Digital Commons Network^™

Can’T Afford The Manolos? Buy The Book!: Chick Lit & Contemporary Consumerism, Allison Cole

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

At the airport, across from the magazines at Wal-Mart, and probably somewhere near the front of local bookstores — chick lit is everywhere. One would probably recognize it from a distance as a sea of shiny pink1, the small glossy paperbacks cheerfully beckoning from their carefully constructed display. Chick lit has exploded into the western2 market over the last decade, captivating millions of readers with their tales of young, urban professional women navigating the worlds of careers, relationships, and of course, shopping. By the end of the novel, each of these components is generally resolved in somewhat formulaic fashion

2007 Complete Digest, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The New Woman In Stoker's Fiction: Looking At Lady Athlyne, Carol A. Senf

Journal of Dracula Studies

No abstract provided.

"Why Am I So Changed?": Vampiric Selves And Gothic Doubleness In Wuthering Heights, Lakshmi Krishnan

Journal of Dracula Studies

No abstract provided.

The Status Of Vlad Tepes In Communist Romania: A Reassessment, Duncan Light

Journal of Dracula Studies

No abstract provided.

Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales And Rescue In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Christina Marie Frank

ETD Archive

Within The House on Mango Street, Cisneros weaves several subtle literary allusions, mostly from fairy tales, into many of her vignettes. These subtle allusions help Cisneros create a portrait of expected feminine roles, mostly women as victims, within the patriarchal community, which, when juxtaposed with Esperanza's ideals for herself and her inner strength and drive, help distinguish her as different from those around her. Because she is different and stronger than the other women in her community, Esperanza will be able to reject the other female role models presented by both the women in her community and the women in …

"I Put The Tale Back Where I Found It": Feeling The Past Through "The Warmth Of The Human Voice", Daryl Cumber Dance

English Faculty Publications

In this article, I examine my revelations and growth related to folk culture and literature connected to the African American community. I borrow from and play on the Sudanese formulaic ending for the folktale; it seemed to me appropriate - even obligatory- that "I put the tale back where I found it." This maxim is symbolic, reflecting what I find one of the most characteristic elements of Black folklore - that is, the focus on the group, the community, in terms of the source of the historical situation of the tale; the moral lesson; the content, style, and delivery; and …

Eugene Jolas’S Multilingual New Occident, Ania Spyra

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Abstract not available

Racial Impersonation On The Elizabethan Stage: The Case Of Shakespeare Playing Aaron, Imtiaz Habib

English Faculty Publications

The article focuses on the implications of playwright William Shakespeare performing racial roles himself, such as Aaron in "Titus Andronicus." Several plays are discussed, including "Titus Andronicus," "The Merchant of Venice," and "Othello." The SHAXICON database, which compiles the text of Shakespeare's plays, is the primary source of evidence to suggest Shakespeare acted in his plays. Information about race relations in Great Britain's society during Shakespeare's time is also given.

The Smuggler's Son Grows Older, Clark Blaise

Short Story

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Lost Time: Clark Blaise's Pittsburgh Stories As A Short Story Sequence, Robert M. Luscher

Short Story

No abstract provided.

Awakening The 'Mere Pulsation Of Desire' In Silas Marner, Melissa Raines

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In George Eliot's Middlemarch, the narrator reflects on those crucial events which shape pathways in our lives. For Tertius Lydgate, this occurs with the chance opening of a book to a particular page:

[T]he first passage that drew his eyes was on the valves of the heart. He was not much acquainted with valves of any sort, but he knew that valvae were folding doors, and through this crevice came a sudden light startling him with his first vivid notion of finely adjusted mechanism in the human frame.'

For Lydgate, this seminal instant is the one which inspires him to …

Review Of George Eliot And Nineteenth-Century Psychology: Exploring The Unmapped Country, Michael Davis

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Michael Davis packs a dense yet deft discussion of George Eliot's relationship with the scientific theories of mind of her contemporaries into this short book. Revisiting the novels and essays, and to a lesser extent the letters, he adds to our understanding of her place as a thinking novelist by his careful negotiation of intellectual positions, his weaving of the discussion among such Eliot contemporaries as Darwin, Spencer, Lewes, Huxley, Alexander Bain, W. B. Carpenter, and E. S. Dallas, and his engagement with recent studies in the field by Gillian Beer, Sally Shuttleworth, K. K. Collins, Tess Cosslett, David Carroll, …

Notes On Contributors- 2007

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Kathleen Adams has been Secretary of the Fellowship since 1968. She initiated the Review in 1970, was editor until 1981 and co-editor 1982-91. She published Those of Us Who Loved Her in 1980 and A Community of Interest: The Story of the George Eliot Fellowship 1930-2000 in 2000.

Rosemary Ashton is Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London. She is the author of acclaimed critical biographies of George Eliot (1996) and G. H. Lewes (1991). Her many publications on George Eliot include The Mill on the Floss: A Natural History (1990), and editions of Middlemarch (Penguin, …

Literature In The Arid Zone, Thomas Lynch

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This chapter surveys and assesses from an ecocentric perspective some representative literary portrayals of the Australian deserts. Generally, it contrasts works that portray the desert as an alien, hostile, and undifferentiated void with works that recognise and value the biological particularities of specific desert places. It explores the literature of three dominant cultural orientations to the deserts: pastoralism, mining, and traversal. It concludes with a consideration of several multi-voiced and/or multi-genred bioregionally informed works that suggest fruitful directions for more ecocentric literary approaches.

Interview With Monifa Love Asante, Sharynn Owens Etheridge

Short Story

No abstract provided.

Mabel's Blues: The Blues Aesthetic In Randall Kenan's "The Strange And Tragic Ballad Of Mabel Pearsall", Éva Tettenborn

Short Story

No abstract provided.

Agent Of Change: Trickster In Ojibwa Oral Narratives And In The Works Of Louise Erdrich, Patrick B. Benton

Honors Theses

Change is not only a theme of Louise Erdrich’s work, but the paramount theme. Critic John Purdy concurs, writing that “the characters who people her pages are immensely recognizable to an audience comprised of many cultures: they exhibit all the frailties and strengths, the failures and triumphs one would expect for humans who face what we all – as individuals, as cultures, and as species – must face: change” (Purdy, 8). What is this change, though? And, who is the agent of this change? Casual readers of Louise Erdrich’s works may not be aware that her characters are informed by …

Dialectics Of Diaspora Space: A Study Of Contemporary, Diasporic, South Asian Fiction, Christopher A. Zajchowski

Honors Theses

In light of these continuing debates concerning immigration, national identity and belonging, re-examinations of immigrant and ethnic communities, often referred to as ‘diaspora,’ have become increasingly popular and prudent. Khachig Tololian, editor of Diaspora magazine, calls diaspora “exemplary communities of the transnational moment.”5 In an increasingly globalized world, where labor, capital, and resources are passed fluidly from continent to continent, diaspora are created by relocation or displacement of immigrant workers and their descendents.6 For these unskilled, immigrant laborers, middle class immigrants, and the children of both groups, adaptation to the culture, society, and life in a new ‘host’ country can …

Gendered Struggle For The Freedom From Violence Using Frantz Fanon’S Theory In Three Postcolonial Novels: Albert Wendt’S Pouliuli, Tsitsi Dangarembga’S Nervous Conditions, And Edwidge Danticat’S Breath, Eyes, Memory, Robin M. Respaut

Honors Theses

While studying abroad in New Zealand last year, I became intrigued by Albert Wendt’s novel Pouliuli, because it was my first literary view into Pacific Island culture. My interest in the novel was part of my awakening to the particular damage done by the west in Oceania. By attending classes on the anthropology and sociology of postcolonial Pacific societies, I discovered how the west had acted in the region to encourage progressive technology in ways that handled native traditional culture with unconscious disrespect. I was stunned to learn that Oceania is the most aided region in the world today, surpassing …

In Any Weather : A Collection Of Short Stories, Stephen J. Plocher

Honors Theses

Short Stories

A Redefined Feminine From Paleolithic To Twenty-First Century Through Children's Literature & Film, Pamela Dee Mccombs

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The intention of my critical discourse is to redefine the knowledge of the feminine that Western tradition, through “master narratives,” silenced, subverted, and deferred. My guidelines were drawn from the deconstruction of philosophical works by Jacques Derrida and redefined the unique circle of “Being and beings” to be not just God and man, but God, Goddess, and Human, the Goddess being the original feminine. I discovered the feminine beginning, through archaeomythologists Gimbutas, Dever, and Davis-Kimball, with the unearthing of female figurines, temple models, and warrior priestesses. I found examples of the feminine survival through the Dark Ages in Lithuanian Dainos …

Black Aesthetics In Children's Literature, Tammy Shonta Smith

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of my research is to show that although many African American children’s books have been used as “race texts” to give children insight into race relations of the past, many are important in that they preserve the Black dialect and encourage child activism and social change. Black aesthetics are most beneficial in that they educate children about not just race but about the African American oral tradition of Black dialect. They also provide children with a strong foundation in Black aesthetics, which prepares them for the higher forms of Black aesthetics found in African American adult literature. Not …

Reading Waiting For Godot Through The Lens Of Christian Existentialism, Amanda L. Kelsch

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot is commonly interpreted within the context of the Theater of the Absurd, existentialist literature, or Christian allegory. This thesis recognizes the validity of all such readings while attempting to merge these seemingly contradictory perspectives. By reading the play within the context of Christian Existentialism, new insights are uncovered as to what the play may be saying about the existential dilemma. Søren Kierkegaard, often called the Father of Existentialism, authored multiple works that influenced modern existentialist writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Kierkegaard’s writings, however, were Christian in nature rather than atheistic. By …

Jaepl, Vol. 13, Winter 2007-2008, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Bell Hooks. Writing for Reconciliation: A Musing

Devan Cook. The Value of Mutual Respect: What We Learn from Student Complaints .

This essay discusses the emotional labor of teaching and the ways writing programs can support that work.

Elizabeth Gardner, Patricia Calderwood, and Roben Toroysan. Dangerous Pedagogy

Using data primarily drawn from undergraduate psychology classes, we reflect upon what humane but "dangerous" pedagogy illustrates about our teaching and our students' learning.

Karen Surman Paley. Applying "Men and Women for Others" to Writing about Archeology.

This essay explores one archeology professor's pedagogy of caring during a summer field study …

The Value Of Mutual Respect: What We Learn From Student Complaints, Devan Cook

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay discusses the emotional labor of teaching and the ways writing programs can support that work.

Applying “Men And Women For Others” To Writing About Archeology, Karen Surman Paley

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay explores one archeology professor's pedagogy of caring during a summer field study of a former state school and orphanage.

The “Not Trying” Of Writing, Rachel Forrester

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

A very spiritual "not trying," or non-work, is at the heart of composition.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

Whitman writes in "Reconciliation":

For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

For Whitman, reconciliation is the "Word over all, beautiful as the sky," the deed that washes the world clean of the carnage of conflict. Without the act of reconciliation—the bringing together of that which …

Writing For Reconciliation: A Musing, Bell Hooks

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This musing grew out of the AEPL Summer Conference in Berea, Kentucky, June 2006, at which bell hooks was the keynote speaker.