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Analog Digital Frame: User Centered Design In Arts-Based Neighborhood Resilience Modeling, David Robledo, Sydney F. Walker, Zlatka Rebolledo Sánchez, Richard Nickel

English Faculty Publications

We explicate a mapping of digital documents through computer machinery as an analog frame for Research and Design in neighborhood environmental literacy, within an applied interdisciplinary ecosystem theory. In the arena of communicating localized climate phenomena and solutions, the design of communication frameworks has provided a core methodology to map climate adaptive conclusions as analogs for actionable community interpretive media. In this experience report, we articulate User Centered Design (UCD) in project research and development, while reporting on difficulties and solutions in shaping an analog digital frame to integrate student driven research and design with mentor based interdisciplinary project theorization. …

Between Science And Fantasy: Dirt In Kingsley’S Fairy-Tale Vision, Sandra M. Alba Jimenez

Student Papers (English)

No abstract provided.

Dismembering The Final Girl: Examining The Shifting Trope In Contemporary Horror Films, Abby Divine

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research explores gender representation in horror films as it moves away from representation shaped by the male gaze and, instead, showcases social values related to current feminist movements. While the horror genre is largely considered to be lacking complex messages or social commentary, many contemporary horror films actually utilize well-known tropes to cultivate a larger discussion on social issues. With the rise of the slasher film in the 1970s and 1980s, the character of the Final Girl was popularized. These final surviving female victims are usually defined by a constricting set of rules; however, newer trends in horror films …

Nonfiction Forms In Contemporary Poetry By Black And Asian American Writers, Elizabeth J. Mitchell

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Writers experiment with form inside poetry for various reasons, including a desire for play. Creating poetry is a creative process that involves experimentation. This research highlights poetry that adapts established nonfiction forms into poetry forms, examining poetry published in 2000-2024 by Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander American (AANHPI) writers and Black writers (writers of African ancestry) within the United States. For writers of color especially, nonfiction forms can provide a different way of entering into conversations about race, ethnicity, gender, identity, power, privilege, and authority. This research examines poetry by A. Van Jordan, Franny Choi, Alison C. Rollins, …

To Be Loved Is To Be Seen: Gazing As A Form Of Interpretation In The Turn Of The Screw, Yasmin Mezayek

Theses and Dissertations

The heated discourse that would follow Henry James’s novella “The Turn of the Screw” centered on whether the ghosts were real or not. With Shoshana Felman’s groundbreaking article “Turning the Screw of Interpretation” a new-found focus on the ambiguities, as opposed to finding a singular, definitive meaning of the novella would usurp the Freudian and anti-Freudian arguments. With the governess’s sight being the main source of debate, reading the novella through the Lacanian lens of the Gaze, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic offer unprecedented explanations and arguments for the governess’s behavior. Given the contemporary shift to discussing the ambiguities of …

Inoffensively Alice: Gender Politics In The Alice Series, Eirian Gail Wells

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Contents

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

“Being Natural Is Simply A Pose”: The Concept Of Foucault’S Panopticon In The Picture Of Dorian Gray And Orlando, Mya Corcoran

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Comparing The Representations Of Order And Behavior In James Joyce’S “The Dead” And Samuel Beckett’S Endgame, Araav Thakker

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Of Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 27, 2025

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Great Wizarding Duel: Tolkien’S Possible Influence On Rowling, Anna Jarrell

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

To Be Or Not To Be Controlled: The Making Of Thespians In Nineteenth-Century Asylums, Olivia Kurylo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Throughout the 1800s, superintendents of insane asylums incorporated the works of Shakespeare into their medical practices. Shakespearean plays became a conduit of power for the asylum superintendents, providing them with a literary model of sanity that they imposed on patients while simultaneously becoming a mode of communication for asylum patients to perform as ‘sane’ in accordance to the superintendents’ definitions. While the superintendents imposed a Shakespearean model of social normalcy onto the patients, the asylum patients used Shakespeare’s plays as a conduit for verbal expression. Essentially, asylums became Shakespearean plays as both the medical staff and the asylum patients employed …

Lost In Translation: The Absence Of Untranslatable Words In The English Classroom, Ashley Boledovic

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This qualitative study explores the impact of lexical gaps and untranslatable words on self-expression and communication in English-speaking classrooms. Seven interviews were conducted with bilingual or non-native English speakers representing a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, including Arabic, Portuguese, Marathi, Hindi, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Each interview investigated how language impacts self-expression, or the ability to communicate thoughts, emotions, and identity within the classroom. The findings suggest that untranslatable words and cultural concepts from participants’ native languages offer insights into cultural perspectives, which are often undervalued and not represented in English-speaking classrooms. Additionally, all participants desired greater language inclusivity …

Worlds Built And Borrowed: A Paracosmic Exploration Of The Metatextual Unconscious, Ryleigh Michele Roberts

Master’s Theses

This thesis explores literary phenomenology through the lens of fictional world-building and borrowing, integrating psychoanalytic play theories and reader response criticism, primarily through the works of D.W. Winnicott, Stanley Fish, and Wolfgang Iser. In applying this theoretical approach, the thesis investigates how fictional worlds function as intermediary phenomena through which creators can externalize and process their individual or collective experiences of being. Employing a comprehensive literary survey framework, the project spans a diverse range of texts, from canonical literature, such as the Brontës’ juvenilia and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, to contemporary works like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and E.L. James’ Fifty Shades …

Chasing Dreams In Modern America: Can We All Still Reach The Stars?, Selina Osebre Yawson

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

Judges' Statement

"Chasing Dreams in Modern America: Can We All Still Reach the Stars?" is an excellent and timely examination of the American Dream during a time of political polarization and economic uncertainty. Yawson synthesizes systemic social critique with close literary analysis, applying a reading of Langston Hughes' poetry to address the current moment. Her unique selection of sources and well-reasoned call to action earned the paper an honorable mention.

Feeling Foreign / Foreign Feeling: Affect In Southeast Asian Diasporic Short Story Collections, Francys Aerin Fortes

Theses and Dissertations

Affect studies have long been saturated with scholarship investigating the fluidity of emotions, though a larger turn in the field now prioritizes the felt experiences of marginalized peoples. Sianne Ngai’s work is one part of this turn that seeks to unpack the effects of oppressive systemic forces on Black, Brown, and queer bodies. Sianne Ngai reexamined the nature of emotions in her seminal text Ugly Feelings (2005), particularly concerned with how negative feelings are disproportionately felt by marginalized bodies as a result of conditions of obstructed agency, systems of power, and wage labor capitalism. Drawing from Ngai’s writing, this thesis …

Voicing The Violence: Carmen Maria Machado's Contribution To A Queer Archive, Audrey C. Bryant

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This project analyzes In the Dream House (2019) alongside “The Husband Stitch” and “Eight Bites” from the collection Her Body and Other Parties (2017) by Carmen Maria Machado. The first, a memoir, details Machado’s personal experience with domestic abuse between partners who share a female gender identity; the latter is a collection of short stories outlining everyday violations made against women. Scholars have discussed these works with specifications including female domestic horror, Machado’s use of retellings, and domestic violence and abuse. This project fills a gap in the discourse by intersecting and connecting queer theory with archival studies to support …

Maurice Sendak’S Trio, And What Good Picture Books Have To Say, Eli F. Protas

Pomona Senior Theses

When we teach children how to read, we start with picture books. We do this despite the fact that picture books blend visual and verbal storytelling in ways that require nuanced understandings of both elements. Rather than studying these aspects individually, a complete picture book analysis relies on examining the intersection of words and images, how they interact structurally and how each lends meaning to the other. To understand how to better close read picture books, this thesis turns to the stories of Maurice Sendak, a picture book writer and illustrator whose work redefined the relationship between words and images …

English 328 - The Golden Age Of Children's Literature In Britain - Syllabus, Veronica Schanoes

Open Educational Resources

A syllabus for a course on the Golden Age of children's literature in Britain (1865-1926).

Literary Homeplace As A Site Of Knowing And Healing, Shamonique Hassell

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The concept of literary homeplace serves as a locus of rhetorical healing for Black women, emphasizing their lived experiences and creative expressions as forms of resistance and restoration (Collins, 1986; hooks, 1990; Nettles, 2001). The labor of Black women within families, churches, and artistic endeavors contributes to the cultivation of a collective consciousness surrounding oppression and healing (Edwards, 2010; Carey, 2016; Morrison, 1992). Building upon hooks’ (1990) notion of homeplace, this dissertation examines how Black women foster spaces characterized by care, dignity, and resilience (Hersey, 2022; Tate, 1984). Using personal narrative and articulating Black women’s voices, I position homeplace as …

Children At The Heart Of Dialectical Tension In Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time, Holly A. Garrett

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

As a product of its time, Ernest Hemingway’s short-story cycle In Our Time explores the modernist struggle for human connection in a post-World-War-I landscape. This search for meaningful connection is demonstrated through various forms of relationships, but specifically those of the romantic nature. These relationships are brought to the forefront by a series of marriage stories along with multiple Nick Adams stories that feature dysfunctional couples who are often alienated by their inability to properly communicate. The tension surrounding these imperfect unions often features a child at the center of the conflict, exacerbating the preexisting issue. If the short-story cycle …

Revelations: Spirituality As Privileged Perspectivism In Magical Realist Distortions, Isabella Scala-Kazanecki

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the role of spiritual beliefs in the literary mode now known as magical realism in Cuban Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World (1949), Indian-Born British and American Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988), and a lesser-known novel, Household Saints (1981) by Francine Prose, an American writer. The Kingdom of This World, itself the originator of the mode of magical realism, has allowed me to conclude with Carpentier that magical realism arises from “privileged revelations,” as he notes in the preface to his seminal book. But these revelations in magical realism are not necessarily always of the …

Asian-American Literature And The Family Saga: Cyclical Histories Of Racial Melancholia And Racial Dissociation, Molly Schwarz

Dissertations and Theses

This paper analyzes the novels The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig and argues how the family saga within Asian American literature draws out elements of the diaspora to best share histories across different ethnic and racial groups. There is a brief overview of the development of Asian-American literature and an explanation of how hyphenated identity is intrinsic to diasporic literatures, and then further discussion of how each of these novels contributes to the legacies of Asian-American writing and storytelling. Then, each novel is analyzed for how the various family saga …

Cosmopolitanism Now: Fragmented Belonging, Adriana Fischetti

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract

This thesis reconceptualizes cosmopolitanism for the contemporary moment as fragmented belonging, critiquing and moving beyond traditional cosmopolitan frameworks grounded in universal reason, seamless integration, or coherent identity. Through close readings of Teju Cole’s Open City and Tremor, and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West, this study argues that cosmopolitanism today emerges explicitly from rupture, contradiction, and ethical struggle, shaped fundamentally by conditions of displacement, empire, surveillance, and global capitalism. Engaging critical theorists such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, Pheng Cheah, and Roland Barthes, the thesis identifies fragmented belonging as an ethically charged response to …

Self-Preservation: Autobiography As A Form Of Archivization As Seen Through The Life And Poetic Works Of John Clare, Meghan J. Slaff

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This paper will look at how the processing efforts of an archivist mirror that of an autobiographer through the shared motivation of adding to the cultural memory or textual canon of a society. For archival purposes, the typical steps of ingesting, preparing, and presenting a collection are creation, capture, arrangement/description, and pluralization. To create an autobiography, writers take the memories that have been created and experienced due to events in their lives and capture those memories via recording in the literary form known as autobiography. These autobiographers then arrange and describe their memories in a way that shows vast similarities …

Mythogenesis In As I Lay Dying: A Comparative Exploration Of Mythmaking And Counter-Myths, Allison K. Groupp

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis explores William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through the lens of comparative mythology, arguing that the novel constructs a counter-myth that challenges dominant Western narratives. By engaging with non-Western mythological traditions—particularly Proto-Indo European, Hindu, and Indigenous cosmologies—the study reveals how Faulkner embeds symbolic structures that transcend Christian and Greco-Roman frameworks. Using semiology and structuralist frameworks developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes, the analysis deciphers a mythopoetic narrative that refocuses marginalized myths to destabilize binary oppositions such as Christian/Pagan, civilized/uncivilized, and male creation myths with female creation myths. Each chapter examines a different mythic layer: …

Kafka In The Plague Years: Reinterpreting Absurdity In The 2020s, Chris Lownie

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

No word better encapsulates the confusion and inequality proliferating in the post-2020 global world than “absurd.” Absurdity consumes the way we interact with one another, going about life-as-usual in pocket worlds in which the individual is alienated from both oneself and others. Life is defined by a series of problems that regularly go ignored by both institution and general populace alike, but not by the human body: the effects of sustained illness and reinfection by recurrent viruses in a world that no longer acknowledges their severity nor their pervasiveness nor steps we may take towards personal safety. Daily life has …

The Liminal South : Explorations Of Black Time, Space, And Memory, Kennedy Buckner

Theses and Dissertations

This project is composed of two analytical essays and a three-dimensional art exhibition that tangibly extract and display the ways I view the U.S. American south and my interactions with it. Inspired by the narrative photography of Carrie Mae Weems and her “Kitchen Table Series,” the project focuses on multiple generations of my own family in order to document my family's experiences in the south while theorizing how our experiences provide greater historical understanding of southern black communities over time. The first essay theorizes time, space, and memory in Toni Morrison's narrative novel Song of Solomon, with a focus on …

Robert Frost And The Myth Of Adam And Eve, Theo Johnson

CMC Senior Theses

What exactly it is about the story of Adam and Eve that fascinated Robert Frost is hard to say. Of course, he is not the first to engage with it in writing – for much of recorded human history, the Genesis account of man’s creation has held a place of unparalleled importance in our understanding of what it is to be human, provoking innumerable exegetic responses. In popular literature, too, it has served as inspiration for some of the most celebrated English and American poems. From the “bloodless myth” of Geoffrey Hill’s “Genesis” to the great theodicy of John Milton’s …