English Language and Literature Commons^™

December 9, 2013: Kazoo Books Author Day, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Biracial Identity In Texts Read By Secondary Education Students, Jared Madden

Honors Theses

This thesis sought to examine how biracial identity is portrayed in the literature read by students in secondary education. Unfortunately, the findings indicated that biracialism is not being adequately portrayed in this literature. Students rarely encounter biracial characters, when they do these characters are usually peripheral, and sometimes the biracialism of these characters is presented as an obstacle to be overcome. Furthermore, teachers (at least in this researcher’s local area) seem to be extremely apathetic towards even discussing this issue. The impact which all of this can have on secondary students with a biracial background is discussed. However, there are …

God Only Knows: Family In The Films Of Paul Thomas Anderson, Jordan Rossio

Honors Theses

This project looks at the theme of surrogate families in the first three films of director Paul Thomas Anderson, and shows how these films share a common theme. That theme is how these surrogate families that we create can often become more important and powerful than the families into which we are born. The research is drawn from mostly primary sources. These include magazine, newspaper, and television interviews with the director as well as the audio commentaries and behind the scenes documentaries that are featured on the DVDs of the films. The conclusion of this project found how this theme …

Identity And Gender Constructs In "Written On The Body", Paige Van De Winkle

Honors Theses

In Jeanette Winterson's novel Written on the Body, the ungendered narrator leads the reader through his/her love story with Louise. At moments, the narrator appears to reveal his/her gender, but these moments only reveal the reader's own assumptions about gender and identity which prove to be social constructions, and inconclusive evidence about the narator's gender. The novel shows that gender is not an inherent part of identity, and emphasizes themes that are universal and more important than gender differences, such as biology and the body. The body proves to be beautiful and universal, and gender is an insignificant part …

Civility And Gower's "Visio Anglie", Lynn Arner

Accessus

Deploying conventions from medieval courtesy manuals, Gower’s Visio Anglie assigned varied degrees of authority to Englishmen and women at the bodily level, a system of signification in which food, physical appearances, and overall comportment were key elements. Echoing courtesy manuals, the Visio constructed corporal marks of distinction, interpreted physical signifiers as indices of people’s inner character and value, and classified bodies into social groups accordingly. Offering understandings of civility that began with codes of bodily conduct and that expanded to claims about the cosmos, the Visio’s corporal regulatory system promoted particular understandings of citizenship and governance that sought to …

The Trentham Manuscript As Broken Prosthesis: Wholeness And Disability In Lancastrian England, Candace Barrington

Accessus

Gower’s Trentham manuscript allows us to think about pre-modern disabilities in three ways. First, because it encourages Henry IV to restore the body politic disabled by Richard II, we can see the manuscript as presenting itself as a prosthesis able to compensate, even cure, Henry’s illegitimate claims to the throne. Here, disability is a condition that needs to be eradicated at best, repaired at least.

Second, because the Trentham manuscript reports Gower’s blindness, we can examine how it registers that disability. As “Henrici quarti primus” makes clear, Gower’s disability allows him to assert his own legitimacy as king’s advisor. Here, …

Blindness, Confession, And Re-Membering In Gower's Confessio, Tory Vandeventer Pearman

Accessus

Much scholarship on Gower’s Confessio Amantis has focused on the poem’s assertion that poetic narration, represented by Amans’ ongoing confession, has the ability to restore the fragmentary natures of social and spiritual bodies. Surprisingly, the role that the (dis)abled body plays in the poem’s struggle with fragmentation and integration has been ignored. By focusing on the poem’s representation of blindness in the tales of Medusa and Constance, I will demonstrate that the formal structure and thematic explorations of the Confessio, in fact, rely upon the (dis)abled body and its inextricable relationship to narration. Indeed, it is Amans’ disabling illness …

Blind Advocacy: Blind Readers, Disability Theory, And Accessing John Gower, Jonathan Hsy

Accessus

Toward the end of his life, medieval poet John Gower (d. 1408) composed Latin poetry about his own progressive blindness, and later nineteenth-century Blind readers appropriated Gower’s work as part of a platform to advocate for changed perceptions and opportunities for the blind and other people with disabilities. In this essay, I approach nineteenth-century narrative compilations of blind lives (which include Gower’s) as transformative acts of literary historiography. These compilers not only appropriate the medieval blind poet to advance their own social and political ends, but they also create a new disability-centered approach to the entire Western artistic tradition. I …

Introduction, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

This Introduction by co-editors Georgiana Donavin and Eve Salisbury celebrates the publication of the first issue of Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media, a biannual publication of The Gower Project. The Introduction provides a short history of The Gower Project and explains the scope of Accessus: an e-journal dedicated to articles composed in electronic formats on Western European literature written before 1660. This first issue is dedicated to scholarship on the fourteenth-century English poet John Gower, who inspired the Project and this journal. For a decade The Gower Project has supported exciting new interpretations of …

The Role Of El Cid In Medieval Spanish Culture And Epic Literature, Emily Chaney

Honors Theses

This research looks at the medieval Spanish epic poem, the Poema de Mio Cid, and how it reflects the world of Spanish culture and literature, its place in the landscape of epic poetry on the European continent, and the noble virtues of the hero, el Cid. The Poema is an anonymous cantar de gesta, or "song of heroic deeds," likely composed around the early thirteenth century by a person (or persons) very familiar with Castilian noble society and law in effect during the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, as well as the area of northern Spain around …

December 1, 2013: Bay Psalm Book Auctioned For $14.2 Million, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Old English Ecologies: Environmental Readings Of Anglo-Saxon Texts And Culture, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Dissertations

Conventionally, scholars have viewed representations of the natural world in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature as peripheral, static, or largely symbolic: a “backdrop” before which the events of human and divine history unfold. In “Old English Ecologies,” I apply the relatively new critical perspectives of ecocriticism and placebased study to the Anglo-Saxon canon to reveal the depth and changeability in these literary landscapes. Overall, this interdisciplinary study of Anglo-Saxon texts brings together literary and environmental sources and modes of inquiry to explore the place of humans (and non-humans) within the natural environments of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as the ways in …

November 12, 2013: New Issue Of Comparative Drama, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 27, 2013: Sss Comparative Drama Distinguished Lecture: Loren Kruger (U Chicago), Thurs., Nov. 7@7:00pm, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

October 26, 2013: New C19 Journal Solicits Material, Department Of English

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October 21, 2013: University Theater Production Of Pride & Prejudice Opens 10/24, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

October 18, 2013: Austen Film Festival Covered In Western Herald // Also: Note Corrected Room!, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

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October 17, 2013: Gottlieb Lecture & Reception~10/15/13, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 25, 2013: Fellowship Opportunity, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 14, 2013: English 4100, Spring 2014: Holy Road Trips, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

October 10, 2013: Pride And Prejudice Film Festival Finalized: 10/17 - 10/23, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

October 7, 2013: Robert Hayden: A Centennial Conference, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

October 6, 2013: Wmu Students: Sign Up For Engl 4100: Holy Road Trips, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 3, 2013: Evan Gottlieb Lecture Opens Scholarly Speakers Series For 2013-14, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 2, 2013: Rob Bixby/March Street Press Reading, Saturday, Oct. 5, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 1, 2013: Paint, By Grace Tiffany, Issued By Bagwyn Books, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

September 24, 2013: Austen Film Fest - Preliminary Lineup, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

September 22, 2013: Sss Fall Party Welcomes Department Grads, Department Of English

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No abstract provided.

September 10, 2013: Interdisciplinary Work Group In Digital Humanities, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

September 9, 2013: Gwst/Women's Caucus Fall Reception, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.