English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Sociocultural Perception Of The African American Woman's Bodily Aesthetics: Investigated In The Works Venus, God Don't Like Ugly, And Their Eyes Were Watching God, Andrene Loiten

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Despite contemporary movements towards tolerance and appreciation of differing cultural entities within the United States, the normative standard of beauty serves as a pinnacle of division amongst women. The normative standard of beauty—implemented by the dominant race within the States—encourages discrimination in regards to the perception of African American female beauty. Although information exists identifying the original influence pertaining to the negative perception of African American female beauty, the reason for its continued perpetuation within the African American community remains ill defined. Effects of this standard amongst African Americans are psychological and physiological. The destruction of self-image and appreciation for …

Walking And Wandering: Reconstructing Diasporic Subjectivity In T. C. Huo's Land Of Smiles And Lê Thi Diem Thúy’S The Gangster We Are All Looking For, Brian G. Chen

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Diaspora has often been defined as the condition of dispersal and displacement in which its members express minimal connections with their host country and always look to return to their ancestral homelands. However, from the literary representations in T. C. Huo’s Land of Smiles and Lê Thi Diem Thúy’s The Gangster We Are All Looking For, it is clear that members of the Southeast Asian diaspora determine to set root in their host country and refuse to be treated as temporary guests. This determination is warranted by their desire to redefine the contentious idea of home beyond cultural ancestry …

An Examination Of Relational Bullying In Award Winning Newbery Books, 1996-2016, Kaysey N. Wann

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Relational bullying, although covert in nature and difficult for adults to notice and identify, is becoming increasingly prevalent among young children and teens. The success of bibliotherapy as preventative and intervention practices for bullying shows that portrayals of relational bullying in quality children’s literature would be effective in reducing and preventing it. However, relational bullying is rarely portrayed in children’s literature. My goal was to find quality children’s realistic fiction literature that portrays relational bullying in Newbery award-winning books, and to bring them to the attention of teachers.

After creating a table to determine what types of bullying, if any, …

Yet More Cather-Knopf Correspondence, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Some years ago many of us were excited by the discovery of a cache of Willa Cather’s correspondence with publisher Alfred A. Knopf that had been in the hands of Peter Prescott, one of the succession of would-be biographers of Knopf. He died before he completed it. These letters are now held in the Barbara Dobkin Collection in New York City. Before these materials came to light, researchers, including the editors of the Willa Cather Scholarly Edition, had relied on a strange and fragmentary “memoir” Knopf wrote of his relationship with Cather based on his correspondence files with her, and …

George Eliot In Romantic Biofiction, Beverley Rilett

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Dinitia Smith’s The Honeymoon is the first complete biofiction of the woman enduringly known by her masculine pen name, George Eliot. It tells the story of a precocious provincial English girl who challenges the conventions of her middleclass upbringing as she pursues a writing career in Victorian London, moves in with an alreadymarried man, becomes one of the greatest living British novelists, and then marries John Cross, a man twenty years her junior whom she’d long called “nephew.” Whether or not Eliot’s brief marriage to Cross constituted a “happy ending” depends on how you interpret the harrowing incident that took …

Cripping East Los Angeles: Enabling Environmental Justice In Helena María Viramontes’S Their Dogs Came With Them, Jina B. Kim

English Language and Literature: Faculty Books

Chapter 18 of section three: Food Justice in Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory edited by Stacy Alaimo

Although scholars in the environmental humanities have been exploring the dichotomy between "wild" and "built" environments for several years, few have focused on the field of disability studies, a discipline that enlists the contingency between environments and bodies as a foundation of its scholarship. On the other hand, scholars in disability studies have demonstrated the ways in which the built environment privileges some bodies and minds over others, yet they have rarely examined the ways in which toxic …

A Declaration Of The State Of The Colony: Type Facsimile Edition, Edward Waterhouse, Dylan Ruediger

British Virginia

Edward Waterhouse’s Declaration of the State of the Colony is the Virginia Company's official response to the Powhatan attack on the plantation in the spring of 1622. The attack, often called the “Jamestown Massacre,” cost the lives of 25% of the population of the colony (individually listed by Waterhouse in a harrowing catalog of the dead). It led to massive retaliation by the English. It also significantly changed the ideological basis of the colonial project in Virginia from one based on naïve hopes that Indians would voluntarily subordinate themselves to the English towards an aggressive colonialism of dispossession. Waterhouse’s text …

A Declaration Of The State Of The Colony: Photographic Facsimile Edition, Edward Waterhouse, Dylan Ruediger

British Virginia

Edward Waterhouse’s Declaration of the State of the Colony is the Virginia Company's official response to the Powhatan attack on the plantation in the spring of 1622. The attack, often called the “Jamestown Massacre,” cost the lives of 25% of the population of the colony (individually listed by Waterhouse in a harrowing catalog of the dead). It led to massive retaliation by the English. It also significantly changed the ideological basis of the colonial project in Virginia from one based on naïve hopes that Indians would voluntarily subordinate themselves to the English towards an aggressive colonialism of dispossession. Waterhouse’s text …

Acoustic And Aerodynamic Data On Somali Chizigula Stops, Michal Temkin Martinez, Vanessa Rosenbaum

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, traditional language descriptions as well as preservation and revitalization efforts have benefited from experimental approaches utilized in other fields of linguistics.• The integration of phonetic experimental methods has assisted in scientifically defining certain articulatory and acoustic parameters that would be impossible to identify otherwise (Hudu et al. 2009; Miller 2008; Miller & Finch 2011). Additionally, the use of psycholinguistic methods in O'Grady et al. (2009) aids in the documentation and assessment of language fluency for language revitalization purposes. This chapter reports acoustic and aerodynamic data collected to complement the description of stops in Somali Chizigula. Results from …

Romanticism, Samantha C. Harvey

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

While Thoreau has sometimes been represented as a provincial figure who traveled relatively little, his extensive engagement with texts from across the Atlantic reveals a much fuller and more cosmopolitan picture of Thoreau, a writer who engaged with Romanticism not only directly, through his careful study of texts by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Goethe, and others, but also indirectly, since Romanticism saturated the Transcendentalist context within which he developed and operated. Thus there is a clear need to understand Thoreau in light of a larger movement: transatlantic Romanticism. Thoreau's awareness of transatlantic religio-philosophical, scientific, and literary contexts is especially evident in …

The End Of Postmodernism, Ralph Clare

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

Appearing at the start of the millennium, Percival Everett's Erasure (2001) features Monk Ellison, a writer who is questioning his one-time embrace of postmodern aesthetics and who raises the ire of "innovative" writer and fellow member of the Nouveau Roman Society after delivering a conference paper, F/V, part parody of and part homage to Roland Barthes's S/Z. Becoming belligerent, the writer proclaims to Ellison that postmodernists did not "have time to finish what we set out to accomplish" because any art which "opposes or rejects established systems of creation ... has to remain unfinished." His unsuccessful attempt to …

On The Heterogeneity Of Northern Paiute Directives, Tim Thornes

English Literature Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this chapter, I explore a variety of grammatical constructions involved in expressing or asserting a desired action or outcome-what properly (and traditionally) fall under the functional domain of commands (or directives)-in Northern Paiute (Western Numic; Uta-Aztecan). I also discuss the various situational contexts appropriate to their use and make a preliminary assessment of their historical developments, as both grammatical and sociocultural phenomena. This study is intended to contribute to the typological literature on commands and on nondeclarative speech acts more generally (see, especially, Konig and Siemund 2007 and Aikhenvald 2010, inter alia).

Adventures With Animals Big And Small, Emily Allen, Marcus Blandford, Shannon Brennan, Brennen Keen, Amanda Timm, Tara Penry, Sarah Obendorf

English Literature Student Projects and Publications

The purpose of this project is to produce a short collection of out-of-print children’s stories that would be suitable for first grade level readers. Stories selected for the collection fit the theme of being seasonally themed and include animals as main protagonists. Under the guidance of Dr. Tara Penry, the class searched children’s magazines from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s to find stories that would be relevant and interesting to today’s elementary schoolers.

Snoop-Women With Notebooks: Naomi Mitchison, Mass Observation, And The Gender Of Domestic Intelligence, Megan Faragher

English Language and Literatures Faculty Publications

Novelist Naomi Mitchison and Home Intelligence head Mary Adams were crucial supporters of Mass Observation's qualitative approach to public opinion collection, but their efforts were significantly curtailed when the public denounced observers as internal spies. This article traces the backlash against MO's methodology, both bureaucratically and publicly, uncovering that MO critics were partially fueled by the gendering of its unique methodology. While some considered interviews and surveys tantamount to domestic espionage, the subsequent turn towards quantitative data devalued women's experiences by favoring institutionalized patriarchal approaches to analyzing public opinion. Within this context, Mitchison's novel We Have Been Warned similarly presents …

Something Wicked This Way Comes: The Supernatural And Unnatural In Macbeth, Mary Spencer

Undergraduate Research Journal

Fate is an omnipresent force woven through much ancient literature, and in English literature it is named from the earliest recorded writings as wyrd. By tracing this influence from its first appearances in Anglo-Saxon writing to the Early Modern period, we can see how Shakespeare uses his cultural inheritance to create the supernatural world of Macbeth, specifically through representations of wyrd. In the play, he examines the question “Does fate make the characters, or do the characters create their fates?” Juhász Tamás, a Shakespeare scholar, makes the point, “Of all Shakespearean dramas, the concept of fate and destiny seems most …

Engl 352: Intermediate Fiction Writing—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Chigozie Obioma

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Absent the elements of effective writing, there has been a strong debate on whether or not other aspects of creative writing can be taught. Many practicing writers like myself who teach have concluded that a student writer can be guided towards fully actualizing their talent, and this “guidance” is what mostly constitutes teaching. How then do we evaluate the effectiveness of this teaching, and to what extent do students’ individual talent help or stand in the way of effective instruction? How do we plan various learning outcomes and test the success of such strategies over the duration of the ENGL …

Relocations Of The 'Outraged Slave': Transatlantic Reform Conversations Through Douglass's Periodical Fiction, Nikki D. Fernandes

Theses and Dissertations

Through their editorial arrangements of African-American, Euro-American and European poetry, fiction and news, Frederick Douglass’s anti-slavery periodicals (The North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper) imagine a cosmopolitan discourse that predates the segregated realities of the antebellum United States. In spite of Southern blockades against the infiltration of Northern texts, Douglass’s material space uniquely capitalized on the limited restrictions of his reprinting culture to relocate the voice of the ‘outraged slave’ onto a global stage. From the poems of Phillis Wheatley and William Cowper to Charles Dickens’s Bleak House and Douglass’s own novella “The Heroic Slave,” this project considers how …

Female Art And Artisans In Edith Wharton’S The House Of Mirth, The Custom Of The Country, And “Roman Fever”, Julia B. Welch

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In early twentieth century old and new New York social circles, the marriage market’s commodification of women acted as the controlling factor for relationships, female power, and personal identity. When considering Wharton’s works for the first-hand viewpoint that she provided of the marriage market, it becomes clear that her interest in art plays heavily into the way women comport themselves within her novels. In order to discuss this relationship in Edith Wharton’s works, I’ve created terms that delineate the various ways female characters respond to the pressures of the marriage market. The best way to analyze Wharton’s women is by …

The Use Of A Cooperative Corpus Consultation To Promote The Acquisition Of Adjective + Preposition Collocations Among L1 Thai Learners Of English, Supaporn Kulsitthiboon

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The study was aimed at promoting the acquisition of adjective + preposition collocations of L1 Thai learners of English through a cooperative corpus consultation. The three objectives were to investigate the effects of a cooperative corpus consultation, explore learners' strategies in dealing with the corpus consultation and study learners' attitudes towards the approach. The study was conducted for one semester with 74 first year university students at Srinakharinwirot University. One group was assigned to be the experimental group working on the paper-based concordance handouts and hands-on concordance based tasks with a group of 3 - 4 members while the other …

The Geographic Center Of Nowhere, Sharon Mauldin Reynolds

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The Geographic Center of Nowhere. A collection of short stories exploring the perseverance of several women in varied situations.

"The End At The Beginning" : Spiral Logic In Keri Hulme's The Bone People, Megan Thurman

Scripps Senior Theses

Thesis on violence, love, and sexuality in Keri Hulme's novel The Bone People.

Voice And Agency In William Shakespeare's The Tempest And Aimé Césaire's Une Tempête, Sophie Fahey

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how Prospero’s power is conveyed through voice in The Tempest, as well as how Shakespeare frames the relationship between Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban, primarily in Act 1, Scene 2 of the play. Then, it examines how in Une Tempête Césaire gives a more active role to Ariel and Caliban in and how giving these characters more space to speak gives them more agency and power.

Historical Representation Of Jackie Robinson Within Primary And Intermediate Level Children's Literature, Amy Minor

Masters Theses

Educators today meet national and state initiatives by spending approximately half their time on non-fiction literature. Starting as early as primary grades students are to analyze multiple texts on the same historical topic. Student's reading levels vary; consequently, trade books can be used to reach each individual child. Due to this, trade book usage has increased. Research indicates trade books can contain possible historical misrepresentations. Few studies have been completed, therefore more research is necessary. My research examined the historical representation of Jackie Robinson within trade books for primary and intermediate grades. After determining events in reading the historical research …

Riemannian Reading: Using Manifolds To Calculate And Unfold Narrative, Heather Lamb

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to investigate the space where readers and texts interact. By applying non-Euclidean geometry to the modern subgenre of science fiction known as steampunk, we can see that narratives have no intrinsic geometry. Instead, what we can understand is that readers unflatten inherently flat narratives by applying their own metric of understanding to a narrative. Steampunk acts a primer to considering this mathematical process by explicitly flattening its settings and characters, as well as the historical accounts founding the narrative. Mark Hodder's novel, The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, offers two characters that unsuccessfully …

Deceiving, Fraudulent, And Seductive: The Discourses Of Money In Us Novels Of The Early Republic, Fabian Rempfer

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the importance of money and the representations of its various physical manifestations (such as coin, paper money) in American fiction of the 1790s. My project traces the transition from the colonies' financial dependency on Britain to their independency, relating to the monetary union created after the passage of the constitution. I argue that this shift from financial dependency to independency influences books such as Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, Kelroy by Rebecca Rush, Ormond or the Secret Witness and Arthur Mervyn by Charles Brockden Brown. My project highlights, on the one hand, the importance of such …

Girls In Graphic Novels: A Content Analysis Of Selected Texts From Yalsa's 2016 Great Graphic Novels For Teens List, Tiffany Mumm

Masters Theses

This study examined the portrayal of female characters in selected texts from the Young Adult Library Association's 2016 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. Appearances, conversations, and behaviors of preteen and teenage female primary characters were coded. Results indicate that progress is being made in the portrayal of female characters in graphic novels. Diversity in appearances, relatable conversations, and a break from stereotypical behaviors have led to more complex characters that provide readers with better role models. While some stereotypical conventions remain, the progress indicates a positive change for all readers.

Relevant And Represented: The Presence Of Special Populations In Trade Books, Jessica Krahnke

Masters Theses

This study provides insight into the presence of special populations in trade books. Special populations are defined as a population that has been assigned a label for the sake of educational interventions; in this case, special populations refer to thirteen categories of disability as well as English Language Learners. Past winners of the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award were analyzed for the presence of special populations, how special populations were portrayed, and any significant patterns over time regarding the presence of special populations. Results indicated a lack of characters belonging to special populations, characters in a special population most …

The Rewards Of Impertinence: Happy And Unhappy Endings In Jane Austen's Novels, Elizabeth Bolger

English Honors Papers

In this thesis, I use a wide range of period sources—the law governing marriage in the United Kingdom, sermons, and treatises on women’s education—to argue that Jane Austen uses irony and satire to defend “impertinent” women by exposing the villainy of a patriarchal order that attempts to restrain female desire. Her literary strategies of indirection, including irony and satire, have an ethical purpose that is neglected by the many critics who read her works as endorsing conservative values. Her novels function within a traditional narrative framework in order to expose and ultimately undermine the oppressive morals inherent within the patriarchal …

"Until Death Brings Us Closer Together Forever": Spirituality, Corporeality, And Queer Identification With Nature In Transcendental Literature, Kathryn Alderman

English Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

The Noble Art Of Lying, James E. Mahon

Publications and Research

In this chapter I examine the writings of Mark Twain on lying, especially his essays "On the decay of the Art of Lying" and "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It." I show that Twain held that there were two kinds of lies: the spoken lie and the silent lie. The silent lie is the lie of not saying what one is thinking, and is far more common than the spoken lie. The greatest silent lies, according to Twain, were the national silent lies that there was nothing wrong with slavery (the U.S.), that there was nothing …