The argument in this essay is that Dickinson’s poetics of inner life makes us see anew the long-standing philosophical problem of expression. Dickinson’s poetry invests itself in an understanding of subjectivity that rearranges the anchors we often turn to in thinking about how lives and identities take on shape in expressive forms. Poetry for…[Read more]

Libertarias (1996) and Land and Freedom (1995) explore the complex situation
of women militia during the Spanish Civil War. A queer reading of the female
body in these films highlights wartime female masculinity (Halberstam) and
female solidarity. In renegotiating worn expectations of sexuality and gender,
the films question and ultimately…[Read more]

Abstract: Feminist perspectives have strongly influenced the fairy-tale rewritings of the past decades, but the intersection of gender with other identity markers deserves more attention. This article applies the conclusions of Sylvia Henneberg’s critical examination of age and gender in fairy tales to Gillian Cross’s Wolf (1990),
an awa…[Read more]

A distinctive style of “Scottish Gothic’”emerged, after 1815, in fiction by Walter Scott, James Hogg, and fellow members of the Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine circle. This chapter introduces this corpus of Scottish Gothic literature, specifies some ways in which the uncanny entailments of Scottish Gothic relate to religious discourse (very muc…[Read more]

Compared to the large body of research into gender, race and class in children’s literature, there has been little awareness of the social construction of age in this discourse. Analysing age in contemporary fiction for young readers gives insight in how present-day society models (people of) different ages, and given the decisive role that b…[Read more]

In the field of children’s literature studies much attention has been devoted to analysing differences between children’s and adult literature. Works by crosswriters, authors who write for both readerships in different works, are an excellent source for this research. This article adds to the debate by building upon previous studies which have use…[Read more]

Abstract: In Star Wars Episode I: Racer (1999), players choose between several different podracers (including Anakin Skywalker and Sebulba), and compete in racing tournaments on several planets. While the game currently holds the Guinness record as the best-selling sci-fi racing game of all time and was re-released for Nintendo Switch in 2020,…[Read more]

Over the past year, artists, doctors, medical professionals, and international agencies such as the World Health Organisation have been using comics to communicate the risks of the SARS-CoV2 virus. The visual economy and a near-universal language of lines, balloons, and panels in comics makes them well suited to disseminate epidemic-related…[Read more]

In this paper, in a panel co-sponsored by the MLA Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession and the Council of Editors of Learned Journals, I summarize some of the structural and practical problems that challenge contingent scholars when they try to publish their work in scholarly journals. I share the record of the online, multimedia,…[Read more]

Graduate seminar syllabus: In this seminar, we will explore the contemporary comic, considering literary and cultural works across a range of platforms and markets. Comics are still frequently (and historically) associated with popular culture, and linked to children’s literature and mass media, even as they loom large through big and small screen…[Read more]

This is a two-part publication that contains a facsimile of the original story “Vísceras de la ciudad” by Rosa Arciniega (including an introduction) and a 7,500-word academic critical analysis of the story. Of interest to specialists in urban literature, women’s literature, social literature, and popular culture.

*Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies,* Edited by Cristina León Alfar and Emily G. Sherwood, Routledge 2021, The Early Modern Englishwoman, 1500-1750: Contemporary Editions. “Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne tells the story of Mistress Bourne’s petition for divorce, its resolution, and her ongoing di…[Read more]