Middle Tennessee State University: Journals@MTSU
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Page Turners: Books for Children
Full text linkIn this article, different children’s books are listed with descriptive summaries on each one. The books include: The Artist, Call Me Roberto: Roberto Clemente Goes to Bat for Latinos, The Dictionary Story, Follow Your Heart, Gray,I’m Gonna Paint: Ralph Fasanella, Artist of the People, Under the Blanket Sky, and When We Gather (Ostadahlisiha): A Cherokee Tribal Feast
From Anomie to Metanoia: The Spiritual-Political Thought of Henry Thoreau & Thomas Merton
Full text linkBoth Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton revolted against the state of society as they saw it and lived in it. They retired to their respective wildernesses to seek solitude and dive deep for truth. Merton and Thoreau were not content with a solitude that did not also involve a meaningful relationship to society. They were concerned with social justice and communicated that through their writing, which, it seems, came about because of their solitude. In that way, each author encourages his readers to build their own inner retreats, and in the end, they do this as a means of furthering social reform in their times. For both men, a relationship to God––or to nature, to cosmic divinity––is cultivated within. Furthermore, once the individual’s relationship to this higher power has been established, this leads to a recognition of the divinity in others. Both Merton and Thoreau, from their respective hermitages, reached inward––only to find themselves also reaching outward. Both Thoreau and Merton offer a vision of solitude and silence that goes hand in hand with social justice and political action
Off With Her Head! An Analysis of Female Awakening Through Social Deviance in Lynn Nottage’s Las Meninas
Full text linkThe Victorian Era brought the evolution of a distinctly feminine writing trope: the development of female characters’ personal awakenings through acts of social deviance. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) is a prime example of this phenomenon, wherein main character Edna Pontellier, disinterested in the expectations of upper-class French-Creole life, participates in an emotional affair to actualize her own autonomy. This essay seeks to determine the significance of this literary trope in contemporary playwright Lynn Nottage’s Las Meninas. The play follows the woes of French Queen Marie-Thérèse as she becomes dissatisfied with her position on the margins of French Courtly society and has an affair with another excluded person, Nabo, an African with dwarfism. Nottage’s parallel to the writings of Victorian female authors, like Chopin herself, emphasizes a desire to advocate for the advancement of women through the lens of Early Modern society. Additionally, the parallel reveals the continuity of the tradition of representing women’s recognition of their autonomy through deviant actions from nineteenth-century through twenty-first-century literature. The presence of this tradition in twenty-first century literature demonstrates that women are seeking similar social advancement in the present day
Poor Things and Yorgos Lanthimos: A Film Review Intersecting Various Feminist Debates
Full text linkPoor Things (2023), the ninth film by Greek auteur filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, continues to present the director’s off-kilter vision of humanity, allowing people to view themselves in defamiliarized ways. The works of Lanthimos exude an artistic contemplativeness and often convey an artificial realism where normalcy is presented as both benign and insidious. These cinematic traits are evident in his breakout film, Dogtooth (2009). This austere work deconstructs a bizarre suburban family as an autocratic state, showing how easily children can be manipulated to believe in a worldview, but also how people inevitably rebel. Intersecting with Dogtooth, Lanthimos’s other films, The Lobster (2015) and The Favourite (2018), explore social microcosms in cloistered, controlled environments, satirizing power dynamics within larger social structures
EMDR Drumming Protocol and Processes: Embedding Expressive Arts into EMDR for work with Adolescents
Full text linkThe integration of expressive arts into trauma therapy has garnered significant attention for its ability to enhance healing and emotional processing. This article explores a proposed EMDR Drumming Protocol and therapeutic process for at-risk youth. It is a novel approach that combines the therapeutic power of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) with the expressive, rhythmic qualities of drumming. Grounded in neuroscience and traumainformed care, this protocol aims to deepen the therapeutic experience by using drumming as an embodied tool to facilitate emotional release, enhance bilateral stimulation, and support neural integration. The article examines how drumming can create a sensory-rich environment that complements EMDR\u27s traditional methods, promoting increased emotional regulation, memory processing, and adaptive coping skills. Additionally, it explores the theoretical underpinnings ofthis innovative fusion of expressive arts and EMDR, offering practical insights and case studies for clinicians seeking to integrate drumming into their therapeutic practices. Through a blend of clinical observations and experiential analysis, this article highlights the potential of the EMDR Drumming Protocol to transform trauma treatment, providing a deeper, more holistic approach tohealing. 
Host on the Coast: How the University of Georgia Libraries used a "friends" award to steward donors, build relationships,, and connect with board members
Full text linkIn the fall of 2024, the University of Georgia Libraries presented the inaugural Vince and Barbara Dooley Friends of the Library award to long-time friends Craig and Diana Barrow at their home, part of the Wormsloe Plantation land on the Isle of Hope near Savannah, GA. The Libraries also hosted their fall board meeting at UGA\u27s Center for Research and Education at Wormsloe, adjacent to the Barrows\u27 home and and administered by the University Libraries
An Ever-Expanding Field
Full text linkThose of us who study nineteenth-century literature are sometimes met with sneers by some who think the literature of this era has nothing to say about our contemporary world or who believe that anything worth saying about these works has already been said. Of course, neither of these erroneous ideas could be further from the truth. To counter the first misconception, I like to recommend that people read the first twenty pages or so of Oliver Twist (1837-39). This novel’s exploration of the lives of the poor and of the government’s role in relieving poverty is strikingly current nearly two hundred years later. As to the second misconception, I can only suggest that a willful ignorance would cause a person to hold such an opinion. The richness, complexity, and diversity of nineteenth-century texts provides an inexhaustible source for scholarly commentary and debate. Moreover, the age that produced these works was steeped in social, political, cultural, scientific, and intellectual upheaval, and we are still coming to terms with many of the changes that occurred during this time. Clearly, there is still much to be said about nineteenth-century literature. In order to help facilitate scholarship about this incredibly complex field, the editorial staff of this journal has expanded to include a Pedagogy Editor and a Media Reviews Editor.Any academic journal has college educators as a core constituent of its readership, and many academics can attest that being a skilled researcher in a field is quite different than being an expert teacher, and vice versa. With this in mind, I19 seeks to publish pedagogical pieces in which scholars of nineteenth-century literature can share assignments, course designs, and classroom activities with others to help facilitate the teaching texts in our field. We are therefore pleased to introduce Vivian Delchamps of the Dominican University of California as our Pedagogy Editor who will lead our efforts in publishing scholarship on teaching the fantastic literature of this era.The Incredible Nineteenth Century(Volume 2, Issue 2; Whole Number 4) Fall 20246Dr. Delchamps’s areas of expertise include nineteenth-century literature, illness, pain, and disability, and she studies how nineteenth-century women writers such as Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Frances E. W. Harper “used literature to supplement diagnostic ways of knowing and capture the raw potential of disabled embodiment.” She has published essays in Poetry and Pedagogy, Insurrect!, and other venues, and she has an article forthcoming on The Wizard of Oz.Teaching science fiction, fantasy, and fairy tale of the nineteenth century is complex on many fronts. Firstly, as shocking as it may be for those of us who grew up loving these genres, many students are not as familiar with the fantastic as we assume they will be. The first novel I ever taught was Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), and near the end of the first class, after a minimally successful discussion, a dismayed-looking student raised her hand and asked, “Why doesn’t she just write about things on Earth?” At that point I realized how badly I had failed, and that I should have begun the discussion of this book, before we had even started reading, about the conventions of science fiction and how authors often use this genre as a way to displace problems from our everyday reality so that issues are defamiliarized and we can look at them with a fresh point of view. Better preparation would have helped my students be more open to the ways Le Guin explores sex, gender, and culture in this novel. Secondly, as mentioned above, the nineteenth century was a time of unprecedented change, and students studying literature from this time need to understand its history and culture. Nineteenth-century society can be both alien and startlingly similar to our own, and helping students see how this era in many ways gave birth to the world we live in can help them to appreciate its literature. Finally, the teaching of literature from any time period and of any genre is a complex undertaking, and as educators we are always looking for better ways of reaching our students.The Incredible Nineteenth Century(Volume 2, Issue 2; Whole Number 4) Fall 20247The stories the nineteenth century produced maintain a central spot in popular imagination still today. Consider, for instance, how many reinterpretations of Frankenstein (1818) or Dracula (1897) have been produced by film studios in just the past two years. Or, think about the ways the works of Edgar Allan Poe have remained a staple of American cinema and television for decades, ranging from Vincent Price movies to The Simpsons (1989-present). Even beyond these canonical works and authors, the nineteenth century remains a time period that Hollywood loves to engage with and recreate. Because of the popularity of nineteenth-century fantasy, science fiction, and fairy tale throughout various forms of media, this journal has expanded to include a Media Reviews Editor, a position that will be filled by Joe Conway. Dr. Conway studies early American literature, pop culture, and economics in literature and culture, and he is the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He writes that our culture in the twenty-first century still needs “the tropes and characters of the nineteenth century in order to make sense of itself. Moby Dick was Big Oil before Exxon and BP, Dracula foreshadows vulture capitalism, Frankenstein’s monster continues to embody marginalized consciousness.” In regards to contemporary recreations of the nineteenth century in contemporary media, he says “Despite changing technologies—videogames replacing books, for example—we can’t shake the sense we are still citizens of the nineteenth century.” He teaches early sf writers such as Shelley, Hawthorne, and Wells along with their twenty-first century descendants like Nnedi Okorafor and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. He also teaches neo-slave narratives beside nineteenth-century autobiographies of formerly enslaved people, and Edgar Allan Poe beside Toni Morrison. He writes that “Anna Kornbluh describes our contemporary culture as one of pure ‘immediacy,’ and so one way to ensure the work of previous writers continues to hold relevance for our students is by demonstrating how much a part of the past continues to haunt the present.”The Incredible Nineteenth Century(Volume 2, Issue 2; Whole Number 4) Fall 20248In our media reviews section, we plan to highlight not only fantastic writings from the nineteenth century, but also science fiction and fantasy set in this time. One of the most interesting aspects of studying literature from previous eras is the ability to trace how succeeding generations have interpreted those works, and how they have injected their own concerns and ideas into it. Also, especially in the context of nineteenth-century literature, contemporary media set in this time provides the opportunity for previously silenced voices to be heard. Populations that suffered atrocities during the nineteenth century—those who suffered from industrialism, class oppression, sexism, homophobia, global colonization, slavery, or Manifest Destiny, for example—now have the chance to tell their own stories.Nineteenth-century studies is a field that is ever-expanding, and having these two new positions will enhance I19’s ability to engage in conversations about teaching texts written in this century and about new media inspired by this time. We hope the contributions of this journal will have a meaningful impact on the study of this complex and intriguing field
Imagination, Reading, and Cognitive Development: Early Insights in Edith Nesbit’s The Enchanted Castle
Full text linkIn “Reading Fiction is Good for Children’s Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Development,” Maria Nikolajeva explains that cognitive theory can contribute much to literary studies and that a fledgling field of study exists that combines cognitive theory and cognitive science with literary criticism to create an approach known as cognitive literary criticism (4). She makes a case for the many useful insights that can be gained from using cognitive literary theory to understand how reading affects young developing minds. Specifically, she focuses on “how fiction stimulates young readers’ perception, attention, imagination, memory and other cognitive activity” (1). Literary critics have long asserted that reading helps stimulate the imagination, which is an essential aspect of cognition that starts to develop in childhood. Furthermore, reading allows one to enter situations and conflicts vicariously as a kind of practice. When a situation similar to one they have read about comes up in the readers’ lives, they will have some simulated experience with it gathered from reading. However, that literature can improve the cognitive abilities of readers appears to be a new insight for the scientific community
A Totally Rad Mad Scientist: Lisa Frankenstein’s Queer Articulations of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature
Full text linkScreenwriter Diablo Cody’s long-awaited return to the horror genre took up the highly influential science fiction novel Frankenstein (1818) with a synthy 80s soundtrack, a dynamic cast, and the comedic eye of director Zelda Williams. Lisa Frankenstein (2024) does not attempt to adapt Mary Shelley’s classic with exact detail. Rather, the film reinvents it through a horror-comedy-romance-monster-mashup and uses the source material to capture the queer essence of Victor Frankenstein’s monster. Lisa Frankenstein’s premise highlights the ways in which a high school social outcast can locate their confidence and sense of self through monstrosity. In turn, the film indicates that the monster’s standing as a figure for selfhood and transformation is stronger than ever in the 2020s
McCoppin, Rachel S. The Legacy of the Goddess: Heroines, Warriors and Witches from World Mythology to Folktales and Fairy Tales. McFarland, 2023
Full text linkRachel McCoppin’s study of female archetypes considers the role of the feminine in world mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. McCoppin’s argument unfolds over eight chapters, essentially split into two halves, bookended by a preface, introduction, and conclusion. Her purpose and desire for the book is perhaps most clearly stated in her conclusion. She writes, “This book has strived to portray how the female characters of folktales and fairy tales hold many important similarities with the most powerful imaginings of femininity that cultures around the world once envisioned—the goddesses of mythology” (244). The first half of the book examines how the female characters within myth, folktales, and fairy tales often serve as guides and teachers to the male protagonists they encounter. These chapters delve into different narratives that feature a female archetype aiding the masculine archetypal hero. The second half of the book focuses on the female archetypal hero in her own right as the author analyzes the role of formidable heroines found in many folktales and fairy tales from around the world. These chapters analyze the female heroes, protagonists, and villains as major actors within their own quests as opposed to characters acted upon by masculine heroes