Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons^™

A Queer Reading Of Octavia Butler’S Kindred, Marietta Kosma

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Throughout Octavia Butler’s Kindred the author raises numerous tensions around the notions of accessibility, disability, equality, and inclusion, exposing the crisis of black futures. My analysis focuses on the way that queerness informs the protagonist Dana’s experiences in the context of slavery, her positioning in the contemporary discourse of neo-liberalism, and her positioning in the prospective future. Very few scholars perceive Dana’s subjectivity as an actual state of being that carries value both materially as well as metaphorically. The materiality of queerness has not constituted part of the larger discourse of the American slave system. By examining how Butler renders …

Sauron, Seduction, And The Queering Mechanism Of The Ring, Mercury Natis

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

It has often been argued that Sauron is barely present in the Lord of the Rings, existing as a villainous presence on the margins of the narrative. This paper will argue that Sauron is actually present throughout the entire narrative, as manifested in the Ring, and through the Ring’s presence as a queering device. The Ring acts out Sauron’s seduction mechanism, a defining character trait as portrayed in the Silmarillion. It is this seduction mechanism that allows the Ring to act as a queering agent throughout the narrative. Ring-lust is inherently queer as it projects a male-presented character’s seductive powers, …

Asexualities, Aromantics, And Autists In Epic Fantasy By Tolkien And Goddard, Robin Anne Reid, Rory Queripel

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The Mariner (and his wife): Rethinking Aldarion’s (A)sexuality Rory Queripel

“Aldarion and Erendis” (Unfinished Tales) is a rare example in Tolkien’s work of a marriage gone severely awry. Many readings of the tale apportion blame to Aldarion, who is seen as “unwilling” to make the marriage work (Fitzsimmons, 2015), cruel and unfeeling towards Erendis, who herself is characterised as resentful and unaccepting (Rosenthal, 2004). However, these readings rely on an assumption of a cisheteronormative and, more importantly, allosexual relationship between the couple.

This paper proposes an alternate view of Aldarion and his role in the story, suggesting the possibility that …

Closeted Gays Take Hide, A Lamia Has Been Untied: Bbc Merlin And Queer Experiences Beyond Queer Joy, Anna Caterino

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

A decade after its finale, online fandoms have started labeling Merlin (2008-2012) as “date your bully 101” (theroundbartable), a story written by people “giving each other blowjobs while they talk about how much they deserve servants” (vhagarswattle). In light of the most recent models of queer representation, such takes are to be expected. Even so, Merlin is not a mere case of “hoyay” (Kohnen 201-2012) nor does it engage in queerbaiting or use the “Bury Your Gays” trope. The text is tied to the socio-political landscape of the late 2000s which serves as foundation for the show’s tragedy and, although …

Our Flag (And Spaceship) Means Queer: Monstering The Majority Culture, Sara Brown, Kristine Larsen

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Although the television series Our Flag Means Death presents on the surface as a romantic comedy, it is enhanced by mythic elements that infuse the narrative with a clear sense of the fantastic. Here, the pirates exist in a Secondary World that openly draws upon the Primary (both in terms of historiography and legend); hence 18th-century piracy and British colonialism can interact seamlessly with human-to-animal-transformations (paying homage to the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone) without seeming either disconcerting or anomalous – all co-exist comfortably in Faerie. OFMD both inverts and deconstructs mythopoeia; the Primary World myths of the Gentleman …

Gazing Queerly: The Art And Text Around Saruman’S Non-Normativity, Christopher Vaccaro

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The queer is often defined by its relation to normativity. Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal situates queerness in opposition to normalcy, even gay normalcy. Karma Lochrie’s Heterosyncrasies: Female Sexuality When Normal Wasn’t deconstructs a monolithic hetero-normativity. Within the fantasy genre, protagonists frequently reside in a queer relation to normative communities. J. R. R. Tolkien quite often depicts his major characters within his mythopoeic framework as in some way outside of the normal; they’re often odd, fringe outsiders in relation to the larger community to which they are a part. The texts of his legendarium present this queerness fairly clearly—so …

Tolkien’S Queer Landscape: Three Papers On Middle-Earth’S Heterotopias, Will Sherwood, Marita Arvaniti, Mariana Rios Maldonado

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The following papers will explore Tolkien’s queer landscapes of Middle-earth: from Arda’s highest peaks and hidden underbellies, to her liminal, fae places, using the lens of Michel Foucault’s heterotopias.

Marita Arvaniti will introduce the panel and discuss Tolkien’s Faerian Drama and its relationship to the much-maligned Tom Bombadil episode, focusing on the queer figure of Tom Bombadil himself and his heterotopic domain.

Mariana Rios Maldonado will analyse the Barrow-downs, Dead Marshes, and Paths of the Dead as symbolic sites of death created during harrowing moments in the history of Middle-earth. These are no-places: spaces of Otherness containing the evil and …

Welcome And Announcements, The Mythopoeic Society

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Join us for a screening of the Welcome and Announcements video in the 'Track 1' room, and have a cup of coffee before we get started!

Front Matter, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Contents, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Editor's Preface, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Self-Consciousness And Alienation In Pirandello's One, No One, And One Hundred Thousand, Francesco Satta

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Swashbuckling Politicians, Silas Fier

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Wilfred Owen And Shell Shock: The Initial Sympathetic Understanding Of Ptsd, Rachel Eubanks

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Submission Guidelines, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Of Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 26, 2024, Douglas Higbee

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Colonial Body-Logic In George Orwell's Burnese Days: A Contrapuntal Critique, Riley Mays

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

A Difference Of One's Own: Race, Sex, Modernism, Ryan L. Tracy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“A Difference of One’s Own” demonstrates that deconstructive conceptions of race lie at the heart of the modernist canon’s experimental representations of selfhood. Drawing on recent and canonical scholarship in Modernist Studies, Black Studies, Deconstruction, Queer Theory, Critical Theory, and Feminist Studies, I look at moments in modernist-era literature where the need to represent racial blackness, whether as a descriptor that defines one’s self-identity or the identity of another person, fails to draw a coherent line of difference between people, communities, selves, and importantly, the literatures that are thought to adhere to hard and fast racial distinctions. “Part I: …

Colonial Investments: The Global Coordinates Of The English Political Imaginary, 1628–1668, Nathan D. Nikolic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The main question my dissertation attempts to address is: what role did the expansion of English colonial trades play in the transformation of English society and government between the Petition of Right and the early years of the Restoration (1628-1668)? My thesis is that during this period, colonial expansion rose to the level of a general national interest and that many early seventeenth-century texts index the complexities and tensions of this development. As a small but very organized group of merchants, peers, and MPs mobilized the military and financial technologies of colonization to support Parliament’s war against Charles I, their …

Frights And Forests: The Hellish Landscape Of The Dark Forest, From Sleepy Hollow To The Forest Of Arden, Minna Nizam

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This paper seeks to explore forest settings in fantasy, and its hellish landscapes. From the headless horseman in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, to the frights and horrors of mythical creatures in fantasy settings placed in forests. The purpose of this study is to dive deep into the fear of the forest, its early days in storytelling, to more modern renditions. Sources used will be primarily books, and texts within books, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings, and much more.

Mythopoeic Awards Discussion, David Lenander, David Emerson

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

No abstract provided.

Seven Minutes In Hell: Hells In Fantasy Games, Nyssa Gilkey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Join Nyssa Gilkey on a tour through several different fantasy video game depictions of hell. We’ll spend about seven (-ish) minutes looking around each hell or underworld before moving on, touring Helheim in God of War and God of War: Ragnarok, Hades and Elysium as portrayed in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey DLC, and the Duat of ancient Egypt in Assassin’s Creed: Origins DLC. With sufficient time and interest, we can tour other fantasy depictions of hell. Participants will be able to ask questions and discuss throughout the journey.

The Image Of Satan In Evangelical Children’S Fantasy, Melody Green

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Over the last few decades, niche publishers have presented several children’s fantasy series marketed as being “in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien.” These publishers, however, are neither British, nor are they Anglican or Catholic. They are instead American Evangelical organizations, providing a space for faith-informed stories that wander somewhere between allegory and parable. Within the pages of these texts can be found not only the expected Christ-figures, but there are also Satan-figures and hellish landscapes much more likely to reflect concepts from Dante, Milton, and medieval witch-hunting guides than from the Bible, the text that evangelicals claim to be …

Hell As An Exploration Of Sin: A Comparison Of Alan Moore’S Providence To Dante’S Inferno, Zachary Rutledge

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In Alan Moore’s graphic novel Providence, Robert Black travels Lovecraftian New England and suffers a series of horrifying encounters—each an allusion to a Lovecraft story. These encounters contain direct references to various sins and taboos, thereby making explicit much of the sublimated sexuality in Lovecraft’s works. Therefore, Black’s journey constitutes not only a trip through Lovecraft’s mythology but also reads as a cataloguing of sins reminiscent of Dante’s passage through the levels of sin in Inferno. This paper identifies and explores the similarities between Dante and Black as examples of those who descend to the underworld along with a …

Political Demons: Society As Hell In Hellblazer And Sandman, Andrew Burt

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In the Hellblazer and Sandman comic book universes, hell depends on the writer’s worldview and often on the decade in which they are writing, appearing as a twisted version of a dreary regular world. Thus, this hell is often related to the contemporary Western political and cultural landscape as seen through Judeo-Christian conceptions of hell, demonology, and fears of everlasting torment and damnation, just like Dante’s Inferno and many other representations for centuries. In creating a hell that mirrors the modern world and accounts for contemporary folklore about the supernatural, the creators humanize the character’s quests and reify the fruitlessness …

Panel: The Rings Of Power Season 1: Underworlds, Overworlds, And Ocean Worlds, Tim Lenz, Leah Hagan, Grace Moone, Pablo Guss

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Now that the first of five planned seasons of Amazon’s big budget Second Age adaptation The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has aired, we will provide a retrospective of Season 1. We will compare Tolkien’s Second Age writings with the realized version in the show, including how the writers and showrunners have interpreted certain specific passages from the texts, and where significant departures were made for sake of adaptation. We will highlight themes of the season, as well as specific characters, relationships, and settings that have resonated with audiences, and speculate on where the series could potentially …

Who The Hell Is Helen Of Sparta?, Nyssa Gilkey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The rising popularity of Greek mythology is due in some part to female authors such as Madeline Miller and Natalie Haynes lending a fresh perspective to the Homeric tradition. However, these female authors tend to actually reduce the importance of one of the most important female characters of the Trojan War: Helen. Helen of Sparta has been an enigma to writers throughout the last 3000 years, her story changing with each iteration and era. Since Homer’s Iliad, the most beautiful woman in the world has been victim and villain, strong and weak willed. She has chosen husbands, and been …

Pullman’S Problematic Paradise: Dissolving Into Dust, David E. Isaacs

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In the His Dark Materials trilogy, Phillip Pullman has openly positioned himself as the anti-C.S. Lewis who attempts to embed the gospel of atheism through his fantasy novels. Pullman recasts classics such as Paradise Lost and Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell so that humans triumph over the oppressive Authority by learning that sinning is simply enjoying life. This paper will specifically explore Pullman’s depictions of the underworld and his alternative vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in The Amber Spyglass, examining Pullman’s attempts to assure readers that by rejecting Christian views of the final translation, one can …

Hellish Landscapes In J.R.R. Tolkien’S Legendarium, Willow Dipasquale

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium is rich with magical and mythological elements—enchanted rings, powerful wizards, stories told long ago—and near-Biblical struggles of good over evil, power over life and death, and the inexorable passage of time. The Halls of Mandos in Valinor even have echoes of the “afterlife,” serving as a liminal place for the spirits of Elves to await their next destination. Interestingly, though, a “hell” in the classic sense (that is, a spiritual region of eternal torment and suffering) does not seem to truly exist in Tolkien’s imagined worlds. However, Tolkien does fill those worlds with hellish landscapes: Utumno and …

Planes Of Oblivion In The Elder Scrolls, Michael Barros

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The planes of Oblivion from The Elder Scrolls (TES) series are not explicitly Hell; they are any dimensions of reality which are not under control of the Aedra, the benevolent spiritual entities. As a result, these planes may be totally unknown, pleasant, chaotic, or horrifying, depending on who is in charge, reflecting the personality of its ruler. These planes are at the heart of the franchise, and the intrusion of the planes of Oblivion and its inhabitants is a constant in the series. The planes of Oblivion are a reimagining of Hell as a place of potential, rather than evil. …