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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Non/Human: (Re)Seeing The “Animal” In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Matthew Guzman May 2019

Non/Human: (Re)Seeing The “Animal” In Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Matthew Guzman

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Non/human: (Re)seeing the “Animal” in Nineteenth-Century American Literature uses canonical literary texts as specific anchor points for charting the unstable relations between human and nonhuman animals throughout the century. I argue that throughout the nineteenth century, there are distinct shifts in the way(s) humans think about, discuss, and represent nonhuman animals, and understanding these shifts can change the way we interpret the literature and the culture(s). Moreover, I supplement and integrate those literary anchors, when appropriate, with texts from contemporaneous science, law, art, and other primary and secondary source materials. For example, the first chapter, “Cooper’s Animal Movements: Across Land, …


Batman’S Animated Brain(S): Paper Presented To The Batman In Popular Culture Conference, Lisa Kort-Butler Apr 2019

Batman’S Animated Brain(S): Paper Presented To The Batman In Popular Culture Conference, Lisa Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Faculty Presentations

I was in the beginning stages of a project on the social story of the brain (and a neuroscience more broadly), when a Google image search brought me a purchasable phrenology of Batman, then a Batman-themed Heart and Brain cartoon of the Brain choosing the cape-and-cowl.1 A quick search of “Batman brain” yielded something interesting: various pieces on the psychology of Batman (e.g., Langley 2012), Zehr’s (2008) work on Bruce Wayne’s training plans and injuries, the science fictions of Batman comics in the post-World War II era (Barr 2008; e.g., Detective Comics, Vol. 1, No. 210, 1954), going back to …


Batman's Animated Brain(S), Lisa Kort-Butler Jan 2019

Batman's Animated Brain(S), Lisa Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Faculty Presentations

Much of the analysis of Batman’s brain – whether by scholars, writers, or other comic characters – focuses on his psychological make‐up. That is, what makes Bruce Wayne psychologically motivated to be The Batman? His childhood trauma is often poised as the answer, the tireless pursuit of “justice” in an attempt to regain control from the trauma of his parents’ murders (Sanna 2015). The same could be said for his nemeses. Madness, psychopathy, and insanity are centered in the corrupted minds of Gotham’s ghastliest, some of whom have also had psychological or physical traumas (Langley 2012; Lytle 2008). A psychological …