Journal of Undergraduate Research

Danille Christensen Lindquist and Professor Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist, English “The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign—is it not? Of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, […]

Melissa A. Gallup and Professor Paul Thomas, English Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales before his death in 1400, producing his tales over the space of approximately 14 years. But even with over twenty thousand lines of poetry and prose, his work was still unfinished, for the plan was that each pilgrim would share two […]

Nathan Furr and Dr. Lance Larson, English “A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.”– William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl For the […]

Rachel Hoggan and Dr. Sirpa Grierson, English Education The Problem Does contemporary young adult (YA) literature belong in the secondary education classroom? That is the question that has been on everyone’s tongues in the last several decades. In 1973, The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) was created as a subunit of the NCTE (National […]

Jacob Hodgen and Dr. Dennis Perry, English Department The intent of my project was to seek to better understand the structure and ideology of the short stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Through my research I discovered that nearly every one of his stories can be directly linked to the archetypal hero’s quest—as popularized and brought into […]

Mary E. Illions Wilde and Professor Claudia Harris, English For my project, I analyzed Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and D. H. Lawrence’s short story, The Horse Dealer’s Daughter, using the Mythic/Archetypal approach. First I identified the archetypes of water, light and mud in both works and intended to compare the way […]

Ryan D. Stewart and Dr. John Talbot, English James Henry (1798-1876) was an Irish classicist most well known for his long and eccentric commentary of Virgil’s Aeneid—Aeneidea, or Critical, Exegetical and Aesthetical Remarks on the Aeneis—and known to some extent for his work as a physician and his penchant for pamphleteering. In the mid-1980s, however, […]

Elizabeth Pinborough and Dr. Kimberly Johnson, English My goal was to study the Shaker aesthetic, the distinctive set of characteristics that define Shaker art and architecture. Through preliminary research, I had discovered that Shaker buildings where characterized by symmetry, straight lines, squareness, and simplicity, and I wanted to experience the aesthetic firsthand. The questions I […]

Jessie Leatham and Dr. Nicholas Mason, English Department Mary Wollstonecraft is a complicated figure in the history of British feminism. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. One of the earliest proto-feminist treatises, Wollstonecraft’s work responded powerfully to “the woman question” that was burgeoning in her day and […]

Sean Johnson and Dr. Susan Howe, English Henry James Pye, poet laureate from 1790 to 1813, occupies a unique position in English literature. In the half dozen or so published retrospectives of the lives and works of the poets laureate, he is consistently called the worst poet ever to hold the office. Had he not […]