Digital Commons Network^™

Twisted Threads: A Novel And Exploration Of Fraternity Culture And Race, Christian S. Golden

Senior Theses

Twisted Threads: A Novel and Exploration of Fraternity Culture and Race is a project that seeks to explore questions about race and brotherhood through the lens of the urban fantasy genre. It is the first ten chapters of a full-length fantasy novel and can be considered the first half of the planned novel. The Introduction details some of my influences, both literary and cultural, as well as the thought process behind much of the worldbuilding in my manuscript. It also details some of the research that was conducted to help build accurate allegories and allusions. The novel follows a black …

A New Atticus Is Afoot: The Portrayal Of Lawyers In Popular Culture, Anna Thrush

Senior Theses

This project analyzes the stereotypical image of lawyers in popular culture, focusing on either overly demonic or unrealistically heroic. Both stereotypes that are common portrayals of attorneys in popular culture are unrealistic and deny society a true comprehension of the profession. Popular culture has molded the image of lawyers to the characteristics that sell, rather than focusing on a realistic portrayal. Therefore, popular culture creates a falsely dramatized image of attorneys to generate revenue, putting the reputation and future of the profession as risk. These stereotypes are exemplified in this project through a close literary analysis of lawyer characters from …

Artificial Magic, Tawny Ventura

Senior Theses

This novella by Tawny Ventury emerged from a short story written for a creative writing course on speculative fiction.

Who Is Neil Wells?, Colin Anderson

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis takes the form of a mystery novel by Colin Anderson.

The First Flowers Of Spring, Gretel Valdes

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains a series of poems by Gretel Valdes.

I.

• Pillowtalk
• Autumnal Hues
• Mis Cejas
• Intimacy
• Without You, in San Francisco
• Sundown of Person

II.

• drinking honey with the bees
• The Lady of Crescent Lake
• A Collection of 2 am Thoughts
• Cold Feet
• Another Year of Thankfulness
• My Grandfather’s First Time in the ICU
• For Oregon Where I Have Yet to Fall in Love

III.

• The First Flower of Spring
• A Dandelion Before the Wind
• Weightless
• Aubade to the Other Woman
• To Denica
• Someday Soon

IV.

• Recovery
• Anxiety
• On the first girl I ever kissed
• Drinks I …

The Butte, Natasha Bailey

Senior Theses

The Butte is a collection of short stories about a small town in the Pacific Northwest. In these short stories I explore idealistic small-town culture and blend it with the Pacific Northwest’s own (modern) paranormal mythology. This medley of different genre aspects in my stories makes The Butte difficult to label, but ultimately, my goal while writing was to explore various styles and points of view.

The nine stories set in The Butte shift styles on a variety of levels from character switching, point of view (1^st person, 3^rd person, and omniscient), and formatting (structure and linguistics). These …

Self · Ish: Examining And Reshaping Filipino & Filipinx Identities Within The Continental United States And Hawai’I Via Post-Colonial Literature, Kiana Anderson

Senior Theses

This thesis explores a conversation between the “self” and Filipino culture to examine the ways the Filipino diaspora exists in literature amongst colonization and trauma. Through literary texts spanning across time and geographical locations, like Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not the Heart and Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters, I interrogate the cultural and psychic meanings associated with the concept of home within the context of these hybrid histories. By examining the neo-canonical literature of some of these authors, I interrogate their sense of self, voices and visions via the languages, symbols, cultural frameworks and emotions that are prevalent within the literary …

Things That Happened, Christian Chase

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains a collection of short stories by Christian Chase.

• A Whole Lot of Nothing
• Grand Artistic Vision
• Architecture
• Hanging Around
• Silent Life
• A Special Dread
• Snowbound

Children's Literature As A Catalyst For Social Change, Lyndsey Reynolds

Senior Theses

This thesis is the amalgamation of a creative writing project and an exploration of the ways that children’s literature influences and draws from social justice causes. It started after reading Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and realizing that children’s books are not as simple as I remember them being. This book inspired me to consider the power of children’s literature to push young readers to be aware of and thoughtfully engaged with political, social and cultural conversations. The first phase of my thesis was exploring the relationship between social justice and children’s books by reading scholarly materials. In these …

The Introvert's Guide To The Galaxy: A Reflective Guide Of Solo Travel And Study Abroad, Hope Patterson

Senior Theses

Oringinally meant to be a much longer volume, The Introvert’s Guide to the Galaxy is a creative anthology of works that explores one person’s Study Abroad and solo travel experiences. The main goal is to open a space to talk about unique experiences that cannot be anticipated, but should be learned from later. Topics include culture shock, sexism, alcohol culture, family, freelance tutoring, and risky outdoor activites.

Travel with our trusty guide as she fills you in on the things to know while traveling abroad, including finding perfect outdoor sleeping conditions because you missed all the taxis, dealing with the …

Nature's Paths, Chloe Switzer

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains a lyric essay, short story, and poetry by Chloe Switzer.

• Love of Place
• Lost in Venice
• The Willow's

The Role Of Light In Creating Space, Tor Strand

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains a series of poems by Tor Strand.

Light

• The Role of Light in Creating Space
• A Light
• 99 and Brumback Street
• Tell Me The Precise Size of That World
• Sunday Creation, Lutheran Church
• Wood Chips
• What Remains
• Audenhaus
• Ex Nihilo, Celebration

Blood

• Burnt Rubber
• little spell with jaw and colosseum
• Recipe Writing on Birch Bark
• Portage Lake, Late March
• The Contents of Fire
• Name Me
• little spell with backbone
• Wash Bay
• My Attic
• Still Life: Grandfather and Saint

Body

• Two Years of Collected Light
• so we were
• Cornucopia
• little spell, little ray
• Distance
• Don't Touch …

Climbing The Cerulean Butte, Emma Knudson

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains third-person memoir writing by Emma Knudson.

• What Did the Loss Mean to You?
• How Do You Experience Your Grief?
• What Kind of Strategies Do You Use to Cope?
• What Kind of Guidance is Helpful?
• With Whom Do You Share Your Loss?

The Middle Of Fucking Nowhere, Vera Heidmann

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis incorporates memoir writing by Vera Heidmann.

• The Big House on the Hill
• Real Monsters
• Ragdoll
• Heart-shaped Box
• Beautiful

Behind The Lines, Idalis Nieves

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains fiction by Idalis Nieves.

Applying Jung's Archetypes And Theory Of The Collective Unconscious To Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lindsay Covington

Senior Theses

The premise of this thesis is to explore the concepts of Carl Jung’s collective unconscious and archetypes using myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In exploring the archetypes of the Animus, the Mother, the Hero, the Child, the Trickster, and Rebirth through these myths, I aim to demonstrate their relevance to modern psychology by directly connecting them to related psychopathologies as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Behavioral and Mental Disorders V. Through this, the validity of the concept of the collective unconscious will be demonstrated in how the enduring archetypes of stories that are over two …

Lesbian Love Sonnets: Adrienne Rich And Carol Ann Duffy, Robin Seiler-Garman

Senior Theses

Our conceptualization of sexuality is rooted in gender. Modern, western society defines sexuality as which genders one is and is not attracted to—often appearing as a binary between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Recently, however, queer theorists have begun to push against the idea of binary sexuality altogether.

The interplay between gender and sexuality additionally manifests in the history of literature. Because the two are so intimately intertwined, writing about sexuality necessitates writing about gender. Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich and Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy are two poetry collections where, as lesbian poets, gender and sexuality play an important role. …

A Social Study Of Discworld Autonomy, Morgan Rogers

Senior Theses

From 1983 to 2015, Sir Terry Pratchett wrote a series of forty-one novels, several short stories, and companion works set on the Discworld. The Discworld is a flat world that rides through space on the backs of four giant elephants that stand themselves on the back of the Great A’tuin, a world turtle. The Disc is based around the Hub, or central point, and the Rim, or the circumference of the world. There is a waterfall all around the Rim of the world that falls into space itself. The Hub compares to the Earth’s poles in that it is the …

Juneau: Notes From The Bus, Cara Makuh

Senior Theses

This creative writing project is about a week I spent alone in Juneau, Alaska. All time and travel was spent on foot, bus and boat. Alone, I had many different experiences, and every time I interacted with a new person, that isolation became a shared experience, if even for a minute. Each day started out a blank slate, and eventually wrote itself into a story with a unique identity of its own as each day does as we travel through seconds and minutes that build up into completed days. Social interactions with so many different people turns them from strangers …

The Penobskan Porcupine Panic, Quinn Riesenman

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis takes its origins from a ten-page story written for a fiction class in the spring of 2015 and inspired by the song "Penobska Oakwalk" from the band Quilt.

The Awkward Year(S), Kate Seaholm

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains short stories, memoir writing, and a screenplay by Kate Seaholm.

• Preface
• Girl vs. Garbage
• The Blood Test
• Barcelona
• "Wanna see my sailboat?"
• The Question
• Before I Begin
• The Last Straw
• Dear Diary
• Let It Happen
• Lost in London
• Gullible
• Red-handed
• Afterword

Veritas Fax Ardens – Truth Is A Flaming Torch, Meret A. Luthi

Senior Theses

Based on the vast amount of truth theories that have been suggested by a myriad of thinkers from various disciplines, it can be inferred that the question of truth has occupied humankind since the beginning of its existence. Even though some of these theories appear more promising than others, it also seems that every suggested answer poses yet further questions about what truth really is. This seemingly endless stream of debates and contradictory theories further indicates that the nature of truth remains an enigma and subject to interpretation. Reflecting on Dominican University’s Latin motto “Veritas Fax Ardens” (Truth Is a …

Mother's Bed: Gender Representation In Children's Literature, Karin Hanni

Senior Theses

This children's book and accompanying research paper both address gender inequity in children's literature. There is a significant imbalance of gender representation in children's literature, with the number of central male characters almost doubling that of central female characters. Additionally, the roles of males and females still tend to be stereotypical: boys are action-oriented and heroic, while girls are nurturing and passive. Further, it is believed that boys will only enjoy books about boys, while girls will enjoy books about both boys and girls. This imbalance in children's literature hurts both genders. Children not only learn to read from books, …

Mix Tape, Michael Davis

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains short stories, a piece of memoir writing, and a screenplay by Michael Davis.

• Grey Giants
• Purple Jasmines
• The Cameraman
• Bubby Rose

Being An Oreo: A Novel, Lauren Gabrielle Funtanilla

Senior Theses

The story of Sophía Annalicia Maria Martin, or Sam, as she likes to be called, is a coming of age novel. Being an Oreo focuses on the lessons Sam learns in the summer she turns thirteen. She begins her story by telling readers the story about her loud and boisterous Mexican family. She introduces readers to a colorful set of characters and their wild antics, and how she often finds herself stuck in the middle of them. The sensation of being “stuck in the middle” is a phenomenon that Sam faces throughout the book. Readers watch as she struggles to …

In The Hours Between You And Me, Amanda Mattern

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis incorporates memoir writing and fiction by Amanda Mattern.

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The France Chronicles
  • Obligatoire
  • Le Bus
  • [untitled]
• Chapter 2: Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Relationships are a Bitch
  • Love Conquers All
  • "Alone" Isn't Lonely, It's Safety
  • My Bottom Line
  • The Relationship Agreement
• Chapter 3: It All Comes Down to Family
  • Preggers
  • 10500 NW Greenview Lane
  • I'll Be Loving You Always
  • The Game of LIFE
• Chapter 4: Happily Ever Afters
  • Hiding
  • Come to Our Wedding, It's in a Mausoleum
  • Perfectly Buttered Toast

Angelu Demonai, Caitlin Leigh Halvorson

Senior Theses

This project has been a long time in the making. The concept originated several years ago, and what was once just the shadow of a character has morphed into the story you see today - the makings of a graphic novel about one rock musician’s quest to discover herself, and save the worlds in the process.

Of course, you will only see a small part of the story. What is included in this thesis project is only the first volume of several (four, I expect). And while the journey is not yet completed, the ride has been thrilling so far. …