English Language and Literature Commons^™

Reviews, Joe R. Christopher, Janet Brennan Croft, Jason Fisher, Priscilla Hobbs, Emily A. Moniz, David D. Oberhelman, Harley J. Sims

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits. Dimitra Fimi. Reviewed by Jason Fisher.

Charles Williams and his Contemporaries. Suzanne Bray and Richard Sturch, eds. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher.

In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. Arika Okrent. Reviewed by Harley J. Sims.

Millennial Mythmaking: Essays on the Power of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Films and Games. John Perlich & David Whitt, eds. Reviewed by Priscilla Hobbs

Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien. Bradford Lee Eden, ed. Reviewed by …

Dwarves, Spiders, And Murky Woods: J.R.R. Tolkien's Wonderful Web Of Words, Jason Fisher

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

An engaging linguistic study of the Mirkwood episode in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which the author uses as a typical example of the depth and interwoven complexity of the author’s linguistic invention. Touches on the linguistic features of a number of real and invented words and concepts relating to spiders, poison, and dwarves.

Myth-Remaking In The Shadow Of Vergil: The Captive(-Ated) Voice Of Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavina, T. S. Miller

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s not-exactly-historical novel Lavinia, which combines her thematic interest in the feminine voice and experience with postmodern and existential concerns about authorship, textuality, and the collaboration between author and reader (and author and character)—resulting, as always with Le Guin, in something rich, deep, and difficult to classify. Explores how Le Guin adapted the original sources to create a novel from the female character’s point of view.

Corrupting Beauty: Rape Narrative In The Silmarillion, Lynn Whitaker

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Describes the themes and traditions Tolkien was drawing on as a storyteller in the tales of Aredhel and Lúthien, but more importantly, examines the theological implications suggested by his depictions of the women in these stories and how these “rape narratives” serve to underscore the sacredness of the created world in Tolkien’s legendarium.

Master Of Doom By Doom Mastered: Heroism, Fate, And Death In The Children Of Húrin, Jesse Mitchell

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

This extensive study of Túrin Turambar uses two frameworks to examine his character and story: that of the Byronic Hero (with a side glance at the Gothic Villain in order to differentiate the two), and that of the Absurd Hero, exemplified by Camus’s Sisyphus.

The Thread On Which Doom Hangs: Free Will, Disobedience, And Eucatastrophe In Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Scholar Guest of Honor speech, Mythcon 41. Reviews theological concepts underlying the ideas of war in heaven and free will and, touching briefly on Stanley Milgram’s experiments in obedience along the way, examines various examples of disobedience in Tolkien’s legendarium, their consequences, and their ultimate subservience to the eucatastrophic fate of Arda.

Simbelmynë: Mortality And Memory In Middle-Earth, William H. Stoddard

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Elegiac contemplation of the function of memory in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, and the complex intersections of memory, loss, immortality, consolation, and creativity made flesh in Tolkien’s depictions of the races of Elves and Men and their interactions.

Germanic Fate And Doom In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, Richard J. Whitt

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

The roots of Tolkien’s concepts in early Germanic understandings of the ideas of fate and doom are the subject of Whitt’s essay. Examines how these initially pagan notions were subsumed into the Christian idea of divine providence, and most notably blended together in the Old English Beowulf and Old Saxon Heliand, to provide a basis for understanding how even the Valar are subject to time and the fate decreed by Ilúvatar.

Announcements, The Council Of Stewards

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

The Alexei Kondratiev Award for the Best Student Paper Presented at Mythcon

The Company They Didn't Keep: Collaborative Women In The Letters Of C.S. Lewis, Sam Mcbride

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Building on the work of Diana Pavlac Glyer to establish a framework and set of terms for understanding the collaborative nature of the Inklings, McBride takes us outside their exclusively masculine circle to look at women who influenced Lewis’s writing. His study introduces us to women who served Lewis as, in Glyer’s terms, Resonators, Opponents, Conductors, and so on, from anonymous fans to well-known names like Pitter and Sayers.

Canadian Culture And Literatures. And A Taiwan Perspective, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek, Yiu-Nam Leung

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Transqueer Representations And How We Educate, Kay Siebler

English Faculty Publications

This article examines the representations of transqueers (specifically female to male transsexuals) in popular media and how these representations shape attitudes of transqueers both with those outside the LBGT community and those within the community. The article discusses how these cultural images of FTM transqueers imply that being accepted often means surgery and hormones in order to “pass” as male, and it challenges educators to work more overtly and diligently to educate toward critical consciousness regarding the sex/gender system and the rigidity of the binary that removes transgendered people as nonentities. The article offers an argument about how to approach …

The Imsa-Sf Paradigm: Why It’S All The Same To Me, Sarah Weitekamp '11

2010 Fall Semester

On what must have been my third or fourth day of IMSA, I remember an upperclassman asking me, “You’ve read Ender’s Game, right? You have to read that book—everyone at IMSA does.” I had, in fact, read the book, and I immediately felt relieved. I felt had passed my first test at IMSA, plus I was geeked to learn that my taste in books wasn’t out of place here. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. IMSA is overflowing with science fiction fans of all varieties—we are a nerd school after all, even if the Admissions Office disapproves of my …

Scientific Speculators: Imsa As Training Ground For Science Fiction Readers, Lisa Akintilo '11

2010 Fall Semester

Science fiction (SF) is one of the world’s fastest-growing literary genres. Created as a separation from traditional writing styles, it challenges its followers to question the framework of societies across the globe. One would think that such a genre would allow people of all different ages, shapes, and sizes to enjoy its distinctive novels, but this is not the case. Readers of SF must be inquisitive, opinionated, and confident; in other words, be extremely similar to a student at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. IMSA’s belief statements and learning standards perfectly align with editor David Hartwell’s description of an …

Vamping Up Sex: Audience, Age, & Portrayals Of Sexuality In Vampire Narratives, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Far From The Truth: Teaching The Politics Of Sojourner Truth's “Ain't I A Woman?”, Kay Siebler

English Faculty Publications

If there is a canon of American women’s rhetoric, Sojourner Truth’s speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” is a central text in that collection. Truth’s “Ain’t/Aren’t I a Woman?” speech is included regularly in anthologies of women’s literature, anthologies of women’s rhetoric, and textbooks on history and women’s studies throughout all levels of the curriculum. The version of Truth’s speech that is typically anthologized, transcribed by Frances Gage twelve years after Truth delivered it, communicates an intentionally feminist message.

The Schizophrenic Solution: Dialectics Of Neurosis And Anti-Psychiatric Animus In Ralph Ellison’S Invisible Man, J. Bradford Campbell

English

This essay argues that Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952)provides promising ground and a certain imperative to investigatethe underexamined intersections between literature and the historyof psychiatry. Especially where African American literatureis concerned, there has been a general reluctance to approachthese categories together, even while anecdotally history recordsnumerous engagements between the two. Ellison, for example,worked closely with Richard Wright and Dr. Fredric Wertham toestablish Harlem's LaFargue Clinic, the first and, in its time,only such institution committed to providing modern psychiatricservices to any and all who needed them. Ellison found in theclinic's practices a model of social psychiatry that did muchto address the …

The Chinese In Bret Harte’S Overland: A Context For Truthful James, Tara Penry

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

For the first two years of its existence, the Overland displayed at least as much interest in Chinese culture as in any other single subject, if we can judge from the quantity of articles devoted to the topic. In the magazine's first twenty-four numbers, under the editorial guidance of Harte himself, fifteen substantial articles were published on the language, folkways, and industries of the Chinese or on political questions concerning their presence in California. By the time that Harte's "Plain Language" appeared in volume five, the magazine and its contributors seem to have exhausted what they had to say about …

Political Satire And British-American Relations In Five Decades Of Doctor Who, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

“Political Satire and British-American Relations in Five Decades of Doctor Who.”

Originally published in the Journal of Popular Culture. Vol. 43, Issue 5. 964 – 987. October 2010

To see more or purchase works by Marc DiPaolo, visit his Amazon page here: https://www.amazon.com/Marc-DiPaolo/e/B004LV7W6Y%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Harriet Ritvo, The Dawn Of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, And Modern Environmentalism, James C. Mckusick

English Faculty Publications

A Review by James C. McKusick. In The Dawn of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and Modern Environmentalism, Harriet Ritvo describes how Thirlmere became a site of major conflict between the forces of industrial progress and the advocates of natural preservation.