Karla FC Holloway, Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literature.

Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literature is an intriguing addition to Karla Holloway’s distinguished body of work in African-American Studies. While Holloway’s classic Moorings and Metaphors (1992) demonstrated her firm grasp of an extensive array of critical vocabularies from linguistics to mythography, Legal Fictions focuses more closely on the interconnection of U.S. law, the construction of racial identities, and African-American literature, thereby contributing an approvin..

"Whitman, the great poet, has meant so much to me": Lawrence\u27s Studies in Classic American Literature, 1919-1923

Reviews D. H. Lawrence\u27s Studies in Classic American Literature, edited by Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen (2003), and examines Lawrence\u27s changing views on Whitman as expressed in the various versions of his essay on Whitman

Pairing Young Adult and Classic Literature in the High School English Curriculum

Literacy experts recommend young adult literature to engage teens and scaffold their developing reading and literary analysis skills. Yet, the American high school English curriculum is dominated by a narrow list of classics, virtually unchanged since the late 19th century. This static curriculum neither reflects the diversity of American culture nor the lives of students in the 21st century. Adolescent literacy scholarship can support practitioners by expanding the research on effective strategies for using young adult literature. This research study examines the effects of an intentional pairing of a classic work of literature with a work of young adult literature in a high school English classroom. The main research question asks what literacy learning outcomes and attitudes result from pairing a young adult and a classic work of literature, from the perspectives of the students and their teacher. The notion of scaffolding of instruction articulated by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976), and its roots in Vygotsky’s concept of a zone of proximal development (1978), provide the theoretical underpinning of the teaching strategy examined in this study. Rosenblatt’s (1978) transactional theory of reading informs the analysis of the students’ responses to the young adult and classic texts studied, and their perceived learning outcomes. This qualitative study used a case study design. Data was collected through individual interviews with the teacher and students, field observations, and a survey. Using a grounded theory approach, analysis of the data revealed that both students and teacher found the pairing strategy beneficial. The students value making connections between their lives and a text, and appreciate opportunities to examine complex issues and ideas. The teacher perceived increased engagement by the students as a result of the young adult/classic pairing, as well as stronger comprehension and analysis. This study analyzes the perceptions of a small group of participants in one high school classroom. Future studies could expand the participant group and utilize different texts. Additional studies could examine other approaches to using young adult literature in high school classrooms, the barriers that exist to using young adult literature, and the influences of digital resources on student reading engagement

Black Matter: Re-Evaluating Representations Of Blackness Through Theatre Arts

There are many studies that detail the misrepresentation of Black people or lack thereof in classic media (visual art, literature and theatre). This study seeks to explore how Blackness is represented in classic media: film, television, visual art and theatre and how these representations shape the consciousness of young Black and African American adults ages 18-25. Using a narrative research approach, this study explores the arc of Black representation in classic media beginning in the late 1800’s and ending with the Black Arts Movement. This study utilized an original stage play as a creative component to mirror the content of the plays from the Black Arts Movement. The latter is followed by discussion with the audience members where I hope to find answers to the following questions: “How do you feel you are represented as a Black person through classic media?” and “Is this theatre intervention an effective tool for understanding Black consciousness?

American Horror Fiction and Class : From Poe to Twilight

In this book, Simmons argues that class, as much as race and gender, played a significant role in the development of Gothic and Horror fiction in a national context. From the classic texts of Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne right through to contemporary examples, such as the novels of Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series, class remains an ever present though understudied element. This study will appeal to scholars of American Studies, English literature, Media and Cultural Studies interested in class representations in the horror genre from the nineteenth century to the present day

Gardner-Webb’s Jim Lawrence Presents Video Version of “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Dr. Jim Lawrence, professor in the Department of Communications Studies at Gardner-Webb University, has produced a unique Scottish-Gaelic short film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic American literature “An Cridhe Cabaireach” (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), a story of madness and murder. The DVD has just been released and is available for purchase in three versions: Gaelic narration only, Gaelic narration with English subtitles, and English narration with Gaelic subtitles. “I first became acquainted with Scottish-Gaelic through music,” said Lawrence.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/2833/thumbnail.jp

Review of Cowboys of the Americas

Some twenty years ago, while preparing a course on the frontier in literature, I first began to research the horsemen of the Americas. At that time, there were available only the numerous classic studies of the American cowboy, those by Dobie, Hough, Folsom, Abbott, Adams, Branch, Frantz and Choate, Santee, to name a few, but on the charro (vaquero), the llanero, the gaucho, or the huaso (guaso), very little was to be found. The few books, articles, extracts from travel logs that existed offered casual observations of these horsemen rather than a focused, coherent study. Only Edward Larocque Tinker\u27s seminal work, The Horsemen of the Americas and the Literature They Inspired, offered a scholarly incursion into the field

The Philosophy of the Western

The western is arguably the most iconic and influential genre in American cinema. The solitude of the lone rider, the loyalty of his horse, and the unspoken code of the West render the genre popular yet lead it to offer a view of America’s history that is sometimes inaccurate. For many, the western embodies America and its values. In recent years, scholars had declared the western genre dead, but a steady resurgence of western themes in literature, film, and television has reestablished the genre as one of the most important. In The Philosophy of the Western, editors Jennifer L. McMahon and B. Steve Csaki examine philosophical themes in the western genre. Investigating subjects of nature, ethics, identity, gender, environmentalism, and animal rights, the essays draw from a wide range of westerns including the recent popular and critical successes Unforgiven (1992), All the Pretty Horses (2000), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), and No Country for Old Men (2007), as well as literature and television serials such as Deadwood. The Philosophy of the Western reveals the influence of the western on the American psyche, filling a void in the current scholarship of the genre. Jennifer L. McMahon, associate professor and chair of the English and Languages Department at East Central University, is a contributor to The Philosophy of TV Noir, The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese, and The Simpsons and Philosophy. B. Steve Csaki was most recently a visiting professor at Centre College, where he taught courses in philosophy, the humanities, and Japanese. The writing is accessible to nonspecialists and should be of interest to general readers who enjoy thinking about philosophy, film, or westerns. --Karen D. Hoffman, Hood College A delightful collection, one that goes a long way toward bridging the fields of philosophy and film studies. At once erudite and readable, many of its essays offer solid summaries of philosophic concepts and movements. . . .those familiar with the classic westerns will find the book a painless way to pick up some philosophy. --American Studies The authors examine the rise and recent resurgence of the iconic genre of American cinema—its popularity, its claims on encapsulating American values, and its historical inaccuracies. --Moving Image Archives These essays, and others, connect rewardingly to ongoing discussions of Westerns in a broad context --Choice Magazine The collection is evenly divided between classic and contemporary Westerns, providing a comprehensive overview of the history of the genre -- Western American Literature For Western film fams and American scholars alike, The Philosophy of the Western is both enjoyable and enlightening. It will leave you longing to dust off the covers of your favorite Western films and rewatch them with a deeper sense of significance adn newfound appreciation. --Journal of American Studies Association of Texas These essays make compelling cases --Western Historical Quarterly Anyone interested in the mythic grip that Westerns have had and continue to have on the American imaginary will no doubt find something of interest in this collection. --Great Plains Quarterlyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_american_popular_culture/1010/thumbnail.jp

Shock and awe: American exceptionalism and the imperatives of the spectacle in Mark Twain\u27s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u27s Court

About the Book Shock and Awe Inspired by the foreign policy entanglements of recent years, William V. Spanos offers a dramatic interpretation of Twain\u27s classic A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u27s Court, providing a fresh assessment of American exceptionalism and the place of a global America in the American imaginary. Spanos insists that Twain identifies with his protagonist, particularly in his defining use of the spectacle, and thus with an American exceptionalism that uncannily anticipates the George W. Bush administration\u27s normalization of the state of exception and the imperial policy of preemptive war, unilateral regime change, and shock and awe tactics. Equally stimulating is Spanos\u27s thoroughly original ontology of American exceptionalism and imperialism and his tracing of these forces, through a chronological examination of Twain studies and criticism over the past century. As an examination of an overlooked text, and a critical history of American studies from its origins in the nation-oriented Myth and Symbol school of the Cold War era to its present globalizing or transnationalizing perspective, Shock and Awe will appeal to a broad audience of American literature scholars and beyond. About the Author William V. Spanos is Distinguished Professor of Literature at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of numerous books and one of the founders of the journal boundary 2. About the Electronic Publication This electronic publication of Shock and Awe was made possible with the permission of the author. The University Press of New England created EPUB and PDF files from a scanned copy of the book. Rights Information Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License © Trustees of Dartmouth Collegehttps://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/dartmouth_press/1012/thumbnail.jp

Book Review: Gathering Together: The Shawnee People through Diaspora and Nationhood, 1600–1870 by Sami Lakomäki

Kinship as a theoretical frame is slowly coming into fashion again in anthropological research. These new kinship studies diverge sharply from classic structural scholarship to explore the cultural constructions of family organization and the political implications embedded in how cultures articulate relatedness. Scholars in indigenous studies have also renewed their interest in kinship. A far cry from Lewis Henry Morgan’s first tome on kin in Native communities, recent studies have explored the workings of kinship as Native people interacted with Europeans, constructing new identities in the process. While Sami Lakom¨aki’s new book Gathering Together is not primarily about kinship, he could not have realized his argument without it. His scholarship emerges from what he deftly perceives to be a gap in the literature on Native nationhood—namely that most scholarship on American Indian sovereignty currently relies on European political traditions. Lakomaki calls for more research on nation-building grounded in Native history and political philosophies. His book gives us a solid model of what such scholarship should look like