English Language and Literature Commons^™

Diversity In Ya: A Look At How Book Description Language Talks About Race, Brittney Finato

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

When exploring young adult literature, it is specifically important to research racial diversity because it can help show particular stereotypes, biases, and tropes that may be used in YA overall. This helps inform current issues or excellencies in the canon and leads to broader discussions about the importance of racial, and other, diversity in books generally. By developing methods to isolate racially diverse books in YA, extracting specific language from their Goodreads copy, and talking broadly about overall themes, I will analyze the types of language that book descriptions use when talking about race, if they do at all.

The Discourse And Value Of Being An Independent Publisher, Rachel Noorda

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

Publishing did not have independents enter self-discourse until the 1960s when media conglomeration created a need to distinguish other publishers from this network of corporate giants. But rather than decimating the independent publishing landscape, the corporate conglomeration of book publishing has opened a space for independent publishers to thrive (Simon and McCarthy, 2009; Schiffrin, 2001; Hawthorne, 2014, 2016; Kogan 2007, 2010), in part because of the social currency that positioning themselves as independent in discourse affords. In order to analyze the use, purpose, and meaning of independent in publisher discourse, this article conducts a content analysis on mission statements of …

"You Da Man":Performing Masculinity In Disney's Mulan, Katie Kline

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

My project investigates how Mulan's performance of masculinity is rooted not only in appearance but in the embodiment of premodern Chinese virtues. Mulan's successful performance of masculinity challenges static gender binaries and the concept of gender being rooted in appearance.

From Desire To Obsession: Gender And Bodies In The Netflix Series "You", Morgan Bates

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

A personal interpretation of the themes of stalking in the Netflix series "YOU", exhibiting the relationship between stalking, gender, and bodies.

Debating Immigration: Political Tropes In The Echo Chamber Of Social Media, Chaniece Williams

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

Analyzing the statements made by our Political Leaders President Obama and President Trump. President Obama embracing inclusivity towards immigrants, while President Trump embraces exclusivity towards immigrants.

Care, No Matter What: Planned Parenthood's Use Of Organizational Rhetoric To Expand Its Reputation, Karyn Keane

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

This paper analyzes uses of organizational rhetoric on Planned Parenthood's website to market itself as a provider of holistic healthcare rather than just an abortion provider.

Monsters, Marines, And Feminism In The 1980s: A Look At Ellen Ripley From Aliens, Summer Reardon

Spring Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

The battle between Ripley and the alien mother symbolizes how women of the 1980s were grappling with their changing roles of motherhood brought about in part by their increased power over their own reproductive health, as well as broadening career options for women. During this time, more women began to take on non-traditional gender roles in the workplace, the family, and in society. Ripley's character reflects this the growing wave of feminism, and presaged a more assertive and adaptable woman, while still demonstrating devotion to her adoptive offspring.

From River Road Plantations To The Underground Railroad: Bringing The True Story Of American Slavery To The Present Racial Divide, Kari Lutes

All NMU Master's Theses

Much of the discourse in the nation is centered on the racial divide in America. This essay traces that divide back to American slavery, using a visit to five historical plantations and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad to illustrate the persistence of injustice beyond slavery to Jim Crow laws, color-blind rhetoric, and mass incarceration. At each plantation, I encounter a varied history of slavery and find that many of these historical sites trivialize the experience of the enslaved. The Whitney Plantation is the exception, focusing solely on the stories of the enslaved and revealing the power of narrative to undo …

"A Vision Of Greyness": The Liminal Vantage Of Illness In Heart Of Darkness, Cheryl Hindrichs

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

In Heart of Darkness, illness and physical vulnerability provide a sense of defamiliarization that enables what Virginia Woolf described as the exile's perspective, which in turn allows for a critique of normative regimes. Marlow's outsider perception of the physical qualities of imperialist Europeans in contrast to subjugated native Africans suggests an ambivalent aesthetic morality that is characteristic of modernist irony. This ambivalence is particularly significant in the frequently overlooked scene in which Marlow falls ill and nearly dies. The perspective Marlow acquires in his own experience of illness ultimately frames both his final encounter with Kurtz and with the …

Writing On Demand In College, Career, And Community Writing: Preparing Students To Participate In The Pop-Up Parlor, Kelly J. Sassi, Hannah Stevens

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

The Writing on Demand Unit is an important part of the College, Career, and Community Writers Program. In this article, we review the literature on C3WP; contextualize the writing on demand unit in relation to the other instructional resources in C3WP; explore five big ideas about writing on demand; and describe an approach to teaching this unit that includes some preliminary results of teaching this unit in a rural, Native American high school. The five big ideas that inform its use are the following: 1) emotions matter, 2) everyone does it, so provide reasons for writing on demand, 3) time …

“Power In Repose”: Sleep And Agency In American Literature, 1875-1916, Hannah Leigh Huber

Theses and Dissertations

“Power in Repose” argues that American literature provided its own response to the cult of wakefulness that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century. Narratives by authors Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman emerged from a time in which conceptions of rest were reshaped by the coalescence of America’s Protestant work ethic and industrial advancement. By complicating the separation of public and private space, my chosen texts present characters exhausted by the permeation of the supposedly impervious aspects of modernity, such as artificial light, traffic commotion, and round-the-clock labor and social activity. Marginalized figures are …

A Conceptual Mapping Approach For Presenting A Practical Past: Addressing Responsibility Through Contextualization In Information System Design For The Ward One Mobile Application, Sadia Obaid Khan

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents and documents a model for telling history through technology using the Ward One application for iOS mobile devices as a test site for the idea of conceptual mapping. The historical-information delivery system was created to mobilize the rhetoricity of representation that is a procedural necessity of technological mediation.

The paper begins by explaining the exigence of the app—to tell the history of an African-American community displaced from the land now occupied by the University of South Carolina as a result of racially discriminating housing policies in Columbia, SC and across the United States. It then addresses the …

Beginning At The End: Reimagining The Dissertation Committee, Reimagining Careers, Amy J. Lueck, Beth Boehm

English

In this article, we forward a perspective on interdisciplinarity and diversity that reconsiders the notion of expertise in order to unstick discussions of graduate education reform that have been at an impasse for some fortyfive years. As research problems have become increasingly complex so has demand for scholars who specialize narrowly within a discipline and who understand the importance of contributions from other disciplines. In light of this, we reimagine the dissertation committee as a group of diverse participants from within and beyond the academy who contribute their knowledge and skills to train the next generation of scholars and researchers …

Course Syllabus (Sp19) Coli 214b--Literature & Society: "A.I. And Other Radical Humanisms In Cyberpunk And Science Fiction", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description:

As that which we call “technology” continues to evolve as both concept and practice, we discover ever more inventive ways to answer its call, and science fiction seems to serve as a universal standpoint from which global societies manage to confront, question, and reimagine the nature of our shared humanity as a radically technical relation. While the growing social pervasiveness of artificial intelligence and the attendant encoded transformations of “the human” appear, together, to form a relatively absolute horizon of political thinking, social agency, and aesthetic experience, it seems certain that our current crisis also offers us …

“Thanks To ‘X’ For Beta-Ing!”: Fan Fiction Beta Readers In The Writing Center, Regan Levitte

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this thesis, I pose the question: what can we learn from fan fiction beta reading practices that can be applied to the writing center? Through interviews of writing center consultants who have had beta reading experiences, I consider what collaborative practices they have transferred into their writing center consultant skill sets. This project records how their affinity groups supported their literacy habits, and which dynamics of power and embodiment meant the most to them in these two discourse communities.

Combining historic texts on what ideal writing center pedagogy looks like, I explore how writers could interact with acknowledgement of …

Deforming Normalcy: Deformity And Disability In William Blake's Art, Seolha Lee

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines William Blake’s verbal and visual art from the perspective that disability is a physical and mental condition that is viewed by society as deviant. Prior to modern conceptions of disability in Britain, the deviation was labeled as “deformity.” This thesis demonstrates various ways in which Blake illustrates deformity, and through this, prefigures the modern sense of disability in his art. I argue that Blake’s representation of deformity in his poetry and drawings is intended to reveal the precariousness of the “normal” human body and inform the reader and viewer that normality is an illusion. The age of …

Englands Happie Queene: Female Rulers In Early English History, Emily Benes

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper examines the historical records and later literature surrounding three early mythic and historical British queens: Albina, mythic founder of Albion; Cordelia, pre-Roman queen regnant in British legend; and Boudica, the British leader of a first-century CE rebellion against the Romans. My work focuses on who these queens were, what powers they were given, and the mythos around them. I examine when they appear in the historical record and when their stories are expanded upon, and how those stories were influenced by the political culture of England through the early seventeenth century. In particular, I examine English attitudes toward …

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 2, The Sinclair Lewis Society

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter

“Zenith on the Liffey: Sinclair Lewis and James Joyce,” by Robert L. McLaughlin, Illinois State University

“Lewis’s Lasting Conocimiento: Ann Vickers in Spain,” by Ralph Goldstein

“Book Burning: Not the Spark of Fascism but the Ashes of Democracy,” by Andrew Stevens, Illinois State University

“What Were They Reading Then?: Weeds by Edith Summers Kelley, 1923,” by Rebecca Pugsley, College of St. Scholastica

“Dorothy Thompson and Her Advice to American Women,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University

“Why Writer Sinclair Lewis Keeps Paying Dividends from Pittsfield, and Will Forever,” by Larry Parnass, the Berkshire Eagle

Why Do You Want To Teach? Interpreting Stem Pre-Service Teachers' Motivations Through A Semantic Lens, Delaney Holt

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This qualitative study sought to examine the relationship between the motivational profiles that pushed undergraduate STEM pre-service teachers (N = 181) to enter the teaching profession and the word choice used to articulate those motivations. Through the application of a semantically-analytical lens, this study aimed to uncover preliminary patterns that could predict STEM pre-service teachers’ overall commitment levels to the completion of the STEM education major and overall certification. Written responses to the question “Why did you want to become a teacher?” were gathered from a longitudinal survey administered from spring 2011 to fall 2016 as part of the Knowing …

The Power Of Positivity In The #Conservewater Movement On Twitter, Sarah Kubik

English Undergraduate

This poster looks into how authors on social media uses rhetoric to affect the perception and promotion of the #conservewater movement. This study used content analysis and analyzed 100 tweets from the 2018 year looking at who the author of each tweet was, what the tone of the tweet was, the function of the tweet, if there were any attachments and more. The findings gathered were overwhelmingly positive.

Reactions To Highly Publicized Sexual Assault Cases Via Twitter Over Time, Tessa Sulimowicz

English Undergraduate

In public spaces, do reactions to sexual assault cases depict more of a victim blaming or offender blaming attitude? How has that changed over time?

Prior to collecting data, I hypothesized that I would find more Tweets portraying a victim blaming attitude rather than offender blaming. This hypothesis was ultimately derived from the research I did and the other studies I looked at.

Decolonial Potential In A Multilingual Fyc, Cruz Medina

English

Scholars in rhetoric and composition have questioned to what extent the field can be decolonial because of the gatekeeping role that writing plays in the university. This article examines the decolonial potential of implementing multilingual practices in first-year composition (fyc), enacting what Walter Mignolo calls “epistemic disobedience” by complicating the primacy of English as the language of knowledge-building. I describe a Spanish-English “bilingual” fyc course offered at a private university with a Jesuit Catholic heritage. The course is characterized by a translanguaging approach in which Spanish is presented as a valid language for academic writing. The students’ writing highlights the …

Lesson Plan For Teaching Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad", Amelia Tomei , '19, Peter Schmidt

English Literature Faculty Works

A lesson plan for teaching this novel to college and university students. Learning Goals. Students will: understand how the narrator guides reader's interpretation of the story; understand how to read dialogue and how it contributes to characterization; explore the complexity of the themes present in the story and the characters Whitehead has created; understand how to annotate key references to things outside of the text and apply these back to the main text. Necessary Preparation: The teacher should have familiarized him or herself with Whitehead's The Underground Railroad before the first lesson. It is also important that the …

Lesson Plan For Teaching Mohsin Hamid's "Exit West", Ruby Guerrero , '22, Peter Schmidt

English Literature Faculty Works

A lesson plan for teaching this novel to high school grades 11-12, community college, and/or college and university students. This lesson is planned for three weeks and three times a week, but I recommend that teachers revise these plans as needed in order for the lesson to fit their class schedules. Learning Goals: students will be able to identify stereotypes of migrants and refuse to accept these as proper understandings of people; students will be able to reclaim their identities using the novel as a basis for this outcome; students will learn to identify the different types of narration, how …

Soul-Error, Philip M. Weinstein

English Literature Faculty Works

Freud, in his essay on The Uncanny, explores a spatial confusion: a state of mind in which one sees "out there" something palpably shaped from "in here." Freud's most striking vignette in the essay rehearses how, some years earlier, he found himself wandering through an unknown Italian village, looking for the train station. He perused his map, made the appropriate right and left turns--and found himself in the red-light district. Here, Weinstein returns repeatedly to the traffic that unpredictably occurs between us ("in here") and the world ("out there"). Because we are endowed with stunningly intricate minds, we move through …

Intentionally So: Morality In Children’S Literature, Anna Edwards

Honors Theses

There are tales that follow us from childhood and into adult life: they take the shape of children’s stories. Within these books there are moral lessons to be learned; often times these lessons are communicated through enchanting characters and strange settings. However, in addition to the morality that can be found in the pages of these texts, I believe there is also a morality surrounding their creation. More specifically, the way their authors approach their writing. By looking at the two works The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, a …

Misreading The Hybrid Face: The Alienation Of Performed And Authentic Self In Danzy Senna’S Caucasia And Chang-Rae Lee’S Native Speaker, William E. Landers

Honors Theses

Race is epistemological. It shapes worldviews, conceptions of self, and interactions with society. It defines who belongs in the national community and who counts as fully human. The myth of whiteness as a homogenizing and nativist identity creates false personas around and within racialized others. These personas define non-white populations according to exclusionary stereotypes. These stereotypes, in turn, separate populations based on appearance and cultural practice. This thesis applies Critical Race Theory and comparative racialization tools to examine the historical implications of race on the conception of an authentic, or internally true, identity. These implications are illustrated by the dynamics …

Law Library Blog (April 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

“All I Wanted To Know Was How To Live In It”: Rituals And The Quest For Meaning In Hemingway And Faulkner, Marissa Ortosky

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

2019 Greenleaf Review (No. 32), Sigma Tau Delta

The Greenleaf Review

No abstract provided.