James M Cochran | Baylor University

James M Cochran

Baylor University, English, Graduate Student

Baylor University, English, Graduate Student |

20th Century American Literature

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60 Followers | 91 Following | —Total Views

Articles

‘But Yehoshuah knew the numbers’: Reading Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers as Biblical Adaptation

"New Voices in Jewish-American Literature", Sep 13, 2017

This article considers Joshua Cohen’s 2015 Book of Numbers as an adaptation of the biblical Numbe... more This article considers Joshua Cohen’s 2015 Book of Numbers as an adaptation of the biblical Numbers. Drawing on personal interviews and Cohen’s novel, I trace how Cohen uses the structures and themes of the biblical Numbers to write about the contemporary technological world. By recasting the biblical source into a technological form, Cohen suggests that the digital world offers a kind of freedom, a Promised Land; yet, the freedom of the internet and new technologies is ultimately enslaving, resulting in an alienation of the self. Still, the 2015 Book of Numbers has a hopeful outlook, anticipating the survival of the ‘younger generation’.

Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Incarnational Ecology: Negotiating Mystery and Intimacy in ‘Binsey Poplars'

This essay examines Hopkins's "Binsey Poplars" from an incarnational theological lens. Such a rea... more This essay examines Hopkins's "Binsey Poplars" from an incarnational theological lens. Such a reading negotiates seemingly incongruent arguments put forth by Post, who argues that Hopkins's ecological world is "other," and Day, who argues that Hopkins make the ecological world relatable. Incarnational theology allows for a middle ground by preserving beings' uniqueness yet unifies them in a collective body. Additionally, reading the poem from an incarnational theological lens continues recent critical work that sees religious dimensions in the poem. Hopkins's incarnational theology corrects the view that the poem is secular. Finally, this essay suggests that Hopkins's incarnational theology anticipates and speaks to contemporary ecological and ecocritical issues. As such, this essay reads contemporary and emerging ecocritical voices alongside Hopkins's poem to demonstrate the harmony between the theological and theoretical voices.

'Making the Land Shiver:' Ana Castillo’s Ecological Politics in The Guardians

To date, almost no scholars have considered the ecological dimensions of Castillo's The Guardian... more To date, almost no scholars have considered the ecological dimensions of Castillo's The Guardians. As such, this essay aims to shift the conversation toward Castillo’s environmental ethics. While several critics have engaged Castillo’s novel, only one, Priscilla Solis Ybarra, has approached the work from an ecocritical lens, but even Ybarra’s treatment is brief. Using an ecocritical lens and drawing from Castillo’s political beliefs, as expressed in Massacre of the Dreamers, this essay considers the relationship between land and community in Castillo’s novel. First, I consider the importance of land—both as a symbolic and material entity—for Latinos and Latinas. Relatedly, the essay examines the ways in which Latinos and Latinas have been and continue to be displaced from their land and the ways in which Latino and Latina land has been damaged or destroyed, especially the ways in which environmental pollution disproportionately affects non-white communities. Then, the essay shifts to examples from The Guardians in which pesticides and other pollutants harm or kill Latino and Latina workers. In contrast to an economic and agricultural system that harms Latinos and Latinas, Castillo’s novel puts forth model of ethical gardening, based on love, as a kind of collective action that rebuilds community by reclaiming land and collective identities. Still, Castillo does not present this environmental engagement as a salvific enterprise, but she presents it as one of the many ways to re-engage community and land.

‘Angels in Machines’: The Proto-Posthuman in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock

While a number of scholars have begun to consider and analyze the relation between posthumanist t... more While a number of scholars have begun to consider and analyze the relation between posthumanist thought and the eighteenth century, few have attempted to read the work of Alexander Pope through a posthumanist lens. This article calls attention to this critical gap and examines a variety of posthuman sites and figures in The Rape of the Lock. Using posthumanist, cyborg, and monster theories, it looks at ways in which this poem negotiates and challenges the traditional binaries of male and female, human and animal, human and object. The article does not attempt to locate the contemporary cyborg in the eighteenth-century, but recognizes the value of using the notion of the cyborg and other posthumanist paradigms to re-approach and reread eighteenth-century texts. Such a reading provides a framework from which to analyze the transgressive elements of Pope’s text and draws attention to the ways in which this poem disrupts the very dichotomies that it seems to put forward.

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Constructing Chicano Identity: Resistance, Celebration, and Hybridity in Sergio Troncoso’s From This Wicked Patch of Dust

This paper considers Sergio Troncoso's _From This Wicked Patch of Dust_ as a resistance novel. I ... more This paper considers Sergio Troncoso's _From This Wicked Patch of Dust_ as a resistance novel. I argue that Troncoso relies on form, language, and indigenous myths and symbols to resist dominant American linguistic authority and popular imagination and to embrace his mestizo and Chicano heritage. Yet, he does not call for a complete return to old Mexico, which is itself plagued by problems of androcentrism. Instead, he calls for a Chicano identity that is defined by hybridity, ambiguity and fluidity.

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Book Reviews

Review of Marcus Boon, Eric Cazdyn, and Timothy Morton. Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism.

Review of Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, eds. Horrors of War: The Undead on the Battlefield

Review of Mark Noble. American Poetic Materialism from Whitman to Stevens

Review of Jennifer Fleeger. Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz

Review of John H. Timmerman. Searching for Eden: John Steinbeck’s Ethical Career

‘But Yehoshuah knew the numbers’: Reading Joshua Cohen’s Book of Numbers as Biblical Adaptation

"New Voices in Jewish-American Literature", Sep 13, 2017

Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Incarnational Ecology: Negotiating Mystery and Intimacy in ‘Binsey Poplars'

'Making the Land Shiver:' Ana Castillo’s Ecological Politics in The Guardians

‘Angels in Machines’: The Proto-Posthuman in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock

Download

Constructing Chicano Identity: Resistance, Celebration, and Hybridity in Sergio Troncoso’s From This Wicked Patch of Dust

Download

Review of Marcus Boon, Eric Cazdyn, and Timothy Morton. Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism.

Review of Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, eds. Horrors of War: The Undead on the Battlefield

Review of Mark Noble. American Poetic Materialism from Whitman to Stevens

Review of Jennifer Fleeger. Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz

Review of John H. Timmerman. Searching for Eden: John Steinbeck’s Ethical Career

Missionaries of Charity

Great Events in Religion, Aug 2016

This entry traces the founding and early years of the Missionaries of Charity, especially Mother ... more

Nation of Islam

Great Events in Religion, Aug 2016

This entry centers primarily on the founding and early years of the Nation of Islam, especially u... more

Elvis

American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales An Encyclopedia of American Folklore, Dec 2016

The "Elvis" entry looks at the ways in which Elvis has served as and become a mythic figure for t... more

Xeroxlore

American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales An Encyclopedia of American Folklore, Dec 2016

The "Xeroxlore" entry examines the folkloric aspects of office pranks, ranging from the "blue sta... more

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