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Articles 31 - 60 of 671

Full-Text Articles in Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America

Welcome And Announcements, The Mythopoeic Society Feb 2024

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!


Feminist Phenomenology And First-Person Narrative: Understanding Gender And Social Conflict In Anna Burns’ Milkman, Sushree Routray, Rashmi Gaur Professor Jan 2024

Feminist Phenomenology And First-Person Narrative: Understanding Gender And Social Conflict In Anna Burns’ Milkman, Sushree Routray, Rashmi Gaur Professor

Comparative Woman

In her magnum opus Milkman (2018), Anna Burns employs a subversive and artfully crafted first-person narrative, deftly exposing the arduous and tumultuous struggles encountered by individuals who dare to defy the confines of traditional gender roles. Through a relentless and unflinching narrative, the novel fearlessly confronts the harrowing manifestations of psychological torment, the insidious spectre of relentless stalking, and the manipulative machinations of gaslighting, all the while fervently interrogating the notion of a fixed and immutable gender identity. In a relentless odyssey toward self-realization, the protagonist's journey unfurls against a backdrop of traumatic events and the unyielding pressures imposed by …


Dark Moon Shallow Sea (The Gods Of Night And Day Series, Vol. 1) By David R. Slayton, Phillip Fitzsimmons Dec 2023

Dark Moon Shallow Sea (The Gods Of Night And Day Series, Vol. 1) By David R. Slayton, Phillip Fitzsimmons

Faculty Articles & Research

Book review of Dark Moon Shallow Sea (The Gods of Night and Day Series, vol 1) by author David R. Slayton. Book review by Phillip Fitzsimmons.


In Search Of Middle Paths: Buddhism, Fiction, And The Secular In Twentieth-Century South Asia, Crystal Baines Nov 2023

In Search Of Middle Paths: Buddhism, Fiction, And The Secular In Twentieth-Century South Asia, Crystal Baines

Doctoral Dissertations

This study analyzes the centrality of South Asian Buddhist heritages in the articulation of multiple iterations of “the secular” in post-independent Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan. As contradictory as such a proposition might seem, this project demonstrates that literature was a forum where the category and language of Buddhism were reoriented to fashion new ideas of “the secular” for modern South Asian polities. With this in mind, I turn to the quintessential genres of secularity in South Asia: the twentieth-century novel and short story. These genres reveal how the category of Buddhism, Buddhist ethics and literature were received and used …


Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Indonesian Higher Education, Kingsley Bolton, Christopher Hill, John Bacon-Shone, Karen Peyronnin Sep 2023

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Indonesian Higher Education, Kingsley Bolton, Christopher Hill, John Bacon-Shone, Karen Peyronnin

English Faculty Publications

This article reports on the investigation of English-medium instruction (EMI) in Indonesian higher education. Two separate but related studies were carried out. In Phase One, a mixed method approach using a questionnaire and interviews was used at a private university in Jakarta in order to gauge the responses of undergraduates studying a range of subjects through English. The results of Phase One suggested that the students at this university generally had high levels of proficiency in English and coped rather well with EMI. Phase Two of the study involved interviewing 17 educators across multiple institutions, and the results of this …


Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Cambodian Higher Education, Benedict Lin, Kingsley Bolton, John Bacon-Shone, Bophan Khan Sep 2023

Emi (English-Medium Instruction) In Cambodian Higher Education, Benedict Lin, Kingsley Bolton, John Bacon-Shone, Bophan Khan

English Faculty Publications

This article is based on empirical research carried out at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Cambodia, between 2018 and 2019. The research involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In the case of the former, the researchers conducted a large-scale survey of students involving 956 respondents, of whom 79 were postgraduate students, while the overwhelming majority were studying at the undergraduate level. The qualitative data collected in this project comprised detailed interviews with undergraduates studying at RUPP. The results of both types of data collection indicated that, although many students faced difficulties in studying through the medium of English, …


Frights And Forests: The Hellish Landscape Of The Dark Forest, From Sleepy Hollow To The Forest Of Arden, Minna Nizam Aug 2023

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.


Seven Minutes In Hell: Hells In Fantasy Games, Nyssa Gilkey Aug 2023

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.


Mythopoeic Awards Discussion, David Lenander, David Emerson Aug 2023

Mythopoeic Awards Discussion, David Lenander, David Emerson

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

No abstract provided.


Political Demons: Society As Hell In Hellblazer And Sandman, Andrew Burt Aug 2023

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 …


Hell As An Exploration Of Sin: A Comparison Of Alan Moore’S Providence To Dante’S Inferno, Zachary Rutledge Aug 2023

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 …


The Image Of Satan In Evangelical Children’S Fantasy, Melody Green Aug 2023

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 …


Panel: The Rings Of Power Season 1: Underworlds, Overworlds, And Ocean Worlds, Tim Lenz, Leah Hagan, Grace Moone, Pablo Guss Aug 2023

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 …


Pullman’S Problematic Paradise: Dissolving Into Dust, David E. Isaacs Aug 2023

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 Aug 2023

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 …


Who The Hell Is Helen Of Sparta?, Nyssa Gilkey Aug 2023

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 …


Planes Of Oblivion In The Elder Scrolls, Michael Barros Aug 2023

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. …


Persephone Bites: Consumption In The Underworld, Erin Sledd Aug 2023

Persephone Bites: Consumption In The Underworld, Erin Sledd

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

If you know one thing about Persephone, it is that she was abducted by Hades, held captive, and ate pomegranate seeds in the Underworld. Although Demeter rescued her daughter, she had to return for several months each year as a consequence of consuming the “Fruit of the Underworld.” But tasting those succulent ruby red seeds was not the first time she succumbed to desire—according to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter II, the first thing Persephone “bites” is a lure. Hades sets a trap: a flower with “one hundred stems of fragrant blossoms.” When Persephone grasps a stalk of this …


Only In Dying Life: The Production Of Hope And Peace, Taylor Johnson Guinan Aug 2023

Only In Dying Life: The Production Of Hope And Peace, Taylor Johnson Guinan

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Unlike fantasy authors of previous generations like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote depictions of an afterlife that mirrored their personal faiths, modern children’s fantasy authors of the last thirty years, such as Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Phillip Pullman, Rick Riordan, J.K. Rowling, Jonathan Stroud, and Garth Nix, often merely use religious concepts as a way to depict the land of the dead. In their depictions, the land of the dead is a dark, terrible, and uninviting place. However, rather than ending on that dark point, these authors transition from fear to a sense of peace, acceptance, …


Through Sauron’S Eye: Hell, Arda Unmarred, Arda Marred, And Arda Healed According To The Maia Formerly Known As Mairon, Cameron Bourquein Aug 2023

Through Sauron’S Eye: Hell, Arda Unmarred, Arda Marred, And Arda Healed According To The Maia Formerly Known As Mairon, Cameron Bourquein

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

From the beginning of Tolkien scholarship Mordor has been analyzed in light of its Hellish iconography; from the perspective of the narrative voice, what constitutes “Hell” in Middle-earth may seem clear. But what is Hell to Mordor’s chief inhabitant? What is Hell in Sauron’s Eye? The Rings of Power has brought Sauron into the spotlight by interpreting him not as depersonalized evil but as a character in his own right. Actor Charlie Vickers has shared how he developed this character for the screen, adapting characteristics taken directly from Tolkien’s own writings: Sauron’s love of order and his desire to “heal” …


Hell Is School—And Other People—And Myself (But Mostly Other People): From Inferno To The Paradiso In The Scholomance Series By Naomi Novik, Nicole Duplessis Aug 2023

Hell Is School—And Other People—And Myself (But Mostly Other People): From Inferno To The Paradiso In The Scholomance Series By Naomi Novik, Nicole Duplessis

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

In her novels A Deadly Education, The Last Graduate, and The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik constructs a world in which school is Hell and the outside world is Heaven—or so it seems from the inside. From the competition and internal hierarchies that exist between the students, to the monsters, or “mals” that stalk students and devour them for their “mana,” to the brutal lessons, harsh punishments, and presumed Darwinism of the school itself, the inside of the Scholomance seems the embodiment of Hell to the novel’s protagonist and central consciousness “El,” short for Galadriel, even as she …


Hell As Colonizing Force: Postcolonialism In World Of Warcraft’S The Maw, Heather Bass Aug 2023

Hell As Colonizing Force: Postcolonialism In World Of Warcraft’S The Maw, Heather Bass

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The lore in World of Warcraft represents various global religions along with their multiple paths to the soul’s redemption. One quest asks players to approach various divintities and retrieve their sacred objects in order to save a paladin from the disease of undeath in desolate Icecrown. Scholars have also noticed World of Warcraft’s religious capacities with one such example being comparing Thrall to Jesus. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the World of Warcraft lore has its own version of Hell–a region known as the Maw–with its own version of Satan. The Maw is one of the new territories …


The Lord Of The Rings & Dante’S Inferno: The Pilgrim’S Path—A Descent Into Hell, Hayden Bilbrey Aug 2023

The Lord Of The Rings & Dante’S Inferno: The Pilgrim’S Path—A Descent Into Hell, Hayden Bilbrey

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This project explores the parallels between the journeys of Dante’s Pilgrim in Inferno and Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings. It asserts that these two examples are a variant of the hero’s journey, more akin to a divine pilgrimage. Through this analysis, each author’s use and repurposing of mythology and monsters to fit within a Christian narrative will be closely examined. Following the Pilgrim and Frodo, this project charts their voyages through hell (or hellish landscape) and the effects that has on each of them psychologically and spiritually. In essence, this project seeks to chart both external …


Cloaked In Shadow: The Biopolitics Of Sauron’S Middle-Hell, Journee Cotton Aug 2023

Cloaked In Shadow: The Biopolitics Of Sauron’S Middle-Hell, Journee Cotton

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

This paper considers hellish aspects of The Lord of the Rings through an environmental bioethical framework focusing on the intersection of biopolitics, race, and ecology. Key figures that shall be examined include Sauron, Saruman, Uruk-hai, and the body of Middle-earth. Sauron shall be read as a Hades figure; they share numerous connections, such as their domain is hell, influence over invisibility (Hades’ cloak and Sauron’s Ring), characterization of giver of gifts, possession of dead bodies, and connection to the earth’s fertility (or lack). Sauron’s possession over dead bodies arises from the necropolitical power he incites over bodies in his sphere …


Orpheus, The Harrowing Of Hell, And Mary Magdalene In The Tale Of Beren And Lúthien, Giovanni Carmine Costabile Aug 2023

Orpheus, The Harrowing Of Hell, And Mary Magdalene In The Tale Of Beren And Lúthien, Giovanni Carmine Costabile

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Tolkien has a wealth of precedents in giving his Orpheus and Eurydice, i.e., Beren and Lúthien, a happy ending. My paper proposes to survey these precedents in the Orphic tradition of Ancient Greece, in its subsequent Christening in late ancient and medieval literature, and in its connections with the Harrowing of Hell. Looking for a female Orpheus, an undiscussed parallelism is found in the figure of Mary Magdalene.


Through The Mirror Darkly: Link’S Journey To Hell And The Inversion Of Hyrule In The Legend Of Zelda’S Underworlds, Alicia Fox-Lenz Aug 2023

Through The Mirror Darkly: Link’S Journey To Hell And The Inversion Of Hyrule In The Legend Of Zelda’S Underworlds, Alicia Fox-Lenz

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

When talking about The Legend of Zelda, “underworld” can have a variety of definitions, from simple dungeons hidden beneath the ground to fully realized parallel dimensions. Since the first entry in the franchise, the subterranean dungeons have been where the player character, Link, learns new skills and battles colossal monsters, honing the player’s skills and advancing the narrative. While not as ubiquitous as dungeons, since A Link to the Past, Zelda games have often included travel to parallel worlds, whether those are parallel dimensions or alternate time periods, where the rules and mores of Hyrule have been upended creating truly …


From Fiery Pit Of Divine Fire To The Watery Caves Of Primordial Chaos: The Realm Of The Dead, A New Hell Of A Place, Gaëlle Abaléa Aug 2023

From Fiery Pit Of Divine Fire To The Watery Caves Of Primordial Chaos: The Realm Of The Dead, A New Hell Of A Place, Gaëlle Abaléa

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Representations of hell used to have an educational purpose, they conveyed edifying messages: be good or you will suffer for all eternity. Since the rise of psychology, the representations of Hell have evolved, losing their religious content yet, paradoxically, enduring. If they lost their religious purpose, they kept an ancient mythological architecture. Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series’ depiction of Hell is at the same time Greek, with the river running as an entry point to the realm of the dead, adding a Bachelardian influence to the picture with the omnipresence of water. Besides, travelling through hell is a journey through …


(Re)Visiting Hades: Depictions Of The Underworld In Virgil’S And Rick Riordan’S Work, Inês Vaz Aug 2023

(Re)Visiting Hades: Depictions Of The Underworld In Virgil’S And Rick Riordan’S Work, Inês Vaz

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

The hero’s journey is one of the most popular narrative patterns in storytelling, constituting a particular bridge between classical mythology and modern fantasy. One of the most captivating and poignant parts of the journey is none other than the descent to the underworld. Since the beginning of time, countless heroes have come and gone, but the underworld stays the same. Or does it . . .? From among the long tradition of classical texts that first helped bring the underworld to life, Virgil’s can be praised for providing some of the most detailed descriptions, as both Orpheus’ descent in Book …


Mythopoeic Society Awards Ceremony, Mythsoc Stewards Aug 2023

Mythopoeic Society Awards Ceremony, Mythsoc Stewards

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

Mythopoeic Society Awards Ceremony: Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies, Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth & Fantasy Studies, and Alexei Kondratiev Student Paper Award.


C.S. Lewis’S Inferno: Did The Two Queens Wish To Leave Hell?, Kyoko Yuasa Aug 2023

C.S. Lewis’S Inferno: Did The Two Queens Wish To Leave Hell?, Kyoko Yuasa

Online Midwinter Seminar (OMS)

C.S. Lewis depicts “inferno” not only as the otherworldly vision of Hell, but also as how you would choose your life in the present. In Beyond the Shadowlands, Wayne Martindale discussed, in separate chapters, how Jadis and Orual chose Hell. This presentation will add to his research a comparison of the two queens’ choice of “living in the self” and refusal to abandon themselves. In The Great Divorce and The Silver Chair, a protagonist moves out of the present world into a dimension of Inferno or Elysium, while Jadis in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Orual …