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This article is a reflection of the author's experiences teaching a course titled 'Women In Islam' [WIS] in an English Department at a medium, public, Masters granting, Liberal Arts university in the Midwestern United States. This paper argues for the importance of teaching WIS through a multi-genre, interdisciplinary, and global approach. The article refers to the following five teaching strategies: Thinking through History, The Lived Realities Lens, The Multi-Genre Approach, Fiction through a Global Lens, and Using VALUE rubrics as an Evaluation Tool

This paper is aimed at interpreting Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Masque of the Red Death' (1842) and its portrayal of death in relation to the Holy Qur'an and Arabic literary heritage. This reading provides new insights into the understanding of the story. The paper argues that Poe's story and its depictions of death allows for a transtextual analysis as it is based, for a significant extent, on stories from the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, which informs of the inevitability of death. In addition, the anatomic study of the story investigates the influence of Arabic literary heritage and its role in arousing the writer's imagination. Scholarly work notes that Poe's story follows many traditions of gothic fiction and is often analysed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Apart from scholarly work on the story, the paper is purported at rereading the story and explores the transtextual connections and affiliations between the story's portrayal of death and what Qur'an tells about death. There are striking moments of parallelism between the two sources on the notion of death although the story's oriental and Islamic references to death shine implicitly through and never made explicit nor directly copy the Qur'anic verse or the Arabic literary sources. Therefore, the paper digs deeply into the story to explore how its representations of death are influenced and shaped by the Holy Qur'an and Arabic literary heritage.

In this paper I call for an emotional confrontation with our traumatic, racist, and often unacknowledged history. I share ideas, experiences, and pedagogical strategies with which to engage difficult dialogue about difficult knowledge, in such a way as to disarm defense and, potentially inspire anti-racist activism in education and beyond. The first strategy is to develop psychoanalytic sensibilities in education. I argue that this will help us begin to invite the "freedom to feel" into classrooms that customarily prioritize freedom of thought. The second strategy is to insist that a confrontation with traumatic elements of untold history, and unacknowledged racial (and other) injustices in our current reality, will be uncomfortable. I emphasize that we must work on our capacity to tolerate discomfort and develop our capacities to mourn (loss of cherished belief, loss of innocence, loss of privilege, among other forms of loss). Third, I argue that "knowing ignorance" can be a powerful antidote to the structural ignorance that has hindered our capacities to think critically and creatively in solidarity with different others. I conclude by suggesting that engagement with narrative fiction in film and literature, is a promising pedagogical approach that enables transformative dialogue to take place. I share a few of my favorite films and short stories that have yielded fruitful conversations in my own social justice-oriented classrooms.

This paper examines analyses of adolescent romance fiction, highlighting key themes and debates over time. I will argue that contemporary social conditions underline the need to reconsider the value of this genre in the secondary English classroom. However, working effectively with genre literature (including romance) requires educators to diversify reading practices, challenging the dominance of the standard 'class novel' approach. I will describe the integration of a module on teen romance into a literature course for preservice English educators. Finally, focusing on a specific text, "Frankly in Love" by David Yoon, I highlight the skilful way in which authors of contemporary adolescent literature weave multiple perspectives into engaging and nuanced narratives in which characters navigate identities, relationships, and ideas about love.

This paper argues that in interpreting literary pieces, language and literature should team up for their mutual benefit. Based on this assumption, this study explores the interface between language and literature by examining along stylistic lines the flash fiction piece "When It's A Grey November In Your Soul" written by Cristina Pantoja Hidlago, a renowned Filipino author. Using Leech and Short's (2007) schema, the present study attempts to decipher the language code of the said literary text in terms of the following features: lexical categories, grammatical categories, figures of speech, and context and cohesion. The analysis proves that specific textual features could lend themselves well in interpreting the text. Among the lexical categories are group of words that indicate confusion (i.e., semantic field); predominant use of concrete nouns, special use of proper nouns, and abstract nouns referring to social and psychological states; adjectives denoting sense perceptions (visual descriptions, mostly colors); and specific verbs indicating speech acts. On the other hand, these grammatical features contribute to text interpretations are interrogative sentences and minor sentences (i.e., sentence fragments); predominant use of simple sentences; use of the literary present in general, and punctuations (i.e., em dash and ellipsis). Lexical repetition and alliteration are found to be effective figures of speech in comprehending the flash fiction piece. As for context, the flash fiction piece employs the first-person narration with Direct Speeches (DS), one Free Direct Speech (FDS), Free Direct Thoughts (FDT), and one Indirect Thought (IT). Repetition, recurring motif, and linkage as cohesion elements help elucidate the effects and meanings the writer intends to evoke in the story. The implications of the present study for literature and language teaching are also discussed.

A critical/creative paradigm in contemporary English carries with it an imperative that students should be given opportunities for deep engagement with texts relevant to what matters in their everyday lives. In this paper, I argue that the materiality of everyday life includes the physical and geographic places where we live. When students live in areas that are habitually disparaged, there is an additional argument on social justice grounds for enabling students to examine and contest representations of (their) place in texts. Aesthetic and literary texts--poetry, fiction, drama, visual images--provide potent opportunities for students to write themselves into the world. Close study of place-based aesthetic texts provides students with essential knowledge of language forms and features to experiment with in their own imaginative rewriting of place. In this paper, I use extracts from fiction and poetry and related writing activities from the "Writing western Sydney" project to demonstrate how teachers and students can be supported to make the "crucial move ... from critique to creation" (Sawyer, 2008, p. 61). I conclude with an outline of how this approach can be taken up and adapted by teachers in any location.

This study seeks to analyze book group discussions on translated fiction in terms of micro public spheres. The paper explores the potentials of this perspective based on ethnographic data collected through participant observation with reading groups located across Britain. The discussion demonstrates the public sphere in operation beyond the confines of the book club meeting, where literature in translation provides fragments of cultural difference and where the aesthetic-affective mode facilitates open dialogue, contributing to critical-reflexive understanding. The article illustrates the interplay of the normative and the actual aspects of the public sphere through the tension between cosmopolitanism in contemporary cultural consumption and the entertainment value of essentialist representations. The contribution points to the nexus between translation and intercultural communication.

This research explores the ways in which normative structures organize experiences and representations of identities. It reports on two groups, one in which the members identified as rural and heterosexual and the other as urban and lesbian. Both participated in literary reading and response practices organized by a literary anthropological research methodology (Iser, 1993; Luce-Kapler, 2004). Informed by research in literary theory and consciousness studies, the paper suggests that fictional identifications influence the development of human consciousness and the narration of stories, and that "close reading" (Gallop, 2000) and effortful practice (Davis, Sumara, & Luce-Kapler, 2008) help us to reconsider "normative" identity narratives through identifications with literary characters and through writing practices that require us to shift our perspectives.

The advantages of introducing detailed scrutiny of metaphor into the college composition, creative writing, and literature curriculum are multiple. A number of researchers think an understanding of metaphor is important for cognitive development. This article establishes reasons for teaching metaphorical thinking and then goes on to argue that Angela Carter's short fiction is uniquely suited for such an endeavor. (Contains 1 note.)

Given the increasing interest in musico-literary studies, I wish to examine some ways in which music can be used for pedagogical purposes in teaching literature. It has been widely recognized that music and poetry sprang from the common origin of chant or incantation. Throughout the ages, the sister arts sometimes went hand in hand and sometimes parted company, but since the end of the nineteenth century musical aspects have been used quite extensively in literature, either as a subject matter or as a wellhead of structures. The number of musically inspired twentieth-century novels bears evidence to this strengthening of musico-literary relationships. Contemporary interactive, interdisciplinary, and multimedial works of art or artistic events also testify to a close sisterhood between the arts. This phenomenon has come to be called intermediality, which is defined as using more than one artistic medium in the creation of a work of art. But then, examining musical aspects in literature demands specific knowledge of the musical field itself, thus raising questions about the limits and the difficulties of using musico-literary materials in class. Suppose the student is not knowledgeable at all about music. What, then, can be the input the teacher can offer the student without necessarily inundating the latter with too much information? Is it possible to avoid generalizations in drawing comparisons or distinctions between music and literature? And, is it relevant to deal with music in teaching fiction? (Contains 29 notes.)

The art of fiction tells truth because it is the truth of life that goes into making good fiction: love, hate, fear, courage, delight, sorrow, betrayal, loyalty, confusion, choice, circumstance, luck, injustice. These essential qualities, says the author, are also the qualities of sound theology, with a sense of time and place; and raising relevant questions without offering absolute answers. The author cites her reaction to the central character of John Updike's "In the Beauty of the Lilies." (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Analyzes author Terry McMillan's conception of aesethics and offers practical suggestions for the teaching of "Ma Dear" and "Quilting on the Rebound" to English-as-a-foreign-language students at the postsecondary level. (Author/VWL)

Examines humorous literature in higher education and categorizes the genre into humorous academic stories and novels, essays, and expressions. Explores the first of these types. Demonstrates that Freud's "superiority theory" is alive and well in humorous campus literature but that it generally does not rise to the instrumental level of pure satire. (Contains 17 references.) (VWC)

A call for papers for special issues of "Modern Fiction Studies" on "Literature and Extraction" and "Memory, Migration, and Modern Fiction" is presented.

Based on analysis of discussions of fiction using Dedalus Interchange in literary analysis classes, it was found that synchronous electronic conferencing exposed students to more viewpoints, deemphasized traditional authority, increased metalinguistic awareness, decreased inhibition and gender barriers, and facilitated increased social connectedness which motivates participation. Excerpts from student discussions are included. (PEN)

Describes how narrative fiction can help prepare school leaders by involving imagination and aesthetic experience. The article examines the research-narrative link, the teaching-learning process, and the use of novels to explore administrative and social issues such as race, class, gender, language, experience, symbolic order, professions, and politics. (SM)

Updates a 1985 article on computers in science fiction. An annotated bibliography lists 77 in-print and out-of-print titles. The introduction discusses defining the computer for fictional purposes and various recurring themes. Two nonfiction books on the current state of social adaptation to computers are also included. (EAM)

The geographical, cultural, and linguistic diversity of the Philippines has strongly influenced the construction of self in Filipino literature. Filipino writers must formulate the fictional self in the midst of a tussle between the language of reality and the language of writing that is exacerbated by the country's colonial heritage. (JL)

Drawing on works of literary theory and postmodern fiction, discusses the relationship between reader, writer, and text. Examines the boundaries and frontiers that writers patrol and readers inhabit as they live out their personal lives with texts. (DMM)

My paper theorizes the possibilities of a qualitative method that engages with promiscuous aspects of human existence and difference foreclosed by established research methods and representations. I locate the not known of knowledge in the unconscious time of the maternal relation where the infant is put upon to wildly and without symbolic resources make sense of others and the world around her. Engaging with the "wild" aspects of interpretation can provide us with an analytical space to forge a sustained inquiry into suppressed desires producing dominant representations of human existence. I look to J.M. Coetzee's short story, "The Humanities in Africa," as a text that might support feminist researchers' unorthodox efforts to commune with the less rational processes of thinking and being driving representation. Reflexive to what remains unthought in our representations of knowledge, we might develop new modes of analysis that are open to unconventional and unorthodox research orientations and methods. (Contains 4 notes.)

The paper aims to contribute to the advancement of the theoretical and conceptual development of the field of media and literary studies, as well as to address the gaps, limitations or controversies in the existing literature. The paper also explores how news genre and fiction format affect the level and quality of interaction between the writers and readers of news stories, as well as the impact and influence of news stories on the Nigerian society. The paper uses a qualitative content analysis to analyse the news articles and fiction books that are selected for this study, according to the criteria of news genres, fiction formats and interaction. The paper finds that the hybrid fiction format is the most consistent and popular among the news genres, as it combines and blends elements from different fiction formats. The paper also finds that the investigative news genre is the most engaging and appealing among the news genres, as it provides in-depth, original and exposé reports of hidden or controversial matters. The paper argues that news stories and journalism genres are not neutral or objective, but rather social and rhetorical constructs that shape and are shaped by the communicative practices and purposes of discourse communities. The paper concludes that news stories and journalism genres are dynamic and evolving, as they respond to the changing social, political and technological contexts. The paper also discusses the implications, limitations and contributions of the research for the field of genre and media studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains how first-year composition students wrote business sales letters about short fiction and then revised those letters into full-fledged literary essays that analyzed the stories. By completing these two writings back-to-back (that is, experiencing the metagenres between business writing and literary analysis), students not only see that disciplines are linked but also learn about seminal features of composition (audience, argument, style, format), features that, in a literature-based composition course, might otherwise be lost. (Contains 2 notes.)

The article presents abstracts of literature. They include "Illiteracy, Incontinence and Indignation: Philip Roth's American Anti-Pastoral," by David Brauner, "Shattering the American Pastoral: Philip Roth's Vision of Trauma and the American Dream," by Kathleen L. MacArthur, and "Malamud's Doubles and a Doubling of Voices in the Short Fiction," by Victoria Aarons.

Contends that the dissertation is becoming a genre; illustrates through three recent examples that dissertations that are accepted by graduate schools although they are clearly fictions can serve a valuable purpose. (DD)

Examines the image of women as depicted in the literature of Africa and the Caribbean. Suggests that in the literature of both cultures, women are shown to be self-assertive and in control of their lives, but they are ultimately assessed on their success as wives and mothers. (Author/MJL)

In their article "Intermedial Serial Metarepresentation in Dickens's The Pickwick Papers" Asunción López-Varela and Camila Khaski Gaglia employ a semiotic perspective in order to establish the intermedial features of the genre of the serial novel. Drawing on Marina Grishakova's distinction between "metaverbal" (an attribute of verbal texts which evoke images) and "metavisual" (an attribute of images which reflect on the incomplete nature of visual representation) the authors explore self-reflexive references as threads to storylines which capture the entire series in one emblematic recurrent image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hedges and boosters are two important sources of linguistic devices to express tentative evaluations and to mitigate solidarity with readers. Men and women have different tendencies of using these linguistic devices. Women are usually considered to follow a personal and polite style whereas men are more competitive and assertive. Hence, gender-preferential features of women and men are one of the prerequisites of understanding the functions of hedges and boosters. One relatively neglected aspect of gender-based studies of these linguistic devices is fiction. In this paper, we explored male and female English writers' use of hedges and boosters in HUM19UK Corpus, a corpus of 19th century British fiction. We calculated a statistically significant overuse in the deployment of hedges and boosters by female writers in the 19th century, which is an indication of a new writing style adapted by the female writers in that era. However, the most common items of hedges and boosters were identical in both corpora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the complex relationship between ethics and literature by applying the perspective of everyday aesthetics, a branch of philosophy. Focusing on Francesco Piccolo's fiction work, Moments of Unnoticed Happiness (2012), we argue that the protagonist adopts an Aristotelian-based ethical stance, viewing happiness as a path to well-being and finding significance in life. Additionally, the character embraces an aesthetic attitude toward the nuances of daily existence, aligning with the theoretical framework of everyday aesthetics. This framework expands the scope of aesthetic experiences beyond traditional art domains, emphasizing a transformative shift in perception. We use these concepts to illustrate how engaging with the ordinary enhances personal well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-1989 Hungary, as the superstructure of a wellestablished censorship rapidly collapsed, a huge wave of formerly restricted information refreshed the stagnant water of literary and social culture. Nevertheless, the mainstream of contemporary highbrow belles-lettres began to take a rather apolitical approach towards literary production. Realism as an objectivist literary style and referential mode of representation was felt, after 1989, as too ideological, and thus lost its credibility along with the grand narrative of state socialism. A postmodern canon was soon established and popularized, based on formal experimentation and on the non-referential nature of the literary work. Despite the fact that postmodernism generally rejected realist fiction, Hungarian post-communist mainstream writers felt compelled to address the memory of the communist past. This paper aims to investigate major ethical and aesthetical problems of telling the truth via fiction, focusing on seminal books like The Union Jack, Kaddish for an Unborn Child, and Dossier K. by Imre Kertész; as well as Celestial Harmonies and Javított kiadás (Revised Edition) by Péter Esterházy. Last but not least, the article will analyse the compelling piece Egy történet (A/One Story), written by both the aforementioned authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the various ways in which nineteenth century monetary theory and the novel addressed the questions of reality and fiction with regard to the ontological status and social function of money. Departing from Walter Bagehot's insistence on the reality and realism of finance, and surveying examples of how novels by Dickens, Balzac, Trollope, or Zola represented, or avoided representing, financial realities, I deal with the various notions of money seen either as a neutral or abstract medium facilitating wealth-creating commodity exchange or as an active but mystical agent blurring the division of fiction and fact (Mill, Marx, Simmel). After that the paper gives an overview of economic oriented literary criticism with regard to its investment in relating and/or distinguishing monetary and literary notions of fiction. The essay ends by returning to Bagehot's argument and raises the question of the appropriation of reality by an increasingly fictitious finance, problematizing the distinction between expedient fictions and deceitful lies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]