Modern Literature Commons^™

Biutiful: En Los Márgenes De La Cosmópolis Neoliberal, Alberto Ribas-Casasayas

Modern Languages & Literature

In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, the city operates as a sort of anti-model exposing the dark side of neoliberal economies in larger fashionable cities, with an emphasis in precarization and exclusion and dynamics of violence against migrant populations. To this end, he uses an aesthetics of incongruence and a focus over a motley society, in permanent tension and negotiation between variegated groups. These strategies coexist with two other themes: exclusion represented as a form of expulsion or excrecence, and the appeal to memory as an ethical imperative that disrupts the logic of monetary calculus in which the main characters …

Race In J. R. R. Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings And In Katherine Addison’S The Goblin Emperor, Robin A. Reid Dr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

Recent scholarship on how Tolkien's Orcs influenced popular fantasy agrees upon the spread of racist clichés and stereotypes. Dieter Petzold, in "'Oo, Those Awful Orcs!': Tolkien's Villains as Protagonists in Recent Fantasy Novels," analyzes how four novels attempt but fail to present orcs as focal and sympathetic characters. In Race and Popular Fantasy Literature, Helen Young argues that the influence Tolkien's Orcs had on fantasy literature, film, and games is that of structural racism in which "race [is] the conventional framework around which difference is built " (35). She acknowledges that critical reading of Tolkien's works can "provide background …

Bureaucratic Sorceries In The Third Policeman: Anthropological Perspectives On Magic & Officialdom, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

This article discusses The Third Policeman through the lens of a dialectic of enchantment and disenchantment that is firmly anchored in the history of anthropological discourse on bureaucracy (Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss, Tambiah, Herzfeld, Graeber, Jones). From this angle, Flann O’Brien’s novel is examined as an aesthetic illustration of an essentially anthropological argument: although bureaucracy has been described as an eminently rational form of social systematisation, regulation, and control (since Weber), it also functions, paradoxically, as a symbolic site for irrationality and supernatural occurrences, haunted by madness, mystery, and delusion. The novel is intriguing partly due to its nonchalant, humorous entwining of …

The Enigma Of Goldberry: Tolkien’S Narrative Braiding Of Genre- And Symbol-Related Vocabularies In The Withywindle River-Daughter, Derek Simon

Journal of Tolkien Research

The enigma of Goldberry continues to stimulate diverse readings of her narrative in the Withywindle Cottage episode. The root contention of this article is that Goldberry’s enigma is textured through Tolkien’s complex narrative braiding of multiple genre- and symbol-specific vocabularies woven together throughout her episode. The effort to interpret the enigma of Goldberry needs to be grounded in the philological, lexical, and thematic signifiers circulating in her storyline. These mythopoeic signifiers are variously conveyed by the genre- and symbol-related vocabularies influencing her enigma in the narrative. Where much of the critical commentary has justifiably considered a single strand of source …

Sustaining Ireland, Body And Soul: A Woman Leader's Story Of The Cooperative Movement, Elizabeth Summerfield

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This article tells the story of the Cooperative Movement in Ireland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the perspective of one of its woman leaders. It does so in order to distil lessons for the contemporary thought leadership of sustainability from a period before the term was coined. It does so with the warrant of Albert Einstein:

The distinction between the past, the present and the future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Its evidence base is historical literature, but its argument and analysis draw on recent research in leadership studies, neuroscience and theology.

The Benefits Of Using Inclusive Literature In Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade Classrooms, Guidelines For Selecting Inclusive Texts, And Resources To Help Teachers, Librarians, And Community Members Use Inclusive Children’S Books, Erin Lynch

Honors Projects

This project outlines the great importance of inclusive children’s literature and the benefits of implementing high-quality, inclusive picture books within elementary school classrooms. Additionally, the project provides suggested guidelines for selecting inclusive literature as well as copious examples of high-quality picture books within a variety of subject matter categories. In addition to a thorough paper, this project contains a large online resource referred to as the “Virtual Library” that utilizes technology and graphic design to simulate a real library full of inclusive literature.

Documents And The Malady Of Truth, Ronald E. Day

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article discusses documents, knowledge, and truth through a conceptual examination and through an examination of Flaubert's 19th century novel Madame Bovary. It argues that the main characters of Madame Bovary deceive themselves by believing that the contents of the fictional and medical texts they read convey truth. In contrast, the article argues that modern knowledge is constituted by documentary evidence operating in knowledge networks and processes where the result of such operations is what can be claimed to be true about the world through such processes. The representational malady that Madame and Doctor Bovary suffer in the novel was …

How A Book Changed A Nation [2022], Teodora Buzea

Master's Theses

“We don’t believe in vampires.”

I didn’t bother to turn away from the TV to look at my parents. On screen, a crew of young men were interviewing an old woman. She spoke only Romanian, and a too-perfect female voice spoke for her in English. I could see the confident fear in her expression as she exclaimed that vampires were indeed real and that she was always scared of them. She wasn’t alone. All of Transylvania were aware of the existence of vampires. Truly, these young men— ghost hunters and cryptologists—were right to come here to this haunted nation. The …

To The Lighthouse Or To Mrs. Ramsay? A Study Of Materialization Through The Symbolism Of The Lighthouse In Virginia Woolf’S To The Lighthouse, Virginia Moscetti

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

In this paper, I argue that the “lighthouse” in Virginia Woolf’s novel To The Lighthouse operates as a symbol for Mrs. Ramsay’s “self-hood” and for Mr. Ramsay’s obscure desire for sanctuary and domesticity in Mrs. Ramsay. Through this symbolism I further contend that Woolf renders the ambiguous processes associated with self-hood and desire materially legible and, in doing so, demonstrates how metaphor and symbolism reconstitute our material world into representation. Moreover, I argue that we can conceptualize the lighthouse symbolism revolving around and centered in Mrs. Ramsay in terms of T.J. Clark’s “dual figure”; a figure with two symbolic connotations …

Traducciones Para El Colegio De La Facultad De Ingeniería (Ceng) Del Inglés Al Español / College Of Engineering Translations, Xenai Camacho-Beas

World Languages and Cultures

This project seeks to show how I managed to translate texts from English to Spanish through the process of learning the concept of translation. It specifically seeks to demonstrate how to accurately translate a notion or message from one language to another without creating misunderstandings or errors. This project includes documents from the College of Engineering at Cal Poly, that I translated from English to Spanish in the hopes that members of the Hispanic community will be able to access them and learn more about the various study options the College of Engineering offers. We live in a very diverse …

Happy Objects And Bloom Spaces: Investigating The Potential Of Rupi Kaur's Poetry, Miguel Vega

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In response to the movement of what is considered and labeled as “Instagram poetry,” poet and critic Rebecca Watts argues that to consider “artless” poetry as “poetry” we are denigrating the artform. This project centers around Watts’ claim that “the reader is dead” due to their encounter with such poetry. This project acts as a conversation that seeks to understand why certain forms of art are considered a “threat” to those who engage with them, as well as to their respective fields. Using affect theory (specifically the theory of the happy object) we can begin to understand why we gravitate …

Las Ciudades Del Deseo: Las Políticas De Género, Sexualidad Y Espacio Urbano En El Caribe Hispano, Elena Valdez

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Las ciudades del deseo explores the representations of gender, sexuality, and urban space in contemporary narratives from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. By examining a corpus of novels published since 2000, this book shows how the changes in urban landscape create a new image of the city that destroys traditional gender roles and produces different discourses on sexuality. At moments of crisis in political agendas that took place between 1990 and 2000, queer subjects became spokespeople outlining new national projects on each island, while claiming space in the national imaginary. The nation is no longer built on blood …

Of Conquistadors And Corridos: Aurora Lucero-White And The New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project, Diana Noreen Rivera

Literatures and Cultural Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

History In The Margins: Epigraphs And Negative Space In Robin Hobb’S Assassin’S Apprentice, Matthew Oliver

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

Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice demonstrates a significant effect of epic fantasy’s conventions for creating the history of a fictional world. By prefacing each chapter with an epigraph from an official in-world historical text before giving a first-person personal narrative, the novel blurs the boundaries between text and paratext, public and private, official history and personal myth-making. This structure raises questions about what is central and marginal in history, suggesting the extent to which historical narrative is constructed in the imagination by taking the facts surrounding a central event from which the historian is absent—a process much like negative space drawing …

Potentiality, Resistance And Bare Life: Giorgio Agamben On Melville’S Bartleby, Yanjun Wang, Yaping Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The idea of potentiality runs through Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy. In his analysis of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, Agamben thoroughly interprets potentiality and bare life through Bartleby’s “I prefer not to”. Agamben believes that Bartleby’s inoperativeness is the highest form of resistance, which exists as pure potentiality against the power apparatuses in modern society. Agamben considers Bartleby’s inoperativeness as the exact way to redeem bare life in modern society, where the state of exception already becomes normality. This article starts with Agamben’s reading of Bartley, focuses on potentiality, resistance and bare life to analyze the pure and thorough way …

The Rainbow Read-In: A Place To Build Community, Elizabeth Johnson

Kansas LGBTQ+ Leadership Symposium

The UMKC University Libraries held the second Rainbow Read-In (RRI) virtually in June 2022. Readers presented either their own works if they identify as LGBTQIA+ or works written by LGBTQIA+ authors. Nine participants presented and sixty people attended. Our first Rainbow Read-In included ten presenters and forty attendees in 2021.

The goal of this presentation is to share how we created a safe space to showcase works from within the queer community. The objectives of this program are to discuss the origins of the RRI, the formation of the committee, lessons learned, short- and long-term goals, potential areas for improvement, …

La Ciencia Ficción En América Latina. Crítica. Teoría. Historia. Silvia G. Kurlat Ares Y Ezequiel De Rosso Eds. Nueva York: Peter Lang, 2021. 396 Pp., Dale Knickerbocker

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

NA (book review)

Pathos, Fall 2022, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

Pathos

Editor: Bret Steggell

La Máquina Está En Movimiento. Reseña De Recalibrando Los Circuitos De La Máquina: Ciencia Ficción E Imaginarios Tecnológicos En La Narrativa En Español Del Siglo Xxi. Jonatán Martín Gómez, Patricio Sullivan (Eds.). Albatros Ediciones, 2022. 404 Págs., Ariela Parisi

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Reseña de Recalibrando los circuitos de la máquina: ciencia ficción e imaginarios tecnológicos en la narrativa en español del siglo XXI. Jonatán Martín Gómez, Patricio Sullivan (eds.). Albatros Ediciones, 2022. 404 págs. Un volumen que reúne ensayos de escritores, críticos y editores al respecto de la ciencia ficción contemporánea.

Vampiros En La Voz De La Sangre De Gabriela Rábago Palafox: Mexicanidad E Intertextualidad, Enrique Muñoz-Mantas

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

La figura del vampiro en la literatura aparece representada en diversas formas y géneros y durante miles de años se ha ido adaptando a las necesidades específicas de la pluma de quien le da “vida” plasmándolo por escrito. Con la publicación del Drácula (1897) de Bram Stoker, la figura del vampiro se popularizó, apareciendo desde entonces en obras de la literatura, películas y televisión a lo largo de los siglos XX y XXI. En general, los vampiros —y el vampiro de Stoker en particular— han recibido una atención académica considerable en los últimos años, pero en concreto, los vampiros latinoamericanos …

The City-Sin: Collective Responsibility For The Plague In Early Modern London, Andrew Fleck

Literatures and Cultural Studies Faculty Publications

The epidemic of bubonic plague that struck London in 1603 created its own culture of collectivity. Instead of seeking to place blame on others, the writers responding to the epidemic understood the disease to be divine punishment and a call to collective moral reform. Analyzing the plague pamphlets of Thomas Dekker, William Muggins, Thomas Middleton, and a Dutch refugee residing in London, Jacob Cool, this article argues that the focus on personal moral responsibility for the plague and the need for collective reform created an unexpected culture of collectivity in early modern London.

A Companion To The Works Of Elizabeth Strout, Katherine Montwieler

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Including an exclusive interview with bestselling American novelist Elizabeth Strout, this groundbreaking study will engage literature scholars and general readers alike.

Written in accessible language, this book is the first to offer a sustained analysis of Elizabeth Strout’s work. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the O. Henry Award, among other accolades, Strout has achieved a vast popular following as well. Amy and Isabelle was made into a television movie; Olive Kitteridge, which sold more than one million copies, was adapted as a miniseries; The Burgess Boys has been optioned for HBO; and My Name Is Lucy Barton was …

“Something Large And Old Awoke”: Ecopoetics And Compassion In Tracy K. Smith’S Wade In The Water, Kaitlin Hoelzer

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Susa Young Gates Award Essay

First Place

Both historical and contemporary Black poets have used their work to identify, condemn, and suggest solutions to problems stemming from racism in American society. Indeed, as Arnold Rampersad notes in his introduction to The Oxford Anthology of African American Poetry, many Black poets use “poetry as a vehicle of protest against social injustice in America.” Art is inherently political, even when its arguments do not overtly engage in political debates. As Lorraine Hansberry argues, all art is rooted in a particular social and political consciousness. The choice is “not whether one will …

William Shakespeare’S All Is True, Lord Chamberlain’S “Truth,” And Civil Religion, Paul A. Olson

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The first title for Shakespeare’s Henry VIII—All Is True—may reflect standard early modern usage signifying that all is an aspect of ‘troth’ or loyalty, all is common understanding, or all is received from a divine source. In the play, the Lord Chamberlain, Shakespeare’s only character so named, serves the Henrician monarchy’s “truth” by serving Henry’s religious and monarchic goals as the Jacobean Lord Chamberlain similarly served James I’s goals, assuring audiences of the integrity, truth, and legitimacy of the monarchy and its faith. The play shows the Lord Chamberlain working to strengthen the loyalty of Henry’s realm …

Primitivism, Performance Studies, And Modernist Time: Tracing An Alternative Genealogy Of Performance Studies Through Case Studies In Modernist Cultural Appropriation, Stephanie Vella

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces a genealogy of research methodologies for documenting, transmitting, and analyzing embodied, non-textual performance practices from the late-nineteenth through early-twentieth centuries. I uncover intersections between these methods and the conflations of race and temporality that are ubiquitously threaded through modernist cultural practices during this time in the form of primitivism. The researchers whose work I analyze all saw European modernity as fundamentally detached from physical culture, while viewing other cultures—especially those of the people most directly threatened by colonial and capitalist expansion during this time—as having access to a “lost” corporeal knowledge. I argue that primitivism is not …

Del Ornitorrinco A La Radio Ambulante: La Nueva Crónica Latinoamericana En La Era Neoliberal, Ulises Gonzales

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the presence of neoliberal hegemonic imaginaries in narrative journalism written in Latin America between 1995 and 2021.

There are strong connections between a period of decline in the readership of some of the authors of the so-called “Latin American Boom,” the penetration of neoliberal economic policies in the region (with the privatization of State companies and the expansion of the telecommunications industry), and the renewed interest in non-fiction writing published by a number of print publications in the region during the last decade of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century, as in magazines …

Review Of Chiara Mazzucchelli, The Heart And The Island: A Critical Study Of Sicilian American Literature, Eveljn Ferraro

Modern Languages & Literature

Sicily’s island status and centuries of conquests and foreign rule have molded the identity of Sicilian people and culture in unique ways. Reflecting this diver-sity, Sicilian literature has long occupied a distinct place within Italian litera-ture. Likewise, in The Heart and the Island, scholar Chiara Mazzucchelli argues that Sicilian American writers have produced a substantial body of literature that, although traditionally subsumed under the broader domain of Italian American literature, manifests “a distinct Sicilian Americanness” that she terms “sicilianamericanita.” Following on the footsteps of scholars like Edvige Giunta and Donna Gabaccia, Mazzucchelli presents an ambitious “intraethnic decen-tering project” that by …

Everyday Consumption In Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction, Lígia Bezerra

Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures

Everyday Consumption in Twenty-First-Century Brazilian Fiction is the first in-depth study to map out the representation of consumption in contemporary Brazilian prose, highlighting how our interactions with commodities connect seemingly disconnected areas of everyday life, such as eating habits, the growth of prosperity theology, and ideas of success and failure. It is also the first text to provide a pluralistic perspective on the representation of consumption in this fiction that moves beyond the concern with aesthetic judgment of culture based on binaries such as good/bad or elevated/degraded that have largely informed criticism on this body of literary work. Current Brazilian …

The Fallacy And Verification Of Criticism On Contemporary Chinese Confessional Poetry, Lei Wei

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Contemporary Chinese confessional poetry has engaged much academic attention despite its short existence between the 1980s and the 1990s. The confessional poetry has been related with female poetry by scholars since the beginning, and they have been criticized for lacking Chinese cultural characteristics, skills or aesthetic values etc.. However, contemporary Chinese confessional poetry is not exclusively the product of female poets, as there are quite a few male poets who created some fine confessional poems. Chinese confessional poetry of new period turned out to be embodied with a literary form of strong nationalistic features and contain rich elements of traditional …

تقاطع المستويات وتنازع الثنائيات في مجموعة (ارض من عسل) للقاص هيثم بهنام بردى, أ.م. د. نادية هناوي سعدون

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

No abstract provided.