The recent popularity of the film version of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has renewed interest in this widely read work set in the realm of Middle-earth. A careful study of Tolkien’s work can be used to raise several philosophical questions, particularly in the area of ethics. This course will examine such questions, also considering topics fro…[Read more]

The recent popularity of the film version of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has renewed interest in this widely read work set in the realm of Middle-earth. A careful study of Tolkien’s work can be used to raise several philosophical questions, particularly in the area of ethics. This course will examine such questions, also considering topics fro…[Read more]

This class asks what sex looked and felt like before the instantiation of modern identity categories such as homosexuality or heterosexuality—before, that is, our desires became an index to our souls. To this end, we’ll examine texts by nineteenth-century American writers that represent the experiences and expressions of what we now call sex…[Read more]

This essay recovers, describes, and analyzes the theatrical tradition emerging from New Orleans’s free people of color during the antebellum period. I will start out by tracing the presence of free people of color in the francophone theatres of New Orleans, teasing out their impact on the early formations of a francophone theatrical culture in the…[Read more]

On January 1, 1824, the English-speaking population of New Orleans celebrated the grand opening of the American Theatre, lauding
the advent of “Bards our own” and the rise of “our Drama” in the Crescent City (qtd. in Smither 41). For the city’s francophone residents, this event marked a new stage in the ongoing battle for cultural survival.…[Read more]

Moving from France to the Caribbean to the American continent, Creole Drama follows the people that created, shaped, and sustained French theatre culture in New Orleans from its inception in 1792 until the beginning of the Civil War. In doing so, it draws upon the neglected archive of francophone drama native to Louisiana, as well as a range of…[Read more]

This essay brings together two texts, a letter to the editor written in experimental prose by the Black avant-garde Beat poet, Bob Kaufman, and “The Unlocking,” a spoken-word poem written and performed by Ursula Rucker that appears at the end of The Roots’ critically acclaimed rap album, Do You Want More??!?. By using the aural to disrupt expec…[Read more]

Pages from a local East Chicago, IN, publication commemorating the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre at South Chicago’s Republic Steel. Lupe Gallardo Marshall (Mexican immigrant social worker at Hull House) gave this testimony to the La Follette Committee of Congress investigating the events of that day, May 30, 1937.

I am thinking about writing a…[Read more]

This essay uses the image-based work of Emirati cartoonist Khaled Al Jabri to address concerns of technological dependence to reconsider our use of screens. The production of electronic literature requires technologies responsible for undeniable hazards unique to today’s information and gadget age. As represented in Al Jabri’s graphic art, these…[Read more]

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 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.

The article analyses the relationship between body, mind and soul in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767). Starting from a famous “sartorial” metaphor, in the third book of the novel, according to which the body-mind relationship is akin to that of a jerkin and its lining, the article deals with the m…[Read more]

The article analyses the relationship between body, mind and soul in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767). Starting from a famous “sartorial” metaphor, in the third book of the novel, according to which the body-mind relationship is akin to that of a jerkin and its lining, the article deals with the m…[Read more]

The article analyses the relationship between body, mind and soul in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767). Starting from a famous “sartorial” metaphor, in the third book of the novel, according to which the body-mind relationship is akin to that of a jerkin and its lining, the article deals with the m…[Read more]

“Passions, Emotions and Cognition in the Long Eighteenth-Century Literature in England”
4th issue of journal “English Literature: Theories, Interpretations, Contexts” (Flavio Gregori, ed.).

Contents:
Michael McKeon: “Aesthetic Cognition: Feeling the Emotions of Others”;
Margaret A. Doody: “The Actor, the Mirror, the Soul and the Sylph “…[Read more]

“Passions, Emotions and Cognition in the Long Eighteenth-Century Literature in England”
4th issue of journal “English Literature: Theories, Interpretations, Contexts” (Flavio Gregori, ed.).

Contents:
Michael McKeon: “Aesthetic Cognition: Feeling the Emotions of Others”;
Margaret A. Doody: “The Actor, the Mirror, the Soul and the Sylph “…[Read more]

“Passions, Emotions and Cognition in the Long Eighteenth-Century Literature in England”
4th issue of journal “English Literature: Theories, Interpretations, Contexts” (Flavio Gregori, ed.).

Contents:
Michael McKeon: “Aesthetic Cognition: Feeling the Emotions of Others”;
Margaret A. Doody: “The Actor, the Mirror, the Soul and the Sylph “…[Read more]

“English Literature. Theories, Interpretations, Contexts” is a journal started in 2014 and run by an independent board of scholars in English literature, providing room for a critical analysis of issues and themes concerning English literature and literatures in English, also in a comparative view. It is published by Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, Venice…[Read more]