English Language and Literature Commons^™

About A Yellow Ball, Shannon Alice Salter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

These are poems made from many things: color, eggs, oranges, many kinds of seeds, leaves, wind, California, the desert, birds. They are things alive in the world and alive in my heart. I cannot take them out of the world, but from my heart I can have whatever appears on its surface. The language of steam.

They are poems that like to be at home.

California is my home and so is the Mojave (and so is every desert). I live in a valley about four hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean, in the city of Las Vegas. What better …

The Androgynous Tomboy: Adolescent Liminality In The Contemporary Southern Bildungsroman, Brooke Alexandra Shippee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Androgynous Tomboy: Adolescent Liminality in the Contemporary Southern Bildungsroman is an analysis of the adolescent, specifically, of the young tomboy characters central to three Bildungsroman texts set in the American South during the twentieth century: Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding (1946), Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country (1985) and Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina (1993). I seek to challenge the very notion of the conventional tomboy within the coming of age literary genre by defining these youths as androgynous, rather than as young individuals who assume a singular gender opposite of their biological sex. Throughout my work, …

Dickensian Characters In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Alison Mckeever

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

J.K. Rowling includes many Dickensian-esque characters in her Harry Potter series. This thesis compares the characters seen in Rowling's series with many of Charles Dickens's characters, specifically those seen in David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Bleak House. Rowling's work is similar to Dickens's novels in many ways. The most interesting connection between the two is how they treat the characters on the periphery of the societies they have created, most notably their orphans, servants, and women.

Orphans are their most obvious comparison. Each author based their texts on the story of an orphan. However, there is more to their orphan …

Victorian Gothic Drama, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Magical Realism And The Space Between Spaces, Dallin J. Bundy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Magical realism comes from Franz Roh, a german art historian and critic, who first used the term to describe the Post-Expressionism movement in visual art. His seminal writings and definitions on Post-Expressionism, then known as magical realism, were translated into Spanish and made available to Latin America in the mid twentieth century. Authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez adopted Roh's writings and re-appropriated magical realism into literary art, and from there the new genre proliferated through the Latin American Boom and magical realism in literary fiction reached global recognition, inspiring authors across the world to take it …

Dystopian Literature And The Novella Form As Illustrated Through Side Effects, An Original Novella, Bryan W. Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This master’s degree thesis exists in two parts: a critical introduction and an original novella entitled Side Effects. The critical introduction introduces and explains the theories on, literature surrounding, and literary uses of dystopian fiction, the novella format, and drug-based psychotherapy. Current opinion on dystopian fiction sees it characterized by a seemingly perfect societal setting that ultimately contains hidden or suppressed moral flaws. The ultimate purpose of dystopian fiction is commentary on contemporary society through a defamiliarized setting. The novella format is shown to exist in a middle-ground state between the short story and the novel, yet the format …

Digital Information Literacy At National Louis University: Embedding And Integrating Information Literacy Into Degree Programs, Deana Greenfield, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

This presentation provided an overview of NLU Library faculty's experience developing a new teaching model that enhanced traditional library instruction through embedding in online courses and new courses on digital information literacy. Our integration into undergraduate degree programs with a required library course was the result of engaging with academic stakeholders and being “out in front” with technology. This resulted in a major shift in our roles and workload and brings us deeper into the teaching and learning process. We engaged participants in a discussion of useful strategies to integrate teaching into academic programs, the role and use of technology, …

Romanticism, Blake, And The Politics Of Nature (Flyer), Kevin Hutchings

The Idea of Nature Public Lecture Series

Because politics is a distinctly human activity, we often think of nature as something that exists apart from the political realm. However, in an era of revolutionary turmoil, William Blake, who championed “England’s green and pleasant land” against industrialism’s “dark Satanic Mills,” understood better than any other Romantic poet that nature was subject to myriad political uses. By showing how cultural institutions invoke nature to “naturalize” their authority, Blake reveals that nature can be thoroughly political. Join author and musician Kevin Hutchings as he explores the politics of Blake’s visionary ecology in poetry, painting, and song.

Comic Books Vs. Greek Mythology: The Ultimate Crossover For The Classical Scholar, Andrew S. Latham

English Department Theses

The modern, serialized comic book is one of the most underutilized genres of literature in literary criticism today. While it is true that some graphic novels such as Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns receive scholarly criticism, many monthly titles such as Action Comics or Batman are neglected by most of the scholarly community. The reason for this neglect cannot be traced to one single source, but it is unfortunate considering how valuable serialized comic books can be to modern scholars, particularly classical scholars studying Greek mythology. The similarities between the superheroes of serialized comic books …

April 28, 2012: Beth Amidon Retirement Party, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Young Adult Literature In The High School Classroom: Explanation And Application Of Teacher/Scholar: Student/Scholar Pedagogy, Colleen Barnes Herndon

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis investigates the ways in which literature is taught in high school English classes. The author expresses frustration with current methods and advocates an increase in teaching Young Adult Literature to high school students in order to encourage the students’ enjoyment of reading. She goes on to discuss how she has taught Young Adult literature in the classroom and includes example lesson plans.

The Duality Of Unca's Identity: The Use Of The Idol In Colonial And Religious Subjugation, Cheryl E. Tevlin

Student Publications

The Female American follows the life of Unca Winkfield, the product of a bi-racial marriage in eighteenth-century America. Unca’s hybridity creates tension within the novel as she seems to alternate between a predominantly Christian worldview and a pagan one. Throughout the first part of the novel, Unca displays Christian values, praying after she is abandoned on an island. However, as she spends more time there, she begins to act like a pagan, using an abandoned oracle to communicate with the natives. Most scholars believe that Unca changes her beliefs in order to utilize whichever heritage is most beneficial at the …

Composing 'An Experience': Experiential Aesthetics In First-Year Writing, Aimee E. Blau

Theses and Dissertations

Students often struggle to understand why the required writing course is important in their academic and non academic life. My project seeks to bring these two parts of students' lives together by urging writing teachers and students to consider a richer concept of the term "composition," one that includes the fundamental work of composing meaningful knowledge by assembling and reflecting on raw experiences. Dewey's term "an experience" clarifies how students constitute knowledge from their experiences, and Burke's methodological concept of form offers students a model for writing that accommodates that Deweyian sort of learning. Building off of these aesthetic …

April 26, 2012: Eclectic Mix Of Kalamazooans Noted By British Celebrity, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

"Playing Superhero": Agency And The Role Of The Teenaged Superhero, Jessica R. Saunders

Theses & Honors Papers

The discussion of agency within Young Adult Literature is an extensive topic that includes various criteria, such as power in various types of relationships and social ideologies. In the media form of graphic novels, the concept of agency is taken to a separate level because the primary teenagers depicted in graphic novels are titled as superheroes with abilities that surpass the norm. The role of being a teenaged superhero becomes conditional, depending on whether the teenager demands agency in the form of controlling his/her abilities or are assigned the role by their adult prototypes and society. The texts that this …

April 25, 2012: Utz Prefaces Neomedievalism In The Media, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

"Where Angels Fear To Tread": Tracing The Journey Of The Female Poet In Aurora Leigh, Dorcas Y. Lam

Senior Honors Theses

Through Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning explores the role of female poets as agents of social change in the Victorian society. During the Victorian period, the role of women was largely confined to the domestic setting. While women were allowed to write, female writers were limited to the realm of novels, which was perceived by the Victorian society to be the less distinguished genre. In writing Aurora Leigh, Barrett Browning challenged this gender stereotype by producing a "novel-poem" that unites the feminine voice with masculine authority and superiority. Like Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, in her fictional role as a …

Life, The Multiverse, And Everything: How Crisis On Infinite Earths Changed Dc Comics, Kate Simonsen

Theses and Dissertations

Published from 1985 to 1986, DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths created the expectation that each crossover will result in numerous deaths and alter the structure or history of the DC Universe. Since many of these changes, such as the death of a popular or iconic character, cannot be sustained long term, the success and influence of Crisis on Infinite Earths led to the erosion of the very elements that made it shocking. Entire worlds can be destroyed, but superreaders eventually suspect that no change is ever permanent and, as more iconic characters are revived or rebooted, death is no …

April 23, 2012: Congratulations Adam Pasen !!, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Blues Trope As A Cultural Intersection In Alice Walker's The Temple Of My Familiar And Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues, Julia Leuthardt

Theses and Dissertations

Though bound historically through hundreds of years, the African-Native American relation has not received much attention by scholars of literature; hence, the emphasis of this thesis is to investigate the literary portrayal of the interethnic relation between African Americans and Native Americans through the blues trope. The blues trope provides an intriguing literary platform for the psychological and physical struggles in finding an identity within such a diverse multiethnic society like the United States. For African American writer Alice Walker and Native American author Sherman Alexie the blues trope is a successful literary device in expressing long lost and rediscovered …

April 22, 2012: Journal Edited By Ellis, Klekar, And Salisbury Discussed In Nyrb, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Adaptation: Is The Book Really Better Than The...Television Series?, Jane F. Eberts

Scripps Senior Theses

When the topic of ‘adaptation’ is brought up, more often than not the coupling of a novel and its most recent Hollywood hit come to mind. Although it may not be at the forefront of the general population’s mind, adaptation is something that we encounter often, and consciously or not, we all have our own theory on the subject. While it may seem that the evolution of book series, to film adaptation, to booming franchise may be recently trending with the acceleration of blockbusters such as Harry Potter, adaptation has been a fundamental part of the advancement of media. …

Unbreakable Glass Slippers: Hegemony In Ella Enchanted, Tori Shereen Mirsadjadi

Scripps Senior Theses

The way Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted simultaneously conforms to its late-20^th-century American standards and rebels against its Cinderella origins is analyzed in this thesis. As an analysis of a piece of literature written for children, the thesis works to defend the notion that playful literature produces a serious dialogue with its readers, and that young female readers are a particularly apropos group for the dialogue about hegemony that Ella Enchanted allows.

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

The Monkey In The Looking Glass: Fairies, Folklore And Evolutionary Theory In The Search For Britain's Imperial Self, Tessa Katherine Jacobs

Scripps Senior Theses

In his groundbreaking work of postcolonial theory, Orientalism, Edward Said puts forth the idea that imperial Europe asserted an identity by constructing the character of its colonized subjects. Said writes that his book tries to “show that European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self” (3). The object of this thesis is a related project, for it too is a search for imperial Britain’s surrogate or underground self. Yet rather than positioning this search within the British colonies, this thesis takes as its context a …

April 19, 2012: News From Ph.D. Candidate Dustin Hoffman., Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 17, 2012: Ma Capstone Presentations, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 16, 2012: Third Coast Fall Issue Reviewed At Newpages.Com, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

April 15, 2012: Playwright Sean Clark Presents His Work: Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The Myths Of The Author: Tolkien And The Medieval Origins Of The Word Hobbit, Michael Livingston

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Leads us on a linguistic journey into the origins of the words hobbit and Baggins and their surprising relations to one another.