essays
What do Norse runes, cyborgs, absurdist drama, and Pudd'nhead Wilson have in common? I've written essays on each
one.
Below, is a selection of essays on a wide range of literary,
historical, and political subjects. Many were written during my
years at university, including my Master's thesis. Just as the
books on my shelf map my journeys as
a reader, these essays demonstrate one aspect of my evolution as a writer. At
its core, each essay is the product of careful reading and solid
scholarship. The essays are available in rich text format
(.rtf).
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
| Science
Fiction |
|
Borders,
Scribes, and Subjects: Renegotiating the Boundaries of
Subjectivity in the Novels of Neal Stephenson and
Octavia E. Butler (Master's thesis) |
|
Transcendence
and Technology in William Gibson's Neuromancer |
| Drama |
|
"Miss
Julie" and Its Preface: Foundation of a Critical
Conflict |
|
Cannibals
and Vampires in Aeschylus and O'Neill |
|
Rhythm
and Blues: Strindberg's Chamber Plays |
|
The
Tether in "Waiting for Godot" |
|
Creon
in Sophocles' and Anouilh's "Antigone" |
|
Truth
and Order in Ionesco's "Bald Soprano" |
|
Colonial
Language in Two "Tempests" |
|
Alternate
Endings in Anouilh's "Medea" |
|
Otherness
in Euripedes' and Soyinka's "Bacchae" |
|
Truth
and Tieresias in Sophocles' and al-Hakim's
"Oedipus" |
|
Attention
Must Be Paid: Miller and Marx |
| Postmodern
fiction |
|
Metaphors
of Gravity and Geometry: Memory and Meaning in Milan
Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting |
|
Memory
in Morrison's Beloved |
|
The
Value of Narrative in Silko's Ceremony |
|
Individual
Identity in Roth's The Ghost Writer |
|
Beyond
Reason in Robinson's Housekeeping |
|
Symbolic
Deconstruction in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 |
|
Death
and Dying in DeLillo's White Noise |
| 19th
century literature |
|
Brass
Filings and Golden Treasures: Identity and Autonomy in Pudd'nhead
Wilson and "The Mysterious Stranger" |
|
Masks
and Paradox, Passion and Joy: An Analysis of Chesterton
and Nietzsche |
|
Stephen
Crane and Walt Whitman: The Natural and the Language of
Social Protest |
|
The
Problem of Evil in the Works of Melville and Emerson |
| 18th
century literature |
|
A
Question of Reality: An Analysis of Rasselas and Candide
As Social Criticism |
|
Narrative
and Narrator: An Analysis of Joseph Andrews |
| 17th
century literature |
|
Worlds
Turned Inside Out: The Public and Private Utopias of
Margaret Cavendish and Sir Thomas More
|
| Medieval
literature |
|
Crossing
Magical Boundaries: Warriors, Tests, and Mysterious
Mounds in The Four Branches of the Mabinogi and
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” |
|
"O
blynde worlde! O blynde entencioun!": Narrative
Frames and Interpretive Models in "Troilus and
Criseyde" |
|
The
Power of Pandarus in "Troilus and Criseyde" |
|
Images
of Love in "Troilus and Criseyde" |
| Poetry |
|
Unity
of Being, Reason, and Sensibility: William Butler Yeats
Aesthetic Vision |
|
A
Defense of Whitman |
|
History |
|
Silent
Voices: Women in the Middle Ages |
|
Luther
and Anti-Semitism |
|
Runes:
Spiritual Anchor to the Germanic World |
| Politics
and the novel |
|
Kitsch
and Its Opposition |
|
Power
and the Subject |
|
Nietzsche's
Niche: Accepting Shit |
|
Economic
Domination and the Function of Art |
|
Eros,
Conqueror or Conquered: Sex, Politics, and the
Post-Colonial Predicament |
|
The
Law in Kafka's The Trial |
| Literary
Criticism |
|
Imitation
and Literature |
|
Imagination
and Literature |
|
Plato,
Aristotle, and Mimesis |
|
Literature
and Virtue in Sidney's "Apology for Poetry" |
|
Diagnostic
Dialogue: A Survey of Three Literary Critics |
|
A
Postmodern Primer |
|
Deconstructionist
Literary Criticism |
|
Feminist
Literary Criticism |
|
Formalist
Literary Criticism |
|
Freudian
Literary Criticism |
|
Marxist
Literary Criticism |
|
New
Literary Criticism |
|
Pragmatic
Literary Criticism |
|
