Modern Literature Commons^™

Science Fiction And Fantasy: The Cosmic Players, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

This presentation gives an overview of science fiction and fantasy, including its origins, the prominent writers in each era, and its many subgenres and variations.

Review Of Herzog, Hillary Hope, Vienna Is Different: Jewish Writers In Austria From The Fin De Siècle To The Present, Sarah S. Painitz

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A review essay of Hillary Hope Herzog. Vienna Is Different: Jewish Writers in Austria from the Fin de Siècle to the Present. Austrian and Habsburg Studies Series. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011. 308 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-85745-181-1, by Sarah S. Painitz published online on H-Net.

Rocky Mountain Refuge: Constructing "Colorado" In Science Fiction, Carl Abbott

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Colorado has long functioned in American culture as the epitome of the American West, identified both as a safe refuge and as a place for starting over. This essay examines the ways in which writers of speculative fiction have drawn on Colorado's historically constructed identity as the setting for stories of refuge and retreat. The discussion examines parallels in the use of the Colorado setting by sf writers Robert A. Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Leigh Brackett, and Ursula K. LeGuin, by political novelist Ayn Rand, and by mainstream thriller writers Stephen King and Justin Cronin. The …

Book Review - The Agony Of Survival: A Novel, Harikleia Sirmans

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

"Just A Fool's Hope": J.R.R. Tolkien's Eucatastrophe As The Paradigm Of Christian Hope, Margaret A. Bush

Senior Honors Theses

In his essay titled “On Fairy-Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien uses the term “eucatastrophe” to describe the unexpected, fortunate turn of events for the protagonist in a fantasy story. Tolkien applies the word beyond its literary context to signify the Christian’s experience of joy, especially resulting from the Incarnation and Resurrection. Such an explicit link between fiction and theology seems absent from his more well-known work, The Lord of the Rings. Yet both Tolkien himself and critics of his writing have labeled the novel a modern-day classic of Christian literature. This thesis will defend the Christian label of The Lord of …

The Exchange: A Novella, Katie Knecht

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Grace Schmeidler is dealing with her recently broken engagement, which is horrible enough, what with her perfect wedding plans gone to waste. If she think nothing could be worse than the embarrassment she feels now, she is wrong. Her best friend, Audrey, shows up to deliver the only news that could have made her desire to be invisible even stronger; her ex-fiancé married someone else using all of Grace’s wedding arrangements. As if this weren’t enough, Grace’s mother calls with equally unsettling news. Work no longer provides Grace with an escape, and she is forced to deal with life’s circumstances …

Erste Briefe / First Letters Aus Dem Exil 1945-1950. (Un)Mögliche Gespräche. Fallbeispiele Des Literarischen Und Künstlerischen Exils, Reinhard Andress

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Zunächst eine Begriffsklärung durch die Herausgeber: „Als Erste Briefe werden hier jene Korrespondenzen verstanden und in den Blick genommen, die ab 1945–1946 zwischen Exilanten und im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland bzw. Österreich verbliebenen Freunden oder Kollegen und Kolleginnen die Wiederaufnahme eines Gesprächs markieren“ (9). Dabei geht die Forschung diesbezüglich auf David Kettler zurück, der sich schon seit Jahren mit Grundfragen des Exils aus interdisziplinärer und interkultureller Sicht beschäftigt. Im vorliegenden Band werden die ersten Briefe von solchen schreibenden Exilanten wie Hermann Kesten, Oskar Maria Graf, Thomas Mann, Anna Seghers, Karl Otten, Friedrich Torberg, Robert Neumann, Johannes R. Becher, Annemarie Selinko, Heinrich Eduard …

House Of Leaves: The End Of Postmodernism, Joseph B. Noah

English Theses

Mark Z. Danielewski’s debut 2000 novel House of Leaves is written in part as an essay titled The Navidson Record by Zampanò. Within this essay, Zampanò includes footnotes and citations to many works both real and fictional. Through investigating some of his footnotes and allusions in The Navidson Record, certain connections to the postmodern movement may be drawn. By interpreting Zampanò’s allusions to Freud, Derrida, and Einstein, elements from Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late-Capitalism change the reception of Danielewski’s novel. Thorough investigation of a few allusions within the novel House of Leaves reveal many foundations …

Constructing Depth Through Jane: Contemporary Interactions Between Austen And Interiority, Nicole Catherine Peters

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The world is saturated with Jane Austen. She is in the movies, in bookstores, and in college courses. For years “lowbrow” and “highbrow” readers have fought over the “proper” way to read her work. Ian Watt, a popular literary critic, argued that Austen’s value resides in her use of interiority. For years, interiority was held as the measure of a novel’s worth or depth. Deidre Lynch exposed this interiority Watt spoke of as a cultural taste—one which Austen and Watt emerged from and helped to create.

In this project, I look at two contemporary manifestations of Austen—one that is considered …

Dickensian Characters In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Alison Mckeever

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

J.K. Rowling includes many Dickensian-esque characters in her Harry Potter series. This thesis compares the characters seen in Rowling's series with many of Charles Dickens's characters, specifically those seen in David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Bleak House. Rowling's work is similar to Dickens's novels in many ways. The most interesting connection between the two is how they treat the characters on the periphery of the societies they have created, most notably their orphans, servants, and women.

Orphans are their most obvious comparison. Each author based their texts on the story of an orphan. However, there is more to their orphan …

Whores & More: Selected Stories By Hernán Migoya, Nikki Noreen Settelmeyer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of short stories written by Hernán Migoya from the books, Todas putas and Putas es poco. The stories have been translated from the original Spanish to English. The selected stories demonstrate the humor, style, and neurosis typical of Migoya's writing.

Love Is Just A Word For The Last Body I'D Like To Keep Vigil Over, Robert Jagger

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Love is Just a Word for the Last Body I'd Like to Keep Vigil Over is a collection of poetry that was composed during my time spent at UNLV. Comprised mostly of prose poems, it was heavily influenced by the works of Richard Hugo, Robert Coover, Joshua Marie Wilkinson and several French poets who are often categorized as being members of either the Symbolist or Decadent movement. At its best, the collection attempts to invoke a sense of Joseph Cornell's boxes--odd juxtapositions of everyday items and language that create new and uncertain circumstances. Unlike Cornell's boxes, however, the poems aren't …

Power And Relationships In The Plays Of Neil Labute: Directing And Performing In Some Girl(S), Mary Peyton Griffith

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the major works of Neil LaBute's career as a playwright and screenwriter, including the criticism he has received on theatrical and literary levels. The themes most prevalent in the thesis are the use of power and manipulation in the relationships between LaBute's characters and the ongoing maturation of his characters that coincides with the maturation of his work. The second section of the thesis follows the production, directing, and acting in LaBute's play Some Girl(s).

Unbreakable Glass Slippers: Hegemony In Ella Enchanted, Tori Shereen Mirsadjadi

Scripps Senior Theses

The way Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted simultaneously conforms to its late-20^th-century American standards and rebels against its Cinderella origins is analyzed in this thesis. As an analysis of a piece of literature written for children, the thesis works to defend the notion that playful literature produces a serious dialogue with its readers, and that young female readers are a particularly apropos group for the dialogue about hegemony that Ella Enchanted allows.

Truth And Reality In Tolkien’S Middle Earth: The Role Of Fantasy In The Christian’S Life, Geoffrey A. Matthews

Senior Honors Theses

Fantasy literature can express truths found in the physical world and in the Christian faith. J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings is one example of fantasy that does so. In his essay, “On Fairy-Stories” Tolkien introduces four traits of fantasy: subcreation, recovery, escape, and consolation. Beginning with a defense of fantasy, this paper identifies the presence of these traits in the trilogy and how they correlate truth between the Primary and Secondary Worlds. A careful examination of how Tolkien’s worldview is evident in his works follows with a detailed analysis of the portrayal of human nature shown most …

Comics For Children?, Elizabeth Surbeck

2012 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

Graphic narratives around the world have found lhemselves today beirlg read by certain types of readers. Literature scholars focus on elements such as character and plot structure, occupying their minds with what makes literature great and what some graphic nurratives share with that great literature. With a similar attitude, art historians focus on style, composition, and other artistic elements in graphic narratives that connect them to the art history timeline that goes back to cave paintings. Another type of audience exists, one that does not consider what graphic narratives are and whether they belong to an existing formal area …

Kiez Kieken: Observations Of Berlin, Vol. 1, Spring 2012, Maria Ebner, Annie Buckel, James Hollingsworth, Caroline Inzucchi, Matthew Kasper, Kingsley Lasbrey, Alexander Macleod, Sean Maguire, Leila Nabizadeh, Kathryn Reddy, Peter Scherer, Kelsey Taormina

Modern Languages and Literatures Student Publications

With this journal Kiez kieken: Observations of Berlin the students’ articles of the course Berlin Tales: Germany’s Kiez and Metropolis taught by Prof. Maria Ebner are being published to open up classroom discourse to a broader academic community. Topics have been chosen individually by each student and involved first-hand fieldwork research in Berlin, Germany, between March 10th and March 17th of 2012 as well as continuous individual research throughout the course of the semester.

The Search For Pan: Difference And Morality In D. H. Lawrence’S St. Mawr And The Woman Who Rode Away, Ria Banerjee

Publications and Research

Both St. Mawr (1925) and The Woman Who Rode Away (1928) were written at the height of Lawrence’s fascination with New Mexico and demonstrate a continuum of thought about the position of the European and the Indian, but what is most interesting about these stories when read in conjunction is their attitude towards difference. Lou Carrington, the protagonist of St. Mawr, holds herself separate from other women of her class, from other men, from her mother and her Indian groom, finally finding a temporary peace in seeking affinity in a landscape; the woman who rides away from home and …

Beauvoir For The Masses: Exploring Applications Of Her Philosophy In French Social Revolutions Of The 1960’S, Reille Acks

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

My project examines the feminism and existentialism of Simone de Beauvoir as they intersect with the ideas of the French social movements of the1960’s, using the movement of May '68 as a primary example. Beauvoir's ideas were politically in tune with the leftist philosophy of the students and workers who organized widespread demonstrations throughout the spring of 1968 and brought the French economy to a standstill in May of that year. But I argue that her existentialist philosophy, foregrounding the necessity of each individual to create a self and to reject accepted social paradigms, reflects the demands made by the …

Queer Neo-Mexicanism: Negotiating Mexican And Gay Identities In The Art Of Nahum B. Zenil And Julio Galán, Nicholas Derda

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

The Mexican artists Nahum B. Zenil and Julio Galán have become the poster children for being gay and Mexican in contemporary art criticism. Critics have drawn comparisons between Zenil and Galán because of their thematic treatment of gay sexuality and Mexican nationalism. These comparisons, however, have often assumed that Zenil and Galán are representing a monolithic gay sexuality that is unaffected by their social class, their relationships to nationalism and Catholicism, and their views on the role of art in social activism. This paper aims to analyze specifically how Zenil and Galán represent two distinct gay identities, all the while …

Fairy Tales Redux: Jon Scieszka’S Revitalization Of A Genre For The 21st Century Kid, Laura Nicosia, James Nicosia

Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Post-War Europe: The Waste Land As A Metaphor, Semy Rhee

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes the mindset of twentieth-century Europe through the perspective of a modern individual that T. S. Eliot creates in his poem The Waste Land. Although The Waste Land is the greatest modernist poem, it is often criticized for its esoteric nature. A thorough examination of the poem is useful in understanding and appreciating Eliot’s masterful demonstration of the modernist philosophy. This study analyzes the poem in light of the definition of modernism and the poem’s metaphorical nature. It also aims to reconcile the two most confusing elements of the poem—its allusive content and fragmented structure—to the design …

Book Review - The Peach Keeper, Miriam Veale

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu's Research, Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu

Research Day (Arts & Humanities, FIMS, and Education)

No abstract provided.

From Galway To Soho, Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

Articles

This is a food related recitation / poem / ballad that was learned from my father and now back in the oral tradition thanks to a my recital of it at the special food poetry and song evening at the 2012 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Fuego Y Paz En Napsena, Suzanne Christine Heller

World Languages and Cultures

No abstract provided.

When Wishes Are Horses: My Life And The Poetry Of De La Tierra And Lorde Through A Kaleidoscopic Lens, Racquel Goodison

SPECS journal of art and culture

No abstract provided.

Zero Metaphor: How The Kaleidoscopic Point Escapes The Tautology Of Metaphor, Shathley Q

SPECS journal of art and culture

No abstract provided.

Once Upon A Time At The Kiev, David Hicks

SPECS journal of art and culture

No abstract provided.

Tyrannosaurus, Willie Davis

SPECS journal of art and culture

No abstract provided.