This essay analyzes the educational significance of the metaphysical novel, that is, how it can be used to educate ourselves and our students. Mordechai Gordon begins by describing the nature of the metaphysical novel while contrasting it to "pure" philosophy and theory building. Gordon also situates Beauvoir's insights in the broader…

This dissertation investigates the nuanced portrayal of higher education in superhero comic books, particularly the 13 years of publication from 1965 to 1978 when Peter Parker/Spider-Man was an undergraduate at Empire State University. Depictions of higher education and how they can influence perceptions of academia and its intersections with…

Critics have commented on the power of writing--the biblical Word as creation--in Bernardo Carvalho's work. It forges connections through words between others who are out of place, searching for order in what appears to be chaos. However, this motif from both Genesis and the New Testament is also mediated by another creation narrative: the Big…

Students in the English Language Arts classroom have access to more author commentary than ever. While following authors on social media may deepen students' engagement with their assigned reading, it also threatens to subdue students' own interpretations of the authors' texts. This essay explains how educators can introduce basic aspects of…

A student of self-directed learning provides a perspective commentary on the use of fiction to foster discussion of themes, studies, and theories related to self-directed learning. The novel used is Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," set in a future dystopian society where books are outlawed and any that are found are burned by government…

The buoyant shift from form and structure to the fluid constructs of meaning turned discernible in Jacques Derrida's "Deconstruction." Meaning or reality that had so long been enjoying a fixed and definite status was worn out with the advent of the theory of deconstruction. The turnaround of what was considered real or true became…

In recent years, numerous computational methods have been developed that have been widely used in humanities and literary studies. In spite of the potential of such methods in providing workable solutions to various inherent problems in research within these domains, including selectivity, objectivity, and replicability, very little empirical work…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to draw reader's attention to the author-space relationship in order to fulfill the theoretical deficiency in terms of space-psychoanalysis in the light of qualitative data. Methods: Qualitative data analysis has been thought to be the best way to deal with the space-psychoanalysis relationship through…

This article examines the tension between chance and determinism in Jorge Volpi's novel "En busca de Klingsor" and how this relationship is treated both in the narrative as well as in debates regarding physics, history, and politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Beginning from the understanding that the novel is a…

The early reception of D.B.C. Pierre's "Vernon God Little" (2003) has been characterized by comparisons with two canonical literary antecedents: J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" (1991/1951) and, at a greater remove, Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884). The three novels capitalize on the…

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a reputed anti-slavery novel in American literary history. Tom, an unusually loyal and submissive slave, was sold to different slave masters again and again until he was tortured to death. Tom's tragic fate had multi-faceted roots. This paper tends to give an objective interpretation of Tom's personality so as to…

This article examines spoken quotation in literary study during discussion of novels in junior and senior classrooms. It focusses on teachers' third-turn exposition for literary-critical talk, a space where the modality of texts is transformed from print to oral expression. Teachers' spoken quotation develops students' sensitivity to how literary…

This article examines Julio Cortázar's short story "Las babas del diablo" from a visual perspective and at the intersection of Roland Barthes's ideas on photography and Severo Sarduy's theory on the Neobaroque. I propose that in "Las babas del diablo" photography and the Neobaroque--two seemingly unrelated concepts--interact…

With the challenges and revolutionary changes in the world, it is essential that the sources of social power direct the communities towards the right path that leads to a brighter future, especially when it comes to young adults. Young adults represent a critical social group that needs special attention. Therefore, the present paper tackles one…

When it comes to being productive allies and co-conspirators with and for transgender people, the authors have been particularly drawn to "George" (Gino, 2015), perhaps the first mass-marketed, #OwnVoices novel with a young transgender protagonist, a White fourth-grade transgender girl named Melissa. This article investigates the…