English Language and Literature Commons^™

Mrs. Blackbird And The Visiting Chair, Taylor Barnhart

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The following thesis is a middle grade novel exploring the events of one summer in the lives of two siblings, Susannah and Sawyer. The siblings are grieving the recent death of their mother and, at the same time, attempting to navigate the emotional withdrawal of their father. During the summer, the siblings get to know their eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Blackbird, who communicates with the spirit of her dead husband through an old armchair which is rumored to have magical powers. The novel deals primarily with the theme of grief and its pervasive nature in people’s lives. The story looks at …

Invisible Monsters: Chuck Palahniuk’S Transgressive Look At A Hyperrealized Society, Jordan R. Trevarthen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

By critically analyzing Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters, I was able to conclude that the transgressive portrayal of hyperrealized consumerism warranted a close examination into the value American society places on an individual’s ability to replace authenticity for consumer obedience. Palahniuk’s dangerous representation of the body throughout the novel serves to highlight numerous ways in which a consumer transgresses against their own physical and mental well-being to achieve happiness constructed by capitalistic agendas. By using French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality in connection with gender, disability, and feminist theory and ecocriticism, I attempt to deconstruct the neoliberal ideology to which …

"An Infinite Advantage": A Kierkegaardian Analysis Of Anxiety And Despair In Post-War American Literature, Jeremiah Davis

Dissertations and Theses

“An Infinite Advantage”: A Kierkegaardian Analysis of Anxiety and Despair in Post-War American Literature uses a theistically informed existentialist lens to examine issues of selfhood as depicted in American literature from the mid-twentieth century. During this period in America, the changing nature of religious worship led to an uncertain understanding of what it meant to be an individual. With examinations of characters from five novels published in the period, I explore how Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy can help us better understand how Christian authors from the period attempted to define what makes up a self and how a self is to …

Negotiating Scientific Identity And Agency: Graduate Student Perspectives On A Public Communication Of Science Course, Lillian Campbell

English Faculty Research and Publications

Drawing on interviews with nine graduate science students, this article explores perspectives on a Public Communication of Science (PCS) course designed to help students translate their research for a public talk given at a local town hall. I first outline the history of the student-run course and then discuss three course components—public rhetoric of science; improvisation; and audience awareness. Within each component, I describe one student’s particular experience with the course. I describe how students transferred rhetorical lessons from the course to their academic writing but could also transfer rigid views of communication from their scientific work back into their …

Deadly Emotions: The Argument For Tempered Feeling In British And American Literature Of Sentiment, Miranda Anne Liebsack

Dissertations and Theses

This project focuses on late eighteenth-century literature of sentiment, specifically examining the man and woman of feeling characters in The Adventures of David Simple (1744) and Volume the Last (1753), both written by Sarah Fielding, The Man of Feeling (1771), written by Henry Mackenzie, The Power of Sympathy (1789) by William Hill Brown, and The Coquette (1797), by Hannah Webster Foster. I use the following terms to analyze these texts: sensibility functions as the ability to feel great emotion, emotionally and physically; sympathy is the ability to connect with another with emotions, and sentiment is tempered emotion based in morality …

Trauma And The American Dream: Frictions Of The Dominant Fiction In Steinbeck And Smith, Mary Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

This project focuses on how John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1952) and Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) portray individuals’ interaction with the dominant fiction of the American Dream. At the time of these novels’ publication, the ideology of the American Dream was a prominent feature of America’s culture, encouraging individuals that success is possible if they work hard enough. Steinbeck and Smith challenge this concept as their novels depict scenarios which thwart individual’s opportunities at success and characters whose hard work goes unnoticed. Specifically, I explore how the trauma and adversities characters experience in childhood and adolescence …

The Victorian Crisis Of Faith: Uncertainty, Pessimism, Morality, And Monsters. A Look At Nineteenth-Century British Gothic Horror And The Unassailable Unknown, Jay Schroeder

Dissertations and Theses

This work investigates how Gothic narratives employed negative aesthetics, monstrous bodies, exploded meaning, and an unshakable mood of uncertainty to explore rising fears of dwindling morality and impending human doom during the long nineteenth century. Using Eugene Thacker’s cosmic pessimism, Sianne Ngai’s concept of tone, and Stephen Greenblatt’s theories of resonance and wonder, combined with monster theory, Gothic criticism, biological studies of fear, and nineteenth-century studies in medicine, science, and literature, I investigate how these texts constructed monstrous bodies to create an atmosphere of fear that reflected a culture of pessimism and a crisis of faith to contend, albeit unsuccessfully, …

Things Left Behind, Aqeel Ahmad

Dissertations and Theses

Things Left Behind is the story of a family in a small town in Pakistan where both the town and the family are transitioning between their traditional ways of living and Modernity coming from outside the town. Through its various characters, the narrative unfolds the struggles of facing challenges put by technology and colonial projects. The characters long for the safety and familiarity of their rural and traditional backgrounds while becoming part of an urban and modern milieu, creating a conflict. The arrival of Modernity takes place at the cost of the rearrangement and modification of the traditional and familiar …

Yellow, Ella Deutchman

English Honors Projects

Potent power and vitality reside in our connection to the Earth, music, ourselves, and each other. Drawing inspiration from the raw, coming-of-age albums Blue by Joni Mitchell, and Red (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift, ecofeminism, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the multi-genre anthology “Yellow” aims to make manifest the vibrancy intrinsic in deep attention and attunement to our emotions, the natural world, those whom we love, and exaltation of sadness and longing as vital to our aliveness. Its poems and creative nonfiction attempt to articulate and dance in the golden hour light of coming of age and feeling it all.

Indigenous And Western Sciences In Carlos Hernandez's The Assimilated Cuban's Guide To Quantum Santeria, Joy Sanchez-Taylor

Publications and Research

This chapter examines Carlos Hernandez’s The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria as an example of how authors of alternative futurisms can draw on Indigenous knowledge to destabilize Eurowestern perceptions that Western science is more modern and rational than Indigenous knowledge. Joy Sanchez-Taylor argues that Hernandez combines references to Santería and quantum physics to demonstrate parallels between Indigenous knowledge and Eurowestern “rational” science. Ultimately, references in Quantum Santeria to ideas of spiritual healing and nonlinear time demonstrate how authors like Hernandez are working to restore Biskaabiiyang, or a return to self, within science fiction.

The Utah English Journal, Volume 51, 2023: Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Best Practices In Online Course Design That Help Eliminate Learning Fatigue, Valarie Anderson O'Bryan

The Utah English Journal

Even though students have returned to learning in-person in schools, many districts require teachers to maintain an online course (usually using Canvas). When teachers use best practices when designing online learning content, students are less likely to experience frustration and learning fatigue.

Combatting The Inevitable: Reflective Writing In Response To Student Struggles, Kaylee Smedley

The Utah English Journal

'Teachers and students, we need all of you to immediately go into lockdown procedures. Again, please begin lockdown procedures."

That announcement had interrupted our freshman English class nearly two hours earlier, and yet the only updates we had were frantic texts and social media updates from friends and family members regarding a report of someone with a weapon on Provo High's campus. As I huddled in the book corner surrounded by my fifth period class, a million different thoughts rushed through my head. More than fear, all I could think about were the logistics. What if the culprit came to …

Voices With Power: Writing To Effect Change In 8th Grade, Emily Brown

The Utah English Journal

"Slow walkers."

"Seniors crowding the hallways."

"When teachers write crookedly on the board."

The minute I read the writing prompt for the day-"What is one of your biggest pet peeves?"-the response from my 8th graders is electrifying and instantaneous. Responses like the ones above begin flying around the room, and I have to loudly remind them, "Write first, share second!" because everyone is immediately ready to rant. I call this my Soapbox Day. It's a day where I make sure to devote enough time for students to write substantial responses and then "get on their soapboxes" to share these rants. …

Teach Me The Language Of The Bear, Rachel Stanger

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Aristotle And Dante Dive Into The Waters Of The World, Corinne Downs

The Utah English Journal

Saenz has intimately captured the somber beauty that is shedding childhood off and stepping into the paths of adulthood. In his sequel Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, readers find themselves continuing on in Dante's journey. This shy, quiet, and recluse character continues to find himself through moments of ecstasy and grief throughout his senior year of high school.

Book Review: From A Whisper To A Rallying Cry: The Killing Of Vincent Chin And The Trial That Galvanized The Asian American Movement, Krista Hong Edwards

The Utah English Journal

Part historical investigation, part modern-day reflection on identity, and part court drama, Paula Yoo's From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry takes the reader through a rather unknown, yet incredibly important moment in American history. Recognizing that several individuals in this story live in 2022, she sensitively examines the 1982 case of Vincent Chin: a Chinese-American man who was violently killed mere days before his wedding. Vincent was celebrating his bachelor party at a gentlemen's club when the night turned violent and volatile, and two white men employed at an automobile plant pursued Vincent across town to beat him to …

Book Review: The Legend Of Auntie Po, Katy Bigham

The Utah English Journal

Mei is an average thirteen-year-old Chinese-American girl. She loves spending time with her best friend, Bee ( whom she also is developing budding romantic feelings for); baking pie with her father; and dreaming of attending a university somewhere far from home. She tells fascinating stories that leave the neighborhood children enraptured and helps her dad at work however she can. But Mei lives in a Sierra Nevada logging camp in 1885, which makes her life dramatically more complicated.

Book Review: Tokyo Ever After, Grace Houston

The Utah English Journal

Izumi Tanaka goes by "Izzy" - not because she prefers it, as she claims, but because it's easier in her small town in northern California. She and her three best friends are the only Asian-American girls at their school. Together they face the struggles of being Asian-American in a mostly white small town. That is, until a discovery changes Izumi's entire world.

Book Review: A Teacher's Guide To Writing Workshop Minilessons, Belinda 'Ofakihevahanoa Fotu

The Utah English Journal

Eickholdt and Vitale-Reilly's A Teacher's Guide to Writing Workshop Minilessons is a 125 page writing instructor's manual marketed for teachers of k-8 grades. Colors regale the broad cover and every page throughout, with pages sometimes devoted just to one large blocked quote and pictures of writing carpets and writers' cubbies. Every visual and tactile indicator of this book impresses the reader that this is a text meant for teachers of small children; even so, A Teacher's Guide to Writing Workshop Minilessons is a manual of writing techniques applicable to any level of writing.