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English Language and Literature Commons

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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Exploring The Rhetorical Power Of Speculative Fiction Through Jewelle Gomez’S The Gilda Stories And Octavia Butler’S Fledgling, Monique Dixon Dec 2020

Exploring The Rhetorical Power Of Speculative Fiction Through Jewelle Gomez’S The Gilda Stories And Octavia Butler’S Fledgling, Monique Dixon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

There are apparent similarities between Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories and Octavia Butler’s Fledgling. However, this thesis will demonstrate that they share more than similar subject matter and yet differ in substantial ways. Utilizing Black feminist theory and alternative rhetoric this thesis examines how Gomez and Butler harness the potential of speculative fiction to critique the world around them and imagine an alternative world for those who are intersectionally marginalized.


A Hand Out In The Dark: Rethinking The Human In Ursula K. Le Guin’S “Nine Lives”, Syntyche Walker Nov 2020

A Hand Out In The Dark: Rethinking The Human In Ursula K. Le Guin’S “Nine Lives”, Syntyche Walker

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

The Science Fiction genre, according to pioneer Science Fiction scholar Darko Suvin, has the power to elucidate “future-bearing elements from the empirical environment”(Suvin 7). In her short story, “Nine Lives,” Ursula K. Le Guin uses the trope of human cloning to dissect the “future-bearing” potential of a cultural obsession with youth, beauty and perfection, suggesting that the future of this obsession, paired with scientific advances that render such perfectibility possible, is a future of spiritual starvation. Le Guin explores the gendered dichotomies of strength and weakness, the dark side of unity without dissent, and the futility of altruism without empathy.


Feminist Theology And The Fantastic In Jewish Poetics And Children's Literature (1960s–Present), Meira S. Levinson Feb 2020

Feminist Theology And The Fantastic In Jewish Poetics And Children's Literature (1960s–Present), Meira S. Levinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the development of Jewish fantasy rhetoric in post-WWII British and American literature, focusing on three genres: kabbalistic Beat poetry, children’s fantasy, and graphic novels/comics. Despite increasing scholarly attention to all these areas, little work has focused on fantasy rhetoric or issues of gender and sexuality within non-canonical Jewish literature, or on interplays of religion and fantasy in children’s literature. Jewish kabbalistic poetry and children’s fantasy speak to each other in their mutual engagements with the otherworldly, mystical and monstrous, interrogations of gender, and complex portrayals of feminist theological potentialities. I identify and analyze Jewish-hermeneutic themes and methodologies …