English Language and Literature Commons^™

Is Love A “Pathological Condition Of The Soul”? Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts And Rape: A Love Story, Nicolas P. Boileau

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

This paper seeks to address the question of Oates’s relation to feminist and gender theories by looking at two novellas published consecutively, Beasts and Rape: A Love Story in the beginning of the 2000s. The short texts share a common storyline based on rape, which is far from uncommon in Oates’s fiction. However, I argue that there is something very specific in these two novellas in the way Oates chooses to handle the testimony of the rape, both overtly and covertly, both in graphic details and in repressed forms of expression, giving way to a reflection on women’s vulnerable position …

Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …

Feasting At The Threshold: Eucharistic Eroticism And Homonationalism In Diane Duane's The Tale Of The Five, Taylor Driggers

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Diane Duane’s ongoing fantasy series The Tale of the Five (1979–present) is set in a world marked by constant bodily transgressions and surprises, where a human and dragon can occupy the same body and become lovers and a one-night stand can bring one face-to-face with God. This essay will argue that Duane’s series articulates eroticism in a manner comparable to Linn Marie Tonstad’s (2016) queer re-visioning of transubstantiation and bodily and spiritual transformation through the Eucharist. Acts of eating and drinking serve to highlight how characters’ pansexual, polyamorous relations with each other and the love of the Goddess spill over …

“Woman At Point Zero” Challenges Faulty Person Schemas, Josephine Ebersole

KU Inspires! Undergraduate Research Day

This paper explores how literature can challenge faulty-person schemas as defined by Mark Bracher through an analysis of Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi. The paper outlines how Saadawi pushes her readers to question faulty-person schemas and biases and also question the impact these schemas have on institutions and structures that are rooted in bias to oppress and control minorities. The main character in the novel, Firdaus, is a woman who fights against oppressive structures for her protection and freedom, and through humanizing such a character, Saadawi demonstrates how faulty-person schemas place inaccurate judgements on people and encourage …

Promising Young Woman And The Structural Failure To Protect Women, Josephine Ebersole

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

This paper explores Emerald Fennel's film Promising Young Woman and the relationship between women and male violence and how male violence is protected by misogynistic structures, specifically in the case of sexual assault. The paper argues that institutions and structures that are rooted in patriarchy and misogyny are fundamentally unable to protect women from the actions of violent men, both in the film and in reality.

What Is A Nation? Colonial Legacies, Identity, And Reclaiming In Métisse Autobiographical Narratives – A Case Study Of Sugar And Slate And Garçon Manqué, Thaïs Maëlle Autin

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis examines the question of national belonging in autobiographical narratives of second-generation immigrant métisse women. I study the similar aesthetic manner in which individuals with different regional and cultural influences grapple with concepts of identity, gender, racism, exile, and negotiation, and the way in which the authors anchor themselves in a broader familial and national heritage. I argue that such an enterprise can be understood as part of the alternative heritage wave, based on Andrew Higson’s theory. The texts put in question traditional understandings of nation. Doing so opens the possibility of engaging in a dialogue that expands the …

Feminist Stories: Then And Now, Brooke Kelly

FUSION

This short essay explores the connections between themes in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and the 2024 film, Immaculate, specifically focusing on each story's affect on feminism.

The essay was originally written in response to a discussion post where students were asked to pick one American literary text and one piece of contemporary media that addressed the same issues/character types/ plot/ideas, etc. of today.

He Said, She Said: Deconstructing Gender In Our Own World Through Our Own Languages, William K. Coulthard

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Both language and gender are social constructs which we humans have created to produce an order to the world, and this essay illustrates the ways in which language influences both our perceptions of gender and the world of people who subvert so-called natural gender norms. Because gender, unlike sex, is a social construct to which we ascribe particular images and words, language can affect not only the identity of the person in question but also their relationships, careers, and societal attitudes toward gender. Ursula Le Guin, in her 1969 science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, deconstructs our earthly …

Un-Silencing Dickinson: Emily Dickinson's Aversion To The Male Body And Heterosexuality In "My Life Had Stood–– A Loaded Gun", Cassandra Barron

Global Tides

This paper examines Emily Dickinson's aversion to heterosexual marriage and sexual initiation in her poem "My Life had stood-- a Loaded Gun". The ethics of deciphering through identifying and categorizing potentially Queer authors and texts impacts our understandings of frequently canonized authors such as Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson's nineteenth-century American context informed her ability to write deliberately about her experience of subversive sexual desire. Instead, Dickinson utilizes images of death, apathy, and immortality to illustrate her revulsion toward the male body and heterosexual marriage. This paper illustrates how utilizing Queer and feminist theories illuminates new and potential understandings of Emily …

Ivy Leaves, Volume 100, Anderson University - South Carolina

Ivy Leaves

The 2025 edition of the Anderson University journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Jaylee Koon, Jenna Martin, Rachel Riddle, Milena Ulrich, Emma Brightman, Corinne Lowe, Torie Johnson, Anna Leigh Avant, Darcy Hseih, Kaylie Sheriff, Claudia Sarmiento, LIly Gregory, Ethan Wright, Elise Frauenholtz, KJ Lian, Ellie Gramm, Iley Gramm, Kenzi Miller, Ellie Ruperto, Miriam Cabrera-Santana, Ashlee Keller, Mateo De Los Cobos, Jacob Enzor, Claire Nunes, Abby McDonald, Heidi Dillow, Derek Updegraff and Tim Speaker.

Death Becomes Us: The Consumptive Body In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Jennifer Marie Mcmahon

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impacts of nineteenth-century tuberculosis epidemics on gothic literature published between 1842 and 1872. In this period of time, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States and in Europe, killing an estimated one in seven people. Using theoretical lenses of psychoanalysis and material ecocriticism, this project considers borders between material bodies—specifically those between bacterial agents and humans—to be illusory and socially constructed. The first chapter focuses on the ways in which representations of tuberculosis, and its associated entanglement with the environment, appear in the work of two authors from the United States: Edgar …

Queer Bodies Defying Standards, Billy Adams

Audre Lorde Prize

No abstract provided.

Controlling The Narrative: How The United Daughters Of The Confederacy Shaped Collective Memory Through Romance Novels, Karie L. Cobb

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

While existing scholarship on the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) reveals the immense influence the organization wielded in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I assert that their legacy has had a broader and more insidious reach than previously believed. Through close analysis of two foundational romance novelists’ works published during the rapid escalation of the genre’s popularity, I contend that the rhetoric of the UDC shaped generations of Southerners as demonstrated through repetitions and parallels of the Lost Cause ideology found in UDC publications and sponsored materials within romance novels written by white Southern women who came of age …

Monstrous Feminine, Deviant Mother: Tolkien’S Shelob And The Grotesque Maternal, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s menacing character of Shelob embodies the ultimate danger that faces Frodo on his journey to destroy the Ring of Power. Her actions, in combination with the language that Tolkien uses to describe her, invite the reader to view Shelob with revulsion and horror, designating her as Other. However, Shelob is also undeniably a mother, a term laden with social and cultural expectation. This paper explores Shelob as a representation of what Barbara Creed, in her article “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection”, has termed the ‘monstrous-feminine’, examining Shelob’s presentation within the text as not only identified as …

Reading The Rainbow: Exploring Themes And Identities In Lgbtqia+ Picture Books, Amanda Melilli, Alicia G. Vaandering, James W. Rosenzweig

Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation shares an analysis of over 275 picture books featuring LGBTQIA+ identities, providing evidence that the depiction of queerness in children’s literature is complex and varied. Tools for defining narrative themes and LGBTQIA+ identities will be shared as well as data on queer characters with intersecting identities. By exploring the nuances of LGBTQIA+ representation in picture books, attendees will gain a better understanding of novel research inquiries into representation.

Queen's Pride: A Queer Reading Of Star Wars Character Padmé Amidala, Madeleine Loewen

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Ever since Luke Skywalker and Han Solo first appeared onscreen together in 1977, LGBTQ+ Star Wars fans have harnessed the power of queer reading to write themselves back into a galaxy far, far away, despite Lucasfilm’s long-term disapproval of such practices. Nonetheless, there exists little scholarly literature on queerness in the franchise, and even less on the potentially sapphic characters. Queen Padmé Amidala, first introduced onscreen in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, proves a surprising—but no less salient—queer figure in Star Wars. From her intimate relationships with her handmaidens, to her experimentation with gender performativity, to her quiet yet …

Trans Inequity, Intersectional Ritual, And Jewish Tikkun Olam (Healing Of The World), Valerie Estelle Frankel

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

As Jewish science fiction expands into twenty-first-century questions of identity, some authors explore the trans experience and build bridges towards intersectionality. Ritual and tradition become popular subjects. In the post-apocalyptic Fragments of the Brooklyn Talmud by Andrew Ramer, diverse rabbis create new prayers and practices. A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys offers protagonists from a diverse commune who welcome aliens and rise up against the corporations. Bogi Takács’ short story “Three Partitions” questions where to segregate the shapeshifting Adira, and how the Orthodox space colony can change. Several of these stories ask how comfortable Jewish protagonists are with alien rituals …

Towards An Ethos Of Discussing In-Corporeal Gender In Fantasy Literature: Part I—A 'Feminine' Eldil And A 'Masculine' Vala, Luke Shelton

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people engaged with others on social media in ways that they had not before. During this time, many new interpretive communities arose. In one of these conversations, the way that fans interpreted Tolkien’s description of the physical characteristics of the Valar resonated with a passage in C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra (the second book of his Space Trilogy) where the narrator describes the physical manifestation of Perelandra and Malacandra. In this paper I perform a close read of the two passages, to examine the textual meaning, to see what interpretive room there is in …

The Mariner (And His Wife): Rethinking Aldarion's (A)Sexuality, Rory M. Queripel

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

“Aldarion and Erendis” (Unfinished Tales) is a rare example in Tolkien’s work of a marriage gone severely awry. Many readings of the tale apportion blame to Aldarion, who is seen as “unwilling” to make the marriage work, and cruel and unfeeling towards Erendis, who herself is characterised as resentful and unaccepting. However, these readings rely on an assumption of a cisheteronormative and, more importantly, allosexual relationship between the couple. This paper proposes an alternate view of Aldarion and his role in the story, suggesting the possibility that he is asexual and/or aromantic (i.e., he does not experience sexual …

Myth, Murder, And Mayhem: Discerning The ‘Other’ In Our Flag Means Death, Sara Brown

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Although the television series Our Flag Means Death presents on the surface as a romantic comedy, it is enhanced by mythic elements that infuse the narrative with a clear sense of the fantastic. Here, the pirates exist in a Secondary World that openly draws upon the Primary (both in terms of historiography and legend); hence 18th-century piracy and British colonialism can interact seamlessly with human-to-animal-transformations (paying homage to the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone) without seeming either disconcerting or anomalous – all co-exist comfortably in Faerie. OFMD both inverts and deconstructs mythopoeia; the Primary World myths of the Gentleman …

Uncovering Maria Edgeworth’S Strategic Political Influence Through Her Unpublished Letters, Autumn G. Hall

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was one of the most prolific Anglo-Irish novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While Edgeworth’s novels are regularly discussed among Regency-era scholars, researchers have rarely considered her letters and correspondence, especially in relation to her role in contemporary politics. During my time on the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project team, I researched Edgeworth’s previously unpublished letters, which provided a unique view of her strategic political correspondence network. Through her writing, Edgeworth was able to voice her thoughts while also remaining publicly complacent with restrictive societal norms imposed on women. In my article, I argue that through her …

Gen Z Sexual And Gender Fluidity In Us Scripted Television, Traci B. Abbott

English and Media Studies Faculty Publications

This essay addresses the rise in sexual and gender-fluid characters in scripted US television targeting the Gen Z audience (born 1997–2012), based on their moniker as the “queerest” generation, with over 20% of younger US and international respondents identifying as LGBTQ in polls, the majority as sexually fluid (bi/pansexual) or non-binary (genderfluid/genderqueer). By analyzing six series (2019–2023) marketed as “authentically” Gen Z, I argue this shift invests in Gen Z’s “hip” attitude towards such fluidity the same way Caldwell argues that 1990’s diversification of the televisual audience produced a “programming agenda…that cultivates and rewards distinction in ethnic, racial, and class …

Lady Macbeth's Maternity And Morality, Lauren Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways in which adaptations of Lady Macbeth from the seventeenth century to modern day have functioned to vilify or redeem Lady Macbeth based on her connection with her maternity as well as on the contextual, cultural, and political opinions surrounding both a woman’s place in society and the importance of maternity. This thesis examines William D’Avenant’s 1674 stage adaptation of Macbeth, Han Tae-Sook’s 1998 stage adaptation Lady Macbeth, and Lisa Klein’s 2009 novel adaptation Lady Macbeth’s Daughter to capture a range of cultures and the evolution of the character.

All That May Become A Man: Dynamics Of Gender And Violence In Macbeth, Lauren M. Schuster

West Chester University Master’s Theses

The text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is rife with the language of gender crisis, with the titular character and his wife struggling against the repressive nature of patriarchal gender norms. It is this conflict between individual gender expression and societal ideals of gender that underscores the play’s central conflict, with Lady Macbeth’s rejection of typical femininity as an inciting force for the murder of King Duncan and the chaos that follows. In my reading of Macbeth, I focus on the rhetoric of material sex and gender performativity. In doing so, I examine what such rhetoric suggests about the patriarchal structures …

Cultural And Counter-Cultural Contexts In Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club And Cristina GarcíA'S Dreaming In Cuban, Melinda M. Ninewise

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores the cultural and counter-cultural narratives presented in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, examining how these works impact the literary canon and redefine the immigrant experience through a distinctly female lens. Both novels share themes of generational conflict, fragmented identities, and the struggles of communication shaped by cultural and linguistic divides. While these works feature distinct cultural backgrounds, Chinese American and Cuban American respectively, the authors challenge patriarchal norms by privileging female voices and presenting nuanced portrayals of mother-daughter relationships. The analysis highlights shared literary techniques and thematic parallels, including identity …

“Some Vague Utopia”: Searching For Urania, Moira L. Neve

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the global pendulum swing of gender trouble marked by the United States’ President’s declaration that there are only two sexes, activists have been rejecting assimilation (ie. defining equality as gay marriage or queer people in the military) within queer studies long before 2025. In the first half of the 20th century, a journal by the name of Urania (1916-1940), privately published and circulated to their home base in the United Kingdom and beyond, five editors (Esther Roper, Eva Gore-Booth, Jessey Wade, Dorothy Cornish, and Irene Clyde/Thomas Baty), challenged the gender binary and the resulting assumptions of heterosexual marriage. This …

The Sword And The Serpent, Gina Dittmeier

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

This project provides insight into the monstrous bridegroom trope in fairytale and its influence in modern fantasy literature. The monstrous bridegroom trope has several different variations, but all of these variations result in a young and innocent woman marrying a monster. Through my critical essay, I look at this trope through a modern feminist lens, exploring the different variations of the trope in fairy tales, modern fairy tale adaptations, and fantasy literature. The essay brings in modern ideas of toxic masculinity and toxic femininity and applies them to the fairy tale inspiration of fantasy literature. The monstrous bridegroom trope and …

Skin And Bones: Transgenerational Trauma, Experimental Storytelling, And The Texture Of Hope, A Creative Dissertation, Janine Blue

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation theorizes and enacts experimental storytelling as a method for engaging transgenerational trauma, highlighting how form shapes the ways histories are remembered, embodied, and reimagined across generations. Grounded in hope rehearsal as both a theoretical and creative framework, this project examines how BIPOC writers use experimental writing techniques to navigate the afterlives of historical trauma and reclaim storytelling as an act of meaning-making, communal care, and futurity. The dissertation begins with a critical chapter that explores these experimental techniques as strategies for recovery and resistance. The dissertations’ creative chapter, Andre Lyle: Skin and Bones, expands on these ideas …

Intersectionality And The Canon Of Romanticism, Serenah Minasian

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation discusses the origins of the canon and the place it has in British Romanticism studies both past and present. This research begins unpacking what has already been done in this sector of study and takes it steps further by the use of Crenshaw’s “intersectionality” theory. The “Introduction” unpacks past scholarly work and its role in the present studies and how we must move beyond the past. “Chapter I” serves as a historical breakdown of the canon’s role and impact in both literary studies and Romanticism studies in specific. “Chapter II” provides an in depth analysis of two major …

No Hope?: Queer Negativity, Afropessimism, And The Limits Of Futurity, Colton Barton

Theses and Dissertations--English

Since their inceptions, black and queer studies have sought to articulate the positions of “black” and “queer” within American social life—often converging on the goal of liberation. This thesis examines the intersection of two “negative” theoretical frameworks—Afropessimism and anti-social queer theory (or “queer negativity”)—to interrogate both the limits and generative potential of radical negativity. Though emerging from distinct intellectual traditions, these frameworks conceptualize blackness and queerness as constitutive negations—gaps within the dominant social order that render those so marked inassimilable to normative notions of humanity. While the convergences of these theories can be illuminating, their shared pessimism risks obscuring alternative …