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Articles 1 - 30 of 282
Full-Text Articles in Literature in English, British Isles
Moral Ecology In Shakespeare's Tragedies: Nature, Animals, And Conscience As Ethical Agents In Hamlet, Macbeth, And King Lear, Md. Abu Bakkar
Moral Ecology In Shakespeare's Tragedies: Nature, Animals, And Conscience As Ethical Agents In Hamlet, Macbeth, And King Lear, Md. Abu Bakkar
Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts
Shakespeare's tragedies repeatedly dramatize a universe in which moral transgression produces consequences that extend beyond individual psychology to affect society, nature, and the non-human world. This study examines how Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear construct a system of moral ecology, understood as a framework of ethical causality in which human actions generate interconnected consequences across psychological, social, and natural orders. Using qualitative close reading informed by moral criticism, ecocriticism, animal studies, and early modern cosmology, the study analyzes selected passages representing natural disturbance, animal imagery, and conscience as forms of ethical response. The findings show that the three …
Bergsonian Blend: Subjective Temporality Within Modernist Aesthetics Of Mental Illness, Lydia Victoria Gervais
Bergsonian Blend: Subjective Temporality Within Modernist Aesthetics Of Mental Illness, Lydia Victoria Gervais
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Henri Bergson was a modernist French philosopher who wrote extensively on the topic of the lived experience of time, which he called durée, or duration. His contemporary, Sigmund Freud, was developing psychoanalytic theory in a growing field of psychological study, which serves as a prominent ancestor to modern psychiatry and current psychoanalytical literary studies. Fiction writers of the 1900s absorbed the zeitgeist of melded chronology and consciousness, interweaving themes of time and trauma in their works. Utilizing Henri Bergson’s durée as a philosophical framework, I examine the moralization of time-consciousness in connection with mental illness and investigate representations of …
From Sensibility To Critical Engagement: Sympathy, Animality, And Subjecthood In Wollstonecraft’S Maria And Vindication, Yingnan Shang
From Sensibility To Critical Engagement: Sympathy, Animality, And Subjecthood In Wollstonecraft’S Maria And Vindication, Yingnan Shang
Comparative Woman
This paper examines Mary Wollstonecraft’s strategic use of sentimental animal tropes alongside rationalist critique in Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman (1798) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), arguing that she mobilizes sensibility not as an end in itself, but as a pedagogical instrument within a broader project of aesthetic education—one intended to move readers from affective sympathy toward political and philosophical judgment. Focusing in particular on animal metaphors—especially in the character of Jemima, who repeatedly figures herself as a domesticated and brutalized creature—I trace how Wollstonecraft employs tropes of animality to illuminate the processes by which …
The Substance Of Reality: Moral Perfectionism In Shakespeare's Hamlet., David Wright
The Substance Of Reality: Moral Perfectionism In Shakespeare's Hamlet., David Wright
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Through a selection of and close reading of key passages, I offer an interpretation of Hamlet that seeks to illuminate the play as an important work of moral philosophy, and to situate the play within a strand of moral philosophy named moral perfectionism by Stanley Cavell. Indeed, Hamlet is a masterpiece of Renaissance drama, but when read with attention to moral perfectionism, the play yields additional layers of meaning. Hamlet is a “philosophical drama” that navigates the “moral calling of philosophy”—a text that seems to, almost uncannily, elicit the audience to think reflectively, to ask fundamental human questions along …
The Communal Lyric: Poetry In Devotional And Oppressed Communities, Michael N. Yacoub
The Communal Lyric: Poetry In Devotional And Oppressed Communities, Michael N. Yacoub
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis investigates the interaction between lyric and community; it asks what a communal lyric is, how it functions, and to what ends. In Chapter One, I compare Jonathan Culler’s performative model of lyric with the theory of Takhyīl as expounded by Arab philosopher-critics al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and al-Qartajanni to argue that a communal lyric is a form of audience-oriented public discourse distinguished by formal features that prompt the poem’s (re-)iteration and establish an interpersonal relationship with the audience in order to influence them and make shareable value claims about the world. In Chapters Two and Three I provide close-reading …
Perceiving The Perceiver: “Viewing” Sauron Through The Gestalt Theory Of Perception, Cameron Bourquein
Perceiving The Perceiver: “Viewing” Sauron Through The Gestalt Theory Of Perception, Cameron Bourquein
Journal of Tolkien Research
This paper uses Gestalt theory, the Gestalt laws of perception, and the reception theory of Wolfgang Iser to elucidate the character “Sauron” as he appears in The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, and Tolkien’s wider legendarium. It argues firstly that Sauron’s high degree of indeterminacy and ambiguity suggests he can be read as a gestalt entity, one the reader creates by mentally constructing a whole from (seemingly) disparate parts. Building on the semiotics work of Nagy (2013), it argues that Sauron in The Lord of the Rings can be read as gestalt across the spatial, …
Double, Double, Toils And Troubles: Analyzing The “Magical” Relationships Between University Leaders’ Personality Traits And Their Self-Efficacy In Leadership Situations, Fay Ludvine Boudreaux
Double, Double, Toils And Troubles: Analyzing The “Magical” Relationships Between University Leaders’ Personality Traits And Their Self-Efficacy In Leadership Situations, Fay Ludvine Boudreaux
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
This present study investigated the relationship between higher education leaders’ personality traits and their self-efficacy in leadership situations. A total of 151 leaders employed across the nine institutions within the University of Louisiana System completed a survey that prompted them to identify their personal values, traits, and skill sets, as derived from the online Pottermore quiz, the official Harry Potter Hogwarts House sorting instrument. This niche personality metric was chosen to cater to higher education’s evolving landscape, as it welcomes an influx of Millennials into leadership positions. Participants’ responses were eventually recoded to “sort” them into their respective Houses: Gryffindor, …
Death Becomes Us: The Consumptive Body In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Jennifer Marie Mcmahon
Death Becomes Us: The Consumptive Body In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Jennifer Marie Mcmahon
All NMU Master's Theses
This thesis examines the impacts of nineteenth-century tuberculosis epidemics on gothic literature published between 1842 and 1872. In this period of time, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States and in Europe, killing an estimated one in seven people. Using theoretical lenses of psychoanalysis and material ecocriticism, this project considers borders between material bodies—specifically those between bacterial agents and humans—to be illusory and socially constructed. The first chapter focuses on the ways in which representations of tuberculosis, and its associated entanglement with the environment, appear in the work of two authors from the United States: Edgar …
Reading, Rending, And Queering The Web Of Story With The Lenses Of “Con-Creation” And Process Theology, Cameron Bourquein, Nick Polk
Reading, Rending, And Queering The Web Of Story With The Lenses Of “Con-Creation” And Process Theology, Cameron Bourquein, Nick Polk
Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings
“Sub-creation” within Tolkien’s narrative and extra-narrative works is routinely exhibited not as monolithic but rather as (literally and figuratively) polyphonic. In this joint paper Bourquein proposes that the Legendarium can be read through the lens of “con-creation” (total, continuous, collective, creative activity) both internally (as events in the Secondary World) and externally (as both a text and a pseudohistory in the Primary World). This approach levels the playing field between all actors in—and readers of—“The Drama,” providing a queer approach to interpretive-creative activity when compared to “orthodox” doctrines of creation. Polk further argues that con-creation resonates with process theologies of …
The Nameless Enemy: How Do You Solve A Problem Like “Mairon”?, Cameron Bourquein
The Nameless Enemy: How Do You Solve A Problem Like “Mairon”?, Cameron Bourquein
Journal of Tolkien Research
This paper analyzes Sauron’s “original” name, “Mairon,” in its various contexts (textual, temporal, and linguistic) and then applies it to a reading of the character in order to produce a “capsule characterization” or “minimyth” for the Lord of the Rings himself. The name “Mairon” appears only in a note to a single entry in a list of Eldarin roots, not published until 2007 in the journal Parma Eldalamberon. This niche location suggests one of the many ways in which this name is marginal: typographically, linguistically, narratively, and historically (as in the Secondary World). The name appears to have been …
A Review Of Kristin M. Girten's Sensitive Witnesses: Feminist Materialism In The British Enlightenment, Peter West
A Review Of Kristin M. Girten's Sensitive Witnesses: Feminist Materialism In The British Enlightenment, Peter West
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830
A review of Sensitive Witnesses by Kristin M. Girten by Peter West.
Teaching Margaret Cavendish Through The Lens Of Scientific Anti-Realism, Kevin Lower
Teaching Margaret Cavendish Through The Lens Of Scientific Anti-Realism, Kevin Lower
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830
Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) only began receiving sustained attention by historians of philosophy in recent decades, but she is being rapidly integrated into the early modern philosophical canon. This essay explores one dimension of teaching Cavendish that presents difficulties for introductory philosophy students: her criticisms of experimental philosophy. Section one explains how I integrate Cavendish into the narrative of my course, identifying both historical and thematic strategies for including her in introductory philosophy courses. Section two describes methods for teaching Cavendish’s natural philosophy and identifies a pedagogical challenge to presenting her criticisms of experimental philosophy. In their first exposure to Cavendish, …
Jumping Pens And Historical Vertigo: Teaching Cavendish In The Twenty-First Century, Anne M. Thell
Jumping Pens And Historical Vertigo: Teaching Cavendish In The Twenty-First Century, Anne M. Thell
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830
"Jumping Pens" considers "historical and epistemological vertigo" as a useful pedagogical rubric for teaching the works of Margaret Cavendish (1623-73) in contemporary university classrooms. Specifically, it looks back across more than a decade of teaching Cavendish in diverse settings in order to show how exciting this author can be for students who are just starting out in the discipline of literary studies. As this essay argues, Cavendish can make us all better, more self-aware instructors, while also developing critical and historical acumen in our students.
Fallen Kingdoms And Ancient Monoliths: The Influence Of Atlantis And Egypt In Tolkien’S Númenor, Charlotte J. Brockway
Fallen Kingdoms And Ancient Monoliths: The Influence Of Atlantis And Egypt In Tolkien’S Númenor, Charlotte J. Brockway
Journal of Tolkien Research
In light of the recent publication of The Fall of Númenor, my essay aims to focus on Tolkien’s, somewhat underappreciated, influences on Gondor; particularly Ancient Egypt. This essay looks at Plato's Timaeus and Critias, Ignatius Donnelly's theories, and examines the Atlantean and Egyptian motifs in Tolkien’s version of Westernesse, in particular, the remnants of Atlantean civilization survived by Egyptian colonists which mirror the Realms of Exile (Gondor and Arnor).
A Mute Pleasure: Novelistic Poetics In The Nineteenth-Century, Ryan Everitt
A Mute Pleasure: Novelistic Poetics In The Nineteenth-Century, Ryan Everitt
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Through special attention to the non-narrative, descriptive, lyrical, or even boring passages that interrupt the story, this dissertation explores what happens when the nineteenth-century British novel envelops experiences that were traditionally (or since Romanticism) in the domain of poetry: longings for escape, exhilarating affects of freedom, opaque moments of revelation. In most cases, I characterize the novel discourse as representing a prosaic consciousness that wrestles with its more visceral yet vital “other,” poetic consciousness. To articulate how poetry survives within novelistic discourse, this dissertation is organized around sets of opposing terms, whose unresolved tension becomes the basis of my analysis …
Politics, Authorship, And Philosophy: Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S The Blazing World In The Diverse Graduate Classroom, Martine Van Elk
Politics, Authorship, And Philosophy: Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S The Blazing World In The Diverse Graduate Classroom, Martine Van Elk
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830
This essay explores how Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World works differently when taught and read on its own and in combination with Cavendish’s other works. Focusing specifically on the graduate classroom, I examine and present strategies for teaching the book alongside works by other early modern women and for teaching it in a single-author course. While in isolation, The Blazing World allows for discussions that focus primarily on questions of gender, genre, class, and politics, read in tandem with Cavendish’s other works, in particular her philosophical writings, The Blazing World becomes a source for reflections on questions of creaturely identity, …
Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S Philosophy: Early Modern Women And The Question Of Biography, Peter West
Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S Philosophy: Early Modern Women And The Question Of Biography, Peter West
ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830
In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the learning experience.
Eng 155: Introduction To Literary Studies, Joseph Donica
Eng 155: Introduction To Literary Studies, Joseph Donica
Open Educational Resources
An OER syllabus covering the ways humans have read and continue to read literature from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. An emphasis is placed on the application of critical thought to writing expository essays and responding to readings.
Mythos And Logos: Foucauldian Subjectivities Of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Hayley R. Cisney
Mythos And Logos: Foucauldian Subjectivities Of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Hayley R. Cisney
Student Publications
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography details a centuries-long battle between Orlando and the sexual structures of repressive power in England. The biographical framework of the novel implies its contribution to objective, historical fact, while the miraculous nature of Orlando’s sexual transformation directly conflicts with constituted epistemologies of being. This paper examines these contrasting forces through Michel Foucault’s post-structuralist considerations of knowledge, power, and sexuality, in addition to the incorporation of other scholarship on Woolf’s conceptions of gender. I specifically follow the timeline of Foucault’s interpretation of the repressive hypothesis as it unfolds throughout the course of Woolf’s novel. By establishing …
Sauron: Weirdly Sexy, Robert T. Tally Jr.
Sauron: Weirdly Sexy, Robert T. Tally Jr.
Journal of Tolkien Research
A popular meme depict Galadriel and Frodo admitting that Sauron is "weirdly sexy," a humorous allusion to The Rings of Power’s Halbrand. The show's controversial revelation of Halbrand as Sauron highlights the differences between Tolkien’s construction of Second and Third Age Sauron as an attractive or admirable leader compared to Peter Jackson’s portrayal of him as a monster or disembodied fiery eyeball. This, in turn, has implications for the geopolitical order of Middle-earth in which many people legitimately might wish to be on Sauron’s side. Acknowledging Sauron's "sexiness" may allow us to see Tolkien's world system in a new …
The Divided Self: Internal Conflict In Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, And Neuroscience, Yulia Greyman
The Divided Self: Internal Conflict In Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, And Neuroscience, Yulia Greyman
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This thematic project examines the notion of self-division, particularly in terms of the conflict between cognition and metacognition, across the fields of philosophy, psychology, and, most recently, the cognitive and neurosciences. The project offers a historic overview of models of self-division, as well as analyses of the various problems presented in theoretical models to date. This work explores how self-division has been depicted in the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe, Don DeLillo, and Mary Shelley. It examines the ways in which artistic renderings alternately assimilate, resist, and/or critique dominant philosophical, psychological, and scientific discourses about the self and its …
Of Method: A Propaedeutic To Coleridge's Prose Works, Michael A. Granger
Of Method: A Propaedeutic To Coleridge's Prose Works, Michael A. Granger
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Coleridge’s prose works, published and unpublished, demonstrate a thorough and critical testing and understanding of British and German philosophical responses to skepticism and the ability of philosophy to progress by maintaining a double-minded and conflicted suture of both the practical or imaginative eclipse of knowledge and theorizing the hypothetical epistemological absolute that explains the relativity of facticity. Any inadequate method of inquiry stagnates within attempting a purely figurative or purely demonstrative solution to skepticism. Thus, the appropriate way to approach Coleridge’s understanding of philosophy is the struggle to make inquiry adequate though progression. Coleridge’s methodological impulse originates explicitly in a …
The Literary Gestalt Of The Restaurant Review, Anke Klitzing
The Literary Gestalt Of The Restaurant Review, Anke Klitzing
European Journal of Food Drink and Society
The restaurant review is a quintessential form of gastronomic writing, but it has rarely been studied in terms of its literary form. This paper investigates the literary gestalt of restaurant reviews through a gastrocritical reading of two reviews by the Irish restaurant critic Helen Lucy Burke. It concludes that restaurant reviews typically include mimesis and evocative descriptions, a meal plot, inherent tension due to the performance character of the restaurant meal and incorporation anxiety, and a combination of phenomenological and ethnographic reporting. These literary features serve to make reviews an accurate and reliable account of the reviewer’s immersive experience, to …
Mrs. Dalloway As A Window For Understanding Life, Kristen Venegas
Mrs. Dalloway As A Window For Understanding Life, Kristen Venegas
English (MA) Theses
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway may be dismissed as fiction, and fiction consequently is dismissed as fantasy. However, the novel enables readers to practice an intellectual exercise of meta-awareness that extends beyond the pages and onto real world phenomena. Under a cognitive neuroscience perspective, Mrs. Dalloway is a literary masterpiece due to its hyper- realistic execution of the intimacies of life. Through the narrative style of free-indirect discourse, Woolf illustrates what occurs in the minds of characters as they develop their own perceptions of reality and identity, exposes the fear and inadequacies of mankind’s distress in times of chaos and disorder …
Legends Of Light: Crafting Middle Grade Fantasy In The Tradition Of Catholic Philosophy And Medieval Visual Culture, Bernadette Lamb
Legends Of Light: Crafting Middle Grade Fantasy In The Tradition Of Catholic Philosophy And Medieval Visual Culture, Bernadette Lamb
MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture
This essay promotes the writing and illustrating of middle grade literature that mirrors the wonder-inducing experiences of leafing through an illuminated manuscript and stepping into a Gothic cathedral. An examination of Catholic medieval visual culture moves into a discussion on its underlying philosophy and theology, which are profoundly centered on relational healing and the dignity of the human person. Christian writers including St. Pope John Paul II, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Josef Pieper, Madeline L’Engle, Dr. Bob Schuchts, Makoto Fujimura, and Andrew Peterson inform an exploration of mercy, forgiveness, and love as self-gift in the context of illustration and storytelling …
The Revolting Monster - A Consideration Of Existentialist Themes In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Through A Comparison To Albert Camus' The Stranger, Felipe Rodriguez Ii
The Revolting Monster - A Consideration Of Existentialist Themes In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Through A Comparison To Albert Camus' The Stranger, Felipe Rodriguez Ii
Theses and Dissertations
This Master’s thesis is concerned with analyzing key themes and ideas in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein through an existentialist lens which is made possible through a comparison to themes and ideas in Albert Camus’ The Stranger. I aim to make a contribution to my field by fulfilling a comparison that has long been made since the late 1960s when conversations about British Romanticism and Existentialism were still common. The purpose of my first chapter is to elucidate a new argument about the relationship between these two novels. There is a discernable element of Camusian Revolt exhibited by the Creature in …
Paradise Retained: C. S. Lewis On The Nature Of Knowledge, Reality, And Morality In Perelandra, Richard L. W. Clarke
Paradise Retained: C. S. Lewis On The Nature Of Knowledge, Reality, And Morality In Perelandra, Richard L. W. Clarke
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal
The world-view which informs Perelandra (1943) in particular and the so-called “space trilogy” more generally, of which it is the second volume, is deeply infused with that blend of Christianity and Platonism that is the hallmark of the thought of C. S. Lewis and which I explore at some length in the companion essay to this piece in this volume, “The Neoplatonic Christianity of C. S. Lewis.” Perelandra is, I would argue, a literary rendition of some of the most important philosophical arguments in defense of Christianity mounted by Lewis in Mere Christianity and elsewhere.
Tolkien, Enchantment, And Loss: Steps On The Developmental Journey By John Rosegrant, Timothy K. Lenz
Tolkien, Enchantment, And Loss: Steps On The Developmental Journey By John Rosegrant, Timothy K. Lenz
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
No abstract provided.
"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson
"You Can't Be Shakespeare And You Can't Be Joyce": Lou Reed, Modernism, And Mass Production, Daniel C. Jacobson
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation proposes a reevaluation of the overlooked connections between American popular music and modernist literature’s scope and formal experimentation which arose in the mid-20th century. Because Lou Reed’s ever-changing persona situates his work uncomfortably between high art and pop-culture, modernism and “post-modernity,” literature and music, and ethics and aesthetics, I intend to consider Reed as this dissertation’s empty, refracted center. One that will allow for a critique of several major intellectual movements, both inside and outside the academy, that continue to influence thinking about art, ethics, and material culture. Additionally, I hope to show that the work of a …
A Lesson In Mourning: The Evolution Of The English Anti-Elegy, K. Matthew Bennett
A Lesson In Mourning: The Evolution Of The English Anti-Elegy, K. Matthew Bennett
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis analyzes the evolution of the anti-elegy originating with Thomas Hardy’s elegiac sequence in memory of his wife Emma; Poems of 1912-1913. Using French post-structuralist Georges Bataille’s The Accursed Share as a theoretical lens, Hardy’s anti-elegies are analyzed and rhetorically connected to English war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s anti-elegies. Hardy’s anti-sentimentality, fatalistic outlook on death, and rejection of the Christian afterlife seeps into the language of Sassoon’s war poems which serve as a protest to the dehumanizing effects of late capitalism witnessed during the First World War. Hardy and Sassoon’s anti-elegies, with their hyper-focus on the elegized body, are …