Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and PedagogyDialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy (ISSN 2378-2323 print, ISSN 2378-2331 online) is the first open access, peer-reviewed journal focused on the intersection of popular culture and pedagogy. While some open access journals...http://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/61922024-03-29T05:28:57Z2024-03-29T05:28:57ZTHE TIN WOODMAN, CAPTAIN FYTER, AND CHOPFYT: L. FRANK BAUM’S PORTRAYAL OF BODY IMAGE AND PROSTHESES IN THE WAKE OF WORLD WAR IGethins, Mariehttp://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/63532022-06-30T21:00:30Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZTHE TIN WOODMAN, CAPTAIN FYTER, AND CHOPFYT: L. FRANK BAUM’S PORTRAYAL OF BODY IMAGE AND PROSTHESES IN THE WAKE OF WORLD WAR I
Gethins, Marie
Nineteenth and early twentieth-century children’s literature frequently depicts characters with disabilities as flat stereotypes — villains or saintly invalids. L. Frank Baum’s The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918) provides a sharp contrast to these typical portrayals, as well as contemporary “socio-cultural” beliefs on physical normalcy and sense of self. Written as the U.S. entered World War I and details of trench warfare reached the home-front, it presents an interesting exploration of society’s response to physical disability and prostheses. In addition, it highlights the psychological devastation associated with body changes.
During Baum’s formative years, disabled Civil War veterans returned to New York state in large numbers. Initially respected for their service and their subsequent loss, Civil War veterans gradually found themselves the subject of resentment across much of the United States. Many cities passed ordinances prohibiting the disabled from frequenting public areas to avoid “disturbing” the populace. Baum’s portrayal of three characters contrasts with contemporary “socio-cultural” mores.
In The Tin Woodman of Oz, the Tin Woodman and Captain Fyter, who progressively dismembered themselves and replaced body parts with tin prostheses, are shown in a positive light. When these “tin twins” Captain Fyter and the Tin Woodman encounter Chopfyt — a man assembled from a combination of their flesh body parts — the three characters reflect on what constitutes physical normalcy, as well as the value and beauty of prostheses. Through Chopfyt, the psychological effects of limb loss and the concept of usefulness come to the fore.
This paper considers the influences the Civil War and World War I amputees may have played on Baum’s writing of The Tin Woodman of Oz and what cultural lessons underlie his characterizations of prostheses, physical normalcy, and what constitutes a sense of self.
Keywords: Disability, prostheses, amputee, Oz, World War 1, physical normalcy
2020-01-01T00:00:00ZFIRST-PERSON ADOLESCENT STORYTELLERS AND VIRGINIA TUFTE’S ARTFUL SENTENCES: SYNTAX AS STYLELeonard, Kristinhttp://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/63522022-06-30T21:00:35Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZFIRST-PERSON ADOLESCENT STORYTELLERS AND VIRGINIA TUFTE’S ARTFUL SENTENCES: SYNTAX AS STYLE
Leonard, Kristin
In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tuft illustrates how grammar, word choice, and syntax strategies help to generate the perfect juxtaposition of words and punctuation that will make each sentence pop (Clark). Tufte’s handbook includes examples from a variety of texts; for example, John Keats, Andy Warhol, Ernest Hemingway, Julia Child’s The Joy of Cooking, and more. However, there is a noticeable lack of adolescent narrators in Tufte’s smorgasbord of literature examples. This lack is significant, due to the popularity of first-person narrators in adolescent literature. Therefore, in order to analyze whether Tufte’s syntax strategies can also be applied to first-person adolescent narrators, two contrasting teenage protagonists were examined: Matilda, in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793, and Saba, in Moira Young’s Blood Red Road. The final analysis illustrates that Virginia Tufte’s syntax strategies, in Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, are equally effective when applied to first-person adolescent storytellers, particularly strategies that include verbs, fragments, and the creation of cohesiveness.
Keywords: adolescent fiction, grammar, first-person narration, Virginia Tuft, creative writing strategies, young adult fiction
2020-01-01T00:00:00ZFINDING THE SACRED IN THE PROFANE: THE MARDI GRAS IN BASILE, LOUISIANAGuglielmi, Luchttp://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/63512022-06-30T21:00:38Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZFINDING THE SACRED IN THE PROFANE: THE MARDI GRAS IN BASILE, LOUISIANA
Guglielmi, Luc
In Basile, a small community in Southwest Louisiana, there would not be any Mardi Gras without Ash Wednesday and vice-versa. Most of the people in Basile speak of Ash Wednesday when defining the Mardi Gras as there is a reciprocal spiritual relationship between Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday. The people from Basile, therefore, in giving equal spiritual value to these two feasts, assign a liturgical value to Mardi Gras because they need, and will admit this freely, to have a good Mardi Gras in order to enter into the sacred season of Lent.
Mardi Gras performs a function that is similar to the other religious feasts which have been established to break the monotony of the liturgical cycle. Folklorists who have studied Mardi Gras in Basile support the idea that it is the same people dancing, singing, eating and drinking that one finds at Mardi Gras who will kneel before the priest to receive their ashes (Ware 1994, Lindhal 1996a, Mire). The Church tolerates and/or accepts the Carnival as a necessity. By accepting the carnival within its liturgical time, the Church exerts better control over that time of the year.
Keywords: folklore, Mardi Gras, Southern, sacred, profane
2020-01-01T00:00:00ZRENEGADE OR PARAGON?: CATEGORIZING NARRATIVE CHOICE IN VIDEO GAME STORYLINESOliver, Grahamhttp://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/63502022-06-30T21:00:37Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZRENEGADE OR PARAGON?: CATEGORIZING NARRATIVE CHOICE IN VIDEO GAME STORYLINES
Oliver, Graham
Choices made during video game gameplay set the stories told in that media apart from other media. Narrative-affecting choices have existed since the earliest games, from character creation in role-playing games to performance-based narrative changes in Metroid to morality-based choices in Ogre Battle. In the contemporary gaming landscape, some games derive a significant portion of their gameplay from character decisions: exploration, dialogue options, quick-time event reactions, etc. In this article, I give a history and breakdown of how choices have existed and evolved in gaming narratives since their inception. I then propose three categories for significant narrative choices: aesthetic, social, and reflective.
The aesthetic choice is one influencing surface-level elements of the game. An example is Kentucky Route Zero, wherein dialogue choices largely serve to fill in the motivation and background of the characters while not actually influencing the narrative trajectory of the game. The social choice is one which impacts the characters’ relationship with one another. Perhaps the most well-known social choices are Dungeons and Dragons character alignments, Fallout’s Karma system, or Mass Effect’s renegade versus paragon. The reflective choice is one that asks the player to consider the gameplay or the ramifications of the decision. Spec Ops: The Line, to widespread acclaim and criticism, centered its story on calling into question the typical structure of kill-everything-that-moves first-person shooters.
While these categories do not account for every possible decision in a game, they work toward a structure that will allow for a more nuanced dissection of gaming narratives. By focusing on choice, it highlights an area of storytelling that gaming is constantly pushing the boundaries of.
Keywords: game studies, narrative studies, player studies
2020-01-01T00:00:00ZTRIPLE THREAT OR TRIPLE OPPORTUNITY: WHEN A POP CULTURE COURSE GOES ONLINE AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGEEaton, LanceRockey, Alexhttp://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/63492022-06-30T21:00:41Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZTRIPLE THREAT OR TRIPLE OPPORTUNITY: WHEN A POP CULTURE COURSE GOES ONLINE AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Eaton, Lance; Rockey, Alex
Teaching popular culture comes with many opportunities and challenges in a traditional classroom, but equally interesting and valuable are the possibilities that teaching such a course online can provide. This article explores how “Popular Culture in the US,” an online course at a community college, embraces some key attributes of the digital world such as multimodal communication and Web 2.0 interactivity. Evolved from a face-to-face community college course, the online version has increasingly developed to move from an instructor-centered to a student-centered approach that relies upon various engagement strategies. By using student choice, OER-enabled pedagogy, and constructivist approaches, the instructor engages students by leveraging the Internet to educate students, empower them as creators of content, and support critical participation in popular culture. The article illustrates how teaching within the online space can enhance teaching and learning, particularly for courses that have a disciplinary focus on popular culture and media.
Keywords: pop culture, online course, constructivism, community college, universal design for learning, open pedagogy, open educational resources, interaction, multimodal
2020-01-01T00:00:00ZTHE BATMAN COMES TO CLASS: POPULAR CULTURE AS A TOOL FOR ADDRESSING REFLEXIVE PAINHammonds, Kyle A.Anderson-Lain, Karenhttp://nur.nu.edu.kz:80/handle/123456789/63482022-06-30T21:00:33Z2020-01-01T00:00:00ZTHE BATMAN COMES TO CLASS: POPULAR CULTURE AS A TOOL FOR ADDRESSING REFLEXIVE PAIN
Hammonds, Kyle A.; Anderson-Lain, Karen
In this essay, a case study approach is used to examine ways in which comics and graphic narratives can be used to provide a context within which undergraduate students may theorize about culture. The authors employed Batman: Year One as an organizing narrative for students to theorize about culture and communication. Specifically, students were challenged to (1) understand applications of communication theory in the context of graphic narrative, (2) use graphic narrative as a space for theorizing about communication and culture outside of comics, (3) utilize narrative theory to extrapolate meaning from complex, multi-modal forms of communication. While this case study is situated within the Communication Discipline, the project may be customized to fit courses related to Rhetoric (English), Narrative Theory, or Critical/Cultural Studies.
Keywords: Popular Culture Pedagogy; Batman; Graphic Narratives; Comics; Narrative Theory; Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication
2020-01-01T00:00:00Z