English presentations (MU)
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/250
The items in this collection are the scholarly output of the faculty, staff, and students of the Department of English.2024-03-28T14:35:40ZAnnexing the planets : the colonization of the alien body in science fiction [abstract]
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/413
Annexing the planets : the colonization of the alien body in science fiction [abstract]
Scott, Joseph B.
Science fiction has its historical beginnings in the late colonial era, and the discourse of colonialism shares with the discourse of science fiction a terminology of discovery, exploration, conquest, mapping and the claiming of new lands. Thus, it is no accident that one of the central concerns of science fiction is precisely the central concern of colonial discourse and, later, of postcolonial theory: an effort to understand the troubled relationship between the self and the other, which in SF terms is figured in the relationship between the human and the alien being, or the human and the alien landscape. Looking at science fiction through the lens of postcolonial theory opens up a body of source material seldom considered by postcolonialism. In fact, because it removes a discussion of colonialism to a hypothetical realm, science fiction is able, in some ways, to be more truthful than so-called "high art" fiction about the central dilemma of colonialism: what do you do with the aliens? Science fiction often brushes aside colonialism's humanist facade to show the colonialist's hostility to environments and bodies which are constructed as other than human. ...
Abstract of a presentation given at the 2008 Body Project conference at the University of Missouri-Columbia.; This presentation was made during the session "After the Body: Is It Still Human?"
2008-01-01T00:00:00ZBinding the body, binding the mind : the limitations of empathy in John Gabriel Stedman's “Narrative of a five years' expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam” [abstract]
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/401
Binding the body, binding the mind : the limitations of empathy in John Gabriel Stedman's “Narrative of a five years' expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam” [abstract]
Kneisley, Bri
John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796) is laced with discussions of cruelty -- to slaves, to soldiers, even to monkeys. Throughout, Stedman prides himself on his empathy for all living creatures, showing his own pain, mental anguish, and revulsion at watching their suffering. However, Stedman's empathy seems intricately linked to the body -- in particular to bodily suffering. Thus, while the physically ill, injured, tortured, and raped all spark his sentimentality, Stedman seems oblivious to psychological trauma -- from forced labor, sexual coercion, or general subservience -- particularly in slaves. Though Stedman claims to "love the African" and to view Africans as his equals, and though he abhors the cruelties which they suffer by the lash, his empathy is limited by his relatively privileged social and economic status to the boundaries of the body.
This presentation was made during the session "Body Knowledge and Self-Study."; Abstract of a presentation given at the 2008 Body Project conference at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
2008-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Death of Maternity : Decaying Female Bodies in Mary Shelley's Fiction [abstract]
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/392
The Death of Maternity : Decaying Female Bodies in Mary Shelley's Fiction [abstract]
Gore-Wilson, Erin
In this paper, I examine the trope of the dying woman in Mary Shelley's early works, including Frankenstein, Mathilda, and her short fiction. Critics are in general agreement that two of Frankenstein's essential subjects are the trauma of creation and the dire consequences of child abandonment. Mary Shelley's fiction is riddled with dead mothers and young women wasting away as a result of male action. Maternity is appropriated by patriarchy in Mary Shelley's fiction; this usurpation of motherhood is always at the expense of the female body. Mary Shelley creates worlds in which procreation is malecentered and results in the destruction of otherwise fertile female bodies.
Abstract of a presentation given at the 2008 Body Project conference at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
2008-01-01T00:00:00ZDP Positions in African Languages
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/10457
DP Positions in African Languages
Carstens, Vicki; Diercks, Michael; Mletshe, Loyiso Kevin; Ndayiragije, Juvenal; Sikuku, Justine
A central concern of syntactic theory has long been to explain and predict the distribution of nominal expressions, henceforth D(eterminer) P(hrases), and their involvement in morphosyntactic relations. Where can they occur? When can they move, control agreement, and bear Case? The study of Indo-European (IE) languages has yielded strong generalizations upon which the theory is based. As we illustrate, a number of African languages in which such phenomena have been explored seem to
turn these generalizations more or less on their heads. Our project seeks to determine and to explain the possibilities and limitations of DP positions, focusing primarily on Bantu languages. Some of the issues arise also in non-Bantu African languages including Igbo and Ibibio (see Ura 1998 on Igbo hyper-raising, = raising from tensed clauses; Baker and Willie 2010 on Ibibio multiple agreement), and we hope the project can be extended to them as well.
A handout of a presentation given at the Afranaph Project Development Workshop on December 10-11, 2010, at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
2010-01-01T00:00:00Z