Digital Commons Network^™

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.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle: A Cento, Julia Ferguson, Elizabeth Mam, Rachel Mugo, Kelsey Kagan

FUSION

This poem was created as part of a multimodal project for an American Literature class using the following prompt:

As a group, you will create a 100-line Cento poem based primarily on the book you chose. Individually, you should highlight and/or copy sentences and phrases that “speak” to you, that you find beautiful or intriguing, or that capture the elements of tone, style, message, mood and theme of your book. After you have each selected your 25-50 lines, you should add them to a group authored Google Doc. Then you can sort through the lines and decide which ones you …

How We Survive: A Poem Analyzing Life, Death And Necessity, Pierce H. Dornink

FUSION

This poem is an analysis of the short story "Living Like Weasels" by Annie Dillard. It focuses on life and death, as well as how life is fleeting, and draws on themes expressed in the source work.

This poem was created as part of a multimodal project for an American Literature class in the Fall of 2024 using the following prompt:

You are responding to literature using creative techniques in two phases. In the first phase, you will compose a 2-4 page piece of creative writing that includes a theme we’ve studied in the class that has significance to you. …

A Mirror Of Us, Amber J. Chrones

FUSION

This is a project of empowerment. "A Mirror of Us" embraces patriarchal liberation, while celebrating divine femininity. Inspired by “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this multimodal project aims to shatter conformist ideologies that are all too common.

This poem was created as part of a multimodal project for an American Literature class using the following prompt:

You are responding to literature using creative techniques in two phases. In the first phase, you will compose a 2-4 page piece of creative writing that includes a theme we’ve studied in the class that has significance to you. That creative writing …

Just A Memory, Shakila Arab

FUSION

This poem is a response to “I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain” by Emily Dickinson. It was written for a World Literature class using the following prompt:

You will imitate at least five elements of an original text we read this semester. Following your imitation, you will write a paragraph describing the five elements you imitated and how your imitation exemplifies the literary movement of the piece you are imitating.

A Note From The Editors And Author Biographies

FUSION

The editors describe the contents of Volume 2 of Fusion and provide author biographies, as well as credit for the cover image.

He Said, She Said: Deconstructing Gender In Our Own World Through Our Own Languages, William K. Coulthard

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Both language and gender are social constructs which we humans have created to produce an order to the world, and this essay illustrates the ways in which language influences both our perceptions of gender and the world of people who subvert so-called natural gender norms. Because gender, unlike sex, is a social construct to which we ascribe particular images and words, language can affect not only the identity of the person in question but also their relationships, careers, and societal attitudes toward gender. Ursula Le Guin, in her 1969 science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, deconstructs our earthly …

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 …

Full Issue, Kritika Kultura

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Editor’S Introduction, Vincenz Serrano

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Nokomis, Madeline Avila, Jack Guimont, Jack Mulvaney, Elida Roskamp, Ashley Shorba, Lucy Severson, Emily Sowers, David Estrada, Osvin Baltazar Gonzalez, Ashley Campbell, Grace Emiliusen, Zoey Cavanaugh, Elysia Beynon, Caitlin Larsen, Drake Onyx, Ava Diekmann, Alivia Tima, Emily Hill, Kiera Norman, Sunehra Subah, Jaydon Wilson, Lydia Domaille, Linda Moua, Mandie Schmidt, Sarah Huderle, Elizabeth Schneider, Bonnie Ni, Natalie Leet, Koda Mueller, Jackie Velishek, Helena Dowler, Allen Wedekind, Lauryn Schleusner, Kiera Norman, Dorothy Moore, Zoeh Cavanaugh, David Estrada

Irotas

Nokomis is the 2025 annual online student journal of the arts created and published by Winona State University students. Nokomi (2025) and Irotas (2024) are sibling journals to the Satori Student Literary Magazine. The inaugural issue of Irotas was published in 2024 and Nokomis in 2025.

Design and Technical Editors: Madeline AvilaJack Guimont, Jack Mulvaney

Fiction Editors: Jack Guimont, Jack Mulvaney, Elida Roskamp

Art Editors: Lucy Severson, Emily Sowers

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Liberty Kohn, Professor of English

Let's Talk About The Writers Guild Of America On Strike 2023, Rylee Perry

Student Zines

The Writer's Strike of 2023 was a very impactful event in Hollywood for people of the industry to stand together as one.

This event allowed the people of Hollywood to stand with the writers in the fight for fair compensation. It is not very common for screen writers to be valued for their work anymore than having it published and put into the works. The compensation and recognition is poor, leaving the writers at a disadvantage to continue the struggle of making ends meet in their everyday lives.

This zine was created for ENG 120, Writing in the Disciplines with …

The Tributary, Vol. Xxiii Spring 2025, A-State Department Of English And Philosophy

The Tributary

The Tributary is an annual publication of the Arkansas State University Tributary Publication Society. For more information about our student literary magazine, please contact the Department of English and Philosophy at 870.972.3043, Dr. Kerri Bennett at 870. 972. 2630, or email us at [email protected].

Ivy Leaves, Volume 100, Anderson University - South Carolina

Ivy Leaves

The 2025 edition of the Anderson University journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Jaylee Koon, Jenna Martin, Rachel Riddle, Milena Ulrich, Emma Brightman, Corinne Lowe, Torie Johnson, Anna Leigh Avant, Darcy Hseih, Kaylie Sheriff, Claudia Sarmiento, LIly Gregory, Ethan Wright, Elise Frauenholtz, KJ Lian, Ellie Gramm, Iley Gramm, Kenzi Miller, Ellie Ruperto, Miriam Cabrera-Santana, Ashlee Keller, Mateo De Los Cobos, Jacob Enzor, Claire Nunes, Abby McDonald, Heidi Dillow, Derek Updegraff and Tim Speaker.

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

The Trial Of The Chicago 7, Kendall Gilbert

Student Zines

This zine was created for ENG 120, Writing in the Disciplines with Professor Steven Bookman.

It is a social justice zine detailing the events of the trial of the Chicago 7 and the political and social importance of the trial, as well as why it is still relevant today.

Muzibogun Research Symposium Poster, Serena Parra, Maurissio Gonzalez, Renee Alonzo, Cj Spears

Team - Muzibogun - Documents

This is the research poster which we presented at the 2025 Research Symposium

Satori 2025, Jack Guimont, Elida Roskamp, Lucy Severson, Ashley Shorba, Emily Sowers, Jack Mulvaney, Madeline Avila, Osvin Baltazar Gonzalez, Celia Stern, Kiera Norman, Ashleigh Campbell, Allen Wedekind, Dorothy Moore, Caitlin Larsen, Jackie Velishek, Jaydon Wilson, Elysia Beynon, Grace Emiliusen, Sunehra Subah, Elena Kulschar, Zoey Cavanaugh, Alivia Tima, Jed Nelson, Draconian Onyz, Ava Diekmann, Elly Herrick, Helena Dowler, Kristin Victor, Elizabeth Schneider, Isabel Teitelbaum, Greta Kirsch, Sarah Huderle, Caleb Kottke, Maria Windley-Daoust, Tim Galvin, Kaylee Nickisch

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.

The Satori 2025 editors and creators are:

Design and Technical Editors: Elida Roskamp, Lucy Severson, Ashley Shorba, Emily Sowers

Fiction Editors: Jack Guimont, Jack Mulvaney, Elida Roskamp

Poetry Editors: Madeline Avila, Ashley Shorba

Art Editors: Lucy Severson, Emily Sowers

Vibe Coordinator: Jack Guimont

The Satori 2025 faculty advisor is Dr. Liberty Kohn, Professor of English

Includes the annual WSU English Department prize winners:

2025 Winona Prize …

A Marriage By Any Other Sign: Social Signification In The Way Of The World, Alyssa Alexander

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

This paper analyzes William Congreve’s The Way of the World through the lens of Derrida’s theory of différance, arguing that the play destabilizes the fixed social categories of marriage and identity through linguistic performance. While many critics read Congreve’s portrayal of marriage as either reinforcing or satirizing Restoration social structures, this analysis emphasizes how language itself resists fixed meaning. Drawing on key scenes between Mirabell and Millamant, Waitwell’s reflections on autonomy, and Fainall’s contradictory claims of masculine selfhood, the paper demonstrates how the signs “husband,” “wife,” and “man” shift and defer meaning rather than affirm static roles. Characters do not …

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 …

I Am: Power From Identity In “Revelation” And No Exit, Elisabeth Edwards

English Senior Capstone

In the short story “Revelation” and play No Exit, Flannery O’Connor and Jean-Paul Sartre explore the necessity of self-awareness. By setting their works in confined spaces, O’Connor and Sartre push their characters to confront their deeper identities. For Mary Grace and Inez, a strong sense of self gives them the power to impose negative names upon more vulnerable individuals. For Ruby Turpin, Gracin, and Estelle, ignorance of self leaves them indefensible to harsh truths. Analyzing “Revelation” and No Exit through a philosophical and religious lens reveals that without an accurate sense of self, we risk becoming nothing more than the …

Infestations Stored In A Jam Jar, Cara Young

English Senior Capstone

Infestations Stored in a Jam Jar is a collection of fiction and poetry that delves into the inner mind of characters using a variety of genres. The collection creates a scrapbook of pieces, forming a textured exploration of the human experience through subgenres like persona poetry and flash fiction. Each piece approaches themes of fear, time, the artistic mind, and forgotten memories under varying lights of horror, dystopia, and reminiscence. The title is from the newest and last piece of the collection, “Somewhere in a Spider Neighborhood,” referring to the buried memories and thoughts that are lost to time and …

The Crisis Of The Spotlight, Matthew Roach

English Senior Capstone

The Crisis of the Spotlight is a collection of mostly fiction and poetry that measures one's journey to the spotlight.

Falling In Love, Falling Apart: The Intersection Of Love And Tragedy In The Book Thief And Thirteen Reasons Why, Hannah Crowe

English Senior Capstone

The Book Thief and Thirteen Reasons Why depict love in dramatically different ways; these differences come into focus when analyzed through the lens provided in C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves. The relationships differ in both the nature of the love they depict and the stability they maintain amid tragedy. In Thirteen Reasons Why, Hannah and Clay's connection primarily embodies lust, rooted more in fleeting desire than lasting emotional depth. In contrast, Liesel and Rudy in The Book Thief cultivate a deep love, developing it through a gradual process that aligns with the stages of Lewis' concept of love.

Syntax And Grammar, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

Sentence examples written in Ietic and translated to English. Descriptions of how transformations, nouns, conjunctions and verbs are used in our language.

Swadesh List Dictionary, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

An Ietic dictionary.

Research Poster Ietic: The Language Of Mere Wudu, Alexis L. Campos, Ixchel Mireles, Bryon Haynes, David Kamal, Zachariah Gonzalez

Team - Mere Wudu - Documents

2025 Research Poster of The Language of Mere Wudu, Ietic.

Shakespeare’S Early Histories And The Construction Of Government, Paul Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Shakespeare’s first tetralogy has been treated as an account of the reinvention of government, especially a Hobbesian reinvention demonstrating how authoritarian government forces order out of chaos. This article argues that, though Hobbesian elements present themselves, Shakespeare employs subtexts available to his time and place to speak of how orderly government is constituted: that is, he relies on accounts of the Fall from perfection into chaos and the return from it through divinely blessed kingship that are present in syncretic readings of Ovid and the Bible. The two subtexts give order to the progress from Fall into chaos and back …

One Morning, Ty Rea

Creative Writing Club Poetry

Short lyrical poem about love.

Comic Book Superheroes Are No Modern Mythology, But They Are In A Vital Way Ancient Greek, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

Comic book superheroes have been widely discussed as modern mythology: in other words, as a modem version of what religious mythology was for cultures in which it was alive. I shall argue, first, that comic book superhero stories are not remotely an analogue to religious myths. As it happens, however, cultures for which religious mythology is alive do offer us other conceptual resources that we lack for fully understanding our own comic book superheroes. These resources belong to a different part of the general conceptual package which goes with cultural engineering of a living mythology. On the positive side, then, …