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Engl 351: Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature, Duncan Faherty Apr 2023

Engl 351: Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature, Duncan Faherty

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for an OER version of a Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature undergraduate course.

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Psychological Criticism And Shakespearean Allusions In J.M. Barrie’S Dear Brutus: A Neverland For Adults, Kathryn Alley Apr 2023

Psychological Criticism And Shakespearean Allusions In J.M. Barrie’S Dear Brutus: A Neverland For Adults, Kathryn Alley

Senior Honors Theses

In Peter Pan, Sir James Barrie welcomes readers into Neverland, the realm of eternal youth. Barrie’s lesser-known play, Dear Brutus, ushers audiences into a supernatural garden free of responsibility, reality, and permanence. Referring to Cassius’ words in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the 1917 tragedy explores the consequences of romantic escapism and the seductive power of second chances. Through the lens of Freud’s and Lacan’s psychological criticism, and Barrie’s connection to his might-have-been daughter, Margaret, Dear Brutus unveils the plight of eight mysterious strangers by illustrating that all adults are lost children. Dear Brutus feels in many ways like …

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The Cross And The Crime Scene: The Convergence Of Writing As A Christian And The Mystery Genre, Ellie Talalight Apr 2023

The Cross And The Crime Scene: The Convergence Of Writing As A Christian And The Mystery Genre, Ellie Talalight

Senior Honors Theses

This creative thesis begins with a discussion of the different approaches to writing as a Christian. It describes the evangelistic approach, the integrative approach, and the thematic approach, which vary in the degree to which the author’s faith is explicitly or implicitly included. The thesis then focuses on the way Dorothy Sayers and G. K. Chesterton incorporated their faith into their mystery stories. It then includes excerpts from an original mystery novel. Finally, it considers the value and purpose of this project.

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Primitive Mythology (The Masks Of God, Volume 1) By Joseph Campbell, Phillip Fitzsimmons Apr 2023

Primitive Mythology (The Masks Of God, Volume 1) By Joseph Campbell, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

Book review of Primitive Mythology (The Masks of God, Volume 1) by Joseph Campbell, reviewed by Phillip Fitzsimmons.

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Robert Burns’ Poetic Style Through His Poetry, Songs, And Correspondence, Abigail Druckenmiller Apr 2023

Robert Burns’ Poetic Style Through His Poetry, Songs, And Correspondence, Abigail Druckenmiller

Senior Theses

This thesis explores connections and contradictions within the songs, correspondence, and poems of Scotland’s bard, Robert Burns. A selection of works from each of these categories is presented to compare the ways Burns writes verse, lyrics, and letters. Through this thesis, I analyzed his work looking at subject matter, use of the Scots dialect, structure, and poetic devices in order to offer holistic commentary on Burns’ style in a way that includes his letters more heavily than most other Burns scholarship. Overall, I thought Burns remained a consistent man of conviction and societal criticism throughout my findings, as well as …

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Mythopoesis In Tennyson's Idylls Of The King, Rebecca A. Umland Apr 2023

Mythopoesis In Tennyson's Idylls Of The King, Rebecca A. Umland

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

This essay examines mythopoesis in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. This epic Arthurian poem includes features of the futuristic and fantasy genres and confounds linear time. The poet creates an imaginary geography—one steeped in history and myth—for the arrival and departure of his remarkable hero, Arthur. Moreover, through the mythopoesis of his epic poem, Tennyson’s King is more than human, differing in both degree and kind from his knights. The bookend poems that open and close the combined Idylls represent two of Tennyson’s boldest departures from the received legend that emerged out of the Middle Ages.

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Wizards And Woods: The Environmental Ethics Of Tolkien’S Istari, Kenton L. Sena, Philip J. Vogel Apr 2023

Wizards And Woods: The Environmental Ethics Of Tolkien’S Istari, Kenton L. Sena, Philip J. Vogel

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

Tolkien’s wizards are some of the most interesting and impactful characters in The Lord of the Rings, sent to Middle-earth to inspire the free peoples to resist Sauron. Principal among the Istari are Gandalf and Saruman, both of whom feature prominently in the events of The Lord of the Rings. A much more minor role, however, is played by Radagast the Brown, who appears only in passing mentions in The Hobbit and serves almost as a messenger in The Lord of the Rings. These three Istari enable an interesting discussion of environmental relationships, with Radagast and Saruman portrayed as failures …

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Sentience And Sapience In The One Ring: The Reality Of Tolkien’S Master Ring, Larry L. Burriss Apr 2023

Sentience And Sapience In The One Ring: The Reality Of Tolkien’S Master Ring, Larry L. Burriss

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

In this paper, the author proposes J.R.R. Tolkien’s Ring of Power actually possesses (within the fantasy “frame”) both sentience (consciousness) and sapience (the ability to think and act). Numerous other writers have investigated the literary and mythic origins of the One Ring, but there appears little discussion, beyond its creation, of how and why the Ring does what it does. The author here uses Tolkien’s own writing (rather than the myriad of fan speculation or the numerous adaptations of the Tolkien canon) to show the One Ring has, within the frame of the story, an innate ability to think and …

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Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, And Neurodiversity In Young Adult Texts By Jes Battis, Marisa Mills Apr 2023

Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, And Neurodiversity In Young Adult Texts By Jes Battis, Marisa Mills

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

This is my review of Jes Battis's book Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, and Neurodiversity in Young Adult Texts. Battis’s book reads beautifully and easily, even if you are not well-versed in disability studies or queer theory, and I imagine that even a reader who is not especially knowledgeable about either medievalisms or YA literature could also follow along well. This book is written in an uncommonly accessible, even conversational style, that is utterly enthralling, and yet Battis’s work still shows impressive scholarly rigor and scope. If I were to describe the book in a single sentence, it would be this …

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Mythmaking Across Boundaries, Edited By Züleyha Çetiner-Öktem, Sarah Beach Apr 2023

Mythmaking Across Boundaries, Edited By Züleyha Çetiner-Öktem, Sarah Beach

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

No abstract provided.

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The Map Of Wilderland: Ecocritical Reflections On Tolkien’S Myth Of Wilderness By Amber Lehning, Maria K. Alberto Apr 2023

The Map Of Wilderland: Ecocritical Reflections On Tolkien’S Myth Of Wilderness By Amber Lehning, Maria K. Alberto

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

No abstract provided.

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The Gallant Edith Bratt: J.R.R. Tolkien’S Inspiration By Nancy Bunting And Seamus Hamill-Keays, María Fernández Portaencasa Apr 2023

The Gallant Edith Bratt: J.R.R. Tolkien’S Inspiration By Nancy Bunting And Seamus Hamill-Keays, María Fernández Portaencasa

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

No abstract provided.

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Portrayals Of Roman Catholicism In North American Children’S And Adolescent Literature Following Vatican Ii, Kathleen Anna Carroll Apr 2023

Portrayals Of Roman Catholicism In North American Children’S And Adolescent Literature Following Vatican Ii, Kathleen Anna Carroll

Theses and Dissertations

While American children’s literature scholars have analyzed issues of Christianity broadly, and there are many considerations of Roman Catholicism within European children’s literature scholarship, there is a lack of scholarly discourse regarding Roman Catholicism within children’s literature published in the United States. This dissertation considers how North American children’s and adolescent literature approach the issues that preoccupied North American Roman Catholicism post-Vatican II as well as how such portrayals have impacted readers’ understanding of the faith during this vital period of transition within the Church. Chapter 1 focuses on the way young adult literature published in the early 1970s addressed …

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Diffracting The Christine: Documenting A Building Multiple, Charles Brian Dedrick Harmon Apr 2023

Diffracting The Christine: Documenting A Building Multiple, Charles Brian Dedrick Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

The recent mingling of rhetorical theory and new materialism provides the space to ask different kinds of questions about our built history. Simultaneously, a parallel disciplinary interest in qualitative rhetorical field methods provides a growing arsenal for researchers who are invested in ‘being there’ and making a difference in the world. Working at the intersections of rhetorical theory, documentary film studies, and historic preservation, this project engages the Christine building differently. I offer a methodological framework to bridge rhetorical new materialism and rhetorical field methods and create a heuristic based in documentary theory and practice. As an archival, performance ethnography, …

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Queer Mary: Queer Temporalities In Late Medieval And Early Modern Drama, Bradley James Peppers Apr 2023

Queer Mary: Queer Temporalities In Late Medieval And Early Modern Drama, Bradley James Peppers

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how the Virgin Mary’s presence in late medieval and early modern drama stages biblical events that distort temporal strictures, disrupting how a viewer would experience the past, present, and future. In this way, past events occur nonlinearly, foreign concepts become implicit, and eternal life no longer exists outside of time. Using queer theories of temporality and history, I explore how the Virgin Mary represents a figure of change, ambivalence, and ambiguity—an evolving symbol and image having no clearly defined referent—one who, at once, inhabits a queer temporality, history, subjectivity, and sexuality. I chart these ideas by closely …

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Anthropocene Composition: Teaching Terminal Generations In The Pre-Apocalyptic Classroom, John Michael Purfield Apr 2023

Anthropocene Composition: Teaching Terminal Generations In The Pre-Apocalyptic Classroom, John Michael Purfield

Theses and Dissertations

The Anthropocene is an era characterized by human alteration of the planet at deep geological levels and permeation of anthropogenic damage across all biomes. The primary crisis of this era is climate change, which is understood broadly as the anthropogenic disruption in weather patterns and global temperature averages caused by carbon emissions and other pollutants, as well as extractivism and terraforming (deforestation, monoculture farming, desertification and alterations of waterways, for example). Though popular media tends to frame climate change as a looming but always future problem, it is currently producing casualties, both human and nonhuman. The ongoing great extinction correlates …

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A New Atticus Is Afoot: The Portrayal Of Lawyers In Popular Culture, Anna Thrush Apr 2023

A New Atticus Is Afoot: The Portrayal Of Lawyers In Popular Culture, Anna Thrush

Senior Theses

This project analyzes the stereotypical image of lawyers in popular culture, focusing on either overly demonic or unrealistically heroic. Both stereotypes that are common portrayals of attorneys in popular culture are unrealistic and deny society a true comprehension of the profession. Popular culture has molded the image of lawyers to the characteristics that sell, rather than focusing on a realistic portrayal. Therefore, popular culture creates a falsely dramatized image of attorneys to generate revenue, putting the reputation and future of the profession as risk. These stereotypes are exemplified in this project through a close literary analysis of lawyer characters from …

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After Erasure: Contingency And The Persistence Of Subjectivity, Nathan Deprospo Apr 2023

After Erasure: Contingency And The Persistence Of Subjectivity, Nathan Deprospo

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation examines the relationship between contemporary posthumanist discourse in rhetoric and composition and the Hegelian dialectic. My basic premise is that the ethical and philosophical aspirations of posthumanist discourse—embrace otherness, improve social relations, foster inclusivity—are undercut by a persistent conservatism and destructiveness that runs throughout the social body. This is a Hegelian point: one should not treat social ills, such as racism, sexism, or classism, as merely unfortunate, cosmetic side effects of social organizations, but rather as fundamental human tendencies. For Hegel, there is a tendency towards exclusion, towards negating otherness, that is inherent in human subjectivity, and which …

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'The Frank Exchange': A Historical Drama Novella, Ariel Finkle Apr 2023

'The Frank Exchange': A Historical Drama Novella, Ariel Finkle

Senior Honors Projects

I am an avid fan of historical fiction books such as The Royal Diaries. But given the recent popularity of more adult royal drama series like The Great, as well as impostor true crime shows like Inventing Anna, on this project I set out to create a historical fiction drama of my own. While searching for a real-life figure to base my story on, I happened to see a quick footnote at the bottom of an article on Catherine the Great that intrigued me. At the turn of the 18th century, an ordinary young Polish woman named Eva Frank managed …

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“Speak For Yourself”: Ovidian Women And The Suppression Of Voice And Complaint In Metamorphoses And Heroides, Grayson Elizabeth Newman Apr 2023

“Speak For Yourself”: Ovidian Women And The Suppression Of Voice And Complaint In Metamorphoses And Heroides, Grayson Elizabeth Newman

Theses and Dissertations

Ovid’s portrayal and attitude towards women is one that is particularly puzzling and contradictory throughout his Metamorphoses and Heroides. Recent scholarship on Ovidian literature is only divided on whether or not Ovid’s intentions within these two works were to sympathize with the Roman woman’s experience or to reinforce the lack of female representation in Roman society; however, I argue that Ovid fails to achieve empathy for the Roman woman. In Heroides, these women are pining and tragic, often meeting some terrible fate shortly after being abandoned by their suitors and putting forth a complaint. Conversely, women in Metamorphoses …

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Rhetorical New Materialism, Queers, And Cringe, Katherine Anne Schell Apr 2023

Rhetorical New Materialism, Queers, And Cringe, Katherine Anne Schell

Theses and Dissertations

Cringe, the negative reflexive reaction we experience when we witness something embarrassing or awkward, has a bad reputation in the queer community. In online and physical queer spaces, there is a pervading belief that “cringe culture” must be antithetical to queerness, that no queer community could possibly achieve liberation until it has eradicated the threat of cringe. This thesis revises that cringe vs. queer positioning by reimagining cringe as its own rhythm of queerness and examining the productive aspects of cringe through engagement with thinkers like Karen Barad and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. The thesis, formatted as a response to a …

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Identity In Literacy Narratives: Toward Reflexive Pedagogy In First Year Writing, Laiken Elizabeth Harrigan Apr 2023

Identity In Literacy Narratives: Toward Reflexive Pedagogy In First Year Writing, Laiken Elizabeth Harrigan

Theses and Dissertations

An ongoing discussion for composition pedagogues is the relation of individuals’ identities and discourse histories in relation to academic discourses. In this thesis, I argue that academic discourse cannot be entirely separated from personal discourse, as individuals are always in conversation with their discoursal histories and identities. In order to better understand how students perceive their relationships to academic discourse, I analyze how First Year Writing (FYW) students experience the discourse of FYW— where they either intertwine their identities or we see their personal identities collide with the academic space. I used open coding to conduct a textual analysis of …

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Hardly Working: The Labor Concerns Of Graduate Student Assistants In Writing Programs, Lily Victoria Howard-Hill Apr 2023

Hardly Working: The Labor Concerns Of Graduate Student Assistants In Writing Programs, Lily Victoria Howard-Hill

Theses and Dissertations

The instructors of undergraduate writing courses are very often graduate students who exist in a space between student and teacher, subsequently shouldering a dual burden of responsibility. This is particularly the case in freshman writing and composition classes. Graduate students that hold assistantships and work in writing programs have a number of concerns related to their academic labor, specifically the benefits and compensation they receive in exchange for their work. To further illustrate these issues, this project offers the results of an IRB-approved study that highlights the tight connection between graduate student assistants’ working conditions, the financial and material benefits …

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Nature As Culture: Ecofeminist Narratives Of Environmental And Colonial History, Sydney Leimbach Apr 2023

Nature As Culture: Ecofeminist Narratives Of Environmental And Colonial History, Sydney Leimbach

Theses and Dissertations

“Nature as Culture: Ecofeminist Narratives of Environmental and Colonial History” is a cross-cultural, comparative, feminist investigation of two films, The Nightingale and Wolfwalkers, and two books, The Giving Tree and The Overstory. The narratives are analyzed through a combination of ecofeminism and decolonial feminism, revealing the four narratives’ investment in the effects of colonization on the environment. The two chapters explore the association of women with nature, traditionally used as a subordinating position, instead as a condition of empathetic understanding with both the colonized and the environment. Further, these narratives use the association of women with nature as …

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Communicative Kissing With Alien Poetry: New Muses In Neil Gaiman’S “How To Talk To Girls At Parties”, Leanna Ashley Herbert Apr 2023

Communicative Kissing With Alien Poetry: New Muses In Neil Gaiman’S “How To Talk To Girls At Parties”, Leanna Ashley Herbert

Theses and Dissertations

The representation of women in the fiction of Neil Gaiman is a topic that seems to obsess scholars, critics, fans, and (likely) the author himself. It is imperative that closer scholarly attention be paid to the figure of the muse, a figure defined in contemporary culture by her representability, as she appears across Gaiman’s works. This thesis traces the evolution of m/Muses or muse-like figures in the fiction of Neil Gaiman, arguing that the short story “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” imagines an empowering evolution for those who are objectified or silenced by the assumption that they are …

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Kurt Vonnegut, A Difficult Feminist: Investigating Female Characters In Bluebeard, Matthew Steven Medl Apr 2023

Kurt Vonnegut, A Difficult Feminist: Investigating Female Characters In Bluebeard, Matthew Steven Medl

Theses and Dissertations

After a brief contextualization of Vonnegut’s work, this essay close-reads his 1987 novel, Bluebeard, and locates the feminism within. I argue that Vonnegut establishes women as agents of generative change, breakers of marital conventions, artistic sages, authors, expressionists, interlopers, and nonviolent activists. I primarily examine Circe Berman and Marilee Kemp, supplementing with evidence from Edith Taft and Dorothy, as well as wider scholarship.

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Sites Of Peace And Pain: The Black Grandmother Figure In Toni Morrison’S Beloved, Jazz, And Sula, Alexus Joannea Ray Apr 2023

Sites Of Peace And Pain: The Black Grandmother Figure In Toni Morrison’S Beloved, Jazz, And Sula, Alexus Joannea Ray

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Toni Morrison captures the genuine lived unique experiences of Black grandmothers and their granddaughters throughout her novels and specifically in Beloved, Jazz, and Sula. My analysis takes a closer look at the complications behind Morrison’s grandmothers in order to demonstrate that, while she is strong, supportive, and family oriented, the Black grandmother figure can also be a person of peril. The main characters, Denver, Violet, and Sula must come to terms with the contradictions of strength and sacrifice that the novels insist are better left in the past. Drawing on Morrison scholarship and Black women’s …

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Gothic Transformations And Remediations In Cheap Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Wendy Fall Apr 2023

Gothic Transformations And Remediations In Cheap Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Wendy Fall

Dissertations (1934 -)

My project considers the transformation of gothic characters as they move among different types of publications in the nineteenth century. As they meander from triple-decker novels to chapbooks, to theatrical scripts, to periodicals, and to penny serials, gothic stories and portrayals of people in them are altered by the length and technological capability of each form. They also mutate to reflect the tastes and ideologies of their changing audiences, and to hybridize genres under the popular influence of realism toward the mid-century. The mainstays of the gothic mode remain stable; these publications adhere to ambiguous or pluralistic ideologies, are obsessed …

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Milton’S Learning: Complementarity And Difference In Paradise Lost, Peter Spaulding Apr 2023

Milton’S Learning: Complementarity And Difference In Paradise Lost, Peter Spaulding

Dissertations (1934 -)

When we consider, in the vein of Golda Werman’s Milton and Midrash, the idea of Milton’s Paradise Lost as self-consciously responding to the Bible, the question of why he makes the changes and additions that he does comes to the fore. This dissertation explores the middle books of Paradise Lost as Milton’s midrashic interventions that, among other things, emphasize the presence of education in the Garden. These scenes shed some light on Milton’s own views of education. Specifically, these interventions show a theory of education that conceives of difference as non-combative, a distinctly non-Hobbesian view of difference. Using Aristotle’s four …

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“The Development Of The Conceptive Plot Through Early 19th-Century English Novels”, Jannea R. Thomason Apr 2023

“The Development Of The Conceptive Plot Through Early 19th-Century English Novels”, Jannea R. Thomason

Dissertations (1934 -)

My dissertation, “The Development of the Conceptive Plot through Early 19th Century English Novels,” reads these novels through the history of midwifery and reproduction to show how authors developed a coherent set of narrative features to challenge ideas about women’s agency in reproduction. Building on recent explorations of the maternal and feminist aspects of the novels, I further nuance the representations of women and reproduction in the novels. Nineteenth-century authors explored reproductive rhetoric, law, and medical practices, and their explorations appear as what I call “the conceptive plot”: a set of narrative features illustrating how different systems strip women of …

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