We’re proud to present the Spring 2024 issue of EP, an excellent showcase of some of the most insightful and critically engaged student writing from the Texts & Contexts courses at Fordham this semester! This semester’s essays, as always, continue our tradition of close reading and contextual analysis, but these essays in particular reach outward to understand the self in relation to society. These essays ask important questions: how can a poem, novel, or film reveal the ways we fall short of society’s expectations? And just as importantly, how might such works help us imagine how to resist or redefine those expectations? In “Monsters & Marshes,” Grace Olander compares Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing and Susan Morrison’s Grendel’s Mother, examining how archetypes of femininity persist across time. Olander notes how each work resist the reductive binary of the monstrous and the innocent woman. Two essays in this issue take on James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, exploring David’s struggle to reconcile his internal sense of self with the rigid gender roles and expectations imposed by society. Jack Langan’s “An Existential Exploration of Masculinity” reads the novel through Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, framing David’s failure to self-actualize as a reflection of the broader tension between authenticity and conformity. Meanwhile, Jack Loughney’s “The Being of a Man: David Struggle in Giovanni’s Room” explores how David’s internal conflict is shaped by contradictory ideas of masculinity inherited from his family, leaving him unable to accept his sexuality without also negating his identity and familial bonds. Finally, Stephanie Mo’s essay “Fading Humanity and Dehumanization: The Dangers of Consumerism in Literature” examines the disturbing effects of consumer capitalism in speculative fiction — namely, Carmen Maria Machado’s Real Women Have Bodies and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black. Mo explores how consumerism distorts our own sense of self and of others — rendering people ghostlike, animalistic, or worse, invisible. Each of these essays speak to enduring questions about identity, representation, and what it means to belong to a society. We are excited to share them with you!
Essays
“Monsters & Marshes” by Grace Olander
“An Existential Exploration of Masculinity” by Jack Langan
“The Being of a Man: David Struggle in Giovanni’s Room” by Jack Loughney
“Fading Humanity and Dehumanization: The Dangers of Consumerism in Literature” by Stephanie Mo
Editorial Staff
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Jason Ray
EDITORIAL BOARD
Melissa Bean
Amanda Bradley
Stephen Fragano
Anwita Ghosh
Mark Host
Miles Smith
FACULTY ADVISOR
Vlasta Vranjes
Questions or comments? Please contact us at epjournal@fordham.edu
