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A Collection For A Better Misunderstanding, Mark Smeltzer May 2021

A Collection For A Better Misunderstanding, Mark Smeltzer

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

What if being understood becomes even more dreadful than being isolated? This collection of poetry stands between two extremes, using form and language to reflect the struggle of living on a continuum between being understood and being alone. By echoing the direct style of poets like Charles Bukowski and Mark Strand, as well as more abstract figures like May Swenson and Sylvia Plath, this collection asserts that the contradictions we carry can coexist, and even complement one another. Part One features original poetry that relies on the senses to recover old memories. A direct style in Part One seeks to …


Becoming Bare: A Memoir, Andrew James Romriell May 2021

Becoming Bare: A Memoir, Andrew James Romriell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis is the first part of what I envision to be a full-length memoir. I focus throughout on multiple themes, primarily what it meant to grow up gay in a culture, state, religion, and society where others told me I was wrong to be such. I explore these themes linearly through extended metaphors such as clothing, outward appearances, nakedness, and literal hiding. I begin with an introduction before moving into the main content where I explore my life between the ages of eight and eighteen as I struggled to understand the impact of religious, educational, and familial cultures on …


Heavy Is The Head, Elizabeth Wiles May 2021

Heavy Is The Head, Elizabeth Wiles

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

"Heavy is the Head: how my mental illness made me a writer" is a collection of poetry about a journey in and through mental illness. It engages the social action issue of mental health awareness. "Heavy is the Head" tells a story of mental illness, how it was accepted, how it was used to improve, and how it can pave the road to self-acceptance.


Properly Unhinged: A Collection Of Poems, Madison Everett Apr 2021

Properly Unhinged: A Collection Of Poems, Madison Everett

Honors Projects

This is a collection of poems that explores the identities I possess and am a part of. These identities include being half black and half white, clinically diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Generalize Anxiety Disorder, pansexual or bisexual or something altogether different (depending on the day), and cis gendered womanhood. I also explore what a poem is and what a poem is not, and how there is very little difference between the two. In a lot of ways, this is an exploration into myself and what it means to be within the world. What does it mean to …


20 Things, Reann Parker Apr 2021

20 Things, Reann Parker

Honors Theses

20 Things is a short young adult novel that explores a variety of topics and themes, from mental health, recovery, and self discovery to race, love, and friendship. Beginning with a high school girl named Halle waking up in a hospital after a suicide attempt, the novel is a coming of age story about the help Halle receives and what she goes through in trying to find reasons to keep living. The novel is divided into ten chapters: “Waking Up,” “Going Home,” “Arriving,” “Being Honest,” “Keeping the Faith,” “Soul Searching,” “Willingness,” “Maintaining,” “Checking In,” and “Living.” Each chapter represents the …


Okay, Kassie H. Bohannon Mar 2021

Okay, Kassie H. Bohannon

Honors College Theses

Okay is a minimalistic literary fiction short story cycle that examines the lives of Collin and Charlotte Grearson, two children who grow up with a working class status in a broken home, and their journeys to adulthood as they both respectively cope with their underlying mental health problems. The stories in Okay exemplify how refusal to seek help for a mental health problem, or the lack of support from others even if the illness is communicated, can cause a disconnect between family members, the worsening of the illness itself, and the eventual possibility of fatal conclusions. Okay is composed as …


Night Of Awakening: Strength And Empowerment In The Young Adult Fiction Genre, Shelby Ann Davis Jan 2021

Night Of Awakening: Strength And Empowerment In The Young Adult Fiction Genre, Shelby Ann Davis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Young Adult Fantasy genre is often written off as a useless, or immature form of writing. However, there are studies that prove that this specific genre is not only engaging, but it is also empowering for young readers. By writing toward adolescent readers, authors are able to promote various ways in which their characters adjust or interact with their surroundings, which also influences their readers’ self and social awareness. By representing feminist perspectives and depicting the effects of trauma, YA literature fosters progressive social change and conveys the importance of mental health. In writing my own novel, The Night …