American Studies Commons^™

The Genesis Of The Chicago Renaissance: Theodore Dreiser, Langston, Cara E. Erdheim

English Faculty Publications

Book review by Cara Erdheim.

Hricko, Mary. The Genesis of the Chicago Renaissance: Theodore Dreiser, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and James T. Farrell. London & New York: Routledge, 2009.

Blood Culture And The Problem Of Decadence, Jeffrey P. Cain

English Faculty Publications

This paper examines the commodification of hunting practices via the deterritorializing function of capitalism described by Deleuze and Guattari. It also studies counter trends-- predicted by or consistent with Deleuzean theory--that indicate a subtending authenticity displayed by certain hunting practices apparently resistant to commercial exploitation. "Blood culture" is my term for inauthentic hunting activity--a distinction drawn directly by Deleuze in his televised interviews with Claire Parnet. Aspects of "becoming-animal" and other transversal and cross-disciplinary flows of thought are also of course in play. As in some of my former work, I again argue for a Deleuzean cultural mechanics of the …

Indians In Unexpected Places (Book Review), Jeffrey P. Cain

English Faculty Publications

Book review by Jeffrey Cain:

Deloria, Philip J. Indians in Unexpected Places. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. ISBN: 9780700613441; 9780700614592 (pbk.)

Using The Novel To Teach Multiculturalism, Michelle Loris

English Faculty Publications

Description of a fourteen week course taught by Michelle Loris, professor of English at Sacred Heart University. The course, titled Recent Ethnic American Fictions, introduced students to several concepts from contemporary literary theory. The theories included New Criticism, Deconstruction, Cultural Studies, New Historicism, and Feminist Theory. The assumption was that these concepts would give students the tools to become critical readers, which would then provide them with a deeper understanding of these multicultural novels and their particular cultural contexts.

For a semester, reading and thinking about these multicultural novels engaged and challenged the students' assumptions about themselves and the …

At Home In The City: Urban Domesticity In American Literature And Culture, 1850-1930, By Betsy Klimasmith, Cara Erdheim

English Faculty Publications

Book review by Cara Erdheim.

Klimasmith, Betsy. At Home in the City: Urban Domesticity in American Literature and Culture, 1850-1930. Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2005.

Beyond 'Hot Lips' And 'Big Nurse': Creative Writing And Nursing, Sandra Young

English Faculty Publications

This essay describes a special topics creative writing course designed for nursing students, and argues that creative writing strategies work to improve nurses' compositional skills. Also discussed are other potential benefits from creatively writing patients' lives, notably, the blending of arts and sciences, and the ways in which medical schools are encouraging their students to study the humanities, especially literature and creative writing. The essay includes student creative writing samples.

The essay also discusses the depiction of nurses in popular culture. M*A*S*H*, Richard Hooker’s black comedy about the antics of doctors and nurses during the Korean War, gave us “Hot …

The Rhetorical Effectiveness Of Black Like Me, Hugh Rank

English Faculty Publications

In 1959, John Howard Griffin, a white Southern novelist, disguised himself as a Negro and traveled through the South to experience "what it is like to be a Negro in a land where we keep the Negro down." The brief narrative account of this experience is recorded in Black Like Me, a book which wom the Saturday Review's Anisfield-Wolf award in 1962 for its contribution toward race relations. In brief, why is Black Like Me rhetorically effective?