Arts and Humanities Commons^™

How Do Comics Artists Create Sound Effects In Spanish And English?, Frank Bramlett

English Faculty Publications

In 2009, I happened upon a one-shot Spider-Man & Human Torch story. Side-by-side on the rack at my local comic book store were an English-language version and a Spanish-language version, both of which were called ¡Bahía de los Muertos! (literally Bay of the Dead). The Spanish version was also marked “Edición Boricua en Español,” meaning that it was the Puerto Rican edition. I’ve included two images, below. The one on the left is from the Spanish version and the one on the right is from the English. In panel 1, Johnny is getting hit by a monster. In panel …

Lines Of Communication: Uncovering War’S Reality Through Fictional Styles, Kelly Hoarty

English Student Scholarship

In looking at war literature, Word War I was a pivotal event in how many authors view the war and communicate its effects on society to their audiences. Erich Maria Remarque and Ernest Hemingway are two novelists in the twentieth century, who wrote to portray the physical and psychological damage soldiers suffered in battle and upon returning home. All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque and The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway utilize different writing styles, but both effectively work within fiction to bridge the gap of understanding between the soldiers’ experiences and the civilians on the home front, …

Red-Marked Writing: High-Stakes Consequences On High School Writing Education, Dana Sarchet

Senior Honors Theses

The crucial role of writing in students’ educational growth and development is indisputable. Not only does the process of writing engage students in each level of Bloom’s taxonomy, but it also aids students in the development of their cognitive thinking skills. However, past and even recent statistics reveal a common trend: the vast majority of high school students lack even a basic understanding of writing. Though undoubtedly there are many issues contributing in this lapse of students’ writing abilities, high-stakes testing is a key factor in the decline of writing education in high school classrooms. In order for students to …

The Real Things: Photographing Scenes Of The 1960s, Nicholas Bromell

English Department Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

Bodies Of Reform: The Rhetoric Of Character In Gilded Age America [Review], Claudia Stokes

English Faculty Research

What is the nature of human character? Is it innate or the product of socialization? Is it fixed or fungible, whether for good or for ill? The multiple theories regarding the origins of character that percolated throughout the 1800s have become a mainstay of nineteenth-century U.S. studies over the last twenty years, receiving particular attention in analyses of late-century responses to the anxiety sparked by immigration, labor agitation, and unstable financial markets as well as by the Race Question and the Woman Question. Societal reform during this time was actively fueled by debates about the nature and origin of character, …

Review Of Community Literacy And The Rhetoric Of Civic Engagement By Linda Flower, Tim Taylor

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Review Of Community Literacy And The Rhetoric Of Civic Engagement By Linda Flower, Tim Taylor

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Toward A Multilingual Composition Scholarship : From English Only To A Translingual Norm., Bruce Horner, Samantha Necamp, Christiane Donahue

Faculty Scholarship

Against the limitations English monolingualism imposes on composition scholarship, as evident in journal submission requirements, frequency of references to non-English medium writing, bibliographical resources, and our own past work, we argue for adopting a translingual approach to languages, disciplines, localities, and research traditions in our scholarship, and propose ways individuals, journals, conferences, and graduate programs might advance composition scholarship toward a translingual norm.

Endless Yarns: Interdisciplinary Creative Work In Text And Textile, Louisa Owen Sonstroem

Honors Scholar Theses

In this thesis I explore the relationship between text and textile. What is it that connects them? I engage this question from an aesthetic perspective, through process as much as through theory. The thesis project consists of three components: creative text pieces, creative textile pieces, and an essay that attempts to deal with the questions which arose during my creative process.

“The Grin Of The Skull Beneath The Skin:” Reassessing The Power Of Comic Characters In Gothic Literature, Amanda D. Drake

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Neither representative of aesthetic flaws or mere comic relief, comic characters within Gothic narratives challenge and redefine the genre in ways that open up, rather than confuse, critical avenues. Comic characters in the Gothic texts of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, and Clara Reeve establish the comic as a serious and legitimate part of the Gothic aesthetic. Comic characters continue to appear in all forms of the Gothic, including its parodies, well into the nineteenth-century, suggesting that these characters endure as necessary and vital elements within the evolving Gothic genre. As the genre evolves, the characters evolve as well, progressing from …

The Dutch Smuggler's Story [Abstract Only], Devin Murphy

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Dutch Smuggler’s Story, is a novel about Jacob Jonker, a Sea Captain, whose secret, early life comes to light in the wake of his arrest for human trafficking. Jacob grew up in a fishing family in Holland, and was conscripted into the German Navy as a teenager in 1943. Due to his seafaring ability, he was used as a test dummy for a new Nazi weapon, a one person midget submarine. When Jacob has success as a midget sub operator, he is bestowed The Knight’s Cross by the Germans as a propaganda ploy to lore more Dutch youth …

Living Well: The Value Of Teaching Place, Catherine M. English

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation is a teaching memoir that examines the implementation of a place conscious pedagogy as a means to teach sustainable living practices into a secondary English classroom in a rural Nebraska school. It is framed upon the premise of instilling five senses of place consciousness into students as defined by Haas and Nachtigal (1998) including living well in community or a sense of belonging; living well spiritually or a sense of connection; living well economically or a sense of worth; living well politically or a sense of civic involvement; and living well ecologically or a sense of place. I …

Green Worlds And Ecosemiotics, Paul Siewers

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

"Overlay landscapes" in Early Insular literatures, and how they connect early medieval cosmology with current-day ecosemiotics..

What's New On Jane's Bookshelf?, Jane Leeth

Articles

When I’m not teaching, I’m scouring bookstores and websites for interesting new releases in children’s and young adult literature. My dogs don’t even bark anymore when the UPS man shows up at the front door with a box of books; he’s sort of become part of our family.

I’ve listed here a handful of books that recently piqued my interest—whether I was intrigued by the topic, the aesthetic post-modern appearance, and/or what I can do with the text in the classroom.

Romantic Transports: Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism In Transatlantic Context, Rachel Carnell, Alison Tracy Hale

English Faculty Publications

A literary criticism of several books including "Female Quixotism" by Tabitha Tenney, "The Female Quixote" by Charlotte Lennox, and "Angelina" by Maria Edgeworth is presented. According to the authors, these novels constitute a transatlantic genre which highlights the moral and cultural complexities faced by women in the 18th and 19th centuries. Particular focus is given to the novels' political contexts. Realism, the French Revolution, and republican government are also discussed.

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Student Writers As Problem Solvers In Literature Classrooms, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema, Dawn Reed, Katie Greene

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article reports on the role of student writers in the U.S. to enhance the study of literature in the classroom. High school teacher Dawn Reed shares how students' professional writing served as a starting point for deeper study and advocacy of American literature. It provides an overview of Katie Greene's assessment system that creates flexibility while providing a model of evaluation which can be adapted for other professional writing experiences.

Organizing For Antiracism In Writing Centers: Principles For Enacting Social Change, Moira Ozias, Beth Godbee

English Faculty Research and Publications

We move through the chapter in three parts. First, we define organizing and answer the question of whether we in writing centers should do this work by showing how we already are. Second, we identify guiding principles consistent with the aims of antiracism as well as the collaborative and dialogic pedagogies of writing centers. Drawing on cross-disciplinary research, we articulate three frameworks for organizing: (1) direct action organizing (Bobo, Kendall, and Max 2001); (2) a balance of strategies and tactics (Alinsky 1945; Mathieu 2005); and (3) a dialectic approach (Papa, Singhal, and Papa 2006). We find the most potential in …

The Strange And Surprising World Of Curriculum Reform And Its Consequences For Eighteenth-Century Studies, Ann Campbell

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite every conceivable obstacle, including innumerable departmental, college, and university committees seemingly created for the sole purpose of impeding change, both my university’s core curriculum and my department’s literature curriculum have in the span of the last two years been dramatically revised, or "reformed" as the university refers to the process, for the first time in thirty years. I have regarded this strange and surprising process with alternating wonder, anxiety, disorientation, and denial, much like Robinson Crusoe when he is first stranded on his island. Although neither "savages" nor "wild beasts" threatened me, I felt wholly isolated as our university’s …

Walden, Addison Schwaller '14

2011 Fall Semester

Nature is the source of humanity’s wisdom and philosophy. In his book Walden, Henry David Thoreau mentioned nature almost constantly, which is fitting because his writing includes him immersing himself in nature for “two years and two months” (Thoreau 827). When he became more involved and intimate with nature, he managed to escape bustling society and look at it from a new perspective, which enabled him to criticize it. This new perspective makes Walden a controversial read, especially for the time it was written. Thoreau fearlessly challenged himself to see the natural world as it actually was, and to …

What About Walden?, Ben Rabe '14

2011 Fall Semester

In the complete and utter blackness, I strained my eyes and ears in a constant struggle to remain aware of my surroundings, as it always seems that the inhabitants of the forest are most active when one isn’t paying attention. Still in darkness, I found myself in a perpetual struggle against myself to retain my focus. Just as I began to succumb to the pressures of sleep, the first light appeared over the horizon. Within minutes, I was bathed in the gentle, forgiving sunlight that cleansed me of all desire for rest. I felt alert, connected to my surroundings and …

The Help, Morgan Ashley Craft '12

2011 Fall Semester

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help focuses on the racism that was prominent in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi. Two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, and a white socialite, Skeeter, join together, in secret and risking their lives, to write a book that tells the stories of black domestic maids working in white Southern households. Specifically, Skeeter focuses on beginning a career as a journalist, instead of finding a husband and starting a family, which was not a norm amongst the Southern women. The Help not only addresses racism in the 1960s, it also focuses on the importance of a husband and a family …

Facial Transplantation: The Last Hope For “Monsters”, Lily Lou '13

2011 Fall Semester

For these past two hundred years I have been living in utter seclusion from the rest of humanity. Life would have lost its meaning long ago were it not for a divine occurrence. I happened to pass through a gargantuan athenaeum of sorts and I whiled my hours away devouring the intellectual delights that lay within. I read several books on a compelling issue, and one that seems to be novel, unheard-of and that has seemed to stir up quite a controversy. The issue is the surgical operation of face transplants on humans. From what I have read, a face …

Human Duplication: Miracle?, Henry Ward '13

2011 Fall Semester

My creator tossed me into this world with little semblance of foresight, displaying the recklessness of a prodigal child too blinded by his own misled intelligence to realize the implications of his path. Perhaps – nay, certainly – he owed it to his creation to have taken more time in the consideration of my being before the deed was done. Due to his abominable lack of wisdom, to call me a miracle of science is as appalling a misnomer as may be. But, perhaps modern science has unveiled a true miracle – that of the unnatural creation of a similar …

Experiencing Literary Self-Consciousness In The Classroom, Dan Gleason

Modern World Fiction

This activity is a fun and even bizarre response to John Barth’s highly self-referential story “Lost in the Funhouse.” In that story, Barth comments extensively on the writing as it happens (as he makes it happen), alerting the reader to the conventions of fiction as he deploys them. The following activity brings such jarring commentary into the classroom by leading students to call out the conventions of the classroom as they happen; the activity makes students live the experience of interruptive meta-commentary and can thus lead to vibrant discussion on the commentary in the story, too.

Fairy Tale Stylization Project, Dan Gleason

Modern World Fiction

The Fairy Tale project is a group project that captures the key distinctions in literary style that we analyze in our Modern World Fiction class. In that class, we look at fiction through the lens of different stylistic flavors: maximalism, minimalism, ludic (playful) style, surrealism, and magical realism. The fairy tale project helps students look back on all these different styles, reflect on them, and note their key features and differences more clearly. In this project, groups of students will rewrite a fairy tale in all (five) literary styles. Each member of the group will rewrite the tale in one …

Fabulating Romania: Review Of Filip Florian’S Little Fingers And Alta Ifland’S Elegy For A Fabulous World, Ania Spyra

English

In 2007 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania launched a public image campaign in an effort to create a new brand for the country, a brand that would build a positive image, rather than only counteract – defensively – negative stereotypes. An advertising agency created the new brand by merging the words fabulous and spirit into “fabulouspirit” – a word, which ended up sounding better in Romanian than it does in English even though it was intended for an Anglophone audience. The campaign encountered so much criticism that despite the plans to implement it over several years, the word …

Footnotes, Issue 10, Fall 2011, Department Of English

Footnotes: Department of English Newsletter (2008-2012)

No abstract provided.

The Protestant Whore: Courtesan Narrative & Religious Controversy In England, 1680-1750 (Review), Rachel K. Carnell

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

These Days Of Large Things: The Culture Of Size In America, 1865-1930 [Review], Claudia Stokes

English Faculty Research

In These Days of Large Things: The Culture of Size in America, 1865–1930, Michael Tavel Clarke examines the Progressive Era preoccupation with size. As Clarke argues with considerable evidence, largeness was widely interpreted in this period (and, indeed, in our own) to denote progress and advancement while smallness in turn signified degeneracy and unwholesomeness. This pervasive and enduring schema, Clarke shows, had its roots in American expansionism and imperialism, enterprises underwritten by the interlocking beliefs that bigger is better and that superiority must be physically manifest.

Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs The Humanities [Review], Michael Fischer

English Faculty Research

In Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities Martha Nussbaum joins many observers in arguing that the arts and humanities are under siege, threatened by budget cuts and a growing emphasis on professional training. When budget cuts do not eliminate university programs in the arts and humanities, they swell class size to the point that the traditional hallmarks of a humanistic education—class discussion, essay examinations, research assignments demanding critical thinking—become untenable. Instead, PowerPoint lecturing and multiple-choice exercises dominate, reinforcing the rote learning that standardized testing has already made the norm in K–12 education. A recent Wall Street Journal article, …