English Language and Literature Commons^™

"The Most Precious Of All Things Is Life Itself – Ultimate Cost For Perfect Value”: The Alien And The Struggle Of Life And Death In Starship Troopers, Christopher J V Loughlin

Mythcon

This paper will consider Hegelian and post-Hegelian discussion of the struggle of life and death in relationship to Starship Troopers. Robert Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers in 1959 and it has been interpreted as a right-wing, “fascist,” and Greco- Roman-inspired discussion of citizen-soldiership. At the centre of Heinlein’s work lies an explicit political and civil morality: there are many human bodies, but only some that have earned full political citizenship by staking their life in military service. But what significance does the Other have in Heinlein’s book? Why is the Other destroyed, occupied, alienated? How does this struggle form the basis …

Encanto Discussion, Berni Phillips Bratman, Lynn Maudlin

Mythcon

No abstract provided.

The Space Alien As A Multitude In Latinx Science Fiction, Matthew Goodwin

Mythcon

One of the central claims of my book The Latinx Files: Race, Migration, and Space Aliens, is that the cultural figure of the space alien is more fruitfully conceived of as a Multitude rather than an Other. The space alien framed as Other may be helpful in critiquing Anglo-American works of science fiction, but it is less useful when it comes to the space alien in Latinx science fiction. This essay will examine a number of works of Latinx science fiction to draw out the details of this claim. I will begin by pointing to the multiplicity of allegories and …

Scholar Goh David Bratman Speech, David Bratman

Mythcon

Scholar Guest of Honor David Bratman gives his speech during the opening ceremonies of Mythcon 52 in Albuquerque, New Mexico on July 30th, 2022.

A section of frozen video and no audio was removed from the recording at 0:30:53 of about 30 seconds.

Graduation Ceremonies, Leslie Donovan, Bruce Leonard

Mythcon

Due to the pandemic, many students around the world did not get to attend their own respective graduation ceremonies. MythSoc provided those present a chance to have a real graduation amongst fellows and peers.

Welcome To Mythcon!, Megan Abrahamson, Leslie Donovan

Mythcon

Mythcon 52 Opening Ceremonies presented by Megan Abrahamson and Leslie Donovan.

"The Rings Of Power" Book Club (Part 2): Open Discussion On ‘The Peoples Of Middle-Earth: Tar-Elmar', Tim Lenz, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Grace Moone, Pablo Guss

Mythcon

Participate in or spectate a hybrid in-person/online MythCon edition of ‘The Rings of Power Book Club,’ where we discuss excerpts from Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, and how they could relate to the upcoming Amazon streaming series. We will be discussing the following passage: The History of Middle-earth XII: The Peoples of Middle-earth: Tar-Elmar (422-427).

"The Rings Of Power" Book Club (Part 1): Seduction, Knowledge, And Metallurgy In The Second Age Of Middle-Earth, Tim Lenz, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Grace Moon, Pablo Guss

Mythcon

The upcoming Amazon-produced streaming series The Rings of Power represents the most expensive adaptation of Tolkien’s Middle-earth to date, and will explore the Second Age, of which Tolkien wrote relatively little. This adaptation has generated massive buzz, both positive and negative, prior to its airing, often centered around issues of race, gender, and diversity. Over the past 5 months, a group of Mythies have gathered periodically on the Mythopoeic Society’s Discord server to pore over Tolkien’s meager writings about the Second Age, and how this material could be adapted into a live action streaming series. We will revisit some of …

'Long Dark Hair In Great Plaits Braided With Gold': Black Fingon And Racebending In Transformative Tolkien Fanworks, Megan Abrahamson, Maria K. Alberto

Mythcon

Tolkien fandom has often pointed to “diversity” in Middle-earth, but this term has long been limited to dwarves and elves and hobbits coexisting. The vast majority of fan art produced of Tolkien’s works in the past 75 years has featured fictional races all with fair skin and white features. That seemed to change on Tumblr in 2013, when fans created fan art and edits that cast Black model Cykeem White as the “face claim” for Fingon the Valiant, the Elven prince who becomes High King of the Noldor in Beleriand. The selection became relatively popular on the platform, picking up …

"The Personal Is The Political And The Political Is Personal:" Engendering Understanding Through Global Allegory In Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist And Exit West, Nicole Ordonez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West by British-Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid. In both novels, Hamid uses the representational literary device of allegory to present what I will frame as works of “global allegory,” or novels of global literature that present the world as one interconnected space rather than as one divided by borders and nations. In doing so, I will be situating my argument as a rebuttal of Frederic Jameson’s “Third World Literature in the Age of Multinational Capitalism.” Jameson draws a distinction between works of third world and first world literature along the lines of allegory. …

Pride And Prejudice: A Modern, Queer Retelling For The Stage, Kate Isabel Foley

Theater Summer Fellows

In the course of studying LGBTQ topics in a queer drama class, I noticed that there was a glaring omission in our readings: the “B.” However, this lack of bisexual representation wasn’t due to a poor syllabus, but to a dismaying lack of bisexual representation in theatre as a whole. This observation, as well as my own experience as a bisexual woman, motivated me to use my love of writing and theatre to fill the void. After performing in Pride and Prejudice at Ursinus, I knew that Jane Austen’s story was the key to me bringing visibility to an underserved, …

Queer Horror, Laura Westengard

Publications and Research

This chapter examines the queer Gothicism of American horror to consider the ways in which marginalized genders and sexualities have been either condemned or covertly endorsed through horror’s textual and visual mediums. In mainstream cis-heteronormative society, queer genders and sexualities have been an abjectified, “horrific” presence, and these mainstream investments represented via horror, as a mode of expression devoted to irruptions of the body, means that the presence of queerness is often registered as an a priori spoliation of bodily norms. Like the term “queer” itself, audiences have often reappropriated the Gothic figures that appear in horror, and some queer …

Mini Memoirs: Poetry As A Medium For Memories, Liesl Anna Counterman

Masters Theses

For the critical paper, I explore the use of poetry as a form of memoir. Over the years, I have journaled by writing poetry, and for the purpose of this paper, I have studied the marriage of poetry and memoir. My critical paper research has directed me towards how memoirists (including autobiographers and biographers of the past) have used poetry in their writings and how the truth about the past is verified and enhanced by poetic works. Poetry seems to be a vehicle of preserving truth, thus proving the veracity of the emotions and experiences within a historical context. Since …

_Not That Bad_: Lessons Women Learn In A Rape Culture, Sydney J. Selman

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

In 2018, Roxane Gay assembled an anthology that addresses the severity of rape, rejecting the common belief that some sexually violent acts, compared to others, are not that bad. This collection, titled Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, compiles pieces from thirty different authors and sheds light on how the notion of not that bad contributes to a broader structural social problem involving sexual violence. This social problem, known as rape culture, is commonly defined as a culture that normalizes sexual violence and blames victims of sexual assault (“What is Rape Culture?”). In other words, rape culture …

Exploring The Impact Of Workshops And A Mini-Project In Student Teachers Becoming Qualitative Researchers, Junjun Muhamad Ramdani, Elih Sutisna Yanto, Melisa Sri, Rahmat Djunaedi

The Qualitative Report

Drawing on Vygotsky's "space framework" (Harré, 1984; Mostofo & Zambo, 2015), this article reports the findings of our action research project that examined student teachers' beliefs and behavior changes while completing a qualitative research project. Our research question was, "to what extent do student teachers change their beliefs and behaviors about qualitative research (QR) after participating in a two-workshop series of qualitative designs in language classrooms and doing a mini-project?" The participants of this study were eight student teachers at an Indonesian university, and the research data was collected through questionnaires and interviews. The study's findings show that student teachers …

Contributors

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

A Circle Of Dragons, A. J. Prufrock

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Nuru And The Doves, Debra Shrimplin

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Itinerary, Eleanor Farrell

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Enigma, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.