Digital Commons Network^™

Celebrating Tolkien’S Legacy: Essays (2024), By Nancy Bunting, Seamus Hamill-Keays, And Toby Widdicombe, Douglas Charles Kane

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Douglas Charles Kane, of Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy: Essays (2024), by Nancy Bunting, Seamus Hamill-Keays, and Toby Widdicombe

Navigating Trauma: A Linguistic Exploration Of Bilingual Trauma Expressions, Amira Mahmoud Othman

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationship between language, trauma, and emotional expression among bilingual Arabic-English speakers, focusing on code-switching patterns and euphemisms, and more broadly the emotional roles of native and non-native languages in trauma narratives. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Egyptian participants, the research reveals that code-switching serves as both a linguistic and emotional tool, allowing speakers to navigate trauma by creating distance or engaging more intimately. Such codeswitching patterns include the integration of English content words within Arabic structures, morphosyntactic innovations, and gender agreement applications, reflecting the creative adaptability of bilingual speakers in emotionally charged contexts, in line with …

Returning To The Beginning Place: Le Guin’S Forgotten Anti-Fantasy Four Decades On, Timothy S. Miller

UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies

Ursula K. Le Guin's 1980 portal fantasy The Beginning Place has received a fraction of the critical attention that most of her other novels have attracted over the years. This short book's many enigmas, often structured by self-consciously Jungian symbolism, are best understood as operating in service not to a strict Jungian framework, but rather to a broader metafictional evaluation of fantasy and an articulation of Le Guin's own preferred approach to the reading and interpretation of fantasy. At times, The Beginning Place moves beyond meta-fantasy to become an anti-fantasy that does not shy from critiquing some dimensions of both …

A Cohort Of The Willing: How Secondary Schools Might Face The Literacy Crisis, Michelle A. Barney

The Utah English Journal

Experts like Louisa Moats and anyone who has recently completed LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) training, know that 95% of children can be taught to read (Louisa Moats, 2023). As a secondary educator, it’s tempting to see this statistic and ignore it. Surely, this must be someone else’s problem. In fact, if all goes according to plan in the world of elementary education, students become proficient at foundational reading skills before fourth grade, especially if one considers Kilpatrick’s work which establishes this benchmark for the development of advanced phonological awareness skills (Kilpatrick, 2015, p. …

Helping Students Learn What They Already Know: Uncovering The Magic Of Analyzing Author’S Craft, Joseph Wiederhold

The Utah English Journal

In my first-year teaching, I put a sentence on the board from Megan McDonald’s picture book My House Has Stars: “I hear the water lapping the sides of our boat, lapping the sides, lapping the sides” (McDonald, 1996, p. 2). It’s an exciting sentence. I was sure that students would have plenty to say about how it was crafted.

Advancing Literary Interpretation Via Critical Reading Proficiency: A Sustainable Efl Framework For Generation Z, Wesam Khairy Morsi, Walid Abdallah Rezk

English Language and Literature

Abstract—This research investigates the transformative potential of literary analysis in advancing English proficiency among Egyptian EFL learners, particularly those in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The study focuses on the linguistic and analytical challenges encountered by recent public-school graduates in the Suez Governorate, where English instruction is limited to simplified texts and lacks critical engagement. Unlike their counterparts from language schools in Cairo, these students enter university without placement tests, relying solely on their high school grades, which results in underdeveloped critical reading and thinking skills. Sixty Egyptian students participated in this experimental quantitative research design. Drawing on the …

Daniel Gabelman And Amanda B. Vernon, Eds., Unsaying The Commonplace: George Macdonald And The Critique Of Victorian Convention, Carol Propst

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

A review of Daniel Gabelman and Amanda B. Vernon, eds., Unsaying the Commonplace: George MacDonald and the Critique of Victorian Convention (Hamden, CT: Winged Lion Press, 2024). 283 pages. $20.00. ISBN 9781935688440.

The Riddle Of The Sphinx, Owen Barfield, Rory O'Connor

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Owen Barfield, whom C. S. Lewis described archetypally as his “Second Friend” —“the man who disagrees with you about everything . . . not so much the alter ego as the antiself ”1 —expressed his agreement with the argument of The Abolition of Man and his admiration of the book on a number of occasions. For example, describing various means by which one can become aware of the presuppositions of one’s thoughts, Barfield once wrote: One, of which the best example I know is C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, is to take some typical utterance by a contemporary …

Preface To A Translation Of John Gower's Cronica Tripertita, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

This preface conveys the editors' introduction to Robert J. Meindl and Mark T. Riley's new poetic English translation of John Gower's Cronica Tripertita

More To The Hobbit Than Meets The Eye: Deconstructing Femininity In Bilbo Baggins, Pieter Conradie

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Femininity in JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit has long been read as virtually non-existent. Although Tolkien’s 1937 text remains a compelling story, this absence often means that female readers struggle to find themselves represented in the text. New strains of scholarship, however, claim that by her appearance, interests, behaviour and positioning in a patriarchal society, Bilbo Baggins appears to be more of a woman than a man. In this presentation I take up these emerging arguments, showing how gender relations in The Hobbit deconstruct. In Bilbo and Bilbo’s parents, traditional gender roles are reversed, but ultimately merged. The outcome is a …

Reading, Rending, And Queering The Web Of Story With The Lenses Of “Con-Creation” And Process Theology, Cameron Bourquein, Nick Polk

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

“Sub-creation” within Tolkien’s narrative and extra-narrative works is routinely exhibited not as monolithic but rather as (literally and figuratively) polyphonic. In this joint paper Bourquein proposes that the Legendarium can be read through the lens of “con-creation” (total, continuous, collective, creative activity) both internally (as events in the Secondary World) and externally (as both a text and a pseudohistory in the Primary World). This approach levels the playing field between all actors in—and readers of—“The Drama,” providing a queer approach to interpretive-creative activity when compared to “orthodox” doctrines of creation. Polk further argues that con-creation resonates with process theologies of …

Sauron, Seduction, And The Queering Mechanism Of The Ring, Mercury Natis

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

It has often been argued that Sauron is barely present in The Lord of the Rings, existing as a villainous presence on the margins of the narrative. This paper will argue that Sauron is present throughout the entire narrative as manifested in the Ring, and through the Ring’s presence as a queering device. The Ring acts out Sauron’s seduction mechanism, a defining character trait as portrayed in the Silmarillion. It is this seduction mechanism that allows the Ring to act as a queering agent throughout the narrative. Ring-lust is inherently queer as it projects a male-presented character’s seductive powers, …

The English And The Welsh: Tolkien’S Rewriting Of History In The Legendarium, Alexander Retakh

Journal of Tolkien Research

Early legendarium is often called a "mythology for England," while Tolkien's later tales have been described as mythologies for Britain (by Dimitra Fimi) or Englishness (by Thomas Honegger). Later legendarium still contains fictional versions of English-like peoples, the Hobbits and the Rohirrim. Their construction leads to a re-construction of elements of English history in the subcreation, that often produces fictional analogs not only of the English but of the Welsh. How Tolkien described contacts between the English and their closest neighbors reveals his idea of Englishness (his own national identity) and its place in the narrative.

This article traces appearances …

Materiality Of Traumatic Experience And The Limits Of Representation In Hassan Bani Ameri’S Gonjeshkha Behesht Ra Mifahmand (Sparrows Understand Heaven), Maryam Ghodrati

Emerson Authors, Researchers, & Creators

This paper examines the materialization of trauma as both a narrative and embodied phenomenon in Hassan Bani Ameri’s 2006 novel, Gonjeshkha Behesht ra Mifahmand, using contemporary narrative and trauma theory. The postmodernist narrative, told from the perspective of a photojournalist, reconstructs events surrounding the death of a celebrated Iran-Iraq War commander. I argue that traumatic truths resist full integration into conventional frameworks of understanding, evident in the novel’s non-linear, fragmented narrative and its shift from visual realism to confessional surrealism in an ending that challenges traditional storytelling and historical documentation. By vividly simulating the sensory processing of traumatic memories, the …

Review Of: A Road Less Travelled; Going Back To My Roots; And Traveling Solo But Never Alone—Christopher Petrovich, Robert Alexander, Danny Kohlar, Darrell Yoder

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

People that are interested in joining the Amish or Mennonites are often referred to as “seekers.” And such they are, though in a sense we are all seekers, looking for that better country. It is a mistake to think that all seekers are the same, for their personalities, motivations, and “position on the road” are all different. [First paragraph.]

The Nameless Enemy: How Do You Solve A Problem Like “Mairon”?, Cameron Bourquein

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper analyzes Sauron’s “original” name, “Mairon,” in its various contexts (textual, temporal, and linguistic) and then applies it to a reading of the character in order to produce a “capsule characterization” or “minimyth” for the Lord of the Rings himself. The name “Mairon” appears only in a note to a single entry in a list of Eldarin roots, not published until 2007 in the journal Parma Eldalamberon. This niche location suggests one of the many ways in which this name is marginal: typographically, linguistically, narratively, and historically (as in the Secondary World). The name appears to have been …

Threading The Needle: Teaching Critical Reading And Writing In The Age Of Ai, Emily A. Durham, Andrea A. Berta

Humanities

All instructors--but particularly instructors who must teach students specific disciplinary ways of reading and writing--face a difficult position with AI. Students will need to use AI in collegiate and professional writing, but using AI for assignments can hinder critical thinking skills crucial to analyzing and correcting AI output. This presentation demonstrates three practices from our developmental English classrooms: a critical reading and writing summary assignment, AI-resistant rubrics, and an exercise to help students evaluate AI-generated suggestions on how to review their work. These activities are designed to help students develop crucial AI-literacy skills to help them succeed in an increasingly …

Take Shrigley’S Word For It, Mary Gurley

MA Theses

This essay investigates the complexities of text-based art and contemporary conceptualism by focusing on David Shrigley’s work. By exploring the origins, evolution, and function of language-based practices, Take Shrigley’s Word for It emphasizes the artist’s use of text across various mediums, all of which occupy textual fields, blurring the line between commercial and fine art. Despite Shrigley’s extensive career, limited scholarship exists on his eccentric pairing of words and visuals, as well as his abundant spaces dedicated to sales. This paper also considers how Shrigley transformed the practice of text-based art by making it accessible and relatable to wide ranging …

All That May Become A Man: Dynamics Of Gender And Violence In Macbeth, Lauren M. Schuster

West Chester University Master’s Theses

The text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is rife with the language of gender crisis, with the titular character and his wife struggling against the repressive nature of patriarchal gender norms. It is this conflict between individual gender expression and societal ideals of gender that underscores the play’s central conflict, with Lady Macbeth’s rejection of typical femininity as an inciting force for the murder of King Duncan and the chaos that follows. In my reading of Macbeth, I focus on the rhetoric of material sex and gender performativity. In doing so, I examine what such rhetoric suggests about the patriarchal structures …

L1 Chinese Learners’ Interlanguage Of English Infinitive And Gerund Verbal Complements, Sixin Qin

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This research, following the Interlanguage Hypothesis (Selinker, 1972), examined L1 Chinese learners’ interlanguage of English infinitive and gerund constructions and probed into the psycholinguistic factors influencing the development of their interlanguage. The targeted verbs were verbs that can be followed by both infinitive and gerund complements, depending on the contexts, i.e., forget, remember, stop, and regret. A guided story oral production (GSOP) task and a semi-structured interview were conducted individually with 31 L1 Chinese learners, whose English proficiency was at an intermediate level. The results showcased that L1 Chinese learners’ interlanguage of English infinitives and gerunds was motivated by multiple …

The Experience Of Child Language Brokering In Latin/Hispanic Students: Understanding How Clb Shapes Attitudes Towards Higher Education, Noemi Maldonado

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Immigrants often pursuing a better life than that in their own places of birth migrate to the states. In order to make lives in the states they bring their families with them or begin to create their own already inside the host country. With little knowledge of the place, they arrive and with nothing more than the help of their children, they seek to find a place in the society they became a part of. Immigrant children or those who come from migrant families often must help their parents, caretakers, or extended family manage the English language and American culture …

Women Spinning On The Edge: Finding And Redefining The “Spinster” In The Witches Of Discworld, Kathryn Ann Fitzmaurice

Masters Theses

The word “spinster” has undergone a series of evolutions over the past seven hundred years, first coined to describe the occupation of women engaged in the spinning of plant and animal fibers into thread and yarn in the Middle Ages and later a legal marital status designation used until the 21^st century. The connotation associated in social contexts became pejorative. This project’s tracing of the word spinster is used to set up the broader scope looking at how the spinster can be viewed as an archetype, what we can learn through the lenses of gender and feminist theory, and …

Is This It: Doubts About Transcendence In The Twenty-First Century Novel, Owen S. Avery

English Honors Papers

This thesis explores how twenty-first-century novels grapple with the possibility of transcendence, communication, meaning, feeling, and emotional authenticity in our increasingly digital world. In my grouping of Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts, Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station, Tao Lin’s Taipei, and Megan Boyle’s LIVEBLOG, I identify a shared urge towards accessing feelings and sincerity in an age of irony and skepticism through a variety of different formal strategies. I propose the concept of “internet realism” to describe Lin’s and Boyle’s attempts to capture how digital mediation affects communication, meaning, and sincerity. In these works, I highlight …

Cultural And Counter-Cultural Contexts In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club And Cristina GarcíA'S Dreaming In Cuban, Melinda M. Ninewise

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores the cultural and counter-cultural narratives presented in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, examining how these works impact the literary canon and redefine the immigrant experience through a distinctly female lens. Both novels share themes of generational conflict, fragmented identities, and the struggles of communication shaped by cultural and linguistic divides. While these works feature distinct cultural backgrounds, Chinese American and Cuban American respectively, the authors challenge patriarchal norms by privileging female voices and presenting nuanced portrayals of mother-daughter relationships. The analysis highlights shared literary techniques and thematic parallels, including identity …

Epilogue: Every Þrose Has Its Thorn On Poison, The Cure, And Other Pharmacological Prickles; Or, Why Are You So Far Away?, David Ben-Merre Ph.D., Manu Samriti Chander Ph.D.

English Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Global Englishers Language Teaching Perceptions And Practices Of Vietnamese Preservice English Teachers, Vu Hoai Nhan Dang

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This mixed-methods study explores how Vietnamese preservice English teachers perceive and practice Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT). In Phase 1, 100 third- and fourth-year preservice teachers completed a 24-item perceptions questionnaire, and six of them participated in in-depth interviews. Mean questionnaire responses were at the “Agree” level (M = 3.52 on a 5-point scale), indicating broad acceptance of GELT while still revealing gaps in training and materials, especially in using English varieties, integrating intercultural communication, and implementing GELT-oriented activities. Building on these findings, Phase 2 invited 30 volunteers from the original cohort to complete pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, while six …

The Role Of English Proficiency In Pragmatic Transfer : A Comparative Study Of Compliment Response Strategies In Chinese Efl Learners’ L1 And L2, Xinyi Zhang

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This study investigates the correlation between English proficiency and pragmatic transfer in the compliment responses (CRs) of Chinese EFL learners. It aims to (1) compare the CR strategies used in L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) across different English proficiency levels, and (2) examine how proficiency influences the degree of pragmatic transfer in L2. A sequential mixed-methods design was employed. Thirty Chinese English learners were divided into three IELTS-based proficiency groups (Advanced, Upper-Intermediate, and Intermediate). They completed a written Discourse Completion Task (DCT) with eight scenarios varying in topics and interlocutors’ social status in both languages. Responses were coded using Holmes’ …

Narrative (In)Completion In Chaucer’S The Canterbury Tales And Woolf’S The Waves, Ananya Ramkumar

Pomona Senior Theses

I examine how narrative and personal completion manifest—and are continually unsettled—in The Canterbury Tales and The Waves. Though separated by centuries and written within vastly different literary traditions, both texts explore the tension between fragmentation and wholeness: the ways in which stories and characters can be constructed from partial, shifting materials, and the ways in which the illusion of completeness can mask deeper absences (holes). Drawing on Woolf’s own theories of reading and character—and her sense that readers instinctively create “rickety and ramshackle” wholes from scattered impressions—I will consider how each text engages with the paradox of narrative closure. …

Codec-M: The Multi-Lingual Manosphere Subcorpus Of The Corpus Of Digital Extremism And Conspiracies, Rachel Mccullough, Daniel Drylie, Mindl Barta, Cass Dykeman, Daniel Smith

English Faculty Publications

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General warned the public of the current “loneliness epidemic” and its potential consequences on physical and mental health. One possible consequence of this epidemic is the growth of a movement defined by loneliness and isolation: the incel (“involuntary celibate”) movement. This warning presents a worrying glimpse at the future, as the incel movement, along with other parts of the manosphere, is one that espouses violently misogynist rhetoric which is intrinsically linked to right-wing extremism. While linguistic studies have been conducted on the speech of incels and other constituent movements of the manosphere, few of these …

The Untitled Othello Project: Theoretical Implications Of Untitling, Emily Bryan

English Faculty Publications

This essay analyzes The Untitled Othello Project (UOP) created by Keith Hamilton Cobb. Originating out of conversations around his play American Moor and coinciding with George Floyd’s murder and the period of racial unrest and reflection in the United States, UOP is a transformative approach to Shakespeare studies around issues of pedagogy and performance. Rooted in Cobb’s frustration with systemic racism and exclusion in the capitalist American theater as depicted in American Moor, UOP applies a method called “untitling”, a collaborative and reflective process of dismantling and reimagining Shakespeare’s Othello beyond its origins. This essay examines UOP’s interdisciplinary methods. As …