English Language and Literature Commons^™

Life Inside The Spectacle: David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, And Storytelling In The Age Of Entertainment, John Hawkins

Masters Theses

This project explores George Saunders's In Persuasion Nation and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as interventionary literature. The thesis asserts that the two works confront the problems of isolation and dehumanization created by entertainment-based consumerism; they do so by depicting satirically exaggerated consumer societies and placing well-developed, sympathetic characters in those settings. The thesis includes a consideration of Jameson and deBord's theories of spectacle and Wallace's stated concerns with postmodern irony as an ineffective form of critique.

Spice Sisters: Religion, Freedom And Escape Of Women In African American And Indian Literatures, Lovely Koshy

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on women in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and Rabindranath Tagore's three short stories. Hansberry writes during a period in America when racism, segregation, and black migration to the North weighed heavy upon the psyche of black women. Tagore writes during a time when British control, sati system, caste system, and dharma leave Indian women voiceless. Both express their disagreement with entrenched norms and institutions that have been in place for hundreds of years, a task that initially may seem to be an impossible undertaking, and unlikely to bring about expected change. This work reveals …

Perspectives On Identity, Migration, And Displacement, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang, Hsiao-Yu Sun

CLCWeb Library

Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement -- edited by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang, and Hsiao-Yu Sun (Kaohsiung: National Sun Yat-sen University Press, 2010. ISBN 9789860235418 209 pages, bibliography, index) is a collection of articles about sociological and literary aspects of identity formation as a consequence of (im)migration. (Im)migration results in the problematics of assimilation and hybridity and in postcolonial scholarship, in particular, attention is paid to the concept of migration termed "Creolization" on the ground that cultural contact, cultural transmission, and cultural transformation result in the creation of new cultures. Copyright release by National Sun Yat-sen University to …

Narrating Literary Transnationalism In Zake Smith And Dave Eggers, Nelson Shake

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This work argues for a greater reception of transnationalism in literary studies. Though the steady rise of transnationalism has already been studied in many areas of academia, literary studies has only begun to pay attention to it, and scholars appear to remain largely rooted in postcolonial or nationalistic thought. Refusing to read current texts through the lens of transnationalism hinders the literary academy's relevancy since creative writers today are addressing changes to the national structure in their fictive works. This study suggests why a new theoretical construct is needed to understand those texts, and it uses two representative examples: Zadie …

Bibliography For Work In Digital Humanities And (Inter)Mediality Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

A Contrastive Systemic Functional Analysis Of Causality In Japanese And English Academic Articles, Masaki Shibata

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Typological differences between languages have been a much debated topic in linguistic studies. Despite their usefulness in understanding syntactic features of various languages, such contrastive analyses have yet to thoroughly explore semantic variation among languages; furthermore, the results obtained have not been practically utilized in other areas of applied linguistics. This situation may come from the fact that a large number of contrastive studies have eclectically examined isolated areas of language variation either from syntactic, morphological, or from pragmatic perspectives. Viewing this issue from another angle, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) focuses on language from a multi-dimensional perspective, where language is …

The Interplay Of Authorial Control And Readerly Judgments In Ian Mcewan's Atonement, Marissa Danaé Nelson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Mainly focusing on postmodern literary theory, I will analyze Ian McEwan’s Atonement and suggest how it becomes a simulacrum due to the protagonist, Briony Tallis taking control of authorship from McEwan and expressing how she is the author of the text. Because Briony negates an important aspect of the novel, hyperreality occurs. This thesis will look at the role McEwan plays as author of Atonement, how main characters Robbie and Cecelia take part within this fictional world and how they become aware of an authorial presence within their lives, how Briony takes ultimate control of the pen and appoints herself …

George Eliot's Brazilian Critical Fortune And The Case Of Romola, Jaqueline Bohn Donada

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I would like to begin this paper with a comment by Professor Felicia Bonaparte about George Eliot's novels. In an introductory reflection, she once observed that

We have found nothing yet that Eliot did not deliberately put in her novels; [ ... ]. Indeed, the fact is we have not yet read in these novels all that Eliot wrote. We have not yet, for example, looked carefully at what Eliot had to say about women in society. Eliot was a great feminist, and her novels, although they never stoop to mere propaganda, urge a relentless war against the conditions by …

'And Her Wings Fall From Her And She Drops To The Ground': Reading Eliot's Mr Casaubon Through Benjamin Jowett's Phaedrus, Royce Best

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the scene describing Casaubon 's pathetic mental state prior to his heart attack in Chapter XXIX of Middlemarch, the narrator makes an enigmatic reference: 'Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control'.' It seems odd to conclude this powerful passage, long read as a telling example of the hazards of over-study without meaningful application, with a reference to ancient Greek drama. Yet, perhaps not enough attention has been given to the indebtedness …

Review Of Heathen And Outcast: Scenes In The Life Of George Eliot, Robert Muscutt

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This fictionalized version of George Eliot's life between 1841 and 1854 takes as its starting point Edith Simcox's account of visiting the Midlands after the novelist's death and collecting material for a biography which, in the end, was never written. Thus the first section of four chapters is titled 'From Conversations with Maria Lewis' and is written in the latter 's voice, while the second section of two chapters follows the same pattern and is narrated by Charles Bray. The Simcox framework of posthumous interviews falters in the final section of eight chapters since here the narration is taken over …

The Two Felixes: Narrational Irony And The Questions Of Radicalism In Felix Holt And 'Address To Working Men, By Felix Holt', Helen Kingstone

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In this characterization of Dorothea by the narrator of Middlemarch (1871-2), the 'Great' Reform Act of 1832 is posited as a dividing line between two phases of history, so distinct as to have separate spheres of interest and judgements of normality. George Eliot flatters her mid-Victorian reader by insinuating that only the 'modem' mind of their shared present could understand the zeal of a humanistic 'exalted enthusiasm' that took its source of energy from within. In this passage, therefore, 'reform' seems to be the key to historical, social and personal change. The issue of reform - of society, of institution …

Review Of George Eliot In Society: Travels Abroad And Sundays At The Priory, Kathleen Mccormack

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is a welcome and wholly worthwhile extension of the author's George Eliot's English Travels: Composite Characters and Coded Communication (2005), a densely written and stimulating examination of places and people in Eliot's life which have some resonance, in varying degrees of coding, from the seemingly casual to the subtly integrated, in her published work. McCormack there defined three categories of place identification. These range from 'absolute certainties' through 'pretty good cases' to 'alluring, probable, but irretrievably speculative suppositions', categories certainly applicable to herpresent study, in which her dedication and saturation in George Eliot, the works, the life, and a …

The Golden Gates Are Passed, Robert Muscutt

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

There have always been attempts not just to conceal knowledge of George Eliot's life but also to manipulate it into conformity with a preconceived profile. In the Preface to his edition of The George Eliot Letters in nine volumes, Gordon Haight revealed that those pages of her Journal from immediately after her father's death in 1849 until shortly before she went to Weimar with Lewes in 1854 were tom out and presumably destroyed, probably by Cross. Charles Lewes, George Eliot's main literary executor, also seems to have destroyed nine of his father 's journals, the first volume extant beginning in …

'The Antigone And Its Moral': George Eliot's Antigonean Considerations, Kathryn Brigger Kruger

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

As early as 1856 with the publication of the essay, 'The Antigone and Its Moral' ,1 George Eliot turned her literary attention to the Sophoclean figure of Antigone. Scholars such as Gerhard Joseph' and David Moldstad' have enumerated Eliot's multiple references to Antigone, and they have argued that Eliot makes Antigone a relevant figure for '"modern" life' (Joseph, 27) and an example of 'the continuity of man's elemental self, concerned in all ages with similar needs and problems, though moral codes have come and gone' (Moldstad, 531). Where Joseph traces the specific Antigone references in Eliot's fiction - especially in …

Review Of Reading For Our Time: 'Adam Bede' And 'Middlemarch' Revisited, J. Hillis Miller

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

As his sub-title indicates, J. Hillis Miller is returning in his latest book to the study of George Eliot, bringing to bear on Adam Bede and Middlemarch the insight and erudition acquired in a long and distinguished career as a scholar and critic. He pursues a similar line to his wellknown articles from the 1970s on 'Narrative and History' and 'Optic and Semiotic in Middlemarch', subjecting that novel to a close and tenacious deconstructive reading that brings out the sophisticated self-qualifying nature of George Eliot's fiction. This is preceded by a shorter discussion of Adam Bede which shows how its …

Japanese Branch Report- 2012, Shinsuke Hori

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On Saturday 1 December 2012, the Sixteenth Annual Convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Kansai University of Foreign Studies.

The morning session started with an opening address by Chizuko Watari (Kansai University of Foreign Studies). Three papers were presented in the morning session. The first two were commented upon by Midori Niino (Kobe University of Foreign Studies) and the third by Masayuki Kato (Kobe University).

The first speaker was Ayako Tani (Fukuoka University), whose subject was 'The Idea of a Double in Daniel Deronda: Grandcourt's Death and Gwendolen's Rebirth'. Grandcourt's death has been often criticized …

The Forty-First George Eliot Memorial Lecture, 2012- Romola's Artists, Leonee Ormond

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

2012-2013 marks the one hundred and fiftieth birthday of Romola. Originally published in the Comhill Magazine from July 1862 to August 1863, it later appeared in a three volume edition in 1863. An illustrated edition followed in 1865.

George Eliot had begun work on the novel in 1861, when she was forty-one. She had recently published Silas Mamer, and The Mill on the Floss, preceded by Adam Bede, had come out not long before that. The genesis of Romola came in May 1860 when George Eliot and George Henry Lewes spent two weeks in Florence. Lewes noted that, …

Review Of Form And Feeling In Modern Literature: Essays In Honour Of Barbara Hardy, Isobel Armstrong, William Baker

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Does criticism move in circles and cycles? Perhaps, like a Yeatsian gyre, it progresses by revolving and rotating. If times have changed utterly since the appearance of Barbara Hardy's first book, The Novels of George Eliot (1959), then it is also hard to ignore how some new directions in criticism appear to be rediscovering matters close to this great critic's heart. Form and feeling, certainly, are both back. Professor Hardy used these two unfussy terms to describe, respectively, literature's structured way of happening and its potential to arouse or enrich a reader's felt experience; now, in the more modish guises …

George Eliot, Marcel Proust, And The Logic Of Desire, Kenichi Kurata

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The influence of George Eliot's fiction on Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time has often been discussed. For instance, L. A. Bisson drew attention in 1945 to 'the possibility, even the likelihood, of[ ... ] [an] immediate and sympathetic suggestion' by Eliot, citing Proust's claim in 1910 that 'II n'y a pas de litterature qui ait sur moi un pouvoir comparable a la litterature anglaise ... deux pages du Moulin sur la Floss me font pleurer.'2 Bisson goes on to suggest that three specific passages in The Mill on the Floss have their counterparts in Proust's work, the …

Chairman's Annual Report 2012, John Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The year began in March with an introduction to Romo/a for the Nuneaton George Eliot Study Group which was attended by nearly forty local members. This was followed up by more in depth sessions on Romola at Bedworth Almshouses after Easter. These sessions were aimed at those going to Florence in November, to walk in Romola's footsteps. Numbers were constant throughout the sessions and we ended the ten sessions by watching the 1924 silent film version of the book. The study notes for these sessions will be made available to members worldwide on the website

Following the AGM that same …

Review Of The Ladislaw Case, Inke Thormahlen

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

We live in an age of prequels and sequels either in book form or in television serials, with nineteenth-century novelists providing the majority of the material for contemporary writers to develop or elaborate. It was perhaps only a matter of time before one of George Eliot's novels was to form the basis for such treatment. In this case the novel is probably her greatest, Middlemarch, and the sequel, The Ladislaw Case, is the first major work of a young Swedish graduate of Lund University, Imke Thormahlen.

Twelve years after the conclusion of Middlemarch, Will Ladislaw, now married to Dorothea (Brooke, …

George Eliot, Scientific Materialism And Literary Form: Some Relfections On Felicia Bonaparte's Will And Destiny, K.M. Newton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Felicia Bonaparte's study of Eliot's fiction, Will and Destiny: Morality and Tragedy in George Eliot's Novels, was published in 1975. I read it rather quickly towards the end of the 1970s because at the time I was working on a study of Eliot of my own and inevitably my attention was somewhat focused on whether there was going to be any overlap with my book. Since Bonaparte's book argued strongly that Eliot was intellectually committed to empiricism and scientific rationality and mine attempted to bring out her relation to aspects …

Speculation And The Emotional Economy Of 'Mansfield Park', Laura Vorachek

English Faculty Publications

At the midpoint of Mansfield Park (1814), the Bertram family dines at the Parsonage, and card games make up the after dinner entertainment. The characters form two groups, with Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant playing Whist, while Lady Bertram, Fanny, William, Edmund, and Henry and Mary Crawford play Speculation, This scene is central not only because Speculation reveals certain characters' personalities, but also because another type of “speculation” occurs during the game as the players contemplate or conjecture about one another. Moreover, “speculation” in the sense of gambling functions as a metaphor for the vicissitudes of …

Oscillations Of Romantic Irony : Percy B. Shelley's "Defence Of Poetry" And Friedrich Schlegel's Model Of Understanding, Sabine H. Seiler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

A New Way Of Living: Bioeconomic Models In Post-Apocalyptic Dystopias, Margaret A. Wells

Theses and Dissertations--English

The objective of this thesis is to explore the relationship between moralities and bioeconomies in post-apocalyptic dystopias from the Victorian era to contemporary Young Adult Fiction. In defining the terms bioeconomy and biopolitics, this works examines the ways in which literature uses food and energy systems to explore morality and immorality in social orders and systems, including capitalism and our modern techno-industrial landscapes. This work examines science fiction portrayals of apocalypses and dystopias, including After London: Or, Wild England and The Hunger Games, as well as their medieval and contextual influences. These works are analyzed in light of genre …

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.

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.

Contents, 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 15 Fall 2013

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

No abstract provided.

Into The Heart Of The Great Wilderness: Understanding Baldwin’S Quarrel With Négritude, Christopher Winks

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.