Animating Shakespeare On Screen, Molly Ostrow, Katherine Kibler, Jillian Riendeau

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

This project will explore the animated adoration of Shakespeare and how these various productions function in our culture today.

Shakespeare In Social Media, Brendan Leonard, Rachel Bird, Samantha Dow

CLAS: Colby Liberal Arts Symposium

A presentation on the ways in which Shakespeare appears in social media.

Irish Enough?, Jordan Marie Abbruzzese

English Student Capstone Projects - Creative Writing

"Irish Enough?" is an essay collection that primarily describes my travels to Ireland. Before leaving America, I was overwhelmed with the prospect that I would be touring the country for eleven days, exploring where my great-grandparents came from, and essentially journeying to “the homeland” (as my family referred to it at a wedding, months later). Through the collection I explore not only what it is like to travel through Ireland as an outsider, but also the expectations and realities of being an American with Irish heritage “returning” to Ireland. The collection tackles questions, such as “Why does our society romanticize …

Take What You Can Carry: A Novella, Maggie Stough

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

They say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, but what do you do when there's too many dogs to walk, two postmenopausal muggers on the loose, and one unexpected pregnancy? That's for MJ McCormick to find out. Upon taking a pregnancy test in a coffee shop bathroom one afternoon, she soon finds herself grappling with the reality of a strange genetic condition, its religious connotations, and her family's secrets. Take What You Can Carry is a novella written by Maggie Stough for her Creative Writing Fiction Seminar during the Fall 2014 semester.

The Wind Of Madness And The Search For Order Through Disorder In Partition Narratives, Sarah C. Longenderfer

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

By drawing on Partition theory such as Pandey (2001), Daiya (2008), and Butalia (2000) as well as madness theory by Foucault (1971), this paper explores the way madness is described in Partition texts through characters attempting to regain control over their lives and assert their new national identities. Coinciding with decolonization of British rule, the Partition of India (1947) divided India and Pakistan and led to genocidal violence during the migrations of both Hindus and Muslims to their respective countries. I utilize three short stories by Saadat Hassan Manto: "Colder than Ice" (1950), "The Return" (1948), and "Toba Tek Singh" …

Still, Emily Claire Humberson

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Still is a collection of poetry written for the ENGL470 Seminar: Poetry course, taught by Professor Pineda. The word "still" itself has two definitions: not moving or making a sound, and nevertheless, all the same. The collection seeks to quietly reconcile the inevitable end of all things, while still reporting the difficulties of reaching such a conclusion. The collection blends both narrative and lyric elements. The poems straddle the range between surreal and realistic imagery, juxtaposing the visions of dreams with the hardships of reality. Still explores change over time, witnessed in interpersonal relationships and an aging landscape. It works …

Bending Gender: Perversions In Children's Literature, D. Claire Winkler

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper examines the role literary perversions play in children's literature. Specifically, it examines the role they play within the books Charlotte's Web and Bridge to Terabithia. Moreover, it is particularly interested in examining how literary perversions of gender--that is, representations of gender that fall outside of the normative standard of society--effect the narratives and characters of the books in question. The presence of this form of literary perversion in children's books is fascinating because childhood is one of the only times gender fluidity is acceptable. Yet, children are also being prepped for the roles they will be expected …

老人与海: The Cultural Classroom Handbook, Jessica Ann Brumley

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea has gained global recognition as a literary masterpiece. This novel, although written by an American, is set in Cuba and features cultural elements from Latin America as well as North America. Classrooms around the world use this novel as a means of teaching English to second-language learners because of the comparatively simple grammatical structure and concise word choice.

One specific instance of this is the Chinese classroom, where some students have used The Old Man and the Sea as an introduction to American literature. Hemingway’s work, which has since been translated …

April 29, 2015: Fellowship Opportunity--Deadline 5/8/15!, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

No Absolutes: A Fantasy Collection, Tiffany M. Hughes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Genre fiction, particularly fantasy and science fiction writing, has a mixed reception in academia across the world. The notion that make-believe characters and worlds could not be intellectually fulfilling is an old stereotype that reduces some of the most profound fiction of our era down to children’s tales. This fantasy collection serves as an example of how genre fiction can contain impactful stories that challenge our understanding of traditional values. As the title suggests, life, from relationships to self-identity, offers no absolutes for the future. Humanity faces uncertainty of the past, present, and future every day. These stories reflect the …

Between Subject And Tech Expertise: Collaborating With Faculty For Digital Humanities Projects [Presentation], Rose Fortier, Heather G. James, Wendy Fall

Library Faculty Research and Publications

Libraries are well-positioned for partnership with digital humanities efforts in several ways. The management of digital items and the description of information resources for future researchers make libraries natural partners in digital humanities projects. Often Humanities scholars will reach out to the library for support or even guidance in these projects.

At Marquette University, the Gothic Archive exemplifies the development of this collaboration. Though the Archive started as a humble collection of digitized and transcribed gothic chapbooks, it is being developed into an interwoven collection of digitized materials and contextual objects and promises to become a full-fledged digital humanities tool. …

April 28, 2015: New Issue Of Comparative Drama, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Gay And Lesbian Culture And Politics, John C. Hawley

English

As laws change and we move several generations away from the times of greatest struggle, the atmosphere that created the contemporary scene for gay and lesbian citizens, their culture and politics, becomes increasingly remote and potentially forgotten. As recent historians have recalled, though, “This was a population too shy and fearful to even raise its hand, a group of people who had to start at zero in order to create their place in the nation’s culture,” –an “invisible people” (Clendinen, 11). The movement for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, considered by many to have originated with the …

A Redemption Of Meaning In Three Novels By Italo Calvino, Dominick J. Knowles

English and Creative Writing Honors Papers

In this thesis I present three readings of Italo Calvino’s later novels: Invisible Cities (1972), If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979), and Mr. Palomar (1983). My primary aim is to defend Calvino against dominant scholarly interpretations that position him as a Postmodern nihilist, a literary trickster interested solely in toying with the mechanics of language. My analysis of Calvino’s work re-envisions him as a special breed of Postmodernist concerned with humanity’s ability to create spaces for meaning in spite of an indifferent cosmos. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory, cognitive science, analytic philosophy, and phenomenology, I synthesize my own critical …

Love, A Dream, Brittany A. Cordaro

Symposium of Student Scholars

No abstract provided.

‘I Am Not Your Justification For Existence:’ Mourning, Fascism, Feminism And The Amputation Of Mothers And Daughters In Atwood, Ziervogel, And Ozick, Mitchell C. Hobza

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines the complexities of mother-daughter relationships in twentieth-century women’s literature that includes themes about fascism and totalitarianism. Of central concern is how mothers and daughters are separated, both physically and psychically, in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Meike Ziervogel’s Magda and Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl. Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born provides the theoretical framework for considering maternity and the institution of motherhood. These separations occur through two modes: physical separation by political force; and psychical separation through ideological difference and what Rich terms as “Matrophobia.” The physical separation is analyzed through a synthesis of Rich’s theory …

Holy Places, Dark Paths: Till We Have Faces And The Spiritual Conflicts Of C.S. Lewis, Joshua G. Novalis

Senior Honors Theses

Although Till We Have Faces (1956) was written late in C.S. Lewis’s life (1898-1963), during the peak of his literary renown, the novel remains one of Lewis’s least known and least accessible works. Due to its relatively ancient and obscure source material, as well as its tendency towards the esoteric, a healthy interpretation of the novel necessitates a wider look at Lewis’s life-long body of work. By approaching Till We Have Faces through the framework of Lewis and the corpus of his work, the reader can see two principal conflicts that characterize the work as a whole, and, more specifically, …

Zakiya Whatley, Visiting Assistant Professor Of Biology, Musselman Library, Zakiya Whatley

Next Page

In our last Next Page column of the year, Zakiya Whatley, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, provides a recommended read for any budding geneticist; shares which books she's looking forward to reading next for her book group; and tells us what her students will be doing for class this Friday, April 24, 2015, in celebration of National DNA Day.

Review Of Joyce Carol Oates's Jack Of Spades, Eric K. Anderson

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

A review of Joyce Carol Oates's novel Jack of Spades with an emphasis on her history of using pseudonyms and the mystery/thriller genres.

"That Flesh-Locked Sea Of Silence”: Language, Gender, And Sexuality In Beckett’S Short Fiction, Emily F. Oliver

Honors College Theses

This paper asserts the interconnectedness of language, gender, and sexuality in the short prose of Samuel Beckett. “Assumption,” “First Love,” and “Enough,” are used as specific examples of Beckett’s fiction, selected because they assist in understanding Beckett’s participation in, and inversion of, the hegemonic privileging of the masculine. This interpretation focuses on the use of gendered language, verbalization as a sexual expression, and the manipulation of the “male” and “female” voice. The analysis is both informed by, and seeks to nuance, the linguistic criticism established by second-wave French feminists Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous.

The Nerd Hour Is At Hand: Portrayals Of Geeks And Nerds In Young Adult Literature Ad Popular Media, Jessica M. Stanley

Theses & Honors Papers

Turn on the television, open a book, or even walk down the street and you will no doubt notice at least one geek or nerd. Most Americans today have heard these terms, and each individual probably has his own working definition of what they mean. Unpacking those definitions, however, is tricky. What is a nerd? What is a geek? How does one identify a person as belonging to these groups? To analyze how modern culture understands geeks and nerds, one must first understand the history behind these terms. While most Americans today recognize and use the words "geek" and "nerd," …

Rhetoric Of The Body: Renaissance Cadaveric Studies And Their Influence In Shakespeare, Leslie Renee Malland

Student Theses and Dissertations

The histories of anatomy and rhetoric are integrally united and date back to the foci upon both by the ancients in Greece and Rome. Though anatomy and rhetoric may seem like they are two different worlds, the same concepts and themes run concurrently throughout the two studies. Rhetors use language to persuade others of what is true while anatomists use bodies to reveal man's truth. Thus, anatomy is nonverbal rhetoric -- communication and knowledge transferred by the body, not by language. The historical accounts of the matron Lucrece and the Roman general Caesar as told by Titus Livy and Plutarch …

Tolkien Sidelined: Constructing The Non-Combatant In The Children Of Hurin, Victoria Holtz-Wodzak

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

Gives close attention to Morwen, Niennor, and Aerin, comparing them to Éowyn before she rode to battle and to Tolkien’s own mother Mabel and wife Edith. Also considers the situations of several male characters unable to or uninterested in serving in war, particularly Sador, Gwindor, and Brandir, and Tolkien’s own experiences on being sent home to England with trench fever.

Constructing Lothiriel: Rewriting And Rescuing The Women Of Middle-Earth From The Margins, Karen Viars, Cait Coker

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

Examines the presence and absence of female characters in Tolkien, in the Peter Jackson films, and in fanfiction, paying particular attention to a “footnote character,” Lothíriel, and what the body of fanfiction built around her brief mention as the daughter of Imrahil and wife of Éomer reveals about reader engagement with Tolkien’s texts.

Isn't It Romantic? Sacrificing Agency For Romance In The Chronicles Of Prydain, Rodney M.D. Fierce

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

Addresses the vexed question of Princess Eilonwy’s gesture of giving up magic and immortality to be the wife of Taran and queen of Prydain. Was it a forced choice and a sacrifice of the capable and strong-willed girl’s agency and power, or does it proceed logically from her depiction throughout the series?

Notes, Nancy Martsch, Janet Brennan Croft, Edith Crowe, Richard West

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

Notes and Letters

Notes

• Thiepval Ridge and Minas Tirith. Proposes a specific source for certain imagery associated with the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. By Nancy Martsch

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• In Memoriam: Terry Pratchett in Mythlore. A listing of Terry Pratchett’s appearances in Mythlore as the subject of articles. By Janet Brennan Croft

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• In Memoriam: Tom Loback in Mythlore. A listing of artist Tom Loback’s appearances in Mythlore as illustrator or author. By Janet Brennan Croft and Edith Crowe

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Letters

• Corrects and expands on items in his Mythcon Guest of Honor speech (“Where …

Reviews, Emily E. Auger, Janet Brennan Croft, Mike Foster, Melody Green, Crystal Hurd, Eric Rauscher, Andrew Stout, Robert T. Tally, Jr.

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

Christianity and the Detective Story. Ed. Anya Morlan and Walter Raubicheck. Reviewed by Melody Green.

The Shamanic Odyssey: Homer, Tolkien, and the Visionary Experience Robert Tindall with Susana Bustos. Foreword by John Perkins. Reviewed by Emily E. Auger.

Gaining a Face: The Romanticism of C.S. Lewis. James Prothero and Donald T. Williams. Reviewed by Crystal Hurd.

The A-Z of C.S. Lewis: An Encyclopedia of His Life, Thought and Writings. Colin Duriez. Reviewed by Andrew Stout.

Under The Mercy: Charles Williams & The Holy Grail. Robert Peirano. Reviewed by Eric Rauscher.

Tolkien and the Modernists: Literary Responses to the Dark New …

Chaoskampf, Salvation, And Dragons: Archetypes In Tolkien's Earendel, Tibor Tarcsay

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

Study of world-wide mythical archetypes in relation to Tolkien’s Eärendil. Lays out a broad array of evidence attesting to a complex of characteristics associated with a mythical morning-star character, chief among them an association with water, horses, boats, constellations, being a messenger or herald, and monster-slaying, particularly of monsters associated with chaos.

Editorial, Janet Brennan Croft

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

The majority of articles in this issue of Mythlore have to do with a selection of female characters in fantasy and their issues of agency, visibility, relationship, and gender roles.

Magical Genders: The Gender(S) Of Witches In The Historical Imagination Of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, Lian Sinclair

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

Fruitfully explores the similarities between Pratchett’s theory of narrative causality and the gender theories of Butler and Foucault; all deal with an urge to fit gender performance into an established story. Pratchett’s witches engage in a balancing act between the gender expectations of their society and their own quests for agency and power.