English Language and Literature Commons^™

Literary Theories Of Circumcision, A. W. Strouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Literary Theories of Circumcision” investigates a school of thought in which the prepuce, as a conceptual metaphor, organizes literary experience. In every period of English literature, major authors have employed the penis’s hood as a figure for thinking about reading and writing. These authors belong to a tradition that defines textuality as a foreskin and interpretation as circumcision. In “Literary Theories of Circumcision,” I investigate the origins of this literary-theoretical formulation in the writings of Saint Paul, and then I trace this formulation’s formal applications among medieval, early modern, and modernist writers. My study lays the groundwork for an ambitious …

"Enchantment Dissolved": A Reexamination Of The Hymn's Authorship And Significance In The Commonplace Ms. Hannah Swynock, Hannah Bradley

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

“Enchantment Dissolved” is a hymn written by John Newton and a part of the first publication of the Olney Hymns in 1779. However, starting around the year 1803, the hymn was misattributed in multiple publications to William Cowper, the second author of the collection. This article will analyze Cowper’s literary style and consider why the hymn may have been mistaken for his creation. This particular hymn also appears in a 17-18th century commonplace, Hannah Swynock 1687, in the Parker MSS. at the Lilly Rare Book Library at Indiana University. In this hand-written manuscript, the hymn has four additional verses that …

Neues Testament Und Märchen: Tolkien, Fairy Stories, And The Gospel, John Wm. Houghton

Journal of Tolkien Research

J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1943 claim in “On Fairy-stories” that the Christian Gospel is a fairy story which “has entered History and the primary world” stands over against significant (and widely publicized) elements of Liberal Protestant biblical interpretation of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, exemplified in Rudolph Bultmann’s 1941 essay, “New Testament and Mythology.” Tolkien’s position, which seems to have influenced C. S. Lewis and Austin Farrer, owes something to G. K. Chesterton but has yet more direct parallels in Thomas Aquinas and Gregory the Great.

Believing Mary Karr, Stephanie Rae Guedet

Theses and Dissertations

Believing Mary Karr examines how belief, represented in the memoirs of Mary Karr, works in our contemporary moment. This examination is supported by the argument that our identities and the stories we tell about them are always constructions of belief, and that these beliefs are ultimately relational, enacted in the intersubjective relationship between writers and readers of autobiography. This dissertation provides the fields of both rhetoric and life writing studies not only an awareness of how ideas about belief—how beliefs about belief—have already shaped our scholarly imagination but also the possibilities a rhetoric of belief can offer to future conversations …

Religion And Morality In Tolkien's The Hobbit, Sophia Friedman

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Much research has been done on J. R. R. Tolkien's works, but The Hobbit has been overlooked. Because of the time in his life that it was written, this particular novel can give unique insight in the questions of religion in Middle Earth that have been continuously raised. The first half of this essay will seek to answer that question. Though most scholars look for an allegorical representation of the author’s Catholic faith in the novel, it is not there. Instead, Tolkien found spirituality in the process of writing, in creating a believable Secondary World. Rather than trying to convert …

Blade Runner And The Divine Menace, Alexander W. Pickens

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

Following the decline of Christianity in mainstream Western culture, a void rose in the moral and societal code. Those writers that emerged presented alternate visions that worked their way into the literature of the 20th century. Karl Marx's interpretation of the structure of labor in capitalism presented a new societal hierarchy whose finer points have been worked out in the complex film Blade Runner. This dystopian nightmare, in which a Marxist interpretation of current society bogged down by the ennui of capitalist accumulation is confronted, describes a new religious order based upon this economic theory. Central to this reimagining …

Final Project: Ignatian Pedagogy Certificate, Elisabeth R. Bayley

Ignatian Pedagogy Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Root And Neal's "The Surprising Imagination Of C. S. Lewis" (Book Review), James L. Sauer

The Christian Librarian

A review of Root, J. & Neal, M. (2015). The surprising imagination of C. S. Lewis. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 270 pp. $34.99. ISBN 9781426795107

Ignatian Pedagogy Certificate Final Written Project: The Five Domains In Epistolary Form, Alyson Paige Warren

Ignatian Pedagogy Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Four Case Studies In Teaching Sermons At A Public University, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

In this paper, delivered at the March 2017 meeting of the Northeast Modern Language Association, I discuss my experience with teaching sermons at Marshall University, a public institution in Huntington, WV. I have done this in four classes over the past several years: “Good Essays” (a 200-level general-education course in the English Department); “God Talk” (another gen-ed course, team-taught with a faculty member in religious studies); “Sermon: Text and Performance” (a 400-level class in the Honors College); and “The Victorian Spoken Word” (a graduate seminar in English).

The audiences were very different, as were the texts we used (Newman, Spurgeon, …

Catholic Literary Theory: The Conditional Existentialism Of Four Protagonists And Their Creators, Jacob Patrick Pride

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

According to Catholic literary theory, the novelist, like the Divine Mystery to a certain extent, creates her characters freely and free with the possibility and probability that they may speak against their creator and even finally rebel. This dissertation reflects upon the relative infiniteness of four literary authors - Flannery O'Connor, Mary McCarthy, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy. In the three novels and one imaginative memoir considered in particular, these authors create their existentialist protagonists, who in their turn reflect the conditional existentialism of their creators. This dissertation, thus, seeks to resurrect, with modern sensibilities, the pre-renaissance and renaissance commonplace …

[Introduction To] Feeding The Flock: The Foundations Of Mormon Thought: Church And Praxis, Terryl L. Givens

Bookshelf

Feeding the Flock, the second volume of Terryl L. Givens's landmark study of the foundations of Mormon thought and practice, traces the essential contours of Mormon practice as it developed from Joseph Smith to the present. Despite the stigmatizing fascination with its social innovations (polygamy, communalism), its stark supernaturalism (angels, gold plates, and seer stones), and its most esoteric aspects (a New World Garden of Eden, sacred undergarments), as well as its long-standing outlier status among American Protestants, Givens reminds us that Mormonism remains the most enduring-and thriving-product of the nineteenth-century's religious upheavals and innovations. Because Mormonism is founded …

Leonard Cohen's New Jews: A Consideration Of Western Mysticisms In Beautiful Losers, Alexander Lombardo

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the influence of various Western mystical traditions on Leonard Cohen’s second novel, Beautiful Losers. It begins with a discussion of Cohen’s public remarks concerning religion and mysticism followed by an assessment of twentieth century Canadian criticism on Beautiful Losers. Three thematic chapters comprise the majority of the study, each concerning a different mystical tradition—Kabbalism, Gnosticism, and Christian mysticism, respectively. The author considers Beautiful Losers in relation to these systems, concluding that the novel effectively depicts the pursuit of God, or knowledge, through mystic practice and doctrine. This study will interest scholars seeking a careful exploration …

(Re)Mediating The Spirit: Evangelical Christian Young Adult Media, Tamara Watkins

Theses and Dissertations

"We are in the world, but not of the world," a maxim frequently spoken in evangelical Christian culture, provides insight into how these individuals view their relationship with secular culture. They presume to share the same temporal plane with secular culture, but do not participate in it. In this dissertation, I explore whether the division between evangelical Christian culture and secular culture is as clear as this aphorism implies. To facilitate this investigation, I examine media Christian content creators created for an American evangelical Christian young adult audience in the early twenty-first century, specifically focusing on novel-length fiction, comics and …

Imagination As A Response To Naturalism: C.S. Lewis’S The Chronicles Of Narnia In Light Of The Anscombe Affair, Allison P. Reichenbach

Senior Honors Theses

In this paper I suggest The Chronicles of Narnia were occasioned by Elizabeth Anscombe’s critique of chapter three of Miracles. Instead of a retreat from debate, The Chronicles show that the Supernatural is not something to be contemplated, but instead experienced. In the stories, the children’s dominant naturalism and ignorance of Supernaturalism personally encounter the highest Supernatural being. When transitioning from Miracles to The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis’s writing altered from operating under the Argument from Reason to the experience of imagination in order for the reader to personally experience – not contemplate – Supernaturalism. Fairytale, romance, and …

Religion In Sense And Sensibility, Erin R. Toal

The Kabod

Jane Austen’s first major novel that was published, Sense and Sensibility, exemplifies the shifting perspectives in religion during the Georgian period by exploring the virtues of its title through the lenses of the Anglicanism of Georgian England. This paper argues that Sense and Sensibility reflects Jane Austen’s worldview and identifies how it stems from the Neoclassical and Romantic fusion present in her religious belief.

The Nature Of God: Perceptions Of God With Exposure To Nature And Natural Events, Holly Ann Kolberg

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research studies have shown that the sense of awe evoked by natural settings may be associated with transcendental thinking about God. Similarly, other researchers have suggested that people attribute events to God when they cannot develop a sufficient naturalistic explanation for a phenomenon. People appear to prefer attributing events to a benevolent God but will modify their beliefs to assume that God is punitive if event outcomes do not appear to favor their well-being or religious attributions do not accommodate a situation. In the current study, the goal was to evaluate how exposure to photographs of different environments influenced beliefs …

Sounding Sacred: The Adoption Of Biblical Archaisms In The Book Of Mormon And Other 19th Century Texts, Gregory A. Bowen

Open Access Dissertations

The Book of Mormon is a text published in 1830 and considered a sacred work of scripture by adherents of the Latter-day Saint movement. Although written 200 years later, it exhibits many linguistic features of the King James translation of the Bible. Such stylistic imitation has been little studied, though a notable exception is Sigelman & Jacoby (1996).

Three hypotheses are considered: that this is a feature of 19th century religious texts, and the Book of Mormon adopts the style of its genre as a religious text; that this is a feature of translations of ancient texts, and the Book …

Verdens Undergang (1916) And The Birth Of Apocalyptic Film: Antecedents And Causative Forces, Wynn Gerald Hamonic

Journal of Religion & Film

This essay describes the antecedents and causative forces giving rise to the birth of apocalyptic cinema in the early 20th Century and the first apocalyptic feature, Verdens Undergang (1916). Apocalyptic cinema's roots can be traced back to apocalyptic literary tradition beginning 200 BCE, New Testament apocalyptic writings, the rise of premillenialism in the mid-19th Century, 19th century apocalyptic fiction, a growing distrust in human self-determination, escalating wars and tragedies from 1880 to 1912 reaching a larger audience through a burgeoning press, horrors and disillusionment caused by the First World War, a growing belief in a dystopian future, and changes in …

Dialogic Faiths: Multi-Genre Expression In Religious Narrative, Rosemary L. Demos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As persuasive or expository texts, religious conversion narratives tend towards monologic language, and texts that advocate one particular creed or institution often reflect the unity of faith through linguistically totalizing methods. This study, however, examines the dialogic interactions found in certain religious narratives. The texts included in this analysis recount unusual conversion outcomes: not to formally established church institutions, but rather to a heightened religious experience and in some cases a call to leadership in establishing new social orders. In these texts, the dynamic between personal and communal religious experience is tense, sometimes precarious; the difficulties of engaging in social …

1972, Feb 01 - Cleveland County Native Historical Group Topic, Shelby Daily Star

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

1984, May 29 - Dixon Story Has A Publisher, Shelby Star

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

1993, July 04 - Dixon Daughters Blazed A Trail, Shelby Star

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

1994, Oct 15 - Shelby's Departed Still Have Stories To Tell, Charlotte Observer

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

2000, Nov 27 - The Preaching Dixons, Shelby Star

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

Undated - Dixon Admirer, Shelby Daily Star

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

Undated - Thomas Dixon Met Destiny, Unknown Author

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

Undated - Thomas Dixon Story Would Make Great Movie, Charlotte Observer

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

1967, Jan 03 - Dr. Zeb Wright Brilliantly Probes Mind Of Cleveland's Thomas Dixon, Unknown Author

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.

1968, Dec 03 - Dixon Bio Published, Cleveland Times

Series 7. News Clippings, 1902 – 2000, and undated

No abstract provided.