Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Unruly Catholics From Dante To Madonna: Faith, Heresy, And Politics In Cultural Studies, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

"During the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church went through a period of liberal reform under the stewardship of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. Successive popes sharply reversed course, enforcing conservative ideological values and silencing progressive voices in the Church. Consequently, those Catholics who had embraced the spirit of Vatican II were left feeling adrift and betrayed. In Unruly Catholics from Dante to Madonna, scholars of literature, film, religion, history, and sociology delve into this conflict–and historically similar ones–through the examination of narratives by and about rebellious Catholics.

Essays in Unruly Catholics explore how renowned Catholic literary figures …

Contributors, Gwenyth E. Hood

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

And Of Our Mother, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Mythcon 44 - Green And Growing: The Land And Its Inhabitants In Fantasy, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon Programs

How does mythopoeic literature address the relationship between the land and its inhabitants, between the wild and the cultivated? What are their respective moral values, their dangers, and delights? Tangled forests, majestic trees, the ordered fields, the carefully tended gardens; or untamed, wild beauty: each offers a different kind of bounty to those who would live off the land. What role do advocates and protectors of the land play in fantasy literature, particularly as personified in characters such as Yavanna, Radagast, Sam Gamgee, and, of course, Tom Bombadil?

Friday, Shane Clack

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Summer Valley, Tannara Young

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Mythic Circle #35, Gwenyth E. Hood

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Gwenyth E. Hood

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Poseidon And Queen Cassiopea, Joe R. Christopher

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Mind Has Mountains, Joanna Michal Hoyt

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Persephone Rising, Seth Leeper

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Dream Of Death & The Way Of The Shaman, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Eye, Ryder Miller

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Pale Wanderer, Alexander Dove Lempke

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Night Of The Wolf-Riders, Dag Rossman

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Mistress Of The Solstice (Excerpt), Anna Kashina

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Kurdénras, Alexander Dove Lempke

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Myself To Myself, Scathe Meic Beorh

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

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

No abstract provided.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Sub-Creation, And Theories Of Authorship, Benjamin Saxton

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

Tolkien is unfortunately underrated as a theorist in literary studies—in fact, alas, generally invisible to the mainstream. This essay draws attention to his ideas about sub-creation and allegorical “dominion” of the reader, contrasting Tolkien’s stated and implied theories with those of Roland Barthes, and elucidating Tolkien’s concern with “the delicate balance between authors, authority, and interpretive freedom.” Saxton draws on “Leaf by Niggle,” The Silmarillion, and The Lord of the Rings for examples of Tolkien’s theories in action.

"The Inner Consistency Of Reality": Intermediacy In The Hobbit, Nicholas Birns

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

Especially concerned with Bilbo’s characterization, unusual in children’s literature, as middle-aged, but also addresses other issues of world-building and story structure that reinforce this motif of “starting in the middle”: maps, the sense of the past, racial characteristics and relations. Birns draws interesting contrasts with the Alice in Wonderland and Oz books.

Letters: A Narnian Clarification, Michael Ward

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

Responds to a critique that his Planet Narnia thesis does not take into account Lewis’s letter to Laurence Kreig; explains his “incremental plan” hypothesis.

Of Spiders And Elves, Joyce Tally Lionarons

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

A stimulating look at the parallels and contrasts between imagery associated with spiders and Elves, especially female elves, in Tolkien’s legendarium, and how this imagery of light and shadow, spinning and weaving, climbing and descending, also underpins themes of sexuality and fertility in Middle-earth.

Disparaging Narnia: Reconsidering Tolkien's View Of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Josh B. Long

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

Addresses the perennial question of J.R.R. Tolkien’s dislike for C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, carefully analyzing numerous first- and second-hand accounts from biographies, interviews, and letters. A previously unpublished letter from Tolkien to Eileen Elgar adds a new and more nuanced element to our understanding of this issue.

"But Grace Is Not Infinite": Tolkien's Explorations Of Nature And Grace In His Catholic Context, Phillip Irving Mitchell

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

Adds to our understanding of Tolkien’s created theology and the place of Faerie in his sub-creation by examining contemporary real world theological debates which might have influenced his thinking, including discussions of the supernatural like Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis.

Sméagol And Déagol: Secrecy, History, And Ethical Subjectivity In Tolkien's World, E. J. Christie

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

Uses the characters Sméagol and Déagol as jumping-off points to explore issues of secrecy, surveillance, propaganda, and censorship that were increasingly coming to the fore during World War I and the inter-war years. Although significant issues in their own right, these trends also point to a growing individual privileging of self-concealment and discretion over openness and intimacy, a process that dehumanized and eroded the social fabric. The Ring crystallizes these concerns into a single object, and Gollum’s relationship to it especially creates a tangle of themes of revealing and concealing. Also discusses Tolkien’s peculiar talent for “creation from philology” building …

Reviews, Emily E. Auger, Carl Badgley, Nicholas Birns, Joe R. Christopher, Janet Brennan Croft, Troels Forchhammer, Scott Mclaren, Holly Ordway, Harley Sims

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

C.S. Lewis, Poetry, and the Great War 1914-1918. John Bremer. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher.

Collected Poems. Hope Mirrlees. Ed. and intro. Sandeep Parmar. Reviewed by Nicholas Birns.

Fantasy, Art and Life: Essays on George MacDonald, Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Fantasy Writers. William Gray. Reviewed by Scott McLaren.

C. S. Lewis and the Middle Ages. Robert Boenig. Reviewed by Holly Ordway.

Sherlock Holmes for the 21st Century: Essays on New Adaptations. Edited by Lynnette Porter. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft.

Dancing the Tao: Le Guin and Moral Development. Sandra J. Lindow. Reviewed by Carl Badgley.

Hobbit Place-names: A Linguistic …

Godly Heretics: Essays On Alternative Christianity In Literature And Popular Culture, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

"When computers freeze, they are "rebooted" and soon working properly again. Similarly, legendary thinkers throughout history have argued that Christianity should start fresh by recapturing the humanitarian spirit of Jesus' original message. These include such disparate individuals as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, and the religious leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Surprisingly enough, even classic television shows and films meant to be entertaining--Lost, Battlestar Galactica, It's a Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Decalogue, and A Charlie Brown Christmas--are attempts to apply the basic principles of Christianity to modern times. …

02. Dance, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

01. Art, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.