sensory deceptions, in particular deception of the sense of sight, frequently occurs in Shakespearean drama. The influence of optical inventions created a new perspective on an audience’s sensory limitations. The limits of human sight as accurate access to the truth were stretched with anamorphic art. Optics as a scientific field dates back to the ancient Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, but when the Renaissance spread across southern Europe, humanism revisited this theory. This thesis will show the trajectory of this …

More Than A Jester : Dorothy Parker's Use Of The Popular Magazine Market For Social Criticism, Megan Dempsey

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The re-evaluation of texts written by women from newer critical perspectives has allowed for more nuanced critical analyses of Dorothy Parker’s writing compared to the earliest commentaries which often conflated her biography with her literature or focused on her humor without acknowledging the underlying social criticism. This thesis is one such analysis, examining how Parker used the popular magazine market as a venue for publishing short stories that criticized class inequity, racism, and gender norms in the middle and upper classes during the first decades of the twentieth century. The content within popular magazines created an image of the ideal …

In Our Defense : Sheridan's The Camp, The Glorious First Of June, Pizarro And The Fate Of The British Nation In Late Eighteenth-Century England, Patricia Mari Valatka

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this thesis, I examine Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays The Camp (1778), and The Glorious First o f June (1794), and Pizarro (1799), and how they dealt with the British invasion crisis of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I investigate how Sheridan’s theatrical works confronted and presented British fears of national/racial annihilation and in turn how society used these plays to understand them. In particular, I want to consider the ways Sheridan’s works attempted to influence the audience members’ feelings about participating in the military to defend the British nation. Although Sheridan’s play Pizarro is often examined in …

'Tis Murder's Best Face When A Vizard's On, Lauren Vezina

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Theater as an art form demands disguise for many reasons. It allows a character to act in uncharacteristic ways against society’s customs and expectations. It frees the user from society’s rules as well as his own sense of morality; nonetheless, it also restricts the wearer to certain behaviors and actions. This dichotomy is reflected in how the masked character is free to act outside of the law but is still its subject in the end. Disguise allows a character freedom from social obligations but he is still responsible and punished for his actions by the end of the play. Although …

Eyes Under The Stairs : The Influence Of The Panopticon On The Master-Servant Relationship In Edith Wharton’S Ghost Stories And Henry James’S The Turn O F The Screw, Alisha Lore

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between the master and the servant in Edith Wharton’s ghost stories and Henry James’s The Turn o f the Screw. I have used the theory of Michel Foucault’s Panopticon to investigate how the idea of being watched and observed can influence the behavior of both the master and servant and how this impacts their relationships. In Wharton’s ghost stories, I argue that she is opening a discussion on the ruling class versus the serving class and how societal pressures influence and often control these relationships, or, in many cases, imagined …

Modern Female Tricksters : Satirists Or Satiric Objects?, Shawn Mcdonald

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The trickster figure is an archetypal character that can be found in the oral traditions of Native Americans, Greek and Roman mythologies and stories from Polynesia, Africa, the Bible, African American tradition and even in modem literature. This essay examines the female protagonists of Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm as ideal prototypes of tricksters. In Loos’ story, Lorelei jet sets around Europe tricking men into buying her diamonds and offering up engagement proposals throughout her journey. In Gibbons’ story, Flora leaves her sophisticated urban world to enter another more primitive rural one in which …

Free Schools And Self-Efficacy Beliefs : Research For An Alternative, Vanessa Phillips

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this study, I interviewed 3 graduates from Kino School, a small, private, alternative school, about their experiences with writing before, during, and after graduation in order to determine how alternative education impacted their writing self-efficacy beliefs. Kino School embraces many of the tenets of free school philosophy, which is centered on democratic learning, self-sufficiency, and student choice. This study explores how free school philosophy impacted these graduates' writing and attitudes toward writing. All three graduates described an overall experience at Kino that left them confident in their writing, expressing high writing self-efficacy beliefs. Kino School's use of creative writing, …

The Struggle To Utopia : Social Reform, Accumulation, And Transformation In Howards End, Danielle Marie Rettino

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End explores transitions within early twentieth century London society’s morals, values, and class divisions. I track the progression from excess and affluence to rural, pastoral simplification within the characters’ lives and lifestyles. The first chapter examines class relations and social expectations, including a focus on consumerism, accumulation, and inheritance. Character and critics discussions in reference to class, poverty, and accumulation are reviewed. The second chapter connects Howards End to utopian communes, the dystopian society in Forster s The Machine Stops,” and examines Howards End as a site for a potential utopia. Howards End as a …

The Black And The Blue: Comedy, Laughter, And Deformity In Ellison’S Invisible Man, Olivia Grace Popiel

English

In Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, comedy plays an important yet convoluted role. In his own rendering of the Blues Aesthetic, Ellison is able to present laughter and humor as a healthy and natural reaction to painful and distressing events. The significance of this technique, which builds upon double consciousness , is evident in Ellison’s many essays, where he suggests that laughter may be the only way for America to accept the crude reality of its foundations and move forward. In my thesis, I differentiate between four general types of comedy found in Invisible Man. These can be summarized as …

The Sanity Of Furor Poeticus: Romanticism’S Demystification Of Madness And Creativity, Joseph Meringolo

English

Art and medicine have historically exchanged axioms for understanding mental illness, negotiating a lexicon with which afflicted artists can articulate their experience. This exchange, however, has been problematic. The mentally ill have had to conform to explanatory paradigms that are often inadequate, and cultural mores stemming from the scientific misunderstanding of “madness” have often stigmatized mental illness. These include misconceptions about the source of creative genius as residing in either the divine or the unconscious, the cultural fashioning of the “mad poet” identity, and the idealization of certain types of mental illness as “artistically valuable.” This study will show, however, …

Ideology And Subversion: Linguistic Registers In Barbara Kingsolver’S The Poisonwood Bible, Natalie Wallace

English

Effective colonial regimes have employed language to control and incapacitate their colonial subjects. However, anti-colonialist and Africanist authors have conversely used language as a significantly powerful tool in resisting colonial and neo-colonial discourses. Despite this subversive sentiment in contemporary literature about Africa, many scholars criticize Western authors, in particular, for their works about African nations, peoples, and struggles, noting their tendencies to generalize about a diverse continent, to project Western paradigms onto African contexts, and to disregard their own associations with colonial governments. Barbara Kingsolver’s 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible has received much critical attention as a work that deplores …