Creative Writing Commons^™

Alien(Ating) Naturecultures: Feminist Sf As Creative Science Studies, Helen Merrick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

“Alien(ating) Naturecultures” examines the potential of feminist science fictions to act as “cross-cultural” narratives in encounters between the humanities and sciences. Merrick argues that the conjunction of disciplines figured by the term “science fiction” bears re-examination as a resource for science studies, and a potential mediator in science-humanities dialogues.

Specifically, Merrick asks, when we are concerned with critiquing and unpacking technoscientific practices, cultures and knowledges, what can more creative forms such as science fiction (sf) offer? Such questions about “naturecultures” are intimately connected to the ways we construct and understand “life,” the “human” and difference in the discourses of Science. …

On Brian Attebery’S Decoding Gender In Science Fiction, C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The premise of Decoding Gender in Science Fiction is, as Brian Attebery states in the first chapter, that “Science fiction is a useful tool for investigating habits of thought, including conceptions of gender. Gender, in turn, offers an interesting glimpse into some of the unacknowledged messages that permeate science fiction” (1). What we have in Decoding Gender in Science Fiction is the most comprehensive analysis of gender tropes in Science Fiction from its origins in Gothic literature to today. Attebery states in his introduction that he was surprised to find there was no historical study of the development …

On Justine Larbalestier’S The Battle Of The Sexes In Science Fiction, Joe Bisz

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Science Fiction, writes author Justine Larbalestier, has always told the tale of the battle between the sexes. The battle can be witnessed from afar, as in the grainy 1930’s letter columns in old sci-fi magazines like Astounding where quarrels over innate sexual differences were published and debated, or from up close in today’s literature. Larbalestier declares that the goal of her book is to illustrate how necessary and important this former, pre-70’s period of science fiction (1926 to 1973) is to contemporary feminist science fiction. The pre-70’s time period has been consistently ignored by critics, who fixate on …

Oy Science Fiction: On Genre, Criticism, And Alien Love: An Interview With Marleen S. Barr, Marlene S. Barr, Ximena Gallardo C., C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph of Abstract]

Marleen S. Barr is a pioneer of feminist science fiction criticism and a leader in the fight against the ghettoizing influences of genre-labeling in literary criticism. While the noteworthy Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction (University of Iowa Press, 1992) has been praised as Barr's seminal work in feminist science fiction criticism and theory, it is in Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies (U of Iowa P, 2000) where she takes on literary critics' discriminatory practices against genre fiction in general and fantasy and science fiction in particular.

What Have Bagels Got To Do...?, Michael Kula

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

“What Have Bagels Got to Do with Midwesternness?” is a creative nonfiction essay that examines the way my own “exile” from the Midwest has influenced my writing and my self-concept, and how, in turn, my writing has subsequently altered my perspective on the regional label “Midwestern.” Drawing from sources ranging from Charles Baxter to James Baldwin to the 1970’s film, Breaking Away, the essay examines how it is not only the “place” itself that shapes us as writers, but perhaps more importantly, our own filtered view of that “place.”

Haïti Et Sa Diaspora Ou Le Pays En Dehors, Marie-Hélène Koffi-Tessio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article looks at the causes of large migratory movements in Haiti. Anthropologist Gérard Barthélemy suggests that emigration from the countryside stems from aspects of rural society, namely the need to accumulate wealth to start one’s own production unit and the need to chase out those who will not stick to and perpetuate the rules of the community. However, according to Jean Métellus and Jean-Claude Icart, migration movements are tightly linked to political and historical upheavals, which force people out of the country in search of safety and survival. For many migrants, the consequence is a feeling of loss and …

Le Fou, Le Rebelle, L’Enfant Et La Révolution Haïtienne, Gilbert Doho

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The proliferation of fools in independent African nations’ capitals and major cities should have entailed profound analyses. The period after 1804 in Haiti and after 1960 for Africa is marked by irrationality. From this point of view, Aimé Césaire, doom prophet, uses the Haitian past to warn newly independent African nations. The attempt to understand the phenomena has so far been based on psychoanalysis and other euro-centric methods. In this paper, we will attempt to centre our approach on the gaze and thought of the lunatics themselves in order to understand the madness that has taken hold of post-colonial periods. …

Réalisme Merveilleux Et Rire Macabre Contre La Zombification, Anastasil Delarose Makambo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The substance of this analysis is to use fiction, especially the novel, to observe Haiti and Black Africa some 200 years and 40 years, respectively, after independence. The contemporary novelists of these two time periods stress “zombification”, which is their common destiny. They denounce it by means of several scriptural strategies, such as magic realism and macabre laughter. The first contributes to reveal “zombifying” authorities such as houngans, wizards, politicians and their militia. The second is used to make “zombificators” ridiculous by showing how their ranting leads them to appear weak before their rebel victims.

Satire, Désordre, Folie Et Régénérescence : Lecture De Quelques Romans Africains, Augustin H. Asaah

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Satire has the goal of reforming society and humans through the exposure and denunciation of evils. Using four novels, Beyala’s Tu t’appelleras Tanga, Touré’s Destins parallèles, Ken Bugul’s La folie et la mort and Nganang’s Tempsde chien as reference points, this article attempts to demonstrate how postcolonial Francophone African satire meets the criteria of the sub-genre. The four works deploy weapons of satire such as irony, contrast, verbal violence and exaggeration to lay bare the stench, madness and degeneration associated with neo-colonial order. As in all satirical works, the tableau of collective misery here encompasses a challenge to readers to …

Nexus, Winter 2005, Wright State University Community

Nexus Literary Journal

Nexus is a magazine that began as an insert in the Wright State Guardian student newspaper in 1965 and has since been published semi-regularly. It began only accepting creative writing, but has since expanded to include illustrations, photography and other non-written art forms. Today, it is published in a digital format and accepts submissions from around the country, though it maintains its commitment to the Wright State Community.

Integrating Writing Within The Foreign Language Classroom: Shifting Dynamics, Not The Task, Patricia Ann Evans

MA TESOL Collection

This classroom based research project considers the following questions: Why should my foreign language students write? From Pedagogy to Purpose; what happens when students use technology with their writing; what transitions take place with regard to the role as teacher when integrating writing into the Spanish language classroom? This project follows the shift from writing , disconnected activities to writing. How a student-centered writing process and technology support the shift away from the perception that good writing is voiceless and mechanical. It traces the shift from learning to write to writing to learn. The project studies the shift that occurs …

Incarceration Nation: Investigative Prison Poems Of Hope And Terror [Book Review], Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

The author reviews the book Incarceration Nation: Investigative Prison Poems of Hope and Terror by Stephen John Hartnett.

Ivy Leaves, 2004-2005, Ivy Leaves Editorial Staff

Ivy Leaves

The 2005 edition of the Anderson College journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Joshua Burdette, Darcie Davis, Leanne Gray, Maghan Lush, Jessica Sopolosky, Marissa Sullivan, Sarah Swofford, Becky Bradstreet, Brian Burrell, Kayla Evett, Anthony Gonzalez, Melissa Johnson, Kari Pettit, Donavon Schmidt, Ashely Smoak, Alice Wilkins, Wayne Cox, and Jane Dorn. Cover art by Kari Pettit.

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 …

Chaos Temporel Et Chaos Romanesque Dans Allah N'Est Pas Obligé D'Ahmadou Kourouma, Nathalie Roy

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This paper proposes an analysis of time representation in Allah n’est pas obligé with concepts taken from Temps et récit. It aims to show that in relation to Kourouma’s novel, one of Ricoeur’s hypothesis is revealingly insufficient. This hypothesis actually questions representation modes occuring in the text, exposing one of the sources of fictional chaos.

Parties Annexes

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

Transcrire L'Horreur Sur L'Espace De La Page, Bernadette Ginestet-Levine

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Rachid Boudjedra’s Timimoun uses the theatrical convention of a minibus taking tourists to the desert. In this mini-bus, news from the outside world is brought through the radio, which plays the part of a messenger. The narration moves forward by a progression of press releases that report bombings committed by terrorists. The barbarian nature of the acts is transcribed on the page by means of typography. The spatial/visual convention itself is set in concentric lexical fields – liquid, then desertic – erected as fences in an attempt to confine the unbearable.

Trop De Soleil Tue L'Amour : Une Expression De L'Écriture Du Mal-Être De Mongo Beti, Rodolphine Sylvie Wamba

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The classical and dissident African writer Mongo Beti perpetually uses the theme of man’s quest for freedom in everything he does. In fact, the philosophy of “Rubénism” is found in each of his works. Given that man must survive in the “ocean of shit” he lives in, the writer, using a popular language, freely chooses to add some humour to everyday life. Thus, the text we studied appeared as a genuine thriller, complete with comedy and tragedy, which presents a deviation from more formal writing. This is the main idea of this analysis, which consists of showing Trop de soleil …

Édouard Glissant : Du Dé-Lire Verbal Au Discours Maîtrisé, Katell Colin-Thébaudeau

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article questions the experience of delirium of the character of Marie Celat and places it in relation to the violence of identity and cultural alienation linked to the history of the West Indies. Using the word “Odono” as a pretext, which was transmitted to the character by a family tale, the text tackles the problem of the identity and origin of the subject. In Marie Celat’s delirium, the reference to “Odono” opens the way for diverse positions on the subject of enunciation, stretching the historical truth into an a-temporal, a-spatial, “out of chronology” event. The words juxtapose each other …

La Vie Et Demie Ou Les Corps Chaotiques Des Mots Et Des Êtres, Caroline Giguère

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Due to its polysemy, corporality has several functions in the works of Sony Labou Tansi. More than descriptive or thematic elements, the novelistic bodies in La vie et demie are at the same time meeting points for multiple meanings, objects and producers of discourse. This study aims to demonstrate how the writing of the body is symbolic of a disorder that characterizes the forms and contents of Sony Labou Tansi’s novels and invites the reader to reflect on language and its power.

Face À La Meute – Narration Et Folie Dans Les Romans De Boubacar Boris Diop, Susanne Gehrmann

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article analyses the narrative techniques and the theme of madness in three novels by the Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop, caracterised by narrative polyphony and metatextual reflexion on the production of a story. The speech of protagonists affected by “intellectual madness” plays a strategic role in the structure of the novel which, as a hybrid genre, draws on oral and literary traditions in a still splintered aesthetic. The image of the pack represents an unreasonnable society condemning a so-called mad individual whose madness consists in bringing a counter-memory of the foundation myths.

Folie Et Écriture Dans Calomnies De Linda Lê, Ching Selao

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article proposes to explore the many faces of madness through a reading of Linda Lê’s Calomnies, in which two narrative voices are presented. The following shall demonstrate how this novel reproduces a “romantic” perception of madness as encountered in Michel Foucault’s work. Although this narrative text introduces a mad narrator speaking in the “I” persona, it nonetheless points out the difficulties of letting madness speak for itself. These difficulties are also examined in this study.

Les Pouvoirs Du Récit : Un Remède Au Chaos Du Monde? En Attentant Le Vote Des Bêtes Sauvages, Madeleine Borgomano

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Right from his first novel, Les Soleils des Indépendances (1970), Kourouma introduced the theme of the reversed world, a baroque metaphor for the state of Africa after Independence. In Monnè (1990), telling the history of this reversal, he insisted on its linguistic roots. Consequently, En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (1998) shows how this reversal in the context of Cold War, favoured the genesis and development of dictatorial powers leading to an actual apocalypse. This victory of Chaos is told as a donsomana, traditional song of expiation among the Malinke hunters. The forms and magic virtues of this song …

Le Goût Des Jeunes Filles De Dany Laferrière : Du Chaos À La Reconstruction Du Sens, Nathalie Courcy

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This paper analyses the way politics, society and the representation of speech is structured in Le goût des jeunes filles, Dany Laferrière’s fourth novel. How do the events told and the disorganised narration itself symbolise the unspeakable? Moreover, how does the characters’ speech rebuild the meaning of existence, and how does Laferrière see the future? Chaos, madness, all that overtakes or destroys the norm, anchors fiction in an attempt to reorganize reality and the imaginary.

Review Of The Sheep Look Up, By John Brunner, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

L'Image Des Réfugiés Et Des Personnes Déplacées Dans La Fiction Africaine Francophone, Augustin H. Asaah

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In their capacity as moralists and committed intellectuals, African Francophone writers such as C.C. Sow, N.N. Ndjekery, M.S. Keita, F. Couao-Zotti, Ahmadou Kourouma, Nimrod and E. Dongala portray various images of refugees and internally displaced persons in their works. This depiction is driven by the perceived need to humanize these displaced members of society by establishing moral/affective bridges between unfortunate members of society and readers. It is also sustained by the desire to reduce the damage caused by wars and natural disasters, as well as the need to reveal the plural identities of humans to the world.

Review Of Jennifer Government, By Berry Max, David Banash

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Ivy Leaves, 2003-2004, Ivy Leaves Editorial Staff

Ivy Leaves

The 2004 edition of the Anderson College journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Amanda Burgess, Shannon Griffin, Tennille Owens, Jennifer Roman, Marissa Sullivan, Joshua Fleming, Brandon Fricks, Katy Gray, Shelli Hanshew, Brian Irving, Misty Kelley, Kristen Lambert, Matthew Mantooth, Theresa O'Rourke, Jessica Parks, Shelly Sawyer, Emerald Shumer, Jonathan Tribble, Wayne Cox and Jane Dorn. Cover art by Matthew Mantooth, and illustrations by Matthew Tolbert.

Graduate Bulletin, 2004-2006 (2004), Minnesota State University Moorhead

Graduate Bulletins (Catalogs)

No abstract provided.

Visions Must Be Re-Visioned : Gender Politics In Earthsea, Audrey Barton

Theses : Honours

This thesis analyses Ursula Le Guin's interpretation of gender and genre in her Earthsea novels, A Wizarf of Earthsea (1968) and Teha1111 (1990). Examining Le Guin's assertion for the need to "re-vision" her former work with the latter, I interrogate the ways in which she attempts to "break free" from the ideologies that impose themselves upon her work. Part one explores the mode of the hero quest used in A Wizard of Earthsea and examines the significance of this in terms of "gendering" the text. Part two examines the revisioned text Tehanu and the ways in which the …