Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Milton: Politics Of Desire And Dispossession, Sawyer K. Kemp

Open Educational Resources

In this course we will study John Milton’s most famous poem, Paradise Lost, alongside a selection of his major verse and prose works. Milton’s literary projects were inextricably political, and we will wade into the discourse of his legacy as either—or both—state propagandist or public scholar. We will discuss and explore Milton’s role in the charged political climate of the British Revolution of the 17^th century, as well as his work on gender, marriage, divorce, the free press, sin, and heroism.

How do we read Milton’s work in our own political climates of unrest? How has deconstruction of …

Do Androids Dream Of Bad Tv?: Un/Originality In Neil Burger’S Voyagers, Tom Ue, Callum M. Mcnutt

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Critics did not take kindly to Neil Burger’s Voyager (2021). On Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored a dismal 25%, and the consensus is that it’s a trip best not taken: “It has a game cast and a premise ripe with potential, but Voyagers drifts in familiar orbit rather than fully exploring its intriguing themes.” This article seeks neither to reclaim the film as an unjustly neglected cinematic masterpiece nor to assert its importance in the canon of dystopian works. Rather, it treats Voyagers as a test case for exploring our own critical investment in the genre. Our aims are …

“…She Complained…”: The Female Complaint And Voice In F. Scott Fitzgerald’S Works, Kristina Syrigos

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis explores the themes of female complaint and female voices in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, specifically focusing on "The Cut-Glass Bowl," "Winter Dreams," and The Great Gatsby. Drawing on J. L. Austin's concept of performative speech and Sarah Ahmed and Lauren Berlant’s explorations of the female complaint, I argue that Fitzgerald's female characters are silenced, dismissed, and punished when they express their wants, desires, and grievances. Despite their attempts to use their voices, words, and complaints to enact change in their lives, these women are portrayed as nagging and powerless, oftentimes being punished for speaking up, …

Sappho And Shakespeare: Aristotelian Views On Relationships, Catherine Corinne Reisinger

Theses and Dissertations

In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he defines different relationships that people experience; youthful, incidental, and pure. Youthful relationships focus on strong emotions and intense passionate feelings between two individuals. Incidental relationships involve two individuals of drastically different ages, most notably mortals and deities. Pure relationships involve two individuals who are morally good and want nothing but the best for one another, showing their pure goodness. Though they lived several centuries apart, Sappho and Shakespeare display all three relationship types in their writings. Sappho showcases each type of relationship in her poetry, while Shakespeare most notably portrays all three relationships in …

Mental Trauma, Colonial Mimicry, And Internalized Racism In Tsitsi Dangarembga's The Book Of Not, Lily Kay Lynn Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s second novel in her Nervous Conditions trilogy, The Book of Not (2006) emphasizes the disabling nature of colonial domination and terror through pain and violence inflicted on the body and the mind. Through the use of Frantz Fanon’s colonial and post-colonial theory and Homi Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry the critical nature of Tambudzai—the main protagonist—position in the novel becomes apparent. Just as the title suggests, the novel becomes a book of negation and unbecoming as Tambudzai tries to find her place as a woman in Southern Rhodesia while attending a European colonial institution while war rages just …

Medieval To Modern: Morgan Le Fay As Folk Icon Of Women In Power In Modern King Arthur Stories, Colleen Victoria Etman

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the ways that society views women with/in power through Arthurian adaptation. The body of work that makes up the Arthurian story is a sort of folk legend, a myth being told and retold by various authors in their own way. By using folk studies to analyze both medieval and modern texts, we can dissect what is important enough to remain over time. This signifies cultural values; things that have remained over time are reflective of the values of the writers producing these works, as well as the audiences consuming them. By interrogating these stories, we can make …

Placebos, Rhetoric, And The Power Of Expectation, Jennifer M. Reeher

Theses and Dissertations

Placebos, Rhetoric, and the Power of Expectation examines the relationship between persuasion and health to determine what interventions rhetoric could make in the interdisciplinary field of placebo studies. This exploration of the relationship between rhetoric and placebo responses relies on non-anthropocentric definitions and theories of rhetoric as well as a multifaceted archive that includes patient narratives, clinical intake forms, and peer-reviewed scientific studies of condition-specific placebo responses. The impact of this investigation spans the practical and the theoretical. First, rhetorical study highlights the importance of a patient’s perception of care in patient recovery. To this end, rhetoric offers audience-focused methods …

Recuperative Rhetorics: A Novel Framework For Rhetorical Analysis, Nicolas Palumbo

Masters Theses (Archived)

This thesis details the creation of the Recuperative Rhetorics analytical framework, which is a scalable, transdisciplinary framework for analyzing rhetorical texts, from individual speeches to societal understandings of legacy and history. It discusses the framework’s theoretical underpinnings, explains how to utilize it in analyzing rhetoric and rhetorical works, and provides examples of the framework in action across multiple mediums. The framework takes inspiration from the theories and praxes of Situationist International, primarily those of the spectacle, ready-made objects, détournement, and recuperation. The framework uses these ideas, and then builds upon more established analytical frameworks to establish a base from which …

Peeking Into Closets: A Review Of Danielle Bobker's The Closet: The Eighteenth-Century Architecture Of Intimacy, Karenza Sutton-Bennett

Criticism

A Review of Danielle Bobker's The Closet: The Eighteenth-Century Architecture of Intimacy

Review Of Gregory Jones-Katz’S Deconstruction: An American Institution, Barry Laga

Criticism

Jones-Katz helps us recontextualize what we thought we knew about the intellectual history of deconstruction in the United States. His desire to “illustrate how local traditions, distinctive networks, and curious personalities offered a dynamic place for culture to flourish and in turn be venerated and challenged” (297) is largely successful and engaging.

Writing For The Journal: A Guide For Community-Based Organizations, Randy Wykoff, Rachel E. Dixon

Journal of Appalachian Health

The Journal of Appalachian Health welcomes submissions from a variety of stakeholders interested in and contributing to improvement of health across the Appalachian Region. This editorial provides basic guidelines for those working in community settings who may with to make JAH (or any other journal) their publication home.

English 101 Assignment: 9-Panel Comic Strip, Katherine Rubin

Open Educational Resources

A creative Composition 101 assignment that prompts students to draw a 9-panel comic strip reflecting on the chapter "How I Learned to Read and Write" from Frederick Douglass's autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.

“The Limit Does Not Exist”: Utopian And Feminist Pedagogies In 21st-Century Broadway Musicals, Stephen Reaugh

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes four Broadway musicals that are adaptations of popular films and novels: Legally Blonde, Fun Home, Waitress, and Mean Girls. These texts are performed in the 21st century and each stages either sexual assault or the fear of a sexual assault that is narrowly avoided. More narrowly, this dissertation focuses on the 2007-2018 time period in which these musicals were performed, thus leading up to and through Alyssa Milano's pivotal #metoo message on Twitter. The dissertation reads the review and marketing milieux in which these musicals existed, as well as each text in performance, to theorize how spectators …

Narrative Forms Of Violence: Fascism, Nazism, And The Holocaust In 20th-Century British Fiction, David Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Narrative Forms of Violence: Fascism, Nazism, and The Holocaust in 20^th-Century British Fiction examines how British authors explore fascist and Nazi violence through narrative. The texts in this project challenge the popular perception of Nazis and fascists and help to enrich the understanding of these character types in artistic representations of fascism and the Holocaust. I seek to reveal how each author in the three central texts examined presents fascist violence’s march toward the mainstream and the ways ordinary people deal with political violence. Each author critically depicts growing fascist regimes in World War II-era Europe and contemplates …

“His” Gentleman’S Farm, Virginia Payne Dow

Masters Theses

Based on our farming experiences in rural Maine, this memoir relates a personal narrative of gardening and animal husbandry. The idea and passion for this gentleman’s farm project was solely my husband Mark’s, but due to his expanding work schedule, the execution of it fell largely on my shoulders. The narrative follows our exploits on the farm, beginning with that first experimental year. Nearly forty years later, Mark decided to try again. However, like our original farming venture, the gentleman’s farm that was supposed to be completely Mark’s project has become another shared adventure. The memoir comes full circle, showing …

When The Tide Comes: A Critical Examination Of The Novel-Screenplay Hybrid With Example Chapters, Morgan F. Taylor Moore

Masters Theses

This thesis presents my research on the psychological realism genre, the stream of consciousness narrative technique, the usage of second person and the present tense, the biblical reasoning behind depicting the ordinary as extraordinary, the role of the demonic in domestic violence, the incorporation of screenplay styles, the scientific reasoning and personal findings of my project’s formatting, the examination of primary sources (novels) that have inspired my project, and finally, the research on ADHD, PTSD, and C-PTSD as the results of domestic abuse. Sample chapters of my project are included.

“Giving Up Their Dead”: _The Homecoming Of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’S Son_ And _A Sleep Of Prisoners_, Janet Brennan Croft

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (published in 1953, though substantially written by 1945) is perhaps studied more frequently for its critical apparatus (the introduction on the Battle of Maldon titled “Beorhtnoth’s Death” and the postscript on ofermod) and as a source for Tolkien’s thoughts on war and heroism than as an actual play to be performed. Recently Tolkien’s own recording of the play, performing both voices and including sound effects, became more widely available, encouraging us to consider it AS a play again.

Christopher Fry’s A Sleep of Prisoners (1951) shares a number of characteristics with …

“And The People Sang In All The Ways Of The City:” A Speculative Ethnomusicology Of Gondor, Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer

Journal of Tolkien Research

The music of Gondor is one of the more elusive musical traditions in Middle-earth, described only briefly throughout the text of The Lord of the Rings, and thus often neglected in scholarship on music in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. However, an ethnomusicological line of inquiry brings to the fore questions of performance, perception, and meaning that contribute to our interpretations of the many levels of symbolic transformation seen in Gondor at the beginning of the Fourth Age. The evidence of both musical activity and silence in Gondor mirrors conclusions that have been documented in real-world ethnomusicological studies in …

Constructing Death Worlds: Israel’S Occupation Of Palestine, Nichole S. Arel

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Achille Mbembe’s seminal work Necropolitics explains how the ultimate power of sovereignty is not exercised as Michel Foucault asserts in his theory of biopower in life over death, but rather in relegating certain populations to deathworlds, a place between the living and the dead. For over half of a century, Israel has illegally occupied both the West Bank and Gaza and exerted almost total control over the territories. It controls infrastructure such as roads, building permits, and water rights while also regulating the freedom of movement of Palestinians within and outside the West Bank's borders in addition to various other …

Membership Meeting And Closing Ceremonies, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon

While the Members’ Meeting portion of Mythcon will be of interest primarily to members of the Mythopoeic Society, all conference participants are welcome to attend. Led by the Mythopoeic Society Stewards, the meeting will announce and discuss timely and necessary Society topics. Following the meeting, we will host our traditional leave-taking closing ceremonies which feature singing songs dear to Mythcon regulars. Words and music at: https://mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-closing-songs.htm Members’ Meeting and Closing Ceremonies take place Monday morning, 11:15 am - 1 pm in the Terrace Rooms.

Merlin In The Middle? The Status Of Merlin Within The Monstrous Matter Of Britain, Michael A. Torregrossa

Mythcon

The character of Merlin from the Arthurian tradition is a figure that exists between two worlds: the mundane and the

marvelous. He participates in the daily affairs of Camelot, but he is also an otherworldly figure, both demon born and divinely blessed. In modern Arthuriana, adapters have focused much on Merlin’s demonic side though creators alter and/or transform his heritage in unique ways. One set of texts occurs within what I have termed the Monstrous Matter of Britain. Merlin (because of his origins) has an important role within this subtradion. However, there are some interesting works that chose to ignore …

John Wain: The Inkling In The Middle, David Bratman

Mythcon

John Wain (1925-1994) - novelist, poet, and general man of letters – was caught between two literary generations. A tutorial pupil of C.S. Lewis’s at Oxford, he was invited by Lewis to join the Inklings, a private literary club consisting mostly of dons. While Wain enjoyed the company of his seniors, he felt at odds with them on basic matters of literary preference, in particular seeing no point to fantasy. Wain is more often classed with his contemporaries, post-WW2 writers known as The Movement, the University Wits, or the Angry Young Men, poets and novelists in a realist, often sarcastic …

Wisdom And Life Lessons In The Works Of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, And David R. Slayton, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Mythcon

In keeping with the conference theme Fantasies of the Middle Lands, I will present on the magical use of the imagination, commonplace wisdom, and life lessons to be found in the science fiction and fantasy works of three authors from Middle America whose works span a century of science fiction and fantasy: Edgar Rice Burroughs, (1875-1950) and Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), both from Illinois, and David R. Slayton (in the present), a relatively new author originally from Oklahoma. The works of Burroughs and Bradbury were significant in making me both a reader and a re-reader of books. Their works— especially Burroughs’ …

Betwixt And Between: The Dialectics Of Middle-Ness In The Two Towers By J.R.R. Tolkien, K. T. Tamilmani, Evelyn J. Jaziz

Mythcon

The dialectics of middle-ness is evident in various aspects of the novel The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien. It also includes the physical geography of Middle-earth, the character arcs of key protagonists, and the overarching struggle between good and evil. The paper follows textual analysis methodology. Geographically, the story unfolds in the region of Middle-earth known as Rohan, situated between the familiar landscapes of the Shire and Gondor. This middle ground becomes a crucial battleground in the war against Sauron, highlighting the strategic importance of this region in the larger conflict. At its core, middle-ness in The Two Towers reflects …

Discussion Of The Mythopoeic Society Fantasy And Scholarship Award Nominees And Winners, David Lenander

Mythcon

David Lenander, who served on all of the Awards committees, leads a discussion of the finalists this year, hopefully joined by a few of the other committee members

Scott’S Monday Morning Cartoons, Scott Lohman

Mythcon

Watch cartoons with Scott Lohman!

The Middle-(Un)Man Of Desire: A Girardian Reading Of Lewis’S Perelandra, Clinton Manley

Mythcon

The French polymath René Girard presents a compelling argument that all desire is mimetic. According to Girard, we don’t actually know what we want; instead, we imitate the desires of others. This imitation is pervasive: children imitating their parents, athletes emulating their favorite sports stars, writers their favorite authors, and rivals mirroring each other. These models of desire act as mediators, indicating what objects or ways of being are worth pursuing. For Girard, desire exists in this middle place between a subject, a model, and an object. Thus, desire is interdividual. When the object of desire can be shared, mimetic …

Wisdom And Life Lessons In The Works Of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, And David R. Slayton, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

In keeping with the conference theme Fantasies of the Middle Lands, I will present on the magical use of the imagination, commonplace wisdom, and life lessons to be found in the science fiction and fantasy works of three authors from Middle America whose works span a century of science fiction and fantasy: Edgar Rice Burroughs, (1875-1950) and Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), both from Illinois, and David R. Slayton (in the present), a relatively new author originally from Oklahoma. The works of Burroughs and Bradbury were significant in making me both a reader and a re-reader of books. Their works— especially Burroughs’ …

Guest Of Honor And Mythopoeic Society Awards, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon

Speech by Author Guest of Honor Eleanor Arnason

AUTHOR GUEST OF HONOR ADDRESS and MYTHOPOEIC SOCIETY AWARDS (plus Clerihew Awards and Golfimbul Awards)

Exploring Middle-Earth’S Second Age Architecture Via Alan Lee’S Artworks, Sultana Raza

Mythcon

This paper will explore the different ways in which Alan Lee follows up faithfully on Tolkien’s creation of Middle-earth, in terms of its history. One of the ways in which Tolkien made his world so believable was by recording great historical events in the past, the ruins of which were described in the books. Alan Lee remains loyal to Tolkien’s vision in this respect, as he puts us in the midst of a used world, with its own wear and tear, not to mention beautiful ruins. The latter serve to tell us how grand were the civilizations that preceded the …