English Language and Literature Commons^™

Authorship In Burroughs's Red Night Trilogy And Bowles's Translation Of Moroccan Storytellers, Benjamin J. Heal

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Authorship in Burroughs's Red Night Trilogy and Bowles's Translation of Moroccan Storytellers" Benjamin J. Heal discusses Paul Bowles's and William S. Burroughs's varying interrogation of the constructed nature of authorship. In his study Heal focuses on the publication history of Burroughs's Cities of the Red Night (1981), which was written with considerable collaborative influence and Bowles's translation of illiterate Moroccan storytellers, where his influence over the production and editing of the texts is blurred as are the roles of author and translator. Through an examination of Bowles's and Burroughs's authorship strategies in parallel with an explication of …

Bowles's Up Above The World As Beatnik Murder Mystery, Greg Bevan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Bowles's Up Above the World as Beatnik Murder Mystery" Greg Bevan discusses Paul Bowles's fourth and final novel, which at the time of its publication was met with mixed reactions from reviewers and its creator alike, and has seen relatively scanty critical attention in the years since. Gena Dagel Caponi perceives in the novel a reflection of Bowles's struggle for control, during the time of its writing, in the face of his wife Jane's terminal illness. Building on this insight, the current essay notes the same tension in the writings of the Beats—a movement with which Bowles …

Burroughs's Folios As An Archival Machine For Artistic Creation, Tomasz D. Stompor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Burroughs's Folios as an Archival Machine for Artistic Creation" Tomasz D. Stompor discusses the significance of archival material as a scholarly resource for the analysis of William S. Burroughs's cut-up experiments. Stompor retraces the history of the author's filing system as both a referential repository and a device for documentation and investigates its function as an eperimental machine for the production of cut-up texts and layouts

Theories Of Opiate Addiction In The Early Works Of Burroughs And Trocchi, Richard English

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Theories of Opiate Addiction in the Early Works of Burroughs and Trocchi" Richard English discusses William S. Burroughs's and Alexander Trocchi's representations of opiate addiction with special reference to their early writings. English examines the concept of homo heroin that can be attributed to Burroughs and lists and expounds its qualities. Among these are: immorality, criminality, mono-objectuality, self- and other-indifference, and, most importantly, the radical physical transformation into a new species, which Burroughs extends in Naked Lunch. English shows how homo heroin relates to Trocchi's conception of a heroin addict, which serves to illustrate that homo …

Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions In The Yage Letters, Melanie Keomany

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Burroughs's Postcolonial Visions in The Yage Letters" Melanie Keomany discusses the contents of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg's The Yage Letters which could be dismissed as openly bigoted and racist. Keomany posits that the text reveals valuable connections between the colonial expansion of the eighteenth century and 1950s USA and Latin America. By re-shaping Burroughs's lived experiences in the Amazon into a text where the narrator William Lee mimics sardonically and parodically the colonial scientific explorer, The Yage Letters provides valuable insight into the complex postcolonial context of the mid-twentieth century.

Burroughs's Re-Invention Of The Byronic Hero, Franca A. Bellarsi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Burroughs's Re-Invention of the Byronic Hero" Franca A. Bellarsi discusses George Gordon Byron's (1788-1824) and William S. Burroughs's (1914-1997) texts as masterful examples of irreverence which earned notoriety in their own days. Yet despite the scandalous aura of lawlessness, iconoclastic cynicism, and nomadic elusiveness which surrounds both authors' work, a parallel between them has never been attempted. Bellarsi argues that more than a hundred years after Burroughs's birth, assessing his work implies understanding that his enduring appeal across languages and cultures rests in part on how his writing pushes the transformation of the Byronic myth further in …

Addressing Coherence In English-Arabic Subtitling By Amateur Aficionados, Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh Mat, Sulafa Musallam

Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh MAT

Chance, Chaos, And Chloral: Lily Bart Gambles It All In The House Of Mirth, Stacey L. Fitzpatrick

Masters Theses

Much of traditional literary study of Lily Bart’s struggles and social failures depicted in The House of Mirth focuses on her fear of losing her freewill, her reliance on fate or Fortuna, and her dislike of the options set before her. In this paper I will use several important scenes to illustrate that Lily’s penchant for gambling more accurately explains her behavior and rejection of social and cultural expectations. Preferring her freedom and weighing her options of marriage for power or a financially secure lifestyle, Lily considers them as a gambler, balancing her marriage prospects against her love for excitement …

Beyond The Story-Book Ending: Literature For Young Children About Parental Estrangement And Loss, Megan Mason Matt

Occasional Paper Series

Analyzes over thirty books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce and foster care.

“Such Night Till This I Never Passed” : How The Dreams Of Adam And Eve Lead To The Decision To Fall In Paradise Lost, Robert B. Chapman

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the idea that the Fall in Paradise Lost by John Milton is not a sudden event, but rather Adam and Eve's adherence to temptations that begin long before, specifically in Eve's vision and Adam's thoughts on Eve. This project begins by challenging the ways in which readers of the poem often overlook Eve as they focus solely on Satan or Adam. By looking at Eve's depiction as truly Adam's equal in the poem, this thesis then moves to the idea that temptations are an individual experience that begins first in the mind. Often, readers and scholars explore …

Severing Ties: A Lacanian Reading Of Motherhood In Joyce Carol Oates’S Short Stories "The Children" And "Feral", Uroš Tomić

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

This paper approaches two of Joyce Carol Oates’s short stories (“The Children” and “Feral”) from a Lacanian perspective on the tripartite structure of personality in an attempt to analyze questions of motherhood and the parent-child separation process. Although published 35 years apart both stories deal with mothers who have trouble containing their maternal attitude and children who become elusive entities for their parents. Utilizing as well the concept of what Oates has termed “realistic allegory” in the analysis of characters situated within highly specific settings and circumstances, the paper aims to shed light on Oates’s vision of the workings of …

Reading Vice: The Christian Text In Geoffrey Of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae, Nancy S. Bell

Masters Theses

Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed his purpose for writing Historia regum Britanniae was to record a history of the British kings and their great deeds. On the surface, his book is indeed a chronicle detailing the reigns of several important kings and glossing over many more. However, below the surface, Geoffrey includes layers of Christian text to motivate his audience to avoid vice. To clue his readers into the Christian meaning, Geoffrey makes use of shared beliefs, such as that vices should be avoided, that a king’s behavior affects his people, that disease can be a manifestation of sin, and that …

Roots And Repercussions Of Romantic Feeling: Sensation And Affect In The Poetry Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge And William Wordsworth, Mary K. Cotter

Theses and Dissertations

Enlightenment emphasis on rationalism in philosophy and the arts prefigures Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s and William Wordsworth’s Romantic recovery of a subject’s empirical relationship to nature and the phenomenal world. Coleridge and Wordsworth respond to philosophical precedents that emphasize rationalism and the autonomy of a subject while introducing empiricism and sensation as primary components of the speaker’s experience. The poets delineate a fluid shift from the Enlightenment to Romanticism through an interchangeable reliance on Kantian and Burkean philosophical methods. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant follows the Cartesian cogito toward a similar end of reducing human experience to circumstance bereft of empirical …

Witness: Reflections On Detention In Joyce Carol Oates's Work, Tanya L. Tromble

Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies

Throughout her career, Joyce Carol Oates has resisted the urge of others to label her a feminist writer, insisting that she be considered a writer, independent of biological gender. As America’s “chronicler of the middle class,” she has given voice to countless invisible female character types, but this is only one concern among many. Oates is incredibly active, but rather than to actively incite, she uses her prolific pen to create testimonies to contemporary American life, seeking particularly to give voice to the voiceless among us. In spite of the notions of crime and justice being central to her fiction …

Different Names For Bullying, Marco Poggio

Capstones

“There's all different forms of bullying,” says Steven Gray, a Lakota rancher and former law enforcement officer living in South Dakota. In this look into Gray’s life, we learn about two instances of bullying: the psychological and physical harassment that pushed his son, Tanner Thomas Gray, to commit suicide at age 12; And the controversial construction of an oil pipeline in an ancient tribal land that belongs to the Lakota people by rights of a treaty signed in 1851, which Gray sees as an institutional abuse infringing on the sovereignty of his people. Gray is involved in the movement that …

Verge, Jessica A. Collins

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This poetry thesis explores the relationship of the Buddhist concept of nonduality to polar mood disorders by employing motifs of bomb testing, war crimes, spiders, and seascapes. A critical preface credits Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Ruefle as influences. The manuscript favors free-verse poetry and field composition, though also includes a lyric essay and two formal poems.

Teaching Place: Heritage, Home And Community, The Heart Of Education, Judy Kay Lorenzen

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines the implementation of a Place-conscious pedagogy as a means to teach heritage and sense of place. This pedagogy is framed upon the premise that trying to understand our heritage and place—ourselves—are crucial elements in our ability to live well as individuals who are connected school/community members, who help our schools/communities thrive, becoming Place-conscious citizens. I argue that in teaching in such a culturally diverse community, tensions rise as immigration has become a main focus. Our school/community has experienced many ethnic groups with vast social differences for which Place-conscious education offers practical solutions. These students have a great …

Innovative Techniques For Inspiring Efl Students' Enthusiasm And Participating In English Classroom Activities, Yinghung Natalie Chiang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since 1990, the government of Taiwan has sought to position the country as an international economic and trading center. As a result, English became a compulsory subject for Taiwanese students in 2005 (Lu, 2011). The Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) is promoting communicative language teaching (CLT) and encouraging learners to develop and increased desire to improve their language skills. However, many Taiwanese English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers still focus on memorization and the grammar translation method (Chung & Huang, 2009). The author discovered two major issues related to English language teaching in Taiwan. The first issue was many Taiwanese …

Case Study Of An English Program In A Multi-Ethnic Chinese Context: Feasibility Of Genred Task Instructional Approaches And Implications For Teacher Development, Merideth Hoagland Pitts

Faculty Dissertations

The current study examines the feasibility of task- and genre-based instruction in an English program located in an under-examined region of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.), a demographically diverse setting to the far west of the developed coastal region. The study investigates how and to what extent genred task instruction (GTI), an innovative construct harmonizing SLA and genre-pedagogical recommendations, is implemented in this setting, considering local stakeholders’ perspectives with respect to local dynamics. The study further attempts to determine the nature of the teacher support in the target context, considering what additional support might be necessary to sustain GTI …

'Rebellious Highlanders': The Reception Of Corsica In The Edinburgh Periodical Press, 1730-1800, Rhona Brown

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines the way Scottish periodicals, especially the Weekly Magazine and the Caledonian Mercury, reported and discussed the nationalist resistance in Corsica against first Genoese and then French rule; recalibrates the role of James Boswell in shaping Scottish opinion about Corsica, especially in his Account of Corsica (1768); notes the parallels made by Scottish commentators between the Corsican resistance under Pascal Paoli and the Scottish highlands, especially the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745; and suggests the value of looking at the distinctive responses of Scottish periodicals, not just the print networks based on London.

Scotland And The Caribbean, Jo Durant

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses (and summarizes) Michael Morris's recent book Scotland and the Caribbean, c. 1740-1833, concluding that it should be welcomed, not only as an introduction to specific writers, but as a good introduction to recent debates on the legacy of Caribbean slavery, as seen from a Scottish perspective.

Edinburgh Monuments, The Literary Canon, And Cultural Nationalism: A Comparative Perspective, Silvia Mergenthal

Studies in Scottish Literature

Building on comparative studies of the "memory landscapes" of cities and monuments, describes three different monument series in Edinburgh, the Canongate Wall at the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood, the flagstone quotations in Makar's Court near the Writers' Museum, and the grouped herms in the Edinburgh Business Park; discusses how the authors included in each series were selected and how each relates to the formal and informal Scottish literary canon; and briefly indicates what comparative scholarship suggests about the relation of such monuments to the development of cultural nationalism.

Mobbing, (Dis)Order And The Literary Pig In The Tale Of Colkelbie Sow, Pars Prima, Caitlin Flynn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Sets the portrayal of the pig in the anonymous Scots fifteenth-century poem The Tale of Colkelbie Sow in the context of medieval fears of social disorder and mob rule, drawing on medieval accounts of the criminal trials of unruly pigs and other animals, and recent discussions of Scottish and medieval literary humour.

Alexander Arbuthnot And The Lyric In Post-Reformation Scotland, Joanna Martin

Studies in Scottish Literature

Presents the first critical discussion of manuscript poems in the Maitland Quarto attributable to Alexander Arbuthnot (1538-1583), the first Protestant principal of King's College, Aberdeen; gives detailed discussion of attribution and textual issues; and discusses the effects of religious change on Arbuthnot's writing of amatory, ethical and devotional lyric in post-Reformation Scotland.

From Classic Novel To Broadway Musical Production: An Examination Of Little Women As An Adaptation, Meghan Skiles

HON499 projects

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is a classic work of American literature that has been adapted into many different forms since its original publication in 1868. This essay analyzes the effects of adapting a novel, or written medium, to a visual medium such as a film or stage production. Particularly, it looks at Alcott’s Little Women in relation to Allan Knee’s 2005 Broadway musical adaptation of the story. This article begins with a discussion about the challenges that come with adapting a written medium to a visual medium, and then uses Little Women as a case study, examining the …

The Office, Jessie Anderson, Lauren Sasha Clemmer, Caitlyn Denning, Sara Ferrufino, Daniel Greco, Joshua Harris, Amber Kier, Erika Queme, Sarah Rosa, Hannah Russell, Webb Smith, Katelyn Takacs, Emily Wallis, Chase Alex Watkins, Jordan Wright, Megan Zewe, Courtney Wooten

Student Publications

This newsletter was created by the Fall 2016 Honors English Class from Stephen F. Austin State University. Throughout the semester students were asked to define and interpret the terms "work" and "labor." Through our individual research on different aspects of work and labor, we hope to expand the general spectrum of what encompasses these topics. Works and labor are two important aspects of our culture. They are umbrella terms that encompass many occupational fields and serve as a uniting factor in modern-day society. Aspects of work and labor are observable in an assortment of environments, whether it be through schoolwork …

From Longinus To Tolkien: A Theory Of The Fantastic Sublime, Seth Wilson

English Department Theses

As concepts, the fantastic and the sublime share much in common. Both have the power to take a reader outside the scope of his or her own worldview and experience, and both share the paradoxical power to both elevate and humble the human spirit. So it is surprising that few scholars have explored the intersection between these two constructs, and none has attempted to systematically explore how this intersection operates in the context of literary theory. This thesis endeavors to build a theoretical framework for the fantastic sublime by exploring its constituent parts. First, I examine the contribution of the …

Living Subversive Narratives: Shahrazad’S Stories Of Women, Caleb Nicholas

Honors Projects

Though scholars have examined The 1001 Nights’ Entertainments or The Arabian Nights, few have thoroughly explored the function of Shahrazad’s tales as they relate to her position as a woman. Closely reading the stories of the Nights reveals that there are chiefly two types of female characters who emerge in her stories: the heroic, who have no apparent autonomy, and the villainous, who have overflowing autonomy. These depictions of women are problematic from the viewpoint of present-day feminism, but are understandable, and even genuinely subversive, in Shahrazad’s context. Although some scholars have dismissed questions about the function of the …

On Reckoning, Kim Solga

Department of English Publications

How can settler-colonial subjects bear witness to survivors of Canada’s residential school system? Kim Solga attends ARTICLE 11’s Reckoning at the Theatre Centre and asks questions about the strategies it uses to bring audiences into the conversation about truth and reconciliation.

Exploring Psychological Territoriality Through The Domestic Gothic In Beloved And Mama Day, Lori L. Cook

English Department Theses

The novels, Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor, contain narratives of families with a history of slavery that explore how their female protagonists claim their identities within the new boundaries of freedom. Using a framework of the Domestic Gothic, this paper explores how formerly enslaved female characters claim new psychological territory in bounded domestic spaces by using the chores they were forced to perform during their times of slavery as a means to independence. Domestic duties such as cooking and gardening along with magical and religious ceremonies and acts of violence are passed down through the …