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Articles 271 - 300 of 356

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Marina, Isabella, And Shakespeare’S Sex Workers, Byron Nelson Nov 2014

Marina, Isabella, And Shakespeare’S Sex Workers, Byron Nelson

Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference

No abstract provided.


“The Future Of The Planet”− Scottish Cosmopolitanism/ Cosmofeminism And Environmentalism In Theresa Breslin’S Saskia’S Journey, Fiona Mcculloch Nov 2014

“The Future Of The Planet”− Scottish Cosmopolitanism/ Cosmofeminism And Environmentalism In Theresa Breslin’S Saskia’S Journey, Fiona Mcculloch

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses major themes and concerns in the young adult novel Saskia's Journey, by Theresa Breslin, with special attention to the relation between Breslin's environmental themes (and Scottish setting) with her portrayal of the novel's central character and multigenerational family relationships.


Agent Red: Fashioning Agency In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Christopher M. Yalen Jul 2014

Agent Red: Fashioning Agency In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Christopher M. Yalen

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, we are introduced to a dystopian patriarchal society named Gilead, where women are relegated to the roles of wife, servant, and surrogate. Although the men of Gilead have built this society with men at the top, the women of the novel show a surprising amount of agency within their own spheres of influence. So the question remains: who is really in control of Gilead? While men are certainly remain the figureheads of power in The Handmaid's Tale, we find that the women of the novel have copious influence within their own realms, …


The Challenge Of Happily Ever After: How Once Upon A Time Fanfic Fairy Tales Model Strategies For Ordinary Life Challenges, Christa M. Baxter Jun 2014

The Challenge Of Happily Ever After: How Once Upon A Time Fanfic Fairy Tales Model Strategies For Ordinary Life Challenges, Christa M. Baxter

Theses and Dissertations

Although many feminist fairy-tale scholars have theorized how the tales shape the lives of their readers, few have explicitly examined what readers themselves have to say about how fairy tales impacted their choices and expectation. This article turns to fanfiction written by fans of ABC's Once Upon a Time television series to discover how these fans challenge or reify fairy-tale expectations, particularly in terms of gender. After outlining the brief history of fairy-tale reception studies concerned with gender, the article then turns to a close reading of three OUAT fanfiction retellings of Beauty and the Beast that show the couple …


Battling The Separate Spheres: New Woman Writers And British Women Writers Of World War I, Christine Haskill Jun 2014

Battling The Separate Spheres: New Woman Writers And British Women Writers Of World War I, Christine Haskill

Dissertations

In “Battling the Separate Spheres,” I argue that New Woman writers’ interventions into gender discourse at the end of the nineteenth century shaped the feminist pacifist protests of World War I. This analysis illustrates that the discourses of gender and war are intertwined: the rise of the women’s movement in the nineteenth century was positioned as a sex war, and the gender ideology of the separate spheres helped to justify World War I. I examine two New Woman interventions into the separate spheres debates—the “sex war” of the fin de siècle. Olive Schreiner propels women into the public sphere, encouraging …


“Could Fulfillment Ever Be Felt As Deeply As Loss?”: A Postcolonial Examination Of The West’S Influence On India As Reflected By Kiran Desai’S Portrayal Of Twentieth Century Female Education In The Inheritance Of Loss, Ambreen Hooda May 2014

“Could Fulfillment Ever Be Felt As Deeply As Loss?”: A Postcolonial Examination Of The West’S Influence On India As Reflected By Kiran Desai’S Portrayal Of Twentieth Century Female Education In The Inheritance Of Loss, Ambreen Hooda

English Honors Theses

Drawing upon cultural, historical, and postcolonial methods, I analyze how Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss reflects twentieth century India, an India heavily influenced by the West. This analysis seeks to answer questions the effects of colonization and whether or not the formal education the main female character inherits is worth what she loses in the process. One of the two main storylines in Desai’s novel focuses on Sai, an educated teenage girl in Kalimpong, India. Buried within the flashbacks of her story is that of Bela “Nimi” Patel’s, Sai’s grandmother. Shortly after Nimi’s wedding, her husband, Jemubhai, leaves to …


Tammy Rae Carland's Queer Riot Grrrl Zine"I ( Heart ) Amy Carter": A World Of Public Intimacy, Annah-Marie Rostowsky Mar 2014

Tammy Rae Carland's Queer Riot Grrrl Zine"I ( Heart ) Amy Carter": A World Of Public Intimacy, Annah-Marie Rostowsky

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Tammy Rae Carland's queer Riot Grrrl zine I (heart) Amy Carter as a counterpublic sphere engendered by acts of public intimacy that make visible the intersectional complexities of gender, sexuality, class, and race that insidious traumas continually work to conceal. It looks to Ann Cvetkovich's inquiries into the positive aspects of public cultures in the book An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2006) as well as Mimi Thi Nguyen's investigation of the Riot Grrrl race crisis in the article "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival" (2012) as frameworks to critique Carland's visual and textual …


What's So Feminist About Garters And Bustiers? Neo-Burlesque As Post-Feminist Sexual Liberation, Kay Siebler Feb 2014

What's So Feminist About Garters And Bustiers? Neo-Burlesque As Post-Feminist Sexual Liberation, Kay Siebler

English Faculty Publications

The performance art of burlesque is gaining popularity in North American culture, but with many ‘neo-burlesque’ performers, critical reflection or commentary on the politics of female sexuality is glaringly absent or summarily dismissed. Neo-burlesque could be a feminist rewriting and reclaiming of a Western dance form, which showcased women simpering sexily for her audience. However, in order for neo-burlesque to have a feminist tone, it needs to do more than incorporate women of various ethnicities and body types to transcend patriarchal scripts of female sexuality. Some neo-burlesque includes disruptions of traditional scripts regarding female sexuality that demand the audience think …


Great With Child: Pregnancy Narratives By Mormon Women, Angela Ashurst-Mcgee Feb 2014

Great With Child: Pregnancy Narratives By Mormon Women, Angela Ashurst-Mcgee

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I completed an honors thesis entitled “Great with Child: Pregnancy Narratives by Mormon Women.” Richard Duerden of the English Department advised the thesis. Neal Kramer, William Wilson, and Doris Dant also gave feedback and assistance. I interviewed eight women and transcribed and edited seven interviews, which totaled more than 100 pages. As an introduction to the narratives, I wrote a 25-page theoretical study entitled, “Mormonism, Feminism, and Pregnancy.”


Cold War Pulp: Gender And Fiction In The Age Of Liberation, James Lewis Hood Jan 2014

Cold War Pulp: Gender And Fiction In The Age Of Liberation, James Lewis Hood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The early decades of the twentieth century saw incredible changes in both literacy and general publishing. Once literature had been the domain of the elite, but now it was the daily pleasure of compeople. The changes in American culture in the middle of the century, combined with this revolution in publishing and literacy, combined to produce texts frequently referred to as pulp-fiction, works easily and cheaply produced for a mass-market. This market actively catered to diverse interests, perhaps most significantly the sexually alienated. Works of gay and feminist pulp fiction served to show alienated gay men and women, as well …


“Of The Woman First Of All”: Walt Whitman And Women's Literary History, Vivian Delchamps Jan 2014

“Of The Woman First Of All”: Walt Whitman And Women's Literary History, Vivian Delchamps

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis contemplates Walt Whitman's role in the lives of 19th and 20th century women writers and his significance to early American feminism. I consider the ways women inspired him to develop pro-feminist ideas about maternity, womanhood, and female liberation.


Undermining The Angelic Restrictions Of First-Wave Feminism: What The New Woman Did, Didn't, And Wouldn't Do, Jane Kristen Asher Jan 2014

Undermining The Angelic Restrictions Of First-Wave Feminism: What The New Woman Did, Didn't, And Wouldn't Do, Jane Kristen Asher

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation provides an intertextual reading of Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895), Victoria Cross's The Woman Who Didn't (1895), and Lucas Cleeve's The Woman Who Wouldn't (1895) in order to historically and culturally contextualize these popular New Woman novels in social-purity feminism, the marriage debate, and reticent sexual politics of the late-nineteenth century. By examining the ways that The Woman Who heroines discursively and thematically engage with first-wave feminism and by focusing on this dialectical exchange of feminist ideas and practices as they were manifested in feminist publications and campaigns at the turn of the century, I argue …


A Quiet War : Revising Heroism In Tamora Pierce's Tortall, Tess Hailey Grogan Jan 2014

A Quiet War : Revising Heroism In Tamora Pierce's Tortall, Tess Hailey Grogan

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

No abstract provided.


Toni Morrison’S Depiction Of Beauty Standards In Relation To Class, Politics Of Respectability, And Consumerism In Song Of Solomon, Karen Jensen Dec 2013

Toni Morrison’S Depiction Of Beauty Standards In Relation To Class, Politics Of Respectability, And Consumerism In Song Of Solomon, Karen Jensen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In Song of Solomon, published during a transitional moment in the history of U.S. feminism, Toni Morrison portrays the destructive forces of hegemonic female beauty standards, materialism, and consumerism in a Midwestern African-American community from the 1930s to the 1960s. She reveals a hierarchy in which men define standards of beauty and respectability that enforce white bourgeois ideals. Focusing on five female characters, this thesis examines this hierarchy; the agents who maintain it; and the ways in which it affects female characters who accept and/or reject it. While one of the characters, Hagar, perishes in her attempt to live …


Feminist And Non-Feminist Views On Milton's Interpretations Of Paradise Lost And Samson Agonistes: Comparing The Female Characters, Eve And Dalila, Carmen Thorley Dec 2013

Feminist And Non-Feminist Views On Milton's Interpretations Of Paradise Lost And Samson Agonistes: Comparing The Female Characters, Eve And Dalila, Carmen Thorley

Student Works

After the Bible, the most popular source for the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden would have to be Milton's Paradise Lost. The popularity of this classic epic has brought forth countless interpretations of the story as it was freshly illustrated with the fictional freedom that Milton took. It is likely---and widely believed---that Milton's own views on marriage and women have found their way into his writing, not only with Paradise Lost but with the tragedy Samson Agonistes as well. This paper will point out the effect this lens had on Milton's interpretation of his two …


Under The Queen’S Throne: Analysis Of The Lily Of Life, Seung Yeon Lana Lee Dec 2013

Under The Queen’S Throne: Analysis Of The Lily Of Life, Seung Yeon Lana Lee

4710 English Undergraduate Research: Children’s Literature

This essay explores one of the older fairy tales that is not widely known by many people. The Lily of Life, published in 1913 and written by Queen Marie of Romania, touches on several topics that are still in effect in today’s society. The fairy tale is about a royal family with beautiful twin sisters and happily married queen and king; however, a brave young prince challenges the happiness. The adventure one of the sisters takes to save the prince reveals the hidden meanings, morals, and values of the story. The further research of author Seth Lerer has been …


Creating Female Space: The Feminine Sublime In The Awakening And The House Of Mirth, Emily F. Faison Dec 2013

Creating Female Space: The Feminine Sublime In The Awakening And The House Of Mirth, Emily F. Faison

Selected Honors Theses

This thesis examines the Edna Pontellier and Lily Bart, the respective protagonists of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, integrating the theoretical concept of the sublime, particularly engaging Barbara Freemans’s idea of a feminine sublime, as discussed in her book, The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women’s Fiction. In three chapters, the thesis provides an overview and brief history of the theory of the sublime, contextualizing Freeman’s argument, and measures the success of both Edna’s and Lily’s attempts to engage the sublime as they each struggle to find their place as women …


Performative Gender And Pop Fiction Females: "Emancipating" Byronic Heroines Through A Feminist Education, Joy Smith Dec 2013

Performative Gender And Pop Fiction Females: "Emancipating" Byronic Heroines Through A Feminist Education, Joy Smith

Masters Theses

"I can be a regular bitch. Just try me." With this phrase emblazoned across her t-shirt, Lisbeth Salander, pierced, tattooed, and bedecked in leather, waltzes from the pages of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This woman who subverts authority, maliciously tattoos and sodomizes a man, and intentionally distances herself from close relationships of any kind has somehow managed to capture both the attention and admiration of the American audience. This disheartening phenomenon stems from a renewed interest in the Byronic heroine, a female possessing those traits traditionally assigned to Byronic heroes and men, and the rise of …


‘A River Is Not A Woman’: Re-Visioning Finnegans Wake In Eavan Boland’S ‘Anna Liffey.’, Melissa Dinsman Jul 2013

‘A River Is Not A Woman’: Re-Visioning Finnegans Wake In Eavan Boland’S ‘Anna Liffey.’, Melissa Dinsman

Publications and Research

"This essay argues that Eavan Boland's 1994 poem “Anna Liffey” is, in part, a re-visioning of James Joyce's famous river-woman and mother, ALP. Although Joyce's deconstructive tendencies provide an added challenge for any author looking to engage with Finnegans Wake, Boland manages to reclaim ALP, both channelling and challenging Joyce's portrayal of the Liffey as “Anna Livia Plurabelle.”--From the Journal.


Place And Contemplative Pedagogy, Laura Runge Apr 2013

Place And Contemplative Pedagogy, Laura Runge

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.


Gender & Genre, Sharon Harrow Apr 2013

Gender & Genre, Sharon Harrow

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.


Dangerous Delusions, Nora Nachumi Apr 2013

Dangerous Delusions, Nora Nachumi

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.


Accessing Liberal Education, Alison Conway Apr 2013

Accessing Liberal Education, Alison Conway

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.


Teaching Eighteenth-Century Literature As A Feminist Scholar In The New Millennium, Alison Conway, Sharon Harrow, Nora Nachumi, Laura Runge Apr 2013

Teaching Eighteenth-Century Literature As A Feminist Scholar In The New Millennium, Alison Conway, Sharon Harrow, Nora Nachumi, Laura Runge

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.


‘The Only Beguiled Person’: Accessing Fantomina In The Feminist Classroom, Kate Levin Apr 2013

‘The Only Beguiled Person’: Accessing Fantomina In The Feminist Classroom, Kate Levin

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.


Gender Performance And The Reclamation Of Masculinity In Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, John William Salyers Jr. Jan 2013

Gender Performance And The Reclamation Of Masculinity In Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, John William Salyers Jr.

MA in English Theses

Salyers analyzes Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as both a product of and a commentary upon the American 1980s. The text focuses on analysis of key characters and their performance of socially assigned or accepted gender roles. Chief among these are James Gordon, seen as a nostalgic clinging to an antiquated masculinity, and Ellen Yindel, a woman who feels pressured by society to abandon her own gender identity in favor of a more socially acceptable one. The text posits that, against these two, Miller's work seeks to recognize a more modern, empowered, feminism in the character of Robin, …


The Caustic Pen Is Mightiest: A Tradition Of Female Satire In The Novels Of Jane Austen, Ivy Compton-Burnett, And Muriel Spark, Jaclyn Andrea Reed Jan 2013

The Caustic Pen Is Mightiest: A Tradition Of Female Satire In The Novels Of Jane Austen, Ivy Compton-Burnett, And Muriel Spark, Jaclyn Andrea Reed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Female satirists have long been treated by critics as anomalies within an androcentric genre because of the reticence to acknowledge women's right to express aggression through their writing. In Pride and Prejudice (1813), A House and Its Head (1935), and The Girls of Slender Means (1963), Jane Austen (1775-1817), Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969), and Muriel Spark (1918-2006) all combine elements of realism and satire within the vehicle of the domestic novel to target institutions of their patriarchal societies, including marriage and family dynamics, as well as the evolving conceptions of domesticity and femininity, with a subtle feminism. These female satirists illuminate …


The Objectification Of Women In Cane, Claudia M. Davis Jan 2013

The Objectification Of Women In Cane, Claudia M. Davis

ETD Archive

This thesis examines Jean Toomer's Cane (1923) from a feminist perspective. Using Laura Mulvey's film theory of the "male gaze", it repurposes it and uses the theory from a literary standpoint. Throughout this thesis, many different aspects are examined including the character interaction within the stories, the use of the narrative "I" and its overarching implications, audience participation with regard to voyeurism and Toomer's paradoxical stance on the objectification of women. Toomer writes about the women in Cane in a sexually explicit fashion, but does so in order to draw attention to the gaze and criticize it. As the vignettes …


Surviving The City: Resistance And Plant Life In Woolf’S Jacob’S Room And Barnes’ Nightwood, Ria Banerjee Jan 2013

Surviving The City: Resistance And Plant Life In Woolf’S Jacob’S Room And Barnes’ Nightwood, Ria Banerjee

Publications and Research

In Jacob’s Room (1922) and Nightwood (1936), Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes use plant life to express a profound ambivalence about the masculine-inflected ordering functions of art and morality. They show that these processes codify lived experience and distance it from the feminine and sexual. To counter this turn towards the urban inauthentic, both novels depict non-urban spaces to upend conventional notions of usefulness. They fixate on evanescent flowers, wild forests, and untillable fields as sites of resistance whose fragility and remoteness are strengths. In Jacob’s Room, I argue that the eponymous protagonist is destroyed by his conventional education …


Wasted Women: Modern Oppression In T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", James Warwood Jan 2013

Wasted Women: Modern Oppression In T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", James Warwood

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

T.S. Eliot has frequently been criticized for his misogynistic treatment of women in his poetry. Few, however, have considered the role his portrayal of women plays in supporting his poetic themes. The narrative space of “The Waste Land” is dominated primarily by women, both contemporary and mythical, who illustrate the brutal relationship between men and women. This intensely personal relationship, however, is analogous to the relationship of the individual and society; like the individual, the women must make the decision to either speak out against their oppressors or keep silent and accept their circumstances. Either option places women at risk …