Modern Literature Commons^™

Fashion, Lifestyle, And Symbolic Capital: Identity And Resistance In Eka Kurniawan’S Beauty Is A Wound, Dewi Meyrasyawati, Cysakaren Diva Pratiwi, Nisar Ul-Haq

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This study examines how fashion culture and lifestyle, understood as modes of self presentation, social performance, and everyday practice, operate as tools of identity construction and resistance in Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty Is a Wound. The objective is to reveal how beauty, personal choices, and public perception function as symbolic capital in negotiating gendered power relations, class hierarchies, and political constraints. Using close textual analysis, the research explores how female characters, particularly Dewi Ayu, mobilize appearance, behavior, and life decisions to challenge dominant ideologies and redefine their roles in society. The findings show that fashion culture in the novel extends beyond …

How Philip K. Dick Used The Unreliable Narrator To Transport Unwitting Acolytes, Michael Barros, Jordi Smith

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This essay examines the use of the unreliable narrator to transport the reader into narrative worlds, specifically in Philip K. Dick's fiction. By exploring the phenomenon of narrative transportation and the role of emotions in engagement with fiction, we argue that Dick's use of the unreliable narrator significantly engages and transports readers into his narrative worlds. Subsequently, we contend that his belief in the fundamental reality of those worlds is effectively positioning himself as a gatekeeper and mediator between the narrative world and the real world, which sets him, in his mind, as a prophet, using fiction as a tool …

Tiny Treasures: Cloves In Early Modern English Literature, Emily Soon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This Southeast Asian spice not only sparked fierce international competition, but also featured within the literature of the Global Renaissance.

Kuasa Tokoh Perempuan Dalam Cerpen “Sang Pemuja” Karya Laksmi Pamuntjak, Nindita U. Dewanti, Mamlahatun -. Buduroh -

Multikultura

This study examines the forms of power exercised by the main female character in the short story “Sang Pemuja” by Laksmi Pamuntjak using the theory of power feminism. The primary focus of this study is the decisions and actions of the female character that demonstrate power over her body and life choices. This study aims to explain the practices of power feminism carried out by the female character in the short story “Sang Pemuja.” The research data consists of narrative text collected using the note-taking method, to be analyzed based on the principles of power feminism proposed by Naomi Wolf …

“He Had Named Himself The Stranger”: From 'Germanic' Heroic Hospitality To Elvish Memorial Mediation In Tolkien’S Book Of Lost Tales, Paolo Pizzimento Dr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article examines the narrative functions of strangeness and hospitality in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Book of Lost Tales, focusing on Eriol’s transformation from foreign traveller into listener, witness, and transmitter of Elvish tradition. Through a comparative reading of selected Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon texts—particularly Hávamál, Gylfaginning, and Beowulf—it identifies recurrent literary configurations in which hospitality regulates admission, identity, reciprocity, danger, and access to knowledge. The comparison is morphological rather than genetic: it does not posit direct derivation or a uniform Germanic code. Drawing on Jan Assmann’s theory of cultural memory, the article argues that Tolkien redirects …

Getting Tolkien Right: Middle-Earth In The National Review, Craig Franson

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings entered Anglo-American popular consciousness as an emblem of 1960s, leftist youth culture, but the novel slowly gained currency across the political right. In the U.S., conservative intellectuals published book notes and articles on Tolkien’s writing in their movement’s leading journals, gradually habituating their readers to seeing the once-obscure English fantasist as a canonical writer for American conservatism. The most prominent of these journals was William F. Buckley’s National Review, which recurrently promoted Tolkien’s writing and offered a distinctly partisan interpretation of his texts. This paper offers a partial outline of the conservative …

Vibe Coding: Ai, Digital Text Recycling, And The Remediation Of Digital Poetry, Yohanna Joseph Waliya

ELO (un)supervised 2026

This paper theorises Vibe Coding as a novel method of AI-assisted creative practice within electronic literature. Vibe Coding describes an affective mode of communication with AI that enables coding via natural-language prompts, in which the author collaborates with generative AI systems to recycle, remediate, and reconfigure existing digital texts into new poetic forms, including interactive animations. Rather than treating code as a fixed procedural logic, Vibe Coding focuses on rhythm, intuition, and affect as central compositional forces shaping both textual production and computational interaction. Relying on theories of remediation, digital recycling, and posthuman authorship, the paper examines how AI functions …

Some Notes On A Tolkien’S Manuscript Linked To ‘Leaf By Niggle’, Claudio Antonio Testi

Journal of Tolkien Research

In these brief notes, I provide further information regarding a manuscript relating to 'Leaf by Niggle' that may lead to a more precise dating of the earliest version of this story.

"Everyone Leaves Me Behind”: How Harmful Tropes In Fiction Impact Autistic Women, Sara E. Allard

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Until now, females with ASD have been ignored by healthcare professionals, policymakers, and the general public. The unique presentation of autistic women and girls is now in the cultural spotlight within not just the advocacy and scientific community, but also the arts. Female autistic characters are getting increased representation across literature and television, yet their narratives are still often stuck in the past. Most authors and screenwriters have yet to understand the specific struggles that female autistics face compared to their male counterparts, relying on the outdated, reductive perceptions that have plagued them for decades.

This article outlines three harmful …

“A Natural Human Activity”: The Split Attraction Model As A Tool For Reading Tolkien’S Legendarium, Sarah Courtis

Journal of Tolkien Research

The works of J.R.R. Tolkien have long been a refuge for readers seeking escape; a world of eucatastrophe where difference is celebrated, and friendship lauded. Despite his egalitarian themes, gatekeepers attempt to bar those living at the margins and intersections from reading themselves into the texts, denying that applicability which Tolkien called for in his own works. One such applicable interpretation of the legendarium is through the lens of asexuality and aromanticism. As there are no graphic sex scenes (though contrary to GRR Martin’s claims sex does exist in the world and is expanded upon in The Nature of Middle …

Introduction: Asexuality And Aromanticism In Tolkien's Works, Clare Moore, Rory Queripel

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article introduces this special issue focused on asexuality and aromanticism in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. It seeks to fill a gap in queer Tolkien studies by presenting multiple articles on asexualt/aromantic interpretations of Tolkien's work.

La Maleta Siempre Lista: Libertad, Identidad Y Legado Político Dentro De Una Familia Cubanoamericana, Aidan H. Jammer

World Languages and Cultures

\This project explores how memories of the Cuban Exile are transmitted through generations and how these memories can influence a Cuban American family’s cultural identity and political beliefs. The documentary was based around interviews with members of my family from different generations. My investigation was mainly centered around the generation that lived through the Cuban Revolution and Exile, immigrated to the US and started a family in another country, sharing their memories, values and beliefs of Cuba with their children and grandchildren.

In addition to the interviews, the project incorporates historical research about the Cuban Revolution, the first waves of …

Voces Del Exilio Cubano, Jesenia Alvear

World Languages and Cultures

This project examines how Cuban immigrants, particularly those who fled the Fidel Castro regime, developed political perspectives after migrating to the United States. By focusing on Cuban immigrant communities, this project seeks to understand how experiences under a communist government and migration have shaped political beliefs. Within the United States, Cuban-Americans have become one of the most politically active Latino communities. As a Spanish and Political Science double major with Cuban family ties, this project represents both my academic interests and my own family experiences. Growing up, I listened to political conversations at family gatherings that seemed to consume the …

Twitteratura: Digital Social Reading And Active Reception Of Literary Texts In The Context Of Italian Contemporary Literature, Iuri Moscardi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores Digital Social Reading (DSR) as a novel mode of literary engagement, focusing on the Italian project Twitteratura, a series of social reading experiments conducted on Twitter (2012–2016) and later on the Betwyll app. The research situates Twitteratura within the intersection of Reader-Response Theory, Digital Humanities, Reception Studies, and Sociology of Literature, demonstrating how digital environments reshape the act of reading and interpretation. Through detailed analyses of four DSR projects centered on major twentieth-century Italian authors—Cesare Pavese, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italo Calvino, and Natalia Ginzburg—this dissertation argues that Twitteratura provides a concrete, data-rich demonstration of Wolfgang Iser’s reader-response …

Draw To Breathe, Ranran Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis explores visual expression in drawing as an intuitive mode of thinking suited to everyday life—a form of expression that runs parallel to language and surpasses it.

The project begins with a daily Post-it note drawing practice. These drawings often emerge before conscious understanding, subsequently accompanied by brief text, allowing image and word to resonate through emotion and intuition. Through the use of small-scale, portable, low-pressure materials, and with immediacy and intuitive freedom as the foundation of making, a visual language system grounded in the self develops. Through this sustained practice, I developed an instruction-based card system titled Draw …

Chronos | Kairos: Exploring Time Through Experimental Comics And Artist’S Books, Rhea Pradeep

Masters Theses

This thesis examines how the reading experience of comics changes when they are presented in various artist’s book formats, particularly through the lens of time and space. This project encourages the practice of close reading, arguing that the physical form of a book is not only a container for the content, but also plays a part in its meaning-making. It shifts the narrative pace, perception of time and reader engagement. Research in this paper is heavily influenced by scholars like Johanna Drucker, Scott McCloud and Will Eisner. This interdisciplinary, practice-led research combines narrative analysis of experimental comics, close reading of …

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies And Southwest Cities In The Mexican American Spatial Imaginary, Jorge A. Hernández Jr.

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies and Southwest Cities in the Mexican American Spatial Imaginary examines how Mexican American writers from Tucson, San Antonio, and Albuquerque narrate, critique, and reimagine urban space across the U.S. Southwest in the twentieth century. Integrating literary studies, cultural geography, urban history, and critical regionalism, the project analyzes responses to racialized development, urban renewal, and gentrification that have displaced Mexican American communities from historic downtowns. Moving beyond borderlands and transnational models, it advances a critically regional approach attentive to local histories, municipal policies, and community pressures shaping urban life. Through close readings of creative and nonfiction texts …

Learning Through Reading: Confronting Novel Linguistic Forms In Literature, Quinn Doyle

German Studies Honors Projects

How do readers learn to engage with novel forms of written language that fall outside of their established linguistic repertoire? And how do texts themselves facilitate this process? This thesis looks for answers to these questions in literary theory, multilingualism studies, applied linguistics, and a diverse corpus of literary works. I propose a comprehensive descriptive vocabulary of novel language use in literature, and then observe how these frameworks work in concert in an exemplary text by analyzing Christine Brooke-Rose’s multilingual novel Between. I conclude by discussing how the “exceptional” cases explored in this thesis can change our understanding of …

The Everlasting Bite Of The Colonizer In Contemporary Vampire Narratives, Emily Hatchett

All Theses

In the 1897 novel Dracula, Bram Stoker opens the vampire's coffin, unleashing the monstrous figure meant to terrify and control the inhabitants of late Victorian England. Following the vampire's journey from Transylvania to England, Stoker traces its desire to gain entrance into society through the British country house. Nevertheless, the vampire transforms as it makes its next journey to America. Leaving behind its haunting presence and adopting a loving, romantic personality that has rooted itself in our contemporary literature. It's also through this journey that the vampire is drawn to the lingering effects of colonization and is led to …

(De)Composing Transhumanisms: Fungal And Trans Ecologies In Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, Miles Nives Qapevewni Enriquez-Morales

English (MA) Theses

This thesis project analyzes the novel Annihilation (2014) by Jeff VanderMeer and situates the biologist’s transformation and transition in the book in a trans ecological framework. By expanding on foundational texts such as Jackson Jesse Nash’s “‘I Am Not Returning Home’: A Transgender Reading of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation”, this paper argues that representations of fungus in Annihilation present a possibility for trans futurity rooted in transformation, ecological entanglement, and a rejection of binary thought. Additional articles from Transgender Studies Quarterly and A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies orient this fungal transformation in the larger framework of rejecting normative …