English Language and Literature Commons^™

"Hills Like White Elephants": Epistemic, Nonepistemic And Nonseeing, Gene Washington

English Faculty Publications

This essay, a though-experiment, explores the value of reading literary texts (with the example of Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants") from the point of view of epistemic, nonepistemic and nonseeing. Epistemic seeing is defined as seeing with "belief-content" nonepistemic seeing without it. The technique is to examine each example of the word "seeing" (or one of the members of its family, "look, watch," "blink") and let it "lead" you to the object, its contest, and implications in the story as a whole..

The Summons Of Freedom: Fantastic History In Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated", Paul Eisenstein

English Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Veronica Maneuver, Jennifer Moore

University of Akron Press Publications

Jennifer Moore's debut collection takes its title from a bullfighting technique in which the matador draws the bull with his cape; in these poems, however, traditional moves are reconfigured and roles are subverted. In a broader sense, the word "veronica" (from the Latin vera, or "true" and the Greek eikon, or "image") functions as a frame for exploring the nature of visual experience, and underscores a central question: how do we articulate events or emotions that evade clear understanding? In order to do so, the figures here perform all manner of transformations: from vaudeville star to cartoonist's daughter, from patron …

Imagining Methodism In Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief, And The Borders Of The Self: Book Review, Robin Runia

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

I n her sensitive and thoughtful afterword, Misty Anderson rehearses the investment of literary criticism in "restaging the opposition between a religious past and a secular modernity" (236). She makes clear how the discipline of literary studies has largely refused to acknowledge its own ideology of secularization. Quoting Michael Kauffman, Anderson offers her audience the following call to action: "Anyone constructing a narrative of secularization (even if finally to refute it) needs to evaluate certain ideas, truth claims, or values that may seem more or less spiritual, more or less 'religious"' (236). Following her own thorough consideration of the relationship …

Sacred Alliance? The Critical Assessment Of Revelation In Fichte And Kant, Tom Spencer

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

Religion encountered a host of problems in the eighteenth century: the decline of Biblical authority, the rise of scientific skepticism, and an emerging spirit of human autonomy. Each of these developments diminished the function of religious institutions in public life, but this is not to say that religion lost its importance. Western modernity has not been able to ignore or replace Christianity- even if modernity generally cannot incorporate it. As Jonathan Sheehan observes, "secularization always is and always must be incomplete. Even as religion seems to vanish from politics and public culture, it never ceases to define the project of …

Providential Empiricism: Suffering And Shaping The Self In Eighteenth~Century British Children's Literature, Adrianne Wadewitz

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

In "Praise for Creation and Providence" eighteenth-century Dissenting cleric Isaac Watts conveys God's encompassing presence-not only is he in heaven and hell, but he also inhabits (and owns) Earth and everything in it. This poem was reprinted for more than 150 years in Watts's Divine Songs: Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children (1775). A child reciting this poem is made keenly aware of how much he or she owes to God-soul, planet, and life. Watts emphasizes how one senses God's physical presence ("Beams of love:' "His Hand;' and "his Eye") with the body ("I stand or move" …

White Male Nostalgia In Don Delillo's Underworld, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

English Department Newsletter 2015, English Department, University Of Southern Maine

Department of English Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Volume 47 (2015), C. V. Davis

The Broad River Review

The 2015 edition of The Broad River Review was edited by C. V. Davis. The publication contains fiction, non-fiction, art, poetry, and photography. The cover, "Wooden Fence with Snow," was photographed by Allison Parrish. The winner of the J. Calvin Koontz Poetry Award, given annually for a portfolio of poetry to a senior English major, is Nicole Saxton. The Rash Awards, named in honor of Ron Rash, a 1976 graduate of Gardner-Webb University, are awarded annually for outstanding works in poetry and fiction. The 2014 award recipients are Adam Padgett for his fiction work titled, “Useful Things” and Sharon Charde …

Editorial Introduction To The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal, V. 1, Barbara Lesavoy, Deborah Uman

English Faculty/Staff Publications

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the editorial introduction:

We are thrilled to introduce the inaugural edition of The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal. This multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed, online journal grows out of the Biennial Seneca Falls Dialogues (SFD), a biennial conference launched in October 2008 to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York and the 60th anniversary of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Book Review: Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History, Written By Kathleen López, Lisa Yun

English, General Literature, and Rhetoric Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Vietnam And The Pax Americana: A Genealogy Of The New World Order, Spanos V. William

English, General Literature, and Rhetoric Faculty Scholarship

William V. Spanos's chapter "Vietnam and the Pax Americana: A Genealogy of the 'New World Order'" was originally published in his book-length study entitled America's Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire (1999) and is here reprinted, courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press. Spanos's prescient, unrelenting, and wide-ranging analysis of the consequences of the Vietnam War argues that the contemporary moment-including the Gulf War, Operation Hope in Somalia, American interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, for example-has its "provenance" in the Vietnam War, yet the Vietnam War has essentially been underanalyzed and forgotten under the anesthetic of the American amnesiac condition, which …

The Truth Of The Christian Religion, With Jean Le Clerc's Notes And Additions: Book Review, Robert G. Walker

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

P aul L. Maier, in his introduction to a recent translation of The Church History of Eusebius, has some refreshing advice: regarding Eusebius's long lists of bishops' names and dates, "the ~eader is urged to scan or to skip this material, since it can all be found in Appendix 2" (20). I can enthusiastically recommend the book under review, a new edition of what is generally known as the first work of Protestant apologetics, with no expectation that many people on the planet will read every word. To become familiar with this book, however, is to go far toward an …

Religious Dissent And The Aikin-Barbauld Circle 1740-1860: Book Review, Nigel Aston

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

There has been a remarkable rise of interest during the last decade in Anna Letitia Barbauld's (nee Aikin) significance in the formation of Romantic literature, and Religious Dissent and the Aikin-Barbauld Circle 1740-1860 places her appropriately within the thriving nexus of her intellectually creative Dissenting family. This volume of nine essays has its origins in a conference at Dr. Williams's library, currently the engine room of many initiatives into British dissenting history. The Aikins were a talented, hardworking, group of men and women down several generations, sparking off each other, inspired by their non -trinitarian Christian faith, and making complex …

Sacred Or Profane Pleasures? Erotic Ceremonies In Eighteenth-Century French Libertine Fiction, Marine Ganofsky

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

In France, the Age of Enlightenment was also an age of literary levity that saw a proliferation of erotic and pornographic narratives in which philosophy often fused with sexual gratification. The famous Choderlos de Lados with his Liaisons dangereuses (1782) and the infamous Marquis de Sade, along with authors such as Crebillon and Vivant Denon, epitomize this moment in French literary history, when erotic freedom paired with intellectual liberty. This "libertine" literature, as it is known, is characterized by its focus on fleshly desires and pleasures. The subject matter of libertine novels, short stories, poems, and paintings is the rendezvous …

Re-Envisioning Blake: Book Review, Joshua Davis

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

Born out of a conference commemorating its subject's 250th birthday, Re-Envisioning Blake surveys the state of contemporary Blake scholarship and invites new and challenging readings of one of British literary history's most renowned iconoclasts. The book's introduction reviews three principal strains in Blake studies-the bibliographic, the hermeneutical, and the historicist-and seeks to locate points of convergence, sites of overlap, in order to imagine not just the future of Blake studies but the future of literary studies as well.

Telescopes, Microscopes, And The Problem Of Evil, Christopher Fauske

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

Astronomers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries found themselves for a while at the center of an alignment of scientific, cultural, and religious curiosity. Theirs was an endeavor embraced by significant segments of the established churches of England and Ireland who supported the founding of scientific societies in both countries and who drew on their network of contacts with continental Protestants to keep abreast of current developments abroad. In England, for example, works such as the Reverend William Derham's Astro-theology drew on mounting evidence that the universe might well be far larger than could be imagined to raise …

American Unitarians And The George B. English Controversy, Bradley Kime

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

In late September 1813, a Harvard graduate named George Bethune English published an attack on the historical evidences of Christianity titled The Grounds of Christianity Examined, by Comparing the New Testament with the Old. English denied the relevance of miracles and argued that Jesus's claims to divine authority hinged solely on his fulfillment of Messianic prophecies. Only by twisting such prophecies beyond their obvious meanings, English argued, could Christians conceivably claim that Jesus fulfilled them. In their own day, the apostles and Evangelists did just that-misapplying the prophecies to Jesus either out of ignorance or dishonesty. In either case, …

Writing In And Around Video Games, Wendi Sierra

English Faculty/Staff Publications

This undergraduate course uses video games as a lens through which to explore the infinitely broader topic of digital rhetoric. Students encounter games in several different ways: as texts to analyze, raw material for video compositions, systems to create and explore. Key topics include genre conventions and constraints, audience, procedural rhetoric, interface design, and convergence culture.

Abandoning The Shadows And Seizing The Stage: A Perspective On A Feminine Discourse Of Resistance Theatre As Informed By The Work Of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, And The Sistren Theatre Collective, Brianna A. Bleymaier

MA in English Theses

This thesis considers the development of a unique form of theatre - feminine resistance theatre. Through the process, this work will consider the true nature and power of theatre as an artform, the placement of the problematized female voice within society, literature, and theatre, and how the theatrical form can create a unique catalyst for the female voice to be considered and implemented. In order to fully comprehend the nature of this exploration, this thesis discusses the placement and relevancy of the foundation eighteenth century theatre provides, by examining four of the women who fought for the validity of the …

Mexican Immigrants As "Other": An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of U.S. Immigration Legislation And Political Cartoons, Olivia Teague Morgan

MA in English Theses

This paper uses postcolonial theory to analyze United States immigration legislation as it applies to the marginalized group of Mexican immigrants, beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and ending with Obama’s proposed immigration plan in 2014. It also couples postcolonial theory with visual rhetoric concepts to analyze political cartoons and images relating to Mexican immigration, uncovering the attitudes and messages they represent.

Living By The Code: Authority In Gerard Stembridge's The Gay Detective, Kathleen A. Heininge

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Irish drama has few representations of police officers as anything but a trope for authority, tending to avoid any substantive character development. Likewise, it has few representations of homosexual characters, and when such representations do exist they are often caricatures. Reductive portrayals of police often arise from the complex relationship the Irish have with authority and with the legal system. But one of the few exceptions to this trend, and the only play to tackle the representation of a police officer and a homosexual at once, is Gerard Stembridge’s play The Gay Detective (1996). The play offers up the character …

Introduction To Innovative Approaches To Teaching Chaucer, Alison (Ganze) Langdon, David Sprunger

English Faculty Publications

Many a medievalist has been seduced by Chaucer. Perhaps it’s the totality of Chaucer’s enduring characters, memorable tales, elusive narrator, and fragmented whole that keeps us coming back. We are fascinated and delighted, too, by his linguistic play and the lyrical cadence of Middle English. Chaucer may have led us to graduate study in the first place and remains a treat that organizes our pedagogical lives. For some who teach in smaller programs or two-year colleges, Chaucer’s canonical status may provide the only guaranteed place for medieval texts in the curriculum and thus represents one small chance to share our …

Things About Hotels, Angela Ball

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 34

Martins (Quantum), Geri Doran

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 60

Renovation, Richie Hofmann

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 73

Leaving An Aa Meeting During A Snowstorm, Al Maginnes

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 90-91

Caldo, Dora Malech

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 96-98

A Fisheries Scientist Suffers The Flood To Come, Peter Munro

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 107-110

The Deal, Gregg Murray

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 113