Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond A Language Boundary: Encounters With Silence And L1 Spanish-Speakers' Willingness To Communicate In English, John Turnbull

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The descriptive multi-case study asks three adult migrants, first-language (L1) Spanish-speakers from México, about their interpretations of their own and others’ silences as they navigate daily life, jobs, family, and English-language learning in the United States. Subjective opinions about silence, their second-language (L2) acquisition processes, comfort levels in various speaking situations, functions of L2 communication, and affective and social dimensions of language learning are related to participants’ willingness to communicate (WTC), a construct that measures a predisposition to talk, rather than stay silent, in L2 interaction.

The research, through daily language-use surveys and semi-structured Spanish-language interviews with the three English-language …

Black Hawk In Translation: Indigenous Critique And Liberal Guilt In The 1847 Dutch Edition Of Life Of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, Frank Kelderman

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tourists Of The Past: Topographies Of Memory In W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, Ana Menéndez's Loving Che, And Teju Cole's Open City, Benjamin Lee Williams

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Examining, comparatively, the exemplary fictional texts of W. G. Sebald, Ana Menéndez, and Teju Cole enriches the study of exilic experience concerning cultural memory as their destabilization, while geographically and ethnically divergent, represents the constellations of mobility and potential for memory. As absences resonate and profoundly disrupt their works, there is a turn to histories to cope with traumas. By turning to the past, each writer confronts destabilization and uprootedness and, in doing so, plays a game with History. Readers play too as we search through the fictionalized lacunae to consider the extent to which we are complicit in the …

Effects Of Oracy Building Instruction Via Blended Learning Environment On Eil Students’ Metacognitive Awareness, Kusuma Bangkom

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The study aim (1) to develop oracy skills instruction in a blended-learning environment, (2) to investigate the effects of students’ metacognitive awareness after implementing the oracy building instruction via blended-learning environment, (3) and to investigate the students’ opinion towards using blended-learning environment. Twenty- nine high school students in Rayong were chosen as the sample group. The findings revealed that 1) there was a significant improvement of the participants’ metacognitive awareness after taking OBIBLE, 2) there was a significant improvement of the participants’ oracy skills after taking OBIBLE, 3) the students had positive opinions towards blened-learning environment. This research provides empirical …

Simultaneity And Solidarity In The Time Of Permanent War, Marie Lo

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

Excerpt in lieu of abstract:

The war that is going on beneath order and peace, the war that undermines our society and divides it in a binary mode is, basically, a race war.
--Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended

In their defense of the Muslim travel ban, lawyers for the Trump administration invoked the plenary power doctrine to justify its legality: "The Order was well under the president's authority under Congress' delegation, particularly in an area like immigration, in which the admission to the United States of foreign aliens is subject to plenary control by the political branches." (1) By …

The Valiant Welshman, The Scottish James, And The Formation Of Great Britain, Megan Lloyd

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

When James VI of Scotland and I of England proclaimed himself King of Great Britain, he proposed a merger of the English and Scottish parliaments, and he looked to Henry VIII’s Acts of Union of England and Wales (1536/43) as an example for English Scottish union under one king. On the London stage after 1603 many plays paid tribute to the new king and provided a predominantly English audience a means of accepting the not so palatable ideas of Scottish power, assimilation and unity. The Valiant Welshman is distinctive among these works, as no other extant early modern English drama …

Twilight Histories: The Waverley Novels And George Eliot’S Fictions Of The Recent Past, Camilla Cassidy

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the influence of Scott's Waverley novels on George Eliot, as novels set in recent history, drawing on Eric Hobsbawm's idea of a "twilight zone between history and memory" to examine Eliot's Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss, and to argue that Eliot in reworking Scott's reimagining of this recent-historical "time-lapse" articulates a psychological experience of historical transition and modernisation.

“Racial Repercussions Of The British Imperial Curriculum:” Misperceptions Of The Natives In George Orwell’S Burmese Days, Cyi Gyi Paradis

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This study explores how English writers falsely portray the indigenous people of the British colonies in novels. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, in particular, authors of Imperialist fiction often misrepresent natives in the British colonies as deviant, detestable, deplorable beings that lack moral compasses. By researching the fields of literature, history, education, and cultural studies, I will examine how George Orwell’s novel Burmese Days distorts descriptions of the Burmese people. Previous studies on Burmese Days focus mainly on misrepresentations of the Burmese as a homogenous race; however, my research will encompass how literary distortions target multiple …

The Desire To Escape And The Inability To Follow Through In James Joyce’S Dubliners, Alyssa M. Wheatley

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In my research, I will examine James Joyce’s Dubliners as a collection of stories that is unified by an ongoing theme; escape or the desire to escape. In the collection, the want or need to escape serves a major purpose throughout the characters and their lives. This thesis explores five stories that share this theme in particular: “The Sisters,” “Eveline,” “Araby,” “An Encounter,” and “The Dead.” Each story will be discussed in the context of how each story progresses from a want to an actual escape. In addition, the thesis also considers how these stories exhibit a progression towards isolation …

Unsettling Geographies: Primitivist Utopias In Queer American Literature From Walt Whitman To Willa Cather, Benjamin Meiners

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In “Unsettling Geographies: Primitivist Utopias in Queer American Literature from Walt Whitman to Willa Cather,” I argue that the colonial discourse of primitivism played a central role in the queer literary imaginaries of both canonical and non-canonical U.S. authors. Building on the work of historians of sexuality who trace the complex development of the twentieth-century homo-/hetero- binary, I show how literary works produced in this historical moment—roughly 1860 to 1925—explored and in some instances even advocated alternative queer modes of citizenship and erotic imagination and practice. Focusing on the works of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Willa …

Changez/Cengiz's Changing Beliefs In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Valerie Kennedy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Changez/Cengiz's Changing Beliefs in The Reluctant Fundamentalist” Valerie Kennedy analyzes the interrelation of individual subjectivity and global capitalism and the conflict between two belief systems in Mohsin Hamid’s novel. These are, first, a neoliberal system that sees individuals as rationally self-interested, mobile, economic units, and, second, a system based on a humanist definition of individuals as defined by nation, family, and tradition. Changez, the novel’s protagonist, initially endorses the first, but later rejects it for the second, due to his growing awareness of the impact on Pakistan of American geopolitics after 9/11. The essay also examines …

Alienation, And Its Antidote, Anna Nissley

English Department: Traveling American Modernism Posters (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This poster visually portrays and distills arguments within the paper of the same name, outlining its principal arguments and incorporating pictures of people/landscapes discussed within.

A Poetics Of Temperance: Gender, Genre, And Meaning-Making In Early Modern England, Cristina Maria Rosell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For several hundred years, the scholarly discussion of temperance was dominated by the legacy of classical models. This dissertation, titled A Poetics of Temperance: Gender, Genre, and Meaning-Making in Early Modern England, develops said discussion in a new way by forging a language about ethics and aesthetics into a poetics of temperance. The term poiesis derives from Greek and signifies “to make, create, produce” (OED). Accordingly, Aristotle uses the Greek poietes, “from which our word ‘poet’ derives,” to denote a “maker” (Murray xxxii). In brief, this project understands the role of women in emergent genres as …

Searching For Identity: Connecting Students To Young Adult Literature In The Classroom Through Language, Samantha Correia

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Young adult literature largely influences the cultures and the lives of young people; often these popular young adult novels become well-known as they are made into movies and are in high demand. These novels are not just for young adults; these texts can be read at any age and have accessible themes that many people can relate to. However, in this research, young adult literature will be discussed in terms of how these novels affect children, mostly from ages ten to eighteen, as many of the characters in these texts are a similar age to them. Young adult literature (YA …

A Critical Exploration Of Costume Design Possibilities In Tolkien’S Legendarium, M. Grace Costello

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tolkien’s Legendarium has in many ways codified modern fantasy. Illustrations and film adaptations of it have had far-reaching consequences on popular culture, building an 80-year tradition of visual depictions of Tolkienesque fantasy. Particularly, Elven characters are usually depicted wearing costume inspired by Victorian notions of Western medieval costume. In this paper I seek to approach the design of original costume for the Ñoldor from a different perspective, free from the established traditions of other designers’ and illustrators’ work.

The preliminary research focuses on searching the source materials of the Silmarillion and select texts from the Histories of Middle Earth. I …

Translations Of Robert Burns In The Russian Book Market: The Old And The New, Natalia Kaloh Vid

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the influence of Samuil Marshak's long-dominant Russian translations of Robert Burns's poems and the more recent anthologies and translations that "broke the Marshak monopoly," and briefly examines why, in publishing terms, the Marshak translations are still the most widely available.

Reading Her Queenly Coiffure: A Collaborative Approach To The Study Of Marie-Antoinette's Hairstyles, Hélène Bilis, Jenifer Bartle, Laura M. O'Brien, Ruth R. Rogers

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Four colleagues--a faculty member, a digital services librarian, a research librarian, and a curator of Special Collections--take turns describing their role in creating an undergraduate student project around an eighteenth-century almanac that belonged to Marie-Antoinette. In recounting the steps taken, the collaborative process, the student research, and the analysis of the contents of the Trésor des Grâces almanac, we share the lessons learned for completing a digital exhibit over the course of one semester.

Beauty And The Beasts: Making Places With Literary Animals Of Florida, Haili A. Alcorn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Place theory examines the relationship between human identity and physical locations, asking how meaningful attachments are formed between people and the spots they visit or in which they live. Literature of place exhibits this relationship and the myriad ways humans connect to their environment through storytelling, both fictional and nonfictional. Florida literature, an emerging and dynamic genre, features characters, cultures, and histories heavily embedded in place. Florida’s places also abound with animal presences, and literature about Florida almost always illustrates significant human-animal interactions that drive plots and character development. Therefore, Florida literature invites consideration of how animals influence human attachment …

“The New Geography,” Material Science, And Narratology’S Space-Time Dichotomy: Notes Toward A Geographical Narratology, Nancy Easterlin

English Faculty Publications

This essay places narratology’s emphasis on space-time within the emergence of the discipline of geography and the rise of a materialist, hard science orientation in US institutions after WWII, ultimately arguing that a nascent geographical narratology should aspire to the broad intellectual scope of geography’s origins. “The new geography,” which emerged in 1887 and focused comprehensively on the relation of humans to the earth’s surface, subsequently contracted and fragmented with the post-war emphasis on material science. Likewise expanding in the rationalist post-war climate, classical narratology emphasized logical categories, especially the space-time dichotomy, divorced from human meanings. Today, cognitive research suggests …

Material For The Study Of Food Terminology, Primarily From Barry Popik’S Research, Part 1, Gerald Leonard Cohen

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Both Sides Of The Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis, Theological Imagination, And Everyday Discipleship Ed. Rob Fennell, S. Dorman

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

Discworld And The Disciplines: Critical Approaches To The Terry Pratchett Works Eds. Anne Hiebert Alton And William C. Spruiell, Janet Brennan Croft

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

No abstract provided.

Exploring Effective Foreign Language Teaching From The Eyes Of Iranian Learners: Reporting A Qualitative Interview Study, Alireza Omidi Oskouei, Azizollah Dabaghi, Dariush Nejad Ansari

The Qualitative Report

This article reports on a qualitative study of the learners’ beliefs about effective foreign language teaching in an Iranian setting. A semi-structured interview covering several fundamental issues in foreign language (FL) pedagogy was conducted with 22 upper-intermediate Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Qualitative content analysis of the transcript data yielded several interesting and informative themes. Among the most prominent results of the study, mention can be made of learners’ strong penchant for modern, learner-centered approaches to FL teaching such as communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based language teaching (TBLT). Among the other notable themes were learners’ endorsement …

Cultural And Narrative Shifts Of Nineteenth Century Children's Literature In Hawthorne's Wonder Book For Girls And Boys, Kristen Clark Brandt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Both folklorists and literary critics have been drawn to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s body of work because of his distinctive style and incorporation of folk motifs. Such motif-spotting presents no challenge in Hawthorne’s juvenile literature like his retellings from Greek mythology in Wonder Book for Girls and Boys; however, contemporary folklore redirects the focus of this scholarship to “how particular literary uses of folklore fit into a larger, more fundamental concept of what folklore is and how and what folklore communicates” (de Caro & Jordan 2015:15). Hawthorne’s work interacts with other forms of cultural expression in the nineteenth century such as dominant …

"A Worn, Weary, Discontented Look": The Influence Of West Point And The Hudson River Valley On Poe, Gina Clawywell

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

This article argues that the Hudson River Valley—and specifically West Point—influenced Poe's writing and specifically his 1831 Poems dedicated to the U.S. Corps of Cadets. The grandeur of West Point's locale, the mystical nature of the surrounding rocky cliffs, the deep verdant river valley, the "light from out the lurid sea/ Streams up the turrets silently" of the widening river at Trophy Point, and West Point's castellated architecture had a strong impact on Poe. Despite the haunting beauty of the area, Poe, like many cadets who view the scene laid out before them with a jaundiced perspective, knew the "worn, …

Uncovering Shakespeare's Sisters In Special Collections And College Archives, Musselman Library, Suzanne J. Flynn, Lauren J. Browning, Madison G. Harvey, Hannah C. Lindert, Emma J. Poff, Cameron N. D'Amica, Teagan Lewis, Merlyn Maldonado Lopez, Audrey J. Nikolich, Mariah L. Beck, Phoebe M. Doscher, Chloe Dougherty, Hana Huskic, Samantha L. Burr, Elizabeth F. D'Arcangelo, Logan Shippee

Student Publications

Foreword by Professor Suzanne J. Flynn

I have taught the first-year seminar, Shakespeare’s Sisters, several times, and over the years I have brought the seminar’s students to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. There, the wonderful librarians have treated the students to a special exhibit of early women’s manuscripts and first editions, beginning with letters written by Elizabeth I and proceeding through important works by seventeen and eighteenth-century women authors such as Aemelia Lanyer, Anne Finch, Aphra Behn, and Mary Wollstonecraft. This year I worked with Carolyn Sautter, the Director of Special Collections and College Archives, to give my …

“Higher” School: Nineteenth-Century High Schools And The Secondary-College Divide, Amy J. Lueck

English

This article traces the emergence of nineteenth-century U.S. high schools in the landscape of higher education, attending to the gendered, raced, and classed distinctions at play in this development. Exploring differences in the conceptualization and status of high schools in Louisville, Kentucky, for white male, white female, and mixed-gender African American students, this article reminds us of how these institutional types have been situated, socially inflected, and structured in relation to broader political and power structures that transcend explicit pedagogical considerations. As a result, I argue for the recognition of high schools as historically significant sites in the history of …

British Literature I: Middle Ages To The Eighteenth Century And Neoclassicism, Bonnie J. Robinson, Laura Getty

English Open Textbooks

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you British Literature I: From the Middle Ages to Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century. Featuring over 50 authors and full texts of their works, this anthology follows the shift of monarchic to parliamentarian rule in Britain, and the heroic epic to the more egalitarian novel as genre.

Features:

• Original introductions to The Middle Ages; The Sixteenth Century: The Tudor Age; The Seventeenth Century: The Age of Revolution; and Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century
• Over 100 historical images
• Instructional Design, including Reading and Review Questions and Key Terms
• Forthcoming …

Mulberiddlesex, Catriona Sandilands

The Goose

Through a careful tracing of the botanical presence of mulberry trees in Middlesex, Sandilands argues for a reading practice that takes plants seriously. Thinking with plants interrupts the tendency to consider literary plants primarily as motifs, metaphors or agents of crude naturalization. Sandilands insists on involving plants in reading Middlesex in order to take the novel in less anthropocentric directions: even as Cal enlists mulberries to signal inevitability, their own stories overflow the novel’s deterministic views of race, species, territory, and gender identity.

Dehumanism And Disposability, Julietta Singh

The Goose

Singh draws our attention to the “mute objects” of Middlesex, particularly The Obscure Object’s silent Black maid, Beulah, who quietly supports the unfolding romance between Cal and The Object. Through careful attention to histories of people silenced by slavery, dehumanization, and violence, Singh demands that we consider where and through what means some get to be fully human while others are made and sustained as objects for their comfort and play.