For at least the last twenty years, scholarly attention has been drawn to the numerous depictions of cancer in comic books as well as oncology’s use of the comics medium (Rhode and Connor, 2012). However, little in the way of comprehensive analysis has been attempted, especially in terms of the various genres addressed. In this presentation, a ca…[Read more]

A brief piece on what I call “diagnosis deafness.” In short, to depict the sudden disorientation and shock of being diagnosed with cancer, comics artists frequently employ a visual rhetoric usually reserved for instances of deafness. At least momentarily – during an immensely significant moment in the life of the character – words fail, dev…[Read more]

This essay takes a long view of Wright’s work, arguing that his racial consciousness always extended beyond national boundaries and was forged from a globalist perspective. This outlook is not, as some critics have maintained, a late-stage development in Wright’s career, but rather the predominant theme that unites his oeuvre with a single con…[Read more]

Black artists have created, modified, or otherwise treated the book as an object of aesthetic expression since at least the nineteenth century. African American artists’ production and circulation of friendship albums and scrapbooks, democratic multiples and artist publishing, accordion folds, enclosures, and fine printing editions, all work to…[Read more]

How will immersive virtual reality (VR) cognitively affect the audiences who interface with it to interpret Shakespeare performances? Current theories of performance and cognition are based on theatre and film audiences, but VR performances combine features of both media: a disembodied spectral presence, like a theatrical audience; and a flexible…[Read more]

This is a syllabus for Renata Kobetts Miller’s capstone research course on Melodrama at the City College of New York in Spring 2019. It is built on the Cambridge Companion to English Melodrama, edited by Carolyn Williams (2018). The syllabus includes the final assignment sequence for scaffolded research.

Abstracts for the panel “Graphic Atwood” proposed by the Margaret Atwood Society for the 2020 MLA Convention.

This essay argues that feminists can productively use theories of intermediality to consider postmodern representations of Shakespeare’s Ophelia fabricated by women (or by creators self-identified as female, in the case of online avatars), in order to explore the following questions: under what circumstances might we imagine femininity as…[Read more]

Routledge is doing a series of literature companions. I have been requested to build a proposal for a Literature and Social Class companion text. You are most welcome to pass on this CFP to colleagues. Please see details in attached file. Questions?
Many thanks,
Gloria McMillan, Editor
Email for ideas, communications, and drafts
glomc@dakotacom.net

Explores Maureen Folan, in Martin McDonagh’s “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” as a psychological borderline, someone who is afraid to achieve a man she can have a relationship with, and so defaults to using him as simply another object she can use in warfare against a mother she is only yet capable of playing at being able to leave behind her.

Explores how Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” encourages, more than identification with, but an impressing oneself within “the kid,” and makes all of his adventures with Glanton and his outriders a ride we thrill at, even if at times very much secretly — as with the slaughter of the indigenous camp. Glanton is a phallic “hero” for us; it is the…[Read more]

Explores how Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” encourages, more than identification with, but an impressing oneself within “the kid,” and makes all of his adventures with Glanton and his outriders a ride we thrill at, even if at times very much secretly — as with the slaughter of the indigenous camp. Glanton is a phallic “hero” for us; it is the…[Read more]

Compares Evelina, from Frances Burney’s “Evelina,” and Werther, from Goethe’s “Young Werther.” Argues that though they could readily be made to seem opposite to one another, as they seek company with such disparate groups of people, the difference is superficial, and their motivations, the same — namely, to make use of their associations with…[Read more]