Digital Commons Network^™

"Making The Familiar Strange": The Ecocentric Power Of Climate Fantasy, John Cook

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

Contributing to the failure to address climate change is a lack of public imagination, both in perceiving the threat of climate change and conceptualizing solutions. Climate fiction engages readers on an emotional level and speculative fiction in particular can invent alternative worlds illustrating different ways of thinking and living. Fantasy fiction is uniquely suited as a form of climate fiction, with its immersive, subversive qualities, prioritization of the nonhuman, and a tendency towards sprawling, multiple-volume epic series. This paper explores two categories of climate fantasy themes. One category is recovery—regaining a clear view of the natural world. The other is …

Conservative Demons And Countercultural Creators: Hellish Societies In The Dark Or Modern Age Of Comics, Andrew Burt

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

In the Hellblazer and Sandman comic books, depictions of hell rely on the writer’s perspective and the decade they are writing because they account for contemporary folklore, political situations, and cultural conventions. This paper examines how hell appears as a parodic version of the regular world in these texts, accounting for the dark age of comics from the 1980s, where grim and gritty topics prevailed. While borrowing from Judeo-Christian conceptions of hell, demonology, and fears of everlasting torment and damnation like many other representations throughout the centuries, these comics also took elements from the creator’s personal lives and hopes for …

The Path Of Wisdom: Reassessing Tolkien’S Paremiology In The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings, Luis J. Tosina Fernández

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

Using previous scholarship on the use of proverbs in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the present study reevaluates Tolkien’s use of proverbs in the series, with special attention to the use of pseudoproverbs and trying to provide sources that may have served as inspiration for the creation of Middle-earth proverbs. After close inspection of The Hobbit and the three parts of The Lord of the Rings, the findings point towards a less frequent use of proverbs than anticipated or presumed by previous authors. Moreover, despite including a far from negligible number of pseudoproverbs, for many of which …

Oxford At War: “Leaf By Niggle” As A Wartime Work, Part 1, Josh B. Long

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

J. R. R. Tolkien suggested that "Leaf by Niggle" was written around 1938-1939; however, Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull argue that it was actually composed in 1942. This corrected date changes how one reads the story: often viewed as an autobiographical allegory of art and faith, “Leaf by Niggle” falls into place as a wartime work, informed and transformed by the World War II pressures of Tolkien’s Oxford—the city and the University. This article situates the story within WWII and analyzes how that context influenced the imagery, characterization, symbols, and motifs of "Leaf."

The Rhetoric Of The Road: The Romantic Journey As A Map Of Myth, Memory, And Majesty, Joe R. Christopher

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

Scholar Guest of Honor Address at Mythcon 54, Weatherford OK, July 2026.

Again And Again Of “Never Again”: Teaching Holocaust And Genocide Literature In Ela, Sarah J. Donovan

Virginia English Journal

This article explores the evolution of genocide education in the secondary ELA classroom, tracing how foundational Holocaust literature has expanded into a broader, transnational framework of global witness. Drawing on two decades of teaching experience, the author argues that while the Holocaust canon remains essential to genocide education, contemporary classrooms also require literature that helps students engage ongoing and intergenerational atrocities in places such as Rwanda, Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza. The article examines how teachers can thoughtfully adapt established literacy structures—such as rhetorical reading, literature circles, and response journals—into practices of ethical witnessing that center critical empathy, harm, healing, and …

From Pack Horse Librarians To Large Language Models: Grounding Ai Literacy In Appalachian Place And Community, Amanda Biviano, Anna Marie Rayne, Paige Hubbard, Maya Alvarez, Brooke Stiles, Isabella Giocondo

Virginia English Journal

As artificial intelligence reshapes literacy education, teachers face the challenge of preparing students to engage critically with new technologies while honoring the cultural and community knowledge they bring to the classroom. This article proposes a critical, place-based pedagogical framework rooted in rural Appalachian literacy traditions as a means of guiding students toward reflective engagement with AI — particularly large language models (LLMs). Drawing on the theoretical foundations of Freire's critical pedagogy, Giroux's cultural literacy framework, and place-based education, we examine historical Appalachian literacy practices as models for resisting the standardizing and dehumanizing tendencies of AI-generated writing. We then outline a …

A Media Literacy Approach To Ai In Secondary Ela, Matthew Korona

Virginia English Journal

The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into academic, civic, and personal contexts requires students to develop the skills and dispositions necessary for ethical and critical engagement with AI‑mediated texts. While AI literacy is often framed as a technical competency associated with computer science, this paper argues that secondary English language arts (ELA) classrooms are uniquely positioned to support AI literacy through media literacy practices. Drawing on constructivist pedagogy, existing research on media literacy and AI literacy, and the Virginia English Standards of Learning, the article presents a framework that aligns core media literacy competencies with human–AI interaction. To …

“Shall I Always Keep Below Stairs?”: The Waiting-Gentlewoman On The Margin Of Much Ado About Nothing, Daniel F. Gates

Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference

No abstract provided.

Progress, Poetry, And Peace: Romantic Ideals And The Present Day, Kristen Dawn Morgan Hess

Masters Theses

In the busy, technologized, and mechanized life that most people live today, it can be difficult to find true rest, comfort, and peace because the very technology and machinery that is marketed as providing these 21st-century amenities often fall short in their delivery. Taking a look backward at the Romantic era ideals presented in the poetry of William Wordsworth can offer people today the chance to gradually improve their mental, physical, and emotional health by slowing down, minimalizing, and moderating their lifestyles. This thesis talks about the historical background of three of Wordsworth’s poems— “Lines Written in Early Spring,” “The …

Tracing Sehnsucht: Longing For The "Hidden Country", Charlie Reeder

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"This thesis will argue that Lewis employs a consistent set of literary themes and biblical echoes to articulate longing throughout his career, and that his early non-Christian, and often anti-Christian, poetry, such as Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics (1919) and Dymer (1926), plays a formative role in shaping his later depictions of Sehnsucht. Although his theological commitments and vocabulary evolve significantly after his conversion, an engagement with a predominantly Judeo-Christian literary inheritance is apparent from the outset. A central focus here will be Lewis’s use of place. In his early poetry, recurring biblical resonances, conceptual images, and spatial …

Screwtape In Wartime, Joe Ricke

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

"This essay looks closely at the connections between Lewis’s wartime message to his listeners in his now famous, but then unlikely, sermon, “Learning in Wartime,” on 22 October 1939 and his wartime novel, The Screwtape Letters. It will range widely from biography to history to literary influences and to close reading of the texts to help reflect on its place not only in Lewis’s oeuvre but in his life and the lives of all those who, then and now, attend to the distinction between what Lewis (and, surprisingly, Screwtape) makes between the local wars of time and space and the …

Frontmatter (Volume 19 Issue 2), Bruce R. Johnson

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

No abstract provided.

Possibilities Of Being: Black Women's Storytelling As Archival Undoing, Dasharah Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation constructs a discursive genealogy of Black women’s storytelling, positioning its art and aesthetics as a form of colonial archival undoing. Each chapter explores how transmission and documentation can transform—and circumvent—traditional colonial archives. Beginning at the start of the twentieth-century to present, this project traces the discursive legacies of Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, Michelle Cliff, and Staceyann Chin, examining each writer as a site of becoming as they individually (and collectively) seek to articulate an expansive idea of a Black world that constitutes a broader understanding of Black freedom. They each share a common goal of creating a …

Tolkien Fanzine Dataset, 1967-2017 [Bulk 1969-1979], Robinson Ensz, Gabriel Marotto, Aidan Oakey, Ivy Stanich, Ethan Thomas

Tolkien Resources

This dataset reveals the heretofore hidden contents of fan magazines (fanzines) related to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien that were created from 1969 through the publication of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion in 1977. It supplements the earlier Tolkien Fandom Review by S. Gary Hunnewell that discussed fanzines created through 1968. The dataset provides an item level index of the fanzines’ content and is intended to aid researchers in Fan Studies. It is accompanied by an inventory document that lists the fanzine titles and provides brief notes about some of them. Data was drawn from Marquette’s large holding of Tolkien fanzines, including …

Secondary English Teachers' Experiences Of Supporting Literacy Using Books That Support Diversity And Inclusion: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Tremonisha L. Putros

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the use of supporting BIPOC students’ literacy with books that support diversity and inclusion for secondary English teachers in the United States. The theory guiding this study is Bandura’s social cognitive theory, as it stresses personal student engagement in individual learning tasks. The Central Research Question asks: What are the lived experiences of secondary English teachers who support BIPOC students’ literacy with books that support diversity and inclusion by teaching a novel with a BIPOC protagonist in a predominantly BIPOC class? Employing a qualitative methodology, this hermeneutic phenomenology examined the …

The Narrative In The Algorithm: Storytelling, World Literature, And The Smartphone, Chad Szalkowski-Ference

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I interrogate the role algorithms, artificial intelligence, and smartphone technology play in contemporary world literature. My analysis begins with the post-truth condition, which speaks to the contemporary era’s embrace of alternative facts, authoritarianism, and conspiratorial thinking. I draw on narrative theory and paradigms of world literature to show how “algorithmic reasoning” has led to a state of paranoid persecution. This reasoning has forged new collectivities across traditional borders. Additionally, I show that these new collectivities and new technologies have produced new narrative points of view: the algorithmic first- and third-person, allowing narratives to retain the intimacy and …

Queer Postsecular Conocimiento: Anzaldúan Readings Of Time, Spirituality, And Transformation In Nugent, Vuong, And Herrera, Joshua A. Swem

Theses and Dissertations

An overreliance on secularism within the field of queer theory and a denial of spiritual epistemologies prevent deep, alternative, and transformative strategies of analyzing literature. It can regurgitate oppressive ideology in academia. In this work, I synthesize Gloria Anzaldúa’s theoretical concepts of mestiza consciousness, nepantla, la facultad, and el cenote with José Esteban Muñoz’s queer temporality and futurity as a framework to engage with literary texts in queer, postsecular ways, freeing up fresh insights and polysemic perspectives. I argue that in  "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade" by Richard Bruce Nugent, Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri …

Convenience And Communication: Students’ Experiences In Synchronous Online, In-Person, And Asynchronous Consultations, Carolyn Wisniewski

The Writing Center Journal

Writing center tutorial modalities have proliferated in recent years, yet research has not kept pace. Students’ experiences in online writing tutorials remain understudied (Denton, 2017; Hewett & DePew, 2015). Better understanding students’ experiences across session modalities is critical to achieving an inclusive and accessible writing center (Martinez & Olsen, 2015). This study used a mixed-methods, comparative design to determine how students selected, experienced, and perceived the accessibility of synchronous online, in-person, and asynchronous modalities. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of 138 surveys and 22 interviews indicated students perceived each modality to provide effective writing support. They report selecting tutorial modality based …

“Like Learning To Play Chess”: Relationality And The Development Of Interpersonal Communication Skills In Writing Center Consultants, Kara Poe Alexander

The Writing Center Journal

This study explores how writing center consultants develop interpersonal communication (IPC) skills through relational interactions during peer tutoring sessions. Grounded in the theoretical framework of relationality, which views learning as emerging through relationships, I analyze interviews with undergraduate and graduate consultants at a private R1 university. The findings demonstrate that one-on- one conferences foster a broad spectrum of IPC skills, including adaptability, listening, intercultural communication, asking questions, building rapport, giving constructive criticism, setting boundaries, empathizing, and patience. The development of these knowledge and skills is cultivated through collaborative, meaning-making interactions with writers. As such, writing centers emerge as dynamic, relationship-driven …

A Comparative Critique Of Masculine Domination In Madame Bovary (1856) And Gemma Bovery (1999), Aqeela Hamarthya Czecheska Humayra, Diah Kartini Lasman

International Review of Humanities Studies

This study examines how social construction influences the representation of female autonomy through the transition of medium and temporal context. Its primary focus is to compare the mechanisms of masculine domination in Gustave Flaubert’s classic novel Madame Bovary (1856) with Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel adaptation Gemma Bovery (1999). Utilizing Hutcheon’s adaptation theory (2013) and de Beauvoir’s existential feminism (1949), complemented by Freytag’s dramatic structure analysis (1900) as the main framework, this research proceeds from the premise that the transposition from text to visual medium has significant implications for changes in narrative strategies and plot. This study highlights the differing manifestations …

Regenerative Writing: The Rhetorics Of Indigenous Futurisms As Pedagogical Praxis, Madeline R. Mendoza

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation explores how land-based writing and Indigenous Futurisms can reshape writing pedagogy in higher education, focusing on English courses at the University of New Mexico. At the center of this project is the Land Memoirs assignment, which I designed to encourage students to engage land as a living relative and active participant in the learning process. Through the frameworks of Indigenous Futurisms, Land as Pedagogy, Rhetorical Sovereignty, and Pueblo understandings of marking, I analyze the rhetorical choices across student multimodal narratives, reflections, and interviews to examine the assignment’s pedagogical impact. My findings reveal epistemic differences in how Indigenous …

A Pedagogical “Eras” Tour: Thirteen Years Of Evolving As A Writing Methods Instructor [Special Issue], Susanna Benko

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

ABSTRACT: This reflective essay uses Taylor Swift's Eras Tour as a conceptual framework for examining thirteen years of teaching a writing methods course for preservice teachers. Drawing on longitudinal reflection, I identify four distinct pedagogical eras in my practice, each representing shifts in how I conceptualize what preservice teachers need to learn about teaching writing and how clinical experiences shape that learning. Through this extended reflection, I argue that meaningful pedagogical change becomes visible only across time, not semester-to-semester. Key insights include the sustained centrality of writing practice in methods courses and the influence of institutional changes on course design. …

Teaching (In) Community: Reflection And Relationship In The Writing Methods Course, Kristie Jolley, Emily Stephens Kasper, Meridith Reed

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, three writing teachers, one a writing teacher educator, reflect on how the writing methods course has shaped their work as teachers and helped them build community and identify resources to adapt to new teaching contexts and challenges.

What Are You Writing? The Hopes And Hurdles Of Transitioning From Writing Methods To Teaching Writing, Rebekah Buchanan, Darrin G. Ross

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This co-authored piece examines how the writing methods course impacts teaching and thinking about writing through the lenses of a writing methods professor and a former student/current teacher. In writing and thinking together we found that a mutual grounding in liberatory education, using writing as a tool for social action and critical thinking, and teaching writing as a political act we see how the writing methods course and the relationships built through writing create a basis for future decision making and inspiration in the high school classroom.

“I Want To Teach That Way”: What We Learn In A Writing Methods Class [Special Issue], Brad Jacobson, Ana S. Muñoz, Paola Vianney Trevizo

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this dialogic essay, a teacher educator and two early career teachers discuss the influence of a writing methods course on their pedagogy in practice. The conversation focuses on a digital testimonio task that instilled values the early career teachers continue to bring to their teaching, including an expanded conception of what counts as writing and a critical, humanizing approach to literacy education. Moreover, the challenges they experienced as preservice teachers when composing a digital text helped them to see the value of a scaffolded writing process, demonstrating the value of experiential learning. While the digital testimonio project itself was …

Author Guest Of Honor Keynote - Fantasy As A Tool Of Resilience And Resistance / Mythopoeic Awards Ceremony, David R. Slayton

Mythcon

We find ourselves in a dire reality. America is facing a literacy crisis, especially among the young. College professors are sounding the alarm that students are entering higher education without having read a full novel while book bans are limiting access to reading materials. Many libraries are preemptively removing works before anyone can protest their inclusion even as budgets are being cut. Reading for pleasure among adults is down significantly, as is reading comprehension, at a time when media literacy is made crucial by weaponized misinformation, outright gaslighting, and the proliferation of AI generated media that is becoming increasingly hard …

The Road To Armageddon; Commonwealth Orcs, 1872-2000, Joseph Rex Young

Mythcon

J.R.R. Tolkien’s orcs are perhaps his most exported creations, having become stereotypical antagonists of fantasy games, hewn down in countless dungeons as the evil minions of unnumbered dragons. Commentators have raised justifiable questions about the notion of an ‘evil race,’ though on examination the absorption of orcs into the post-Tolkienian genre, especially by writers from the British Commonwealth, has perpetuated a strikingly consistent, coherently evolving notion of what that evil is. Rather than relitigate questions about the admissibility of orcish evil, the purpose of this paper is to document this point of continuance.

Tolkien equates the orcs of Middle-earth to …

Mythic Roads: Tolkien's Literary Network And Cosmopolitan Imagination, Hayden Bilbrey

Mythcon

Journeys and roads are central to J.R.R. Tolkien's stories in Middle-earth, but the significance of these pathways extends beyond physical landscapes. This paper argues that Tolkien's legendarium constructs a network of texts, cultural traditions, and temporal frameworks. Drawing on concepts from Caroline Levine's concept of literary networks, this paper examines how Tolkien integrates elements of Christianity, Norse, and other mythological systems to create a cohesive mythopoetic structure. Not merely just coexisting; these influences form interconnected nodes with a larger network that readers traverse through the narrative. Thus, Middle-earth becomes not only a setting but a cosmopolitan mythic space shaped by …

Spacing Out Of The Shire: Spatiomagus And Spatial Nomadism In The Lord Of The Rings, Kieran Strand-Leeds

Mythcon

As a text, The Lord of the Rings is obsessed with the natural and the magical in the mundane. However, what is often neglected in Tolkien studies is the idea of the space in which the natural and the magical exist. Here, I present the theory of spatiomagus to help us understand space in fantasy literature. Building off the Deleuzoguattarian theory of smooth/striated space, spatiomagus asserts that space in fantasy texts is influenced physically and/or created virtually by the magical “light” and “dark.” This intersection of magic and space can create, destroy, and alter places via metaphysical means, and spatiomagus …