English Language and Literature Commons^™

October 19, 2014: Rare Book School Fellowship, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 9, 2014: Patrick Brantlinger Visit, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

October 8, 2014: Anthony Ellis Speakers Series /Full Season Poster 2014/2015, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

September 29, 2014: Steam Working Group, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

September 17, 2014: New Issues Poet Khaled Mattawa Named 2014 Macarthur Fellow, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

August 31, 2014: 2015 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference (Newberry Library, Chicago/Deadline: Oct.15), Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

July 15, 2014: 2015-16 Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

June 5, 2014: Anthony Ellis Scholarly Speakers Series, 2014-2015, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Battling The Separate Spheres: New Woman Writers And British Women Writers Of World War I, Christine Haskill

Dissertations

In “Battling the Separate Spheres,” I argue that New Woman writers’ interventions into gender discourse at the end of the nineteenth century shaped the feminist pacifist protests of World War I. This analysis illustrates that the discourses of gender and war are intertwined: the rise of the women’s movement in the nineteenth century was positioned as a sex war, and the gender ideology of the separate spheres helped to justify World War I. I examine two New Woman interventions into the separate spheres debates—the “sex war” of the fin de siècle. Olive Schreiner propels women into the public sphere, encouraging …

Wielding Eden: Early Modern Voices And The Appropriation Of Paradise, Adrienne Redding

Dissertations

This research considers images of gardens and the unavoidable connections such images have to the Garden of Eden. It investigates images of gardens in early modern England, as seen in three different categories of textual artifact: popular prose publications, dramatic texts, and the resurrected poetic epic. It investigates the construction of gender, observing how Edenic iconography functions both to support and to undermine the dominant ideology’s work to naturalize and universalize gender attributes and societal roles. This iconography, dependent upon a variety of interpretations of the first three books of Genesis, has been referenced (and continues to be referenced) by …

How The Axe Falls: A Retrospective On Thirty-Five Years Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Performance, Linda Marie Zaerr

Accessus

This retrospective represents a new approach to using historical performance as a tool for understanding medieval narrative performance. The core of the article traces how an individual performer’s interaction with a stable medieval text both indicates directions medieval performers may have taken and suggests the limitations imposed by modern performance conventions. The discussion touches on issues of adaptation and translation, variation in troupe composition and audience, expectations of modern audiences, impact of costume choices, and limitations of audio and video recordings as documentation of live performance. Juxtaposing eight performances of a single passage clarifies how performance can transform a text, …

Semper Venalis: Gower's Avaricious Lawyers, Robert Meindl

Accessus

The first three chapters of the sixth book of the Vox Clamantis (lines 1-248) comprise a harsh critique of the many avaricious lawyers who, in Gower’s opinion, have come to dominate their profession to the disadvantage of English society in the late fourteenth century. Driven exclusively by their appetite for possessions, they have forgotten the biblical model presented in Psalm 14 that specifies the obligation of the good man to assist without recompense his neighbor’s search for justice. Falsely claiming to be men of law and inheritors of the biblical model of the good man, the causidici (as Gower calls …

Preface, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

Co-editors Georgiana Donavin and Eve Salisbury thank the readers of Accessus for an enthusiastic reception of the first issue and summarize the contents of this second issue. The second issue showcases opportunities inherent in online publishing, such as the ability to produce extended commentaries and offer video streams. Robert J. Meindl's "Semper Venalis: Gower's Avaricious Lawyers" and Linda Marie Zaerr's "How the Axe Falls: A Retrospective on Thirty-five Years of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Performance," respectively, realize these possibilities in online publishing while adding substantially and insightfully to our knowledge of important fourteenth-century poems from England.

May 6, 2014: Newberry Grad Seminar, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 24, 2014: Shakespeare's Jewish Women, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Emerging Themes In Dystopian Literature: The Development Of An Undergraduate Course, Devin Ryan

Honors Theses

Young adult (YA) dystopian literature is a trend that is taking the nation by storm. Since September 11, 2001, the genre has gained a strong backing from academics, authors, and YA readers; after Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008), however, YA dystopian literature has become the forefront of teen reading, especially with the recently adapted film versions of the widely renowned trilogy. In order to keep up with the times, a proposed course—YA Dystopian Literature: A Survey of Modern Book Series—has been created to be taught at Western Michigan University by Dr. Gwen Tarbox in the spring of 2015.

Before …

A Postmortem On Nanowrimo: Analyzing The Creative Process Of Writing Under Time Constraints, Mary Westveer

Honors Theses

This honors thesis project delves into the creative writing process of writing under time constraints. The time constrain employed for my thesis was National Novella Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which is an international online writing contest where authors join in and attempt to write a 50,000 word story in the month of November. The purpose of attempting such a feat was to see how limited time constraints affect creative writing. This thesis analyzes how narrative, character development, description, diction, dialogue and many other creative elements faired when striving to write 50,000 words in a month. This thesis dissects how the creative …

April 21, 2014: The Newberry Center For Renaissance Studies Presents, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 20, 2014: Award-Winning Writer Yoko Tawada Reading At Wmu, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 17, 2014: Newberry Graduate Scholar-In-Residence Opportunity!, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 16, 2014: Nigerian Writer Chika Unigwe Visits Wmu, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The Laureate, Nicole Burchette

Honors Theses

The Laureate’s mission is to provide undergraduate students at Western Michigan University a place in which to publish their works of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and other creative works. The Laureate strives to be a professional and engaging journal that appeals to all. The opportunity to serve as Editor-in-Chief for the thirteenth edition of the The Laureate has been an honor and a privilege. Along the way I have worked with a variety of team members to select and build the collection. Working close with my fellow editors, this edition of The Laureate came together as the result of much hard …

April 11, 2014: Where Is The Neil Degrasse Tyson Of The Humanities?, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 8, 2014: Bradburn To Participate In Neh Seminar, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 5, 2014: Wright Lecture Wraps Up Speakers Series, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Teaching The Writing Methods Course: A Multiple Case Study Of Teachers’ Professional Journeys, Teaching Contexts, Theoretical Frames, And Courses, Kristin A. K. Sovis

Dissertations

This study, situated within the fields of English education and writing teacher education, illustrates not only what is happening in writing methods courses but why in its examination of writing methods courses and instructor influences. The writing methods course is identified by English educators and writing teacher educators as “pivotal” in K-12 English teacher preparation, and the purpose of this study is to better understand multiple versions of this course and how teacher influences affect the design and implementation of the course (Grossman, 1990; Smagorinsky and Whiting, 1995; McCann, 2005).

This study builds upon scholarship that explores individual versions of …

March 30, 2014: Nagle Presents On Queer Theory In The 18th Century, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

March 29, 2014: Maisha Winn Visit A Success, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

March 23, 2014: Maisha Winn Visit To Wmu, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

March 19, 2014: New Issue Of Comparative Drama, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.