Digital Commons Network^™

Digital Text And Communication Literacy Of English Language Teachers: Implications From A Reconstructive Study On Teachers’ Professional Development, Annika Janßen, Jan-Erik Leonhardt, Alexandra Kemmerer, Britta Viebrock

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this contribution, we will introduce the concept of Digital Text and Communication Literacy (DITECOL), which was developed as part of the DigiNICs project. It contains subject-related, functional, critical, and methodological competences to deal with and teach digital texts and communication forms in foreign language education. We will present first results from a qualitative interview study with six English language teachers who participate in the DigiNICs project. The study examines how they perceive their usage of digital texts and communication forms a) in their lessons and b) in the context of in-service teacher training. The interview data was analysed using …

A Children’S Rights Approach To Critical Media Literacy In Language Education: Developing Children’S Agency In A Digital Networked World, Frauke Matz, Jeff Share

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Children are growing up in a culture of digitality, one infused in digital communication in and out of school (Faverio & Sidotti, 2024; Stalder, 2018). They are immersed in a digital networked world, which plays a significant role in how they develop their literacies and identities (Cannon et al., 2022) across languages. To help them participate as “active thinkers and citizens in their own right” (Wall, 2016, p. 86), educators could consider the potential of critical media literacy in language education as a pedagogical response to the commercial exploitation of information, and the liberatory potential of critical thinking and creative …

A Critical Annotated Bibliography Of Obscure Scholarship On John Kennedy Toole And A Confederacy Of Dunces. Version 2.0, H. Vernon Leighton

Library Faculty Works

The purpose of this bibliography is to summarize texts that might be difficult for the average scholar to obtain and to evaluate the quality of those obscure texts. Most of these are Master’s theses or Ph.D. dissertations that have at least some portion devoted to a discussion of John Kennedy Toole or the novel A Confederacy of Dunces. Most of the entries were written before 2014, though some were updated in 2025.

Front Matter, Kritika Kultura

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Belliphonic Tolkien: Listening To The Wars In Middle-Earth, Ali Mirzabayati

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper explores the belliphonic—the sonic dimension of warfare—in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, focusing on the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. While modern warfare studies emphasize the sounds of mechanized combat, the acoustic landscapes of ancient and medieval battles remain understudied. Drawing on recent scholarship by Clauss, Lummer, Potthoff, and Pretzer, this study situates Tolkien’s soundscapes within both historical and mythological traditions. Tolkien’s immersion in classical, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse literature, combined with his experience of World War I, enabled him to create richly layered battle sounds in which horns, cries, silence, and environmental …

The Making Of Jewish-American Progress In Gertrude Stein’S, The Making Of Americans: Being A History Of A Family’S Progress, Rochel L. Gasson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation provides a comprehensive reading of Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans (TMOA), situating the novel at the intersection of literary modernism, Jewish American identity, and feminist thought. It argues that Stein reconceives American progress not as linear advancement but as a recursive, relational, and culturally grounded process. Through experimental form, repetitive syntax, and a sustained present tense, TMOA dramatizes the psychological and social complexities of immigrant families navigating assimilation while maintaining heritage. Characters such as the Old Man, his son, and the Dehning and Herland families reveal generational tensions, moral labor, and the ambivalences of upward …

Accepting Vs Understanding, Transgender Aliens And Alienation, Reyna G. Aliah

English

Trans people have been the subject of intense discrimination in recent years, suffering dehumanization from right-wing and conservative groups. This dehumanization (and the fear resulting from it) parallels common attitudes in science fiction about actual aliens. Orson Scott Card’s Hierarchy of Foreignness classifies individuals and species into five categories, depending on their sentience; whether they are from the same city, nation, or planet; and whether communication is possible. This paper examines how transgender people can be classified according to this system on a societal level, with said class depending on the lens used to view them as well as the …

Understanding The Relationship Of Culture And Language With Hiv, Cora Coletti

Student Scholar Symposium

HIV impacts 39.9 million people worldwide. Many people with HIV are the victims of stigmatizing language used by physicians, family members, and community members. In 2015 the Centers for Disease Control and the American Medical Association added language guidelines to prevent additional stigma in medical and scientific literature. Analyzing research from Baltimore, Nigeria, and Rwanda creates a global view of the impacts of language and culture on public health materials presented in communities where HIV is prevalent. Researching the perspectives of women, mothers, and physicians provides a diverse range of experiences people with HIV have gone through. Synthesizing the current …

Hollywood Honey, Faith Adams

Student Scholar Symposium

Faith Adams’ poetry collection, Hollywood Honey, spotlights the dreams and fears at war within every heart. The speaker reminds her audience that “Goodbyes only move in one direction/and life only sells one brand: for now.” Adams’ work weaves regret, joy, loss, and peace into a colorful patchwork of the human experience, seeking to reconcile past grief and future hope with an anchoring sense of present self. Through a series of introspective remembrances and candid character studies, Adams’ speaker urges readers to find beauty in every tattered edge of the human soul.

The Creation And Continuation Of The Elvish Language, Megan Gables

Student Scholar Symposium

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, published in the 1950s, stands apart for its use of Constructed Languages. Tolkien graduated from Oxford University and pursued a career as a professor of philology and linguistics. Tolkien loved using his linguistic expertise to create realistic cultures and communities within his fantasy worlds. One of Lord of the Rings most famous Constructed Languages is Elvish. Tolkien’s inspiration for the sound of Elvish with Welsh and Finnish as both languages are highly phonetic. Welsh inspired the stress syllables, while Finnish influenced Elvish’s sound and writing. Since Tolkien’s death in 1973, the Tolkien estate …

Victims Playing Villains: Subjects Of Blame In Elie Wiesel's "Night", Naomi Hollans

Student Scholar Symposium

Many readers who are familiar with the Jewish Holocaust are also familiar with Elie Wiesel’s Night. While many tragedies testify of villains and victims, Night’s testimony on these two elements is unclear. Night is riddled with shame, and Elie often sees himself as a perpetrator in his own suffering. With this misplaced shame, Wiesel partakes in a “confession” at the end of Night. This paper explores each of Wiesel’s “villains” and theorizes the psychological motivations behind each indictment. It gives special interest to the prevalence of victim shame in Holocaust survivor testimony, building on existing research about …

Domination, Limitation, And Liberation In Gilman's Herland, Ella Cauley

Student Scholar Symposium

No abstract provided.

English Loanwords And Their Sociolinguistic Impact On The Japanese Language, Zoe Macgill

Student Scholar Symposium

No abstract provided.

Encouraging Young Writers With Multiliteracies And Transformative Works, Charlene A. Amarello

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In the wake of COVID-19’s devastating effect on education, educators are faced once again with the daunting task of reaching students in the English classroom. Meanwhile, fanfiction and multiliteracies are burgeoning subjects of research. As of January 1st, 2025, over 14 million fanfictions have been published on the website AO3, a well-known fanfiction archive, and educators have begun to design assignments with fanfiction in mind. Likewise, multiliteracies continues to make headway in conversations about pedagogy. Research continues to delve into both as practices, though the creation of practical suggestions for educators grounded in data is still in its infancy. There …

Wild Robots: Humans, Wilderness, And Technology In Becky Chambers’ Monk And Robot Series, Melissa Moore

Honors Theses

As technology advances and the environment deteriorates, the way people view the relationships between technology, wilderness, and humans becomes essential for society to move forward. To investigate perceptions about technology’s place in an environmentally conscious society, this project examines manifestations of wilderness/wildness and technology in Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot series through the lens of ecocriticism. Using Timothy Morton's concept of the ecological thought as a framework for analysis, the circumstances present in the novel suggest that the triangle separating humans, wilderness, and technology has actually collapsed, replaced by an enmeshment of technology, wilderness, and humanity.

The High Hallow: Tolkien’S Liturgical Imagination (2025) By Ben Reinhard., Tom Emanuel

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Tom Emanuel, of The High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination (2025) by Ben Reinhard.

A Quest For Identity, Josephine Magar

Student Scholar Symposium

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie delves into the story of an adolescent boy growing up on an Indian reservation, wrestling with hard medical issues and the typical emotional turmoil associated with coming of age. Arnold, who goes by Junior, also faces complex issues such as racism, less-than-ideal family relationships, and identity. Alexie approaches Arnold’s experiences with humor and storytelling that can only be found in the genre of young adult literature. This paper finds Alexie’s notion of identity construction as an unstable, shifting process often shaped by the opinions of others. The structure …

A Small Red Flame: Negative Theology And Divine Presence In Brideshead Revisited, Camille Floyd

Student Scholar Symposium

In Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited, Captain Charles Ryder slowly and unassumingly converts from atheism to Catholicism. Waugh subverts the stereotypical conversion narrative, which defines systematic theology strictly defines as a person’s “turn” or “move towards” God. Negative theology, also known as apophatic theology, is an approach that relies on negation to describe divine nature. Looking at Brideshead Revisited through the lens of negative theology notices a subversion of the conversion narrative to see how God works invisibly, overtime, and in ways not translatable to the human vocabulary. Through memory, Charles Ryder’s experience transforms. He glimpses divine presence at work …

Annihilation: Ecological Crisis And The Collapse Of Human Exceptionalism, Matt Williams

Best Integrated Writing

Through its portrayal of an ecosystem that actively resists human comprehension and control, Annihilation dismantles the long-standing notion of human exceptionalism, presenting nature not as a passive backdrop but as a dynamic and autonomous force.

Forming Identity In Third Spaces: An Exploration Through Literature, J. Lynn Millar

Best Integrated Writing

To address the difficulty adolescents have navigating conflicting guidance to find their own path, and provide actionable resources, I will present the concept of Third Spaces, explore the works of Firekeeper's Daughter and “My Standard Response” through the lens of Third Spaces, and present lessons utilizing these texts to focus on Third Spaces in the classroom.

The Architecture Of Annihilation: Freud’S Death Drive In King And Siddons, Aubrianna Markus

Best Integrated Writing

Sigmund Freud’s theory of the death drive, or Thanatos, indicates a deeper psychological framework for interpreting the horror in both texts. Freud argues that human beings possess an unconscious compulsion toward repetition, destruction, and a return to an inorganic state. In The Shining and The House Next Door, haunted spaces operate as an externalization of this death drive, revealing that the true source of horror lies not in external supernatural forces, but in the irresistible pull toward self-destruction inherent in the human psyche.

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2025 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Tracy Smith, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper": Decoding Medical Patriarchal Structures (A Common Theme Within Gothic Literature/Horror), Yvonne T. Samuels

Masters Theses (Archived)

This paper makes the claim that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” encoded the medical system as part of the patriarchy used to control and harm women, especially within the 19^th Century, and how this is a common theme within gothic literature and modern-day horror. Through the Feminist Literary Criticism framework and the methodology of textual analysis, certain literary devices Gilman uses, including the Gothic trope of the narrator’s environment in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is analyzed to reveal women living in a patriarchal society during the 19^thCentury and the medical system being a source of power. “The …

Rhetorical Strategies In Legal Argument: Their Influence On Judicial Decisions And Public Perception, Olivia Deluca

Honors College Theses

The relationship between rhetoric and law has long been debated by scholars, theorists, and practitioners. This project explores how rhetorical strategies used in judicial writing and legal discourse influence both judicial decision making and public perception of the law. Drawing on classical rhetorical theory, contemporary legal scholarship, and qualitative research, this study investigates how appeals to morality, precedent, and narrative shape legal legitimacy. The research incorporates interviews with legal professionals and textual analysis of landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases to examine how rhetorical language both reflects and constructs legal authority. Findings suggest that rhetoric functions not only as a persuasive …

What Once Was Lost, Olivia Black

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the popular found family trope in literature, to analyze why this craft element has gained popularity within the genre of young adult adventure fiction, and to explore how this literary device is utilized in the first part of the novel 'What Once Was Lost.' This thesis begins with an artist statement, in which the writer explores her background and how she developed an interest in the found family trope. This statement also specifically references the connection between found family and the writer’s creative manuscript. The thesis then shifts to a critical paper …

Rewriting The Monster: Carmilla As Laura's Gothic Double And Subversive Prince Charming In Le Fanu's Queer Gothic Fairy Tale, Annalee Tanner

English Theses

Rewriting the Monster: Carmilla as Laura's Gothic Double and Subversive Prince Charming in Le Fanu's Queer Gothic Fairy Tale

From Transparency To Complexity: Enhancing English Reading Skills In Turkmen-Speaking Adults, Mahrijemal Taganova

Education Dissertations

The recent increase in Turkmen immigration to the United States has highlighted

significant challenges these immigrants face due to language barriers, despite their high

educational qualifications and professional backgrounds. This study investigates whether a linguistics-based approach to reading instruction can improve English literacy among Turkmen-speaking adults.

Drawing on a comprehensive review of empirical studies, this paper evaluates the impact

of phonological awareness on reading and listening skills, the role of orthographic knowledge in

decoding and spelling, and the importance of morphological awareness for vocabulary

development and reading comprehension among EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. The analysis reveals that …

Tolkien Among The Theologians (2025) Edited By Austin M. Freeman, Tom Emanuel

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by Tom Emanuel, of Tolkien among the Theologians (2025), edited by Austin M. Freeman

Curious Contradictions: A Critical Edition Of 'The Great War In England In 1897,' By William Le Queux, Jacob D. Liljenquist

Student Works

Written by William Le Queux in 1894, The Great War in England in 1897 is a work of invasion literature, and a book full of curious contradictions. Once popular and now forgotten, its material construction belies its status as sensational literature. This critical edition of the 4th edition copy of the novel housed in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections evaluates the book's conception, creation, and reception, and provides a material bibliography of the HBLL's unique copy, all with the aim to reveal and explain the contradictions in the book as a product of imperial culture.

Travels In West Africa: A Critical Edition, Erere Iwhi

Student Works

First published in 1897, Mary Henrietta Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa became one of the most influential travel narratives of the Victorian era, changing the way British audiences encountered accounts of West Africa and its peoples. This critical edition examines the book not only as a travel narrative but also as a material artifact shaped by the historical, publishing, and cultural networks that guided its production, circulation, and reception. Extending its analysis beyond Kingsley's experiences of exploration, this edition investigates the forces behind the book’s creation, including Kingsley’s intellectual development, her identity as an independent female traveler and writer, and …