English Language and Literature Commons^™

Oer Honorarium Review - Adapting The Oer Textbook, How Arguments Work, For Critical Reading And Writing, Kristin Raymond

Open Educational Resources Publications

This paper reviews How Arguments Work: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College by Anna Mills as an open educational resource, evaluating its effectiveness and adaptability as a teaching text in writing instruction. The review finds that the text strongly supports core learning goals through its clear treatment of rhetorical appeals, detailed guidance on argument analysis, and use of sentence frames that help scaffold students’ development of academic writing skills. It is particularly effective in moving beyond surface-level explanations, encouraging close attention to language, audience, and rhetorical strategy. At the same time, the paper highlights the flexibility of …

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies And Southwest Cities In The Mexican American Spatial Imaginary, Jorge A. Hernández Jr.

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies and Southwest Cities in the Mexican American Spatial Imaginary examines how Mexican American writers from Tucson, San Antonio, and Albuquerque narrate, critique, and reimagine urban space across the U.S. Southwest in the twentieth century. Integrating literary studies, cultural geography, urban history, and critical regionalism, the project analyzes responses to racialized development, urban renewal, and gentrification that have displaced Mexican American communities from historic downtowns. Moving beyond borderlands and transnational models, it advances a critically regional approach attentive to local histories, municipal policies, and community pressures shaping urban life. Through close readings of creative and nonfiction texts …

Inherited By “Merit”: What Caste Carries Across The Indian American Diaspora, Aarushi V. Jaiswal

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

This project traces the rhetorical formation termed “meritocratic nationalism,” a political vocabulary that makes national belonging conditional on moralized merit, converting structural advantage into the language of individual character. Meritocratic nationalism is traced across three political figures whose rhetoric represents successive moments in a single ideological trajectory. Reading Narendra Modi’s 2014 and 2018 Independence Day addresses and his 2014 Madison Square Garden speech to the Indian American diaspora as the formation’s originating texts, this project argues that Modi’s recurring moral tetrad of conduct, values, traditions, and ability translated the structurally concentrated advantages of India’s upper-caste professional class into a universalist …

Wanted: More Feminist Queer Medievalists In Tolkien Scholarship, Robin A. Reid

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s fiction has been identified with the medieval world, and with medieval studies, from the beginning. In this presentation, I acknowledge the extent to which Tolkien scholarship is indebted to the medievalists who established the cornerstone upon which we have all built. Current publications in queer approaches to Tolkien and feminist approaches are growing, but queer scholarship tends to focus on male characters and feminist scholarship on (straight) female characters. What is currently missing in Tolkien scholarship, based on the bibliographic scholarship I have done in the past ten years, is work by feminist queer medievalist scholars and scholarship. …

"Free To Fall": Milton's Satan And The Trial Of Discernment, Mae Legare

English Honors Theses

William Blake once wrote, "Milton was of the Devil's party without knowing it," reasoning a deep-seated alignment with evil that only becomes illuminated in Satan's vibrantly humanized character. By analyzing Milton's earlier political prose, Areopagitica and The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, alongside Satan's monologues in Paradise Lost, the author and his fallen characters' voices begin to sound synonymous. They are enraged by similar injustices and failures of political institutions, and they employ very similar methods of argumentation and political rhetoric. Blake was correct, in a sense, that Milton was "of the Devil's party," but I argue that …

The “Fallen Woman” Reconsidered: Inner And Outer Redemption In Victorian Literature, Caroline Kramer

English Honors Theses

This undergraduate thesis critically examines three female protagonists situated within the “fallen woman” character archetype of Victorian literature through a lens of redemption: Ruth Hilton in Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell (1853), Mercy Merrick in The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins (1873), and Tess Durbeyfield in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891). While nineteenth-century readers may have expected that these women needed to undergo a moral transformation based on circumstances of their past, this thesis argues that none of them fundamentally require “redemption” according to any of the word’s typical definitions; rather, the question posed regards the modes through …

“Ain’T That Love?”: How Morrison Writes Against Stereotypes Of Black Mothers, Charlotte G. Collins

English Honors Theses

This thesis argues that Toni Morrison uses violent motherhood to add nuance to and challenge negative stereotypes of Black women. The first chapter investigates neglectful and violent mothers, examining Polly Breedlove from The Bluest Eye and Eva Peace from Sula. This chapter explores how these mothers use their cruelty as a way of claiming their title as head of the household, which they have long been denied due to their intersecting identities as Black women. The second chapter argues that Sethe from Beloved and Eva Peace from Sula murder their children as a way of reclaiming the ability to make …

“The Hond Hire Helde”: Solidarity, Mirroring, And Foreshadowing Between Helen, Cassandra, And Criseyde In Chaucer’S Troilus And Criseyde, Mallory K. Warner

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Geoffry Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde has divided readers and critics alike when addressing the main female protagonist: Criseyde. The poem follows Criseyde and her love interest Troilus, during the final days of the Trojan War, as the two are thrust together into a tragic affair then ripped apart by outside forces and the consequences of their own choices. By the end of the narrative, Criseyde’s autonomy is stripped from her as she is traded in a hostage exchange to the Greek army. In her last present moment in the poem, Criseyde comes to the realization that remaining true to Troilus …

Eat Or Be Eaten: A Posthuman Ecofeminist Reading Of The Vegetarian And Organ Meats, Erin Grace Elizabeth Kostic

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

As two novels that feature the reformation and reconstruction of the female body, both Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and K-Ming Chang’s Organ Meats emphasize the posthuman existence of women seeking to break free from the gender-based shackles that constrain them, leading to a striking rejection of the anthropocentric and patriarchal worldviews that plague contemporary society. My thesis comparatively examines each novel through an ecofeminist lens in an attempt to prove that it is only when a woman is able to reframe her existence outside of a male-centric worldview that she can truly find freedom. The Vegetarian’s Yeong-hye loses her …

They Can’T “Shut Us Up”: Emily Dickinson’S And Mina Loy’S Use Of Religious Struggles In Girlhood To Empower Their Feminist Poetic Voices As Women, Bridget H. Anderson

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Poet Emily Dickinson and Modernist poet Mina Loy’s works stand the test of time to create a striking religious and feminist narrative today. Dickinson’s poetry, which remained largely unknown in her lifetime, will come to wield great power in the feminist and religious spheres in the years following her death in 1886. Following in Dickinson’s footsteps, Loy’s poetry is direct and engaging in a more urgent message with her bold imagery and brash words. Dickinson’s “We talked as Girls do” (392) and “They shut me up in Prose” (445) are texts that subtly challenge the misogyny in the Calvinist religion …

Nathaniel Hawthorne And The Limits Of Half-Feminism, Jessica Mckenzie

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This project argues that while Nathaniel Hawthorne creates intellectually complex and emotionally resilient female heroines in The Scarlet Letter and The Blithedale Romance, he ultimately reinforces the patriarchal structures he appears to critique. Through the figures of Hester Prynne and Zenobia, Hawthorne demonstrates a deep awareness of women’s societal oppression and the limitations imposed upon them within nineteenth-century America. However, despite moments of resistance and autonomy, these women are never permitted full liberation, agency, or lasting fulfillment. Their narratives ultimately become constrained by the patriarchal power that denies them independence and sustaining love. Thus, Hawthorne’s work coincides with the …

Tell Thy Story: The Jew As Other In "Pericles", Dov B. Rabinowitz

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This paper attempts to address a perceived blind spot in criticism of early modern literature, namely, the lack of critical race readings centering the othering of Jews in early modern drama. Shakespeare’s Pericles is used as an example of characters being othered, or Judaized, as they pass through city to city. Historical data, such as the history of the Domus Conversorum in England where converted Jews were kept, is used to bolster this argument, with Thaisa being read as othered in a Judaized way by being kept in a religious institution and never truly accepted by the people of Ephesus. …

Project Wildest Dreams, Faith Bernier

Honors College Theses

“Project Wildest Dreams” is a hybrid psychological correlational study and short fiction collection based on anecdotes of vivid, frightening, or bizarre dreams. This collaboration of art and science explores the nature of dreaming, a phenomenon that has intrigued and perplexed both the humanities and the STEM fields for many years. The goal of this thesis was twofold: primarily, it was intended to utilize the outlandish, surreal, and unique feelings and images that dreams elicit in order to procure an anthology of surrealist and absurdist short stories across primarily the genres of horror, comedy, and fantasy. In addition to this, the …

Miss Ogilvy Does Not Find Herself: The Repression Of Queer Expression Post World War I, Kennedie Krieger

2026 Symposium

World War l was a historical period of intense societal change, and although it brought upon a lot of devastation, there were also groups of people that experienced liberation because of the war. Radclyffe Hall’s short story “Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” is an example of the ways in which the war offered relief for queer women who had previously been expected to exist within rigid gender roles. Through an uncommon perspective, readers are able to get a sense of the ways in which gendered societal expectations shifted during the war and the positive outcomes this brought about. Although these hopeful …

Satire And Sentiment: Dickensian Characterization In Hard Times, Helen R. Ball

The Confluence

Readers of Charles Dickens both celebrate and criticize his characters, who are paramount among the quintessential aspects of his writing. His industrial novel Hard Times bears particularly the weight of such criticism in its portrayal of Stephen Blackpool, one of the Coketown factory Hands. Scholars have complained that Blackpool exemplifies, in too boring or didactic a manner, the typical virtues of the Victorian era, such as saintliness, humility, and long-suffering (Spector 365), and that his character lacks the necessary traits to compel and inspire readers.

Such a critique has prompted the following research and analysis. Using formalist observation of diction …

Hope, Incorporated: Welborn Hope As B.A. Botkin's "Promising" Oklahoma Poet, Cullen Whisenhunt

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In 1927, a letter by then-professor at the University of Oklahoma, Roy Temple House, was published in the Ada Evening News complimenting Ada, OK, poet Welborn Hope and suggesting Hope get in touch with folklorist and literary scholar BA Botkin, also an OU faculty member. That same year, Botkin published “Oklahoma Poets, Inc.,” in which he detailed what he believed to be the three stages of a state’s literary development: the pioneer stage, the popular rhymesters stage, and finally, the union of art and life (30-31). In 1935, Botkin presented a lecture in Tulsa in which he cited Hope among …

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“Teas[Ing] The Patient Needle:” Needlework, Intersectionality, And Kinesthetic Memory Sites In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’S Aurora Leigh, Grace Lukens

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The Streamlined Illusion: Addressing Progress And Superficiality In U.S. Industrial Design, Misha Maryan

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Dystopian Futures And Institutional Control: Totalitarianism In The Circle And Station Eleven, Allison Lutz

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‘Queer Intentions’: The Effect Of Fan Culture On Rewriting Queer Representations In Media, Ava King

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The Undaunted: How Young Adult Activist Literature Depicts The Fight For Social Justice, Emma Stack

Master's Theses

In this thesis, I will explore a wide range of young adult fiction novels that feature themes surrounding activism. My goal will be to use a number of novels to illustrate the importance of analyzing literature that features young people as activists within social justice movements. My main overarching question is: How are young people represented as activists in young adult literature, and how can young people use such literature as a catalyst for social change? I also plan to explore questions relating to how young people are represented as activists, why their voices are so integral when promoting social …

Explorations Of Border-Crossing Identity Through Dreamscape In Frontera, Mariela Speltz

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

This analysis examines how Frontera, a graphic novel that follows a young man as he attempts to cross the Sonoran Desert to return to Arizona after being deported, draws upon the mythologically-rich space of the desert to create a dreamscape that explores Mexican-American identity. Featuring visual differentiation, cultural icons, and spiritual figures that interact with the main character, Mateo, the text’s dreamscape serves as a narrative bridge for characters to transcend their individual identity and connect with a communal identity. Specifically, a spiritual jaguar from Aztec mythology, and the ghost of an immigrant who died crossing the desert help Mateo …

The House Of Pages: Longing, Confinement, And Women’S Imaginative Architecture, Ashtyn E. Hedlund

Undergraduate Research Journal

This article examines how women’s longing and imaginative agency are shaped, constrained, and reconstituted within domestic and psychological interiors in women’s literature. Drawing on Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, Ann Petry’s The Street, Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, and Kelly Barnhill’s When Women Were Dragons, the essay employs bibliomancy as both method and metaphor, allowing chance, intuition, and textual resonance to guide critical inquiry. Through a symbolic “house” composed of five rooms, the article traces how each narrative transforms confinement into imaginative depth. These spaces reveal longing not …

The Importance Of Diverse Characters In Children's Literature For Identity Development, Gabrielle Revaitis

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

This paper aims to explore and examine the function of diverse and realistic representation in children's literature and its effect on their identity development. It asserts that literature is one of the main tools by which children develop their understanding of themselves and their place in the world. Reading about various kinds of diversity and realistic representation of different kinds of identities, whether based on race, gender, and disability, helps them to see diversity and commonality in human experiences. However, this paper will also examine how children's literature has been problematic in representing stereotypes and misrepresenting marginalized groups. It emphasizes …

Understanding Diversity Through "All Are Welcome" Lesson Plan, Gabrielle Revaitis

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

This lesson plan for 2^nd grade students uses the book All Are Welcome to explore themes of diversity. It lists needed materials and includes learning objectives, lesson procedure and discussion prompts.

Women In Literature And Their Ephemeral Bodies, Madeline Zafon-Whalen

English Honors Theses

This thesis is a comparative analysis of women writers from the twentieth to twenty-first century. Works by authors such as Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, and Otessa Moshfegh, contain an emerging pattern and relationship linked through an ephemeral bodied aesthetic which depicts women's bodies as deconstructed, intangible, and undefined.

The first chapter analyzes works by Woolf, including To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own. Starting in the modernist age we see the body coming into question, becoming denaturalized while the institution of the "novel" is renewed through women's contributions to the literary canon. Women’s productivity, and the potential to …

Fighting Like A Girl: The Trauma, Power, And Resistance Of Heroines In Young Adult Fantasy, Sara L. Chappell

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

This thesis examines the evolution of female rage in young adult fantasy literature, focusing primarily on Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series while drawing comparisons to other contemporary heroines. It argues that female rage is not a sign of instability but a politically meaningful response to trauma and systemic oppression. Using trauma theory, affect theory, and narrative identity theory, this project traces how Aelin Ashryver Galathynius’s rage develops from a physiological survival response into protective care, political resistance, and ultimately reclaimed agency. Early in the series, her anger emerges as dissociation and emotional shutdown shaped by trauma and institutional …

Nineteenth-Century Literary Magazines As Short Story Anthologies, Kelsey J. Brazil

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

This project undertakes an inter-generic study of nineteenth-century literary magazines and classroom anthologies. Based on the workings of genre theory by Julia Kristeva, this inter-generic study argues that the form, ideologemic function, and intertextuality of the literary magazine and anthology are generically similar. This notion has the potential to greatly change the reading of periodical literature from a simple reflection of Victorian times or as a mere container of collected (but isolated) literary pieces into one of cohesive, multi-genre significance. The resulting argument is that a nineteenth-century literary magazine can be a reasonable substitute for a textbook anthology in the …