English Language and Literature Commons^™

Oral Presentations: Humanities, Jacob Dunahue, Faith Langford, Kathryn Scharwath

Mississippi Undergraduate Honors Conference

Video is provided of Faith Langford's presentation.

The Overlooked Vampire: Might Macdonald’S Lilith Be Repopularized?, A. J. Prufrock

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Lilith (1895) is George MacDonald’s premier work of symbolic fiction. W.H. Auden asserts that Lilith is “equal, if not superior, to the best of Poe." A cursory reading of the novel reveals much in Narnia can be traced directly to passages. Why has MacDonald’s Lilith received so little commentary and why is it picked up and then put down by even avid readers of fantasy? Universalist theology and chauvinism have been blamed, but literary style is unarguably the main stumbling block. C.S. Lewis, who says of MacDonald, “I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not …

Tolkien As A Folk Horror Author, Monica Sanz

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Folk Horror, although being identified as a cinematographic genre quite recently, sinks its roots in an undeniable tradition of English writers who used English rural landscapes, ancient beliefs and culturally differentiated communities as humus for their prose and poetry. From the literary tradition of the 8th Century on, creatures and beliefs belonging to dark times have left their mark on our literature, traditions and folklore. Tolkien, as a philologist, was well aware of the hints and bits of these almost unknown legends and creatures left in our language, in the form of loose words, etymologies and fragmentary texts. In this …

Online Midwinter Seminar (Oms) #1 Report, Ben Dressler

Student Research

A report on the Mythopoeic Society's first annual Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS) by Ben Dressler.

Online Midwinter Seminar (Oms) #1 Report, Victoria Gaydosik

Faculty Articles & Research

A report on the Mythopoeic Society's first annual Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS) by Victoria Gaydosik.

Online Midwinter Seminar (Oms) #1 Report, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

A report on the Mythopoeic Society's first annual Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS) by Phillip Fitzsimmons.

Code Of Conduct, Victoria Gaydosik

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

As a virtual event, the Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS) does not have most of the traditional features of a scholarly or fannish convention: no consuite, no hotel rooms, no banquet, no Golfimbul tournament. We have paper presentations and discussions of ideas, and so we want those presentations and discussions to be stimulating, enjoyable, and memorable—in a good way.

The Effects Of Trauma On Identity Formation: Pursuing And Obtaining Individual Freedom In Emerson’S Nature And Creech’S Chasing Redbird, Mckenzie Hershberger

English Senior Capstone

Nature and Chasing Redbird provide poignant examples of the restorative power found in the natural world, and a thorough analysis of the works and lives of the authors reveal past trauma created the need for this restoration. Traumatic experiences shape an individual’s thought processes, as each decision the individual makes is based upon fearing an uncertain outcome. Throughout Nature, Emerson references a child’s innocence, demonstrating that a child’s perspective has not yet been tainted by experience. Emerson idealizes his past childhood as he endured grievances that motivated him to confront his trauma while in nature himself. An example for Emerson’s …

Books Within Books In Fantasy And Science Fiction: “You Are The Dreamer And The Dream”, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

This chapter discusses books that exist only within works of science fiction and fantasy—what the “List of Fictional Books” on Wikipedia calls a “fictional book” and what Claire Fallon calls “invented books” in her article for the Huffpost website, “Fictional Books Within Books We Wish Were Real.”

The Paradox Of Loss, Abby Pugsley

English Senior Capstone

The Paradox of Loss is a collection of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that leans into the tension humans experience as eternal beings in a world marked by impermanence. We encounter loss in countless ways throughout our lives, and yet we also look toward a future where all is restored. This collection is an exploration of the losses I have experienced, presented in both fictional and nonfictional forms. My hope is to show the life that pervades even in loss, both through our attachment to the physical world and in the way our grief points toward our desire for permanence, …

The David Oberhelman Collection Of Science Fiction, Fantasy, And Tolkieniana At Oklahoma State University, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

In September 2020 I drove to the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Stillwater campus to see “The David Oberhelman J. R. R. Tolkien Collection” exhibit, on display on the Edmon Low Library’s second-floor mezzanine in the Lisa and Mark Snell Gallery.

Sanctuary, Abigail G. Chandler

English Senior Capstone

Sanctuary is a collection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that explores relationships. I pull from my own experiences with family, friendships, self-knowledge, and the divine to connect with readers over shared loss and over attempts at understanding goodness, beauty, and truth. Sanctuary seeks to look at relationships multilaterally, holding pain and pleasure in juxtaposition. Everyone needs people who make them feel safe, wanted, and known, and sanctuary is not found in the same places for everyone.

From Renaissance To Robert: The Machiavellian Cycle Of Life, Death, And Rebirth, Noah Huseman

English Senior Capstone

In this paper, I explore the recursive nature of cultural commentary as it is informed by evolution of the monster. As one culture rises to prominence, so does the monster which comments upon it. I specifically examine the cultural monstrosity of the Machiavellian archetype as it is portrayed across time, first placing Machiavelli's theory in its original context, then branching out to the cultural context surrounding its appearance in both the literature of Renaissance England and the stories of today. Once I set up the broader theoretical context, I probe more deeply into two literary depictions of the Machiavel: Iago …

Exploring Shakespearean Influence On Executive Leadership In Finance: A Qualitative Narrative Inquiry, Erik Decicco

All Theses And Dissertations

This qualitative narrative inquiry sought to investigate perceptions of executive leaders in finance about how Shakespeare can influence leadership performance. It employed a conceptual framework in dramaturgical analyses (Goffman, 1959) and a theoretical framework in reflective leadership (Schon, 1983). Separate semi-structured interviews were conducted with five participants to gather data, which was coded in vivo. Codes were then analyzed and sorted into themes. The study was driven by two major research questions and a sub-question: The two major research questions and sub-question guiding this study were as follows: (1) What are perceptions of executive leaders in the financial industry about …

Personal Narrative Peer Review Worksheet, Laura Danna

Open Educational Resources

This is a peer review worksheet used to help students identify their classmates' topics, theses, and rhetorical choices, so that they may provide specific feedback that is tailored to helping their peers revise their drafts. (Note: This can be tailored to fit any writing assignment.)

Japanese-English Translation: Katayama Hiroko—Jesus And Simon Peter (June 1953), Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Translation of 「イエスとペトロ」、片山廣子著、昭和２８年６月

Source: Aozora Bunko (a digital archive of public-domain Japanese-language works)

General website: https://www.aozora.gr.jp

Current text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001346/files/50159_41222.html

My Favorite Thing Is Monster Theory: Horror Comics And Demonstrating Difference In Emil Ferris’S "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters", Jennifer Rossberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My Favorite Thing is Monsters (2017) by Emil Ferris opens with the same etymological analysis of the word monster as Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s landmark disability studies article, “From Wonder to Error: A Discourse on Freak Genealogy” (1991). The protagonist of Ferris’s swirling, sketchbook-style thriller, Karen Reyes, is a mixed-race queer adolescent growing up in noirish 1960’s Chicago who longs to be a werewolf so she can bite and save her cancer-afflicted mother. After fleeing an imaginary, pitchfork-wielding M.O.B.—an acronym for “mean, ordinary, & boring” people—Karen explains that, “The dictionary says the word monster comes from the Latin word ‘monstrum’ which …

Committed To The Fragment: Feminist Literature And The Promise Of Wellness, Lynne Beckenstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“I have never been able to blind myself” to the cruelty of a world that “destroys its own young in passing…out of not noticing or caring about the destruction,” Audre Lorde tells us in her 1980 “mythobiography” Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. This quality, Lorde says, “according to one popular definition of mental health, makes me mentally unhealthy.” In rejecting psychological self-possession as a sign of wellness, this passage also rejects it as one of sovereignty’s conditions. At the time of Lorde’s writing, this version of sovereignty already dominated the landscape of therapeutic culture in the United States, …

The Life And Legacy Of Edwin Greenlaw: “Teacher And Scholar”, Mykelin Higham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing from recently available archival documents, this paper traces the life, works, and influence of Edwin Greenlaw (1874–1931), a notable scholar of Spenser and the English Renaissance and a beloved and influential teacher. Information from a biographical manuscript authored by his brother is supplemented with contextual history of literary education in turn-of-the-century America and the debates between literary historians and critics of the early twentieth century in order to trace Greenlaw’s model impact as both a practitioner and leader. His exegesis of Spenser’s political allegory, his numerous edited literature textbooks for the general student, and his activism for a more …

Historical Sisters: Black Feminist Actions Across History And Literary Studies, Jazz A. Milligan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis seeks to understand how the actions of Black women from the past have inspired the modern Black female literary movement. This thesis focuses on three historical women: Phillis Wheatley, Elizabeth Freeman, and Cathay Williams, and their literary sisters: bell hooks, Barbara Smith, and Patricia Hill Collins. By viewing the lives of these historical women through a modern-day lens, we can understand how their actions created a ripple effect that Black women are still discussing today. Black feminism did not start in a vacuum, and the actions of everyday Black women have pushed us forward to being more accepting …

Review: Comics And The Body, Chase Gregory

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Comics and the body: drawing, reading, and vulnerability. Studies in comics and cartoons by Szép, Eszter, Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-8142-5772-2.

Link to original version published in Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, volume 14 issue 1

Space And Identity In J.M. Coetzee's Life & Times Of Michael K, Joshua Baker

University Honors Theses

Occupying colonial governments establish and maintain power through the demarcation and control of space, a process Sara Upstone terms "overwriting". In Life & Times of Michael K, Coetzee imagines the complication of establishing and maintaining a self-identity amid the strict control of space in post-apartheid, wartime South Africa, and it is this conflict of identity which comprises the novel’s subplot. The reader follows Michael K's odyssey over hundreds of miles in his quest to find the farm on which his mother was born and raised. His journey is repeatedly thwarted by state actors who enforce a strict control of movement …

The Visionary Mode In Anglophone Modernist Fiction, Wei Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is a critical reexamination of descriptions of visionary experiences in the novels of Woolf and Lawrence. Its goal is twofold: first, to demonstrate that the visionary mode, when best practiced by the modernist novelists here discussed, can overcome the ideological liabilities that its supposed individualist stance seems to entail; secondly, based on an updated understanding of the visionary mode, to reconceptualize its relation with the ordinary. Through discussions of five important modernist novels, this study concludes that modernist practicing of the visionary mode, when contextualized and historicized, portrays the subject as situated in dynamic exchanges with otherness, subscribes …

Writing As Memory Work Teaching The Civic Deliberations Over Monument Removals, Jill Swiencicki, Barbara Lowe

English Faculty/Staff Publications

Social justice goals are usually sought in civic or community settings in which stakeholders represent competing frameworks about what is just, good, and true. Modeling for students a way to identify these competing frameworks, and then intervene in deliberations to achieve just ends, is the focus of our assignment sequence. We examine civic deliberations over removing racist public symbols in this assignment for first-year students enrolled in linked rhetoric and philosophy courses. We read broadly in theories of public memory and civic identity, examine in depth one community’s deliberation, and reflect on public symbols in our home communities. The final …

Subtle Speech And Use Of Pronouns In Tolkien's Novels And Old English Poetry, Chiara Marchetti

Journal of Tolkien Research

In human conversations, verbal exchanges follow rules. Applicable both to Old English poetry and Tolkien's fiction, rules governing speech set the right quantity and quality of information to be transmitted and provide strategies to avoid conflicts. What is too redundant or scanty in a speech might indicate more layers of meaning, which are implied or suggested.

Language can create or resolve conflicts; the careful use of words and even pronouns can make a difference between self-assertion and cooperation, unity and separation. Such refined linguistic technique is visible in Old English poetry, where dialectal ability is as important as valour, where …

A Publication History Of The Complete Guide To Middle-Earth By Robert Foster, Kevin P. Edgecomb

Journal of Tolkien Research

The Complete Guide to Middle-earth by Robert Foster has been a popular and helpful resource for readers of the Middle-earth fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien for over five decades now. This article presents a publication history of US and UK editions of this work, leading from its beginninings in 1966—the writings of a teenager in a fanzine—to the latest , lavishly illustrated edition of 2003.

Hyperrationality And Rhetorical Constellations In Digital Climate Change Denial: A Multi-Methodological Analysis Of The Discourse Of Watts Up With That, Denise Tillery, Emma Frances Bloomfield

English Faculty Research

Using a multi-methodological approach, we analyze member comments in Watts Up With That (WUWT), a climate skeptical Facebook group. Quantitative topic modeling revealed that members claim hyperrationality to undermine climate science. Science-based terms were often connected to other topics, such as immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, creating rhetorical constellations that shifted rhetoric from technical spaces into political and ideological ones. These findings have implications for dealing with the challenge of misinformation’s circulation on social media.

The Gaelic Background Of Old English Poetry Before Bede, Colin A. Ireland

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

Seventh-century Gaelic law-tracts delineate professional poets (filid) who earned high social status through formal training. These poets cooperated with the Church to create an innovative bilingual intellectual culture in Old Gaelic and Latin. Bede described Anglo-Saxon students who availed themselves of free education in Ireland at this culturally dynamic time. Gaelic scholars called sapientes (“wise ones”) produced texts in Old Gaelic and Latin that demonstrate how Anglo-Saxon students were influenced by contact with Gaelic ecclesiastical and secular scholarship. Seventh-century Northumbria was ruled for over 50 years by Gaelic-speaking kings who could access Gaelic traditions. Gaelic literary traditions provide …

Humanism, Capitalism, And Rhetoric In Early Modern England: The Separation Of The Citizen From The Self, Lynette Hunter

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to concepts of the self associated with the development of humanism in England, and to strategies for both inclusion and exclusion in structuring the early modern nation state. It addresses writings about rhetoric and behavior from 1495-1660, beginning with Erasmus’ work on sermo or the conversational rhetoric between friends, which considers the reader as an ‘absent audience’, and following the transference of this stance to a politics whose broadening democratic constituency needed a legitimate structure for governance-at-a-distance.

Unusually, the book brings together the impact on behavior of these new concepts about rhetoric, with the …

[Re/De]Generation Colloquy Volume 1, Abby Stocker, Leah Patton, Brad Cox, Jacob Manning, Roberta Fultz, Jared Hedges, Stacie Lewis

Colloquy Undergraduate Research Journal

Contents

Editor’s Statement 5

Communication Studies

On Ideals in Romantic Relationships 25

Paul Hjellming, Lori Bergstrom, Bo Johnson, and Eric Osmondson

Perception of Profanity in Interpersonal Relationships 47

Ashley Pivaronas, Jessica Benham, and Stephanie Melhaff

The Genre of the Meme 67

Thomas Monson

Mathematics

Cooking Up the Optimal Baking Algorithm 7

Tony Burand, Michael Tetzlaff, and Jacob Smith

Literary Criticism

“What to Sight and Smell Was Sweet”: Flowers and Gardening in Paradise Lost 41

Linnea White

The Case of “Brown” 59

Sara Ellingsworth

Biblical and Theological Studies

The Markan Narrative of the Hemorrhaging Woman: Injustice Through Systems Then and Now …