Modern Literature Commons^™

Southern Transfiguration: Competing Cultural Narratives Of (Ec)Centric Religion In The Works Of Faulkner, O’Connor, And Hurston, Craig D. Slaven

Theses and Dissertations--English

This project explores the ways in which key literary texts reproduce, undermine, or otherwise engage with cultural narratives of the so-called Bible Belt. Noting that the evangelicalism that dominated the South by the turn of the twentieth century was, for much of the antebellum period, a relatively marginal and sometimes subversive movement in a comparatively irreligious region, I argue that widely disseminated images and narratives instilled a false sense of nostalgia for an incomplete version of the South’s religious heritage. My introductory chapter demonstrates how the South’s commemorated “Old Time” religion was not especially old, and how this modernist construct …

Gay Habits Set Strait: Fan Culture And Authoritative Praxis In Ready Player One, Kevin Moberly, Brent Moberly

English Faculty Publications

(First Paragraph) Gwendolyn Morgan reminds us that medievalism and authority are complementary fictions.¹ Recognizing that the "past with which we identify actually reflects our present needs," she examines the way that contemporary writers establish the authority of their works by adapting, if not explicitly fabricating medieval sources.² The result, she argues, is a kind of "double practice of medievalism," one that invokes the authoritative power of the Middle Ages by appropriating the medieval appeal to auctoritee, which is to say the pretense of "citing real and invented classical authorities" to both disguise and justify authorial invention.³ Morgan …

Reseña: La Ciudad Sin Límites De Antonio Hernández, Miguel A. Albújar Escuredo

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

La película ofrece el retrato de una familia de clase alta disfuncional. Sin embargo, lo que en un principio se anticipaba como melodrama familiar con tintes cómicos, cambia sutilmente en una exploración dramática sobre el amor, la culpa y el rencor. Este triple ejercicio se fundamenta en una nefasta herencia tardo-franquista que hasta el final parece estar latente por invisible, pero que por último se revela esencial para entender la psique torturada del padre. El personaje de Leonardo Sbaraglia es el conductor a través de un entramado de mentiras presentes y pasadas, que permiten cubrir la fealdad de una familia …

La Función Discursiva De La Antología De Poesía Centroamericana Puertas Abiertas Y La Configuración Del Sujeto Poético De La Generación Del Ochenta, Missael Duarte

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

El presente ensayo aborda la función discursiva de la antología Puertas abiertas (2011) desde el enfoque de los estudios culturales y analiza la configuración del sujeto poético en la generación del ochenta en los poetas antologados. El propósito de este trabajo es mostrar los criterios que sigue la antología antes mencionada en la tradición de las antologías de poesía centroamericanas.

Review Of Latin American Cinema, By Stephen M. Hart, Traci Roberts-Camps

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Experiences Of Performance: Firsthand Accounts Of Theater From Part Xiv - Shakespeare’S Early Reception (To 1660), Andrew Fleck

Literatures and Cultural Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Global Homesickness In William Gibson’S Blue Ant Trilogy, Sean Scanlan

Publications and Research

This article explores theories of home, homesickness, and identity instability as they occur in William Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy, which consists of three novels: Pattern Recognition (2003), Spook Country (2007), and Zero History (2010). In order to clarify this collision and underscore the importance of cultural and aesthetic codes of uneven globalization, this article offers a character study focused through the place-based intensities of global homesickness. Each character has a strained relationship with home: Cayce Pollard only feels at home while reading and writing in an online film forum; Hollis Henry wonders if she might be considered homeless, even though …

Antithetical Commentaries On X, Y And The Disruption Of Being, Eva Rocha

Theses and Dissertations

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage …

Manuel Altolaguirre: Between Exile And Spain, Will Derusha

The Coastal Review

The exile of Manuel Altolaguirre, poet of the Generation of ‘27, touches on Spanish and Latin American literature and culture. The article examines the attitudes and beliefs of the avant-garde from the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Second Republic through the Spanish Civil War and into exile. Using Altolaguirre’s experiences in Cuba and Mexico, the article discusses exile literature and the dislocations of Spanish refugees struggling to make a living on the fly and feeling further isolated and forgotten in the upheavals of the Second World War.

Perspectives Of Ethical Identity In Ng's Steer Toward Rock And Jen's Mona In The Promised Land, Hui Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Perspectives of Ethical Identity in Ng's Steer toward Rock and Jen's Mona in the Promised Land" Hui Su examines Fae Myenne Ng's and Gish Jen's novels. In the novels, the protagonists make different decisions: in Steer Toward Rock Jack after displacement in China adopts US-American identity and in Mona in the Promised Land Mona, a second generation Chinese American, selects Jewish identity. Owing to their different situations, the two protagonists reflect challenges of identity building in the case of the "Other" in US-American culture and society. Su argues that Ng and Jen, although varying in their …

Human Cloning As The Other In Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Wen Guo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Human Cloning as the Other in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go" Wen Guo analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro's novel with focus on Ishiguro's analogy between human cloning and people of marginality in contemporary society. Guo discusses the novel's ambience of doubt and suspense and elaborates on how the theme of otherness is addressed by Ishiguro's mock-realism in a landscape of science fiction. Further, Guo analyses the "unhomely" Hailsham of the novel, the clones' self-pursuit, and their ethical attitudes. Guo argues that in Ishiguro's novel a person's ethical choices are determined by his/her situation which confirms Ishiguro's beliefs with …

Hesse's Steppenwolf As Modern Ethical Fiction, Michał Koza

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Hesse's Steppenwolf as Modern Ethical Fiction" Michał Koza discusses the significance of "ethical fiction" in modern literature. Such fiction, according to Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, are not only milestones of ethical thinking, but more importantly offer a narrative for self-creation as an ethical subject. Harry Haller, the protagonist of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, is a man living on the border of modern subjectivity embodying a cultural and existential crisis. Koza argues that "ethical reading" enables one to see the relation between philosophy and literature that not only enter in a dialogue with each other, but also share …

Humanity In Posthuman Literature: The Mind-Body Connection And The Human Experience, Teisha Seaman

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Recuerdos Que Curan. Memoria Y Ciencia Ficción En Chile, Kaitlin R. Sommerfeld, Juan C. Toledano

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

A través del análisis de la novela Synco de Jorge Baradit y el cuento "Exerion" de Pablo Castro, se propone el uso de la literatura de ciencia ficción como vehículo para la curación de traumas producidos por la dictadura chilena de Augusto Pinochet. Los autores creen que a través del extrañamiento y la heterotopía, la ciencia ficción puede ser útil y pertinente a lo que se ha venido a llamar como literatura del trauma.

La Escritura Como Recreación Del Cosmos Narrativo De La Infancia: Entrevista A Rodolfo Martínez, Ruben Varona

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

La literatura actual responde a las necesidades de un mundo que, para explicarse, requiere de discursos cada vez más complejos. Sus lectores encarnan el desencanto de toda utopía, mediante una serie de cuestionamientos a la realidad en que viven. De allí la necesidad de contrastar la crítica literaria con el pensamiento de autores actuales como Rodolfo Martínez (1965), a quien la hibridación de géneros, historias y literaturas le han permitido descomplejizar el mundo, si de alguna manera esto es posible, y ofrecerle al lector múltiples verdades o perspectivas, en términos de Linda Hutcheon. Rodolfo Martínez es un escritor asturiano que …

La Ciencia Ficción Y La Narrativa Posmoderna: Hacia La Convergencia, Mikel Peregrina

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

En Postmodernist Fiction Brian McHale defendía un acercamiento entre la ciencia ficción y la narrativa posmoderna. Mientras que la novela posmo­derna toma topos de la ciencia ficción, la ciencia ficción usa herramientas narrativas de la posmodernidad. Tanto Slaughterhouse-Five, de Kurt Vonnegut, como Dying Inside, de Robert Silverberg, reflejan esa conver­gencia. Además, la imbricación también aparece en las letras españolas, como demuestran los análisis de El mundo en la era de Varick , de Andrés Ibáñez, y de Lágrimas de luz, de Rafael Marín.

Robert Frost’S New Hampshire, Philip Larkin’S England, And Seamus Heaney’S Ireland: Non-Urban Place And Democratic Poetry, Faisal I. Rawashdeh

Dissertations

In Anglo-American Modernist poetry, place is reduced to an analogue for the cultural degradation brought forth by the disruptive experience of modernity. This demotion stands in sharp contrast to the representation of place as a center of value in the poetry of Robert Frost, Philip Larkin, and Seamus Heaney. In this dissertation, I shall explain this value in terms of its connection to a particular cultural substance which Frost, Larkin, and Heaney deem foundational for their non-ideological terms of belonging to place. Frost embraces New England vernacularism first as the basis for his egalitarianism and second as the core substance …

Introduction: Theories Of The Ghost In A Transhispanic Context, Alberto Ribas-Casasayas, Amanda L. Petersen

Modern Languages & Literature

Nuestros muertos quieren ser parte de nuestra conversaci6n, no nos permiten olvidar, nos dicen que las comunidades que formamos en vida son parte tambien de las comunidades ausentes. -Cristina Rivera Garza, in Monica Maristain 1

[Our dead want to be part of our conversation, they do not allow us to forget, they tell us that the communities that are no longer present are also part of the communities we create in life.]

The commonplace phrase, "the ghosts of the past," evokes remoteness, something intangible that nevertheless is ever present, a sort of historical sublime. 2 As the Mexican novelist Cristina …

"Persephone's Contemporary Dilemma: Consent, Sexuality, And "Female Empowerment." [2015], Cassandra Elizabeth Cerjanic

Master's Theses

Greek mythology never strays very far from Western imagination. Though every few years literature involving the infamous Gods tapers off into the back of our collective minds, a resurgence soon follows. The late Romantic literary movement (as popularized by Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelly, and John Keats) depended heavily upon Greco- Roman mythology to help illustrate characters that existed somewhere between the shadow of imagination and the truth of humanity. Perhaps in an attempt to harken back to Romanticism, contemporary poetry has once again given life to the Greek Gods. Mythological characters can be seen throughout the works of modern …

Time Distortion In Bierce's "One Of The Missing" And Uroshevic's "Ракописот Од Китаб-Ан" ("The Manuscript From Kitab-An"), Kalina Maleska

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Time Distortion in Bierce's 'One of the Missing' and Uroshevic's 'Ракописот од Китаб-Ан' ('The Manuscript from Kitab-An')" Kalina Maleska examines the relationship between literature and astronomy in the context of time. The two stories share several common elements: they explore the possible manipulations of time in unexpected and extraordinary ways and come close to certain scientific explorations of time. For "One of the Missing," Albert Einstein's theory of relativity provides an interesting foundation for understanding Bierce's treatment of time. For The Manuscript of Kitab-An, the speculations of time travel starting from the Einstein-Rosen concept of the black …

The Lawrentian Woman: Monsters In The Margins Of 20th-Century British Literature, Dusty A. Brice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite his own conservative values, D.H. Lawrence writes sexually liberated female characters. The most subversive female characters in Lawrence’s oeuvre are the Brangwens of The Rainbow. The Brangwens are prototypical models of a form of femininity that connects women to Nature while distancing them from society; his women are cast as monsters, but are strengthened from their link with Nature. They represent what I am calling the Lawrentian-Woman.

The Lawrentian-Woman has proven influential for contemporary British authors. I examine the Lawrentian-Woman’s adoption by later writers and her evolution from modernist frame to postmodern appropriation. First, I look at the …

At Home In Exile: Ezra Pound And The Poetics Of Banishment, Andy Kay Trevathan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ezra Pound is one of the most important poets, critics, and writers of the 20th century. Through his literary efforts, and his work on behalf of many other writers, Pound changed the way we read and write poetry today. His cultivation and support of other writers and poets like T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, etc. created the basis for what we refer to as Imagism, Modernism, and other important literary movements of the early 20th century. Pound’s use of fragmentation, pastiche, and bricolage laid the foundation for post-modern writers of the latter half of the 20th century, …

“Carried In The Arms Of Standing Waves:" The Transmotional Aesthetics Of Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Billy J. Stratton

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, Native, Indigenous, First Nations, and Aboriginal scholars and writers have forged alliances to initiate and support decolonization efforts and the reassertion of native survivance. Native and non-Native scholars have responded to modern challenges by reconceptualizing notions of peoplehood, identity, and nationalism. Following these intellectual contours, rather than conceiving of native culture as totalizing, static, and/or incommensurable—as always already foreign—responsive readings informed by the critical work of Gerald Vizenor can support more sophisticated understandings of native literary production while revealing sites of native transmotion. Through a thusly informed examination of the work of the Tlingit poet, Nora Marks …

Tolkien's Intellectual Landscape (2015) By E.L. Risden, John Houghton

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tolkien's Intellectual Landscape (2015) by E.L. Risden, book review

The Hobbit Party (2014) By Jonathan Witt And Jay W. Richards, John D. Rateliff

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book Review of The Hobbit Party (2014) by Jonathan Witt and Jay W. Richards

The Muslim Mystique: The Use Of Rushdie’S Imaginary Homeland To Combat Prejudice Against Muslim Peoples Explored In Three Semi-Autobiographical Works Of Popular Fiction By Muslim Authors Of An American Immigrant Background, Lauren E. Nadolski

Selected Honors Theses

There is a largely unexplored trend in recent popular fiction that regards the semi-autobiographical work of authors of an immigrant or refugee background. These works seldom fall into the trap exposed by Said’s Orientalism, but instead present the author’s native country and culture through a lens similar what Salman Rushdie described as “imaginary homelands.” This thesis examines three primary texts that fit that description: The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseni, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid, and Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye for their inclusion of the Islamic faith and their portrayal of America. The texts are analyzed and recommended …

Session 4: James Merrill: Life And Archive, Joel Minor, Langdon Hammer, Justin Reed

James Merrill SymposiumOctober 22-23, 2015

2:45 p.m. — Session 4: James Merrill: Life and Archive

An introduction to James Merrill resources in Washington University Special Collections.

See http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/merrill-life-archive

Session 3: Digital Merrill, Shannon Davis, Annelise Duerden, Heidi Lim, Joe Loewenstein, Timothy Materer

James Merrill SymposiumOctober 22-23, 2015

1:15 p.m. — Session 3: Digital Merrill

• Shannon Davis, digital library services manager, WU: The James Merrill Digital Archive: Process and Product
• Annelise Duerden, PhD candidate in English, WU — “Admit It Arguably A priori Admittedly I have failed”: Re-vision in the Merrill Archive
• Heidi Lim, PhD candidate in English, WU — To Tag or Not to Tag: The Digital Markup Process as a Form of Reading
• Timothy Materer, professor emeritus, University of Missouri — The Poem as a Netscape

Session 2: Remembering Jimmy, Stephen Yenser, Randy Bean, Judith Moffett, Rachel Hadas

James Merrill SymposiumOctober 22-23, 2015

10:30 a.m. — Session 2: Remembering Jimmy

• Stephen Yenser, distinguished professor of English, UCLA — Reading an essay about his friendship with Merrill
• Randy Bean, board member, James Merrill House Committee — Presenting on the history and initiatives of the James Merrill House
• Judith Moffett, adjunct professor emerita of English, University of Pennsylvania — Mixed Messages, an excerpt from "Unlikely Friends: A Memoir"
• Rachel Hadas, professor of English, Rutgers University — (via prerecorded video) reading an excerpt from "The Book of Ephraim," reading her poem, "Threshold and Mirror: the Biography," and recollecting her friendship with Merrill

Session 1: "Eyes Raised In Ecstasy": The Analog Merrill, Thomas Brennan, Tamara Taylor, Steven Meyer

James Merrill SymposiumOctober 22-23, 2015

9:00 a.m. — Session 1: “Eyes Raised in Ecstasy”: The Analog Merrill

• Thomas Brennan, associate professor, Saint Joseph’s University — Ecstasy Edited? Merrill’s “Days of 1971”
• Tamara Taylor, lecturer, WU — “Thinking Light” Between Spaces: Reflective Metaphor
• Steven Meyer, associate professor, WU — Eye’s Mind: The Poetry of the World