English Language and Literature Commons^™

Razor Days, Alison Pelegrin

Nelle (literary magazine)

pp. 56-59

Theology At Kionia, Christopher Bakken

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 62

Isolation, Dan Albergotti

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 55

No Ordinary Poet: Nicole Sealey As Master Of Form And Agent Of Social Justice, Teri Elam

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 4-16

After, The Rain, Terry L. Kennedy

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 103

Bluebirds, Michael Collier

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 76

Naming The Lost: The Fresno Poets, Donald Wolff

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 167-172

Metaphysic, Annie Kantar

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 101-102

Aspen, Jehanne Dubrow

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 90

Whereabouts, Michael Chitwood

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 73-75

After The Exhibition, Stuart Dischell

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 85

Electricity, Ken Autrey

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 56-57

The Hour, J Salvador Peralta, Juana De Ibarbourou

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 126

Be Holding, Taylor Byas

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 173-178

Religion, Reason And Reconciliation In Louise Gluck’S The Wild Iris, Vincent Sergiacomi

Capstone Showcase

In a world where reason is king, what is the role of faith? Louise Gluck does not claim to have an answer, but she does explore the question. The Wild Iris gives us a god who is utterly convinced of the singular appeal of faith, countered by a worshipper who finds their rational worldview too reasonable to abandon. Yet over the course of the text, neither is able to demonstrate the singular primacy of their point, both arguments leaving their arguers unsatisfied in one way or another. This paper will explore the debate between the human and divine speakers of …

An Exploration Of My Undergraduate Poetry Works, Clover O'Mordha

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Throughout my years at the University of Akron, I have explored my creative writing, focusing on poetry, and developed a distinct style. There have been many influences on my poetry and I utilize several poetry aesthetics, conventions, and styles. My honor project will explore my poetry by referencing a 30-page portfolio of my collected undergraduate works.

Queering Job: Inverted Liberation In Boy Erased And Other Conversion Trauma Narratives, Harrison Beau Palen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis explores conversion trauma narratives with the goal of transforming—inverting The Book of Job’s holy resolution to instead entail queer liberation apart from Evangelicalism. Analyzing Conley’s bestselling memoir, Boy Erased, I discuss Conley’s suffering and how his liberation is not found by means of repressing or converting his attraction to the same gender. I also analyze Emily Danforth’s novel, The Miseducation of Cameron Post to highlight how fictional accounts of queer liberation from conversion therapy help to increase awareness of the harms of conversion therapy. Throughout my thesis, I incorporate my own story of queer suffering, survival, and …

Femininity Reclaiming Chivalry In The Harry Potter Series, Ashley M. Watson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This paper focuses on the reclaiming of chivalric values by female characters in the Harry Potter series by comparing them to Arthurian characters. Scholars have extensively compared the narrative of the Knights of the Round Table to the global phenomenon of the Harry Potter series, but in this paper I explore, through a feminist lens, a character comparison of the Harry Potter novels and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. I will show how female characters in modern literature reclaim chivalry. This is important because it exemplifies a shift in the position of women into a more active role. I …

Snapshots Of A Fictional Past: Photographic Nostalgia In The Early 20th Century Art Novel., Harry A. Jones Iv

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I argue that the proliferation of a mass codependent relationship with nostalgia in the twentieth century shares a parallel history with the widespread adoption of the reproducible image being used by collective audiences as a supplement for natural memory, or what Proust names “voluntary memory.” This conflict between nostalgia-hungry consumers and artists inspired groups such as Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secessionists and artistically minded authors like Henry James, who employed increasingly complex photographic and literary practices to resist the images’ tendency to debase the aesthetic quality of their own work. Authors such as Marcel Proust and William Faulkner used …

Hannah & Nana: A Personal Memoir On Appalachian Intergenerational Trauma, Womanhood, & Family, Hannah Dunn

Honors Projects

I was deeply affected by the death of my beloved nana in 2018. After her death, my family asked me to be the storyteller for us. Thus, for my Honors Project at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), I decided to write a personal memoir on my family. This memoir explores how we fit into notions of womanhood and family in Appalachia, as well as studying the effects of intergenerational trauma on us. Qualitative research, in the form of the autoethnography, serves as the methodology for this project. In writing a creative memoir, I have transformed my personal to the academic.

Reshaping The Canon: How “Insta-Poets” Are Creating A New Literary Space For Readers Using Social Media, Hannah Salsbery

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Reading and analyzing poetry can be an equally beautiful and frustrating experience. Interacting with a poem allows a reader to access untapped emotions through the words on the page; yet, when not given the tools to understand canonical poetry, young readers are often left at a loss. The rise of “Insta-poetry” gives younger generations of readers access to poems that are both relatable in experience and language. Using Rupi Kaur as a vehicle towards unmasking the importance of the rise of poetry on Instagram, this thesis highlights the importance of reshaping the literary canon to become a more inclusive, diverse, …

Agatha Christie: A Look Into Criminal Procedure And Gender, Carmella Monico

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

With 2020 being the 100^th year since Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published, it seems fitting to celebrate such an accomplished author with a deeper look into the inner workings of her novels. While she wrote mystery novels that involved many detectives, the two most popular are Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. This paper will examine these two detectives in regard to the criminal procedure each uses to solve their respective cases. Would her detectives’ work hold up in court then or even today? Additionally, the difference in gender between Poirot and Marple …

The Supporting Role: Cultivating A Writing Life To Prevent And Combat Writer's Block, Molly Elizabeth Hanberry

Masters Theses

Every writer will suffer from writer’s block from time to time, and there are two general schools of thought in dealing with this affliction: wait it out or struggle through. The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate the nature of writer’s block from a fundamental level, beginning with the neuroscience of creativity. From there, it will explore the three root causes of writer’s block: lack of inspiration, burnout, and fear. And finally, with an understanding of its causes, it will be possible to examine ways to combat writer’s block through methods based in neuroscience, personal experience, and professional advice …

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field projects centers around the issue of hopelessness among teachers and students and examines the genre of speculative fiction as a potential tool for cultivating critical hope in the classroom and as an asset to critical pedagogy. Utopian pedagogy and critical pedagogy make up the theoretical framework of this research and project development. The research explores the use of speculative fiction in three areas: activism and identity, student engagement, and utopian performance. The review of the literature demonstrates that the use of speculative fiction in the classroom has the potential to engage students in conversations about social justice and …

Shadowcrest Manor, Michaela Bishop

The Tuxedo Archives

A soft cold breeze flowed throughout the whole house, it carried the scent of the Sea Island cotton and seawater, taking away the smell of dust and stillness. Shadowrest Manor was to become our new home here in Charleston. The manor had been vacant for a while since its last owner had passed away and leaving no will or surviving heir, the plantation was shut down. The outside was a little bit weather damaged however, Father is having the whole house repainted a colonial white, the front columns will be a nice off white to balance the main color. The …

Looking Backward While Pushing Forward, Rebecca Elizabeth Van Horn

The Tuxedo Archives

“We’re so old, Becky. Becky, we are so old.” This palindromic couplet came from the ex-boyfriend I hadn’t seen in over ten years. We had been in a brief and mildly dysfunctional relationship ten years before that, back when I was twenty and he was thirty. We had remained friends after our breakup and, after a few years absence, regained contact through the contemporary perpetual This is Your Life-esque reunion of social media.

Behave, Gina Vucci

The Tuxedo Archives

Serve the guests. Don’t cry. Take your brother for a walk. Your father was such an incredible man. Your father loved you. You were his favorite. I’ll just let everyone else cry while I learn to live with this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Leave her alone. It’s fine if she wants to wear her red velvet dress from last Christmas. She can wear what she wants to the funeral. Touch his hand; it’s the last time you’ll ever see him. I don’t know you, but I can’t stop sobbing in your arms.

On The Way Of Being A Penguin, Sophie Lee

The Tuxedo Archives

It’s been about three weeks since I came here, to Dominican as an exchange student. My life here is monotonous but interesting, demanding but refreshing, and solitary but too precious. Right now, I am still adjusting to my life. I want to keep this time in my life everlasting by writing it in my laptop. I believe what I am writing will bring me here, and now, whenever I read this. Then, let me start.

Eclipse, Cameron Almeida

The Tuxedo Archives

You might find me at the end of my days perched on the shoreline at sunset. Some rocky overlook where the wind can blow away smoke from fire. The last embers of my life burn like a fickle memory in a nearby hole I dug, small licks of heat dancing in air brined with salt of the earth. Knowledge that these coals will fade makes me wish to have gone out brilliantly, a blaze of glory instead of here, timing the spread of painkillers in my blood with the increasingly aggressive tide. Because that’s what this is, a small beacon …

Wisdom And Superstition, Maribel Anchordoqui

The Tuxedo Archives

Don’t laugh too much or something sad will happen.

If you see a bean on the floor, pick it up or you’ll be sterile.

When pulling weeds, always talk kindly to the poison oak and let them know you will remove them so that other plants can grow. Guarantee you will never get poison oak.