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A Study Of Geo-Regional Place-Consciousness In American Literature, Eugene Slepov
A Study Of Geo-Regional Place-Consciousness In American Literature, Eugene Slepov
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The ancient Greek notions of topos, or place, and choros, or region, emerge from a an oral, narrative-based tradition that predates geography. These concepts remind us that that best source of material to study place is to be found in literary fiction. American fiction in particular will give us the evidence by which we can compile a qualitative, experiential understanding of the role of place in people’s lives. This dissertation inquires into the formation of the imaginative constructions that characters put upon place—such as through the process of consolidating and dwelling in places—and the way place puts …
Reading In Place: Ordinary Language Philosophy, Wendell Berry, And Post Critique, Calvin L. Coon
Reading In Place: Ordinary Language Philosophy, Wendell Berry, And Post Critique, Calvin L. Coon
MSU Graduate Theses
The twenty-first century, marked by neoliberalism and suspicious, visibly violent far-Right politics, has presented new challenges to critical and literary theorists. In response, some theorists advocate for a postcritical turn, challenging both the surface/depth picture of language and the privileged status of suspicion in interpretation in order to explore alternative pictures of language and reading that can better address the challenges of our own day. In this thesis, I connect one of these alternatives, Toril Moi’s use of Ordinary Language Philosophy in literary studies, to Wendell Berry’s prioritization of place in environmentalist activism. In connecting these two thinkers, I contend …
Gestures Of Dissent: Self-Fashioning Performance From Southern Women Writers During The Fin De Siécle, Elisa Fuhrken
Gestures Of Dissent: Self-Fashioning Performance From Southern Women Writers During The Fin De Siécle, Elisa Fuhrken
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project explores Southern women writers during the latter half of the nineteenth-century who asserted and crafted a modernized identity by turning to various modes of transgressive performance and performance spaces. For women of the nineteenth-century, this meant extricating themselves from a domestic, sentimental identity and apprehending a more fluid, dynamic type of being. The modes of performance, such as spectatorship, orality, and gesture, allowed these women to express and articulate an alternative feminine identity while also engaging with an embodied epistemology. This thesis looks at three Southern women writers: Sherwood Bonner’s novel Like Unto Like and her travel letters …
Colonialism And Globalism In Two Contemporary Southern Appalachian Novels - Serena (2008) By Ron Rash, And Flight Behavior (2012) By Barbara Kingsolver, Jasmyn Herrell
Undergraduate Honors Theses
In this essay, I investigate how the historic and current economic structures operating in Appalachia from the 1920s to the 2010s are represented in two contemporary Southern Appalachian novels – Serena (2008) by Ron Rash and Flight Behavior (2012) by Barbara Kingsolver. Through the lens of postcolonial theory, I show how Serena represents Appalachia as functioning under the colonial model outlined by Robert Blauner and Helen Mathews Lewis in 1978. Then, still under the theory of postcolonialism, I explore how Kingsolver’s work depicts regional identity in response to a post-colonial environment and the ever-expanding global economy.
A Return To The Region: Reconstructing The Past In Jewett, Cather, And Hurston (1896-1935), Anna L. Russian
A Return To The Region: Reconstructing The Past In Jewett, Cather, And Hurston (1896-1935), Anna L. Russian
Senior Projects Spring 2019
My senior project focuses on three works of American literature, starting from 1896 and ending in 1935. During this time period, the United States was undergoing drastic cultural and industrial changes, both of which indefinitely reshaped the American landscape. My project seeks to understand these changes through Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918), and Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men (1935). All three works look beyond the city, and instead look inward toward small regional communities in Maine, Nebraska, and Florida. With the regional focus placed on the narratives, my project …
Beyond "Main Street": Small Towns In Post-"Revolt" American Literature, Rachael Price
Beyond "Main Street": Small Towns In Post-"Revolt" American Literature, Rachael Price
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
“Beyond Main Street” examines the impact and legacy of the literary movement that Carl Van Doren, in an infamous 1920 article from The Nation, referred to as the “revolt from the village.” This movement, which is widely acknowledged to encompass such writers as Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis, pushed back against the primacy of the heretofore-dominant pastoral tradition when it came to depictions of rural America. These authors sought to create a more accurate portrayal of the small town, one that, while not completely eschewing the pastoral, also exposed the more seedy side of village life. Critics …
Representation Of The American South In Marvel Comics, 1963-2016, Katherine Gill
Representation Of The American South In Marvel Comics, 1963-2016, Katherine Gill
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
My work tracks the role of the American South and Southern characters in Marvel Comics, from 1963 to 2016. This thesis spring from a simple question: how stereotypical does this Northern industry portray the American South? To achieve this goal, I read a lot of comics, applying literary theory (such as Patricia Yeager and Tara McPherson) as well as American cultural studies (1980s televangelism and the history of human trafficking in America) to my findings. After reading multiple comic books from multiple sources, I settled on four different texts, each with a unique approach to portraying the South: the portrayal …
Of This Ground: Land As Refuge In The Works Of Three Kentucky Women Writers, Nicole Marie Drewitz-Crockett
Of This Ground: Land As Refuge In The Works Of Three Kentucky Women Writers, Nicole Marie Drewitz-Crockett
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates the memoirs, novels, and short stories of three women writers whose work is heavily invested in a sense of place and privileges women’s relationships to the land: Harriette Simpson Arnow, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Barbara Kingsolver. All of these women spent their formative years in Kentucky, which for the purposes of this project classifies them as “Kentucky writers.” As a group these women offer a one possible solution to modern concerns for women: a relationship to the land as refuge. Engagement with the land as refuge provides a sense of satisfaction, a source of therapy, and a …