English Language and Literature Commons^™

Ad Hoc American Studies: Michigan And The Hidden History Of A Movement, Alexander I. Olson, Frank Kelderman

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This essay uses the history of the American Culture program at the University of Michigan as an occasion for rethinking the early years of American Studies more generally. Our archival research has found that the program was founded in 1935—seventeen years earlier than previously thought—making it the oldest American Studies degree program in the world. These forgotten years challenge conventional genealogies tracing the field’s origins to the “myth and symbol” school at Harvard. Instead, Michigan’s history reveals a deep engagement with interdisciplinary movements in the 1930s that shared an interest in critiquing American democracy, particularly human ecology, institutionalist economics, and …

Front Matter, Criterion: A Journal Of Literary Criticism

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Conflicting Roles Of The Speaker And The Divine In The Holy Sonnets, Annette Challis

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Donne’s Holy Sonnet, particularly “Since She Whom I Loved” and “Oh to Vex me,” compare the speaker’s insincere desire for God to the narcissistic love between Lover and Beloved that is typical in Petrarchan sonnets. Scholars naturally place the speaker in the obvious role of Lover, with God as the unattainable Beloved. However, because of the speaker’s infidelity and prevalent narcissism, he proves to be no Lover at all. In reality, God’s complete devotion makes Him the true Lover. The speaker struggles with the paradox of this relationship; that his inconstancy and infidelity has inspired devotion in God. I agree …

Morality And Pleasure In Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Sarah Bonney

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In “Morality and Pleasure in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried,” I examine how representations of pleasure in O’Brien’s novel indicate how the soldiers establish a new code of morality during their military service in Vietnam. Although civilians live with a binary understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, the soldiers must commit immoral acts in order to serve honorably, thereby conflicting with this previous understanding. Western ideology asserts that pleasure accompanies moral behavior; because the soldiers perform violent acts, they must ascertain a new understanding of morality in order to continue to feel pleasure throughout and in spite of …

The Art Of Death: Murder According To Poe, Hitchcock, And De Quincey, Jeanine Bee

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper examines the works of both Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock in light of Thomas De Quincey’s series of essays entitled “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” In his essays, De Quincey presents murder as an art form that can be criticized and appreciated just as any other fine art. While De Quincey’s essays faced some negative reaction when they were originally published, both Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock seem to have found something worthwhile in De Quincey’s ideas about the art of murder; Poe and Hitchcock both present murder as an art form …

Contributors Page, Criterion: A Journal Of Literary Criticism

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Reexamining Virtue In Arthur Mervyn, Clarissa Mcintire

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Though Arthur Mervyn focuses primarily on the deadly 1793 invasion of the yellow fever into Philadelphia and humanitarian responses to it, the novel’s juxtaposition of contemporary societal attitudes towards fever victims with those towards unchaste or fallen women underlines striking similarities between the two. In this article I claim that, when applied to unchaste women, the novel’s argument for improved treatment of diseased and infected persons also establishes the unreliability of sexual purity as a standard of respectability due to the potential for a woman’s virtue to be taken from her. Therefore, because Arthur’s society judges the respectability of individuals …

Table Of Contents, Criterion: A Journal Of Literary Criticism

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

“Life Is A Solid Substance”: Materialism And The Use Of Objects In Virginia Woolf’S The Waves, Madeline Thatcher

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper seeks to establish Virginia Woolf as a materialist and her subsequent reliance on objects to create lasting relationships between her characters in her novel The Waves. In an in depth analysis of each of the six principle characters, as well as three distinct instances where all of these protagonists meet together, this paper argues objects are central to fostering human connection, and although each individual may relate differently to materialism, all are brought closer to one another because of it. This paper also responds to several critics’ claims about Woolf and her work with objects, especially Douglas …

Unmooring And Anchoring Bigger Thomas: Ontological Confusion And Mercy In Richard Wright’S Native Son, Davey Cox

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Richard Wright's novel, Native Son, puts Bigger Thomas on display as an isolated soul, ontologically separated from the world around him and confused about his place in it. The work of Phillipe Descola aids in understanding the cultural models that lead to this confusion by elucidating the underlying schemas by which people organize their experience. Bigger's isolation appears incurable, or difficult to approach at best. The novel's proposed solution is mercy, or closeness and connection, which both Jan and Max offer Bigger. Much of the novel's content and it's treatment thereof is relevant to the environmental justice movement of …

Owen Barfield And "Is Man A Myth?", Phillip Joe Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

No abstract provided.

English Composition I, Lauren Curtright, Kathryn Crowther, Nancy Gilbert, Barbara Hall, Tracienne Ravita

English Grants Collections

This Grants Collection uses the grant-supported open textbook Successful College Composition from Georgia State University:

http://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/8

This Grants Collection for English Composition I was created under a Round Two ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final …

Becoming Self: A Jungian Approach To Paradise Lost, Geoffrey Kishbaugh

Masters Theses

When addressing Paradise Lost, the reader is not encountering static characters but is interacting with and being acted upon by highly symbolic manifestations of the primitive condition of humanity‟s collective psyche. In dealing with the figures of Christianity‟s mythos, John Milton creates a text that stimulates the collective unconscious of the reader and draws out the primordial expressions of the self—archetypal manifestations. Subsequently, these manifestations are projected back onto the figures within the text and the reader engages in a dynamic relationship with the poem as both the reader and the figures of Adam and Eve experience the process of …

The Weird And The Wonderful: Poetry Dedicated To Exploring Social Stereotypes Surrounding Mental Illness And The Misfit, Sarah Grace Bryant

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

A collection of poems exploring how society deals with the mentally ill and others that don't fit into social norms. Some are biographical, others are observations.

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 24, No. 2, The Sinclair Lewis Society

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter

“Arrowsmith, A Synergy of Talents,” by Jan Peter Verhave, Van Raalte Institute, Hope College

“Babbitt in Paperback, 1946,” by Roger Lathbury, George Mason University

“Carl Van Vechten, Sinclair Lewis, and The Tattooed Countess,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University

“What Were They Reading Then?: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson, 1923,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University

“What Were They Reading Then?: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow, 1941,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University

“What Were They Reading Then?: Moon-Calf by Floyd Dell, 1920,” by Ted G. Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools …

Tales From Rugosa Coven, By Sarah Avery. Reviewed By Emilee J. Howland-Davis., Emilee J. Howland-Davis

Mythprint Book Reviews

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.

The Gordon State College Writing Handbook, Wesley Venus, Mark King

English Open Textbooks

Authors' Description:

Members of the Gordon faculty have collaborated on the authorship of this guide, and it is targeted directly at Gordon students to help them with their writing across the GSC curriculum. This guide provides at least three distinct advantages over other guides: it is specifically targeted to Gordon State students, it covers writing across the whole curriculum, not just English; and it is free.

Many approaches to crafting this guide were entertained, but the authors decided that what students really want from a composition guide are practical examples of writing that they might actually encounter in their classroom …

Successful College Composition (3rd Edition), Rebecca Weaver, Lynne Bost, Michelle Kassorla, Karen Mckinney-Holley, Kathryn Crowther, Lauren Curtright, Nancy Gilbert, Barbara Hall, Tracienne Ravita, Kirk Swenson

English Open Textbooks

Third Edition (D2L Version) (2019):

We made two significant changes to the textbook: we reformatted it from a PDF to modules within our Learning Management System (iCollege) and as an open-web-based book. The modularized version is downloadable and exportable and will live on the ALG and GSU websites. The web-based book will be ready by August 2019 and will also live on the ALG and GSU websites.

The other significant change we made was to write an instruction manual that provides guidance to who we see as the primary audience for the manual: new composition instructors. In our department, these …

Disciplines, Institutions—And Desires, Will Stockton, Mario Digangi, Ruth Mazo Karras, Melissa E. Sanchez

Publications and Research

Will Stockton: I would like to begin by asking you to consider the chiasmus under which we gather: “Desiring History and Historicizing Desire.” The chiasmus focuses our attention on the crossing of two terms, each with noun and verb forms their grammatical flexibility indexed, perhaps, to the methodological flexibility of the fields in which most of us work: early modern (here both Renaissance and late-medieval) queer and/or sexuality studies. Talk a bit about the definitions of desir/e/ing and histor/y/icizing, and the relation of these terms to the periodization and thematization of your and our work. Is defining these words more …

Adam Smith For Our Times, Ii: Of Sympathy And Selfishness, Michael Gavin

Studies in Scottish Literature

Summarizes the published proceedings of a recent conference at Mercer University discussing the significance for 21st century America of the 18th century Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith, and offers a critical perspective.

Issue Cover Page, Drew Hubbell, John Ryan

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

Issue Cover Page

Lamentations, Betsy Bolton

English Literature Faculty Works

The following poem attempts to think about loss from the perspective of different religions (the Jewish prophet Jeremiah, a Christian sermon, a Buddhist tale, Muslim prayer and traditions). The piece travels through time as well as space: it looks back at the Renaissance as a period in which Jeremiah’s lamentations were set to music and forced travel/slavery between Morocco and England first occurred.

The Lives And Deaths Of Flora Mac-Ivor And Rose Bradwardine: Romance And Reality In Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, Monica D. Allen

Student Works

In Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, Scott presents the problem of romance versus reality. He does this by personifying romance and reality through Flora Mac Ivor and Rose Bradwardine. Flora, with her passion, represents romance. While Rose, a more mellow character, represents reality. Waverley finds that he must choose between them. Rose is a “kindred spirit” to him, while Flora resembles “one of his daydreams.” They embody these ideas through a physical location. Flora’s location is the romantic Scottish Highlands, and Rose’s location is simply her father’s home. Besides location, the figurative deaths of Flora and Rose embody romance and …

Oceans And Ecotones In Mary Shelley’S Maurice, Or The Fisher’S Cot, Colin Carman

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This essay is about oceans in one of Mary Shelley’s non-canonical works, Maurice, or the Fisher’s Cot: A Tale (1820), and the relatedness of humans to their ocean environments; it’s also about Shelley’s representations of those rich and diverse life-forms that populate the edge between sea and land-mass and within what ecologists refer to as an “ecotone.” By characterising the ocean as an ecotone in Maurice, Shelley makes explicit a more eco-conscious way of understanding the nature/culture dichotomy and in terms that directly involve the shifting boundaries between land and sea, saltwater and freshwater, human and animal. This English Romantic …

The Paradox Of Desert Writing: Bridging Epistemological And Discursive Gaps In Craig Childs’ The Secret Knowledge Of Water, Paul Formisano

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language

This essay examines Craig Childs’ use of paradox as a key rhetorical device to represent the deserts of the American Southwest as depicted primarily in The Secret Knowledge of Water (2000). To understand how Childs employs this device, I draw upon the pragmatic rhetorical tradition and ecocriticism’s materialist turn to show how scientific and poetic discourses, as well as the desert’s agency, create a physical and philosophical contact zone, one where the reader confronts the borders that mark epistemological systems, divisions between the human and the nonhuman, and the discursive and disciplinary strategies and positions used to evoke the mystery …

Glimpses Of Lost Home In The Works Of J.R.R. Tolkien And Owen Barfield, Phillip Joe Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

No abstract provided.

A Tourist Performance: Redefining The Tourist Attraction, Brandy Lee Kinkade

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this paper is to examine the intersection of tourism and memoirs in the United States specifically how specific travel memoirs function as tourist attractions. This investigation employs performer-centered analysis as a method of inquiry in order to gain insight on tourist experience as well as concepts of travel, imagination and embodiment. The paper also employs MacCannell’s Semiotics of Attraction as a framework to illustrate the presence of the following categories: tourist, sight, and marker. The presence and the relationships established between these categories establish Into Thin Air and Almost Somewhere: Twenty-eight Days on the John Muir Trail …

All Our Old Heroes Are Dead: The Nostalgia Of Chivalry And The Myth Of The 'Good War' In Game Of Thrones, Elizabeth Wawrzyniak

Foley Library Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Eve's Feminist Wave, Heather S. Higgs

BYU English Symposium

Paradise Lost has been around since the seventeenth century, and yet there is still something readers cannot agree on: what is up with Eve? I propose that Eve’s role in Paradise Lost can be understood through the lens of third-wave feminism, the United States’ current feminist wave. Eve matches well with third-wave feminists in her independence and complexity of character, but what distinguishes her from feminists today is more potent in understanding her role in Paradise Lost. When faced with decisions of the self, Eve ultimately looks outward to Adam and her future posterity and chooses selflessly, exercising restraint …

Early American Need For Christ, Baylee S. Vasquez 6161151

BYU English Symposium

A war torn land of the early Americas created a want for the relief that Christian sects sought when originally retreating from Europe. These early colonists relied on the belief of savior that would redeem them in an eternal sphere, but the absence of an immediate savior in the midst of terror inspired the idea of characters that could act as flawed, yet effective Christ-like figures in the present moment. Mary Rowlandson, Hannah Dustan, and Olaudah Equiano each follow a path that mimics that of Christ’s: death, resurrection, and providing the redemption of others through their tribulation. Dustan redeemed fellow …