Reading and Language Commons^™

Buried In Plain Sight: Unearthing Willa Cather’S Allusion To Thomas William Parsons’S “The Sculptor’S Funeral”, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In January 1905, Willa Cather’s story “The Sculptor’s Funeral” appeared in McClure’s Magazine and shortly thereafter in her first book of fiction, The Troll Garden, a collection of stories about art and artists. In the story, the body of sculptor Harvey Merrick arrives in his hometown of Sand City, Kansas, on a train from Boston, accompanied by his friend and former student, Henry Steavens. Cather criticism has long been concerned with identifying real-world prototypes for characters and situations in her fiction, and two such prototypes have been unearthed for “The Sculptor’s Funeral.” First, the return by train of the …

The Transatlantic Village: The Rise And Fall Of The Epistolary Friendship Of Catharine Maria Sedgwick And Mary Russell Mitford, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In June 1830, the American novelist and short-story writer Catharine Maria Sedgwick used the imminent London publication of her novel Clarence as a pretext for initiating a correspondence with the British author Mary Russell Mitford. In her first letter to Mitford, Sedgwick addressed her as “My dear Miss Mitford,” a violation of epistolary decorum in a letter to someone to whom she had not been introduced (FOMRM, 155).¹ As Sedgwick protested, however, “I cannot employ the formal address of a stranger towards one who has inspired the vivid feeling of intimate acquaintance, a deep and affectionate interest in …

Courtly Connections: Anthony Sherley’S Relation Of His Travels (1613) In A Global Context, Kaya Sahin, Julia Schleck

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This article revisits Anthony Sherley’s Relation of his travels into Persia (1613), reading the text within the larger context of early modern Eurasia. It highlights the ways in which at least one European traveler sought and found not alterity, but commensurable structures, social roles, political ideologies, and personal motivations in the Islamic polities to the east and emphasized these connections to his European readers. Furthermore, in making the case that Sherley’s narrative is informed by local actors in Safavid Persia, it maintains that a certain level of Eastern knowledge is present within Western texts from this period and awaits scholarly …

Networking With Middleton And Jonson: Theater, Law, And Social Documents, Kelly Stage

Department of English: Faculty Publications

In the lines above, the lawyer Tangle seems to be listing the tools of his trade, various legal documents he uses regularly. However, the list names more than just documents; it also labels the stream of blood trickling out of Tangle’s arm as he is forced into a purgative healing. Quieto, a lawyer-cum-healer, prescribes a bloodletting because Tangle’s long association with ink has infected him and the only way to cure him of poisonous legal practice is to drain him. Quieto confirms his diagnosis with the protagonist, Phoenix, who looks into the basin catching the blood and exclaims “This, why …

Courtly Connections: Anthony Sherley’S Relation Of His Trauels (1613) In A Global Context, Julia Schleck, Kaya Sahin

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Despite various attempts by literary theorists and historians to find more integrative ways of studying early modern societies and cultures, fairly essentialist notions of the difference between Europe and the rest of the world continue to persist in scholarship. The assumption of fundamental differences then leads to a search for sundry misperceptions, misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, and other skewed representations in early modern texts, particularly in those produced by European travelers. Similarly, studies on cultural, ideological, religious, and intellectual exchanges have not always been able to transcend approaches that solely focus on encounters, a word that sometimes implies haphazard meetings and difficult …

Magic At The Crossroads: The Rise Of The Video Essay, Morganne Tinsley August

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the birth, rise in popularity, and evolution of the video essay, a subgenre of the essay found recently in online literary journals. Chapter one provides a brief history of the alphabetic essay as it expands to include photo essays, audio essays, and essay-films. The second chapter outlines the history of the online literary journal and John Bresland’s role in the introduction of the video essay as it appears in online journals. Chapter three contains an examination of the way image, text, and sound function in video essays and the tools and strategies essayists are using to create …

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 …

Ethics Of Counter Narrative In Delillo’S Falling Man, Qingji He

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ethics of Counter-Narrative in DeLillo's Falling Man" Qingji He analyzes Don DeLillo's counter-narrative in his post-9/11 novel Falling Man. The objective is to show how ethical dimensions function fundamentally in formulating an appropriate counter-narrative and why DeLillo's counter-narrative echoes views expressed in his "In the Ruins of the Future." He argues that DeLillo's counter-narrative entails the necessity of ethical consciousness and responsibility. It is Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings instead of media representation that become pivotal in Lianne's transformative and redemptive process after the terrorist attack. Similarly, David Janiak's performance art and Richard Drew's picture …

Characters Through Time, Alyssa Venezia

Honors Thesis

T. S. Eliot once wrote that we “often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of [an author’s] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously” (Eliot 37). By focusing on character adaptations, one comes to understand how authors of children’s books are able to adapt classic literature into age-appropriate texts that retain the merits of the original. Five sets of characters shall be analyzed to demonstrate the success of the adaptations presented in children’s literature. In the first, Sir Bedivere from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur …

African American Masculinity In The Wartime Diaries Of Two Vietnam Soldiers, Sharon D. Raynor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "African American Masculinity in the Wartime Diaries of Two Vietnam Soldiers" Sharon D. Raynor discusses an unpublished diary (1967-68) written by her father, Louis Raynor with the diary (1965-66) of David Parks that was revised and published as a memoir. By contextualizing the traditions of African American autographical writing and wartime diaries, Raynor analyzes how African American masculinity permeates the autobiographical structure in the Raynor and Parks diaries as each soldier interweaves a collective experience with a unique personal experience in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam experience challenged their ideologies about racial politics, but affirmed their masculine …

Taking My Parents To College, Jennine Capó Crucet

Department of English: Faculty Publications

I was a first-generation college student as well as the first in our family to be born in America — my parents were born in Cuba — and we didn’t yet know that families were supposed to leave pretty much right after they unloaded your stuff from the car. We all made the trip from Miami, my hometown, to what would be my new home at Cornell University. Shortly after arriving on campus, the five of us — my parents, my younger sister, my abuela and me — found ourselves listening to a dean end his welcome speech with the …

"So Vexed Me The Þouȝtful Maladie": Public Presentation Of The Private Self In Hoccleve's My Compleinte And The Conpleynte Paramont, Lauren M. Silverio

Honors Scholar Theses

The scholarship surrounding the life and work of Thomas Hoccleve is relatively young and lean compared to the tomes of knowledge that have been circulated about the slightly older and vastly more popular Geoffrey Chaucer. Up until the second half of the 20th century, Hoccleve came through history with the unfortunate moniker of the "lesser Chaucer." What this insult neglects, however, is that Hoccleve was more than just a lowly clerk who spent his days admiring and emulating the so-called Father of English Literature. Thomas Hoccleve deserves recognition for conceiving and creating works that are impressive both in their form …

"Keep Funding Or Else... It's Mustaches": Building A Community Of Literacy At Owl Creek, Ian Whitlow

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following research report on literacy practices presents an analysis of the data collected over the course of four months at Owl Creek middle school in Northwest Arkansas. Following a qualitative research protocol, I interacted with middle school students who participated in the Razorback Writers after-school literacy outreach program sponsored by the University of Arkansas. This report details the two major literacy practices encouraged in this after school program - the collective read-aloud sessions focusing on the graphic novel I Kill Giants, and the students' creation of their own graphic novels, which were developed in group workshops. In the following …

Lost In Translation? Found In Translation? Neither? Both?, Esther Allen, Mary Ann Caws, Peter Constantine, Edith Grossman, Nancy Kline, Burton Pike, Damion Searls, Karen Van Dyck, Alyson Waters, Roger Celestin, Charles Lebel

The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal

Translation specialists Esther Allen, Mary Ann Caws, Peter Constantine, Edith Grossman, Nancy Kline, Burton Pike, Damion Searls, Karen Van Dyck and Alyson Waters respond to the TQC question:

“Lost in translation”; “Found in translation”: Are these just useless commonplaces or are they indicative of something relevant to your own practice?

Ivy Leaves, Volume 90, Ivy Leaves Editorial Staff

Ivy Leaves

The 2015 edition of the Anderson University journal of art and literature, Ivy Leaves.

The names of the known editors for this issue of Ivy Leaves were Jonathan Kurtz, Charlotte Stapp, Callie Renfrow, Courtney Couch, Angel Hisnanick, Taylor Kaiser, Yvonne Didway, Noelle Hisnanick, Taylor Henry, Mitchell Dallas Herring, Rebekah Rhoden, Logan Hickey, Josie Maszk, Julia Madden, Kenneth Keller, Alex Dib, Micah Peek, Benjamin Mahaffey, Justin Parker, Teresa Jones, and Tim Speaker.

Notes On How To Rework A Ph.D. Dissertation For Publication As A Book, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Willa Cather, Sarah Orne Jewett, And The Historiography Of Lesbian Sexuality, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Since the publication of Surpassing the Love of Men in 1981 and Sharon O'Brien's biography Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice in 1987, Cather's fiction has been subjected to scores of queer readings. These readings are, in many respects, premised on a very different understanding of gender, sexuality, and identity than Faderman and O'Brien deploy in their biographical identifications of Cather as a lesbian. Nevertheless, these queer readings rest upon a biographical foundation, and in particular upon an understanding of Cather as secretive, private, and afflicted with shame. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, in an influential reading of The Professor's House that inspired …

American Novelist Catharine Sedgwick Negotiates British Copyright, 1822–57, Melissa J. Homestead

Department of English: Faculty Publications

American novelist Catharine Maria Sedgwick had an unusually long career and her books were reprinted in Britain in a variety of circumstances and formats. Both her first novel, A New-England Tale (1822), and her last, Married or Single? (1857), appeared in London editions arranged by her or her American publishers, as did many of her books in between (including travel, children’s and conduct books). However, her works also appeared in unauthorized reprints. Sedgwick thus makes an interesting case study of how law and custom regulated the reprinting of American literary texts in Great Britain after 1820. Focusing on the British …

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Cumulative Index Of Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture (1999-), Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Pullinger's And Joseph's Inanimate Alice And Intercultural Engagement, Ana Abril

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Pullinger's and Joseph's Inanimate Alice and Intercultural Engagement" Ana Abril analyzes Kate Pullinger's and Chris Joseph's digital graphic novel and game. Inanimate Alice offers a model for online education environments and has been widely acclaimed. However, Abril's ana-lysis suggests possible ways for improving the empathic and educational potential of the novel/game for interpersonal and intercultural benefit. Abril bases her analysis on the theories of human interpersonal communication and then applies these findings to Inanimate Alice and suggests improvement so that participants would be able to decide if they want to play from the viewpoint of their own …

New Challenges For The Archiving Of Digital Writing, Heiko Zimmermann

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "New Challenges for the Archiving of Digital Writing" Heiko Zimmermann discusses the challenges of the preservation of digital texts. In addition to the problems already at the focus of attention of digital archivists, there are elements in digital literature which need to be taken into consideration when trying to archive them. Zimmermann analyses two works of digital literature, the collaborative writing project A Million Penguins (2006-2007) and Renée Tuner's She… (2008) and shows how the ontology of these texts is bound to elements of performance, to direct social interaction of writers and readers to the uniquely subjective …

Intermedial Strategies Of Memory In Contemporary Novels, Sara Tanderup

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Intermedial Strategies and Memory in Contemporary Novels" Sara Tanderup discusses a tendency in contemporary literature towards combining intermedial experiments with a thematic preoccupation with memory and trauma. Analyzing selected works by Steven Hall, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Judd Morrissey and drawing on the theoretical perspectives of N. Katherine Hayles (media studies) and Andreas Huyssen (cultural memory studies), Tanderup argues that recent intermedial novels reflect a certain nostalgia celebrating and remembering the book as a visual and material object in the age of digital media while also highlighting the influence of new media on our cultural understanding and …

Libyan Graduate Students Encounter English-Writing Difficulties While Attending U.S. Universities, Abdelsalam A. Mustafa El Raggas

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the writing difficulties that Libyan graduate students encounter while attending universities in the United States. Libyan graduate students have difficulties in writing effective paragraphs and essays. Most of their academic writing tasks have numerous grammatical errors and their writing style appears elementary-like. The main purpose of this study was to diagnose writing issues such as grammar, unity, style, diction, and language interference that the students encounter and find solutions for existing problems. A mixed-methods approach was employed in this study. One hundred Libyan graduate students studying at U.S. universities were sought as participants. Data were collected by …

Effective Literacy Instruction Across The Curriculum At The Secondary Level In Indiana, Paul Michael White

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover school- teacher- and student-level factors that describe effective literacy instruction at the secondary level of high-performing schools. A sub-question of the study focused on whether high-performing schools practiced “literacy across the curriculum.” National data suggest only about one-third of secondary-level students in the United States read at a proficient level. A recent trend to improve secondary-level student literacy has been to emphasize literacy development in all content areas. A mixed-method approach was used for this study. A linear regression was executed for all middle and high schools in Indiana for spring 2011, …

“The Other One”: An Unpublished Chapter Of Sarah Orne Jewett’S The Country Of The Pointed Firs, Melissa J. Homestead, Terry Heller

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) has long been central to literary critical debates about the nature and character of American literary regionalism. In the early 1990s, some New Historicist critics aligned the emergence of the literary movement with the rise of tourism as two means by which urban elites defined themselves as a socially and racially privileged class in the postwar nation. In an influential analysis of the mutually reinforcing development of the literary marketplace and class and cultural hierarchies, Richard Brodhead describes regionalism in Cultures of Letters (1993) as evidencing “an elite need for …

Teaching Attentive Reading And Motivated Writing Through Digital Editing, Amanda A. Gailey

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Though English departments, including my own at the University of Nebraska, have been teaching digital humanities (DH) courses for over a decade, hyperbolic claims about the perils and promises of using computers in the study of literature continue to appear in the press. A piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books likens the algorithms used by some digital humanities methods to fascism (Marche). Another, in The Huffington Post, compares the rise of digital humanities to “our uncritical acceptance of drone attacks” (Mohamed). On the other hand, digital humanists such as Franco Moretti, who famously promote “distant reading” as opposed …

Statistical Literacy Among Applied Linguists And Second Language Acquisition Researchers, Shawn Loewen, Elizabeth Lavolette, Le Anne Spino, Mostafa Papi, Jens Schmidtke, Scott Sterling, Dominik Wolff

Language Resource Center

The importance of statistical knowledge in applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) research has been emphasized in recent publications. However, the last investigation of the statistical literacy of applied linguists occurred more than 25 years ago (Lazaraton, Riggenbach, & Ediger, 1987). The current study undertook a partial replication of this older work by investigating (a) applied linguists’ general experiences with statistics, (b) underlying factors that constitute applied linguists’ knowledge about and attitudes toward statistics, and (c) variables that predict attitudes toward statistics and statistical self-efficacy. Three hundred thirty-one scholars of applied linguistics and SLA completed a questionnaire. Eighty percent …