Articles by Melinda A . Cro
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2020
This article describes a collaboration between two tenured faculty members (one in the library an... more This article describes a collaboration between two tenured faculty members (one in the library and one in a department of modern languages) at a large, land-grant institution who sought to introduce a mixed undergraduate and graduate seminar in French literature to DH methods in the second-language classroom culminating in a digital mapping project. Lacking explicit previous training in DH, faculty drew on second language (L2) pedagogy, new literacies, and DH pedagogy to develop an inclusive approach to course design and implementation. The approach focused on students’ development of agency and authority as rising scholars while underscoring conceptions of labor and professional development in the humanities. There is limited scholarship addressing implementing DH in a L2 classroom. However, implementing a combined approach where one pedagogy influenced the other afforded the opportunity to critically consider the role of multilingualism and multiculturalism in a global, open DH context. We adopted this approach in concert with lessons drawn from theories of information literacy and new literacies. This transdisciplinary method encouraged careful consideration of design and implementation given that how information is processed, acquired, and communicated are key concerns in both L2 classrooms and new literacies.
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L’honnêteté au Grand Siècle : belles manières et Belles Lettres, ed. Marcella Leopizzi en collaboration avec Giovanni Dotoli, Christine McCall Probes, Rainer Zaiser (Biblio 17), 2020
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The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, vol. 80 (Survey Year 2018), 2020
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Digital Texts and Textual Data: A Pedagogical Anthology, 2019
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The 2018 European Studies Conference Selected Proceedings, 2019
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Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, 2018
This special focus section seeks to examine and problematize contemporary pastoral works from the... more This special focus section seeks to examine and problematize contemporary pastoral works from the perspective of engagement. Despite assertions that the pastoral tends towards reductionism, the mode actually serves as a productive space wherein to examine issues like global warming, resource exploitation, and pollution. Through a range of texts and artistic projects, the authors of this section explore the nexus of engagement in contemporary pastoral production particularly with regard to the relationship between the human and the non-human.
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The French Review, 2018
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This article performs a close reading of a newly discovered archive of letters to and from Charle... more This article performs a close reading of a newly discovered archive of letters to and from Charles de Gaulle, written between 1941 and 1944, to show how de Gaulle engaged in a process of auto-mythification. The archive features wartime correspondence between de Gaulle and various leaders of the British government, intelligence, and military, such as Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1941) Anthony Eden, and Chief of the Imperial General Staff General Alan Brooke. The study illuminates the problematic nature of Anglo-French collaboration in terms of shifting cultural perspectives, particularly with regard to the notion of authority. Such notions are inevitably contested, and this collection of letters is an unusually effective resource to reconstruct the essentially dialogic aspects of this contestation. Through contextualization of the correspondence, including both contemporary and retrospective accounts of the war, the article enriches our understanding of the implicit and explicit conflicts between British and French forces and the rhetorical strategies utilized to further each writer’s aims.
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« Modernity revolts against the normalizing functions of tradition ; moder-nity lives on the expe... more « Modernity revolts against the normalizing functions of tradition ; moder-nity lives on the experience of rebelling against all that is normative » – c'est ainsi que Jürgen Habermas décrit la modernité dans son essai « The Discipline of Aesthetic Modernity. » (q.v.) Pour Baudelaire, la modernité, « c'est le transitoire, le fugitif, le contingent, la moitié de l'art, dont l'autre moitié est l'éternel et l'immuable » qui évite la paresse typique des peintres de son époque qui « ayant à peindre une courtisane du temps présent, s'inspirent (c'est le mot consacré) d'une courtisane de Titien ou de Raphaël » dont le résultat sera une « oeuvre fausse, ambiguë et obscure » (tiré du Peintre de la vie moderne). Bref, une façon de comprendre la notion de modernité est comme une forme de révolte contre le passé, une tentative de reconsidérer les frontières du passé afin de les reformuler à la lumière des goûts du présent. D'autre part, Anthony Cascardi note que la fragmentation de l'individu est au coeur de la notion de la modernité et propose que le roman soit la forme artistique qui la représente par excellence. Comment comprendre, alors, la notion de la modernité de l'écriture de l'histoire comique au XVII e siècle et les ramifications possibles pour le roman du XVIII e ? Il s'agit de comprendre quelle est la tradition contre laquelle se sont révoltés ces écrivains et d'évaluer la manière dont cette rébellion s'est exprimée dans leurs romans. L'histoire comique se présente à la fois au sein et aux marges de l'histoire du roman, dont l'évolution reste problématisée dans la critique. Certains, comme Ian Watt, constatent la prédominance de la tradition anglaise dans « l'ascension » du roman, en particulier à travers les figures de Richardson, Fielding et Defoe. Philip Stewart note la faiblesse de cet argument (il n'est pas le seul). D'autres identifient le Don Quichotte comme l'un des premiers romans modernes (Ortega y Gasset, Schlegel, Bakhtine, Ioan Williams), ce qui remet la date en question 1. Encore d'autres proposent que notre perspec-1 Schmidt offre une étude minutieuse et fascinante de l'importance de l'oeuvre de Cervantès dans la construction théorique de notre conception du roman et de la modernité. Pour une étude de l'importance du Don Quichotte pour Sorel et Diderot, voir Leblanc.
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Onésime de Claireville’s comic novel, the Gascon extravagant, has challenged readers with its see... more Onésime de Claireville’s comic novel, the Gascon extravagant, has challenged readers with its seemingly fragmentary structure. This article proposes that the structure’s complexity is not a result of an unintentional fragmentation on the part of the author but rather a carefully composed metanovel that evokes the Histoire comique de Francion of Sorel. Through careful references to Sorel’s Francion, calculated onomastic deviations, and various images of authors and readers, the Gascon extravagant offers a reflection on the author’s reception of the genre, proposing a virtual poetics to the reader.
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Representations of Female Identity in Italy. From Neoclassicism to the 21st Century, edited by Silvia Giovanardi Byer and Fabiana Cecchini. pp. 8-26, 2017
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That setting is important to most novels is self-evident, yet this is particularly true of pastor... more That setting is important to most novels is self-evident, yet this is particularly true of pastoral literature. Pastoral, a popular mode of writing that underwent renewal in the Renaissance, relies on the setting of Arcadia. An idyllic golden age where shepherds contemplate love, Arcadia is intrinsic to the pastoral’s identity. However, the pastoral landscape is renewed and reconsidered in Honoré d’Urfé’s monumental Astrée (160727). The author relocates the pastoral setting from ancient Greece to fifth-century France and the region of Forez. Because this was a popular mode at the time, the change of setting drew the reader’s attention to the authorial choice. In the novel, the author distinguishes his work from tradition by relying upon geographic specificity and the motif of the voyage to establish a foundation myth for France. Moreover, the importance of setting raises questions of the nature of the landscape and considerations of the utopistic ramifications for the pastoral mode as d’Urfé conceives it.
Keywords: Honoré d’Urfé, Astrée, geography, utopia, pastoral landscape, Arcadia
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that both Erasmus and Louise Labé explore in the sixteenth century, Erasmus in the Praise of Foll... more that both Erasmus and Louise Labé explore in the sixteenth century, Erasmus in the Praise of Folly and Labé, inspired by Erasmus, in the Débat de Folie et d’Amour. Both works share not only common themes and images, but an emphasis on theatre, both as form and as an important image. Through a comparative analysis of these two works and looking back to Lucian’s Declamatio pro tyrannicida and Erasmus’s response as important sources, it slowly becomes evident that Erasmus and Labé shared a common goal – to highlight the inherent folly of tyranny and to propose models for civic behavior in response to tyranny.
Keywords: Desiderius Erasmus, Louise Labé, Lucian of Samosata, tyranny, folly, theater
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In this article, I examine the use of ekphrasis in several episodes of Sannazaro's "Arcadia." I p... more In this article, I examine the use of ekphrasis in several episodes of Sannazaro's "Arcadia." I propose that it serves a dual purpose, exemplifying what Poggioli has termed the "normal erotic impulses" inherent within pastoral and informing the reader's understanding of Sannazaro's representation of the genesis of the pastoral mode itself.
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Books, Special Issues, Edited Volumes by Melinda A . Cro
Georgetown University Press, 2020
Second language classrooms provide unique opportunities for intellectual growth, cognitive skill ... more Second language classrooms provide unique opportunities for intellectual growth, cognitive skill development, and cultural exchange. In Integrating the Digital Humanities into the Second Language Classroom, Melinda A. Cro makes the case for bringing the digital humanities (DH) into that sphere, strengthening students' language skills while furthering their critical thinking and research abilities. Written as a practical guide for language instructors new to DH, Cro addresses practitioners' most common questions: What are the benefits of DH for language learning in particular? How can DH be used at different levels of instruction? What types of DH tools are out there, and what kinds of knowledge must students and teachers bring to the table? Integrating the Digital Humanities into the Second Language Classroom is filled with real-world examples and concrete recommendations, making it an ideal introduction for language teachers intrigued by the potential of DH.
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Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Dec 6, 2018
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Thesis/Dissertation by Melinda A . Cro
From its inception, pastoral literature has maintained a theatrical quality and an artificiality ... more From its inception, pastoral literature has maintained a theatrical quality and an artificiality that not only resonate the escapist nature of the mode but underscore the metaliterary awareness of the author. A popular mode of writing in antiquity and the middle ages, pastoral reached its apex in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with works like Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Tasso’s Aminta, and Honoré d’Urfé’s Astrée. This study seeks to examine and elucidate the performative qualities of the pastoral imagination in Italian and French literature during its most popular period of expression, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Selecting representative works including the pastourelles of Jehan Erart and Guiraut Riquier, the two vernacular pastoral works of Boccaccio, Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Tasso’s Aminta, and D’Urfé’s Astrée, I offer a comparative analysis of pastoral vernacular literature in France and Italy from the medieval period through the seventeenth century. Additionally, I examine the relationship between the theatricality of the works and their setting. Arcadia serves as a space of freedom of expression for the author. I posit that the pastoral realm of Arcadia is directly inspired not by the Greek mountainous region but by the Italian peninsula, thus facilitating the transposition of Arcadia into the author’s own geographical area. A secondary concern is the motif of death and loss in the pastoral as a repeated commonplace within the mode. Each of these factors contributes to an understanding of the implicit contract that the author endeavors to forge with the reader, exhorting the latter to be active in the reading process.
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Articles by Melinda A . Cro
Article: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/av2nagwqtzva8m2jyvd4lxz9hqfq6jbf
Figure 1: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/4j78o59864fszk9ckqfr56u1n7bb9773
Figure 2: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/qdysayrffyldsz80fxdfoopje7g7vkv4
Figure 3: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/hv74huuievxij2p3iyigl4vaz748g60o
Keywords: Honoré d’Urfé, Astrée, geography, utopia, pastoral landscape, Arcadia
Keywords: Desiderius Erasmus, Louise Labé, Lucian of Samosata, tyranny, folly, theater
Books, Special Issues, Edited Volumes by Melinda A . Cro
Thesis/Dissertation by Melinda A . Cro
Article: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/av2nagwqtzva8m2jyvd4lxz9hqfq6jbf
Figure 1: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/4j78o59864fszk9ckqfr56u1n7bb9773
Figure 2: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/qdysayrffyldsz80fxdfoopje7g7vkv4
Figure 3: https://unomaha.app.box.com/s/hv74huuievxij2p3iyigl4vaz748g60o
Keywords: Honoré d’Urfé, Astrée, geography, utopia, pastoral landscape, Arcadia
Keywords: Desiderius Erasmus, Louise Labé, Lucian of Samosata, tyranny, folly, theater