English Language and Literature Commons^™

Caring, Investing, Empowering: Undergraduate Research Mentoring Practices By English Faculty, Emily Powell, Taylor Wyatt, Lauren Mckinnon, Taylor Franson, Kylie Smith, Zackary Gregory, R. Elle Smith

Student Research Symposium

Mentoring undergraduate research has received attention in scholarly publications, particularly in STEM areas (Pierszalowski & Buser, 2021; National Academies; Pathways to Science). More general advice on mentoring appears in Temple et al (2010) and Vandermaas-Peeler et al, 2018). Attention to mentoring undergraduate researchers in the humanities has been addressed by Behling (2009), Klos, et al (2011), Crawford et al (2014). Grobman and Kinkead (2010) include a section on mentoring in their Undergraduate Research in English Studies. What are the characteristics of faculty mentors in a department of English? This study seeks to determine a profile of effective mentoring in this …

The Fabric Of Genius: Examining The Material Choices Of Creative Writing Graduate Students, Kylie Smith

Student Research Symposium

In recent years, the material culture of writing has been an important topic of study for composition scholars. Though many studies examine the material choices of many types of writers, including creative writers, researchers have yet to examine whether or not individuals use different implements to perform different writerly identities. This case study, examining three graduate students in Utah State University’s department of English, asks which writing implements individuals choose to complete creative writing tasks, and whether those differ from implements chosen to complete critical or academic writing tasks.

The Tragic Loyalty Of Sir Gawain, Annie Heywood

Student Research Symposium

Sir Gawain was one of the most popular figures from Arthurian legend in medieval England. His absolute loyalty to Arthur, no matter the circumstances, was greatly admired. In every story, Sir Gawain is completely loyal to Arthur, even when Arthur is in the wrong. He is willing to make any sacrifice, whether it be his life or his honor, to protect Arthur and his legacy. However, modern critics have found a darker side to his total loyalty, ideas that Kazuo Ishiguro examines in his novel The Buried Giant. Ishiguro explores the darkness that war can bring out in even the …

Say Gay, Miranda Wiener

Student Research Symposium

On February 8th, 2022, Republican Representative Joe Harding of Florida proposed the “Parental Rights in Education Bill''. Under this Bill, classroom discussion from grades k-3rd grade will be exclusively heterosexual and will limit how much teacher’s can say in regards to the LGBTQ community in those grades. The bill states that a school “may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate”. Within the LGBTQ community, mental health is at a staggering low. Thoughts of guilt, self-hatred and fear lead to thoughts or acts of suicide …

Dynamics Of Difference: Creating A Translingual Class At Utah State University, Rebecca Elle Smith

Student Research Symposium

With social justice topics like racial inequality on the rise, some universities are creating curriculum that emphasizes how language standardization privileges some while disadvantaging others. I propose that USU should create an English class that emphasizes linguistic justice topics like the power dynamics and consequences of utilizing languages outside of English in essays and writing projects. My research project investigates what it would take to create a linguistic justice based English class at USU through the lens of translingualism. I created a mixed methods study where I analyzed translingual syllabi and interviewed lecturers in the USU English department about creating …

The Buried Giant: Unearthing The Corruption Of Organized Religion, Maryn Van Tassell

Student Research Symposium

The Buried Giant is a fantasy novel that has resurrected many of the characteristics of the medieval romance genre. Noble warriors and knights embark on a quest to slay a dragon and face other supernatural antagonists. In this resurrection of genre, what tropes and themes have been re-imagined or subverted for a modern audience? In this presentation, I will illustrate how Kazuo has taken traditional tropes of the medieval romance genre and manipulated them to send a new message about organized Christian religion. I will examine how Kazuo has swapped traditional character roles, called in biblical parallels, and used beautiful …

Why Write The Ride? Exploring Writing In The Bikepacking Community, Zackary Gregory

Student Research Symposium

While bicycle touring generally denotes multi-day trips ridden on paved routes, bikepacking emphasizes riding unpaved roads and narrow single track to out-of-the-way destinations. Bikepackers will often spend all day scrambling up and down rocky mountain trails and desert roads. Many Bikepackers recount their trips on social media, in personal journals and in publications like The Bikepacking Journal. This study investigates the relationship between writing and bikepacking, and considers what bikepackers gain by putting their experiences into words.

A Tale Of Two Textbooks: 1960s And 2020s, Taylor Wyatt

Student Research Symposium

Composition and Writing studies courses have changed significantly in the wake of the Dartmouth Seminar in 1966. The Dartmouth Seminar was a meeting of English and American scholars, shifting from a product orientation to teaching writing to one based on process. Textbooks are an often-forgotten aspect of composition/writing studies classrooms. This research is a mixed method approach that considers the pedagogical and wider discipline implications of two distinct textbooks used in different times: one from before the Dartmouth Seminar, Communication Skills: The Basic Course, and the second a contemporary example, Focus on Writing: What College Students Want to Know.

In Service To The Narrative: The Buried Giant Through A Folklore Lens, Vinn Mcbride

Student Research Symposium

Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2016 novel The Buried Giant has a history of causing contention over how it should be read. Literature, fiction, fantasy, historical fantasy, and other forms have all be the jumping off point for many analysts, but this paper argues that perhaps the best way to read this work is as an analysis of Western literary canon and violence through the lens of oral folklore. Using Axel Olrik’s Epic Laws of Folk Narrative or sagenwelt offers insights into how the novel functions as an examination of characters bound up in predestined narratives due to the nature of their original …

Say Gay, Miranda Wiener

Student Research Symposium

The HB-1557 bill, deemed the 'Don't Say Gay' Bill by critics, has officially passed in the Florida Senate and will be enacted into law. The law targets discussion in the classroom towards LGBTQ issues and dynamics, eliminating these discussions all together. This bill will eliminate a potential safe space for LGBTQ students and will reinforce the idea that LGBTQ issues are a 'taboo' subject. By only eliminating LGBTQ discussions, the mental and physical health of youth apart of the LGBTQ community will decrease and students who are not apart of the LGBTQ community will lose the opportunity to create an …

Diversity Within Literature, Amrutha Obulasetty

Student Research Symposium

While our secondary classrooms grow more and more racially/ethnically diverse, common sense would tell us that our literature needs to reflect that, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of books that include diverse racial and ethnic representation. The issue is not the lack of literature but rather the lack of exposure to students in secondary schools in the US. Through my research, I question the dichotomy between the racially and ethnically diverse literature that exists and the racially and ethnically diverse literature that is in the hands of our students. After placing published scholarship in conversation with one another, …

The Benefits Of Reading For Pleasure, And How To Instill A Lifelong Love Of Reading In Students, Anna-Catherine Kueng

Student Scholar Showcase

Reading for pleasure has countless benefits for people of all ages, including social, emotional, and intellectual growth. However, one’s love for reading does not appear spontaneously; it is something that is cultivated inside and outside of school. From being read to by parents, to including literature-based social media activities in the classroom, there are many factors that make students enjoy reading. This research explores specific factors that make people want to read and how K-12 teachers can use this knowledge to become better teachers. As the title suggests, the essence of this research is to answer the question: how can …

Social Students, Social Scholars: How Usu English Graduate Students Use Social Media, Taylor Franson

Student Research Symposium

This research study focused on social media usage of USU English graduate students within the Utah State University English Department. The case study and interview results showed that few English graduate students have received advice on how to use social media, despite believing social media could be used to advance their careers. Many believe networking could be crucial to being published, creating contacts within the English world, and furthering their academic career, but few know how to go about this. This study suggests that there is room within the English department to create opportunities for English graduate students to learn …

Eudora Welty’S “Clytie”, The Mirror Stage, And The Grotesque, Samantha Miller

Global Tides

At first glance, Eudora Welty’s short stories seem to exist in paradox with the writer’s own intentions. Welty is well known for co-opting the “plots, settings, characters, image patterns, and vocabulary” of Gothic literature, yet upon being asked if she was a Gothic writer, she responded vehemently: “They better not call me that!”. What is a reader then to make of Welty’s short story “Clytie” which is saturated with homages to the imagery of the Gothic— the display of psychological breakdown of an isolated family trapped in a crumbling, memory-haunted mansion, centering on a trapped, unmarried woman who slowly realizes …

A Man Not A Monster : Reimagining Disability In Hollow Crown's Richard Iii, Taylor E. Uphus

Honors Theses

Traditional portrayals of William Shakespeare’s Richard III (1592) in film interpret Richard’s physical disability as an outward reflection of his evil. In recent years, disabilities studies scholars have reconsidered the historic association of Richard’s physical deformity with immorality. Unlike previous Richard III films, the BBC’s Hollow Crown: Richard III (Dominic Cooke, 2016) highlights Richard’s mental abuse and trauma. While the film does not shy away from Richard’s villainy, its more empathic depiction of Richard contests the one-dimensional stage and film representation of him as a conniving monster. Ultimately, this film presents Richard III to critique society’s treatment of disabled individuals.

English Is Not Dead! Long Live English: Teaching The Evolution Of English And Inclusive Communication Via Online, Face To Face Or Hybrid Instruction, Teresa Marie Kelly, Stephanie Thompson, Sheryl Bone

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

When popular media and many individuals discuss changes in English, some erroneously contend that the language has always been the same and changes amount to little more than “politically correct woke liberalism” desired by only certain people. The English language continually evolves as a natural process that nothing can force nor prevent. Field-specific language also changes with increased understanding and knowledge. The variety of English taught to most students also shifts as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)/Writing Across Disciplines (WAD) initiatives increasingly focus on Global English rather than the standard of any one country or group. Even informal interactions with …

Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev And Philosophical Progression, Graham C. Goff

Journal of Religion & Film

The allegory of Leviathan, the biblical serpent of the seas, has undergone numerous distinct and even antithetical conceptions since its origin in the book of Job. Most prominently, Leviathan was the namesake of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 political treatise and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film of the same name, a damning indictment of Russian corruption. These three iterations underscore the societal transition from the recognition of power as being derived from God to the secularization of power in Hobbes’s philosophy, to the negation of the legitimacy of divine and secular institutional power, in Zvyagintsev’s controversial film. This examination of Leviathan’s three unique …

A “Hired Girl” Testifies Against The “Son Of A Prominent Family”: Bastardy And Rape On The Nineteenth-Century Nebraska Plains, Donna Rae Devlin

Department of History: Faculty Publications

In Red Cloud, Nebraska, in 1887, Anna “Annie” Sadilek (later Pavelka) pressed bastardy charges against the “son of a prominent family,” even though she could have, according to her pretrial testimony, pressed charges for rape. To the literary world, Sadilek is better known as Ántonia Shimerda, the powerful protagonist in Willa Cather’s 1918 novel, My Ántonia. However, it is Sadilek’s real-life experience that allows us to better understand life on the Nebraska Plains, specifically through an examination of the state’s rape laws and the ways these laws were subsequently interpreted by the courts. The Nebraska Supreme Court, between 1877 …

Satori 2022, Abigail Perlinger, Brianna Strohbehn, Elise Modjeski, Gabriel Hathaway, Gabriela Wallberg, Grace Menke, Jennifer Wendt, Kaysey Price, Keaton Riebel, Louisa Shirmacher, Madi Bonebright, Madison Grove, Mckenna Scherer, Page Sutton, Rae Peter, Savannah Egger, Sophia Sailer, Trianna Douglas, Van Herman

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.

The Satori 2022 editors are Matthew Pearson, Jasmyne Taylor, and Emily Venne. the Satori 2022 faculty advisor is Dr. Jim Armstrong, Professor of English.

Breaking Bias, Building Belonging: Racism And Misogyny In Campus Communities, Kayla Batalha

Honors Projects in English and Cultural Studies

Breaking Bias, Building Belonging: Racism and Misogyny in Campus Communities is a project that uses art as a research medium in order to first understand how the Bryant community perceives issues of race, gender, and bias, as well as using creative modes of expression to educate participants on issues that are often invisible and go undiscussed on campus. Using qualitative and ethnographic research methods, this exhibit is infused with both primary and secondary research. Data gathered from the literature review explores the theme of community, which serves as the foundation for this project that was subsequently narrowed to focus on …

Triggered Emasculation In Southern Literature: Applying The Masculine Overcompensation Thesis, Delaney Holt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Coined by Stanford University sociologists Dr. Rob Willer and Dr. Christabel L. Rogalin in 2005, the masculine overcompensation thesis asserts that a man will reciprocate challenges to his masculinity with his own intense display(s) of masculinity. This new thesis combined the preliminary research completed by Adler and Freud, offering a new perspective on masculinity. Alongside societal and psychological applications, the masculine overcompensation thesis can also be applied to fictional literary relationships, especially within the pages of three southern novels: Lewis Nordan’s Wolf Whistle, Ron Rash’s One Foot in Eden, and Lewis Nordan’s The Sharpshooter Blues. A common thread of overcompensatory …

Ivy Leaves, Volume 97, Ivy Leaves Editorial Staff

Ivy Leaves

The 2022 edition of the Anderson University journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Samantha Brooks, Gabrielle Morgan, Lily McNamara, Perry Diamaduros, Rebekah McCallum, Slone Pearce, Jo Randlett, Sharice Somero, Maggie Fitch, Hannah Brown, Sara Pepper, Brianna Elwell, Abbie Vanasse, Alexis Bussey, Rebecca Thompson, Dakota Riemer, Caroline Reynolds, Shelby Parker, Lindsey Gatlin, James Glymph, Wayne Cox, and Tim Speaker.

Musical Scores And The Eternal Present: Theology, Time, And Tolkien By Chiara Bertoglio, John Wm. Houghton

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

Review of Chiara Bertoglio, Musical Scores and the Eternal Present: Theology, Time, and Tolkien (2021).

Writing Center Resources, Samantha Hince

Honors Projects

This project facilitated the composition of a series of resources for the Bridgewater College Writing Center website, part of the MyBC online portal. The result was thirty resources on writing-related topics such as the writing process, including prewriting, drafting, and revising; citation styles and avoiding plagiarism; and grammar, mechanics, and style. These resources are available to Bridgewater College students, faculty, and staff. The primary purpose of these resources is to assist Writing Center tutors during tutoring sessions with students and to provide supplemental writing assistance for students. Project development was based on research into college writing centers and best practices …

James Monroe Whitfield's "The Vision": Apocalypse And The Black Periodical Press, Magdalena Zapędowska

English Language and Literature: Faculty Publications

The pessimism of James Monroe Whitfield's long, only partially preserved poem "The Vision" is possibly without parallel in antebellum African American literature. Mobilizing African American and broader American culture's preoccupation with the end of the world, Whitfield turns to allegory and apocalyptic prophecy to represent the massive scale of human sacrifice in a nation founded on enslavement and colonial domination. "The Vision" theorizes the regimes of oppression shaping the antebellum social order through what I term an apocalyptic aesthetic of annihilation, which emerges from the interaction of the poem's thematic, affective, and formal components. This aesthetic is concerned with imminent …

The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2022 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee

Children's Book Committee

Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2021. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.

Grace, Grace, By The Side Of The Road, Hannah Tienvieri

English Senior Capstone

"Grace, Grace, By the Side of the Road" is a collection of poetry and creative nonfiction that contemplates the messiness of growing up and the events, relationships, and environments that shape a person’s identity. This collection traces my experiences from early childhood to college and maintains a particular interest in the landscape of the Midwest as being as integral to my sense of self as family, friendships, and the body. The text itself is an attempt to wrestle with the question: what does love look like amid hardship, change, and imperfection? In “Grace, Grace, By the Side of the Road,” …

Encouraging Activism In Secondary English: Reading And Writing For Social Justice, Elisabeth Spinner

Dissertations

This dissertation presents researched backed, social justice oriented teaching strategies secondary English teachers can implement to encourage their students to think critically and take action on issues that matter to them. Foundational to this research is critical inquiry which encourages students to not read or listen to information passively, but rather to investigate, critique, explore, and ask questions of what they are reading. This approach is necessary when encouraging students to dispel myths and stereotypes, understand questions of rights and justice, and find the right way to be involved. The English classroom is an ideal place for students to do …

Ethics And Form In Fantasy Literature: Tolkien, Rowling, And Meyer By Lykke Guanio-Uluru, Phillip Fitzsimmons

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

No abstract provided.

Leadership In Middle-Earth: Theories And Applications For Organizations - Exploring Effective Leadership Practices Through Popular Culture By Michael J. Urick, Alana White

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

A review of Urick's Leadership in Middle-Earth which considers both the appeal and limitations of utilising examples of leadership from Tolkien's legendarium to illustrate academic theory.