English Language and Literature Commons^™

Human Cloning As The Other In Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Wen Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Human Cloning as the Other in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go" Wen Guo analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro's novel with focus on Ishiguro's analogy between human cloning and people of marginality in contemporary society. Guo discusses the novel's ambience of doubt and suspense and elaborates on how the theme of otherness is addressed by Ishiguro's mock-realism in a landscape of science fiction. Further, Guo analyses the "unhomely" Hailsham of the novel, the clones' self-pursuit, and their ethical attitudes. Guo argues that in Ishiguro's novel a person's ethical choices are determined by his/her situation which confirms Ishiguro's beliefs with …

Ethics Of Counter Narrative In Delillo’S Falling Man, Qingji He

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethics of Counter-Narrative in DeLillo's Falling Man" Qingji He analyzes Don DeLillo's counter-narrative in his post-9/11 novel Falling Man. The objective is to show how ethical dimensions function fundamentally in formulating an appropriate counter-narrative and why DeLillo's counter-narrative echoes views expressed in his "In the Ruins of the Future." He argues that DeLillo's counter-narrative entails the necessity of ethical consciousness and responsibility. It is Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings instead of media representation that become pivotal in Lianne's transformative and redemptive process after the terrorist attack. Similarly, David Janiak's performance art and Richard Drew's picture …

December 30, 2015: Mckittrick Keynote Opens Ellis Series Spring Season, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

The Department of English Anthony Ellis Scholarly Speakers Series WMU Faculty Keynote Lecture Casey McKittrick

State Funding Unfair To Traditional Schools, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

The present budget crisis in Pennsylvania has brought many lingering tensions to bear as school districts scramble to pay their bills without any support from the state. Notably, there has been a lot of talk about holding back payments to charter schools, which naturally sparks controversy. In order to make sense of the situation - and in order to understand the passionate debate which surrounds it - it's worthwhile to know something about the history, theory, and funding of charter schools. [excerpt]

From “A New Hope” To No Hope At All: “Star Wars,” Tolkien And The Sinister And Depressing Reality Of Expanded Universes: When Fantasy Sagas Never End, We See The Cycles Of Brutality And Totalitarianism That Fuel Them Don't, Either, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Rædende Iudithðe: The Heroic, Mythological And Christian Elements In The Old English Poem Judith, Judith Caywood

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project, devoted to the Old English epic fragment Judith, argues that the title character arises from the complex multicultural forces that shaped Anglo-Saxon society, positing that she exists between the mythological, the heroic and the Christian. Simultaneously Christian saint, Germanic warrior and pagan demi-goddess or supernatural figure, Judith arbitrates amongst the seemingly incompatible forces that shaped the poet’s world, allowing the poem to serve as an important site for the making of a new Anglo-Saxon mythos, one which incorporates these disparate yet co-existing elements. Judith becomes a single figure who is able to reconcile these opposing forces within …

“Chippy Bits Periodicals” And The Middlebrow: Holbrook Jackson, T. P.'S Weekly (1902–1916) And To-Day (1917–1923), Louise Kane

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article investigates two early twentieth-century British periodicals, T. P.'s Weekly (1902–16) and To-day (1917–23), through the perspective of the perceived modernism/middlebrow dichotomy and the editorial practices of Holbrook Jackson. Exploring the history of these two diachronically linked periodicals (To-day incorporated T. P.'s Weekly in 1916), I argue that key moments or “intersections” in the editorial history of T. P.'s Weekly and To-day coincide with distinct and definite “branchings” away from the tenets of the middlebrow culture that largely defined T. P.'s Weekly as part of Jackson's objective of creating a thoroughly modernist periodical.

Post-Racial Or Racial Plateau?: Pym’S Revisions Of Arthur Gordon Pym’S Racism, Alyssa Amaral

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

T.S. Eliot: A Never-Ending Exploration, Kristina Krupilnitskaya

Honors Thesis

The following thesis explores the work of T.S. Eliot before and after his conversion to the Anglican Church. While the paper explores the stylistic qualities of Eliot's poetry, the main focus of the essay lies in bridging the pre and post conversion works together in order to show that both of the periods were significant in the poet's life. While many critics viewed Eliot's early poetry as a lot more exploratory and challenging, calling his later poetry banal and bland, my essay aims to show that even though the poetry had shifted in its content, its significance, complexity, and experimentality …

Characters Through Time, Alyssa Venezia

Honors Thesis

T. S. Eliot once wrote that we “often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [an author’s] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (Eliot 37). By focusing on character adaptations, one comes to understand how authors of children’s books are able to adapt classic literature into age-appropriate texts that retain the merits of the original. Five sets of characters shall be analyzed to demonstrate the success of the adaptations presented in children’s literature. In the first, Sir Bedivere from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur …

John Milton: Not War, Not Peace, Not Exactly Grotian, William T. Abbott

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Foreword

This paper will be of value in answering continuing questions regarding John Milton's position on war and peace. The questions continue and are valid because Milton's works, as considered in the paper, offer support for both pro-war and pro-peace interpretations. The paper also addresses a middle-ground interpretation-that Milton's position can best be understood in light of the legal theories of Hugo Grotius, the seventeenth-century Dutch scholar who is generally accepted as the father of modern international law.

The works considered include, among others, the Nativity Ode, the sonnets, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes (including post 9/11 controversy involving …

“Beauty Joined To Energy”: Gravity And Graceful Movement In Richard Wilbur’S Poetry, Elizabeth Lynch

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout his work, Wilbur maintains a thematic and aesthetic fascination with kinetic energy, especially insofar as this graceful movement often seems to defy the world’s gravity. Wilbur’s energetic verse and imagery invites readers to delve into the philosophical and spiritual meditations of his poems, as well as to notice the physical world anew. The kinetic aspects of Wilbur’s subject matter, wordplay, wit, and figurative language elucidate the frequent tempering of gravity with levity within his work. Many critics have studied Wilbur’s philosophy, Christianity, metaphors, wordplay, and approach to language as found in his poetry, but this essay attempts to use …

December 17, 2015: 2016 Green Rose Prize From New Issues, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

The 2016 Green Rose Prize Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum by Nadine Sabra Meyer

December 16, 2015: The Gwen Frostic Reading Series Spring 2016, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

The Gwen Frostic Reading Series Schedule for Spring 2016 Semester

"Ushering" In The Fulfillment Of Prophecy, Alison M. Pulliam

Aidenn: The Liberty Undergraduate Journal of American Literature

During the 19^th century, a phenomenon known as “Holy Land mania” was sweeping the United States. Americans were intrigued by the state of the Holy Land and whether or not this state matched the images described in biblical prophecy (Robey 62). Interest in Israel’s condition invaded many aspects of American life, including literature. Looking through the lens of historical criticism, it is easy to see how authors of this time period fed on the “Holy Land mania” to include references to prophecy and the Middle East in their writings. In particular, critic Molly K. Robey accurately points out in …

Science And Nature In The Medieval Ecological Imagination, Jessica Rezunyk

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intersections between nature and culture in medieval literature and art with particular focus on Geoffrey Chaucer’s House of Fame, the thirteenth-century French Bible Moralisée (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Codex Vindobonensis 2554), and William Langland’s Piers Plowman. Current academic paradigms tend to place the study of nature firmly within the sciences and the study of culture firmly within the humanities, creating a gap between the fields that effectively isolates their respective methodologies and vocabularies from one another. This dissertation seeks to bridge that gap between the sciences and the humanities by approaching medieval literature through the lens of …

Preface To Ssl 41, Patrick G. Scott, Anthony Jarrells

Studies in Scottish Literature

Reports the international readership of the journal and discusses the ways in which the journal, with a primary focus on Scottish literary studies, nonetheless recognizes that Scottish literature is of current political significance and interest.

Introduction: Cultural Nationalism In Scottish Literary Studies: The View From Elsewhere, Anthony Jarrells

Studies in Scottish Literature

Introduces the issues and contributors to this post-Referendum SSL symposium, on non-Scottish perspectives on Scottish cultural nationalism, which includes discussions of teaching Scottish literature in Italy, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, together with a response from a senior Scottish scholar, notes the interest elsewhere in contemporary Scottish writing, and suggests that the effect of the debates surrounding the Referendum, and the involvement of many writers in it, will have a continuing effect on the future of Scottish literary studies.

Changing Times: A Post-Indyref View From Italy, Carla Sassi

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the responses of Italian university students to the Scottish Referendum of 2014, briefly surveys the history and recent development of Scottish literary studies in Italian universities, and comments on teaching the novels of Walter Scott to Italian readers.

Scottish Writers, American Students: A View From Virginia, David E. Latane

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses cultural (and statistical) similarities and differences between Scotland and Virginia, and explores how these affect the response and interest of university students to studying Scottish literature, especially contemporary literature, and to a summer course taught in Glasgow.

Wee Malkies Abroad: Scottish Literature Seen From The United Arab Emirates, Manfred Malzahn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the recent Scottish Referendum in relation to concepts of national identity in the United Arab Emirates and explores the ways in which Scottish authors and literary works can be of interest to students in UAE, drawing also on previous experience teaching in Tunisia, stressing the interest of shorter, contemporary Scottish texts, but noting also the continuing resonance of a few older Scottish texts, including works of R. L. Stevenson.

Assimilation, Hybridity, And Identity: A Visitor During Indyref, Evan Gottlieb

Studies in Scottish Literature

Recounts the experience of growing up as a Jewish kid among Scottish-Canadians and of being in Scotland during the Referendum in 2014, expressing admiration for the level and character of informed debate among voters.

'Singing Of Psalms Of Which I Could Never Get Enough': Labouring Class Religion And Poetry In The Cambuslang Revival Of 1741, Elspeth Jajdelska

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes and discusses the nature and uses of poetry by Scottish labouring-class participants in the revival at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, in 1741, drawing on the manuscript account of the revival collected by the parish minister, William McCulloch; setting the poems in the context of recent scholarly reconsideration of 17th and 18th century Scottish religious culture; relating the poems to the Scottish use of metrical psalms in kirk services and domestic devotions; and commenting in detail on poems by Alexander Bilsland and George Tassie, and a report on religious poetry reading by Ann Wylie.

Ossianic Telegraphy: Bardic Networks And Imperial Relays, Eric Gidal

Studies in Scottish Literature

Relates James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760) and other Ossianic poems to evolving Scottish networks of commerce and communication, especially commercial telegraphy and the postal system, and posits associations also with comments in Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence and Theory of Moral Sentiments, to suggest that Macpherson's remediation of oral poetry asserted ideas of authorial identity and readership as "relays" in a new imperial network.

Burns's Politics 'In Another View': Late 1792/Early 1793, Robert P. Irvine

Studies in Scottish Literature

Presents a reconsideration of Burns's political views in 1792-1793, examining in detail the original performance context of his poem "The Rights of Woman," in the Dumfries Theatre in November 1792, and the political context of his song "Why should na poor people mow," as first sent in letters to Robert Cleghorn in December 1792 and to Robert Graham of Fintry in January 1793, arguing that such "political" poems might be read less in terms of French or metropolitan revolutionary politics than in terms of major cultural and social changes in the Scottish community and networks to which Burns belonged.

Radical Attribution: Robert Burns And 'The Liberty Tree', Corey E. Andrews

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the political symbolism of liberty trees in the American and French revolutions, and in Scotland in Burns's period, as background to reconsidering the song "The Liberty Tree," first printed among Burns's work by Robert Chambers in 1838, the authorship of which has remained a subject for debate among Burnsians; examines the song closely in terms of phrasing to argue that it is unlikely to be by Burns; and draws a distinction between attributing the song to Burns and its evident reliance on his iconic standing both in his own time and among later Scottish radicals.

Sir Walter Scott's The Monastery And The Representation Of Religious Belief, Chad T. May

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines Sir Walter Scott's novel The Monastery, written while he was also working on his better-known medieval novel Ivanhoe, and discusses its representation of the historical religious transition of Scotland from a Catholic to a Protestant country; focuses especially on Scott's treatment of the supernatural, in the figure of the White Lady, and argues that Scott uses her to allow representation of a personal religious experience or religious vision that otherwise fitted uneasily with his generally secular project for historical representation in fiction; and concludes by briefly sketching the significance of this atypical, transitional novel for understanding religious …

John Stuart Blackie's Altavona: A Late Victorian Reaction To The Highland Clearances, Brooke Mclaughlin Mitchell

Studies in Scottish Literature

Reviews the career of John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895), poet, professor successively of humanity in Aberdeen and of Greek in Edinburgh, and a tireless advocate for the Scottish Highlands and Celtic culture; sketches his growing criticism of Highland landlords and the eviction of crofters from Scottish estates, in relation to more recent perspectives; and discusses his successive literary treatments of the Clearances in his "Highland Sonnets," his long poem "The Highlander's Lament," and, most fully, in his 'novel' or mixed-genre prose work Altavona: Fact and Fiction from My Life in the Highlands (1882), commenting also on Blackie's revisions to the book …

John Byrne's The Slab Boys: Technicolored Hell-Hole In A Town Called Malice, William Donaldson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Presents a detailed discussion and appreciation of the Slab Boys tetralogy, a sequence of four plays by the Scottish playwright and painter John Byrne, beginning with The Slab Boys (1978), focused on a group of apprentices in the color-mixing room of a Paisley carpet-factory in the 1950s, and then tracing the divergence of their lives through three later plays, The Loveliest Night of the Year (1979, later titled Cuttin' A Rug), Still Life (1982), and Nova Scotia (2008); examines Byrne's characterization, "excoriatingly destructive wit," and "rambunctiously demotic language"; analyzes the tetralogy's continuing major themes of the relation between art …

Back To The Future: Remembering The 1707 Act Of Union In The 2014 Referendum Campaign, Leith Davis

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the political rhetoric , imagery, and arguments, used in the debates over the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England, and traces their reuse in the debates that preceded the Scottish Referendum on independence in September 2014, depicting the 1707 act, not as an historical inevitability, but as "an anomalous success" after a century of earlier attempts at an incorporating union and as "a site of contestation long after its ratification."