Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Events & Activities

2013 Festival of Scholars

English Capstone Presentations

Date: Wednesday, April 25
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Roth Nelson Room

Description:

Senior English majors present and discuss the culmination of their creative and scholarly work.

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Student Abstracts at this Session

Student(s):
Latrice Bennett

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
Defamiliarizing the Slave Narrative: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as Allegory
This project interprets Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an allegory of slave narratives by paralleling it to Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. I demonstrate the allegory by examining language and other correlations within each text’s world of oppression. I also use defamiliarization theory to help recreate and intensify the slave experience for the reader. In Art as a Device (1917), Viktor Shklovskij theorizes that art makes things ‘unfamiliar’ in order to make them more meaningful. Readers, Shklovskij maintains, gain a deeper understanding of an object that has been defamiliarized, or torn away “from its habitual recognition.” By defamiliarizing Frederick Douglass’s novel within the context of the Frankenstein narrative, I deepen and stretch the reader’s recognition of and insight into the realities of oppression.
Student(s):
Ian Freeman

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
The Hogwarts’ System: Defamiliarization and Gamification as Pedagogical Techniques
In her Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling has, probably unintentionally, illustrated the benefits of using defamiliarization and gamification techniques to promote student learning. Theorized by Victor Shklovsky in 1917, defamiliarization describes the process of presenting a subject to an audience in an unfamiliar context for the purpose of stimulating interest in and deepening understanding of that subject. Gamification is defined by Daniel Floyd as the application of “the principles of play . . . to make real world activities more engaging.” Selected examples from the Rowling texts show how integrating defamiliarization and gamification into pedagogy can engage students and prompt them to self-educate. Such examples can perhaps also encourage real life educators to experiment with these techniques.
Student(s):
Andrew Holding

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
The Language of Sound as a Tool for Literary Analysis
It can seem as if the sound poetry of E.E. Cummings and Hugo Ball contradicts 'accepted' poetic or linguistic conventions in order to present readers with more complex routes to meaning. I argue that these poets aim rather to facilitate and enhance meaning by using irregular grammatical conventions and preferencing words based solely on their phonetic qualities. In this way, the poets operate very much within, and are exploiting, the universal structures inherent in the phonetics of language. Because humans have an innate capacity to understand these structures of sound as meaningful, such poetic communication resonates with readers. In demonstrating how the intrinsic human response to the communicative power of sound deepens the interpretation of sound poetry, I am also suggesting that this method can be applied to other literatures as well.
Student(s):
Marina Issakhani

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
The First Organized Christian Community: A Conversion Story
As a Christian Assyrian, I wanted to discover how and why the Assyrian culture had effected its radical change from Polytheism to Christianity. Lord Byron’s poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” based on passages in 2 Kings, underscores the militaristic identity of the Assyrians, but does not describe their religious zeal. This zeal was reflected in their worship of Ashur. The Assyrian repentance at Nineveh (c. 760 B.C.E.), had demonstrated their changing attitudes toward the God of Israel. But that repentance was short-lived. It was not until the Apostle Thomas began proselytizing in Edessa (1st century C.E) that the attitude of the Assyrians toward the God of Israel gradually stabilized. Despite the early Assyrian regard for Yahweh’s military supremacy, it was only the Christian gospel of love that ultimately converted them to a belief in the God of Israel, a conversion that marks them as the oldest of all Christian cultures.
Student(s):
Elizabeth Luizzi

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
Selected Sociological Theories As a Framework for Literary Analysis
Applying social norm theory, Foucault’s panopticon, Epstein’s premise on normative computation, Potter’s theories of conscious states, and general strain theory to literature can reveal the social influences that are present in a range of literary texts. I demonstrate this application in several genres: poetry, the short story, drama, and the novel. As seen in each of these examples, literature is a microcosm of our world. The methods of application of the aforementioned macro-level theories to real-life issues can also be exercised as a way of analyzing the fictional, smaller societies in literary works. Superimposing this framework of norm-related theories on literature, therefore, provides a useful means of interpreting its texts.
Student(s):
Alexandra McBride

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
What About Me? The Lack of Diversity in Children’s Literature
Most children’s picture books about U.S. families portray only traditional American families. My research indicates that this lack of diversity can be detrimental to children of non-nuclear families, affecting their self-esteem by making it difficult for them to identify with others. The goal of my project is to bring to light, and to analyze why, there are so few children’s books about diverse American families--despite the ever-increasing numbers of non-nuclear families in the U.S. today. I compare, critique, and co-relate various studies on child development with picture books that depict families with homosexual parents. These books don’t sell well, perhaps because they seem negative and lack authenticity. My findings convinced me that considering the implicit benefits to our children’s sense of self-worth, publishers need to more aggressively promote and produce positive and authentic literature for children of non-nuclear families.
Student(s):
Joseph McGriff

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
The Pen and the Leg Brace: Literature as Another Support for Children with Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral palsy is a disability often discovered during early childhood. Although literature can be a powerful tool for informing children with CP about their disorder, the texts that are currently available are directed more towards adults than towards the children themselves. The few CP texts that do exist make an honorable effort to present the main issues with CP, but overall, are flawed and unrefined. To address the need for a literature that is directed at and that sympathizes with children who have Cerebral Palsy, I am creating a children's text that deals more specifically with the realities of this disorder. Its narrative is neither too sympathetic nor too indifferent, but rather an exciting story that will inform and inspire not only children who have CP, but their families and the misinformed public as well.
Student(s):
Tabitha Neatherlin

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
Using Stream of Consciousness to Explore Animal Cognition
This project addresses ethical issues that arise in relation to factory farms because of the misrepresentation of the nature of animal consciousness. After examining selected writing techniques and cognitive frames, I have written a short story that attempts to accurately portray animal cognition. “Cooped Up” divulges the mental and physical struggles of a chicken on a factory farm. I chose to use stream of consciousness instead of the more traditional but more limited personification technique found in many animal tales. This choice provides a means to look at animal behavior from a less symbolic, more realistic, perspective. Furthermore, the use of stream of consciousness prevents the application of preconceived cognitive frames regarding animals and factory farms. This combination allows the reader to engage with the character without overlooking or misrepresenting its identity.
Student(s):
Ashley Prosser

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
The Trash Island Dilemma: Creativity, Awareness and Change
After a study abroad trip to South Africa I became aware that vast amounts of trash are polluting certain regions of this earth. I was shocked to learn that there are no laws that directly regulate the “marine trash islands.” Scientific texts meant to inform people about the trash islands are often neglected because they lack emotional appeal. Creative texts, especially children’s books, do a better job of stimulating emotional response and a desire for change. Erin Brockovich models the success of creative appeal in her work with the contemporary and powerful media of film. My project highlights and disseminates information about our need to incorporate, as Brockovich did, such creative elements to foster change in both social awareness and in the laws governing the “marine trash islands.”
Student(s):
Jennifer Rapp

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
Toward a Contemporary Theory of the Imagination
To arrive at a contemporary understanding of the imagination, I reviewed various texts about its role and function: Plato, Plotinus, Hobbes, and Kant; the Romantic poets; Freud, Einstein, and contemporary brain scientists like Marianne Wolfe. Plato both disparaged and praised the human imagination. Romantic poets emphasized the role of the imagination in the creative process. Today, some maintain that the functioning imagination has been weakened with our increased reliance on technology to place images in our minds. Others think the brain has been so altered by technology that certain functions are now barely operative. The definition of contemporary imagination, then, seems to have to include a consideration of a limited, “imprisoned” imagination. The next steps in my research will have to be to examine whether or not a technology-impacted human imagination is capable of fostering the levels of knowledge and creative usefulness referred to by previous thinkers and poets.
Student(s):
Monique Villalobos

Faculty Mentor:
Dr. Joan Wines
Encouraging a More Active Public Response to U.S. Gang Issues by Changing Gang-Related Texts
Despite the proliferation of information about gangs and gang activities in the U.S., the country isn't making much progress in resolving its serious gang-related issues. My research indicates that part of the problem is in the way this information is disseminated. Objective accounts in magazines and newspapers may lack emotional appeal and often don't interest the public. And much of the fiction that attempts to portray street gangs, although it may be emotionally appealing, either understates or exaggerates the realities of gang life. Other media, like film and television, also tend to distort information about gangs. The public doesn't, therefore, fully grasp the seriousness of the country's gang problems. Media accounts of these problems do, however, have the potential to change the public perception about gangs. To realize that potential, objective accounts could incorporate more emotionally appealing material and fictional accounts would strive to be accurate and realistic.
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