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Challenging The Idea Of Community : Angels In America, The Laramie Project And Take Me Out, Meghan Kathleen Kurta

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper explores the disruptive impact that the verbal revelation of homosexuality causes to the community, as presented in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project, and Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out. These revelations and subsequent disruptions occur in the early moments of each of the plays and, as a result, the larger action and substance of these works deals with the repercussions, including an exploration of the reactions and chain of events that these initial disturbances set in motion. The issues raised, however, are not always connected directly to the initial revelation of homosexuality, but the …

Suicide And Self-Sacrifice In The Works Of Arthur Miller, Robert Anthony Coakley

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Many of Arthur Miller’s earlier plays deal with the subject of suicide, with the lead character either contemplating or actually committing suicide during the course of the rising dramatic action. Miller saw suicide as a way to bring the play to its conclusion, with the guilty party receiving “justice” by his own hand. The death of the main character also allowed Miller to voice his concerns about the ills of society, such as the cost of capitalism on a man’s soul and the inherent damage of mass hysteria. This thesis will explore suicide and self-sacrifice in the works of Arthur …

Taking Facebook Seriously : A 21st Century Writing Space For Collaboration And Learning, Anastasia Rubis

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

Literacy Instruction And The Learning Disabled High School Student : Ideas And Applications For A Mindful Classroom, Suzanne E. Kos

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis suggests that the emergent field of mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy can be a uniquely effective tool for use in the English classroom for learning disabled (LD) high school students. By first exploring definitions of difference and initiating a conversation about how we, as a society, conceptualize difference and how we provide literacy instruction for students who learn differently, this thesis advocates for a more complex and meaningful understanding of the difficult issues surrounding teaching literature and writing to LD high school students. The discussion then introduces some of the central tenets of mindfulness and contemplative practice and explores, …

A Feminist Revolution On The Popular Front : Muriel Rukeyser's 1930s Poetry, Janis Hubschman

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Modern American poet, Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) launched her half- century career in the thirties, a decade marked by an economic crisis in the United States, the rising threat of fascism abroad, and, consequently, by a politically-charged literary culture. Although Rukeyser’s deep engagement with social issues identified her from the start as a poet of the left, she maintained her political and artistic autonomy throughout the decade to shape a highly individualistic radical feminist aesthetic. My analysis of Rukeyser’s three collections from the 1930s: Theory of Flight (1935), U.S. 1 (1938), and A Turning Wind (1939) considers how the poet embraces, …

Problems Of Connection : The Critique Of Englishness, Empire, And Nationhood In E.M. Forster's A Passage To India, Virginia Woolf's Orlando And George Orwell's "England Your England", Alexandra Megan Schultz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In the introduction to Modernism and Colonialism: British and Irish Literature, 1899-1939, Richard Begam and Michael Moses state that the “historical and cultural reality of modernism more often then not challenged the prevailing values of English culture, including its most powerful institution, the British Empire” (6). The problem of connection can be considered one of these troubled established ideologies. The English not only promoted relations between those of the same socioeconomic status and cultural upbringing, but actively discouraged connections of any other kind. This value system barred the English from any kind of social or political mobility because connections were …

“Out Of Many, One People” : A Comparative Analysis Of Short Fiction By Michelle Cliff, Jennifer Nicole Laster

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis is a comparative analysis of six of Michelle Cliffs short stories where I discuss the aspects of class, race, and self-alienation present in her work. In formulating and gathering the appropriate research for this project, I discovered that like most short fiction, Cliffs has not received criticism equal in comparison to her full-length novels. Therefore, the aim of this project is to present an in-depth critique of Cliffs short fiction using black feminist, post-colonial, and queer theory approaches to produce close readings her work to reaffirm her importance as a contemporary Caribbean author.

Chapter One juxtaposes the theme …

Stressed Sexuality : How Props, Stage Directions And Setting Convey Tormented Male Protagonists In Selected Plays Of Tennessee Williams, Sara Temme

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines how the stage directions, props, and setting are patterned to create themes in character development in selected Tennessee Williams plays. This analysis focuses on four plays from a successful period in Williams’ life from 1955-1961 in which the playwright had established a pattern in developing sexually desirable male characters using symbolism and space: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Suddenly Last Summer (1958), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). All four illustrate how Williams shapes the structure of the scenes by directing the space the characters reside in. Characters are …