Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Sterner Stuff; Sansa Stark And The System Of Gothic Fantasy, Joseph R. Young

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Contests the suggestion that Sansa Stark, a character in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, is a weak and indecisive by analyzing her in relation to William Patrick Day’s system of Gothic fantasy. While Sansa is indeed physically passive, she manages to retain her own identity in a challenging literary environment. This physical passivity allows her to assert herself intellectually, analyzing and indicting the misdeeds and abuses she suffers. This combination of passive and active attributes precisely instantiates the skill set of the detective, a species of literary being developed from the Gothic fantasies Day analyses, and …

How Gender Affects Writing: Jackson’S And Fitzgerald’S Portrayals Of Mental Illness, Cryslin A. Ledbetter

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Cryslin Ledbetter's essay, "How Gender Affects Writing: Jackson’s and Fitzgerald’s Portrayals of Mental Illness" examines the similarities and differences between Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Through a careful comparison of male and female writers, the author analyzes defining factors that effect the final product of each novel.

An Analysis Of Simon Legree’S Dreams In Uncle Tom’S Cabin, Ellie Windfeld-Hansen

Global Tides

This paper discusses Simon Legree's moral degradation in Uncle Tom's Cabin, primarily through his two most prominent dreams in the novel. Freudian analysis of Legree's dreams explains that Legree's past mistreatment of others haunts him to the point where he is driven to the brink of insanity. Legree's suppression of his guilt showcases his inner struggle, as he values his slaveowner reputation to such a degree that he must abandon any shred of humanity.

Orientalism Restated In The Era Of Covid-19, Joey Kim

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay bridges a gap between an analysis of anti-Asian targeting and an analysis of Orientalism. Because histories of Orientalism and anti-Asian targeting pre-date the current moment, I demonstrate the centrality of Orientalism to the evolution of xenophobic language and sentiment in U.S.-foreign historical relations. I recount instances of anti-Asian, xenophobic, and “Yellow-Peril” rhetoric in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, I examine the racialization of COVID-19 as a trope of orientalism. This racialization, I argue, places the Asian-presenting body in a state of heightened visibility, precarity, and susceptibility to plunder. The newfound precarity of the …

Boston Discusses The Massacre, Jean C. O'Connor

The Montana English Journal

Teachers may use this chapter from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution as a short story for grades 7 – 12., to explore themes of interpersonal conflict, conflict resolution, and the value of law.

The chapter “Boston Discusses the Massacre” is taken from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution (Knox Press, 2020), and used with permission. James Lovell, teacher at the Boston Latin School, discusses the pivotal events of March 5, 1770. As the conflicts that become the American Revolution begin a group of …

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

"Nothing ‘Personal’ To Lose": Alice Notley’S “I” And The Poetics Of Encounter In Disobedience, Christina T. Baulch

Theses and Dissertations

Though the lyric-I has often been perceived as an isolated ego, Alice Notley's "I" in her long poem Disobedience (2001) necessitates plurality through what I call a "poetics of encounter." In response to the 1978 Language poetry manifesto "Aesthetic Tendency and the Politics of Poetry," and to the larger well-rehearsed debate about vocal homogeneity and persona centrism in poetry, this paper argues that Notley's poetics of encounter brings the "I" of Disobedience into continual and complex conversation with material history, politics, and mass culture, thus situating it within, and not sequestered from, the world and its mediation.

Gloria Naylor’S Conversation With The Tempest, Kelly Mcavoy-Giarrusso

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on how Gloria Naylor used Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest as inspiration for her character George, and how her evolution of the character reveals issues within the literary and academic community at the time of her writing. George fulfills Caliban’s limitations in that he has more power and autonomy than Caliban, but the tragedy of his death reveals that he has lost part of himself in order to gain that power. This idea that education and society can cause a loss of self is personal for Naylor, who encountered only white male authors in school and struggled …

The Juggler, Rebecca Saunders

English Faculty Publication Series

A street performer in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, magically echoed the unusual orange crescent moon far above her head.

The crowd were as fixed, as bound, as the constellations that night.

Olympia, Wilderness, And Consumption In Laird Barron’S Old Leech Cycle, John Glover

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

This book chapter considers the cosmic horror fiction of Laird Barron through a blended ecocritical/postcolonial lens, focusing on its representation of the Pacific Northwest and Olympia, Washington. Wilderness and consumption are both strongly represented concepts in Barron’s Old Leech Cycle of stories, aligning with colonial perceptions of the American West as a largely unpeopled space ripe for exploitation. The eldritch horrors of these tales align with well-established traditions in weird fiction, and they are also perfectly suited to locations historically identified with resource extraction.

A Shift In Perspective: Temptress Witch To Realistic Woman, Caroline Conroy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In mid-20th century Anglo-American translations of The Odyssey, Odysseus is painted as a courageous, clever king while the briefly-featured Circe is portrayed as a temptress witch. This dichotomy changes, however, by the time these characters are featured in early 21st-century adaptations of Homer’s work; both released in 2018, Madeline Miller’s Circe and Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing reclaim Circe’s depiction by portraying a Circe-like character as a powerful protagonist, aware of her strengths and weaknesses. By analyzing the archetype of the witch and how it is reflective of patriarchal society’s efforts to reduce and isolate women’s power, I argue …

Eng 200: The Approaches To Grief By Robert Frost & Joy Harjo, Heaven Howard

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

Eng 200: Ernest Hemingway's Bonds Through Narrative Styles, Abigail Abrams

English 100-200-300 Conference

No abstract provided.

The Impacts Of Dune And The Lord Of The Rings On American Culture, Nick Collins

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

The middle third of the 20th century was a time of hyper-aggressive industry, invention, and progressivism. This portion of the 1900s was instrumental toward shaping modern popular culture. Two of the predominant works were J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings and Frank Herbert’s political science fiction novel Dune. Both works inspired massive cult followings upon their release and grew in popularity largely due to the anti-war movement of the 1960s and ‘70s. They have each inspired countless works of inspiration that include some of the most popular movies and games from the 1970’s through the modern …

Fashioning The Flapper: Clothing As A Catalyst For Social Change In 1920s America, Julia Wolffe

Honors Program Theses

Fashion has been a catalyst for social change throughout human history. Fashion in 1920s America in particular reflects society's rapidly evolving attitudes towards gender and race. Beginning with how corsetry heavily restricted women for nearly four hundred years up until the twentieth century, this thesis explores how clothing has acted as a tool for societal progression following World War I and Women's Suffrage and during the Jazz Age and The Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, this thesis examines how the influence of jazz music and dance that originated from Black American communities led to the creation of the flapper evening dress. The …

Patriarchal Colonization Of The Female Body In Machinal And Clit Notes, Saide Harb-Ranero

The Graduate Review

Machinal written by Sophie Treadwell in 1928 and Clit Notes written by Holly Hughes in 1996 are two plays half a century apart yet bring forth the female body upstage and center. I see Machinal bringing attention to the societal machine that takes control of the focal character, Helen, from the first act. Clit Notes shows how a woman’s body could be removed from its first society, her parental home, simply for existing in a body that refuses to fit in a patriarchal box that is designed according to its perception of what that body should be doing. Regarding the …

Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism And The University, Andy Hines

Staff Scholarship

This striking contribution to Black literary studies examines the practices of Black writers in the mid-twentieth century to revise our understanding of the institutionalization of literary studies in America. Andy Hines uncovers a vibrant history of interpretive resistance to university-based New Criticism by Black writers of the American left. These include well-known figures such as Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry as well as still underappreciated writers like Melvin B. Tolson and Doxey Wilkerson. In their critical practice, these and other Black writers levied their critique from “outside” venues: behind the closed doors of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in …

Literature, Pandemic, And The Insufficiency Of Survival: Boccaccio’S Decameron And Emily St. John Mandel’S Station Eleven, Anthony P. Russell

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

The question of literature’s utility in relation to the “real world” has been asked since at least the time of Plato. This essay examines an extreme instance of this problem by investigating two works, Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1349-1353) and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2016), that argue for the value of art in the midst of catastrophe. Boccaccio’s collection of 100 tales, written in the context of the Black Plague, and Mandel’s post-apocalyptic novel about a world devastated by a killer flu, overlap and diverge in instructive ways in making their cases for the important role of literature in …

Joanne Kyger And “The Kook Strain” In Olson: A Reading, Patrick James Dunagan

Gleeson Library Faculty and Staff Research and Scholarship

Jerome Rothenberg's "that dada strain" at once hilarious grandiose epic lyric historical and ever adventurous charts the highs discovered in his reading of the dada era. In like occurrence this writing seeks to poke around in the occult cupboards of Olson's mystical leanings. Looking not only at his work and assorted readings/engagements but delving also into the works of various others (Joanne Kyger, Jack Hirschman, Paul Blackburn, Gerrit Lansing, David Meltzer, Robert Duncan, Diane di Prima, Robin Blaser et al) who fell in alongside as well as after his work's star-eyed haul. Loquaciously gifted as a talker, how much (if …

The 1950 Anta Production Of The Tower Beyond Tragedy, A Facsimile Edition: Part I, Introduction, James Karman

Jeffers Studies

The introduction to this two-part study provides an account of the 1950 staging of The Tower Beyond Tragedy, starring Judith Anderson. It contains information about the friendship between Jeffers and Anderson that occasioned the production, a description of the script used for the ANTA Playhouse performance in New York, and a summary of the critical response.

Part II of this study contains a photographic reproduction of the final script used for the 1950 production of The Tower Beyond Tragedy. As the only surviving record of that failed production, the facsimile reveals the changes made by Anderson and others to …

The 1950 Anta Production Of The Tower Beyond Tragedy, A Facsimile Edition: Part Ii, Facsimile, Robinson Jeffers

Jeffers Studies

The introduction to this two-part study provides an account of the 1950 staging of The Tower Beyond Tragedy, starring Judith Anderson. It contains information about the friendship between Jeffers and Anderson that occasioned the production, a description of the script used for the ANTA Playhouse performance in New York, and a summary of the critical response.

Part II of this study contains a photographic reproduction of the final script used for the 1950 production of The Tower Beyond Tragedy. As the only surviving record of that failed production, the facsimile reveals the changes made by Anderson and others to …

"Comic"Ally Calling For Cultural Competency: Using Graphic Narratives To Teach Social Justice In The Writing Classroom, Travis Moody

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Front Matter - Jaepl Volume 27, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Front Matter

Genre Fluidity In Black Speculative Fiction As An Exploration Of Blackness, Jake Upton

English Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Countering Literary Antisemitism: The Figure Of The Jew In The Early Twentieth Century American Novel, Amanda Sanders

English Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Capitalocene Imaginations: Settler Colonialism, Capitalism, And The Environmental Crisis In Twenty-First-Century U.S. Literature, Zoe F. Pellegrino

English Honors Papers

This thesis, a study of climate fiction novels and Indigenous knowledge and poetry, argues that these texts use the power of imagination to open up alternative possibilities, otherwise foreclosed by the ideological hegemony of the capitalist climate crisis. I first explore the United States’ settler colonial history, and how the perpetuation of settler ideology over time justified the exploitative values of the capitalist system, resulting in the slow violence of our environmental crisis.

The central texts explored in this thesis are the climate fiction novels Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea and The Ministry for the Future by Kim …

Middle American Gothic, Jordan Heisler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though Gothicism has evolved since its inception in the eighteenth century, its most common tropes—such as deteriorating settings, supernatural figures, and foreboding atmospheres—have remained integral to the genre. While, the following fictional collection, Middle American Gothic, draws inspiration from these familiar Gothic tropes, it substitutes the grandeur of crumbling castles, monasteries, and sprawling estates for a common town within the rural Midwest. Similarly, while the collection nods to the existence of supernatural beings, none of its stories actually rely on anything otherworldly as a source of terror. Its setting, while not traditionally Gothic, features a series of decaying, outdated homes …

The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women And The Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America, By Cynthia Prendergast & Bohemians West: Free Love, Family, And Radicals In Twentieth-Century America, By Sherry L. Smith, Geneva Gano

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note (Volume 22), Jim Baird

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Labyrinth Of House Of Leaves Through A Postmodern Archetypal Literary Theory, Samuel K. Hval

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.