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 …

"The Engine Of Free Expression": The Political Economy Of Copyright In The Colonial British Atlantic And Early National United States, Nora Slonimsky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1985, the Supreme Court of the United States concluded that copyright was included in the Constitution in order to serve as the “engine of free expression.” By providing economic incentive to drive artistic and scientific innovation, the nation received essential information and other tools of learning necessary to make sound political decisions. However, transnational copyright disputes, then and now, frequently resulted in complex and often contradictory understandings of free expression. The formation of copyright in America was thus a far more complex story, and it is that story that forms the basis of this project.

Amidst the many moving …

The Second Pen, Nicholas D. Brennan

Theses and Dissertations

"The Second Pen" evaluates the historical relevancy of prevalent monikers for William Shakespeare-- namely, "The Bard," "Swan of Avon," and "Upstart Crow." While Brennan finds the general concept of the moniker to encapsulate Shakespeare's current historical legacy, he equally finds the aforementioned monikers to misrepresent this. Brennan offers "The Second Pen" as a moniker for Shakespeare that redresses the distortions of the others. He concentrates his defense of its relevancy around a defense of William Shakespeare as the "second pen" which Ben Jonson's 1605 Sejanus quarto names as a collaborator in the writing of a preceding stage version of the …

Dalgish Studies, Teaches The Complexities Of Languages., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

“I tell my students that if they want to see the world, they might consider studying linguistics, because that is how I got my start,” says Dr. Gerard Dalgish, a professor of English at Baruch College. “I went to many different countries, and if you have that sort of background, you can live for a while working part-time or something like that if you like the particular place you’re visiting.”

These compelling words come from someone who has specialized in teaching English as a second language or ESL, as it is also known.

The Representation Of Fatherhood As A Declaration Of Humanity In Nineteenth-Century Slave Narratives, Andrea A. Dhanraj

Theses and Dissertations

While motherhood in slave narratives is widely discussed, black fatherhood is often overlooked. As is the case for enslaved mothers, fatherhood for enslaved men entailed its own unique challenges and needs. Enslaved men are both hyper-masculinized and put into positions of traditionally “feminine” subservience, where their ability to carry out their roles of provider and protector are hampered. For black fathers in slave narratives, fatherhood is a choice that is independent of social obligation or legal bonds, whereas white fathers within these texts shirk their emotional and social responsibilities to their families and are fathers in name and not much …

The Sounds Of Silence; Or, Isabella’S Counter Discourse In Measure For Measure, Gina Vivona

Theses and Dissertations

This argument reshapes the thinking about masculine dominance in Measure for Measure, and considers the patriarchy as a series of socially constructed, hence artificial, rules and regulations. It also explores how Isabella’s discourse and celibacy empower her to defy the constraints of early modern paradigms and achieve individual freedom.

William Hazlitt: On The Silencing Effect Of Public Opinion In Nineteenth-Century England, J M Tessa Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

“William Hazlitt: On the Silencing Effect of Public Opinion in Nineteenth-Century England” investigates the social interactions that fostered the circulation of misinformation. Hazlitt depicts how silencing portions of the population benefited those in power and how many within society were unknowingly compliant and in fact facilitating this manipulation of information.

“Without Stopping To Write A Long Apology”: Spectacle, Anecdote, And Curated Identity In Running A Thousand Miles For Freedom, Anjelica La Furno

Theses and Dissertations

Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom unapologetically challenges traditional nineteenth-century notions of race and gender by way of its treatment of spectacle, anecdotal use, and assertion of authorial choices that contradict the expectations of a white abolitionist audience. Its most challenging feature is what I will call Ellen’s “curated identity.”

Dogs, Cats, And A Lambkin: Speechlessness And The Animal In Ulysses, Pierce R. Watson

Theses and Dissertations

This essay explores the status of the animal and the consequences of animal speechlessness in Ulysses, mainly focusing on encounters with dogs and cats. Through these animal encounters, Joyce provides a foundation for understanding the complications faced by the Bloom family in grieving their deceased infant son.

Hentzi Looks At Literature And Its Circumstances., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

English is a well-known subject, but what most

people don’t know is that English scholars do a lot

of different things. One of these scholars is Dr. Gary

Hentzi, whose interest in culture dates from a very

early age. “I guess I always knew that I was interested

in the arts and culture. I started out more interested in

music than anything else, but it quickly branched out

into an interest in literature,” he says.

As a young professor, he specialized in one of the

founders of the novel as a literary genre in the early

18th century: Daniel Defoe. …

Toward The Eco-Narrative: Rethinking The Role Of Conflict In Storytelling, Corinne Donly

Publications and Research

Offered as a response to the increasingly popular call within the eco-humanities for stories that will help humankind adapt to catastrophic planetary conditions, this article proposes “the eco-narrative”—an approach to storytelling that strives to compose with, not for, its nonhuman characters. An extension of eco-critical projects that analyze stories for their depictions of nonhumanity, the theoretical research herein brings ecological analysis of narrative to the level of structure. In particular, it problematizes the dominant plot model of conflict/climax/resolution, suggesting that stories motivated by conflict reinforce dualistic and anthropocentric habits for approaching the animal other. Evaluating two narratives concerning the human …

Allan Explores African Literature And Its Impact On The U.S., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Although for decades now we have become familiar with the vibrancy and impact of African-American literature in this country, little is publicly mentioned about its roots.

Someone who has researched and taught both African and African-American literature is Dr. Tuzyline Allan. A native of Sierra Leone in West Africa, she has been around, academically speaking. Allan obtained her bachelor’s degree in English from Durham University in England, a master’s degree in English from New York University (NYU), and a doctorate in English from Stony Brook University in New York. Today she is a professor in the Department of English in …

The Emergence Of Psychology And The Creation Of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: An Examination Of Innovation And Narration, Rachel Viliusis

Student Theses and Dissertations

Mary Shelley developed and wrote Frankenstein (1818) amidst the rich intellectual and scientific developments of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century. Shelley’s understanding of developing intellectual theory is clearly influential to her novel—thematically reflected in the scientific innovation of her characters, as well as formally reproduced in her choice of narrative structure. In my study, I focus specifically on the newly-developing field of psychology, as its inquiry into the complex relationship between mind, body, and human consciousness is directly related to the novel, and to Shelley’s scientific and literary interests. Shelley was not only immersed in conversations about the developing …

Reframing Readiness: Through The Cracked Looking Glass: The Framework For Success In Postsecondary Writing As Assessment Model, David Hyman

Publications and Research

The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, and National Writing Project) describes experiences and habits of mind that will equip students for success in college writing. This column highlights examples of the values espoused by the Framework and aims to increase understanding of this statement, advocating for its rich conception of writing.

Mcglynn Studies, Teaches Different Forms Of The English Language., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Although English is spoken around the world and is considered the main means of communication in commerce, science, and many other fields, the language has humble origins and a complicated story.

With roots in the southern part of England, drawing from French, German, and Scandinavian languages, English began to spread around the world as the British began colonizing. First it was Wales, then Scotland, Ireland, Australia, the United States, South Africa, India, and elsewhere around the globe.

Essay Check-List, Florence M. Homolka

Open Educational Resources

This simple essay check-list encourages students to evaluate their own work before handing a paper in. The worksheeet also serves as a reminder for what needs to be included.

The Fantastic Manifesto: Monstrosity Of Memory And Epiphany Of Selfhood In The Spirit Of The Beehive (1973), Layla Blodgett Carrillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish culture of storytelling suffered under the nearly forty-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The government-regulated cinema welcomed propaganda and melodrama, and denied the fantastic, the legendary, and the magical. These carefully manipulated histories, which served to romanticize the ideologies of the regime, also served to eulogize the delinquent and the depraved. In the early 1970s, at the heels of the collapse of Franco’s reign, the people of Spain bore witness to a new national cinema. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), the feature debut from Victor Erice, exists at the threshold between a storied history of Spanish dictatorship and …

Intelligent Bodies And Embodied Minds: Reading Religious Performance In Middle English Writing From Syon Abbey, Nicholas Love, William Langland, And John Gower, Paul Holchak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues for a new reading of the relationship that texts have to performance, bodies have to agency, and that social construction has to literary criticism as these matters relate to the study of religious practice in late medieval England. The project first asks what it meant to participate in religious practice in two, early fifteenth-century Middle English prose texts, The Myroure of Oure Ladye and The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. The former work is a gloss of the Divine Service performed by the Brigittine sisters at Syon Abbey, and the latter consists of …

Ecologies Of The Passions In Early Modern English Tragedies, Roya Biggie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ecologies of the Passions recovers a neglected model for understanding early modern relationality, one that turns the seemingly inward experience of emotion outward toward the environment. Drawing on early modern medical texts, I argue that the period’s dramatists imagine bodies as humorally vulnerable to other bodies, both human and nonhuman, within dynamically affective environments. As such, my project illustrates the intimate configurations of human and nonhuman life in early modern tragedies. Building upon recent work in the emerging fields of ecocriticism and affect theory, I argue that the period’s dramatic literature exposes the porous fluidity of the Galenic body—its embeddedness …

The Short Story And The Photographic: Twentieth-Century Imagetexts In And Of The Americas, Lucienne Muller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the visuality of the short story from an intermedial point of view, that is, with a focus on the relationship between the short story and the photographic visual. This analysis draws from photographic theory and from the writings of photographer and writer Julio Cortazar whose philosophy puts forward the idea of a reader who becomes the inventive co-creator of the fictional work.

Brenkman Explains The Art Behind Writing Novels., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

J.R.R. Tolkien, the famous author of The Lord of the Rings, once said that “Not all those who wander are lost,” and there are many examples of university professors who have tried different elds and have been able to shine in more than one of them.

That is the case with Dr. John Brenkman. Al- though he is an expert on novels, he began his career in a different eld. “I probably had more emphasis on poetry and philosophy than I did on the novel,” says this native of Peoria, Illinois. “Then, sometime in the mid to late 80’s, I …

Arnold Whitridge: Scholar And Veteran Of Two Armies And Two Wars, Keith J. Muchowski

Publications and Research

This is an invited blog post written for Roads to the Great War, a site dedicated to the study of the First World War edited by historian Mike Hanlon. The article discusses the life and career of Arnold Whitridge, a soldier, scholar and grandson of British poet Matthew Arnold.

This is the url:

http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/2017/01/arnold-whitridge-scholar-and-veteran-of.html

Victorian Dogs, Victorian Men: Affect And Animals In Nineteenth-Century Literature And Culture, Keridiana Chez

Publications and Research

Victorian Dogs, Victorian Men: Affect and Animals in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture by Keridiana W. Chez is the first monograph located at the intersection of animal and affect studies to examine how gender is produced via the regulation of interspecies relationships. Looking specifically at the development of the human-dog relationship, Chez argues that the bourgeoisie fostered connections with canine companions in order to mediate and regulate gender dynamics in the family. As Chez shows, the aim of these new practices was not to use animals as surrogates to fill emotional vacancies but rather to incorporate them as “emotional prostheses.”

Chez …

English In A Multilingual Algeria, Kamal Belmihoub

Publications and Research

The presence of English in the former French colony of Algeria has been dramatically increasing. The impact of the language in Algeria has fluctuated due to sociopolitical instability in the late 1980s and 1990s. Prior to describing the impact of English, some general background about the country is provided, along with a brief historical overview of the linguistic diversity. Historical highlights of the spread of English in Algeria are also described. A profile of the users of English in the Maghreb nation is detailed as well, before discussing the various uses of English in various domains. The competition between English …

Gathering Sense From Song: Robert Browning And The Romantic Epistemology Of Music, Laura Clarke

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Disability Poetry: An Exploration In Three Parts, Daniel Sarmiento

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Noble Art Of Lying, James E. Mahon

Publications and Research

In this chapter I examine the writings of Mark Twain on lying, especially his essays "On the decay of the Art of Lying" and "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It." I show that Twain held that there were two kinds of lies: the spoken lie and the silent lie. The silent lie is the lie of not saying what one is thinking, and is far more common than the spoken lie. The greatest silent lies, according to Twain, were the national silent lies that there was nothing wrong with slavery (the U.S.), that there was nothing …

Lyric X-Marks: Genre And Self-Determination In The Harp Poems Of John Rollin Ridge, R. Arvo Carr

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Italian American Masculinities, Fred L. Gardaphé

Publications and Research

The Italian American man is the result of the interaction of centuries of Italianate masculinities coming into contact with the variety of masculinities that have come to make up the American man. The results of these encounters are more varied and complex than the stereotypical art and media representations of the Latin lover, the brutish bully, and the flashy gangster that have dominated American culture since the early 1920s. Over the years, theories of masculinity have all fallen short of describing the plurality of possiblities of Italian American masculinity, and in fact provide us with nothing more than categories that …

Queen Alice And The Monstrous Child: Alice Through The Looking Glass, Veronica Schanoes

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.