Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Japanese Branch Report, Masako Kimura

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On 10 December 2016, the Twentieth Annual Convention of The George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held in Otani University. The morning session, moderated by Hiroshi Oshima (Hyogo University of Teacher Education), began with an opening address by Yoriko Murase (Otani University). Thereafter, two papers were presented. The first paper 'The Influence of Adam Smith's Discussion of Sympathy on George Eliot: Reading Si/as Marner with The Theory of Moral Sentiments' was read by Chiyo Fujiwara (Kobe College). The second paper 'Women's Education inAdam Bede' was read by Chiyuki Kanamaru (Aichi Bunkyo University).

Review Of The World Of Mr Casaubon: Britain's War Of Mythography, Colin Kidd

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The title of this book is interesting, as the subtitle describes what it is about but the main title refers to a fictional character from Middlemarch, part of a novel recently voted the greatest in English. Such a title makes the book much more marketable to a general audience and more likely to be reviewed in some of the broadsheets than a title which indicates that this is a book that 'venture[s] into the thickets of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarianism' (vi). But the downside of the more appealing title is that readers who expect Middlemarch to play a central role …

Review Of The Transferred Life Of George Eliot: The Biography Of A Novelist, Philip Davis

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

There have been several good new biographies of George Eliot in recent years but none quite like this. Davis's subtle and searching analysis focuses almost exclusively on the writing as he traces the complex ways in which the experience of Mary Ann, or later Marian, Evans is 'transferred', to use the term of his title, into the creation of George Eliot and her work. The first life of relative failure, unhappiness and unsuccessful relationships is transformed into a second life as George Eliot, successful novelist and woman of letters, and this closely written and argued study explores the relationship between …

In Memoriam, Kathleen Adams (1929-2016), John Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The sheer number of years, forty, that Kathleen Adams was Secretary of the George Eliot Fellowship, is extraordinary, but that number does not do justice to the prodigious amount of time, energy and dedication that she devoted to the job.

Like many others, Kathleen came to George Eliot via her life rather than her works. As a grammar school girl from Barrs Hill in Coventry she had heard about Eliot; as an adult she learned details of her extraordinary life. That took her to the novels and then a commitment to tell people about them which was to dominate her …

Kathleen Adams: A Tribute, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

All but 50 years we knew each other. And I think George Eliot owes Kathleen Adams a lot. This is common knowledge - for where would the Fellowship be without her tireless efforts. Westminster Abbey, the Nuneaton statue, membership numbers: these are all well known. But that small terrace house in Stepping Stones Road, Coventry, visited by so many important figures, represents for me the championing of the ordinary folk and their appreciation of George Eliot's work. I remember an American academic being disappointed at the Newsletter Kathleen prepared so diligently, and how it was not on the intellectual level …

Review Of Writing The Stage Coach Nation: Locality On The Move In Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Ruth Livesey

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Starting from the observation that so many of the major Victorian novels are set, not in the railway age in which they were written, but in the horse-drawn world of the previous generation, a world that is 'just past', this fine study explores the ways in which novelists from Waiter Scott to Thomas Hardy use the stage coach to connect particular localities, often closely observed and substantially realized, to the larger framework of the nation. This turning back to the past is not, Ruth Livesey insists, a retreat from the complications and dislocations of a modern present into a simpler …

Living With George Eliot: A Tribute To My Parents, Will Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

It was a strange but much-appreciated honour to be asked to address the annual George Eliot Fellowship lunch in 2016. It was strange because I'd attended many such events long ago - fewer more recently - and had always sat with the 'rank and file' on the lower tables while Mum and Dad, officers and distinguished guests occupied the top table. So, when on Sunday 20 November, I rose to speak, I was quite miffed to find that there was no top table! All very egalitarian, but it left me wandering up and down the floor as I imparted my …

Radical Politics In The 1860s: The Writing Of Felix Holt, David Paterson

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

While Felix Halt the Radical was being written there was a transformation in the atmosphere surrounding further parliamentary reform in Britain. In March 1865, when George Eliot began the novel, the Liberal Prime Minister Palmerston remained cautious about an extension of the franchise. Yet Felix Holt was finished on 31 May 1866 amidst great political excitement: a Reform Bill was being debated and the outcome uncertain. This change in emphasis in the political mood had its effect on Eliot 's writing, since the 'reform campaign had not gained enough momentum' I to explain Eliot's initial choice of subject. To say …

Chairman's Annual Report For 2016, John Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The most noteworthy events of 2016 were the deaths of Bill and Kathleen Adams, a couple whose extraordinary dedication and hard work from 1968 until 2008 enabled the Fellowship to prosper and become a genuinely influential literary society. Bill was the first to die, just a couple of days after laying the wreath for us in June in Nuneaton, an event he loved, and where he met and chatted to so many old friends.

The AGM in March saw the existing team of Council members renewing their positions, with a request from Hon. Treasurer Jill Bridgewater that we should find …

When Howard Met George: A Play In Two Acts, Susan Ryley Hoyle

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)

Marian Evans (Mrs. Lewes) (George Eliot) (left) was born near Nuneaton in 1819 to a prosperous land agent and his (second) wife. She has lost whatever regional accent she may have had, and has often been complimented on her melodious voice. She speaks quite slowly, rarely with emphasis, nearly always with a shy earnestness and a dry sense of humour. At the time of this play, only her husband and (very recently) her publisher know that she is 'George Eliot', the author of the huge best-seller Adam Bede (1859), and of the only …

Surface Reading The Upside Down Chandelier: Interface “Mastery” And Feminism, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay compares the literary interfaces of one artwork, The Upside Down Chandelier [UDC], in two settings: a large-scale installation taking up a gallery room, and in a browser window. UDC is a generative, multimedia artwork authored in Flash by four women electronic literature artists using four spoken languages. It uses the same code base for both settings. The installation’s embodied and site-specific context at the gallery created multiple vantages from which to “read” the work’s design and purpose. In browser, UDC’s words are the only point of access. The reader’s urge to decode the words in …

Snoop-Women With Notebooks: Naomi Mitchison, Mass Observation, And The Gender Of Domestic Intelligence, Megan Faragher

English Language and Literatures Faculty Publications

Novelist Naomi Mitchison and Home Intelligence head Mary Adams were crucial supporters of Mass Observation's qualitative approach to public opinion collection, but their efforts were significantly curtailed when the public denounced observers as internal spies. This article traces the backlash against MO's methodology, both bureaucratically and publicly, uncovering that MO critics were partially fueled by the gendering of its unique methodology. While some considered interviews and surveys tantamount to domestic espionage, the subsequent turn towards quantitative data devalued women's experiences by favoring institutionalized patriarchal approaches to analyzing public opinion. Within this context, Mitchison's novel We Have Been Warned similarly presents …

“There Was That In Her Face And Form Which Made Him Loathe The Sight Of Her”: Disfiguration And Deformity Of Female Characters In 19th Century American Women’S Literature, Kelsi E. Cunningham Miss

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Rebecca Harding Davis, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Mary Wilkins Freeman challenge the way that society treats and views the disabled and deformed. Through different representations of the disabled characters, the three short stories by these authors reveal the realities that women faced in the 19^th century in response to rigid beauty standards and expectations. The authors in this study address the marginalized position of the disabled characters and show how society’s attempts to “normalize” the women confine them to a fixed identity. Analyzing the texts in relation to disability studies and the authors’ perceived effectiveness of social charity will …

Female Art And Artisans In Edith Wharton’S The House Of Mirth, The Custom Of The Country, And “Roman Fever”, Julia B. Welch

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In early twentieth century old and new New York social circles, the marriage market’s commodification of women acted as the controlling factor for relationships, female power, and personal identity. When considering Wharton’s works for the first-hand viewpoint that she provided of the marriage market, it becomes clear that her interest in art plays heavily into the way women comport themselves within her novels. In order to discuss this relationship in Edith Wharton’s works, I’ve created terms that delineate the various ways female characters respond to the pressures of the marriage market. The best way to analyze Wharton’s women is by …

The Geographic Center Of Nowhere, Sharon Mauldin Reynolds

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The Geographic Center of Nowhere. A collection of short stories exploring the perseverance of several women in varied situations.

Girls In Graphic Novels: A Content Analysis Of Selected Texts From Yalsa's 2016 Great Graphic Novels For Teens List, Tiffany Mumm

Masters Theses

This study examined the portrayal of female characters in selected texts from the Young Adult Library Association's 2016 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. Appearances, conversations, and behaviors of preteen and teenage female primary characters were coded. Results indicate that progress is being made in the portrayal of female characters in graphic novels. Diversity in appearances, relatable conversations, and a break from stereotypical behaviors have led to more complex characters that provide readers with better role models. While some stereotypical conventions remain, the progress indicates a positive change for all readers.

The Rewards Of Impertinence: Happy And Unhappy Endings In Jane Austen's Novels, Elizabeth Bolger

English Honors Papers

In this thesis, I use a wide range of period sources—the law governing marriage in the United Kingdom, sermons, and treatises on women’s education—to argue that Jane Austen uses irony and satire to defend “impertinent” women by exposing the villainy of a patriarchal order that attempts to restrain female desire. Her literary strategies of indirection, including irony and satire, have an ethical purpose that is neglected by the many critics who read her works as endorsing conservative values. Her novels function within a traditional narrative framework in order to expose and ultimately undermine the oppressive morals inherent within the patriarchal …

"Until Death Brings Us Closer Together Forever": Spirituality, Corporeality, And Queer Identification With Nature In Transcendental Literature, Kathryn Alderman

English Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Consciousness Engendered Throughout Lena Dunham's "Girls" : Female Subjectivity Vs The Problem Of Post-Feminism, Heeyeon Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The inequality between genders is an idea still endorsed in everyday life throughout media, political discourse, and relationships. Gender discrimination spurs feminists to strive for equity and has become the motivation for the changing and progressive message in their writings and artworks. Lena Dunham’s HBO TV series Girls is such a work and is distinctly unique when compared to Hollywood’s presentation of the standard image of women, and thus, has been used as an initiation into the study of post-feminism and the contemporary media. Dunham’s attitudes and ideas shown in Girls has the same vigorous feminist movement resembling the rebelliousness …

Fight For Equality, Edgar A. Ruiz-Guaderrama

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

The great author Jane Austen lived during a time period in which there was a patriarchal society installed which made it quite difficult for women rights similar to the Victorian Era. Both in Jane Austen’s society and the Victorian Era, there were huge gaps in gender equality. The society at the time made it easy for men to run everything that happened in society which in turn lead to women being at a huge disadvantage.Jane Austen showed people many examples of this inequality in her book Pride and Prejudice It is crucial as a society to improve from and correct …

Significance Of The Feminization Of Male Eating Disorders, Rachel Rothman

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Today, many individuals develop eating disorders; however, eating disorders are typically associated with women. In this paper, I declare that male eating disorders are stigmatized due to the feminization of eating disorders. I explain why this stigma exists and how this bias inhibits professionals from conducting objective research on male eating disorders and diagnosing them correctly. I illustrate how the stigma prevents men from recognizing their own unhealthy behaviors and can deter individuals from recognizing eating disorder-related behaviors in other men. Throughout the essay, I provide my own analysis regarding how to combat the stigmatization of eating disorders. By writing …

Developing A Feminist Pedagogy: A Look At Intersectionality And Poe's Women, Riley Haacke

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the world’s most prolific writers and therefore has an immense capacity to influence and change how we, as a society, engage with literature. By developing a feminist pedagogy centered on the intersectionality of Poe’s diverse female characters we can begin to develop a value based education model that influences the critical conversations we have about women’s issues.

A Generation Of Katnisses: The New Power Of Female Protagonists In Young Adult Dystopian Literature, Mckenzie K. Watterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Considering emerging heroines in young adult dystopian fiction, this project first examines them in a literary review. Using feminist ethics of care as a baseline, the review considers their unique worlds, agency, and motivation

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Women Of The Apocalypse: Afrospeculative Feminist Novelists, Bianca L. Spriggs

Theses and Dissertations--English

“Women of the Apocalypse: Feminist Afrospeculative Writers,” seeks to address the problematic ‘Exodus narrative,’ a convention that has helped shape Black American liberation politics dating back to the writings of Phyllis Wheatley. Novels by Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, and Alice Walker undermine and complicate this narrative by challenging the trope of a single charismatic male leader who leads an entire race to a utopic promised land. For these writers, the Exodus narrative is unsustainable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because there is no room for women to operate outside of the role of …

American Culture Of Servitude: The Problem Of Domestic Service In Antebellum Literature And Culture, Andrea Holliger

Theses and Dissertations--English

My dissertation argues that domestic service alters a culture’s relationship to the laboring body. I theorize this relationship via popular literary and cultural antebellum texts to explore the effects of servitude as a trope. Methodologically, each chapter reads a literary text in context with social and legal paradigms to 1) demonstrate that servitude undergirds myriad articulations of antebellum power and difference; 2) show how servitude inflects the construction of these paradigms; and 3) trace Americans’ changing relationship to the concept of servitude from the Early Republic through the Civil War.

I begin with James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pioneers (1823), exploring …

The Male Mentor Figure In Women's Fiction, 1778-1801, Jessica R. Evans

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation follows the development of the mentor figure from Frances Burney’s Evelina published in 1778 to Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda in 1801. The mentor becomes a key figure for exploring women’s revolutionary ideas on female education and women’s roles in society. My dissertation contributes to discussions on mentoring, development of the Gothic mode, and debates over sensibility and sentimental fiction. It considers how the female mentee paradoxically both desires and criticizes her male mentor and his authority. Each author under discussion employed the mentor figure in a way that addressed their contemporary society’s issues and prejudices toward the treatment of …

Femme Fatales And The Shifting Gender Norms Of The 19th Century, Esther M. Stuart

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This project seeks to explore female monstrosity, specifically the femme fatale, in Gothic literature and its reflection of the shifting gender norms of the nineteenth century. The late 1790s experienced a distinct narrowing of female gender roles. While authors like Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Hays publish during the eighteenth century, a backlash against such feminist voices took hold as a resurgence of spheres ideology and more traditional gender norms came into vogue. This particular shift in attitudes towards female gender norms is reflected in Scottish poet Anne Bannerman’s work as well as English novelist Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya. Both authors’s works …

Bringing Meaningful Grade Aligned English Language Arts To The Classroom: Bridging Research And Practice, Pamela J. Mims, Carol Stranger

ETSU Faculty Works

Instruction in meaningful grade aligned English Language Arts (ELA) content for students with moderate to severe intellectual and developmental disabilities provides a full educational experience that can lead to increased quality of life. Many teachers, however, face barriers in how to teach meaningful, grade aligned ELA. This article bridges research to practice by describing effective strategies for teaching a wide range of strands that fall under ELA, such as comprehension, writing, and student-led research. In addition, a framework is offered as a model of how to put it all together when teaching grade aligned ELA.

Shaping The Body Of Grief: Converging The Personal, Academic, And Visual In Memoir To Create A Broader Way Of Mourning, Hilarie Ashton

Publications and Research

I have been writing a memoir of my mother’s death since before she died. It began with a piece I started after she moved to hospice care, on the cusp of 2013. I began at my grief’s beginning: writing about the spring of her diagnosis the previous year. I currently have over 100,000 words that trace her life, her illness, her death, my grief, and my (ongoing) healing; the first chapter begins with that first piece, which I will excerpt later on. As I edit, I’m shaping the body of the text, as though it’s a person, as though it’s …