Humanities

Explores the relation between Christian semiology and the semiological presuppositions of Moby-Dick. In particular, Ishmael's agency reflects a Christian stance regarding the nature of the created order: All things signify; therefore, everything is significant. Argues that apart from presupposing the existence of a logically prior System of all (sub)Systems, semioticity could not be known.

Briefly analyzes the narratological structure of Welch's novel, demonstrating its unique approach to rendering history intelligible. Argues that Welch, in contradistinction to other Native American authors, ties together the cyclicism of mythological discourse and the linearity of Eurocentric conceptions of history, proposing a typological conception of history akin to Christianity's understanding of history as differentiation via repetition.

Explores Goethe's Faustian Logos, its nature as a composite drawn from various philosophical, mystical, and scientific sources, and how it differs from the Christian Logos (i.e. the Divine Johannine Logos). Argues that Goethe's Logos is a strawman constructed from various epistemological presuppositions not contained in the Bible.

A brief exploration of the materialist/empiricist foundational assumptions of secular semiotics, overview of contemporary Christian attempts to construct a biblically-faithful semiotics, and proposal for a semiotics based on Scripture alone.

Brief analysis and comparison of Linda Hogan's Memoir "The Woman Who Watches Over The World" and Sherman Alexie's novel "Flight." Accidentalism vs Essentialism is covered; argues that the prima facie accidentalism in both works conceals an essentialist concept of, respectively, (a.)the material universe and (b.)human morality.

Argues that William Blake's poetry represents a Romantic System of Thought, one that is evidenced in other Romantic poets but which survives in evolutionary psychological theories. Argues that the fundamental axiom of Blake's system, as well as the fundamental axiom of all post-enlightenmentism, is "All is material." Demonstrates Romantic roots of fundamental assumptions of contemporary scientific models.

Explores classic "True Grit" by Charles Portis. Attention given to theological worldview informing the structure of the narrative. Analysis of poststructuralist superimpositions upon the text. Interprets text as originating with narrator and not author.

Demonstrates Marie de France's sophisticated identification of Bisclavret's wife, and those like her, with werewolves. Contends that de France's definition of a werewolf is not a redundancy but a carefully placed means of guiding the reader in the proper interpretation of who is or is not a werewolf. Questions prevailing binarily reliant historically ensconced constructions of gender in sexual-political discourse.

Defends the thesis that Austin's text "Cactus Thorn" is an inverted history of women according to popular contextualizations of the biblical narrative of the fall of humanity (see, Genesis 2-3). Explores similarities and differences between the texts in question, concluding that Austin's novel does not accomplish a historical redefinition of woman, beginning with Eve, but further reveals the depth to which the biblical narrative informs her novel.

Comparative Analysis of "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold." Demonstrates the similarities and differences between mimesis/substitution and death-for-oneself/death-for-the-other, arguing that representational monophonic narration entails readerly instrospection and analysis of ethical concerns relevant to the reader, whereas substitutionary polyphonic narration entails the death of the narrator for the sake of the reader, through which the reader is brought into the narrator's place and given the capacity for ethical judgment/assessment. The latter allows the reader to engage in centrifugal ethical analysis (i.e. alteric ethics), whereas the former allows the reader to engage in centripetal ethical analysis (i.e. isoteric ethics).

An analysis of the two trajectories nominalism takes in the writings of, on the one hand, Joseph Conrad and Franz Kafka, and James Joyce, on the other hand. The essay compares Heart of Darkness, In the Penal Colony, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, offering a proposed harmonization of the vacuous and superabundant nominalism reflected in the writings of these authors.

Explores the variety of Medieval representations of Eve as prototype of all women. Subemphasis given to the investigation of the period's conception and treatment of women (including literacy rates among women and men, reasons for male resent(i)ment, and so on). Concludes by emphasizing the indeterminable nature of Eve as adamant naif ("A person born in a state of bondage or serfdom; spec. a female serf, a bondwoman" - OED.) or first prophetess.