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An Unfaithful Feminist : Neoliberal Feminism, Identity, And Postmodernism In Jenny Offill’S Dept. Of Speculation, Anne Bobis May 2023

An Unfaithful Feminist : Neoliberal Feminism, Identity, And Postmodernism In Jenny Offill’S Dept. Of Speculation, Anne Bobis

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Jenny Offill’s novel Dept of Speculation explores the life of a female college professor who looks back on her marriage after her husband has an affair. Events are told through brief fragments. Much of the critical discourse surrounding the novel is concerned with its fragmentary form or postfeminism. In this essay, I assert that Dept. of Speculation is a reaction to neoliberal feminism because of the narrator’s multiple challenges throughout the novel. Some vocal figures within neoliberal feminism assume a woman can balance upward mobility in a career and life as a mother. The ability to maintain this work-life balance …


The Commercialization And Imposed Voices Of Femininity In The Summer I Turned Pretty, Danielle Mcclelland Jan 2023

The Commercialization And Imposed Voices Of Femininity In The Summer I Turned Pretty, Danielle Mcclelland

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This essay seeks to explore and analyze the novel The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. The novel’s ability to maintain relevance as a piece of popular YA literature despite its release over ten years ago makes it an interesting title to study because it demonstrates the concept of a “formulaic text,” which is defined as having, “...simple syntax, frequent repetition, and explicit authorial interpretations” (Smith 31). Additionally, Han’s novel displays the commercialization of femininity and enforces the common heteronormative relationship narrative displayed in this strain of romantic fiction. This essay aims to explore these social phenomena and how …


Sylvia Plath As A Confessionalist Writer : The Queen Bee, Alexandra Tangarife Jan 2023

Sylvia Plath As A Confessionalist Writer : The Queen Bee, Alexandra Tangarife

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Sylvia Plath is a renowned Confessionalist poet from the early-mid 20th century in America. She frequently compares to her predecessor, Robert Lowell, and her friend and colleague, Ann Sexton. Confessionalism was an emotionally authentic form of poetry that split off from prior poetry, such as Modernism. Modernist founder T.S Eliot wrote in his “Tradition and The Individual Talent,” “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality” (1). Despite this mentality, Confessionalists addressed the elephant in the room: the fragmented and emotionally disturbed nation. …


Into The Roach’S Mouth: Beyond The Postmodern Discourse On Silence In Clarice Lispector’S The Passion According To G.H., Eman Halimeh Jan 2022

Into The Roach’S Mouth: Beyond The Postmodern Discourse On Silence In Clarice Lispector’S The Passion According To G.H., Eman Halimeh

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In Clarice Lispector’s novel The Passion According to G.H. the protagonist experiences a complete break from reality when she enters her maid’s room and encounters a cockroach. The entire plot is predicated on this encounter, but the existential crisis is filtered through a quest for a resounding silence – one that will liberate G.H. from the shackles of a preorganized existence. This thesis will explore Clarice Lispector’s use of silence as it functions in relation to a repurposed posthuman theory. By investigating Lispector’s preoccupation with the “thingness” of being, I expose the limitations of postmodern feminism and offer a way …


“Aux Mères Heureuses”: Zola’S Compassion For Working Mothers, Elizabeth Emery Jan 2018

“Aux Mères Heureuses”: Zola’S Compassion For Working Mothers, Elizabeth Emery

Department of World Languages and Cultures Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Zola's letter of support for La Société maternelle parisienne, published in a three-column letter to Le Figaro 1891, serves a point for reassessing his fictional depictions of women, particularly the working mothers of Les Rougon-Macquart, Les Trois Villes, and Les Quatre Evangiles.


History Of Housewives In First-Year Composition And Effects On Students, Pay, And Pedagogy, Vera Lynn Lentini May 2016

History Of Housewives In First-Year Composition And Effects On Students, Pay, And Pedagogy, Vera Lynn Lentini

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis paper reviews the history of women in the field of composition as a discipline, paying particular attention to the evolution of the role of the writing instructor. Today, first-year composition classrooms are staffed by a mostly contingent and female workforce, which is an ethical problem for writing programs and English departments. As in the larger workforce, service-oriented careers like teaching tend to be underpaid and characterized by deference to the experts, who are in the position of authority. While this scheme seems to have functioned for housewives and breadwinners in the 1950s, in today’s dual-earner couple it is …


Virtue Ethics, Care Ethics, And "The Good Life Of Teaching", Marissa Silverman Sep 2012

Virtue Ethics, Care Ethics, And "The Good Life Of Teaching", Marissa Silverman

John J. Cali School of Music Scholarship and Creative Works

In "The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice," Chris Higgins (2011) reminds people that "self-interest and altruism, personal freedom and social roles, and practical wisdom and personhood" have been ancient philosophical topics that remain vitally important in the practice of contemporary teaching and learning. One of the most fundamental questions Higgins raises is this: "How do we reconcile self-regard and concern for others?" Higgins echoes John Dewey's concern for "balancing the distinctive capacity of an individual with his social service." In other words, and educationally speaking: What does it mean to live "the good life" as an …