English Language and Literature Commons^™

To Print A Remake: An Analysis Of Hollywood Remakes And Their Cultural Value, Connor F. Seaton

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In recent years, audiences and movie critics have expressed concern that Hollywood’s growing reliance on remakes, sequels, franchises, and similar adaptations has led to a broader worry that originality is fading from modern cinema and that the industry is instead focused on using adaptations to maximize profits. Although adaptation is often seen as a commercially driven framework for reproducing existing intellectual property in a new media format, this thesis argues that it should be recognized as an autonomous cultural category with its own artistic, historical, and social significance and merit. By analyzing adaptation scholarship and reviewing its complex historical development, …

The World Of Magic Suite: The Emergence Of A Light Novelist, Frederick A. Drayton The Third

Master's Projects

This Master’s Thesis, "THE WORLD OF MAGIC SUITE: THE EMERGENCE OF A LIGHT NOVELIST," is a collection of loosely related fictional works rooted in a seven-year-old promise made by the author to a family member. The project serves as an exploration of the author’s evolving voice and approach to writing fiction, using the unifying theme of "The Personal is The Political is The Supernatural" to build immersive fantasy worlds. The suite contains three distinct narratives. "Apathy’s Reward," a dark fantasy short story, follows Calrie DuNacht, the Apathetic Exorcist of the Golden Cathedral, as she confronts grief and the discomfort of …

Mad Or Uncontrollable? Reading Female Madness In Three Gothic Texts, Amy Marie Bueno

Dissertations and Theses

My thesis employs comparative close reading framed by disability studies to analyze representations of female madness in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, and Isabel Allende’s “If You Touched My Heart.” Drawing on theories of socially constructed disability, it argues that Bertha, Antoinette, and Hortensia are framed as “mad women” not through inherent pathology, but through patriarchal violence, colonial domination, and institutional power. By integrating the social model of disability with feminist theory, this thesis examines how women are rendered disabled within societies influenced by Social Darwinism and eugenic ideologies.

This thesis further incorporates Gothic theory and …

By The Light, Desiree Galamgam

CMC Senior Theses

On the island of Helios, the sun god, a water nymph finds comfort tending to the flora along  riverbanks. Clytie avoids her oceanid sisters’ poisonous proclivities. Modeling herself after the sun god’s incessant responsibilities, she spends her existence working. Only taking breaks to perch herself at the top of her alcove’s hill to watch Helios drive his chariot to rise and set the sun, she sees him as the epitome of perfection and freedom.

Her tranquil life is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Helios himself at the footsteps of her isolated cave. Clytie begins to feel new emotions as …

Reconstructing The Medieval Palette: Making Paints And Inks Using Medieval Recipes, Cael Sinclair

Graduate Research Posters

When considering the medieval period, most people imagine brilliantly painted and gilded manuscripts but not many people actually imagine the labor behind making those manuscripts. Similarly, modern perception of a scribe tends to be a single, solitary person slaving away at the entire manuscript. Contrary to these beliefs, the process of producing a manuscript was a highly collaborative and, more importantly, highly documented process. Throughout the period, numerous treatises (or handbooks) were created documenting instructions and advice for making ink and paint, for drawing and painting, and everything in between. While it is possible for one to just read these …

The Monstrosity Of “Deor”: Apophasis In Character And Form, Ada Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

T. A. Shippey once referred to “Deor” as “that most perfect of Old English poems.” And indeed, the poem cannot help but inspire the reader to deep contemplation, even as it baffles scholars in so many ways. From its rare stanzaic structure to its anomalous refrain—“þæs ofer eode þisses swa mæg”—the elegy has inspired much debate within the scholarship. In fact, one of the few agreements among the scholars of “Deor” is the poem’s capacity to undermine all interpretations. The poem has the remarkable quality of mentioning many well-known legendary and historical figures while, at the same time, denying the …

Madness In The Mixtape: Gothic Literature And Pop Music, Nicholas Dertinger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In Gothic literature, madness has often been connected to the outliers of what is considered socially normal. This dissertation explores the enduring theme of madness, particularly the figure of the “madwoman,” in both women’s literature and in its “afterlife”—or continuing conversation with—contemporary pop music. Through a comparative analysis of songs including Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” (1978), Beyoncé’s “Hold Up” (2016), Lady Gaga’s “Plastic Doll” (2020), Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” (2021), Billie Eilish’ “What Was I Made For?” (2023), Paramore’s cover of “Burning Down the House” (2024), Taylor Swift’s “mad woman” (2020) and Florence + the Machine’s “Dream Girl Evil” …

Nonbinary Gender Performance And Self-Identification In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Lillian R. Durr

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, a text informed by a rich Romantic era philosophical tradition, has produced an expansive contemporary body of transgender studies scholarship. Building on transgender literary studies of Frankenstein, my thesis analyzes the difference between the monster’s internalized self-perceived identity and their externally performed and perceived identity. I interpret the difference between the monster’s internal and external identity as an analogy through which to understand contemporary nonbinary experiences. The “performance” of gender that Judith Butler describes is a limited expression of an internal, inescapable, ontological experience of self-identification. The monster’s own social experience illustrates the …

Using Author's Craft In Writing Instruction For Preservice Teachers In The Age Of Ai, Stephen Winton

The Utah English Journal

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) for writing has increased, but it may limit writers’ creativity. Author’s craft instruction is one way to support teaching writers to make purposeful choices. This article reviews literature on the use of AI for writing in university courses and author’s craft instruction. Then, it offers an example of introducing author’s craft instruction in a methods course on writing for preservice teachers. It discusses ways utilizing author’s craft might support future teachers of writing in the age of AI.

Teaching Matters: What Students Value In Writing Classrooms, Kirsten W. Burningham, Amy Williams

The Utah English Journal

As teachers of first-year writing at Brigham Young University, we eagerly welcome young writers to our campus. While we know that moving from high school to college marks a significant change for students, we intentionally look for connections between these two sites of writing to understand the continuity of students’ writing beliefs, assumptions, concerns, and confidence, or lack thereof. Because we know that writing development requires practice, time, and effort (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2015), we view high school and college as adjoining spaces for writing practice.

We Need New Books, Liz Thackeray Nelson, Mandy Luszeck

The Utah English Journal

It’s College Day for incoming freshmen, and several English Department faculty and prospective students gather together for lunch to discuss English Department culture, tips for student success, and any other questions students have. Partway through, one freshman student asks what our favorite classical works are. My mind draws a blank, and I (Mandy) keep my mouth shut. It has been years since I have engaged in classic works. Or picked one up for that matter. I know the handful I taught in high school fairly well—To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby (so much Gatsby), The Crucible. …

Book Review: Big Jim And The White Boy: An American Classic Reimagined, Michael Handy

The Utah English Journal

Upon first opening this beautiful book, I regretted that my district may never approve it for my classroom. Policy in my school district prohibits classroom use of texts that use racial slurs. An initial author’s note uses a specific racial slur numerous times, repeating it throughout the book—always stricken when a character says it, but still appearing in scenery. This is a shame, because Big Jim and the White Boy is magnificent.

Teachers Teaching Teachers: Sharing The Genius Already In Our Classrooms, Joseph Wierderhold, Whitney Lindsey Sorensen

The Utah English Journal

The purpose of this article is to share two simple—but revolutionary—truths that have shaped us and our classrooms:

1. Teachers who write make better writing teachers (and happier people)

2. Teachers make the best teachers of other teachers (that means you)

The State Of The State: Teacher Edition, Rena Lesué

The Utah English Journal

Mr. Cox clears his throat.

Do we have someone who can take the minutes?

Mrs. Weber? Please?

She tap-taps some papers into order

and pauses to peer down at

a dirty sketch on the surface

of the student desk she occupies.

One hand snakes into her canvas tote

and retrieves a hanky.

She spits into it and smudges

the drawing

into a grotesque

fingerprint.

Book Review: All The Noise At Once, Shalece Garff

The Utah English Journal

All the Noise at Once depicts the life of two incredibly close brothers. The eldest is the star quarterback and is being headhunted by universities across the nation (Brandon), while the other is living with autism and difficulties that come with it (Aiden). Unfortunately, many of the activities that he and his brother are involved in (school and football) are almost always crowded and filled with commotion, which sometimes leads Aiden to experience meltdowns when he is overstimulated with touch and noise. Being seen as different puts him on the outs with the other football players, who regard him as …

The Future Of The English Class Essay: Reimagining Multimodal Composition In The Chatgpt Era, Taylor Rose-Dougherty, Christy Goldsmith

The Utah English Journal

As English teacher educators, we are on the frontlines of navigating the technological elephant in the 2025 writing classroom: Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini that can produce pages of text in mere seconds. English teachers’ philosophies on GenAI are as diverse as their preferred novels or their favorite poets. But, as the two dozen publications in major English education journals1 in the past two years suggest, what is at stake is not the end of high school English (Herman, 2022), but the opportunity to give it a makeover (Herman, 2023) by reimagining what writing experiences …

Building Classroom Community With Picturebooks, Deborah Dean

The Utah English Journal

I started my first teaching job in January, after my 7th- and 8th-grade students had had a series of substitute teachers for the entire first semester of the school year. It was rough. An administrative problem that took months to resolve left these students feeling as if no one cared about them. And the series of subs, as well-meaning as they might have been, had not had long-term connections to ensure that these students learned or even paid attention. I tried a lot of ways to get and keep students engaged in those first weeks. A lot. But the first …

Incorporating Texts With People With Disabilities Amidst Scripted Curricula, Kayleigh Kearsley

The Utah English Journal

As I prepare for student teaching this spring, the topic on my and my peers’ minds is scripted curriculum. For emerging teachers, it can be intimidating to determine how to balance the best teaching practices developed in coursework with scripted curriculum, while simultaneously fostering an authentic learning community within my classroom walls. With the rise of scripted curriculum across the state and nation (Kang, 2016), this is becoming an increasingly complex situation to navigate. These curricular resources affect teacher choice, requiring educators to become that much more intentional with the choices they make. An important way to ensure we are …

Teaching Students To Write For The Future By Writing For The Present, Amber Jensen, Meridith Reed

The Utah English Journal

“When you get to eighth grade, you’ll need to know how to write a topic sentence.”

“The five-paragraph essay will prepare you to write in high school.”

“College professors expect you to accurately cite your sources in MLA format.”

“When you graduate from college, you need to be able to write a professional email.”

Perhaps you heard messages like these from your writing teachers as you moved through middle school, high school, college, and into your careers. We certainly did. And perhaps, like we have, you have been a writing teacher in a middle school, high school, or college classroom …

Challenging The Stereotypical Latina In Elizabeth Acevedo's Clap When You Land And The Poet X, Victoria Olsen Yates

The Utah English Journal

Book banning has become a trigger phrase in the United States, and schools have become book-banning hubs. In the 2023–2024 school year, PEN America recorded 10,046 book bans. Among the most commonly banned books, 44% included people of color (BIPOC) and 39% included LGBTQ+ individuals (Meehan, Baêta, Markham, & Magnusson, 2024). Banning books harms marginalized youth because they will not see themselves in literature, causing them to have a distorted view of the world. Rudine Sims Bishop (1990) explains this further in her idea that books can serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Bishop illustrates how books can …