Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons^™

Retelling The Classics: The Harlem Renaissance, Biblical Stories, And Black Peoplehood, Mina Magalhaes

Celebration of Learning

Applying social identity theory to the process of creating peoplehood can illustrate the positive power that literature has in uplifting marginalized communities by showing their worth. James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation” and Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain, both composed during the Harlem Renaissance, offer one way to create Black peoplehood by creating depictions of God’s love for His Black people through the repurposing of biblical stories. Through the implementation of social identity theory to Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain and Johnson’s “The Creation,” I argue that these two authors addressed the need among African Americans to …

Split Tooth By Tanya Tagaq, Brieanna Lebel

The Goose

Review of Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth

The Color Of Invisibility, Bryan A. Vanmeter

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of Ralph Ellison’s use of color terminology in his novel, Invisible Man. By taking an in depth look at the circumstances in which Ellison uses specific color terms, the reader can ascertain the author’s thoughts on various historical events, as well as the differences between characters in the novel such as Ras, Dr. Bledsoe, and Rinehart.

Using Literature To Make Social Change: Talking About Race In The Classroom, Zabrina L. Vogelsang

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon

English (MA) Theses

Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …

North Of Ourselves: Identity And Place In Jim Wayne Miller’S Poetry, Micah Mccrotty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jim Wayne Miller’s poetry examines how human history and topography join to create place. His work often incorporates images of land and ecology; it deliberately questions the delineation between place and self. This thesis explores how Miller presents images of water to describe the relationship between inhabitants and their location, both with the positive image of the spring and the negative image of the flood. Additionally, this thesis examines how the Brier, Miller’s most prominent persona character, grieves his separation from home and ultimately finds healing and reunification of the self through his return to the hills. In his poetry, …

Maternal Criticism: Reading Two Middle Eastern Women Writers As Nonviolent Peace Activism, Charlyn Marie Ingwerson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation advocates for reading the literatures of two Middle Eastern women writers through a Maternal Critical lens that recognizes the demands of universal vulnerability in characters who resist violence, and responds in Maternal communities of Readers that connect readers to characters, readers to writers, and readers to other readers, carrying the struggle for equity forward. My unfolding argument, centered on Maternal Critical activity in the novels of Palestinian writer Sahar Khalifeh and Israeli writer Ronit Matalon, demonstrates how literature by these Middle Eastern women is part of a narrative context of women’s peacemaking and resistance to violence, a part …

The Novelist And The Nun: Two Sisters, One Bond, Kathleen J. Gaffney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gabrielle Roy (1909 - 1983) was a French-Canadian author, journalist and teacher. She was also my third cousin, first cousin of my grandfather, Stephen McEachran. She wrote fiction and nonfiction in the latter part of the twentieth century and her work spotlighted Canada’s poor, immigrants, and marginalized women. Gabrielle Roy rose to fame as a keen-eyed witness and commentator in writings spanning over forty years. Her sister Bernadette (1897 – 1970) lived a more private, spiritual life as a nun, named Sister Léon-de-la-Croix, far away from the public spotlight.

In this thesis I summarize the events that shaped both sisters’ …

Imagining The Archive: Speculation As A Tool Of Archival Reconstruction, Marieclaire Graham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines a speculative methodological approach towards restoring silenced Black voices in the archive. First, I will discuss the reasons why this work is necessary, exploring the various patterns of muting, distortion, erasure, and disenfranchisement that Black communities experience within the United States in both physical and written forms. The use of speculation specifically addresses the dehumanization that has followed the Black experience in the United States from the earliest violent incarnation of slavery, and creating the foundation of this kind of silencing allows us to understand why speculation, as opposed to other methodological models for archive restoration, is …

Two Poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones, Ánh-Hoa Thị Nguyễn

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This creative work features two poems: Stop Time Before; Forsaken Ones

Politicized Identity In Peter Ho Davies's The Welsh Girl And The Fortunes, Savanna S. Batson

English Department Theses

This thesis explores the effects of politicized identities on the basis of particular aspects of an individual’s being, such as gender, ethnicity, or nationality in Peter Ho Davies’s novels The Welsh Girl (2007) and The Fortunes (2016). By carefully studying each of his protagonists within the context of the particular time and place in which they have come of age, and are now living, this thesis demonstrates how Davies engages with themes of identity, community, and alienation relative to the specific socio-cultural matrix that informs the politicization of identities at their time. It explores how Davies’s characters undergo the process …

Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, And Nowhere: The Influence Of Place On Bildungsroman, Brady Gwynn

Honors College Theses

This research focuses on two metropolitan cities, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, and addresses their connection to the novel form. Bildungsroman texts are necessary for this analysis of place because adolescence allows for the awakening of oneself and one’s surroundings. On the brink of adulthood, these protagonists reminisce on home while exploring a new landscape: the city.

The Boys And The Bees, Lauren Mohler

Student Scholarship – English

In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, the pear tree is seen as a symbol of Janie Crawford's sexuality and self-discovery. However, the pear tree can also be used to analyze Hurston's use of flipped gender roles and Freud's theories on physical maturation. Janie takes on the role of the bee, rather than the flower she wishes to be, in order to go through her journey to self-discovery and change Eatonville by sharing what she has learned.

Re-Thinking The Weird (In The) West: Multi-Ethnic Literatures And The Southwest, Jana M. Koehler

English Language and Literature ETDs

My dissertation examines the genre of weird fiction, specifically texts that engage the concept of the Weird West. While authors such as Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft are often seen as the founders of this genre, I argue that ethnic and women writers, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ishmael Reed, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lucha Corpi, and others, explore the hidden histories of the West and Southwest in ways that incite a rethinking of the weird. Most importantly, I seek to demonstrate how the weird is not only a literary genre but a literary aesthetic and methodology that women and …

"The Beauty! The Beauty!": Colonial Literary Legacies And Conquering The Female Body In Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Alexi Decker

Honors Theses

Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Ufa of Oscar Wao includes a plethora of references to everything from classic literature to modem pop culture. However, Diaz ends his novel with a reference to Joseph Conrad's colonial novella Heart of Darkness, therefore inviting readers to view Oscar Wao through a lens of colonial literature. This in turn results in a reconsideration of the current critical consensus surrounding the text's treatment of sexuality and masculinity in the modern Dominican diaspora, specifically that of Oscar, the novel's titular character.

Inconnecting Oscar Wao to Heart of Darkness, I analyze the text's and characters's violence against …

Representing The Angakkuq: Exploring Inuit Mythology Through Fiction, Abigail Studebaker

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This project is both a creative and critical foray into Inuit mythology. The Critical Preface unpacks how magical realism, young adult literature, and multicultural literature shaped the writing of the project, which is the first five chapters of a novel-in-progress titled Angakkuq. Angakkuq tells the story of a teenage girl, Alasi, of Inuit and American heritage living in the U.S. who begins experiencing strange, seemingly magical phenomena. As her story unfolds, she finds herself at the intersection of the past and the present, struggling to formulate her own identity while more and more is revealed about her father’s childhood growing …

From River Road Plantations To The Underground Railroad: Bringing The True Story Of American Slavery To The Present Racial Divide, Kari Lutes

All NMU Master's Theses

Much of the discourse in the nation is centered on the racial divide in America. This essay traces that divide back to American slavery, using a visit to five historical plantations and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad to illustrate the persistence of injustice beyond slavery to Jim Crow laws, color-blind rhetoric, and mass incarceration. At each plantation, I encounter a varied history of slavery and find that many of these historical sites trivialize the experience of the enslaved. The Whitney Plantation is the exception, focusing solely on the stories of the enslaved and revealing the power of narrative to undo …

Leaving A Little Heaven Behind With Coltrane, Or: The Performance Is The Archive, Ismael Santos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines what an Audience-Centered Archive could look like, and the advantages of opening up the spaces of archival scholarship in connection with studies focused on Jazz. This thesis will explore how inherently self-limiting are traditional structures of the Archive, with the contradictory nature of Jazz Archives brought to the forefront: to archive a music like Jazz necessarily entails losing what makes it so special, losing the improvisational facet of Jazz. This thesis draws from sound studies and performance studies, along with a focus on the recording technologies that entail differences in interpretation and American history. This focus of …

Three Nahuatl Hymns On The Mother Archetype: An Interpretive Commentary, Willard Gingerich

Willard Gingerich

On February 23, 1978, in a large dig just off the central Zocalo (plaza) of Mexico city, within 300 yards of the great Cathedral, one of the most significant archeological finds of the decade came to light. It is a circular slab of pink stone, measuring three meters in diameter and estimated to weigh over eight tons, upon which is carved a mutilated female figure with arms, legs, and head severed from the torso.