Round Table on Diversity and Teaching Medieval Studies sponsored by Graduate Student Council. Session title: “Tearing Down Walls, Building Bridges:
Medieval Diversity and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Syllabus Design and Teaching.” This paper is about two courses that illustrate the principle “Diversity in Every Course Title” and several…[Read more]

Round Table on Diversity and Teaching Medieval Studies sponsored by Graduate Student Council. Session title: “Tearing Down Walls, Building Bridges:
Medieval Diversity and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Syllabus Design and Teaching.” This paper is about two courses that illustrate the principle “Diversity in Every Course Title” and several…[Read more]

I employ distant reading techniques and data visualization tools to assess the literary criticism of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. My findings suggest that the scholarly literary criticism of Things Fall Apart did not occur independently with the publication of Achebe’s work in 1958, but was a part of a larger trend in literary criticism a…[Read more]

The interdisciplinary study of indigenous literature and politics is fertile ground for inquiry into understanding how each discipline can inform the work of researchers, practitioners, and students within the humanities and social sciences. Yeremei Aipin’s “And So Dies My Clan” (2010) offers an opportunity to explore the intersection of p…[Read more]

This paper examines textiles as an indicator of social class in the sentimental novels of the American long 1850s. Publications such as Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830) and Lady’s World of Fashion (1842) are credited with creating the ties between social status and textile quality. Yet, domestic novels of the long 1850s such as The Discarded Daugh…[Read more]

This paper examines textiles as an indicator of social class in the sentimental novels of the American long 1850s. Publications such as Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830) and Lady’s World of Fashion (1842) are credited with creating the ties between social status and textile quality. Yet, domestic novels of the long 1850s such as The Discarded Daugh…[Read more]

This handout serves as a guide for student peer-reviewers to provide useful feedback to the writer. The open-ended questions walk the reviewer through the rhetorical analysis essay and provide a structure for evaluating the thesis, organization, rhetorical strategies, and use of pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos in the paper. The Rhetorical…[Read more]

This handout serves as a guide for student peer-reviewers to provide useful feedback to the writer. The open-ended questions walk the reviewer through the rhetorical analysis essay and provide a structure for evaluating the thesis, organization, rhetorical strategies, and use of pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos in the paper. The Rhetorical…[Read more]

This handout serves as a guide for student peer-reviewers to provide useful feedback to the writer. The open-ended questions walk the reviewer through the rhetorical analysis essay and provide a structure for evaluating the thesis, organization, rhetorical strategies, and use of pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos in the paper. The Rhetorical…[Read more]

A detailed description of an innovative, but short-lived, graduate training program for two-year college faculty that began in 1975 at Carnegie Mellon University may offer possibilities for new programs that can benefit both two-year colleges and universities.

PDF of slides for a panel presentation on Jane-Austen and Regency-themed video games.

This paper will begin by looking at the historical theoretical relationship between science fiction and dystopia. It will then proceed to demonstrate how recent theorists have failed to adequately incorporate the practical changes authors have introduced to the genre, which includes the incorporation of aspects of magical realism. Brown Girl in…[Read more]

When all men are either dead, exiled, thugs or zombies in a world ruled through violence and terror by a President-for-Life and his son, how is a young boy expected to come of age and forge his own identity? Le Goût des Jeunes Filles (On the Verge of Fever), a 2004 film about Fanfan, a 15-year-old boy, set in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the same…[Read more]

This essay examines the uneasy relationship that Arturo Islas’s The Rain God has had with narratives of identity, focusing on how the representation of Felix’s sexuality makes him a problematic figure for certain strains of Chicana/o and queer studies. In other writings, Islas criticizes Quinto Sol, the chief publishing house of Chicano literature…[Read more]

This handout explains in clear and simple terms what a strong thesis statement should–and should not be. Examples of the four main types of ‘weak’ thesis statements are given, along with four corresponding ‘strong’ thesis statements. I have successfully used this handout in workshopping students’ thesis ideas.

This handout explains in clear and simple terms what a strong thesis statement should–and should not be. Examples of the four main types of ‘weak’ thesis statements are given, along with four corresponding ‘strong’ thesis statements. I have successfully used this handout in workshopping students’ thesis ideas.

Introduction to the edited volume Bridges, Borders, and Breaks: History, Narrative, and Nation in Twenty-First-Century Chicana/o Literary Criticism.