CONNOR RODENBECK
WRITING PORTFOLIO
theory & criticism
Writing: Bodies, wounds, transcendence
This is my own theory of writing relating to the intrinsic corporeal relationship between words, wounds, and writers. It was written as the final project for the Theories of Writing course for the Writing minor. It utilizes multiple writing genres to develop my own ideas about writing as a practice.
The Erotic Versus Modern Incorporeality and Portrayals of Feminine Bodies
This assignment is from an English major course called Sexuality and Textuality taught by Dr. Kristy Ulibarri. This short paper integrates theory about the Erotic by Audre Lorde with Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties, which weaves together sociological theory with contemporary literature to elucidate my own claims about visibility and sexuality, and erasure of feminine bodies.
Flawed Humanities and Destruction in A Streetcar Named Desire, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Fences
This assignment is from an English major course called Modern Drama taught by Dr. Eric Gould, which explores twentieth-century playwriting. This is the final essay that asked me to braid three different plays together to support my own argument. While drama is not my preferred literary medium, this assignment allowed me to close read different genres to discuss fascinating notions of humanity's tendencies toward destruction in a more informal way that illustrates raw critical thinking.
Ghostwriting: Authorship, Capitalism, and Poetry
This assignment is from a Senior Seminar in the English major focused on the history of books and The Canterbury Tales taught by Dr. R.D. Perry. This paper is about ghostwriting and contemporary poetry, exploring why poetry is a literary genre isolated from the slippery authorial practices. This is my first paper written in Chicago Style Formatting, which proved challenging but also fruitful in my development as a scholarly writer and literary researcher.