Louisa Gradgrind\u27s Imaginative and Emotional Development: Spaces of Solitude in Charles Dickens\u27s HARD TIMES

In this essay, I explore the connection between imagination and images of domestic space as theorized by Gaston Bachelard in order to examine the spaces Louisa Gradgrind inhabits in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. While Louisa’s occupation of space sustains her imagination, it does not provide her with an emotional outlet. Sissy Jupe, a circus girl taken in by the Gradgrinds after her father’s disappearance, inhabits the same spaces as Louisa. Being strongly connected to her emotions, Sissy embodies authentic empathy and love for others. Because her emotions are integrated with her imagination, she is capable of helping Louisa integrate her own emotional and imaginative life. By exploring Louisa’s emotional and imaginative awakening within the spaces she inhabits, I will argue that Dickens provides us, as he also provided Victorian readers, with an example of how openness to empathy and empathetic reading can allow individuals to reintegrate their identity even after living a lifetime of disintegrated interiority

GIT (gender-informed trauma) in black n blue boys / broken men: how concepts of gender restrict the black male actor’s creative process and the methods he can use for creative freedom.

This study examines how the black male actor’s creative process can be affected by historical and cultural constructions of masculinity connected to race, sexuality, and physical movement. My research on black men’s experience with gender identity finds that social and cultural forces lead black men to reproduce behaviors that mirror a prescribed masculine ideal through physical movement. This prescribed masculine behavior is typically coded in terms of stiffness or lack of expression. This study explores how self-imposed restrictions reiterated by social standards of masculine behavior limit the creative freedom in the black male actor’s creative process. Specifically, black male actors’ use of their bodies during the creative process while adhering to socially-prescribed gender norms can cause physical blockages in their acting work. These blockages result from the traumatic experiences of how the black community reinscribes social conceptions of masculinity. This study incorporates my personal experiences and other black men’s testimonies as evidence of such trauma and focuses on the creative limitations faced by black male actors due to limited movement styles available under traditional or heteronormative prescriptions of masculinity. This study offers methods I developed from class readings to map how I moved through these limitations in my rehearsal process for the University of Louisville’s Department of Theatre Arts’ Fall 2020 production of Deal Orlandersmith’s Black N Blue / Boys Broken Men. My acting journal entries and the testimonies of black men support how and why “gender-informed trauma” hinders the black male actor\u27s ability to fully explore his physical range for character development. From this, my thesis develops methods that helped me to overcome the effects of gender-informed trauma, to expand my physical range, and develop unique, fully-embodied characters

Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World

The contributions to this volume address conceptualisations of poverty and precarity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics and investigate the ethics and aesthetic of representing poverty and precarity across the postcolonial world.; Readership: All interested in poverty and precarity studies in literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics, specifically in representations impacting affective and ethical responses to disenfranchised groups and precarious subjects

Health and Wellbeing - The University of Essex Reader

This book brings together chapters written by staff and students at the University of Essex on topics related to Health and Wellbeing. We offer personal and academic perspectives on a number of issues: disability wage gap, mental health, the relationship between physical and mental wellbeing, wellbeing through learning, utopia and human florishing, writing autoethnographically about miscarriage and anorexia, inter-professional working relationships, decision making in mental capacity law, and patient participation

Eh, You Māhū? An Analysis of American Cultural Imperialism in Hawai’i through the Lens of Gender and Sexuality

Eh, You Māhū? An Analysis of American Cultural Imperialism in Hawai’i through the Lens of Gender and Sexuality explores the impact of American settler colonialism on Native Hawaiian culture. This thesis magnifies the gender liminal identity of māhū to understand the intricacies of gender and sexuality as it relates to cultural formation. Broadly, this thesis is a historical analysis of the impact Western colonization has on indigenous cultures. Specifically, this analysis starts from the introduction of haole foreigners to Hawai’i in 1778 and extends to the present-day American occupation of the Hawaiian nation. By analyzing the ways American cultural imperialism is a systemic process rather than a single historical event, this work shows how Hawaiian culture has evolved to accommodate this process over time. This thesis understands why traditional Native Hawaiian culture provided a space for māhūs to be celebrated, while contemporary Hawaiian society has varying degrees of visibility for māhūs

Victorian Novels and Educational Reform: A Study of Dickens, Hughes, and Peacock

This thesis analyzes how Victorian novelists Charles Dickens, Thomas Hughes, and Thomas Love Peacock depict the influences of educational reformers in their three works: Hard Times, Tom Brown’s School Days, and Gryll Grange respectively. Written in an era of rapid sociological and economic change due to the emergence of the middle class and effects of industrialization, these texts illustrate rising conflicts between a new scientific age and a legacy of traditional classical study. As a result of such transformational forces, these three novelists witnessed a shifting regard for the value of the humanities as scientific study became seen as the more “useful” form of learning. This new conceptualization of “useful knowledge” and its repercussions can be seen in the characters and plot trajectories of the three novels examined in this study. Considering the term “useful knowledge” as it relates to purpose and content of characters’ educations, the present paper examines the impacts of educational reformers Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Arnold, and Henry Brougham as they appear in the novels’ public and private schools, as well as social and domestic spheres. As each work features extensive expository information on characters’ educational backgrounds, one can infer that the relationship between education, plot trajectory, and characterization is one that is deeply interconnected. A contextualized reading of the novels as products of the Victorian educational reform movement offers insight into the effects of an unbalanced education on characters’ intellectual, emotional, and moral development. Exploring the conflicts between science and the humanities, “useful knowledge” and classical learning, and the standardization of education by Competitive Examination, this project investigates how the novels offer commentary on the relationship between such tensions and characters’ morality, social relationships, and imagination within educational systems. Evaluating the novelists’ varying depictions of reformers in their novels, we can see how such shifts in curricula could have significant consequences--either harmful or beneficial--for both the individual and society

Representing Poverty and Precarity in a Postcolonial World

The contributions to this volume address conceptualisations of poverty and precarity from the perspective of literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics and investigate the ethics and aesthetic of representing poverty and precarity across the postcolonial world.; Readership: All interested in poverty and precarity studies in literary and cultural studies as well as linguistics, specifically in representations impacting affective and ethical responses to disenfranchised groups and precarious subjects

The Industrial Revolution and Charles Dickens’ Social Criticism in Oliver Twist and Hard Times

Treballs Finals del Grau d'Estudis Anglesos, Facultat de Filologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2018-2019, Tutor: Enric Monforte[eng] This text focuses on the analysis of the Industrial Revolution through Charles Dickens’ novels Oliver Twist (1838) and Hard Times (1854). By analysing the historical developments and accomplishments during the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, it can be seen how both novels depict with irony and satire the way in which society used to live and think. Dickens used his own life experiences to show how workers were exploited until death without any compassion and how this great revolution mainly favoured the middle and upper classes in Britain. Industrialization made people move from the rural areas to the cities in search of new opportunities. However, the circumstances that were developed in the new location caused a set of conditions that always disfavoured the poor. As a consequence, laws and unions began to arise during this period. All in all, Dickens’ life and novels intertwine and are presented as a social exploration of the Victorian period.[spa] Este texto se centra en el análisis de la Revolución Industrial a través de las novelas de Charles Dickens Oliver Twist (1838) y Tiempos Difíciles (1854). Analizando los acontecimientos históricos que se desarrollaron durante los siglos XVIII y XIX, se puede ver cómo ambas novelas describen con ironía y sátira la manera en la cual la sociedad solía vivir y pensar. Dickens usó sus propias experiencias de vida para mostrar cómo los trabajadores eran explotados sin compasión hasta su muerte y cómo esta gran revolución favoreció principalmente a la clase media y alta de Gran Bretaña. La industrialización hizo que la gente se desplazara desde las zonas rurales a las ciudades en busca de nuevas oportunidades. Sin embargo, las circunstancias que se desarrollaron en este nuevo lugar desfavorecieron principalmente a los pobres. Cómo consecuencia, comenzaron a aparecer nuevas leyes y sindicatos. Resumiendo, las novelas y la vida de Dickens se entrelazan y son presentadas como una exploración de la época victoriana