Digital Commons Network^™

"Kindred Shadows: The Family Resemblance Between Charles Williams’S Metaphysical Thrillers And Clive Barker’S Horror Visions", Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

Last year, during 2024, I underwent an extended phase of reading practically everything published by the horror writer Clive Barker. While reading the books, I kept noticing scenes and characteristics of his novels that made me think of Charles Williams’ supernatural thrillers.

Identity, Migration, And Folklore In Jamaican Postcolonial Literature: A Reading Of Paulette Ramsay’S “Aunt Jen”, Emily Mceachin

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This project examines the formation of identity in “Aunt Jen,” a coming-of-age novel set in post-independence Jamaica, by exploring how colonialism, migration, and folklore shape the protagonist’s sense of self. Centering on the character Sunshine, the novel unfolds during Jamaica’s political and economic upheavals of the 1970s, including the rise of Michael Manley and the People’s National Party, depicting both the hopes and disillusionments of a young nation. Sunshine’s story parallels these challenges as she navigates her fractured self-image, intensified by the absence of her mother, Aunt Jen, who emigrated to England to escape Sunshine’s father and her internalized colonial …

Queerness In The Ability To Choose, Haley Kamola

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This presentation delves into examples of LGBTQ+ authors and characters within the choose your own adventure genre. With a primary focus on Anna Anthropy’s story game “queers in love at the end of the world” and Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In The Dream House, instances of queerness found within the choose your own adventure genre are analyzed. Anthropy’s story game depicts two women with ten seconds to live until the world ends. The story game itself only exists for ten total seconds before players are given the chance to restart and try again. Machado’s memoir retells her experience in an …

The Wheel Of Fire: An Obsessive-Compulsive Reading Of Frodo Baggins, Andreas J.W. Minshew

Journal of Tolkien Research

Although addiction has been the main psychological framework for understanding the Ring’s influence, it does not fully capture Frodo’s inner conflict. This paper argues that an obsessive-compulsive reading accounts for his ego-dystonic relationship with the Ring and his lack of an initial period of using it for pleasure, both of which differentiate his experience from other Ringbearers. This reading, rather than in opposition to addictive or post-traumatic frameworks, can coexist with both to bring added nuance to how readers and scholars understand Frodo’s experience.

Shakespeare’S Murderous World: Not A Doomed Reality, Afton Fay

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Dangerous Possession, Perilous Gaze, And Violent Control In "You Belong To Me," "My Last Duchess," And "Mont Blanc", Mackenzie Hughes

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Unmasking The Monkey Myth: The Coexistence Of Sage And Trickster, Marisa O'Malley

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

What Is Lyric Anyway?: Attempting To Define Lyric Using Elizabeth Barrett Browning’S “Sonnet 6” And Fiona Apple’S “I Want You To Love Me”, Fiona Smith

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Hands In David Copperfield As A Marker Of Character, Niall Mckenna

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

From Object To Architect: How Molly Bloom Designs Her Own Gaze In Joyce’S Ulysses, Mackenzie Hughes

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Home, Exile, And Displacement In The Lord Of The Rings And The Hobbit, Sarah Park

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The Criterion (2025), Mackenzie Hughes, Emily Carbone, Marisa O'Malley, Gericho Louis Conge, Afton Fay, Fiona Smith, Gwyneth Morrissey, Niall Mckenna, Roan Brimacomb, Sarah Park, Madeline T. Zafon-Whalen

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The Oppression Of Embrace, Gericho Louis Conge

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Where Angels Fear To Tread And Heart Of Darkness: Imperialism’S Civil Dehumanization, Roan Brimacomb

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Chiaroscuro Control, Gwyneth Morrissey

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

A Trek Into New Territories: Sound In Rachel Hadas’ “The Red Hat”, Emily Carbone

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

"You Know The Rules": A Dramatic Experiment In Aromantic Literary Theory, April Chronowski

English

This paper proposes a new literary theory framework based on the zine "an aromantic manifesto" by yingchen and yingtong, as well as the work of Erving Goffman, using theater as a device to examine romantic relationships. Blending English and sociology, I focus each chapter on a different literary period and examine two plays each: early modern (Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing), modern (Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Djuna Barnes' "To The Dogs"), and contemporary (Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 and Margaret Edson's W;t). In tandem with analysis of formal elements---like …

Back Matter, Harry Denny

The Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for Writing Center Journal 43.1.

“Already My Heart Misgave Me”: Doomed Fantasy And Children In James Joyce’S “Araby” And William Faulkner’S “Barn Burning”, Kathleen E. Conner

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

While rarely put into conversation, William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” and James Joyce’s “Araby” have a remarkable amount to say to one another. These parallel portraits of childhood each follow a young boy, Sarty Snopes and a nameless narrator respectively, struggling to find emotional clarity within a repressive society. While far from either authors’ most blatant critique of Southern or Irish culture, both stories subtly weave in the confining forces of Catholicism, imperialism, patriarchy, and poverty. To cope with the drudgery and cruelty of their surroundings, the boys retreat into fantasies of love and heroism. These idealizations allow the boys to …

Stories Of The Silenced And Mixed Media In Fiction: Disrupting Tradition For The Enhancement Of Reader Experience, Rylanne Burdette

English Creative Writing Theses

In almost all crimes, there is a victim, a perpetrator, and someone trying to uncover the truth. These tropes are often highlighted in fiction – told in thrillers, mysteries, or true-crime books that include intense themes, suspenseful moments, and plot twists. Stories of the Silenced is a collection of short stories told from the perspective of three characters in an exploration of cycles of violence and silence. Each character – a detective, victim, and serial killer – responds to and engages with the world differently, and their individual lives are shared. Each story emphasizes the idea of mixed media to …

Frank O'Hara: The Figure That Remains, Madeline T. Zafon-Whalen

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Final Master's Portfolio, Sophia Michalski

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores research in technical writing revolving around digital products and literary practices such as Post-Structuralism as literary theory and the methodology Docile Bodies within literary texts. While half the portfolio includes analytical essays which examine how these themes intersect and arise in literary landscape, the other half aims to investigate how the current digital marketplace prioritizes cloud-based products and what limitations are placed through extensive research.

"We All Of Us Have Our Particular Devil Who Rides Us And Torments Us": Sexuality And Identity In Trauma Narratives, Aysenur Zaza

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio reads literary narratives through the lens of feminist trauma theory to critique how institutional powers like heteronormativity, misogyny, and racism shape the production and perception of trauma. Centering works by women writers (with an exception in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) it examines how experiences such as childbirth, racial respectability, and gendered identity formation are silenced or pathologized under dominant frameworks, particularly the medicalization of trauma. Drawing on scholars like Laura Brown and Lucy Thompson, the portfolio challenges the white, male-centric origins of PTSD and critiques the expectation of “wholeness” imposed on women in both literature and …

False Virtues And Fragile Honor: The Weight Of Reputation In Shakespeare’S Works, Amanda Sheps

Theses and Dissertations

"False Virtues and Fragile Honor: The Weight of Reputation in Shakespeare’s Works" analyzes the intersection between honor and social standing in William Shakespeare's Othello and Much Ado About Nothing, specifically in regards to the gender roles prevalent in the plays' societies. In both plays, women who are perceived as a threat to the prevailing norms of society are ostracized, ridiculed, and may even face violence at the hands of their male love interests. The innocence of Desdemona and Hero, however, calls into question the validity of this cruel treatment. These negative reactions reflect the pressure that men have to preserve …

The Imposition Of A Narrative Line: The Bildungsroman As Form In Contemporary Art, Brianne Chapelle

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the work of contemporary American artists and writers Moyra Davey, Chris Kraus, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms within the context of feminist art history, theory, and practice in the post-1970s artworld. While often read as autobiographical or self-referential, their work across media uses personal narrative as a means of engaging broader theoretical and institutional concerns. Through the literary form of the bildungsroman, these artists employ narrative, fiction, and memoir—often through new and time-based media, but also through interdisciplinary modes rooted in writing—to reflect on their ongoing education as artists within an increasingly globalized Euro-American artworld. By …

“Bottom Nature”: Embodying History In Gertrude Stein’S The Making Of Americans, Yasmin Tehrani

Theses and Dissertations

This paper attempts to connect Gertrude Stein’s conception of being in The Making of Americans with her vision of the production of history. This paper then concludes that for Stein, historical subjects themselves, both individually and collectively, and the imbued qualities in their being, shape history.

Deflecting Voyeurism: Elizabeth Keckley’S Indictment Of Capitalism And Rejection Of The Exploitative White Gaze, Laura Steel

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the ex-slave narrative Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley through a Marxist and Romantic lens as a means to explore the impact of capitalism on Keckley while enslaved, as well as post-slavery. Through the paper, the author argues that Keckley successfully deflects the white voyeuristic gaze by replacing her physical form with clothing that she creates, as a means to both indict capitalism and reclaim ownership over her body. Further, the paper argues that Keckley employs Romanticism to highlight the unnatural capitalist roots and subsequent …

Alienation In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Chunying Xu

Theses and Dissertations

Mrs. Dalloway is one of Virginia Woolf’s best-known novels. It was published in London in 1925-seven years after the end of World War I. The novel centers on Clarissa Dalloway’s life on a specific day in June 1923, in preparation for a party she will host in the evening. The day is also the death of Septimus Smith, a subplot character who is an ex-soldier of World War I and serves as Clarissa Dalloway's doppelganger. Clarissa is a middle-class woman who has just recovered from heart disease. Septimus is a working-class young man, a victim of war, and a sufferer …

A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena: Exploring Post-War Ethics, Claire Marshall Watkins

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In my paper, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: Exploring Post-War Ethics, I explore the embodiment of care ethics and informed altruism through the novel’s protagonists, Akhmed and Sonja, respectively, who each care for a local girl Havaa whose home has been destroyed and whose father has been disappeared by the Russian Feds from their small Chechen village. Akhmed immediately takes her on as his own while Sonja is hesitant. As the novel progresses, Sonja and Akhmed each provide an even amount of time and effort into her care, though they approach it differently. Akhmed—Havaa’s neighbor and family friend—works together with …

Reimagining Heroes: The Evolving Narratives Of Helen And Achilles In Feminist Greek Mythology Retellings, Elena A. Smith

Honors Scholar Theses

“Reimagining Heroes: The Evolving Narratives of Helen and Achilles in Feminist Greek Mythology Retellings” is an analysis of an array of novels, monographs, and critiques regarding the genre of mythology retellings. Combining feminist ideas with historical examples, this thesis delves into why retellings are so popular in the twenty-first century and why the stories of Greek Antiquity have stayed relevant.

This thesis focuses specifically on Helen of Troy, Achilles, and the events of the Trojan War in The Iliad. Comparing the epic with retellings of its events may reveal why these characters, gods, and heroes have continued to be discussed …