Digital Commons Network^™

2013 Complete Digest, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The Counterfeit Child, Steven Bruhm

Data and Test Instruments

No abstract provided.

Dracula's Colonized Tongue Speaks Through Fanged Teeth, Creighton Nicholas Brown

Journal of Dracula Studies

No abstract provided.

A Very Victorian Feast: Food And The Importance Of Consumption In Modern Adaptations Of Dracula, S. Brooke Cameron, Suyin Olguin

Journal of Dracula Studies

No abstract provided.

Triangulated Desire In Meyer's Twilight: A Queer Dynamic, Jami Mcfarland

Journal of Dracula Studies

No abstract provided.

The Objectification Of Women In Cane, Claudia M. Davis

ETD Archive

This thesis examines Jean Toomer's Cane (1923) from a feminist perspective. Using Laura Mulvey's film theory of the "male gaze", it repurposes it and uses the theory from a literary standpoint. Throughout this thesis, many different aspects are examined including the character interaction within the stories, the use of the narrative "I" and its overarching implications, audience participation with regard to voyeurism and Toomer's paradoxical stance on the objectification of women. Toomer writes about the women in Cane in a sexually explicit fashion, but does so in order to draw attention to the gaze and criticize it. As the vignettes …

Interpretations Of Fear And Anxiety In Gothic-Postmodern Fiction: An Analysis Of The Secret History By Donna Tartt, Stacey A. Litzler

ETD Archive

The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt is a novel that explores the conditions of detachment and anomie that are represented by a group of six students at an eastern private college. This tale of murder and concealment -- combined with a lack of remorse and redemption -- is far from the traditional, coming-of-age school novel. I argue that The Secret History participates in the gothic-postmodern literary genre, even though it bears the trappings of other genres. Reading this novel through a gothic-postmodern lens reveals that this work is an exaggeration -- by way of the charged gothic atmosphere -- …

Liberating The Sexed Body: Oscar Wilde Erodes Victorian Conventions As A New World Is Created In The Importance Of Being Earnest, Amber M. Wulu

ETD Archive

This essay examines the way in which Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest challenges Victorian conventionalist definition of sexuality in terms of gender. Wilde leads the charge against the structure of the heterosexual matrix byexamining the extent to which gender regulates a person's identity, perception and future. It is imperative to apply alternate analysis on gay/queer theory to Wilde's work to show how the artist was one of the first to introduce audiences to the notion that gender is in actuality a construct. Several aspects of Wilde's literary career are ignored and critics do not recognize nor understand …

No Rape Victim, Male Or Female, Deserves To Be Blamed, Abigail Rine

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

The Postfeminist Mystique - Or, What Can We Learn From Betty Draper?, Abigail Rine

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

Embodied Climate Change: Materiality, Language, Mediation, And The Legitimation Of The Unintelligible, Justin Lerberg

English Dissertations - Archive

“Embodied Climate Change: Materiality, Language, Mediation and the Legitimation of the Unintelligible” examines the intersections of language, technology, and the human and nonhuman worlds through the example of climate change. I posit that human technology, specifically language and digital media, have codified the human and nonhuman worlds into a “mixed-reality” of virtual, actual, and potential lived experiences. These technologies have, for better or for worse, de-materialized local human embodiment and re-materialized it in the global sphere of a technological/natural-reality. The re-materialization shapes not only how humans locate themselves within the world but also how they approach and understand phenomenon like …

The Found Object(S) Of Rhetoric, Nathan Gale

English Dissertations - Archive

The following dissertation expands the notion of posthumanism beyond the work in transhumanism, new media studies, animal studies, and material feminism by incorporating speculative realist philosophies into and with the Aristotelian concept of "faculty" or dunamis. Since Aristotle defines rhetoric as a dunamis (or potential to persuade and/or be persuaded), but also uses the term in his Physics and Metaphysics to describe the contingent potentiality found in material objects, I argue for a posthuman rhetoric that recognizes extra-symbolic forms of persuasion. Drawing from the philosophical work of Levi Bryant, Graham Harman, and Ian Bogost coupled with the rhetorical work of …

"Always Something Of It Remains": Sexual Trauma In Ernest Hemingway’S For Whom The Bell Tolls, Natalie Carter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Following his completion of Tender is the Night in 1934, F. Scott Fitzgerald sent a copy of the manuscript to his friend, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway replied with a long, thoughtful letter detailing the reasons he both “liked it and didn’t like it” (SL 407). He instructed Fitzgerald: “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it” (408). The often-troubled friendship between these two masters of modernism has been the subject of …

Where Are The Books For Polynesians? An Exploration Of Interests, Needs, And Available Resources, Victor Neves

The Utah English Journal

Polynesians (also referred to as Pacific Islanders) are the smallest minority group in the United States, making up .02% of the population. They tend, however to live in concentrated communities, near other Polynesians. The result is that in our schools we either have no Polynesians or an atypical concentration. 2010 census data shows that six of the top twenty cities with the highest Pacific Islander population are in Utah. Provo and Orem have around 20 times the national average, West Jordan 30 times the national average, Taylorsville 40 times the national average and Salt Lake 50 times the national average. …

College-Level Research Papers: The Byproduct Of A Common Core-Aligned Podcast Unit, Sarah Orme

The Utah English Journal

Cordless tools, water filters, satellite technology, and scratch resistant lenses. These are all surprising byproducts of NASA’s investment in space technology (Conger, 2013). In the Cold War race of space exploration in the 1960’s, scientists created diverse inventions that ultimately improved our daily lives. U.S. scientists were able to create these impressive technologies because of the massive investment in the end goal: getting the U.S. to the moon, mars, and beyond before the Russians. We can use this model in our classrooms to advance students’ education by using an engaging goal that facilitates successful byproducts. Unlike NASA, teachers can influence, …

On Reforms And The New State Core, Jon Ostenson

The Utah English Journal

For a long time now, the professionalism of teachers has been under attack—from light-hearted jabs like the neighbor or friend who teases us about our “cushy” job that only requires us to work nine months out of the year to unflattering media portrayals to more serious attacks from politicians and business leaders who point fingers at teachers, blaming us for a multitude of problems in the schools and with students’ performance. Many of the reform efforts underway right now are aimed at us and have the ostensible goal of improving teaching. This is not in and of itself a bad …

Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Integrating Cell Phones As Technology In The High School English Classroom, Kimaya Shanell Hudgins

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Educators are beginning to work with students whose lives have been immersed in the 22^st century media culture. Many of these tools include cell phones, game consoles, laptops, iPads, handheld game devices and television, just to indicate a few. This growing technology has been used mainly for enteltainment purposes by the 21^st century student and seen by others, especially educators, as a detriment to education and the intellectual abilities of these students. This paper describes the potential uses of Short Message Service otherwise known as text messaging in the high school English classroom, particularly how it might encourage …

Virginia: A Sermon Preached At White-Chappel. Type Facsimile Edition., William Symonds

British Virginia

British Virginia is a series of peer-reviewed, open-access editions of original documents related to the colony. British Virginia publications illustrate both the enduring ideological discourse of English settlement in and around the James River, and the unique historical artifacts that record the area's modern colonization. Editions derive from original sources and original research on them. The first two publications in the series, by Professor Joshua Eckhardt (VCU English), are each documentary (or, in other words, single-witness) editions of the Virginia Historical Society's copy of a printed sermon preached by William Symonds to the Virginia Company of London in April, 1609 …

Virginia: A Sermon Preached At White-Chappel. Photographic Facsimile Edition., William Symonds

British Virginia

British Virginia is a series of peer-reviewed, open-access editions of original documents related to the colony. British Virginia publications illustrate both the enduring ideological discourse of English settlement in and around the James River, and the unique historical artifacts that record the area's modern colonization. Editions derive from original sources and original research on them. The first two publications in the series, by Professor Joshua Eckhardt (VCU English), are each documentary (or, in other words, single-witness) editions of the Virginia Historical Society's copy of a printed sermon preached by William Symonds to the Virginia Company of London in April, 1609 …

The Muslim Refugee Family: On The Way To Citizenship, Heidi Naylor

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the spring of 2001, just before the world went post-9/11, my husband approached me about hosting an Afghan refugee family of four. I was hesitant. But my reservations-lice, tuberculosis, the loss of solitude-seem petty and insulting now. In the end, they were out-weighed by his enthusiasm.

How The Axe Falls: A Retrospective On Thirty-Five Years Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Performance, Linda Marie Zaerr

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

This retrospective represents a new approach to using historical performance as a tool for understanding medieval narrative performance. The core of the article traces how an individual performer’s interaction with a stable medieval text both indicates directions medieval performers may have taken and suggests the limitations imposed by modern performance conventions. The discussion touches on issues of adaptation and translation, variation in troupe composition and audience, expectations of modern audiences, impact of costume choices, and limitations of audio and video recordings as documentation of live performance. Juxtaposing eight performances of a single passage clarifies how performance can transform a text, …

Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, And Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives Of Teenage Girls In The 1940s, Carly Anger

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study establishes a more nuanced look at fictional teenage girls of the 1940s. With the beginning of World War II many teenage girls took on jobs that were left vacant by men. With these new jobs came the opportunity to gain financial independence. However, teenage girls, along with their mothers, were expected to leave their jobs once soldiers returned from war. Thus, there was a gap between the actual experiences of teenage girls and what they were expected to be--Rosie the Riveters who were willing to become housewives at the end of the war.

This gap between actual experiences …

Shadows On The Wall, Daniel Bruce Greenhalgh

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Thom Roth has spent his entire life in the Refuge, a secure and fundamentally hierarchical facility which protects the remnants of human civilization. Under the tutelage of Minister Trask, Thom has risen to become a primary contender for an administrative appointment, as well as secured the affections of Dee McKay, Trask's granddaughter. However, when Thom's best friends, Geoff and Scott, discover a small, secret tunnel underneath the Refuge, the three friends' learn that the foundation of their home was decidedly messier than they had been taught. On the other side of the tunnel they find another, smaller Refuge, with fewer …

Evolución Estilí­Stica De La Expresión Del Sufrimiento En La Poesí­A De Alfonsina Storni, Jesus Eduardo Morales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

La presente investigación se propone superar dos obstáculos que afectan la crí­tica literaria sobre Alfonsina Storni: el estigma de su poesí­a como "escritura de (y para) mujeres" y la interpretación de su obra desde su mitificada biografí­a.

¿Cómo abordar la obra de Storni con una metodologí­a que la revalorice, cuando la perspectiva de género y la exactitud biográfica han agotado ya sus posibilidades? La respuesta se halla en un abordaje de tipo estilí­stico que dé luz sobre el proceso evolutivo por el cual pasa la elaboración lí­rica. Sin embargo para la puesta en práctica de tal método, es obligado encontrar …

Book Review: Temple Grandin: How The Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism And Changed The World, Rose Cherie Reissman

The Utah English Journal

Suitable for grades 5 and beyond, this groundbreaking multi-modal science, humane education, and autism focused biography uses direct quotes from Temple, equipment designs, photos, and animal/ autism fact-driven data sheets to offer readers an up-close and personal experience. Given its incorporation of specific chapters on animal thinking, bullying, autism spectrum data, Grandin’s advice for dealing with being different, humane treatment of animal issues, and actual diagrams for squeeze shuttle/cruelty-free facilities, this book can support teachers in addressing the Common Core standards of information/literary texts, text-based answers, academic vocabulary, and building content knowledge. It’s an excellent tool for ELA, Science, and …

Book Review: Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts Across Media And Genres, Joseph Wiederhold

The Utah English Journal

We tend to teach the way we were taught, and many practicing teachers—myself included—were taught to write through analog tools. After reading this book, I realized my practice was still largely rooted in analog thinking. Even though I would consider my classroom plugged in to the digital world, reading Hicks’ book helped me realize that I often integrate technology by using it merely as a tool to publish or create a product. If that digital inclusion helps improve or bring efficacy to the writing process, we often consider the effort as a step toward digital literacy. This thinking is flawed, …

The Impact Of Canadian Social Discourses On L2 Writing Pedagogy In Ontario, Amir Kalan

English Faculty Publications

This paper attempts to illustrate the impact of Canadian social, political, and academic discourses on second language writing pedagogy in Ontario schools. Building upon the views that regard teacher knowledge as teachers’ sociocultural interactions and lived experiences, and not merely intellectual capabilities gained within teacher preparation, this article proposes that the impact of dominant social discourses on classroom practice might be more profound than teachers’ creativity and initiative. This idea is demonstrated by examining the findings of a grounded theory study of frequently employed strategies that can deal with intercultural rhetoric in EAL (English as an additional language) academic writing. …

Taboo Lexeme Conditioning And Obscenities In American English, Alexander Werny

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Taboo Lexeme Conditioning refers to the neurological, psychological, and sociological conditioning required during lexical acquisition for a native speaker to treat or experience certain lexemes as highly taboo. Taboo words differentiate both neurologically from non-emotional or non-taboo lexemes, and lexically person to person, in at least 4 ways: 1) they exhibit high activity in the emotional and moral processing structures of the limbic system, and can activate, or be uttered, independently of cortical structures involved in propositional language processing; 2) they generally receive a high amount of negative emotional response during lexical acquisition and subsequent usage, which affects how they …

Speaking Silence Fluently: Encouraging Student Understanding Of Counterhegemonic Strategies In African American Literature, Kathleen S. Decker

Masters Theses

This thesis suggests that while mainstream multicultural education claims to promote both diversity and equality, it fails to adequately address, let alone improve, the living conditions of minority students. It further suggests that when teachers help students read through the lenses of critical multiculturalism and critical whiteness studies, students can better see that both canonical and non-canonical African American authors deliberately employ nuanced strategies to resist white supremacy. Specifically through the use of purposeful and discreet silences, these authors serve to promote new and actively counterhegemonic ways of thinking in the classroom.

Each chapter pairs two texts--one canonical and one …