English Language and Literature Commons^™

Force Or Fraud: British Seduction Stories And The Problem Of Resistance, 1660-1760, By Toni Bowers. (Review), Rachel Carnell, Toni Bowers

English Faculty Publications

A review of the book "Force or Fraud: British Seduction Stories and the Problem of Resistance, 1660-1760," by Toni Bowers is presented.

April 1, 2012: Poet Barbara Cully Reads This Thursday: Spring 2012 Gwen Frostic Reading Series, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

A Victorian Christmas In Hell: Yuletide Ghosts And Necessary Pleasures In The Age Of Capital, Brandon Chitwood

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation explores how the cultural and literary development – one might argue, creation – of a specifically Victorian Christmas arose in response to social anxieties related to the expansion of industrial capitalism, Darwinian theories of evolution, and the increasingly problematic definition of the family during the nineteenth century in Britain. Using a Lacanian psychoanalytic lens, the dissertation explores how the liminal figure of the ghost pervades the literary narrativization of the Christmas holiday, and how such ghosts provided uncanny comforts to a reading public increasingly horrified by social, economic, and natural forces seemingly beyond their control. The dissertation argues …

A Poem And Its Painting, Jenny Lee '13

2012 Spring Semester

Charles Bukowksi, one of the most controversial poets of the 20^th century, loved very few things- alcohol, sex, his typewriter, and classical music. His poetry is considered down-to-earth and easily relatable, but it is still able to maintain a high level of artistic and literary merit. His skill as an artist becomes clear when his poem “Dostoevsky” is juxtaposed with Caravaggio’s famous painting, “The Sacrifice of Isaac.” This painting depicts an angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing his son, Isaac. Although these pieces come from different artistic media, painting versus the written word, their shocking similarities are a testament to …

Why A Lost Lady Is Naturalist, Judy Liu '14

2012 Spring Semester

In Steven Crane’s Maggie, people survive in a downcast world, where desperate people squelch the hope of those around them. This hopeless environment reduces the characters, even the once innocent, beautiful Maggie, into a creature that is more animal than human. This situation is also seen in A Lost Lady. Instead of having happy, idealized events, both novels are realistic and often pessimistic, with characters whose descriptions and behaviors do not match up with what is expected of a human being. Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady is a naturalist text due to the dehumanization of the characters through …

The Naturalist Meaning Behind The Words, Mateusz Wojtaszek '14

2012 Spring Semester

Charles Darwin changed the face of biology and science when he published his groundbreaking work of scientific literature, On the Origin of Species. He proposed that all organisms are related and that a force, known as natural selection, acts on all living things. This book opened a whole new world for biologists everywhere. But it also brought about a change in the philosophy of literature, which is known as the naturalist movement. Writers began to believe that humans and animals are, in the end, the same- they are affected by similar forces and have the same instincts. Novels such as …

The Search For Pan: Difference And Morality In D. H. Lawrence’S St. Mawr And The Woman Who Rode Away, Ria Banerjee

Publications and Research

Both St. Mawr (1925) and The Woman Who Rode Away (1928) were written at the height of Lawrence’s fascination with New Mexico and demonstrate a continuum of thought about the position of the European and the Indian, but what is most interesting about these stories when read in conjunction is their attitude towards difference. Lou Carrington, the protagonist of St. Mawr, holds herself separate from other women of her class, from other men, from her mother and her Indian groom, finally finding a temporary peace in seeking affinity in a landscape; the woman who rides away from home and …

Book Review: A Journey With Two Maps: Becoming A Woman Poet, Kathleen A. Heininge

Faculty Publications - Department of English

For those familiar with Eavan Boland's book, Object Lessons, her latest defense of the woman poet begins in well-traveled territory. A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet) reiterates her struggles to find an authentic voice in a poetic and political history that has largely excluded the voices of women. She again notes her sense of dislocation-Irish but not raised in Ireland-and recognizes the effect of such dislocation on her participation in the project called Irish poetry. She repeats her observation that poetry has traditionally been confined to the recondite, defined as war, death, and God, a definition excluding …

Satori 2012, Winona State University

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.

"An Image Comforting The Mind”: Emotion Theory And Tennyson’S In Memoriam, Melanie Pavao

English Student Scholarship

This paper examines Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam A.H.H. through the lens of Cicero’s stoic theory of emotion. It critically reviews the manner in which Tennyson describes grief in the poem and how he uses the poem to deal with his own grief over the death of his best friend. It continues with a discussion of how the poem is useful for others in learning to deal with their own grief.

Remembering And Recording The Vietnam War, Margaret Brunk

English Honors Projects

In this project I consider the process of narrative construction in Vietnam War memoirs and oral histories, with special emphasis on Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and I examine the interaction between traditional narrative norms and the irregularities of the Vietnam War. Beginning with an exploration of the unique nature of war stories, I discuss the difficulty of communicating the war experience. I then explore the interplay of public accusation with authorial confession and justification, arguing that the desire to explain the particular conditions of the war informs not only the content but also the language and structure of the texts.

The Night Entertainment, Angela Sloan

Theses & Honors Papers

The purpose of this thesis is to observe hidden female lives. It is my intention, within these fifteen works of short fiction, to examine the nature of those who seek power and protection through the artifice that is physical beauty, youth, and glamour, specifically through the wearing of makeup and glamorous clothing. Many of the women within these stories are also consumed with material wealth; they use that artifice as a shield from the reality of the enviro1m1ent in which they live, whether it is urban or rural. Sometimes they never even realize to what degree artificiality impacts their daily …

An Examination Of Newbery Medal Books From The 1920s Through The 2000s: Biblical Perspective, Kimberly Fleming

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Content analysis was conducted to determine the frequency of the presence of positive Biblical virtues and paired opposite traits across 18 Newbery Medal books from the 1920s through the 2000s because the Newbery Award is a prestigious honor bestowed upon children's literature, and the criteria for selection among books specifically precludes the necessity of good character. The fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5:22 served as the rubric by which the characters' thoughts, dialogue, and actions were measured. Consensus data was recorded, and chi-square tests of independence were conducted after three readers examined the presence and frequency of each …

A Hierarchy Of Love: Myth In C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, Joseph Walls

Masters Theses

In C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, the transposed creature is drawn up into its "kindly stede" as a sacramental symbol of Christ through that fictional planet's unbroken relationship between meaning and form. Although Perelandra's "wheels-within-wheels" hierarchy may at first seem reminiscent of Catholicism's teachings on symbol, as a Protestant, Lewis believes that human beings cannot be truly sacramental symbols until the return of Christ. Lewis's optimistic depiction of a cosmic hierarchy is one of perfect love: superiors rule their subordinates with agape, and creatures who discover their submissive roles reciprocate with eros or adoring love. Every created being in Perelandra is part …

The Question Of Philanthropy: Social Reform In Hawthorne’S The Blithedale Romance, Ashley Gilbert

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Nathaniel Hawthorne presents three types of philanthropy in his novel The Blithedale Romance: the socialist community, feminism, and social reform. He does this so he can strike down each in turn and tell why they fail. Social problems do not have easy solutions, but Hawthorne advocates for the "circle of community." This is the idea that those in need should be taken care of by their extended family or by those in the church. These people have a moral or religious obligation to those around them, and, through this Christian brotherhood, problems can be solved. The larger-scale reforms do …

Boats Against The Current: The American Dream As Death Denial In F. Scott Fitzgerald’S The Great Gatsby And Arthur Miller’S Death Of A Salesman, Patrice Comeau

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Jane Austen And Genre: Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, And The Triumph Of The Realistic Novel, Megan E. Hilands

Student Publications

This paper analyzes Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey in terms of genre. In particular, it examines the theatrical in Mansfield Park and the Gothic in Northanger Abbey. The production of Elizabeth Inchbald’s Lovers’ Vows and Catherine’s Gothic novel reading are key to the analysis of these genres. However, the use of subgenres goes far beyond the Bertrams’ production and Catherine’s books. Rather, the characters themselves adopt theatrical and Gothic characteristics throughout the novel. Furthermore, when these subgenres appear, they are presented in a manner that is harmful to the main characters. In this sense, Austen invokes the …

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 20, No. 2, The Sinclair Lewis Society

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter

“Vermont, 1942: The Summer of Idealism: Dorothy Thompson, The Land Corps, and Its Legacy,” by Tom Raynor

“The Federal Theater Project: It Did Happen Here,” by William Severini Kowinski

“MacKinlay Kantor and Sinclair Lewis: Parallel Lives,” by Ted Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools, Waterloo, Iowa

“Alumni House at St. Cloud State Renamed Lewis House”

“Dangerous Women”: Rev. of Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power by Sally Hertog, by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University

“Dangerous Comments”: Rev. of Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and …

Graphic Novels In Graduate-Level Library And Information Studies Literature And Materials Courses, Elizabeth M. Downey, Karen Davidson

Publications

Graphic novels and comics have garnered acceptance in recent years, finding their way into library collections, literacy programs, scholarly publications and classrooms. This article examines the use of graphic novels in graduate-level library and information studies programs through a survey conducted of instructors teaching at American Library Association-accredited institutions. The authors wanted to determine whether faculty in library and information studies programs were assigning graphic novels in their literature and materials courses, particularly courses with an emphasis on children’s and ‘young adult’ materials, what graphic novels were being assigned, and how they were incorporated into the curriculum.

"I'M Tellin' Because It's Mine And I Can": Digital Storytelling Projects In Two Different Elementary Age Communities, Hilary Hamilton , '12

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Digital storytelling, a project designed to build communities and develop multiliterate community members, has been reserved almost exclusively for adults. This practitioner research project challenges this practice by bringing the project to two groups of elementary school students under the assumption that students from diverse backgrounds would be able engage productively with the medium. While running these two workshops over the summer, a pre-service teacher collected data on her students’ experiences using ethnographic methods. This study looks at how these students engage with digital storytelling, what stories they decide to tell, and how they give and receive feedback. Ultimately, this …

Word~River Literary Review (2012), Beth Mcdonald, John Hill, Micheline Mayor, Heather Duerre Humann, Ryan Leack, Anne Stark, John Baker, Lily I. Mackenzie, Judith Nichols, Meredith Devney, Marylouise Markle, Bill Bozzone, Tara Taylor, Tina Cabrera, Justin E. Kidd, Richard Foss, Kevin P. Keating, Justin P. Burnside, Matthew Swetnam, Sierra Jones-Yu, Kristen Conard, Star Goode, Andrew Madigan, K. W. Taylor, Allison S. Walker, Gary Pullman, Michael Zinkowski, Susan Nyikos

word~river Literary Journal

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction of adjunct, part-time and fulltime instructors teaching under a semester or yearly contract in our universities, colleges, and community colleges worldwide. Graduate student teachers who have used up their teaching assistant time and are teaching with adjunct contracts for the remainder of their graduate program are also eligible.

We’re looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

With This Ring, I Surrender: Politics, Religion, And Marriage In Shakespeare And Tudor England, Mara R. Berkoff

Honors College Theses

The ideas I wish to explore are the overarching themes of politics, religion, and marriage in the Turor period under the rule of King Henry VIII from 1509 to 1547. The popular opinion of the period on Henry VIII's behavior can be seen in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and Henry VIII.

Honor In The Face Of Death: Hemingway’S Moral Code In Death In The Afternoon And For Whom The Bell Tolls, Nias Achorn

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper analyzes the code of honor in bullfighting as it is explained in Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway. It then describes the cathartic emotion given to the audience after an honorable performance and discusses the implications of this emotion. Finally, this paper applies the previous analyses of Death in the Afternoon to an analysis of For Whom the Bell Tolls in order to explain how the novel suggests Hemingway's understanding of the Spanish way of life.

The Individual Voice: The Expression Of Authority Through Dialects, Idiolects, And Borrowed Terminology In Chaucer’S Canterbury Tales, Jacqueline Cordell

Honors Theses and Capstones

Using Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this paper seeks to demonstrate how language affects the social construction of identity in literature within the late Middle Ages. To accomplish this it looks at how characters (particularly those in the Reeve's and Miller's Tales) attempt to give themselves greater authority over their peers in instances of social conflict by either changing their dialect or, by using terminology borrowed from power-imbued languages like French and Latin. The paper also discusses changes in authority outside the literature by examining the impact of scribal idiolect on the presentation and perception of Chaucer's individual characters.

Investigating The Prevalence Of Use By Japanese Speakers Of An Acceptable Alternative Articulation Of The Phoneme /S/ To That Commonly Taught In Esl And Efl Classrooms, Greg Raver-Lampman

English Theses & Dissertations

The International Phonetic Association (IPA) as well as textbooks on phonology and teaching English as a second language (ESL) or foreign language (EFL) characterize the /s/ as an "alveolar fricative," meaning that the tongue approaches the alveolar ridge to produce the sound. Japanese phonology texts characterize the Japanese /s/ as alveolar as well. This tongue position has become integral to teaching the sound to English-speaking children who have speech impediments and for teaching the sibilants to speakers of other languages, including first-language speakers of Japanese who often struggle with the English /s/ despite the fact that the sound occurs in …

Thirdspace Professional Development As Effective Response To The Contested Spaces Of Computers And Writing, Jason L. Mcintosh

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the physical spaces of writing classrooms and the conceptual spaces of writing practice and pedagogy, knowledge about computers is constructed by many individuals, groups, and institutions. Each has a stake in defining what computers mean for education and the role computers should play in the everyday life schools. Some of these stakeholders are immediate members of our school communities, such as students, teachers, administrators, and technology support staff. Some are not, such as politicians, researchers, and computer manufacturers. The effect of these often competing stakeholders is one of contested space. Writing teachers encounter contested space when we decide to …

Destabilizing Tradition: Gender, Sexuality, And Postnational Identity In Four Novels By Irish Women, 1960-2000, Sarah Nestor

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation examines four novels that represent Irish women and girls confronting the typical narrative of Irish national identity in the twentieth century. The post-independence construction of Irish national identity depended upon prescriptive roles that aligned with its founders’ beliefs about the nation’s ethnic homogeneity and moral superiority. Irish women’s identity and roles as wives and mothers were imperative to upholding this idea of the nation, particularly its morality. Irish women were therefore charged with maintaining well-defined gender roles and the nuclear family in an effort to define a distinctive Irish identity. Thus, when women’s roles are challenged or changed …

Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, And Revisions That Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Jarrod Hurlbert

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation is a study of the revisions Samuel Richardson made to his first novel, Pamela, and its sequel, Pamela in Her Exalted Condition, published within his lifetime. Richardson, who was his own printer, revised Pamela eight times over twenty years, the sequel three times, and the majority of the variants have hitherto suffered from critical neglect. Because it is well known that Richardson responded to friendly and antagonistic "collaborators" by making emendations, I also examine the extant documents that played a role in Pamela's development, including Richardson's correspondence and contemporary criticisms of the novel. Pamela Reworded, then, is an …

Gender Politics In The Novels Of Eliza Haywood, Susan Muse

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study investigates how Eliza Haywood addressed ideological conflicts about gender produced by modernization in early eighteenth-century England. Expanding Michael McKeon's theory of the novel to include "questions of gender," I address a wide sample of novels in order to show how Haywood's writing developed during her long career. Her first preoccupation was the sexual double standard that defined "fallen women" as society's exiles. Influenced by the "she-tragedy" of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, Haywood wrote novels that elicited pity for fallen women and searched for reasons to explain their condition. Haywood's writing became overtly political with her …

Brain Memoirs, Neuroscience, And The Self: A Review Article, Jason Tougaw

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.