Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons^™

“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey

Publications and Research

Behold the Dreamers follows a Cameroonian couple who, as newcomers to America, harbor dreams of success unavailable to them back home. Undocumented immigration, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the thinly veiled racism of an avowedly "post-racial" culture converge in this new generation of immigrants' painful encounter with the American dream. I consider the ways Mbue's novel shares themes with a "second wave" of post- 9/11 literature—first, in centering the disillusionment of a protagonist aspiring to the American dream; next, in its representation of New York as a space haunted by 9/11, but also of resistance to the …

The Chronology Of Harlem, Danielle Carr

Open Educational Resources

this course covers the chronology of harlem and the building of freshman composition genres for the high school student

Relationship Counseling For The U.S.: Understanding White America's Role In Asian American Experiences, Alison N. Lawrence

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

This paper explores the relationship between White Americans and Asian Americans in an effort to discover the root of the difficulties that first and second generation Asian Americans experience while attempting to integrate into American society. Through an analysis of perspectives from Asian American literature as well as historical and current events, it highlights the racist systems that are ingrained in our everyday lives, continuously reminding Asian Americans that they are out of place in their own country. It concludes with a discussion of White America's necessary role in dismantling these systems, and offers strategies to create a more welcoming …

Blake’S Method: Blake Imagining Milton In The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell, Micaela Freeman

English Student Scholarship

Major: English

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Bruce Graver, English

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is William Blake’s articulation of his reaction to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. After analyzing Blake’s reaction to Paradise Lost, I will suggest how Blake’s reading of Milton helped shape 20th-century criticism, specifically post-war Miltonic criticism. My paper will begin by considering Blake’s rewriting of Milton in the ‘Argument’ of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, starting at the Adamic myth. I will continue my analysis with looking at the famous passage on Plate 6 when Blake writes, “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote …

Hawthorne’S Faith, Cecelia Little

English Student Scholarship

Major: English and Philosophy

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Margaret Reid, English

This project is an examination of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writings, particularly focused on Hawthorne’s identity, philosophy, and spirituality. Placing these ideas in the context of early American history as well as in the context of Hawthorne’s biography, Cecelia Little focuses on how Hawthorne offers pieces of a new and complex philosophy of the individual human soul within the human community. This powerpoint includes a structured compilation of many, but by no means all, of her findings, and she plans to delve much further into Hawthorne’s life and works. The primary focus …

What's Past Is Prologue: Transforming Trauma, Rewriting Identity In Gloria Anzaldua's "Borderlands/La Frontera" And "Light In The Dark/Luz En Lo Oscuro", Richard Edward Riley

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera and Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro are widely acknowldged as groundbreaking texts across Latinx literary canons, invoking selfhood, spirituality, activism, and politics as a queer woman of color writer.

Her language around self-dispersion is still undertheorized in what it owes to traumatic experiences discoverable in the self, body, world, and culture Anzaldua hails from. The extent of colonizing and kyriarchal damage in her work has been recognized; but the exact character of how these breakages and corresponding imperatives to regenerate oneself resemble a traumatic shock remains to be written about.

This thesis sketches frameworks …

2020 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2020 IGGAD Conference: Without Borders: Tracing the Cultural, Archival, and Political African Diaspora.

Reflective Group Writing Project For Eng 3140, David J. Carlson

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This assignment is a culminating group writing project/presentation for ENG 3140 Native American and Indigenous Literatures. Students are asked to assess the course content and pedagogy through two lenses: (1) theories regarding the nature of decolonizing pedagogy derived from the field of indigenous studies, and (2) CSUSBs specific GE "Diversity and Inclusion" and "Global Perspectives" designations. The goal is for students to assess whether the way our institution frames its GE ILOs is compatible with decolonial practice as defined within the field.

Introduction To Creative Writing, Sheila Y. Maldonado

Open Educational Resources

English 220 Introduction to Creative Writing - readings and exercises in fiction, drama, and poetry

Translator Of Soliloquies: Fugues In The Key Of Dissociation, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Chu, Seo-Young. “Translator of Soliloquies: Fugues in the Key of Dissociation” (chapbook). Black Warrior Review 46.2, Spring 2020.

When Wuxia Met Romance: The Pleasures And Politics Of Transculturalism In Sherry Thomas’S My Beautiful Enemy, Jayashree Kamble

Publications and Research

A case study of Sherry Thomas’s Qing-era My Beautiful Enemy (and its prequel, The Hidden Blade) allows for a fruitful discussion of changing representations of diversity in romance fiction and its appeal to readers. MBE’s heroine is Anglo-Chinese, and the novel’s plot draws on wuxia, a literary and cinematic genre that has a long history in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It is also associated with immigration and exile, perhaps resonating with Thomas’s own move from China to the U.S. Readers might find its infusion in romance appealing for two reasons: one, it features a warrior heroine (a …

Race, American Enlightenment, And The End Times, Mark A. Mattes

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century visions of apocalypse regarding the future of black lives in the American body politic. It begins with readings of Jefferson’s fear of a black planet in Notes on the State of Virginia and Crèvecoeur’s depictions of racial terror in Letters from an American Farmer. The chapter then investigates the writing of an African American herald of the end times, Christopher MacPherson. The chapter reads the apocalyptic jeremiad of MacPherson’s pamphlet, Christ’s Millennium (1811), as a reparative response to the suppression of black voices and the annihilation of black lives.

Motherhood And The Periodical Press: The Myth And The Medium, Susan A. Malcom

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this study, I utilize close readings of the periodically published works of three women writers – Kate Chopin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Elia Peattie –through the lenses of historical/biographical, affective, and biosocial theories. Examining these works against the backdrop of America’s mythologized mother exposes the social ubiquity of the myth and the realities of motherhood nineteenth-century women experienced.

Chapter one examines the mythological nature of American motherhood as it evolved from a politically and socially nuanced Republican Mother and the role of American periodicals as a medium of perpetuating that myth. Historically, American motherhood was an extended function …

Negotiating Ambivalent Gender Space For Collective And Individual Empowerment: Sikh Women's Life Writing In The Diaspora, Jaspal Kaur Singh 2508334

Journal Articles

In order to examine gender and identity within Sikh literature and culture and to understand the construction of gender and the practice of Sikhi within the contemporary Sikh diaspora in the US, I analyze a selection from creative non-fiction pieces, variously termed essays, personal narrative, or life writing, in Meeta Kaur’s edited collection, Her Name is Kaur: Sikh American Women Write About Love, Courage, and Faith. Gender, understood as a social construct (Butler, among others), is almost always inconsistent and is related to religion, which, too, is a construct and is also almost always inconsistent in many ways. Therefore, my …

The Personal Is Historical: Slavery, Black Power And Resistance In Octavia Butler’S Kindred, Megan Behrent

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Reliable Revisionist, Caitlyn Schaffer

Philosophy: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The present text explores how the topic of head and heart is much more complicated than one would expect, according to Paul Henne and Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, contributors of Neuroexistentialism. “Does Neuroscience Undermine Morality” aims at figuring out the problem of which moral judgments we can trust, judgments from one’s head (revisionism) or judgments from one’s heart (conservatism). My hypothesis suggests the opposite of the authors, I believe that if you are a revisionist, your first order intuitions are reliable. After setting the framework, I make three main arguments. (A.) If you are able to self-correct then you can identify errors …

The Boys And The Bees, Lauren Mohler

Student Scholarship – English

In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the pear tree is seen as a symbol of Janie Crawford's sexuality and self-discovery. However, the pear tree can also be used to analyze Hurston's use of flipped gender roles and Freud's theories on physical maturation. Janie takes on the role of the bee, rather than the flower she wishes to be, in order to go through her journey to self-discovery and change Eatonville by sharing what she has learned.

Leaving A Little Heaven Behind With Coltrane, Or: The Performance Is The Archive, Ismael Santos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines what an Audience-Centered Archive could look like, and the advantages of opening up the spaces of archival scholarship in connection with studies focused on Jazz. This thesis will explore how inherently self-limiting are traditional structures of the Archive, with the contradictory nature of Jazz Archives brought to the forefront: to archive a music like Jazz necessarily entails losing what makes it so special, losing the improvisational facet of Jazz. This thesis draws from sound studies and performance studies, along with a focus on the recording technologies that entail differences in interpretation and American history. This focus of …

2019 Iggad Conference Program, Charles Joyner Institute For Gullah And African Diaspora Studies

IGGAD Conference Programs

Program of the 2019 IGGAD Conference: Tracing the African Diaspora: Places of Suffering, Resilience, and Reinvention.

Multicultural Women Writers, Nashieli Marcano, Jennifer Jacobs

Research Guides & Subject Bibliographies

No abstract provided.

Literature Review Of The Literary Term “Interpretation”, Lavonne J. Yazzie

2020 Award Winners

No abstract provided.

"Free Indirect Suicide: An Unfinished Fugue In H Minor", Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In this lyric essay/work of creative nonfiction (listed among “Notable Essays & Literary Nonfiction” in Best American Essays 2020), Seo-Young Chu uses poetry, autotheory, and creative nonfiction to explore the generational trauma/postmemory han she inherited from her parents and the importance of destigmatizing mental illness through dialogue.

Invisible Memories: Black Feminist Literature And Its Affective Flights, Jamie Ann Rogers

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Semiotic Reading Of The East Asian-Canadian Restaging Of The Immigrant Experience And Redress In Marty Chan’S The Forbidden Phoenix And David Yees’S Lady In The Red Dress, Rania M Rafik Khalil

English Language and Literature

The astounding increase in immigration and the rise in intercultural relationships within Canadian society resulted in the last decade in the acceptability of a number of dramatic works by ethnic, immigrant and second generation Canadian playwrights. This paper examines through Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of semiotics the East-Asian Canadian immigrant experience and the journey of redress in two dramatic works: Marty Chan’s The Forbidden Phoenix (2010) and David Yee’s lady in the red dress (2010). The Forbidden Phoenix and lady in the red dress, address issues related to exclusionary policies against early Chinese immigrants to Canada …

African Poetry Libraries-A Global Collaboration, Lorna M. Dawes, Charlene Maxey-Harris

UNL Libraries: Faculty Publications

In 2014, the African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) and the University of Nebraska (UNL)literary magazine-thePrairie Schooner established African Poetry Libraries in five countries; Ghana, Kenya,Uganda, Gambia and Botswana. The purpose of these libraries wasto support the creativity of aspiring and establishedpoets in their local communities. The University of Nebraska Libraries was asked toserve as consultants on the initiative by working with local volunteers to set up thelibraries and provideongoing assistance and advice to the new libraries during thefirst three years of their inception. The goal of the librariesis to support thelocal community of poets through access to contemporary poetry, and …

The Road That Got Us Here, Kayla M. Rotz

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

This article attempts to explain the romanticism of Native American culture existing in The United States and how it came to be. Through a chain of events this romanticism began. Forced Migration caused a social divide creating a separate social space for Native American people. Because of this negative social space we may see hegemony begin to take place. The American Government took Native children from their homes and forced them to assimilate into the general American population, thus creating a domino effect. In many cases children carry on a culture for other generations. However if these children are forced …

Review Of "French Genealogy Of The Beat Generation", Susan Pinette

Franco-American Centre Franco-Américain Faculty Scholarship

Review of Véronique Lane's "French Genealogy of the Beat Generation"

Nights In The City Beautiful, Veronica Suarez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nights in The City Beautiful is a collection of confessional, free verse poems that explores sexual trauma, mental health, the exigencies of marriage, and the complexities of human desire. These interconnected poems are grounded with a braided narrative and tackle taboo themes. In Part 1: Monogamy, the reader journeys into the world of Vincent and Victoria, their profound love, and their anxiety disorders. In Part 2: Polyamory, Victoria gets caught in a love triangle when she meets her publishing coworker, Peter Langley.

The book evokes the movement of Romanticism and first-and-second-generation Romantic poets such as William Blake and Lord Byron. …

At The Edge Of Monstrosity: Melville, Shelley, And Crane’S Monsters In 19th-Century Literature, Jenna M. Seyer

Student Publications

What is a monster? For contemporary readers, monsters conjure images of things from horror films. My capstone addresses the question of whether monsters, the monstrous, and monstrosity are inside the human or elsewhere. I argue that monsters, when compared side-by-side in literature, are fundamentally the same with some exceptions: evil behind a human body. Through close-reading and theoretical analyses of 19th-century texts, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Stephen Crane’s The Monster, I examine how their authors create monsters as a response to societal anxieties and fears. My capstone expands on passages where human characters surrender to their …

The Future Of Racial Classifications: Exploring Race In The Critical Dystopia, Meghan Hartnett

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.