Eyebrows: A Collection of Stories about that Family You Saw in Aldi\u27s Last Week

This creative thesis will begin with an introduction to the idea of creative nonfiction and will also present a short collection of creative nonfiction stories. The creative body of the thesis will consist of short stories taken from the author\u27s own life that center around the common theme of family, focusing especially on the author\u27s role as a big sister in a family of nine children. Following these short stories, the conclusion of the thesis will briefly consider the value of personal stories like these in the larger scheme of literature. For those unfamiliar with the genre, this thesis hopes to provide a brief introduction while also presenting five stories for the enjoyment of those interested in creative nonfiction and those who will only read this thesis because they are related to the author

The revolutionary founding moments of a contra-Grierson tradition [review of: Post-revolution nonfiction film: building the Soviet and Cuban Nations by Joshua Malitsky, 2013]

“The revolutionary founding moments of a contra-Grierson tradition” Joshua Malitsky, Post-revolution nonfiction film: building the Soviet and Cuban Nations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013)

That Could Happen : Nature Writing, the Nature Fakers, and a Rhetoric of Assent

Much has been made about the relationship between nature writing and science. The foundation of the genre is empirical observation of the more-than-human world. That’s not the whole of it, however. Because of the pairing of empiricism and other human experience, readers come to the genre with certain assumptions: they assume the text will tell them something independently verifiable about the object world--something they could see, hear, or touch if they were in the same location at the same time. They assume they are reading nonfiction, and for most readers, that distinction is important. Readers also come to nature writing with the hope that the writer will use imagination to help them see the world in a new way and possibly offer them a different and better relationship to the more-than-human sphere. If the proceeding is true, nature writing as a genre is unique, and we must ask: how should we read nonfiction nature writing? How does the nonfiction distinction change the relationship between the writer and the reader? The writer and the world? The reader and the world? In this article, Sumner argues that a rhetoric of assent is necessary when reading nature writers because nature writers are imaginatively exploring how we humans can establish a more ethical relationship with the more-than-human world

Reading Matters in the Academic Library: Taking the Lead from Public Librarians

With the increasing virtualization of resources, reference service, and instruction, college students have fewer reasons to visit the academic library, a place they believe lacks relevance in their lives. This article explores the idea of revitalizing academic libraries by reconsidering the place of pleasure reading in them. Considerable research has been conducted on reading in the last quarter century. Reading serves a host of essential functions, far more than we have ever guessed. The first part of this paper looks at the social, psychological, moral, emotional, and cognitive role it plays in our lives. The second half examines readers’ advisory services that we can borrow or adapt from public libraries, services that can attract new users, promote lifelong reading, and transform academic libraries to be more community, user, and reader focused