Comparative Literature Commons^™

Short Story Cycles Of The Americas, A Transitional Post-Colonial Form: A Study Of V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street, Ernest Gaines's Bloodline, And Garbriel Garcia Marquez's Los Funerales De Mama Grande, Benjamin Sands Yves Forkner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of three short story cycles which are representative of the genre in the Americas: Miguel Street (1959) by V.S. Naipaul, Los Funerales de Mama Grande (1962) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Bloodline (1968) by Ernest Gaines. I analyze each of these cycles in depth concentrating on the structure, the order of the stories, and unifying elements such as characters, themes, internal symbolism, place, language and events, in order to demonstrate that these short story collections are indeed short story cycles. I examine these cycles in light of the two themes or factors out of which …

Virgil's Shipwreck: How A Roman Poet Made And Unmade The Epic In The West, Jesse Bryan Burchfield Russell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

We are still feeling the effects of the Second World War sixty-seven years after its conclusion. Much of post-war thinking has attempted to sort through the roots of the totalitarian ideology that developed in Europe and caused such massive destruction. Marxist and Frankfurt School critics have demonstrated that the roots of Fascism go deeper in the West than the twentieth century and are part and parcel of the West’s combination of technology and myth. Additionally, Post-Colonial critics have pointed out that the horrors of this war were also perpetrated throughout Europe’s colonial endeavors and have undertaken the task of deconstructing …

Trans-Atlantic Circulation Of Black Tropes: Èsù And The West African Griot As Poetic References For Liberation In Cultures Of The African Diaspora, Jean-Baptiste Meunier

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation, under the direction of Dr Pius Ngandu Nkashama explores the spread of African rhetorical tropes in the Atlantic world. Building on Henry Louis Gates theory of Signifying, I use the West African God of fate Èsù and the West African cultural figure of the griot as cultural referents for the persistence of African tropes in the New World and their subsequent dissemination throughout the Atlantic world. Analyzing those two West African referents and their connections to New World cultures such as Afro-Brazilian capoeira angola, hip hop and African-American poetry, I attempt to demonstrate the centrality of the trope …

Southern Bellas: The Construction Of Mestiza Identity In Southern Narratives, Wendy Aimee Braun

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project analyzes representations and self-representations of Mestizas living in areas of the Deep South that lack a significant Latino presence. Incorporating a range of media, I take a comparative approach to Southern cultural narratives and propose a re-reading of these works through an examination of identity formation and cultural negotiation. By centering the Southern Mestiza, this dissertation advances concepts of intersectionality to address the role of region, as well as race and gender, in the representation and experiences of women often overlooked in Southern and U.S. Latino studies. The Introductory chapter summarizes the theoretical framework for the study, including …

"What Shall We Use To Fill The Empty Spaces?": Displacement In Frank Norris's Mcteague, Jennifer Bugna Lambeth

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Author's abstract: McTeague, Frank Norris's Naturalistc text written in 1899, depicts the corruption of a California couple due to influences outside of their control. In positioning Trina McTeague as a woman unable to identify with either of the two major feminine ideologies of the day, the Angel in the House and the New Woman, this paper examines her identity as conflicted because of this lack of autonomy. Her failure to identify herself leads to a mental break that is reflected in the domestic spaces she inhabits. The places she lives each become smaller and dirtier reflecting her diminished mental capacity. …

(Re)Forming Italians: Children's Literature In Italy, 1929-1939, Marisa Giorgi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation argues for the centrality of children's literature under Fascism as a tool to bring about the ultimate goal of forming the "new" Italian. This project examines the relationship between children's literature, the creation of culture and the transmission of ideology in Fascist Italy. I chose the period 1929-1939 because this decade encompasses the years the regime actively sought consolidation of power and consensus, as well as the years of the fascistization of Italian schools. These novels are conduits of fascist ideology veiled as adventure stories, historical novels, bildungsroman or romantic fiction for children and young adults and deserve …

Bibliography Of Central European Women's Holocaust Life Writing In English, Louise O. Vasvári

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Contents, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Christian Influences On The Mabinogi, Josh Pittman

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Vladimir Nabokov’S Singular Nature Of Reality: A Close Reading Of Despair And Bend Sinister, Hannah Kim

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Anticipative Feminism In F. Scott Fitzgerald’S This Side Of Paradise And Flappers And Philosophers, Andrew Riccardo

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 14 Fall 2012

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Bibliography For The Study Of Text And Image In Modern European Culture, Natasha Grigorian

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Cold War Legacies In Digital Editing, Amanda A. Gailey

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The editorial methods developed during the Cold War professionalized scholarly editing and appealed to new ideas about the relationship between American academics and the government by aligning with the supposedly value-neutral goals and methods of the behavioral sciences, much to the discomfort of many humanists. Some of the implicit assumptions underlying midcentury editorial methods persist in digital editing, and may risk positioning digital editions as marginalized scholarship within the digital era, just as print scholarly editions became widely considered second-rate scholarship in the twentieth century.

The Strange Career Of The Biblia Rabbinica Among Christian Hebraists, 1517–1620, Stephen G. Burnett

Department of Classics and Religious Studies: Faculty Publications

The Rabbinic Bible became a standard reference tool, above all for Protestant Hebraists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It contained not only the Hebrew Bible text, but also Aramaic-language Targums (periphrastic translations of the biblical text, mostly dating from before 500) and Jewish biblical commentaries written between ca. 1100 and 1500. To use these works required that a Christian Hebraist know not only the language of the Bible, but also Targumic Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, which was rather different from biblical or mishnaic Hebrew. For Christian scholars who mastered these languages and were able to read these different texts, …

Carribean Folk: Engendering The Color Politics Of Claude Mckay's Banana Botttom (1933), Charmaine Dacosta

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Survival Of Art And The Art Of Survival In Stalin's Russia, Marietta Chudakova

Russian Culture

There are several questions that should be posed before one begins the study of 20th century Russian literature, to prevent such an undertaking from becoming merely a series of witty observations. The first of these questions is where do the boundaries of 20th century literature lie, not in the order of books on a bookshelf, but as objects of academic study? The second is how unified was the the literary process, which is the primary focus of the literary historian? In modern academic and near-academic discourse two approaches exist to answering these questions.

Allen D. Breck Award Winner (2012)

Quidditas

Lesley Skousen

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

The Signifying Power Of Pearl, Jane Beal

Quidditas

The spiritual language, Ovidian love stories, and use of liturgical time in Pearl all invite allegorical interpretations of the poem. While there is clearly a literal, elegiac sense to the poem, there are also allegorical meanings. This makes perfect sense in light of the tradition of four-fold scriptural and literary interpretation in the Middle Ages, which the Pearl-Poet clearly used to understand biblical parables and compose his poetic masterpiece. The poet’s use of metaphoric language, memory of the legends of Orpheus and Eurydice and Pygmalion and Galatea, and astute interweaving of parables from the church liturgy alongside invocations of the …

Capturing The Imagination Of A Distracted Audience, David Paradis

Quidditas

We compete for students’ attention. Surrounded by smart phones, tablets, and laptops, we compete for their attention, sometimes in the classroom but definitely outside of it. To combat this deluge of distractions, assigned readings must contain attractive content. The challenge can be particularly acute in pre-modern history classes, partly because the language and the content of primary sources, even when translated into clear, modern prose, is often unfathomable to readers accustomed to reading Sparknotes or Wikipedia. One potential solution to this challenge is Maurice Keen’s Outlaws of Medieval Legend (rev. ed. New York: Routledge, 2001).

Approaches To The Atonement In The Mystery Plays, Adam C. Wolfe

Quidditas

The English Corpus Christi plays were a vibrant expression of late medieval Christianity, but they did not survive the Reformation. Many Protestant reformers opposed religious drama altogether, but there were some attempts by reformers to edit the plays and recast them in a Protestant mold, attempts which were ultimately unsuccessful. This paper examines one such attempt and finds that the problem went far beyond obvious references to, and representations of, specifically Catholic beliefs. Focusing on representations of the Atonement in the York and Towneley plays, I found at least four distinct theological approaches to this central concept of Christian theology, …

The Spatial Turn In Literary Historiography, Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Spatial Turn in Literary Historiography," Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza examines the spatialization of literary history in recent years. He evaluates the resurgence of interest in literary geography and argues that the geographic dimension is not the only aspect of the predominant spatiality in new literary histories. Further, Cabo Aseguinolaza postulates that although the emphasis on spatiality marks many current literary histories, all literary histories imply spatial elements of different character and scope and that these options constitute an essential part of the performative capacity of history writing. In particular, Cabo Aseguinolaza discusses categories proposed by Henri Lefebvre …

National Theaters On The Iberian Peninsula, Anxo Abuín González

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "National Theaters on the Iberian Peninsula," Anxo Abuín González discusses the rise of national theaters understood as processes of national planning, starting with certain common systemic parameters developed and implemented in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While the context Abuín González's analysis is located in is Spain's centralized literary system, his focus is on the interliterary and systemic relationship between Galician and Portuguese theater, with some references to Catalan theater.

Galician Portuguese Medieval Poetry And The Iberian Interliterary System, Santiago Gutiérrez García

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Galician Portuguese Medieval Poetry and the Iberian Interliterary System" Santiago Gutiérrez García explores the notion that the possibility of carrying out a comparative study of Iberian literatures is determined by its interliterary system. Gutiérrez García postulates that the said interliterary system comprises a series of peripheral literatures which seek their self-affirmation through opposition to the hegemonic center, namely Castilian literature. He uses the example of Galician Portuguese medieval poetry and illustrates the problematic nature of his approach elaborating that despite the fact that this medieval poetic tradition is shared by both Galician and Portuguese literatures, as literary …

Comics And The Graphic Novel In Spain And Iberian Galicia, Antonio J. Gil González

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Comics and the Graphic Novel in Spain and Iberian Galicia," Antonio J. Gil González develops a comparative and interart analysis of graphic novels by examining the evolution of the genre on the Spanish peninsula in general and in Galicia in particular. Gil González builds his analysis on Roman Ingarden's concept of literature as not only traditional fiction, but also theater and cinema. Gil González presents his argumentation by identifying the peculiarities of the comic as a medium, starting with its historical beginnings, and discussing its principal formats and generic and thematic variants. Further, he discusses the principal …

The Don Juan Myth In Iberian Galician Literature, Carmen Becerra Suárez

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Don Juan Myth in Iberian Galician Literature" Carmen Becerra Suárez discusses the presence of the Don Juan myth as it has developed in Galicia. She presents a panorama of the ways in which Galician authors — studies independently of their belonging to the Galician or Spanish literary systems — have dealt with this myth. The aim is to study the presence of the myth in this culture and the causes giving rise to several versions: from the three possibilities of "Don Juanness" found in the work of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán up through a short story …

Narration And Identity In Iberian Galician Literature, Dolores Vilavedra

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Narration and Identity in Iberian Galician Literature" Dolores Vilavedra discusses the contribution made by Galician narratives to the process of codifying models of a supposedly Galician identity. She shows how the development of literary narration has not always been gradual and that it has undergone stages of stagnation. Further, Vilavedra discusses how the narrative genre itself has gradually altered the prime objectives of its own development according to the apparent need to impose certain paradigms. She proposes that this process is closely linked, on the one hand to the process of language standardization and, on the other, …

The Ophelia Motif In The Work Of Iberian Galician Writers, María Do Cebreiro Rábade Villar

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "About the Ophelia Motif in the Work of Iberian Galician Writers" María do Cebreiro Rábade Villar attempts to arrive at an idea of character through a comparative analysis of various artistic versions of William Shakespeare's Ophelia. Rábade Villar employs Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's notions of transversality and devices of analytical enunciation in order to understand the feminine literary character. Rábade Villar's corpus of the Ophelia motif include Iberian Galician authors's work such as by Álvaro Cunqueiro, Xohana Torres, Chus Pato, and Marta Dacosta.