English Language and Literature Commons^™

Expanding The Literary Enterprise: How We Experience The Texts Of The Advanced Placement English Literature And Composition Curriculum, Molly Ostrow

Honors Theses

How we read the texts of the Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition curriculum.

Writing The Nation, Amy Berke, Robert R. Bleil, Jordan Cofer, Doug Davis

OER Main

A concise introduction to American Literature from 1865 to present. The book is broken into chapters based on time period and writing style from Late Romanticism to recent post-modernism.

Treasure Hunt Without A Map: Archival Research At The University Of Pennsylvania, Meghan Strong

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

Under the supervision of Meredith Goldsmith in the English Department, I spent this semester developing archival research projects for lower level students in the humanities. My project corresponded with the aims of the Council for Undergraduate Research, which works to develop undergraduate research skills throughout the disciplines. The Kislak Center is a nearby resource that has the potential to provide students with opportunities to develop crucial research skills while discovering little pieces of history that are hidden away in the archives. The final exercises presented here focus on the subjects of Walt Whitman, Marian Anderson, and Michel de Montaigne.

Dark Journeys: Robert Frost's Dantean Inspiration, Elena Segarra

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the way in which Robert Frost incorporates Dantean ideas and imagery into his poetry, particularly in relation to the pursuit of reason and truth. Similarly to Dante, Frost portrays human reason as limited. Both authors nevertheless present truth as a desire that often drives people’s journey through life. Frost differs from Dante by dwelling in apparent contradictions rather than appealing to a clarifying divine light. The paper considers themes of loss, human labor, suffering, and justice, and it also analyzes Scriptural and Platonic inspirations. It focuses on the image of the journey used by both Frost and …

Vergilian Allusions In The Novels Of Willa Cather, Nathaniel Wagner

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This work aims to explore the nature of Vergilian allusion in the novels of Willa Cather - how the author implicated classical language in her own texts as well as the purpose and efficacy of such allusions. By surveying traces of Vergilian passages and rhetorical techniques such as ecphrasis and anacolouthon across three of the writer's major novels, My Antonia, The Professor's House and Shadows on the Rock, this study reveals an important and persistent aspect of Cather's artistic program. The author intentionally and regularly uses Vergilian language and figures to lend a sense of grandeur to the small, individual …

Recontextualizing Pudd'nhead: Minstrelsy, Race, And The Performance Of Progress, Collin A. Skeen

Theses and Dissertations--English

This thesis examines how Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson does much more than simply bridge the recurring racial and cultural behaviors of the antebellum South with the reality of late-19^th century America; instead, I argue that Twain’s novella acts as a performative text, participating in a dialogue with a number of cultural forces—literature, theatre, politics, and commercialism—as a way of commenting on popular conceptualizations of late-nineteenth century social progress. Using the critical perspective of Performance Studies, it is clear that Twain’s novel is demonstrating how nineteenth century America used certain sets of symbols and signs to perform race, ultimately critiquing the …

Partial Minds: The Strategic Underrepresentation Of Consciousness In Postwar American Novels, Nathan A. Shank

Theses and Dissertations--English

Partial Minds argues that contemporary American novels strategically break conventionally-defined norms for the representation of fictional minds to highlight unusual character thoughts. Certain states of mind—including traumatic experiences, conflicting feelings, some memories, and the simultaneous possession of multiple identities—are more difficult to represent than others, and so some authors or narrators reject conventional cognitive representations, such as naming feelings, if they seem poor tools for effectively communicating that character’s exceptional quality to the reader. For example, the trauma of Marianne in Joyce Carol Oates’s We Were the Mulvaneys is represented by the narrator, her brother Judd. But in attempting to …

Dear Zelda, Nicole Trackman

The Great Gatsby Unit

This talk-show activity is best done after students have read through chapter seven in The Great Gatsby. Students will be asked to write a “Dear Zelda” letter- seeking advice for a problem that has come to light in their (the character’s) life. Perhaps Tom would like some marital advice, Wilson may need to learn about the grieving process, Myrtle may ask how she could have communicated with Wilson more productively – and thus avoided her untimely death. It is up to the students to decide what their character needs help with. Students will take the stage and talk out their …

Male Development In Young Adult Novels: Mapping The Intersections Between Masculinity, Fatal Illness, Male Queerness, And Brotherhood, Ruth Nelson

Departmental Honors Projects

Since 2000, Young Adult (YA) literature has grown exponentially. The subgenres of cancer novels (teen “sick-lit”) and LGBTQ fiction, in particular, have experienced a recent surge in popularity. The novels in these subgenres that feature young men as the affected characters (diagnosed with cancer and/or identifying as gay or queer) are particularly interesting because of the threats that these experiences pose to heteronormative masculinity. Because this fiction is directed at an impressionable audience in the process of forming their identities, the novels’ representations of gender could have a strong influence over readers’ gender identity development. Researchers have begun exploring the …

Pecan Grove Review Volume 16, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

Creative writings by students, faculty, and staff of the St. Mary's University community.

Doubling And Multiplying The Self/Story In Catherynne M. Valente's The Ice Puzzle: Readers, Writers, And The Best Of All Girls, Veronica Schanoes

Publications and Research

Is there a difference between the doubled self and the multiplied self? Using Kelly Link’s “The Girl Detective,” a revision of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” and Catherynne M. Valente’s online novel The Ice Puzzle, a revision of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” I suggest that the joy taken in the multiplied self in these texts reflects the nontraditional approaches to publishing and their readers that these authors have taken.

Voices In Crisis: An Exploration Of Masculine Identity In Modernist Narratives, Amy Cannistraro

Scripps Senior Theses

The period following World War I can be characterized in literature by the trauma and changes that promoted crises of masculinity. These crises, however, are not discussed between the men that suffer similar feelings of insecurity and anxiety; not approached as a tension in need of resolution. Exploring the narrative voices of Nick, Jake, Darl and Anse in The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and As I Lay Dying, this thesis addresses the ways in which this unspoken phenomenon is essential to the modernist male narrative. I propose that, despite the widespread nature of this phenomenon, …

Hamlet #Princeofdenmark: Exploring Gender And Technology Through A Contemporary Feminist Re-Interpretation Of Hamlet, Allegra B. Breedlove

Scripps Senior Theses

Exploring the process of designing, producing, directing and starring in a multimedia feminist re-interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in a contemporary social media landscape.

Jp's Thesis, Jp Kemmick

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Marianne Dashwood: A Categorization Of Language Into Principles Of Sense And Sensibility, Ashley Bonin

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

No abstract provided.

The Woman Warrior: The Silent Creation Of A Third Space, Hayley Struzik

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

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Trauma: A Look At Sherman Alexie's Child Characters, Kiersten Sargent

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

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Douglas Higbee

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

No abstract provided.

Contents, Douglas Higbee

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

No abstract provided.

Git Vs Ge: The Importance Of The Dual Pronoun In Beowulf, Kenneth R. Sikora Iii

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

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Douglas Higbee

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

No abstract provided.

Feminism And The Force Of Institutions In Twenty-First Century Dystopian Novels, Stephanie Roman

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 17 Fall 2015

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

No abstract provided.

The Bioscience-Industrial Complex, Radical Materialist Aesthetics, And Interspecies Political Ecologies: The Unforeseen Posthuman Future In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein And Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam Trilogy, Sarah Sydney Lane

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project traces how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy, science fiction novels from the Romantic and contemporary literary periods respectively, contest the problematic relationships between subjecthood, science, ecological health, and patriarchal, capitalist societies by crafting radical materialist alternatives to such a system and its dualistic and destructive interpersonal/interspecies relations. Through the theoretical framework of ecofeminism that recognizes the conceptual linkages between women and nature in Western systems of thought, as well as psychoanalytical feminist critiques of the masculinization of scientific epistemology, this project examines the developmental and ontological overlaps between literary “masculine” and “scientific” subjects socialized under …

Unexpected Zeus, Adam Lambert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Melville's Mardi And The Book Of Mormon, Giordano Lahaderne

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

While Melville’s Mardi has long remained a puzzle to both readers and critics, scholars agree that his third novel marked a significant turning point in his writing career. It is with Mardi that Meville realized the novel as a form suited to grapple the various philosophical and religious questions he would famously explore in his following book, Moby Dick. Although scholars have already pinpointed many various sources for Mardi, this thesis examines the heretofore overlooked connections between Melville’s third book and the esoteric volume of American scripture, the Book of Mormon.

The first chapter of this thesis examines …

Completeless Show, Kathleen Raymond-Judy 15

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

The Collected Poems Of Gavin Turnbull Online, Patrick G. Scott, John Knox, Rachel Mann

Digital Projects

The Collected Poems of Gavin Turnbull contains 89 individual poems and songs, organized according to the date of their first publication. The poems are grouped into one of four sections, following the sequence of the books, manuscript, or periodicals in which they are first found. Turnbull's two prose prefaces (1788, 1794) and his short play The Recruit (also 1794) are included, but placed last, after the poems, as Appendices.

A list of the individual poems and songs in each section and links to the texts are available in the gray drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the screen. With …

"Dollars Damn Me": Editorial Politics And Herman Melville's Periodical Fiction, Timothy R. Morris

Theses and Dissertations

To illustrate Melville’s navigation of editorial politics in the periodical marketplace, this study analyzes two stories Melville published in Putnam’s in order to reconstruct the particular historical, editorial, social, and political contexts of these writings. The first text examined in this study is “Bartleby,” published in Putnam’s in November and December of 1853. This reading recovers overtures of sociability and indexes formal appropriations of established popular genres in order to develop an interpretive framework. Throughout this analysis, an examination of the narrator’s ideological bearings in relation to the unsystematic implementation of these ideologies in American public life sets forth a …

Collecting To The Core: American Crime Fiction, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Overview of key secondary works analyzing American crime fiction: general works, works dealing with specific periods, works dealing with crime fiction by women and African Americans.