Digital Commons Network^™

He Said, She Said: Deconstructing Gender In Our Own World Through Our Own Languages, William K. Coulthard

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Both language and gender are social constructs which we humans have created to produce an order to the world, and this essay illustrates the ways in which language influences both our perceptions of gender and the world of people who subvert so-called natural gender norms. Because gender, unlike sex, is a social construct to which we ascribe particular images and words, language can affect not only the identity of the person in question but also their relationships, careers, and societal attitudes toward gender. Ursula Le Guin, in her 1969 science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, deconstructs our earthly …

Full Issue, Kritika Kultura

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Muzibogun Research Symposium Poster, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is the research poster which we presented at the 2025 Research Symposium

A Marriage By Any Other Sign: Social Signification In The Way Of The World, Alyssa Alexander

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

This paper analyzes William Congreve’s The Way of the World through the lens of Derrida’s theory of différance, arguing that the play destabilizes the fixed social categories of marriage and identity through linguistic performance. While many critics read Congreve’s portrayal of marriage as either reinforcing or satirizing Restoration social structures, this analysis emphasizes how language itself resists fixed meaning. Drawing on key scenes between Mirabell and Millamant, Waitwell’s reflections on autonomy, and Fainall’s contradictory claims of masculine selfhood, the paper demonstrates how the signs “husband,” “wife,” and “man” shift and defer meaning rather than affirm static roles. Characters do not …

I Am: Power From Identity In “Revelation” And No Exit, Elisabeth Edwards

English Senior Capstone

In the short story “Revelation” and play No Exit, Flannery O’Connor and Jean-Paul Sartre explore the necessity of self-awareness. By setting their works in confined spaces, O’Connor and Sartre push their characters to confront their deeper identities. For Mary Grace and Inez, a strong sense of self gives them the power to impose negative names upon more vulnerable individuals. For Ruby Turpin, Gracin, and Estelle, ignorance of self leaves them indefensible to harsh truths. Analyzing “Revelation” and No Exit through a philosophical and religious lens reveals that without an accurate sense of self, we risk becoming nothing more than the …

Syntax And Grammar, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

Sentence examples written in Ietic and translated to English. Descriptions of how transformations, nouns, conjunctions and verbs are used in our language.

Swadesh List Dictionary, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

An Ietic dictionary.

Research Poster Ietic: The Language Of Mere Wudu, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

2025 Research Poster of The Language of Mere Wudu, Ietic.

Shakespeare’S Early Histories And The Construction Of Government, Paul Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Shakespeare’s first tetralogy has been treated as an account of the reinvention of government, especially a Hobbesian reinvention demonstrating how authoritarian government forces order out of chaos. This article argues that, though Hobbesian elements present themselves, Shakespeare employs subtexts available to his time and place to speak of how orderly government is constituted: that is, he relies on accounts of the Fall from perfection into chaos and the return from it through divinely blessed kingship that are present in syncretic readings of Ovid and the Bible. The two subtexts give order to the progress from Fall into chaos and back …

Theshrahk Thwath Phonological Inventory, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains all of the phonemes present in Theshalshe with their corresponding glyphs.

Theshrahk Thwath Legend, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains the origin myth of Theshrahk Thwath’s vegetarianism and relationship with nature. It is presented line-by-line in Theshalshe, the orthography, the romanized form, a transliteration, and an English translation.

Muzibogun The Bells Of St. Mary’S, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is a portion of our school song translated to Muzibogun

Muzibogun Semantics, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows the different fields of words and valued concepts in our language that give it meaning.

Muzibogun Poetry And The Engaged Citizen Poem, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is a poem written in Muzibogun about our sun goddess, Zeerotamo.

Muzibogun Syntax And Grammar, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows how our sentence order, case system, conjugations, and different morphemes make sense of our language in a sentence.

Muzibogun Morphology, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows how we turned our phonemes into morphemes and into words.

Muzibogun Legend, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is a story about how the Muzibogun are processing what we know as climate change.

Muzibogun Phonological Inventory, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

IPA charts with the consonant and vowel phonemes available in our language.

Mere Wudu Semantics And Pragmatics, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

The Semantics and Pragmatics of our language. Descriptions and explanations of our religious and cultural values and beliefs.

Mere Wudu; Phonological Inventory, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

Display of the Consonants and Vowels used to create our language.

Theshrahk Thwath Poem, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This is an original poem written in Theshalshe’s romanized form and orthography and translated into English. The personification of a plant reflects the Theshrahk Thwath society’s close identification to nature.

Theshrahk Thwath Syntax & Grammar, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains different sentence structures that can occur in Theshalshe, highlighting the subject-verb-object pattern. There are examples of plurals, different tenses, conjunctions, adjectives and adverbs. There are also syntactic tree diagrams.

Theshrahk Thwath Semantics And Pragmatics, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains some semantic fields and pragmatic conventions of the Theshalshe language, including apologies, story openings, and conversational turn-taking.

Theshrahk Thwath Swadesh List, Mary Arnolds, Sofia Farias, Alexandra Renteria, Nicholas Denmark

Team - Theshrahk Thwath - Documents

This document contains some the lexicon, verb conjugation patters, plural structures, and nominalization pattern of Theshalshe. The lexicon entries are presented in Theshalshe, romanized form, and a pronunciation guide using the IPA.

Muzibogun Pragmatics, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This shows how and when certain language elements and politeness strategies are used.

Volume 28 Issue 2

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Fall 2014, is a diverse collection of poetry, short fiction, book reviews, and literary interviews, reflecting on the power of language, memory, and personal identity. The issue, archived as Volume 28, Issue 2, corresponds to the print edition labeled Volume 33, Issue 1. Due to necessary metadata adjustments in the digital archiving process, some volume and issue numbers in the online collection may not match those printed in the original journals.

In her editorial preface, Brittany Pickens, the editor of this issue, reflects on …

Volume 23 Issue 2

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Fall 2008, continues its engagement with literary millennialism, a movement initiated in the previous issue to redefine contemporary literature by merging Victorian Realist social consciousness with Modernist stylistic experimentation. Originally archived as Volume 23, Issue 2, the print edition is labeled as Volume 27, Issue 1. Due to necessary metadata adjustments in the digital archiving process, some volume and issue numbers in the online collection may not match those printed in the original journals.

A major feature of this issue is the editorial preface by …

Literacy Warriors: Engaging Our Community In The Fight For Literacy, Monica Rene Manns, Diane Saunders

Virginia English Journal

The Literacy Warriors initiative is designed to address the pervasive issue of illiteracy in underserved communities through innovative, community-driven strategies. Rooted in the evidence-based methodologies of Marva Collins and Orton-Gillingham, the program equips community members—referred to as Literacy Warriors—with the skills to teach foundational literacy, including phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Recognizing literacy as a tool for equity, empowerment, and social justice, this initiative emphasizes culturally affirming practices that resonate with the lived experiences of Black and marginalized students. The program also addresses a critical gap: many Literacy Warriors themselves were not taught phonics due to past whole-language initiatives, which …

The Metaphysics Of Frank Herbert's Dune And God Emperor Of Dune: On Time And Language, Garrett J. Busshart

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the metaphysics of time and rhetoric in the science fiction novels Dune (1963) and God Emperor of Dune (1981) by Frank Herbert. The first chapter critiques the protagonist’s sense of temporality, an ideology in which the future consists of multiple possible choices while each decision of one forecloses a still larger set. Jean-Pierre Dupuy calls this a “supermarket” model of temporality, as if the future were a contingent-free menu of possibilities a subject is free to pick between. My assertion is that this sense of temporality—the Western norm—matches the protagonist’s, Paul Atreides’s, rhetoric. In disclosing Paul’s sense …

“Time Is Our Only Ally!”: Indigenous Heroism And Native Slipstream In Turok, Son Of Stone, Justin Wigard

Heroism Science

In this article, I draw on Frederick Luis Aldama’s framework of Graphic Indigeneity to revisit the long history of an Indigenous hero figure in comics: Turok, a pre-Columbian Mandan warrior lost in a prehistoric space known as the Lost Valley. First appearing in Dell’s Four Color Comics #596 (1954), Turok has appeared throughout comics history for nearly 70 years, primarily written and drawn by white creative teams, yet a visually, narratively prominent Indigenous hero in the comics page, one who has periodically been a top-selling popular character in the comics industry. To this end, I argue that Turok is a …