Digital Commons Network^™

Reading The Rainbow: Exploring Themes And Identities In Lgbtqia+ Picture Books, Amanda Melilli, Alicia G. Vaandering, James W. Rosenzweig

Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation shares an analysis of over 275 picture books featuring LGBTQIA+ identities, providing evidence that the depiction of queerness in children’s literature is complex and varied. Tools for defining narrative themes and LGBTQIA+ identities will be shared as well as data on queer characters with intersecting identities. By exploring the nuances of LGBTQIA+ representation in picture books, attendees will gain a better understanding of novel research inquiries into representation.

“Where War Is God And God Is War:” Women’S Religious Great War Poetry And Homefront Lines, Faith Ellington

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project seeks to redefine war’s poetic landscape. Through a focus on women’s Great War poetry, I argue against a dichotomous home front | front line poetic barrier and instead explore the intermingling of wartime spaces. Women’s WWI poetry, I argue, exists within a space I call the homefront lines, a space in which women produce writing from their full experiences of war regardless of combatant status. The homefront lines must be included in World War I literary canons in order to fully recognize the humanity of women during wartime and to fully grasp the war’s impact on poetry …

Navigating Trauma: A Linguistic Exploration Of Bilingual Trauma Expressions, Amira Mahmoud Othman

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationship between language, trauma, and emotional expression among bilingual Arabic-English speakers, focusing on code-switching patterns and euphemisms, and more broadly the emotional roles of native and non-native languages in trauma narratives. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Egyptian participants, the research reveals that code-switching serves as both a linguistic and emotional tool, allowing speakers to navigate trauma by creating distance or engaging more intimately. Such codeswitching patterns include the integration of English content words within Arabic structures, morphosyntactic innovations, and gender agreement applications, reflecting the creative adaptability of bilingual speakers in emotionally charged contexts, in line with …

Returning To The Beginning Place: Le Guin’S Forgotten Anti-Fantasy Four Decades On, Timothy S. Miller

UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies

Ursula K. Le Guin's 1980 portal fantasy The Beginning Place has received a fraction of the critical attention that most of her other novels have attracted over the years. This short book's many enigmas, often structured by self-consciously Jungian symbolism, are best understood as operating in service not to a strict Jungian framework, but rather to a broader metafictional evaluation of fantasy and an articulation of Le Guin's own preferred approach to the reading and interpretation of fantasy. At times, The Beginning Place moves beyond meta-fantasy to become an anti-fantasy that does not shy from critiquing some dimensions of both …

How Do Literary And Cinematic Monsters Reveal The Fear Of The Instability Or Distortion Of Human Identity?, Arya Kc

CAFE Symposium 2025

Throughout history, monsters have both disturbed and captivated humanity. Initially defined by their grotesque physical forms, monsters have evolved to symbolize deeper psychological fears, often reflecting the instability or distortion of human identity. This project examines the shifting portrayal of monstrosity in literature and film, focusing on works like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alien. By blurring the line between human and monstrous, these stories reveal the fragility of human identity and expose our profound fears of psychological and existential instability, challenging us to confront what it truly means to be human.

Writing Prompts In The Healing-Centered Classroom, Elizabeth Hancock

The Utah English Journal

As I began the 2013-14 school year, I encountered students with a full range of life experiences. My students’ lives ran the gamut from having the 1950s version of traditional middle- class families to being part of the Utah foster care system. Their challenges included depression over not making the school dance team, dyslexia or other learning disabilities, and responding to trauma with self-harm by using a heated curling iron. I wondered what I could do to help struggling students make it through the minefields in their lives, and remembered the character of Ponyboy, who writes about his friends’ traumatic …

Sentence Detective: Investigating Sentence Structure To Support Reading Comprehension, Rachel Knecht

The Utah English Journal

Jacob was honest about his usual reading strategies. Like Jacob, readers with a history of reading difficulties may deal with challenging, long, or unfamiliar sentences by skipping or stumbling over them (Nomvete & Easterbrooks, 2020; Vaughn et al., 2022). But, Jacob offered another strategy— Sentence Detective. Over the past six weeks, Jacob had learned how to use Sentence Detective, a strategy for breaking sentences down into meaningful, more manageable parts. Although skipping or skimming may have been his go-to strategy for sentence-level comprehension, he now had another tool to try out.

The Utah English Journal, Volume 53, 2025: Full Issue

The Utah English Journal

No abstract provided.

Facilitating Dialogue: Leveraging Classroom Literature To Navigate Critical Conversations With High School Students, Kaylee Smedley

The Utah English Journal

The quotation refers to the Contemporary American Thought (CAT) class, a high school course in Chris Crutcher’s Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, where Moby and his classmates navigate complex and controversial issues under Ms. Lemry’s guidance. Encouraged to discuss meaningful topics like children’s rights, war, social class, abortion, and religion, they research, debate, and explore nuances, ultimately drawing scrutiny from parents, the community, and the administration (Crutcher, 1993).

Thinking And Writing With Ai As A Dialogue Partner, Jon Ostenson, Johnny Allred

The Utah English Journal

When generative AI burst onto the public stage in late 2022, it took many of us by surprise. After we had time to see what chatbots like ChatGPT were capable of, they filled many writing teachers with a sense of dread. Some of us realized that assignments we had relied on for years would no longer work because they could easily be completed by a chatbot. All of us worried about how this new technology would influence our students’ writing and the way we taught writing.

The 2024 Whippoorwill Award: Gathering Stories Of Indigeneity, Connection, And Belonging, Erika L. Bass, Michael J. Young, Alan Hoffman, Jacqueline Yahn, Monica Roe, Devon Brenner, Chea Parton

The Rural Educator

No abstract provided.

Advancing Literary Interpretation Via Critical Reading Proficiency: A Sustainable Efl Framework For Generation Z, Wesam Khairy Morsi, Walid Abdallah Rezk

English Language and Literature

Abstract—This research investigates the transformative potential of literary analysis in advancing English proficiency among Egyptian EFL learners, particularly those in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. The study focuses on the linguistic and analytical challenges encountered by recent public-school graduates in the Suez Governorate, where English instruction is limited to simplified texts and lacks critical engagement. Unlike their counterparts from language schools in Cairo, these students enter university without placement tests, relying solely on their high school grades, which results in underdeveloped critical reading and thinking skills. Sixty Egyptian students participated in this experimental quantitative research design. Drawing on the …

Deeper Magic: Theology Of The Body In C. S. Lewis And John Paul Ii, George French

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

C. S. Lewis tells us that science and magic are “twins.” “They were born,” he says “of the same impulse”3 of man to master the natural world. We think of them very differently because science has succeeded where magic has failed, but that should not make us blind to their “strong family likeness.”4 Science and magic are intertwined for much of their history, and it is in the Enlightenment that the two begin to separate. While magic died and science survived, Lewis thinks that modern applied science still retains much of the “family likeness.” Unfortunately, not all of the family …

One Dominant Age: The Technological Singularity In The Abolition Of Man, Christopher Tissell

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

I doubt whether we are sufficiently attentive to the importance of the third part of C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Much ink has been spilled analyzing Lewis’s thoughts on the dangers of subjectivism as outlined in the first two parts of the book, but less so on the endpoint to which Lewis thinks subjectivism leads when whole societies succumb to it. Yet Lewis himself, or at least his editor, thought the final part important enough to name the lecture series after it, and dramatize it in a novel afterward. If Lewis saw the train leaving the station over …

The Abolition Of Man, Eighty Years Later: An Engineer’S Perspective, Paul G. Lorenzini

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

I n 2021 Michael Ward published After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. His purpose was to call attention to the continuing relevance and significance of Lewis’s book, originally published in 1943, now almost a century old. Among his many works, it is one of the least known, yet it was perhaps Lewis’s most highly acclaimed book among secular critics. Ranked seventh by the National Review in its list of 100 best non-fiction books in the 20th century, it is second on a similar list by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.1 While Abolition can be a difficult …

C. S. Lewis’S Most Important Message: The Abolition Of Man As Lewis’S Self-Conscious Struggle For The Value Of Human Persons, Dwain Tissell

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

Over the roughly sixty years since C. S. Lewis’s death, many have asked, what was the message he most wanted to convey? A decade before Lewis’s passing, Dr. James Houston asked him that very question. Lewis answered that he was fighting “reductionism.” More specifically, Houston heard C. S. Lewis to be most concerned about reduction of the value of the human person. At the time of this writing, Houston is 101 years of age, and he has kept a low profile all these years about his relationship with C. S. Lewis. From 1947 until 1954, he and Lewis were more …

The Importance Of Recognizing Truth, Goodness, And Beauty: C. S. Lewis’S Antidote To The Poison Of Subjectivism, David H. Mcilroy

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

T aken in isolation, The Abolition of Man is different from most of C. S. Lewis’s other works. It is not a work of fiction or a work of expressly Christian apologetics. It is, however, rightly recognized by Dyer and Watson as “the lynchpin for understanding of all of [Lewis’s] work.”1 The thesis set out in The Abolition of Man is foundational to C. S. Lewis’s worldview. Lewis explored its implications in the third novel in his scientific trilogy, That Hideous Strength, which Lewis expressly described as a story whose moral was “the serious “point” which I have tried to …

The Eschatological Vision Of The Abolition Of Man, Joshua J. Paladino

Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal

C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man is ultimately an eschatological work, a vision of the end of history, a warning about the fully conditioned society, an insight into the nature of the universal and homogeneous state, and even a prophecy of Hell on Earth. The end-times significance of the Abolition is perhaps overlooked because it lacks an apocalyptic framing. Lewis presented, rather, a “snug” eschatology.1 There is none of the apocalyptic drama that Lewis crafted in The Last Battle. We do not hear the Lion roar, “Now it is time,” before watching Father Time squeeze the sun in his …

What's Their Story? To Help Save The Humanities, Let's Listen To English Majors, Kevin T. Caffrey

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Amid declining enrollment in humanities programs throughout the United States, the English major has been hit the hardest. This article gives voice to current English majors about why they choose to enroll in a program that often receives criticism pertaining to its value and worth. This study provides a literature review of the history of higher education in the United States, an examination of the humanities backlash that has evolved over the past half-century, and an exploration of the value of a degree in English. In addition, it provides survey results from a small group of English majors currently enrolled …

Queen's Pride: A Queer Reading Of Star Wars Character Padmé Amidala, Madeleine Loewen

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Ever since Luke Skywalker and Han Solo first appeared onscreen together in 1977, LGBTQ+ Star Wars fans have harnessed the power of queer reading to write themselves back into a galaxy far, far away, despite Lucasfilm’s long-term disapproval of such practices. Nonetheless, there exists little scholarly literature on queerness in the franchise, and even less on the potentially sapphic characters. Queen Padmé Amidala, first introduced onscreen in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, proves a surprising—but no less salient—queer figure in Star Wars. From her intimate relationships with her handmaidens, to her experimentation with gender performativity, to her quiet yet …

More To The Hobbit Than Meets The Eye: Deconstructing Femininity In Bilbo Baggins, Pieter Conradie

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Femininity in JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit has long been read as virtually non-existent. Although Tolkien’s 1937 text remains a compelling story, this absence often means that female readers struggle to find themselves represented in the text. New strains of scholarship, however, claim that by her appearance, interests, behaviour and positioning in a patriarchal society, Bilbo Baggins appears to be more of a woman than a man. In this presentation I take up these emerging arguments, showing how gender relations in The Hobbit deconstruct. In Bilbo and Bilbo’s parents, traditional gender roles are reversed, but ultimately merged. The outcome is a …

Materiality Of Traumatic Experience And The Limits Of Representation In Hassan Bani Ameri’S Gonjeshkha Behesht Ra Mifahmand (Sparrows Understand Heaven), Maryam Ghodrati

Emerson Authors, Researchers, & Creators

This paper examines the materialization of trauma as both a narrative and embodied phenomenon in Hassan Bani Ameri’s 2006 novel, Gonjeshkha Behesht ra Mifahmand, using contemporary narrative and trauma theory. The postmodernist narrative, told from the perspective of a photojournalist, reconstructs events surrounding the death of a celebrated Iran-Iraq War commander. I argue that traumatic truths resist full integration into conventional frameworks of understanding, evident in the novel’s non-linear, fragmented narrative and its shift from visual realism to confessional surrealism in an ending that challenges traditional storytelling and historical documentation. By vividly simulating the sensory processing of traumatic memories, the …

‘Keeping It Real’ Goes Wrong: Deconstruction Of Masculinity In The Work Of Jay-Z And Kendrick Lamar, Leo Mcmahon

Theses and Dissertations

Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar use their latest albums, 4:44 and Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, to address the wake of damage their behaviors have caused. On a personal level each artist apologizes to their wife for infidelities, but along the way they deconstruct performances of masculinity that have dominated popular hip-hop music since the late 1980's. Highlighting the pressure the music industry puts on hip-hop artists to perform a hyper-sexual, hyper-violent masculinity, I argue that the artists join the genre of African-American autobiography to reveal the inauthentic performances of 'realness' in hip-hop. Posturing as representatives of African-American men, …

Gen Z Sexual And Gender Fluidity In Us Scripted Television, Traci B. Abbott

English and Media Studies Faculty Publications

This essay addresses the rise in sexual and gender-fluid characters in scripted US television targeting the Gen Z audience (born 1997–2012), based on their moniker as the “queerest” generation, with over 20% of younger US and international respondents identifying as LGBTQ in polls, the majority as sexually fluid (bi/pansexual) or non-binary (genderfluid/genderqueer). By analyzing six series (2019–2023) marketed as “authentically” Gen Z, I argue this shift invests in Gen Z’s “hip” attitude towards such fluidity the same way Caldwell argues that 1990’s diversification of the televisual audience produced a “programming agenda…that cultivates and rewards distinction in ethnic, racial, and class …

The Power Of Pets: Navigating Infancy, Early Development, And Eventual Loss/ Exploring The Mutual Human-Animal Bond Through Children’S Board And Picture Books With Critical Anthropomorphism, Mary Teresa Woodcock

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

Pets are powerful elements of picture books. Alongside our animal companions, we navigate infancy, early childhood and adulthood, and better understand our relationships and life itself. Critical anthropomorphism allows us to represent our relationship to our animal companions ethically in the written and illustrated text. This paper acknowledges an array of primary and scholarly texts about animals and their roles in human experience as a foundation for my three book projects “A Colorful Night for Cat,” “Grandma, Sam, and Me,” and “Tired Old Socks.” I work to portray animal companions authentically, showing how both humans and animal companions benefit from …

Dispossession, Adoption, And (Dis)Inheritance: The Sympathetic Sublime In George Eliot’S Fiction, Beth Ann Jones

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the promise and the peril of George Eliot’s sympathetic sublime in her fictional writing. To arrive at this designation for Eliot’s literary project, the dissertation synthesizes three distinct yet interconnected strands within Eliot scholarship: her emphasis on building absorbing sympathetic relationships between individuals, communities, and readers; her use of inheritance plots to develop the personalities and destinies of her protagonists; and her dependence upon the sublime aesthetic inherent in the poetry of William Wordsworth and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, and Ludwig Feuerbach. Eliot’s drive to create sympathetic connections which …

Ideas For Papers Or Term Papers On John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy Of Dunces, The Occasional Series, Final Version, H. Vernon Leighton

Library Faculty Works

This document lists thirty-three ideas that the reader might use for the basis of a literary study of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, or its author, John Kennedy Toole. Some ideas, such as the first few, are minor and might warrant a five-page undergraduate paper. Others, such as the final one, might warrant a peer-review article or a graduate thesis. These ideas were originally posted between 2010 and 2025 on the John Kennedy Toole Research blog by H. Vernon Leighton.

A Stout Heart And A Good Blade: An Examination And Reconsideration Of Éowyn In J.R.R. Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings, Angela L. Loving

Children's Literature (MA) Theses

Using dramatic elements and patterns from the traditional literatures of his Northern European culture, including the Old English poem Beowulf and Shakespeare’s Macbeth, J.R.R. Tolkien tells an ancient tale anew in The Lord of the Rings, the tale of a dragon slain by an unlikely hero, in this case the Shield Maiden, Éowyn, and an even more unlikely assistant, a Hobbit named Merry.

Éowyn enters Tolkien’s complex narrative in the middle, where she is caught politically between the bright deeds of her ancestors and the darkness and doubt that surround her king and kin, caught geographically between the …

Muriel Rukeyser In Analysis: Body Of Waking, Elisabeth Däumer

Essays & Other Scholarship

In 1953, after the death of her mother Myra, Rukeyser began an analysis with Jungian analyst Frances G. Wickes and engaged in intentional, rigorous “work on the self” that culminated in the publication of Body of Waking, her first book of poems after a 10-year silence. Rukeyser captured parts of her work on the self in a detailed account of her analysis, included in The Inner World of Choice, Wickes’s third book (1963), which Rukeyser researched and anonymously co-wrote. Entitled “The X in the Calculation,” the chapter follows the case of an unnamed woman who suffered from debilitating …

Pseudo-Vampires In The Nineteenth-Century English Vampire Canon: Draining Life Force By Class, Matt Tanner

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.