Change-ringing occupies a strange position in English history, ubiquitous but virtually unstudied. This project investigates the philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings of change-ringing’s seventeenth-century development, using ringing literature and contemporary poetry to trace themes of circularity and ordered change in both content and structure. I conclude that the poets and ringers of the seventeenth century devised their unique aesthetic modes in order to create universally mimetic experiences that solidify faith in divine providence.

People Emma Stanford Researcher   Marion Wells Sponsor and Associate Professor of English and American Literatures

Related Links Change-ringing’s online headquarters Audio of a ringing performance

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“Life Stories of Middlebury College” is a multi-phase initiative intended to gather people’s experiences while at the college, particularly reflections that highlight issues of diversity. In her interview, Claudia Cooper talk about teaching literature with Middlebury College students in Africa, her work in advocacy for community building to overcome AIDS, adopting a foreign-born child, and the feeling of difference at home and abroad.

People Claudia Cooper Visiting Assistant Professor of English & American Literature & Education Studies Susan Burch Associate Professor of American Studies; Director, CCSRE; Head of Life Stories project

Related Links Betasab – Building Families, Building Communities Ethiopia Reads FYSE 1290 – Images of Africa ENAM 0211 / TEDU 2011 – Global Literature for Youth

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Early twentieth-century lyric poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was, at the height of her career, a literary celebrity treated as a major poet. Today, her poetry remains marginally popular but largely unstudied in literature classrooms. This presentation considers Millay in a cultural and hisorical context, discussing her complex relationship to Modernism, critical reactions to Millay over the course of the twnetieth century – ranging from New Critic John Crowe Ransom’s attack on Millay’s poetic and intellectual capabilities, to feminist critics’ attempts to reclaim her from obscurity – and the phenomenon of literary celebrity, particularly for women writers.

People Carla Cevasco Researcher Brett Millier Sponsor & Reginald D. Cook Professor of American Literature

Related Links Edna St. Vincent Millay Society

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For thousands of years, the written word contained only streams of capital letters, with unseparated words and sentences. Punctuation appeared in only rudimentary forms in the early centuries A.D., and was invented specifically to prevent those who read aloud in church from misreading on misinterpreting a passage of the scriptures. Spaces between words did not appear until the 700s A.D., after the development of the Carolingian Miniscule and the establishment of Benedictine rule, and it was not until the 1100s that they became common place. Suddenly, readers no longer needed to mumble through passages to discern their meanings, and began to read as we do most commonly today: in silence. The new written form inspired the first alphabetized glossaries, made books more compact and personal, and made literacy a more widespread goal. But it also triggered a sense of independence and empowerment as yet unknown in medieval society, causing a rise of critical thinkers and skeptics, and, in turn, inciting fear of heresy in the church. Indeed, without punctuation and the space between words, would we have the same capacity for questioning that we do today?

People Melissa Hirsch Researcher Louisa Burnham Sponsor & Associate Professor of History

Related Links

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Although early literature of Maryland and Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay reflected the first settlers’ unbridled consumption of resources, as the twentieth centuries due to habitat loss, overfishing, and pollution, literature, specifically an emergent genre of children’s and young adult literature, demonstrated a shift from entitlement towards stewardship of the Bay’s resources. Authors of children’s and young adult literature increasingly encouraged youth, either didactically or through metaphor, to value the Bay’s resources, protect the health of the Bay, and persuade others to become stewards of a healthy Chesapeake for future generations. This presentation will examine the transformation of Chesapeake Bay literature, and explore how these children’s and young adult works color the growing environmental education movement in the Bay region.

People Laura Williams Researcher Daniel Brayton Sponsor & Assistant Professor of English & American Literature

Related Links Undergraduate Research Office

Downloads Symposium Presentation Slides Introduction – The Chesapeake Bay – A History of Degradation Chapter 1 – The Lorax Within – Children’s Literature of the Chesapeake Bay Chapter 2 – Stewardship Ambassadors – Young Adult Literature of the Chesapeake Bay Conclusion – Children’s and Young Adult Literature Grow Up – Environmental Education and the Chesapeake in Memoir Works Consulted Acknowledgements

This project examines how the figure of the split mother in folk tales has changed over three historical eras. First, it focuses on two oral tales originating in the Early Modern period: “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Juniper Tree.” It also looks at Lucy Lane Clifford’s “The New Mother” (1882) and Neil Gaiman’s novel, Coraline (2002). The project examines the cultural and historical anxieties involved in this Good Mother/Bad Mother split. Finally, it questions whether today’s notion of the unattainable ideal mother continues to reflect the prejudices of the Early Moderns and Victorians.

People Emily Culp Researcher Elizabeth Napier Sponsor & Henry N. Hudson Professor of English and American Literatures Marion Wells Sponsor & Associate Professor of English and American Literatures

Related Links The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families Hansel and Gretel Full Text The Juniper Tree Full Text The New Mother Full Text Undergraduate Research Office

Downloads Symposium Presentation Slides Essay Title Page Essay Table of Contents Essay Text

As arguably the most famous playwright that Russia has ever produced, Anton Chekhov has written works that have been read and performed on an international level since their first publication in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His literary genius has helped to further the genre of realistic theatre with a tragicomedy of simultaneous humor and melancholy unique to his plays. In comparing three contemporary dramatic literature adaptations of Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya to the original (Sam Holcroft’s Vanya, Howard Barker’s Uncle Vanya and David Mamet’s Uncle Vanya) I will prove that Chekhov’s particular use of tragicomedy creates a human universality that dramatists try to emulate to this day, while each individually adjusts the test to fit his own distinctive writing style and vision for the plotline. This comparison asserts that classic works of dramatic literature contain an isolated universal human element that compels playwrights to create modern adaptations.

People Cori Hundt Researcher John Bertolini Sponsor & Ellis Professor of English and Liberal Arts

Scene from Sam Holcroft’s Vanya performed as part of 10-Minute Plays during the 2011 Spring Student Symposium.

Related Links Full text of Uncle Vanya in English Full text of Uncle Vanya in Russian Watch Uncle Vanya directed by Stanley Spenger Sonya’s Story, an operatic adaptation of Uncle Vanya Undergraduate Research Office

Downloads Critical Essay Presented to the Department of English and American Literatures Images from the Performance