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The Blinding Lights Of (Post)Feminist Empowerment In Joyce Carol Oates’S "Night, Neon”, Stéphanie Maerten

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

Juliana, the protagonist of Joyce Carol Oates’s 2018 novella “Night, Neon,” is portrayed as a confident, empowered young woman who appears to embody the postfeminist ideal of “having it all”—autonomy, agency, and adherence to traditional feminine norms like marriage and motherhood. However, as the story unfolds, it becomes evident that Juliana’s sense of empowerment is largely performative, concealing deep-seated vulnerabilities and unresolved traumas. Through a series of flashbacks revealing Juliana’s troubled past, Oates critiques the postfeminist tendency to reinterpret traumatic experiences as tools for self-empowerment and resilience, suggesting that such a framework may obscure the systemic and pervasive nature of …

The Mudwoman In The Academia: The Spectral Presence Of Jane Eyre And Antoinette Cosway In Joyce Carol Oates's Mudwoman, Stéphanie Durrans

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

While Jane Eyre has been lauded as a feminist novel, its modernist prequel Wide Sargasso Sea clearly aims at recovering the lost voice of the much-maligned Bertha Rochester from an altogether different feminist perspective. In her 1985 essay on these two novels, Joyce Carol Oates highlights their dual relationship in terms of romance and anti-romance, regarding Rhys’s novel as “a reverse mirror image of Jane Eyre’s and Rochester’s England.” Commenting upon the brief encounter between Jane and Rochester’s first wife as depicted by Jean Rhys, Oates also points out that, “[i]nhabiting contrary worlds, one woman is a savage to the …

Is Love A “Pathological Condition Of The Soul”? Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts And Rape: A Love Story, Nicolas P. Boileau

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

This paper seeks to address the question of Oates’s relation to feminist and gender theories by looking at two novellas published consecutively, Beasts and Rape: A Love Story in the beginning of the 2000s. The short texts share a common storyline based on rape, which is far from uncommon in Oates’s fiction. However, I argue that there is something very specific in these two novellas in the way Oates chooses to handle the testimony of the rape, both overtly and covertly, both in graphic details and in repressed forms of expression, giving way to a reflection on women’s vulnerable position …

Fantasy And Faith: Lewis And Tolkien On Magic In Fantastical Literature, Zion Lang

Senior Honors Theses

Despite biblical warnings against the occult, Christian authors C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien incorporated many kinds of magic into their works of fantasy. These authors had an orthodox view of the occult, but they also believed that fantasy magic differs from the esoteric: its purpose is imaginative, rather than power-seeking, and it is usually part of the imagined laws of the fantasy world. Lewis focused on the mythic side of fantasy and included more ambiguous magic. Tolkien focused on fantasy as eucatastrophic fairy tale, and his works include somewhat divine supernatural forces. Nonetheless, both authors saw fantasy …

Harry Potter And Resistance By Beth Sutton-Ramspeck, Douglas Charles Kane

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

No abstract provided.

“Perilous And Fair” In “A Bleak, Barren Land”: A Feminist Responds To Dylan Lee Henderson’S Essay, Robin A. Reid

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

Dylan Lee Henderson’s 2023 essay in Mythlore (vol. 42, no. 1) titled “A Bleak, Barren Land’: Women and Fertility in The Lord of the Rings,” claims that “many feminist scholars [since 1971] have condemned Tolkien’s depiction of women as inadequate and denounced Tolkien himself as a misogynist” (88). In my response, I argue that Henderson’s essay reduces a fifty-plus year history of scholarship (much of it by feminists) exploring the complex, contradictory issues of Tolkien’s female characters to a single negative stereotype. I described that stereotype in my 2015 essay in Perilous and Fair (Croft and Donovan) in my conclusion …

Alan Garner’S Elidor: The “Anti-Narnian Fantasy”?, Laura N. Van Dyke

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

British fantasy writer Alan Garner has referred to his novel Elidor as "THE anti-Narnian fantasy," though he says this was done unconsciously. In this article, I explore why Garner positioned his work as the antithesis to C.S. Lewis's fantasy novels, and argue that in many ways it in fact complements rather than contradicts the vision Lewis conveys.

Modelling The Fear Of God In C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles Of Narnia, Brett Roscoe

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

This article employs insights from cognitive approaches to literature to study how The Chronicles of Narnia evoke a religious affect known in the Christian tradition as the “fear of the Lord.” It first does what Guillemette Bolens calls a "kinesic analysis" of the books, focusing on the gestures, movements, and facial expressions related to the fear of Aslan, and then it interprets this fear in the context of Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy, a book C. S. Lewis claims had a large influence on him. Lewis, like Otto, was concerned with religious experience, specifically with how his …

The Liberty To Bind Oneself: Chesterton And The Oath Of Fëanor, Matthew Mckenna

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

This paper does two things. First, it reads the oath of Fëanor in The Silmarillion through the lens of Chesterton’s philosophy of oaths, and suggests that Tolkien was speculatively influenced by Chesterton on this topic. It accomplishes this by an exposition of Chesterton’s philosophy of vows followed by an in-depth exposition of the oath of Fëanor throughout The Silmarillion. Its thesis is that the oath of Fëanor works according to the mode of Chesterton’s philosophy of oaths, that is, the oath compels the oath-taker to act. Viewing the oath of Fëanor through the framework of Chesterton’s philosophy of oath …

“Woman At Point Zero” Challenges Faulty Person Schemas, Josephine Ebersole

KU Inspires! Undergraduate Research Day

This paper explores how literature can challenge faulty-person schemas as defined by Mark Bracher through an analysis of Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi. The paper outlines how Saadawi pushes her readers to question faulty-person schemas and biases and also question the impact these schemas have on institutions and structures that are rooted in bias to oppress and control minorities. The main character in the novel, Firdaus, is a woman who fights against oppressive structures for her protection and freedom, and through humanizing such a character, Saadawi demonstrates how faulty-person schemas place inaccurate judgements on people and encourage …

Sounds Of Battle And Battle Of Sounds: Belliphonic In Tolkien, Ali Mirzabayati

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper explores the concept of the belliphonic—a term denoting the acoustic dimensions of warfare—within the context of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, focusing on the Battle of the Five Armies. While modern war studies have mainly centered on the mechanized soundscapes of twentieth-century conflict, this study engages with recent scholarly efforts to recover the sonic textures of medieval battle. Drawing on theories of wartime acoustics and examples from medieval literature, the paper examines how Tolkien, informed by his expertise in Old and Middle English texts and his lived experience in World War I, crafts a dynamic and psychologically …

Ethics Of End-Of-Life Care: Alzheimer's And Assisted Dying, Callan Plant '25

Honor Scholar Theses

Assisted dying and euthanasia are hotly contested end-of-life care options that present pressing dilemmas concerning patient autonomy, relief of suffering, and the misapplication of these delicate medical procedures. Access to and prohibition of these options is predicated on years of legal history, including continuous adjustment, and is actively contested in many places. Each country where at least one of these options is accessible, such as the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, possesses largely similar restrictions and guidelines, with notable exceptions. Through the examination of data in countries that allow access to assisted dying, euthanasia, or both, it is possible …

Religious Fundamentalism, Motivation, And Empathy Towards Sexual Minorities, Nora Martin

Honors Theses

In the United States, political and social opposition to sexual minorities is often associated with high religiosity — in particular, Christianity (Bjork-James, 2019; Toorn et al, 2017; Westwood, 2022). However, the relationship between religiosity and prejudice is complex, with religiosity being both positively and negatively associated with prejudice towards marginalized groups (Laythe et al., 2002; Liht et al., 2011). One aspect of religiosity that is correlated with prejudice against LGBTQ+ individuals is religious fundamentalism (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Fisher et al., 2017; Laythe et al., 2002). Religious internalization, a related concept, assesses the degree to which an individual ‘adopts’ an …

Feminist Stories: Then And Now, Brooke Kelly

FUSION

This short essay explores the connections between themes in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the 2024 film, Immaculate, specifically focusing on each story's affect on feminism.

The essay was originally written in response to a discussion post where students were asked to pick one American literary text and one piece of contemporary media that addressed the same issues/character types/ plot/ideas, etc. of today.

Un-Silencing Dickinson: Emily Dickinson's Aversion To The Male Body And Heterosexuality In "My Life Had Stood–– A Loaded Gun", Cassandra Barron

Global Tides

This paper examines Emily Dickinson's aversion to heterosexual marriage and sexual initiation in her poem "My Life had stood-- a Loaded Gun". The ethics of deciphering through identifying and categorizing potentially Queer authors and texts impacts our understandings of frequently canonized authors such as Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson's nineteenth-century American context informed her ability to write deliberately about her experience of subversive sexual desire. Instead, Dickinson utilizes images of death, apathy, and immortality to illustrate her revulsion toward the male body and heterosexual marriage. This paper illustrates how utilizing Queer and feminist theories illuminates new and potential understandings of Emily …

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 33, No. 2, The Sinclair Lewis Society

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter

"Sinclair Lewis Conference in Sauk Centre to Celebrate Arrowsmith"

"Impressions of Sinclair Lewis: Interview with Andrea B. Nardi, Italian Translator of Main Street," by Anthony Di Renzo

"Mr. Babbitt Goes to Washington"

"'You meet such interesting people on the road': Humor in Sinclair Lewis's Early Travel Writing," by Sally E. Parry

"'Adventures in Autobumming' and Hell on Wheels," by Sally E. Parry

"Meet the 2025 Lewis Conference Keynote Speaker: Dr. Michael T. Osterholm," by Shaun F. Richards

From Ruin To Reconstruction: Words Shaping Identity In Undertow And Uncultured, Hannah Harvey

English Senior Capstone

Undertow by Charlene Edge and Uncultured by Daniella Mestanyek Young each document the rise and fall of a religious cult—The Way International and The Children of God, respectively—and the authors’ personal experiences with cult indoctrination. Both works discuss cult leaders’ use of psychologically manipulative language to strip members’ agency and individuality, and both works demonstrate how Edge and Young reclaimed their sense of self by processing their experiences in writing. An examination of their memoirs supplemented by selections from Emily Dickinson’s poetry reveals the power of words to destroy and create, to be used by cult leaders to obliterate the …

Evelyn Waugh And The Problems Of Representing Conversion, Alec J. Miller

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Evelyn Waugh’s conversion to Catholicism in 1930 raised the question of how his writing would change. The satires he wrote before his conversion, Decline and Fall (1928) and Vile Bodies (1930), are hilarious but have no spiritual vision. Critics attacked his second novel after his conversion, A Handful of Dust (1934), for not being fitting for a Catholic writer to have made. Yet, Waugh makes a religious point in A Handful of Dust, exploring the wages of spiritual apathy without showing a path out. Later in Waugh’s career, he makes his finest attempt in the Sword of Honour trilogy …

Death Becomes Us: The Consumptive Body In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Jennifer Marie Mcmahon

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impacts of nineteenth-century tuberculosis epidemics on gothic literature published between 1842 and 1872. In this period of time, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States and in Europe, killing an estimated one in seven people. Using theoretical lenses of psychoanalysis and material ecocriticism, this project considers borders between material bodies—specifically those between bacterial agents and humans—to be illusory and socially constructed. The first chapter focuses on the ways in which representations of tuberculosis, and its associated entanglement with the environment, appear in the work of two authors from the United States: Edgar …

Chiral Collapse In William Gaddis’ The Recognitions, Drake Roth , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

What is the purpose of art? What is the relationship between such complex binaries as: art and science, art and artist, music and musician? How do forgeries or fraudulent creativity complicate such relationships? And how (mechanistically) does art allow for a more holistic understanding of self and imagination? This thesis attempts answers chiefly using William Gaddis' The Recognitions, a gargantuan post-modernist American fiction novel published in 1955. By underpinning his book with themes of hands, binaries, and mechanized art Gaddis proffers an apparatus for understanding the relationships between opposing forces. Carl Jung’s theory of enantiodromia, or the process …

Falling Women And Empty Skies: Returning To 9/11 In Fiction By Daniel Alarcon, Claire Vaye Watkins, And Otessa Moshfegh, Jeffrey Gonzalez

Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Daniel Alarcon’s “Absence,” Claire Vaye Watkins’s “Rondine al Nido,” and Otessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation are American works of fiction that save their most substantive commentary on the 9/11 terror attacks for their final page, despite each text largely focusing on other matters. This gesture illustrates the works calling upon and questioning the gravitas afforded to the tragedy of September 11. Reviewing the reception history of 9/11 fiction and making comparisons to canonical 9/11 narratives, I argue that these texts complicate these canonical and criticial frameworks: they treat 9/11’s significance as a variable, rather than a constant.

What Are The Games For?: The Hunger Games And Reality Tv, Audrey Perez

Senior Honors Theses

In Suzanne Collins’ series, The Hunger Games, a dystopian Capitol holds an annual televised gladiator-style competition in which child participants fight to the death. These Games function as a psychological tool of propaganda that influence both viewers and participants to sustain an oppressive government. Collins prominently explored the Games’ medium as a reality television show through the way it reinforces an ideology of oppression and control through visual messaging and emotional complicity to create division between classes of people. Real world reality TV also has ideological underpinnings that can negatively influence both viewers and participants through its depiction of a …

Volume 30 Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Spring 2016, presents an eclectic mix of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and visual art, showcasing both emerging and established voices. The issue, archived as Volume 30, Issue 1, corresponds to the print edition labeled Volume 34, Issue 2. 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.

Editor Qassye Marie Hall, in her editorial preface, reflects on the challenges and rewards of editing Nebo, …

Volume 24 Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Spring 2009, carries the distinct theme of "Deja New," a phrase coined by the editorial staff to symbolize the Millennialist literary movement’s departure from postmodernism. The issue, archived as Volume 24, Issue 1, corresponds to the print edition labeled Volume 27, Issue 2. 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.

The preface by editor Isaac Wardlaw continues the conversation from previous editions about literary millennialism …

Volume 20 Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Spring 2006, presents a diverse and thought-provoking mix of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, delving into psychological introspection, cultural critique, and experimental literary techniques. Originally archived as Volume 20, Issue 1, the print edition is labeled as Volume 24, Issue 2. 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.

Under the editorial direction of Tommy Bourgeois, this issue features a compelling selection of literary voices …

Volume 19 Issue 2

NEBO: A Literary Journal

his issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Fall 2005, features a compelling mix of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, highlighting themes of social identity, personal transformation, and cultural reflection. Originally archived as Volume 19, Issue 2, the print edition is labeled as Volume 24, 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.

Edited by Rachel Dawn Tallmadge, this issue includes works from emerging and established literary voices, such as …

Volume 17 Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Fall 2002, presents a carefully curated selection of poetry and short fiction, focusing on personal identity, memory, nostalgia, and the exploration of self through art and storytelling. Originally archived as Volume 17, Issue 1, the print edition only notes Fall 2002 as its publication date. 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.

This issue is framed by an Editor's Note by Jeremy Bunts, which …

Volume 15, Issue 2

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Spring 2001, features a compelling collection of short fiction that explores identity, relationships, surrealism, and the complexities of human experience. Originally archived as Volume 15, Issue 2, the print edition only denotes Spring 2001 on its cover. 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.

This issue is heavily fiction-focused, with contributions from emerging and established writers. Notable pieces include "Nightfall" by Brad Molder, a …

Volume 15 Issue 1

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal, published in Fall 2000, is a compelling collection of short fiction and poetry, featuring diverse storytelling styles, psychological depth, and experimental narrative forms. Originally archived as Volume 15, Issue 1, this issue includes fiction and poetry from emerging and established writers, offering unique perspectives on identity, relationships, surrealism, and cultural observation. 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.

This issue showcases a range of literary …

Volume 14 Issue 2

NEBO: A Literary Journal

This issue of Nebo: A Literary Journal features a diverse and engaging selection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, with a strong focus on identity, artistic transformation, and cultural reflection. Originally archived as Volume 14, Issue 2, this issue is actually Volume 18, Issue 2, covering Spring 2000. 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.

The fiction selections include "BREEEAANGGGHHHAAANNGHHHEEEANGHHH" by Matt McNair, a surrealist take on modern anxieties, and "Paroled!" by Sharon Baker …