LATEST PROJECTS
Academic Reading
First-Year Composition Faculty Workshop, Fall 2018
ABSTRACT
New Teaching Assistants in First-Year Composition are often unsure of how to begin to prepare their new students for readings and assignments to come. At an open-enrollment institution, like UTEP, foundation review, within an academic and applicable focus, benefits this demographic greatly.
In this new instructor workshop, I presented options for instructors to begin their semester with a focus on The Reading Process. I recommend that this process is (re-)taught with a focus on function, showing students how this can help them read efficiently and critically.
Graduate Seminar
Master of Arts Research Paper; Successfully Defended, May 2015
Awarded Outstanding MA Extended Seminar Paper, 2016
ABSTRACT
Borders are indeed crossed while culture, race and gender are driven to the margins in George Orwell’s Burmese Days. Homi Bhabha might call these literal and figurative locales the “domains of difference” (The Location of Culture 1). Yet, the articulation of difference—in this case, between colonial English men and colonized Burmese men—creates a liminal space, which Bhabha says moves “beyond” borders. Scent is one way in which Orwell remarks on the encounters that occur within this space.
The “orient” of Orwell’s novel smells of “coco-nut oil and sandalwood, cinnamon and turmeric…” (97). In acknowledging these ambient scents, Orwell also conveys England’s history of olfactory demarcation, deodorization and hygiene in order to influence which scents the narrator and various characters chose to note. This serves as motivation for racial and gendered prejudice, as well as instances of imperial theatricality—all of which originate with the scent of Burmese men. The olfactory sense becomes a way for colonial Englishmen to establish the boundaries of masculinity through difference. The boundary is set by the Englishmen, who’s “sense of smell [is] almost too highly developed” and is crossed by the “feral reek” of the Burmese men (Orwell, Burmese Days 145, 104). Beyond this boundary, the identity of the imperial male is explored. To continue drawing on Homi Bhabha, this time in his discussion of mimicry, I will argue instances of scent in Orwell’s Burmese Days, are used first to establish the status of the colonized Burmese male as “almost the same, but not quite” like that of the imperial English male (The Location of Culture 86). Furthermore, scent becomes an implement in the construction of national identity and masculinity, and is, subsequently, a way in which colonizers act for, identify (and are identified in opposition to) and subjugate the colonized male
Alpha Chi Presentation
Alpha Chi National Convention, 2015; Dennis M. Organ Prize for the top presentation by a Graduate Student
ABSTRACT
Through the epigraph of Howards End—“only connect”—scholars have thoroughly explored relationships within the novel. Forster’s nonfiction texts have allowed for numerous connections to be drawn from this mantra, but little has been made of his affinity for German culture and concern regarding international tensions. Though this harkens back to the middle of the twentieth century, Forster introduces issues of global development and international relations and does so using his female protagonists, the Schlegel sisters, as catalysts. In my conference paper, “International Connections: Preserving the Relationship between England and Germany in Howards End,” I examine Helen Schlegel, a native English woman, as a representative of Germany. Further, I examine Howards End as Forster’s pre-war solution and his use of female intercession as a way of potentially recovering international relations.
Presentation at the UTEP Graduate School of English Association First Anual C0nference
GradSEA Conference, 2015. UTEP, El Paso, TX.
ABSTRACT
The turn of the nineteenth century brought about rapid change. The Industrial Revolution is chiefly responsible for ushering these swift and sometimes radical alterations. Victorian authors appraise this atmosphere in the aptly named genre of the Social Problem or Condition of England. Much of this genre registers anxiety over Great Britain’s departure from tradition. Though the changes of the era are myriad, the utilitarian adaptations made to architecture and space is an inescapable fact of daily life in Victorian England. Considering architecture and space, the change in the home is particularly worrisome, especially for those in the lower and working classes have with architecture and space. In particular, these authors are concerned with the effects that this experience has on the patriarch of the home. Benjamin Disraeli, in Sybil or The Two Nations, writes this experience for his character, Phillip Warner, who is a useful intermediary through which to elucidate the changes of the home space, or what Disraeli calls “the expiring idea of the home” among the working poor.
As will be seen with Phillip Warner, architecture and space (which are part of the condition of the British industrial worker) not only supplement the experience of its inhabitance, but, as I argue, largely controls their experience. Architectural space can both inform and maintain one’s station. That is, if one seeks to provide for his or her family, as Phillip Warner does, the space that one can afford delimits the extent to which someone can provide what the home and its inhabitance require. Furthermore, I argue that the effects of the home space serve to disrupt the patriarch, or rather, failures in the home—as exemplified by the lack of resources—serve to emasculate the male head of the household.
Panle Organizer & Chair
GradSEA Conference, 2015. UTEP, El Paso, TX.
PANLE PROPOSAL
I am seeking speakers for a panel at the Graduate Student of English Association Annual Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso, 27-28 March 2015. Panelists are asked to present short critical papers (12 mins; 5-6 double spaced pages, single sided) that examine the effect of space in literature, film, theatre and/or music.
More specifically, this panel explores space—both figurative and literal—and its role in creating, defining, complicating or obliterating social roles/ identity/ individuality/ community/ awareness/ world views/ experience.