English Language and Literature | Open Access Articles

Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for Writing Center Journal 41.3. Contains a Call for Nominations for the 2024 Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award.

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Full Issue

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

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The Story Of Identity: Narrative Self-Fashioning In Kazuo Ishiguro’S A Pale View Of Hills And When We Were Orphans, Hayley Angle

English Theses

The moments we remember from our lives are the foundation of the stories we tell about ourselves. I have spent many a night trying to fall asleep by running through my memories like the montage scene of a movie—clips of a funny moment with a friend, the smile of a loved one, a stupid thing I said to someone I was supposed to impress. These moments I remember portray, at the deepest level, who I want to be, who I am scared to be, and who I most understand myself to be. Intentional remembrance, as opposed to actual experience, tends …

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Cognitive Borderlands: Understanding Marginalized Identity In The Work Of Ada Limón, Ashley Hope Pérez, And Carmen Maria Machado, Monica Barbay

English Theses

Gloria Anzaldúa’s groundbreaking theoretical and creative collection of essays entitled Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza provides foundational ideas and principles to consider the physical, mental, and emotional struggles of those living along the U.S.-Mexican border. This thesis furthers this discussion by contemplating what happens psychologically to those residing in physical and cognitive borderlands, including but not limited to the U.S.-Mexican border. Specifically, I develop a framework to conceptualize borderlands of the mind, focusing on people-groups who experience multiple kinds of marginalization. I argue that these layers of marginalization negatively impact one’s sense of self, fostering a cognitive divide …

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Vol. 61 No. 1 - Whole No. 408, Megan Abrahamson

Mythprint

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

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Final Master's Portfolio, Ayotunde Afolabi

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores themes of gender and race, identity representation, and agency within various literary texts. It encapsulates a series of analytical essays that scrutinize how these themes intersect and manifest across diverse literary landscapes, emphasizing the ways in which authors address and challenge societal norms and structures through their narratives. Each essay within the portfolio not only mirrors the engagement with these themes but also showcases the development of a theoretical approach that bridges classical literary analysis with contemporary issues of identity politics and social justice.

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The Musical, The Spectacle, The Spiritual, And The Political: An In-Depth Analysis Of Amiri Baraka’S 1972 Album, It’S Nation Time – African Visionary Music, Ryan St. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Perhaps no work is a better representation of Amiri Baraka, the Black nationalist, than the 1972 album, It's Nation Time – African Visionary Music. The album serves as an amalgamation of the most present themes during that point in his career: the musical, the spectacle, the spiritual, and the political. Through a track-by-track analysis of the album, we can better understand Baraka's social outlook at such a pivotal period in the Black culture visionary's career.

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Chaucer’S Contradictory Representations Of Fourteenth Century Knighthood In The Canterbury Tales, Nicholas Cabrera

Theses and Dissertations

Differences in interpretation have long dominated scholarship regarding knighthood in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. But these differences fail to consider the nuance of the text and the historical realities of the period in which Chaucer wrote. Chaucer’s depiction of knighthood represents the institution as filled with tensions and contradictions.

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Front Matter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

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Community As A Force Of Action In Lorraine Hansberry's "Les Blancs", Lily Jensen

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper explores Hansberry’s philosophy of community in her 1970 play, Les Blancs. The paper analyzes Hansberry’s use of complex characterization in this text to show the wide reach of the colonial power structure and to show what is required of a community to push for effective action. The paper also analyzes the National Theatre’s 2016 production of Les Blancs, and how this production incorporates and enhances Hansberry’s philosophy of community through the characteristics afforded through theatre as a medium.

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“Our Experience Is Fragmentary”: Partial Redemption In Marilynne Robinson’S Gilead Tetralogy, Zachary Stevenson

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Although the characters and thematic throughlines vary across the four books in the Gilead series, each book takes an interest in the reality of division and considers ways of negotiating and healing that division. Whether the divisions are theological, familial, socioeconomic or racial, their presence haunts the text and the question of their resolution always hovers near the surface. Taken together, these considerations of difference across the four books demonstrate that Robinson populates her novels with chasms that her characters bridge, but only partially so. This coexistence of alienation and reconciliation allows Robinson to articulate a vision of Christian community …

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Withholding In Shakespeare: An Analysis Of King Lear And As You Like It, Nylene R. Ward

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Shakespeare is a name familiar to most people who have had the opportunity to study beyond the third grade. Withholding is a practice that isn’t as well known to us until we reach teenage and young adult years. This essay examines both of these topics, exploring the causes and effects of withholding in King Lear and As You Like It while comparing them to real-world definitions and findings. No concrete resolution is formed, instead leaving the outcome to readers as they consider the ethical, relational, and logical implications of the adult hide-and-seek that is withholding.

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Like Shapes Moving In Another World: An Identification And Interpretation Of Mythical Figures In C. S. Lewis’ Novel The Silver Chair, Benjamin S. Perkin

Student Research

As a result of his conversion to Christianity, author C. S. Lewis felt compelled to formulate a unique definition of myth. From his perspective, myth is a means through which God communicates His truth to the non-Christian world. Myth recognizes the yearning for home all people experience yet cannot satisfy, but while it correctly diagnoses humanity’s symptoms, myth fails to treat the underlying disease responsible for them. The influence of non-Christian, specifically Greek, myth can be felt most strongly in The Silver Chair, the sixth installment of Lewis’ series The Chronicles of Narnia. Through the allusions this essay explores, in …

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Feminism And Female Identity In Adaptations Of Pride And Prejudice Throughout The 20th And 21st Centuries, Emily Suh, Emily Suh

Honors Theses

To many of her fans in the world, Austen is undeniably a feminist author, especially for her time in the nineteenth century. In a time where women were dependent upon male family members for their livelihoods, most of Austen’s heroines exhibit a sort of independence and strong will with a mind of their own, including in Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is the model for what an independent woman is, a woman who is not so concerned with the monetary value of matrimony and only falls in love because she wants to. Furthermore, female audiences tend to like Elizabeth more than …

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The Villainess Does Damage Control: Cultural Rescue In The Man Of Law’S Tale, Lucy Esplin

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In the late fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his masterwork, The Canterbury Tales, a satirical frame narrative centered on English society. The tales follow a group of pilgrims spanning a wide range of English society, who engage in a storytelling contest as they embark on their pilgrimage. One story is the “Man of Law’s Tale,” a crusader romance that follows the pious Constance in her missionary-like journeys. She first travels to Syria to marry a Sultan, after negotiations between the Roman and Syrian rulers demanded the Sultan be baptized and control over Jerusalem would be handed over to Christians (Chaucer …

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Painted As Political: The Cultural Significance Within Zitkala-Ša’S Boarding School Narratives, Toni Aguiar

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Zitkala-Ša was a Dakota writer, educator, and political activist who was and is widely influential within and outside of Native American communities during the twentieth century. As a child, Zitkala-Ša was sent to school at White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute, which spurred her writings in “School Days of an Indian Girl” recounting her experiences at the school and the struggles she faced. Though many scholars debate the activist choices she made in her later life as either pro or anti assimilation, some also extend this political criticism into her childhood experiences. My paper argues an alternative reading of these boarding …

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“Viewed In Prospect Or Retrospect”: Dorothy Wordsworth’S “Revisiting” On The 1820 Continental Tour, Eve Dixon Fennimore

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper argues that Dorothy Wordsworth, in her often overlooked Journal of a Tour on the Continent, was essentially “revisiting” places that she was viewing for the first time, as she had visited them secondhand through William's stories and writings about them. In 1820, Dorothy, William, and Mary Wordsworth embarked on a tour of the continent in the inverse direction of William’s youthful 1790 trip. For thirty years, Dorothy had heard stories and read about his experiences, building up an image in her mind of what the Continent would be like which changed her own exploration of the sights. …

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Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

William Blake is an exemplar of Romantic poetry characterized by depictions of the occult, the divine, and human nature. Despite Blake’s reputation as a Romantic poet, many critics claim that there is not sufficient evidence to consider him a nature writer. As a result, Blake’s name is frequently omitted from ecological discussions; some scholars go so far as to claim that Blake’s poetry demonstrates a disregard for nature altogether. This article argues that an eco-critical analysis of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience reveals nature to be Blake’s continual source of inspiration. Within this collection, nature represents the struggles …

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Sacrifice And Emotional Communities In Early Modern Literature, Kathryn C. Patton

English Theses

The early modern period in England was a time of intense political, religious, and cultural upheaval. Between the Protestant Reformation and urbanization, England experienced significant ideological changes as well as the growing pains of overpopulation and plague in its major cities. The literature of the time illustrates the emotional complexity that many of the authors and citizens experienced firsthand as a result of the tumult in England. This thesis focuses specifically on the period during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I, using the works of Sir Philip Sidney and John Donne as structural buoys for the paper, …

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Mixed Feelings: The Emotional Appeals Of Zitkala-Ša’S American Indian Stories, Kayla Joan Baur

Publications and Research

Zitkala-Ša (Lakota: Zitkála-Šá, meaning Red Bird) was among the first to write about the experiences of Native American children in the U.S. Indian boarding school program to an English-speaking audience. As a writer and political activist, Zitkala-Ša uses emotional appeals and cultural ideas she learned through her white education to expose the very boarding school institutions that taught her. In American Indian Studies (1921), Zitkala-Ša critiques the violence that the Indian boarding school system inflicts on young Native Americans. She presents these critiques through emotional appeals that take two forms: one, a more traditional sentimental appeal associated with middle-class white …

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Conflicting Ethe In _Anna Karenina_: A Reexamination Of Tolstoy’S Complex Female Protagonist, Hannah Diles

Honors Theses

Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina depicts the world as an endless array of choices and experiences to which one assigns meaning to. His characters, like real people, must navigate their world of complex ethical systems using their own moral ethos. Readers and critics alike critique Anna as a heroine for living out her moral ethos, pitting it against the social and feminist ethos of late 19th century upper class Russian society. Anna’s story is either interpreted as a cautionary tale or Anna is portrayed as a feminist heroine who tragically died for love. Throughout this paper, I argue that Anna is …

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Little Cricket On The Hearth: The Quiet Feminism Of _Little Women_, Caroline Anderson Klein

Honors Theses

Since the advent of the cult of domesticity, the stakes for female characters in domestic literature have been notoriously high. There was no room for flaws, rebellious decisions, and certainly no room for mistakes—whether of the woman’s own accord, or simply as collateral damage of a male character’s immorality. In this shallowly Calvinist domain, women were never more than one broken guardrail away from social ruin or death. In writing Little Women, Louisa May Alcott breaks these molds through unflinching kindness to her female characters from childhood to adulthood, even unto death. Alcott achieves this quietly feminist feat by …

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Final Master's Portfolio, Savannah Packman

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio uses Marxist and feminist film theory to analyze various forms of visual media. It analyzes Mark Mylod's film The Menu (2022), Julie Taymor's film Across the Universe (2007), the historic V-J Day Kiss photograph, and popular TikTok videos. This portfolio focuses on the impact of capitalism in the political and economic sphere. It also analyzes images of women throughout history and critiques how these images have been used to formulate the American body politic.

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Navigating Identity Through Education In Literature And In The Classroom, Sofia Sakzlyan

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores the intricate relationship between education, identity formation, and oppression, drawing from psychosocial and sociocultural perspectives. I delve into how education serves as a critical arena where individuals encounter various internal psychological conflicts and external social influences that shape their sense of self. By analyzing the perspectives of writers such as Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Kate Chopin Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Erin Gruwell, the thesis seeks to answer how education impacts the self and how it intersects with systems of oppression. Furthermore, I explore the role of education in fostering critical consciousness and empowerment, particularly in the face …

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The New Westward Expansion: Settler Colonialism And Gentrification In Paula Fox’S Desperate Characters And Kali Fajardo-Anstine’S Sabrina And Corina, Miranda Roberts

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores two underexplored works of gentrification literature—Paula Fox’s novel, Desperate Characters (1970) and Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s short story collection, Sabrina & Corina (2019). Desperate Characters offers a nuanced and critical examination of characters with privilege who move into Brooklyn in the 1960s, which involves the displacement of Black and Latinx communities; Fajardo-Anstine’s collection introduces Denver as a site of dramatic gentrification in the new century, by portraying Latinx characters from older neighborhoods who must adjust to the disintegration and cohesiveness of their communities in the face of gentrification. In my discussion of these works, I draw from pre-existing scholarship …

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Into The Center: A Descriptive Study For Understanding The Post-Pandemic Tutor Experience At Butler University’S Writers’ Studio, Hannah Salsbery

English Graduate Theses

University writing centers have become an important part of higher education, as the peer-to-peer tutoring model allows for student writers and tutors to collaborate throughout the writing process in ways that promote individualized learning. The Butler University Writers’ Studio is no exception; however, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic can still be felt on it, as on many university campuses and student populations. This descriptive project uses focus groups and survey data to suggest ways the tutoring experience at the Butler University Writers’ Studio has changed since the pandemic. While the tensions that may find their way into a writing …

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Visibility In The Redacted Space: What Censored Poetry Reveals About Guantanamo Bay Prison And The Individuals Trapped Inside, Chase Portaro

English and Creative Writing Capstone Projects

This paper discusses what readers can understand about Guantanamo Bay and the larger setting of America's Islamophobic "War on Terror" through the poetry of individuals detained inside of Guantanamo Bay Military Prison. In 2002, Mark Falkoff, with the help of a team of lawyers, translators, and human rights advocates published a collection of twenty-two detainee-authored poems, titled Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak. This paper discusses the emerging neo-colonial subjectivity of America's War on Terror, as it analyzes the available writings of Guantanamo poets. The new language of subjectivity of victims of contemporary American empire is defined by suppression, as …

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"Old Cod": The Power Of Storytelling In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir, Sarah Johnson

English (MA) Theses

This paper examines the representation of Irish storytelling in Conor McPherson’s 1997 play The Weir. Drawing on postcolonial theory as well as the historical context of Ireland during the play’s release, I argue that The Weir is uniquely positioned at the intersection of traditional and modern values. Further, I assert that fairy legend is a tool used by the play’s characters to both understand and escape a fluctuating cultural landscape, and ultimately, a way to articulate their own values. Using textual analysis, I examine the rhetorical choices of the play’s storytellers and compare it with established conventions of Irish …

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Interior Chinatown: Chinatown As A Performative Space, Audrey Fong

English (MA) Theses

This thesis focuses on Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown: A Novel (2020), exploring the function of Chinatown in Los Angeles within the novel as a space of creation, that of “Asia” for Hollywood and home for Taiwanese immigrants. I argue that Interior Chinatown offers a unique look at the perception or notion of Chinatown, paying attention to the way Hollywood has shaped it and used it to create a sense of China and “Asia” in the cultural imagination. Through satire and the blurring of the reel and the real, Yu is able to criticize the inner workings of Hollywood’s relationship with …

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“Beating Back The Past”: The Psychological Justifications Of Violence In Toni Morrison’S Fiction, Catherine Buhse

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the traumatic experiences that consume characters’ lives and, in the absence of psychological healing efforts, manifest into violent actions in Toni Morrison’s three novels The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Beloved. I focus on the gendered experience of the female characters Pecola, Sula, Eva, and Sethe, except for the male character, Cholly in The Bluest Eye. Focusing on Morrison’s humanization of violent characters and her sharing of their full life stories, I establish the characters’ internal justifications for their violence to challenge the accepted depiction of all criminals as evil. The three chapters follow the manifestation of trauma …

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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Full Issue

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

The Story Of Identity: Narrative Self-Fashioning In Kazuo Ishiguro’S A Pale View Of Hills And When We Were Orphans, Hayley Angle

English Theses

Cognitive Borderlands: Understanding Marginalized Identity In The Work Of Ada Limón, Ashley Hope Pérez, And Carmen Maria Machado, Monica Barbay

English Theses

Vol. 61 No. 1 - Whole No. 408, Megan Abrahamson

Mythprint

Final Master's Portfolio, Ayotunde Afolabi

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

The Musical, The Spectacle, The Spiritual, And The Political: An In-Depth Analysis Of Amiri Baraka’S 1972 Album, It’S Nation Time – African Visionary Music, Ryan St. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Chaucer’S Contradictory Representations Of Fourteenth Century Knighthood In The Canterbury Tales, Nicholas Cabrera

Theses and Dissertations

Front Matter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Community As A Force Of Action In Lorraine Hansberry's "Les Blancs", Lily Jensen

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

“Our Experience Is Fragmentary”: Partial Redemption In Marilynne Robinson’S Gilead Tetralogy, Zachary Stevenson

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Withholding In Shakespeare: An Analysis Of King Lear And As You Like It, Nylene R. Ward

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Like Shapes Moving In Another World: An Identification And Interpretation Of Mythical Figures In C. S. Lewis’ Novel The Silver Chair, Benjamin S. Perkin

Student Research

Feminism And Female Identity In Adaptations Of Pride And Prejudice Throughout The 20th And 21st Centuries, Emily Suh, Emily Suh

Honors Theses

The Villainess Does Damage Control: Cultural Rescue In The Man Of Law’S Tale, Lucy Esplin

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Painted As Political: The Cultural Significance Within Zitkala-Ša’S Boarding School Narratives, Toni Aguiar

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

“Viewed In Prospect Or Retrospect”: Dorothy Wordsworth’S “Revisiting” On The 1820 Continental Tour, Eve Dixon Fennimore

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Blake’S Green Symbols Of Humanity, Society, And Spirituality, Angela J. Heagy

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Sacrifice And Emotional Communities In Early Modern Literature, Kathryn C. Patton

English Theses

Mixed Feelings: The Emotional Appeals Of Zitkala-Ša’S American Indian Stories, Kayla Joan Baur

Publications and Research

Conflicting Ethe In _Anna Karenina_: A Reexamination Of Tolstoy’S Complex Female Protagonist, Hannah Diles

Honors Theses

Little Cricket On The Hearth: The Quiet Feminism Of _Little Women_, Caroline Anderson Klein

Honors Theses

Final Master's Portfolio, Savannah Packman

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Navigating Identity Through Education In Literature And In The Classroom, Sofia Sakzlyan

English (MA) Theses

The New Westward Expansion: Settler Colonialism And Gentrification In Paula Fox’S Desperate Characters And Kali Fajardo-Anstine’S Sabrina And Corina, Miranda Roberts

English (MA) Theses

Into The Center: A Descriptive Study For Understanding The Post-Pandemic Tutor Experience At Butler University’S Writers’ Studio, Hannah Salsbery

English Graduate Theses

Visibility In The Redacted Space: What Censored Poetry Reveals About Guantanamo Bay Prison And The Individuals Trapped Inside, Chase Portaro

English and Creative Writing Capstone Projects

"Old Cod": The Power Of Storytelling In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir, Sarah Johnson

English (MA) Theses

Interior Chinatown: Chinatown As A Performative Space, Audrey Fong

English (MA) Theses

“Beating Back The Past”: The Psychological Justifications Of Violence In Toni Morrison’S Fiction, Catherine Buhse

English Honors Theses