Graduate English Association New Voices Conference 2007

Language as Mediation in Tolkien's Mythology

Katherine Hyon — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:19 PDT

In his detailed accounts concerning Middle-earth and its inhabitants throughout various Ages of existence, Tolkien made his desire to write a mythology for England a reality. Although his work has delighted readers of all ages for decades, to dismiss Tolkien as a mere writer of children‟s fantasy or escapist science fiction would be to do him a great disservice. Tolkien was, above all, a philologist; his great love and obsession with language is obvious in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and especially The Silmarillion. Tolkien was also a product of his time; he was a lover and a teacher of ancient languages in a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization, and this unique position he occupied, as well as his desire to somehow reconcile the two extremes, also found its way into his own fiction. To that end, Middle-earth is primarily a world of mediation between the old and the new, between history and modernity, and Tolkien uses language as the foundational mediating device.

On and Off the Page: Mapping Space in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Emmeline Gros — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:18 PDT

Edward. T. Hall argues that, “we treat Space (somewhat) as we treat Sex. It is “there” but we don‟t talk about it” (in Felipe 210). Understandably so, talking about space or sex might indeed appear as the first attempt to shatter these borders or boundaries that protect ourselves from the others‟ intrusion onto our individual need for privacy. Borders, it is true, are useful, even necessary. They tell us where one thing ends and another begins. They draw the line between what belongs to whom and what does not. They tell us who claims what and how far these claims extend. And if it is true that Sex is not openly treated in Jane Austen‟s novels (we can easily imagine how the society of her time would have reacted), the question of space, however, is of prime importance, for indeed the borders that “situate” and often “limit” or “contain” our heroes and heroines do play a very important role in Austenian plots, if not the most important one. As Johnson argues: Austen‟s characters always experience embarrassment, expectations, anger, agitation, discomfort, and pleasure in small but very intense spaces” (46).

Sins of the Mother(land): Presence, Absence, and Self in Caribbean Literature

Katie Thomas — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:17 PDT

Through an exploration of Caribbean literature, namely Jamaica Kincaid‟s Annie John and Edwidge Danticat‟s The Farming of Bones, with references to Rosario Ferré‟s The House on the Lagoon and Bartolomé De Las Casas‟ A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, I will establish the effects of Western colonization on the Caribbean female during both Western occupation and Western absence. Turning my focus from the Caribbean mother towards her daughter—the progeny of the colonized world—I will then investigate the tenuous binds and boundaries of the mother/daughter relationship, made especially tenuous under the Western gaze. Expanding my view to the modern Caribbean daughter I will examine her ability to define herself, or become, for the first time in many years, “self”—free from both the Western colonizer and her colonizing mother(land).

Bodily Territories: Lust, Landscape and the Struggle for Female Space in Woolf's The Voyage Out and Atwood's Surfacing

Tealia DeBerry — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:16 PDT

In her lengthy critical essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf inquires into the absence of the female genius in the literary canon. As she mourns this lack of feminine representation on her own bookshelves—“looking about the shelves for books that were not there”—Woolf questions the opposition between what she refers to as the lyrically “suggestive” female sentence, and the dominant, subject driven, “I” of the male sentence (AROO, 45, 98). Woolf carves out a creative space for feminine narrative and focuses primarily on the landscape that is dominated by the “I”. This “I” representing both the masculine epic narrative and a metaphorical phallus, obliterates the surrounding landscape of the novel. This landscape signifies the role of women in literature; ever present, yet, not at the forefront, or well developed. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf encounters a masculine text with palpable disdain. As her hypothetical villain “Mr. A.” composes a novel that serves as an example of the metaphorical dominant signifier “I”, Woolf, with desperation, attempts to see beyond the “I” and to read the landscape behind: “But after reading a chapter or two a shadow seemed to lie across the page. It was a straight dark bar, a shadow shaped something like the letter “I”. One began dodging this way and that to catch a glimpse of the landscape behind it. Whether that was indeed a tree or a woman walking I was not quite sure” (100). Because it represents the women that remain hidden in an opaque shroud of historical non representation, this landscape becomes territory for the modern woman to reclaim. This landscape, not merely a literary space, is metaphorically linked to the territorial claiming of the female body due to patriarchal domination. The female body manifests itself throughout literature as a blank canvass onto which future generations are inscribed. This body, much like the body of a literary text, insures immortality to the author. It is in Woolf‟s own writing that the landscape is at the forefront and it is the female body that she seeks to reclaim in her first novel The Voyage Out. Woolf unknowingly passed this torch, this desire to explore literary and bodily territory, to Canadian Author Margaret Atwood. It is in her second novel, Surfacing, that Atwood presents a thematically similar take on territorial struggles in the framework of modern marriage. Both women, though separated by decades of supposed feminist progress, reveal that marriage remains a game of territorial occupation.

Horses of Agency, Element, and Godliness in Tolkien and the Germanic Sagas

Dana Miller — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:15 PDT

Russian princesses were once buried with them. Royalty ride only white ones. They are often regarded as the only panacea for handicapped children. Richard III would have given his entire kingdom for just one of them. Their ownership can radically define one‟s position in the social hierarchy of Saudi Arabia. The road to great human civilization and imagination has always been carved by the hoof prints of a horse. No matter what section of the globe is studied, Japan with its samurai tradition, the Mediterranean with conquerors like Alexander, the Bedouin, the American West, the Crusades, and certainly the sagas of ancient Iceland, horses figure predominantly and with gravitas. What is the contract between man and equine that allows a beast ten times our size and one hundred times our strength to willingly serve in our ambitions? What magnetism (and who placed it) is it that draws humanity and horses together? Pegasus, Epona, The Houyhnhnms, Bucephalus, Black Beauty, Mr. Ed!! Horses have equal pride of place in art and mythology. J.R.R. Tolkien, in his epochal books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, utilizes horses as a representation of the human soul and a direct mirroring of a divine will. Horses in Tolkien‟s books function as both masculine and feminine symbols of sexuality. Ever the great narrative balancer, Tolkien features ponies of rambunctious, pudgy resolve in The Hobbit and counterpoises them with valiant, magisterial warhorses in The Lord of the Rings. For every Shadowfax the reader receives a Bumpkin, just as for every Frodo there must be a Gollum—this equality representing one more connection amongst man and horse in Tolkien‟s world. All of the horses in Tolkien evoke visages of hope, glory, nobility, or power—and all of the qualities on that same list could be said to be running themes in the books. What contract is thus in place between Tolkien and the image and power of the horse in his fictional works? Tolkien‟s horses epitomize more than simply personified warriors/characters, but elemental forces that belong to something even beyond Mother Nature. Their magic, unlike that of all other fantastical creatures in The Lord of the Rings, is never explained away. In this sense, horses come to represent the mystery of the natural world and perhaps even the unknown face of God in Tolkien‟s Middle Earth.

Canonicity and National Identity: Let's put Scotland on the Map

Molly Wright — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:14 PDT

Where is Scotland on the map of literary studies? This is a timely question for scholars to address. Recently, for example, some Scottish literature scholars have written a petition to the Modern Language Association to expand its current Scottish Literature Discussion Group into a Division on Scottish Literature at the MLA. The petition states that recent Scottish literary scholarship has “(a) recognised the wealth and distinctiveness of the Scottish literary tradition, and (b) sought to redress the anglo-centric bias of earlier treatments of Scottish writing…” (Corbett et al 1). The Discussion Group raises questions of literary scholarship that indirectly affect the entire canon; specifically, these scholars question the content of the canon and who builds that content.

Program for the Graduate English Association of GSU Eighth Annual New Voices Conference, Maps/Boundaries

Graduate English Association — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:13 PDT

Flyer for the Graduate English Association of GSU Eighth Annual New Voices Conference, Maps/Boundaries

GSU Graduate English Association — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:12 PDT

Maps/Boundaries create and govern frontiers, assist or inhibit collaboration and/or creation. They inform visual and intellectual concepts and patterns. Historically and politically, Maps/ Boundaries represent anxieties about identity. Maps/Boundaries encourage the formation of mastery and control, naming, and imaginative communication. These possibilities and limitations continue to function in the contemporary world. Disciplines as wide ranging as theology, philosophy, literature, and history, among others, engage in the production and imagining of Maps/ Boundaries.

In 'Rememory': Beloved and Transgenerational Ghosting in Black Female Bodies

Sonya McCoy-Wilson — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:11 PDT

While thinking about transgenerational ghosting, even before I had a term to represent my thoughts, my point of reference was my phobia of prisons. Yes, the very idea of prisons frightens me beyond belief; therefore, I don‟t break the law. I have an aversion to federal court buildings, police departments, prison movies, prison scenes within other movies, people confined to chain-gangs, people in handcuffs, I distrust the police, and the list continues. When I realized that others don‟t categorically share my fear, I started to wonder about the source of it. I wondered, “Do prisons frighten me because my ancestors were enslaved? Do I remember, somehow, that feeling of insurmountable captivity? Do bodies remember?” Apparently, my questions did not exist in isolation; others had been investigating this notion as well. Toni Morrison provides an evocative perception of the notion of freedom, and its lack, in the foreword to her critically acclaimed novel, Beloved. She provides a personal narrative illustrating how she conceived the idea for the text. She explains that she was forced to resign from her editing job in a well-know publishing house because her writing, ironically, was interfering with her editing.

Fostering Assimilation?: Intimate Boundaries between Natives and Anglos in Foster Families in the Uintah Basin

Lori Coleman — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:11 PDT

Since the coming of Europeans to America there has been some type of boundary between Native American and white Euro-American settlers. (At the risk of oversimplifying but in order to conserve time, I will be referring to indigenous people of North America as Native Americans and to white Euro-American settlers as Anglos.) Boundaries between these two communities have been physical, racial, and economic. Individuals have experienced varying degrees of permeability between these borders during different stages of American history. At some stages, Anglos have drawn geographic borders to physically separate the two communities, such as when they created reservations. At other times, Anglos have unsuccessfully attempted to erase these boundaries altogether through extermination or assimilation.

Surveying Africa: Conrad's Ambiguous Guide to Colonialism

Francesca Sofia Tarant — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:10 PDT

Throughout Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad juxtaposes seemingly contradictory terms: light and dark, Europe and Africa, centrality and exteriority, morality and the immorality. In contrasting these various finite images, the author appears to mirror the “direct simplicity” in his word choice which he claims also punctuates the tales of seamen. However, by describing colonial endeavors using words laden with double and sometimes conflicting meanings, infusing the novel with repetition, and presenting characters alongside their doppelgangers, Conrad prompts readers to reconsider concrete standards of good and evil in regards to imperialism. Consequently, the text, refusing to elucidate Marlow‟s journey to the Congo, actually acts much like the haze of the moon, both illuminating and blurring the meaning of the tale. Arguably, the narrative structure also performs a similar function. Conrad deconstructs boundaries between the past and present and removes the distinction between missions of conquest and colonialism. Furthermore, the susceptibility of both the narrator and Marlow to human fallacy and the telling of lies make the structure of Heart of Darkness misleading. Thus, the author refuses to provide a consistent and reliable lens through which readers can interpret the plot. As the narrator states, following his description of the supposed simplicity within the tale, Marlow is not a typical representative of his profession. Here, by qualifying this simplicity with an exception, the narrator suggests the very essence of imperialism: complexity. By utilizing a seemingly simplistic narrative structure and turning it on itself, Conrad challenges the reader to look beyond obvious standards of black and white.

On the Question of Authorship of the Niebelungenlied

Annette Anderson — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:09 PDT

Sometime around the year 1200 a yet to be identified poet wrote what is often referred to as, “…the most impressive single work of medieval German literature and [it] stands in the small company of great national epics, with the Iliad, the Aeneid, the Roland, and the Cid.” The author of the aforementioned quote, Frank Ryder, goes on to say, “…in the pure art of story, in the creation of epic figures, in vigor and directness of characterization, in monumental scope and power—[this] work can bear comparison with any of the great epics. Like them, it is a true work of world literature, faithful to its time but not bound by it, comprehensible and of significance to an audience centuries removed.” Naturally many scholars over time have attempted to identify the author of such an outstanding piece of literature and it is understandable that such a significant piece of literature deserves to have an identifiable author. Or does it? The scope of study on this subject has spanned centuries and has filled countless volumes and kept hundreds of scholars well occupied for most of their academic careers. The question which occupies many modern scholars is naturally the question of gender—was it written by a man, as was assumed by nineteenth and many twentieth century researchers, or is it possible that a woman was able to produce such an epic work at a time when female poets and writers were a rare commodity indeed? In the following paper I will explore three very different theories of authorship ranging from Werner Wunderlich‟s assertion that the author of the Nibelungenlied does not need to be named because the epic exists as a part of our human history and this human history needs no author, to Edward Haymes exploration of the “Werkstatt” theory of authorship, to the angle that interests me most, which is the theory that a female author is responsible for producing this great work of literature.

Mapping America, Re-mapping the World: The Cosmopolitanism of Agha Shahid Ali's A Nostalgist's Map of America

Xiwen Mai — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:08 PDT

Published in 1991, Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali‘s collection A Nostalgist‘s Map of America is a book about the poet‘s travel in America. From ―"the dead center of Pennsylvania" to Indian reservations in New Mexico, the collection weaves multiple landscapes, texts, and emotions into a map of America, on which the poet‘s traveling routes lead to thinking about language, identity, colonial and neocolonial politics. While critics like Lawrence Needham, Jeannie Chiu, and Rajini Srikanth, in reading the collection, have all focused on his themes of nostalgia, melancholy, and loss as an exile, this paper argues that Ali‘s ―"map of America" actually demonstrates a cosmopolitanism, a poetics that foregrounds a sentiment of compassion across cultural boundaries and implies a critique of power. To show that, I read Ali‘s poems in the context of postwar American travel poetry in order to study how his cosmopolitanism extends into new territories questions raised by such poets as Elizabeth Bishop, and how it invites a remapping of the world by calling attention to people, locations and cultures marginalized in dominating discourses. Also, I will draw on Homi Bhabha‘s theorizing of an ―"unhomely" condition in Location of Culture and examine how Ali highlights an ―"unhomely" travel that troubles textual, geographical and cultural boundaries and invites us to rethink the meaning of ―"home" and the ―"foreign."

Remapping and Renaming Ireland: A Postcolonial Look at the Problem of Language and Identity in Brian Friel's Translations.

Maria Laura Barberan Reinares — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:28:07 PDT

Brian Friel‘s acclaimed Translations, suggestively written in English, captures the moment in the history of Ireland when the British, in a clear sign of imperial dominance, initiated the remapping and renaming of the Irish territory, generating a linguistic uncertainty that eventually led to the capitulation of the Gaelic language and placed the colonizing tongue – English -- on central stage. The fact that this contemporary Irish playwright in 1980 wrote Translations in English and not in Gaelic speaks for itself. But Friel‘s choice of English as the vehicle for his play is far from trivial, and to assume that this decision owes to a question of attracting a larger audience would certainly undermine his purpose. In this work, then, I will analyze the effects of the British remapping and renaming of Ireland from a post colonial theoretical angle, focusing on its most invasive and lasting consequence: the replacement of the native language and its cultural repercussions. I will therefore explore Friel‘s Translations within the context of post colonial theories developed by such critics as Ngugi Wa Thiong‘o (usually referred to as Ngugi), Salman Rushdie, and Declan Kiberd. Because these writers have addressed the language/identity question for the writing of native literature from seemingly divergent angles, their analyses can shed light on understanding Friel‘s portrayal of the different --and often ambivalent-- feelings toward the language question in Ireland. Thus in Translations, the playwright leaves it up to the audience to decide, while he presents the whole spectrum of attitudes towards a problem that has clearly not reached one definite conclusion yet. Indeed, that is precisely the question Friel articulates here.