English Language and Literature Commons^™

Birmingham Poetry Review 46 (Complete Issue), Birmingham Poetry Review Staff

Birmingham Poetry Review

No abstract provided.

Bumming A Smoke From Eve On A Porch In Pauwtucketville, Matt Miller

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 197-198

Endangered, Kitty Forbes

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 116

Fall Catalog Ekphrasis, Claire Mcquarry

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 188-189

Element, N S. Thompson, Andrea Gibellini

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 234

Hong & Ramona, Amy Lam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a novel set in frontier California.

Inclusivity In The Archives: Expanding Undergraduate Pedagogies For Diversity And Inclusion, Amy J. Lueck, Beverlyn Law, Isabella Zhang

English

This chapter uses the experience of two undergraduate students conducting research in their university archives to consider the “hidden curriculum” entailed in archival research at some institutions. When diverse identities and experiences are not represented in our archives, we run the risk of communicating a lack of value for those identities, producing a feeling of marginalization and exclusion for some students and foreclosing an opportunity to build solidarity across difference for others. In light of the limited holdings at many university archives and the increased prevalence of archival research in the undergraduate classroom, the authors draw on research from writing …

"Free Indirect Suicide: An Unfinished Fugue In H Minor", Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In this lyric essay/work of creative nonfiction (listed among “Notable Essays & Literary Nonfiction” in Best American Essays 2020), Seo-Young Chu uses poetry, autotheory, and creative nonfiction to explore the generational trauma/postmemory han she inherited from her parents and the importance of destigmatizing mental illness through dialogue.

Eleven: The Bitchin' Subject Of Desire In Stranger Things, Heather Domenicis

The Criterion

Throughout the Stranger Things series, Eleven’s telekinetic monster-fighting abilities incessantly establish her as the girl who

everyone wants on their side. The way she is closely shot on camera and the fact that nearly every other character seeks her help or companionship establishes her as the continual subject of desire— a figure that is present in many Gothic texts. In this essay, I wish to present a brief genealogy of that figure: Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Miles in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw are two examples of early figures whose depictions suggest that Gothic genre relies …

Heroism, Terrorism, And The In-Between: The Validation Of Violence In V For Vendetta, Noah Mailloux

The Criterion

In Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta, a graphic novel made up of three installments, the titular character V dons a Guy Fawkes mask in celebration of a man who is historically known as a terrorist. V, though representative of a supposed extremist and violent in his behaviors, exemplifies the traits of a traditional hero rather than a terrorist. The word vendetta defines a person or group seeking vengeance or revenge on another person or group, and though this fits V’s role in the story, a personal vendetta is not the catalyst for his actions. The text examines …

"You Knew Him Well": The Galsworthy Letters And Trauma In Heart Of Darkness, Alexander T. Grey

The Criterion

Edward Said’s dissertation-turned-monograph Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966) was the first attempt in the realm of literary critique to apply Conrad’s personally letters to his fictions. Yet, since then, the multi-volume Collected Letters published in Cambridge University in 2008 has been but a resource for biographers and for a stray citation by an academic looking to ground a theory in a physical document. Considering the dearth of work looking into the Conrad letters, this essay traces the author’s understanding and processing of personal trauma through letters to Nobel Laureate John Galsworthy and use this theory to contextualize …

Chicken Paprika And Tug Of War: The Romantic "Dream Song 4" By John Berryman, Patrick Connell

The Criterion

Helen Vendler argues that John Berryman’s The Dream Songs synthesizes the Freudian Id and the Christian Conscience as personified by Henry and Mr. Bones respectively. Through a close reading, this essay seeks to analyze Vendler’s claim specifically within “Dream Song 4”, in which, the poet utilizes a trope from American minstrelsy to depict the lustful thoughts of a man, presumably Berryman himself, dining at an upscale restaurant. The two speakers of the poem personify and divide his mind and in keeping with the vaudeville performances Berryman draws from, Henry behaves with erratic irrationality, curbed only by the reason of his …

Drowning In Desire, Meghan Gavis

The Criterion

Despite being called a “love song,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is characterized by seemingly chaotic form that contrasts with a typical romance. Intentional irregularities in form express Prufrock’s overwhelming desire for companionship and his troubled self-consciousness. Through close readings of Eliot’s odd use of pronouns, rhyme scheme, and ellipses, Prufrock’s unsatiated desire and resulting inner instability are manifested. The undefined “you” and “I” demonstrate the tension between Prufrock’s public and private masks, which he creates to entice women. This romantic endeavor results in unharmonized versions of himself that wrestle with playfulness and agitation at his …

Father Figures In The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall: Bronte's Perspective On Victorian Era Masculinity, Mary Grace King

The Criterion

Anne Bronte presents two different depictions of fatherhood in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall that correspond to different expressions of masculinity. Anne Bronte comments on masculinity in the Victorian Era by presenting these different examples in the characters of Mr. Markham and Mr. Huntingdon as they interact with Arthur, Helen’s son. Both men display masculine traits as viewed by Victorian Era thought, but these traits vary between manly virtue (dignity and honesty) and manly vice (drinking and swearing). Furthermore, Bronte depicts patterns of abusive masculinity in the character Mr. Huntingdon in his interactions with Arthur as his biological father while …

Music As An Expression Of Traumatic Pasts And Conflicting Futures, Nina Masin-Moyer

The Criterion

Chad Abushanab’s “On the Dred Ranch Road Just off 283” and Emily Dickinson’s “Better—Than Music!” use their poetic forms to express the idea of music as being representative of each of their speakers’ spectrum of experiences and troubles. Despite the two poems being separated by hundreds of years and completely different life experiences, both speakers use the premise of music to establish their troubled pasts. The two poems begin to diverge when they also use music as a means of conveying their expectations for the future. Abushanab’s speaker laments his father’s alcoholism and the speaker has convinced himself the he …

Power Of The Weaker: Feminism In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cidre Z. Zhou

The Criterion

Due to its contribution towards the abolition of slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was undoubtedly a huge hit in the nineteenth century and continues to influence our society today. This essay, however, focuses on the essentialist feminism of the book and examines whether it becomes male-chauvinist sexist in doing so. When men of the era failed to step out to defend the damned race, a group of women, though seemingly timid and frail, act boldly out of their kind, soft hearts and take chances to preserve the humanity left in this society. To illustrate this point, this essay …

Forgiveness: A Psychological Mechanism And Young Adult Fiction Motif, Paige Woolard

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

"Mother Earth, Father God": The Binary Power Of Religion And Gender Codes In The Writing Of Jeanette Winterson And The Music Of Torres, Hannah M. Wilkes

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Religious Persecution In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Ashlee Burton

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

"The More They’Re Beaten The Better They Be": Gendered Violence And Abuse In Victorian Laws And Literature, Danielle T. Dominguez

CMC Senior Theses

During the Victorian age, the law and society were in conversation with each other, and the law reflected Victorian gender norms. Nineteenth-century gender attitudes intersected with the law, medical discourse, and social customs in a multitude of ways. Abuse and gender violence occurred beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability. The models of nineteenth-century social conduct were highly gendered and placed men and women in separate social spheres. As this research indicates, the lived practices of Victorians, across social and economic strata, deviated from these accepted models of behavior. This thesis explores the ways that accepted and unaccepted standards of female …