English Language and Literature Commons^™

Narrative Forms Of Violence: Fascism, Nazism, And The Holocaust In 20th-Century British Fiction, David Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Narrative Forms of Violence: Fascism, Nazism, and The Holocaust in 20^th-Century British Fiction examines how British authors explore fascist and Nazi violence through narrative. The texts in this project challenge the popular perception of Nazis and fascists and help to enrich the understanding of these character types in artistic representations of fascism and the Holocaust. I seek to reveal how each author in the three central texts examined presents fascist violence’s march toward the mainstream and the ways ordinary people deal with political violence. Each author critically depicts growing fascist regimes in World War II-era Europe and contemplates …

“His” Gentleman’S Farm, Virginia Payne Dow

Masters Theses

Based on our farming experiences in rural Maine, this memoir relates a personal narrative of gardening and animal husbandry. The idea and passion for this gentleman’s farm project was solely my husband Mark’s, but due to his expanding work schedule, the execution of it fell largely on my shoulders. The narrative follows our exploits on the farm, beginning with that first experimental year. Nearly forty years later, Mark decided to try again. However, like our original farming venture, the gentleman’s farm that was supposed to be completely Mark’s project has become another shared adventure. The memoir comes full circle, showing …

When The Tide Comes: A Critical Examination Of The Novel-Screenplay Hybrid With Example Chapters, Morgan F. Taylor Moore

Masters Theses

This thesis presents my research on the psychological realism genre, the stream of consciousness narrative technique, the usage of second person and the present tense, the biblical reasoning behind depicting the ordinary as extraordinary, the role of the demonic in domestic violence, the incorporation of screenplay styles, the scientific reasoning and personal findings of my project’s formatting, the examination of primary sources (novels) that have inspired my project, and finally, the research on ADHD, PTSD, and C-PTSD as the results of domestic abuse. Sample chapters of my project are included.

“Giving Up Their Dead”: _The Homecoming Of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’S Son_ And _A Sleep Of Prisoners_, Janet Brennan Croft

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (published in 1953, though substantially written by 1945) is perhaps studied more frequently for its critical apparatus (the introduction on the Battle of Maldon titled “Beorhtnoth’s Death” and the postscript on ofermod) and as a source for Tolkien’s thoughts on war and heroism than as an actual play to be performed. Recently Tolkien’s own recording of the play, performing both voices and including sound effects, became more widely available, encouraging us to consider it AS a play again.

Christopher Fry’s A Sleep of Prisoners (1951) shares a number of characteristics with …

“And The People Sang In All The Ways Of The City:” A Speculative Ethnomusicology Of Gondor, Kelsey A. Fuller-Shafer

Journal of Tolkien Research

The music of Gondor is one of the more elusive musical traditions in Middle-earth, described only briefly throughout the text of The Lord of the Rings, and thus often neglected in scholarship on music in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. However, an ethnomusicological line of inquiry brings to the fore questions of performance, perception, and meaning that contribute to our interpretations of the many levels of symbolic transformation seen in Gondor at the beginning of the Fourth Age. The evidence of both musical activity and silence in Gondor mirrors conclusions that have been documented in real-world ethnomusicological studies in …

Constructing Death Worlds: Israel’S Occupation Of Palestine, Nichole S. Arel

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Achille Mbembe’s seminal work Necropolitics explains how the ultimate power of sovereignty is not exercised as Michel Foucault asserts in his theory of biopower in life over death, but rather in relegating certain populations to deathworlds, a place between the living and the dead. For over half of a century, Israel has illegally occupied both the West Bank and Gaza and exerted almost total control over the territories. It controls infrastructure such as roads, building permits, and water rights while also regulating the freedom of movement of Palestinians within and outside the West Bank's borders in addition to various other …

Membership Meeting And Closing Ceremonies, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon

While the Members’ Meeting portion of Mythcon will be of interest primarily to members of the Mythopoeic Society, all conference participants are welcome to attend. Led by the Mythopoeic Society Stewards, the meeting will announce and discuss timely and necessary Society topics. Following the meeting, we will host our traditional leave-taking closing ceremonies which feature singing songs dear to Mythcon regulars. Words and music at: https://mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-closing-songs.htm Members’ Meeting and Closing Ceremonies take place Monday morning, 11:15 am - 1 pm in the Terrace Rooms.

Merlin In The Middle? The Status Of Merlin Within The Monstrous Matter Of Britain, Michael A. Torregrossa

Mythcon

The character of Merlin from the Arthurian tradition is a figure that exists between two worlds: the mundane and the

marvelous. He participates in the daily affairs of Camelot, but he is also an otherworldly figure, both demon born and divinely blessed. In modern Arthuriana, adapters have focused much on Merlin’s demonic side though creators alter and/or transform his heritage in unique ways. One set of texts occurs within what I have termed the Monstrous Matter of Britain. Merlin (because of his origins) has an important role within this subtradion. However, there are some interesting works that chose to ignore …

John Wain: The Inkling In The Middle, David Bratman

Mythcon

John Wain (1925-1994) - novelist, poet, and general man of letters – was caught between two literary generations. A tutorial pupil of C.S. Lewis’s at Oxford, he was invited by Lewis to join the Inklings, a private literary club consisting mostly of dons. While Wain enjoyed the company of his seniors, he felt at odds with them on basic matters of literary preference, in particular seeing no point to fantasy. Wain is more often classed with his contemporaries, post-WW2 writers known as The Movement, the University Wits, or the Angry Young Men, poets and novelists in a realist, often sarcastic …

Wisdom And Life Lessons In The Works Of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, And David R. Slayton, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Mythcon

In keeping with the conference theme Fantasies of the Middle Lands, I will present on the magical use of the imagination, commonplace wisdom, and life lessons to be found in the science fiction and fantasy works of three authors from Middle America whose works span a century of science fiction and fantasy: Edgar Rice Burroughs, (1875-1950) and Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), both from Illinois, and David R. Slayton (in the present), a relatively new author originally from Oklahoma. The works of Burroughs and Bradbury were significant in making me both a reader and a re-reader of books. Their works— especially Burroughs’ …

Betwixt And Between: The Dialectics Of Middle-Ness In The Two Towers By J.R.R. Tolkien, K. T. Tamilmani, Evelyn J. Jaziz

Mythcon

The dialectics of middle-ness is evident in various aspects of the novel The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien. It also includes the physical geography of Middle-earth, the character arcs of key protagonists, and the overarching struggle between good and evil. The paper follows textual analysis methodology. Geographically, the story unfolds in the region of Middle-earth known as Rohan, situated between the familiar landscapes of the Shire and Gondor. This middle ground becomes a crucial battleground in the war against Sauron, highlighting the strategic importance of this region in the larger conflict. At its core, middle-ness in The Two Towers reflects …

Discussion Of The Mythopoeic Society Fantasy And Scholarship Award Nominees And Winners, David Lenander

Mythcon

David Lenander, who served on all of the Awards committees, leads a discussion of the finalists this year, hopefully joined by a few of the other committee members

Scott’S Monday Morning Cartoons, Scott Lohman

Mythcon

Watch cartoons with Scott Lohman!

The Middle-(Un)Man Of Desire: A Girardian Reading Of Lewis’S Perelandra, Clinton Manley

Mythcon

The French polymath René Girard presents a compelling argument that all desire is mimetic. According to Girard, we don’t actually know what we want; instead, we imitate the desires of others. This imitation is pervasive: children imitating their parents, athletes emulating their favorite sports stars, writers their favorite authors, and rivals mirroring each other. These models of desire act as mediators, indicating what objects or ways of being are worth pursuing. For Girard, desire exists in this middle place between a subject, a model, and an object. Thus, desire is interdividual. When the object of desire can be shared, mimetic …

Wisdom And Life Lessons In The Works Of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, And David R. Slayton, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

In keeping with the conference theme Fantasies of the Middle Lands, I will present on the magical use of the imagination, commonplace wisdom, and life lessons to be found in the science fiction and fantasy works of three authors from Middle America whose works span a century of science fiction and fantasy: Edgar Rice Burroughs, (1875-1950) and Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), both from Illinois, and David R. Slayton (in the present), a relatively new author originally from Oklahoma. The works of Burroughs and Bradbury were significant in making me both a reader and a re-reader of books. Their works— especially Burroughs’ …

Guest Of Honor And Mythopoeic Society Awards, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon

Speech by Author Guest of Honor Eleanor Arnason

AUTHOR GUEST OF HONOR ADDRESS and MYTHOPOEIC SOCIETY AWARDS (plus Clerihew Awards and Golfimbul Awards)

Exploring Middle-Earth’S Second Age Architecture Via Alan Lee’S Artworks, Sultana Raza

Mythcon

This paper will explore the different ways in which Alan Lee follows up faithfully on Tolkien’s creation of Middle-earth, in terms of its history. One of the ways in which Tolkien made his world so believable was by recording great historical events in the past, the ruins of which were described in the books. Alan Lee remains loyal to Tolkien’s vision in this respect, as he puts us in the midst of a used world, with its own wear and tear, not to mention beautiful ruins. The latter serve to tell us how grand were the civilizations that preceded the …

For All Mankind, Scott Lohman, Ben Huset

Mythcon

Scott Lohman and Ben Huset lead a discussion of this television series.

An Insider’S Take On The German Sf Market, Gary Lynch

Mythcon

Gary Lynch has lived in Germany, and presents his “take.”

“Blindfolded By Mist Or By Shadow’: Seeking, Hesitating And Doubting In Tolkien’S Smith Of Wootton Major, Sylwia Wilczewska

Mythcon

In spite of its relative brevity, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Smith of Wootton Major has been a subject of numerous interpretations, with different scholars diverging on whether and to what extent the story can be read as allegorical, autobiographical, philosophical and religious (cf. esp. Flieger & Shippey 2001). In my presentation, I want to focus on an overlooked theme of the story: the way in which reaching or crossing the boundaries of the realm of Faery – the ‘Perilous Realm’ (OFS 32) of Tolkien’s literary aesthetics – results in borderline cognitive states like inquiry, hesitance and doubt. Though Wootton Major …

Tolkien’S Mechanical Dragons In The Fall Of Gondolin (1916) And World War I, Romauld Lakowski

Mythcon

In this paper I will discuss Tolkien’s description of the mechanical dragons at the siege of Gondolin in a section of “The Fall of Gondolin” in The Book of Lost Tales that was omitted from the published Silmarillion. The rather strange description of the firedrakes and the bronze or iron serpents that besiege Gondolin is unique to the 1916 version of the Fall and very different from any of Tolkien’s other dragons and resemble more machines or engines of war like the tanks that Tolkien encountered in the WWI trenches. I will end by comparing Tolkien’s mechanical dragons in …

Narnia And The Norse: The Presence Of Medieval Icelandic Literature In C.S. Lewis’S Writings, Melody Green

Mythcon

In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis spends quite a bit of time discussing his deep, lifelong love of the stories that are often called “Norse Myth” (even though the majority of these stories were first written down in medieval Iceland. His diaries and letters reveal more about his love of this literature, including discussion of the Kolbitars, the weekly discussion group organized by J.R.R. Tolkien to read aloud the Icelandic sagas and eddas in their original language. In spite of this, little work has been done on Lewis’s own writings and the medieval Icelandic literature that he …

A Far Green Country: The Eschatology Of Tolkien’S Middle-Earth, Donald Williams

Mythcon

Ask most people for Tolkien’s greatest and most original contribution to theology and they will either not understand the question or respond (very rightly) that it is his elucidation and application of the imago Dei in his doctrine of sub-creation. Eschatology—the doctrine of last things—will probably not occur to them. They will have missed an important element of Tolkien’s worldview and an important reason why their sojourns in Middle-earth help to restore their ability to live with hope in the primary world. For the world-shaping power of the Christian eschaton to bend the course of the cosmos into history, into …

Minnesota/Midwest Fantasy, Eleanor Arnason, Caroline Stevermer, Lois Mcmaster Bujold, Patricia C. Wrede, Michael Merriam

Mythcon

In keeping with our theme of “Fantasies of the Middle Lands,” five novelists who’ve set work in Minnesota or the Midwest talk about Midwestern influence and setting in general and their own work. Eleanor Arnason (Daughter of the Bear King), Caroline Stevermer (River Rats), Lois McMaster Bujold (The Sharing Knife books were partly inspired by Ohio), Patricia C. Wrede (MFA finalist The Dark Lord’s Daughter starts out at the Minnesota State Fair!), Michael Merriam (Last Car to Annwn Station)

Before And After: Editing A Collection Through The Pandemic, Cami Agan

Mythcon

At Mythcon in San Diego (2019, the “before time”), the Stewards approved my proposal for the collection of essays entitled Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth; Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien’s Legendarium from Mythopoeic Press. I will discuss the process of soliciting contributors, compiling, cajoling, editing, developing the introduction, proofing the volume, working with MythPress editors, as well as discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic affected/ affects the process of publication, and offer a general overview of the volume itself, which [Varda willing!] will be available for order at Mythcon53.

An Inkling Of Mystery: Examining C.S. Lewis’S Philosophy Of Myth, Alysa Cripe

Mythcon

In a review of his friend J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis characterizes its precursor The Hobbit as “a fragment torn from the author’s huge myth.” Lewis is not speaking simply of Tolkien’s longer work as the larger myth, but the legendarium of Middle-earth. Other literary critics have also praised Tolkien for his creation of a convincing mythology alongside the geography, maps, and history of Middle-earth. The word “myth” continually appears in analyses of Tolkien’s writing, writing that has captivated readers since its conception. It is therefore logical to infer that this mysterious mythic quality holds great …

J.R.R. Tolkien And The Essence Of Enchantment, John Rosegrant

Mythcon

It is well-known that Tolkien saturated his works with his love of language, so it is worthwhile to reflect on the particular ways that he loved language. Tolkien especially loved languages of the past, and the past of languages, and he especially loved the esthetics of language: the sounds themselves, and the match between sound and meaning. He was thus searching for the beauty that could still be perceived in what was lost in language, a position like that of the Beowulf poet gazing from the top of his tower at the sea of fading paganism. This position can be …

The Tragic Life And Misconstrued Work Of Jules Verne, Gary Lynch

Mythcon

Gary Lynch presents on Jules Verne.

Desert Power: Decolonization Of The Fremen Narrative In Dune: Part Two, Tim Lenz

Mythcon

In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part 2 (2024), being the middle part of a planned film trilogy, the audience receives extensive exposure to the indigenous people of the planet Arrakis, the desert-dwelling Fremen. Compared to the source material, Frank Herbert’s science fiction masterwork Dune (1965), the portrayal of the Fremen people deviates significantly in the film adaptation. This paper will contrast depictions of Fremen belief, culture, and characters between the original novel and the 2024 film, and will argue that the recent adaptation portrays a partially-decolonized narrative of the Fremen people which affords them additional agency and nuance. The primary focus …

Middle West And The Pastoral Ideal In The American Artistic Landscape, Rebecca Umland

Mythcon

The complex and sometimes contradictory origin and use of the term Middle West—an evolving concept especially during the later American Expansionism period (primarily 1880 and after)—impacted the imagination of its writers. Their works view the Middle West as an idyllic place that occupies a central part of their personal and cultural pasts, and as a mediator between East (aged, urban and jaded) and West (wild, youthful, untamed). Middle West rests on yeomanry, an Old-World concept which Jefferson especially admired, embodying the virtues of maturity, wisdom, and kindness: “The pastoral ideal, a haven midway between the corruptions of urban civilization and …