Comparative Literature Commons^™

Review: Castle, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Ambition, Cooperation, Craftsmanship, Diligence, Duty, Imagination, Ingenuity, Knowledge, Responsibility, Understanding, Work ethic

Review: Counting By 7s, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Appreciation of nature, Community, Compassion, Cooperation, Coping, Dependability, Determination, Diversity, Duty, Encouragement, Generosity, Hope, Humor, Individuality, Initiative, Kindness, Leadership, Patience, Responsibilty, Sacrafice, Sharing, Spunk, Thrift, Unselfishness, Work ethic

Review: Cartwheeling In Thunderstorms, Janice Delong, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 10-12

Acceptance, Contentment, Courage, Determination, Diversity, Endurance, Fear, Friendship, Honesty, Initiative, Kindness, Resilience, Resolve, Self-reliance, Self-respect, Spunk, Tolerance, Wisdom

Review: Beyond The Bright Sea, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Boldness, Cooperation, Courage, Curiosity, Determination, Family love, Family loyalty, Faithfulness, Friendship, Hope, Independence, Initiative, Love, Passion, Perseverance, Responsibility, Sacrifice, Self-acceptance, Sharing, Spunk, Steadfastness, Strength, Survival (Emotional), Survival (Physical), Trust, Understanding, Unselfishness, Work ethic

Review: Beneath My Mothers Feet, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Coping, Dependability, Diligence, Fairness, Family loyalty, Independence, Obedience, Resilience, Resolve, Respect, Responsibility, Sacrifice, Selflessness, Trustworthiness

Review: Becoming Naomi Leon, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Boldness, Caring, Cleverness, Compassion, Competition, Cooperation, Coping, Courage, Dependability, Devotion, Encouragement, Ethnic pride, Family love, Faithfulness, Friendship, Generosity, Hope, Independence, Initiative, Love, Neighborliness, Resilience, Sacrifice, Sharing, Spunk, Steadfastness, Strength, Survival (Emotional), Thankfulness, Trust, Wisdom

Review: Al Capone Does My Shirts, Janice Delong, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Caring, Community, Compassion, Cooperation, Coping, Dependability, Determination, Devotion, Diligence, Family love, Friendliness, Honesty, Hope, Love, Loyalty, Maturity, Responsibility, Sacrifice, Trustworthiness, Unselfishness

Review: Airborn, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Caring, Cooperation, Courage, Determination, Family loyalty, Friendship, Hope, Loyalty, Resolve, Responsibility, Self-reliance, Spunk, Trustworthiness

Review: Absolutely Truly, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Acceptance, Cleverness, Cooperation, Coping, Determination, Family loyalty, Friendliness, Resolve, Respect, Self-acceptance, Unselfishness

Review: A Wrinkle In Time, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 10-12

Acceptance, Caring, Compassion, Cooperation, Determination, Devotion, Empathy, Encouragement, Faith, Fear, Family love, Family loyalty, Hope, Individuality, Inspiration, Leadership, Love, Obedience, Resilience, Responsibility, Trust

Review: A Single Shard, Janice Delong, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 10-12

Boldness, Creativity, Curiosity, Dedication, Dependability, Devotion, Diligence, Discipline, Duty, Endurance, Friendship, Hope, Humility, Humor, Imagination, Initiative, Joyfulness, Kindness, Originality, Patience, Perseverance, Pride, Resolve, Resourcefulness, Respect, Responsibility, Sacrifice, Thoughtfulness, Trustworthiness, Wisdom, Work ethic

Ron's Big Mission, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 3-6

Fairness, Courage, Determination, Pride, Resolve, Self-respect

Fur, Fins, And Feathers: Abraham Dee Barlett And The Invention Of The Modern Zoo, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 3-6

Citizenship, Caring, Dedication, Devotion, Enthusiasm, Leadership, Unselfishness

Quinny & Hopper, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 3-6

Respect, Courage, Imagination, Individuality, Joyfulness

Fire On The Mountain, Rachel Schwedt, Janice Delong

Ages 3-6

Fairness, Ambition, Cleverness, Courage, Endurance, Honesty, Humilty, Resourcefulness, Resolve, Wisdom

Anna Husbiscus, Janice Delong, Rachel Schwedt

Ages 3-6

Cooperation, Caring, Humilty, Love, Patience

Paradise Lost Thrice: Exile And The Abrahamic Religions In Aciman, Werfel, And Ashour, Malak K. Hosny

Theses and Dissertations

Exile is an integral part of the history of all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This thesis compares between literary narratives of the exile of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It explores the notion that having been exiled from Eden with the fall of Adam and Eve, and having each religion’s prophet’s story intrinsically tied with exile, the believers’ exile is then the third in a layered cycle of exile. Having lost the paradise, believers tend to search for earthly paradises that they attach themselves to, and then tragically lose those as well. The thesis’ three primary literary texts …

The Communal Lyric: Poetry In Devotional And Oppressed Communities, Michael N. Yacoub

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the interaction between lyric and community; it asks what a communal lyric is, how it functions, and to what ends. In Chapter One, I compare Jonathan Culler’s performative model of lyric with the theory of Takhyīl as expounded by Arab philosopher-critics al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and al-Qartajanni to argue that a communal lyric is a form of audience-oriented public discourse distinguished by formal features that prompt the poem’s (re-)iteration and establish an interpersonal relationship with the audience in order to influence them and make shareable value claims about the world. In Chapters Two and Three I provide close-reading …

The Fangs Of Philosophy: Religious Experience As A Persuasive Device, Lukas A. Dunford

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

The philosophical systems of Plato and Lucretius use the religious experience to compel readers into their distinct philosophical versions of reality. This compulsion is necessary for philosophy. This study’s three philosophical systems reappropriate this experience from the existing structures of religion to violently produce conviction in readers. The religious experience is not window dressing over the arguments of the philosophical systems, but a necessary component that reorients the audience into a new discursive reality. Ultimately, the philosophers we examine will show how the knowledge structure of philosophy becomes able to grip the audience, consuming them into its reality – how …

Narrativas Y Convergencias Transdisciplinarias: Contribuciones Académicas Relevantes, Desafíos Y Horizonte Editorial, Cristo Leon Ph.D.

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

La Revista de Estudios sobre Juegos de Rol y STEAM (JRPSSTEAM) se ha consolidado como un espacio transdisciplinario, multilingüe y de acceso abierto que articula investigación, práctica y comunidad en torno a los juegos de rol. En esta editorial, se reflexiona sobre los aprendizajes y patrones emergentes de los tres volúmenes y cinco números publicados hasta la fecha, abordando tanto aciertos como áreas de mejora. Se ofrecen lineamientos prácticos para autores potenciales, destacando errores comunes, criterios de relevancia temática y aspectos que enriquecen la comunicación entre disciplinas. Además, se revaloriza el carácter abierto e inclusivo del JRPSSTEAM, que acoge desde …

Sacred Bodies And (A)Historical Testimony: Han Kang's Human Acts, Jenny Yoojin Oh

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

The 1980 Gwangju Uprising is a significant event in contemporary South Korean political history. In the decades following, "Gwangju literature" has provided an avenue for representation, narrativization, and encounter with the event. South Korean author Han Kang is another writer of the Uprising, and her 2014 novel Human Acts returns to the site of injury in order to open up the event to the larger histories of sovereignty, civil conflict, and war that it localizes in Gwangju, 1980.

This thesis seeks to leverage the way the novel draws upon the sacred and the religious to call upon Gwangju. I argue …

"Beyond Was Blossom And Death": Speculative Futurities, Anne Suh-Yun Rhee

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

This thesis offers a comparative analysis of Toni Morrison’s Paradise and K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary, exploring the relationship between the utopic impulse in art and the field of speculative fiction. I coin and propose the usage of the term “speculative gesture” as a conceptual tool to identify tactics, motifs, and impulses running throughout these two texts that gesture towards the potentialities for constructing alternative futurities. In Chapters 1 and 2, I identify speculative gestures in Paradise and Bestiary, respectively. In Chapter 3, I delve into a comparative analysis of six speculative gestures from these two novels. Building on the …

Between Word And World: Textual Space In Modern Sephardic Literature, Inci Cetin

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

In the context of modern Sephardic literature, this paper defines “textual space” as the narrative’s self-conscious arrangement of its own textual elements such as time, space, and language to negotiate a position vis-à-vis the nation-state that is neither fully subsumed within nor completely outside of it. Textual spaces neither conform to the nation state’s borders even though they write from it, nor to nationalist temporalities as they continue a narrative thread that reaches back to 15th-century Spain. Through Myriam Moscona’s Tela de sevoya (2012) and Mario Levi’s Istanbul Was a Fairytale (1999), this paper investigates how textual spaces are deliberately …

Violent Tenderness, Aimilia Amalia Matthildi Tsopela

Comparative Literature Undergraduate Senior Theses

This thesis concerns itself with a single question: “What is love?” Specifically, it constitutes an account of love as a failed failure. The first chapter proposes a conceptualization of love as a subject-to-subject relation, through sustained engagement with the work of Alain Badiou. Specifically, the nature of the love relation as an intersubjective construction is articulated through a critique and reworking of Badiou’s conceptualization of love as an evental phenomenon. The second chapter explores the failed failure of love in relation to language, wherein the lovers’ discourse is understood to be linguistic play, operating according to the principles of Bataillean …

Interaction Entre Le Langage Et La Narration Dans Les Égarements Du Cœur Et De L’Esprit De Crébillon Fils, Manel Rebhi

Dirassat

The interaction between literature and linguistics must be thought of as permanent round trips: on the one hand linguistics can be useful for the study of literary texts; on the other hand, literature is itself likely to give a subject, a very rich field of investigation to linguistics. We will focus on analyzing some theories of linguistic enunciation applied to the Misguidances of the heart and mind of Crébillonfils, a memoir-novel published in 1736. Our goal was only to highlight the literarity or the poetics of the Crebillonian text through certain constants of the speech act common to the characters …

La Pratique Intermédiale, Vers Une Nouvelle Approcheinterdisciplinaire : Perspectives Théoriques Et Pratiques Scripturales, Cas De La Télévision Et Dutéléphone Dans L’Œuvre De Fatou Diome, Le Ventre De L’Atlantique (2003), Youssef El Habachi

Dirassat

In the digital age, new literary forms are emerging within the post-modernist novel, particularly in french. The latter, whose aesthetic and formal construction, increasingly draws on media or artistic motifs that orient literary writing towards new aesthetic and discursive practices that break with structuralist formalism, most often based on the classic narrative schema of Julien Greimas or the actantial schema of Vladimir Propp. Thus, we are talking today about the interdisciplinary or polydisciplinary, hydrid or transcultural text, wich integrates paraliterary motifs such as the media with the aim of creating a new “vision of the world” based on exchange and …

Love And Power: Narrative Resistance In The Contemporary Literature And Film Of The Americas, Tania Nicolaou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project analyzes the ways in which narratives of love, care, and intimacy support sociocultural change through cinema, literary fiction, and memoir in Indigenous, immigrant, and diasporic communities in the United States, Haiti, and Cuba. The project’s intervention revolves around how we compare and examine narratives of the marginalized, underrepresented, and misremembered in a way that does not focus primarily on pain and trauma, but on experiences that embody radical change, healing, and a shift in the colonial matrix of power. The chapters consider love as constructed through family, identity, memory, and nationhood, all in relationship to what love looks …

Theatricality Of The Ephemeral: Media Of Surplus And Spectatorship In Liang Dynasty (南朝梁, 502-557) Palace-Style Poetry And Hou Hsiao-Hsien’S A City Of Sadness (1989), Yingyi Wang

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay focuses on the mediation of spectatorship experience by “ephemeral media” in Liang Dynasty (南朝梁, 502-557) palace-style poetry and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film A City of Sadness (1989). Drawing from Alexander Galloway’s “the interface effects” in new media studies, I investigate how the diegetic “ephemeral media” in these two texts, such as dust, candlelight, silence, and writing, function as opaque interfaces that complicate spectatorship. I examine spectatorship experience from the angle of ephemeral media by looking at how they direct spectators’ attention from the world of representations to processes of mediation. Transplanting Xiaofei Tian’s notion of the “surplus” in her …

Transmedial Econarratology: Environment And The Subject Of Science Fiction, Joseph R. Boisvere

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that narrators are constructed by their interactions with diegetic space and time in an ecological relationship. This argument draws upon Erin James’s work on econarratology, particularly her book The Storyworld Accord: Econarratology and Postcolonial Narratives, putting her theories of narrating time and place in dialogue with contemporary “unnatural” narratology as theorized by scholars such as Jan Alber and Brian Richardson. Science fiction (SF) offers a rich complement to these theoretical stances. I also focus much of my dissertation on how narratology works across and is influenced by specific media, featuring literary, audiovisual, and digital media, including novels, …

How To Walk On Water: Living Through The Absurd, Esther Du

Masters Theses

Set in a speculative world submerged by water, this thesis constructs a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that reflects on survival, memory, and displacement in the aftermath of catastrophe. Through three interwoven chapters—The Outcast, The Researcher, and The World—the project explores the emotional and psychological landscapes of individuals navigating a post-apocalyptic existence where the past is irretrievable and the future uncertain. Using an interdisciplinary form of visual storytelling, writing, and sound, the work draws from personal experience and collective trauma to examine how people reconstruct identity and meaning after loss. Rather than offering a definitive answer to existential …