Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of Joyce Carol Oates's Pursuit, Eric K. Anderson

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

A review of Joyce Carol Oates's Pursuit considering the elements of suspense, learned gendered behavior, and narrative strategy.

Calvinism, Catholicism, And Fascism In Muriel Spark’S The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Richard Rankin Russell

Studies in Scottish Literature

A reassessment of the intertwined roles of Scottish presbyterianism, Italian Catholicism, and the rise of fascism, in Muriel Spark's 1961 novel about an Edinburgh schoolteacher in the 1920s and 1930s.

Hearing Competing Voices In James Robertson’S The Fanatic, Alison Jack

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses critical responses to James Robertson’s novels The Fanatic (2000) and The Testament of Gideon Mack (2006), and with particular reference to the character of John Lauder in The Fanatic, arguing that, rather than the political and psychological aspects represented by other characters, the religious perspective of Lauder offers a relevant creative alternative.

Courting Love: Comedy And Genre In Robene And Makyne, Caitlin Flynn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Observing that little critical scrutiny has been given to Henryson's shorter poems, argues that Henryson's Robene and Makyne challenges genre critics by its "seamlessness ... weaving together of courtly and country, formal and frolicking," and that the two lovers, who "embody the generic confusion marking the formal qualities of the poem," reflect "the comic instability of the generic resonances within the text," pointing to wider trends in Scottish imaginative literature of the period.

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Final Master's Portfolio, Hammed Oluwadare Adejare

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains four related essays concerned with issues of race and migration in literary creations of diasporic African writers and film texts by African American film producers. The first essay offers a general exploration of contemporary African diasporic writings and the pervading Afropolitan politics of home and belonging. The next essay in the collection provides a theoretical grounding for this writing genre, tracing the connections between the theory, Afropolitanism, and earlier modes of theorizing global race relations such as postcolonialism and cosmopolitanism. The third essay explores the application of these theories to Teju Cole’s diasporic novel, Open City, explicating …

Reflections On Teaching Through Research Writing, Literature Analysis, Expressive Writing And The Graphic Novel, Natalie S. Johnson

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is Natalie S. Johnson’s final portfolio for her M.A. in English (with a specialization in teaching). It includes a reflective narrative and four revised pieces: “Information Literacy Study and Teaching Student Writing of Research Papers,” “Notes on Baudelaire, Modernity and The Painter of Modern Life,” “Expressive Writing: A Literature Review,” and “Teaching of Social Constructs Through Graphic Novel Study: Challenge Factors.” The portfolio focuses on research and study that developed Johnson’s classroom pedagogy and philosophy toward improved teaching and learning.

Pictures Of Words: The Importance Of Visual Strategies In Tutoring Writing, Kylie Smith

Tutor's Column

An estimated 65% of people are visual learners. Additionally, research suggests that most people are more likely to remember learned concepts when those concepts are attached to visual aids. Unfortunately, Writing Center tutors often forget the importance of using visual strategies when tutoring writing concepts. The implementation of quick and simple visual strategies in tutoring sessions will help students retain information and help them become independent writers for life.

Societal Polyphony In Burney And Austen: Using Digital Tools To Invite Students Into The Conversation, Bethany Williamson

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

How can we invite our students to experience the social wit and wisdom of the eighteenth-century novel, on an interactive level? Addressing challenges faced by those who teach eighteenth-century novels in General Education surveys or seminar classes, this essay offers two lesson plans--easily adapted for different texts and courses--that use digital technology to engage students' imaginations and cultivate skills of reading comprehension and interpretation. The first, "Evelina Tweet Fest," invites students to participate in a collaborative conversation on a simulated Twitter platform, translating the literary polyphony of Frances Burney's epistolary novel into the language of our own, status-conscious milieu. …

Knowledge Networks: Contested Geographies In The History Of Mary Prince, Leah M. Thomas

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

The History of Mary Prince, a West-Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) is the first published woman’s slave narrative. In her History, Prince describes horrendous physical violence to which she and other enslaved peoples of African descent are subjected as well as the corresponding psychological and sexual abuse they endure. While Prince “speaks” the sexual abuse to some extent, how she knows what she knows goes unspoken. She expresses her knowledge of reading and writing and, at times, of the law, but she does not explain how she obtains this knowledge or knows what she knows. Her optimism to …

Preventing, Perceiving, And Post-Venting Suicide: A Guide For Teachers, For Their Students, Justin Vance

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

To aid teachers with intense time constraints, the following summary includes the bolded, most important points in the paper:

• Thank you for caring about your students; by doing more than just teaching your content, you will change lives ... and may save some.

• Teachers are not responsible for student suicide; we carry enough responsibility already.

• Genuine, assertive communication of confidence and support fosters the safe environment needed.

• Improvements to how we view and speak about suicide can help reshape how young people think about it.

• As young men lose what they care about in pursuit …

Feeling It: Toward Style As Culturally Structured Intuition, Keith Rhodes

Department of English: Faculty Publications

I have been moved to write a serious article about teaching style not because I have great and earth-shaking method to impart, but in some sense because I do not, even after years of study—including the small bit of empirical research at the core of this article. Style, as it turns out, remains as difficult, complex, and ultimately intuitive as most of the rest of writing. I hope, ultimately, to encourage writing teachers to focus more attention on style, basing approaches on what we already know rather than waiting and hoping for some flawless system to materialize. Indeed, by the …

Full Issue Fall 2019

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

A Psychoanalysis Of Rebecca West’S Unfinished Novel The Sentinel, Taylor Vesely

Honors Theses

This thesis applies a psychoanalytic lens to a little-known and unfinished manuscript by Rebecca West. There is little scholarship on The Sentinel but a wealth of knowledge to be gained from it about the complicated psychological dilemmas the suffragists suffered. West was writing at a critical period in feminist history that is still relevant today, and this novel, which would have been her first, lays the groundwork for many of her future works. Her depictions of sexuality, violence, religion, and motherhood provide an excellent framework for both her protagonist’s self-suppression and a compelling psychoanalysis. This thesis argues that the many …

The Gendering Of Death Personifications In Literary Modernism: The Femme Fatale Symbol From Baudelaire To Barnes, Amanda Mcnally

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The time of modernity, defined here as 1850-1940, contributed to massive changes in the representation of the feminine in literature. Societal paradigm shifts due to industrialism, advances in science, psychology, and a newfound push for gender equality brought transformation to the Western World. As a result of this, male frustrations revived the ancient trope of the femme fatale, but the modern woman—already hungry for agency, tired of maligned representation in heinous portrayals of skeletons, sirens, and beasts—saw a symbol begging for redemption rather than the intended insult. Women of the nineteenth century infused texture to a two-dimensional accusation that argued …

Shakespeare's Nameless Characters, Savanna Stone

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

“Called Forth By Imminent Dangers”: The American Gothic In Mysteries Of Detection And Detective Fiction (1799-1929), Keli Masten

Dissertations

The period from 1799 through 1929 marks a remarkable era of development for gothic themes in American mystery and investigative fiction. From early “mysteries of detection” through more structurally formalized detective stories, this project examines the differences in the gothic modes and devices employed by Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Katharine Green, Mark Twain, and Dashiell Hammett, and their significant contributions to the progression of the popular gothic detective genre. Through the study of each author’s specific style and focus, there is much to learn about literary development and cultural influence. All of the authors mentioned here address …

Revision: The Literary Compass, Ashton Nanninga

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Revision is necessary in the writing process; it is the creative stepping-stone towards a finished product. Throughout all stages in writing, revision exists. From the entry point of writing – after words meet the page – to submission, it is essential. Determining how to revise as a self-editor as well as receiving critiques and comments from others can be a difficult. Even understanding what constitutes revision can be unclear. In this thesis, understanding what revision is from its origin to application in writing today will be explored. Revision is a subjective process; it varies from person to person. In order …

Managing The Effects Of Wireless Sensors On Vehicle Ad Hoc Network (Vanet) Safety, Melvin Hayes

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper proposes to conduct research on the vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) area of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) with a focus on investigating safety methods that will significantly reduce passenger vehicle collisions which ultimately will help to save lives and reduce property losses. Key areas of this ITS research will include highway infrastructure or wireless sensor networks (WSN) to the cloud (web service) and the cloud (web service) to highway infrastructure or wireless sensor network (WSN). In turn, the cloud (web service) will communicate with passenger vehicles as components of a highway infrastructure (WSN) to vehicle (I2V) systems and …

Effectiveness Of Campusclarity By Everfi’S Sexual Harassment Prevention Program On Victimization Rates, Harold Leon Seifers Iii

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a correlation between the number of reported incidences of rape and stalking on college campuses and campuses that utilize CampusClarity by EVERFI as an educational tool to “reduce risky student behavior and prevent sexual assault on your campus.” The study investigated the relationship between the dependent variables, incidences of rape and stalking, versus the independent variables: partnership, men’s population, women’s population, on-campus drug crime, on-campus alcohol crime, on-campus domestic violence, and on-campus dating violence. The 11,181 campuses that report crime data required by the Clery Act were included as …

Introduction: The Ghost At The Feast: Religion In Scottish Literary Criticism, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Surveys changes in Scottish institutional religion, summarizes Crawford Gribben's critique in 2006 of Scottish literary criticism's long-time anti-Calvinist bias, and introduces essays reappraising the treatment of belief by Scottish poets and novelists from varied religious backgrounds and the critical response to this aspect of their work.

Black Fatherhood In America Through The Lens Of Contemporary Memoir, Christian Allred

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

The Indian And "The Man": Double Consciousness By Community Identity In Zitkala-Ša's "The Soft-Hearted Sioux", Ethan Mcginty

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Motherhood And The Periodical Press: The Myth And The Medium, Susan A. Malcom

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this study, I utilize close readings of the periodically published works of three women writers – Kate Chopin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Elia Peattie –through the lenses of historical/biographical, affective, and biosocial theories. Examining these works against the backdrop of America’s mythologized mother exposes the social ubiquity of the myth and the realities of motherhood nineteenth-century women experienced.

Chapter one examines the mythological nature of American motherhood as it evolved from a politically and socially nuanced Republican Mother and the role of American periodicals as a medium of perpetuating that myth. Historically, American motherhood was an extended function …

The Power Of Modern Othello, Akasha Khalsa

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Border Police: Scott’S Minstrelsy Of The Scottish Border, The Law, And The 1790s, Penny Fielding

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802 etc) in the context of Border history, Scottish legal philosophy, the jurisdictional and cultural concept of the "Debateable Lands," and the Scottish political situation during the political trials and the Militia Act riots in the 1790s. .

W.S. Graham: ‘Born In A Diamond Screeched From A Mountain Pap’, Gerard Carruthers

Studies in Scottish Literature

Provides a centenary reassessment of the Scottish poet W. S. Graham (1918-1986), increasingly recognized as a writer of enduring significance, both for Scottish poetry and for 20th century Modernist poetry more broadly, through close readings of poems from different phases of Graham’s writing career. An edited version of the Hugh MacDiarmid Lecture in March 2018 at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh.

Understanding Supremacist Thought In The U.S.: Confronting The Cultural Underpinnings Of Hierarchical Thought, Timothy R. Libretti

Faculty Research and Creative Activities Symposium

This paper finally wants to suggest that the ideologies that sustain class society may be best understood as sharing much with what we might call supremacist thought more generally, which I identify as a powerful tendency in U.S. history and culture. Recognizing the continuities among white supremacist thought, patriarchal ideology, and the capitalist class ideologies, I argue, offers important insights into how class society works and, perhaps more importantly, a possibility for creating a shared understanding or bridge between the white working class and working-class people of color, as well as women. The vice-president of the confederacy argued that the …

Reader Response Theory: Students’ Encounter And Challenges With E- Literature, Ma. Junithesmer D. Rosales, John Paolo Sarce

English Faculty Publications

This paper investigated the overall experience of learners with e-literature (e-lit). E-lit as a new form of economy in the field of literature and humanities prompted authors and scholars to create newborn sites of learning — videograph fiction, kinetic poetry, text tula (hyperpoem), and hyperfiction. Thus, the digitization of resource materials in literature led the researchers to investigate the outer circle of some of these new born sites by focusing on the following: readers and their experiences on understanding and learning through e-lit; textual which is concerned with performance and complexities of using this new form of literature; and cultural …

Is It ‘A Marriage Of True Minds’? Balanced Reading In Northanger Abbey And Persuasion, Lynda A. Hall

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Jane Austen often uses reading as a way to develop her characters. For instance, in Persuasion, Captain Benwick‘s melancholic disposition is revealed through his partiality for Romantic poetry, but Anne Elliot’s value for balance is expressed when she recommends moral essays. Other times, and not unfrequently, characters’ reading choice falls on the works of William Shakespeare—such as Hamlet, which Willoughby reads to Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, and the excerpts from Elegant Extracts we learn that Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland has memorized.

Some of Austen’s characters read Shakespeare with seductive intent, but others show their …

Photographic (Over) Exposures In The Nuclear Age In Joyce Carol Oates’S You Must Remember This, Sonia Weiner

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

Joyce Carol Oates’s novel, You Must Remember This, examines themes of memory, time, and nostalgia through verbal descriptions of iconic and fictional photographs (such as Rocky Marciano, Holocaust Victims, Atomic Mushroom Clouds, Rita Hayworth). An analysis of the photographic imagery in the novel reveals discrepancies between surface appearances and embedded social and cultural ideological contexts within the work. Photographs are shown to undermine the overt conformity and conservatism of postwar America by exposing its underlying uncertainties and tensions. These tensions are explored through the perspective of a rebellious adolescent female, whose struggles highlight Oates’s critique of power, violence, and postwar …