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Eastern Flames In The Mind On Fire: A Study Of Eastern And Qur’Anic Influences On Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mohammed Qays Khaleel Alqaisi Dec 2016

Eastern Flames In The Mind On Fire: A Study Of Eastern And Qur’Anic Influences On Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mohammed Qays Khaleel Alqaisi

MSU Graduate Theses

Ralph Waldo Emerson's interest in the east is evident throughout his essays, poems and lectures. He shows his fascination with the eastern cultures, religions and poetry when he quotes from eastern texts to strengthen his ideas, such as the notion of the Over-Soul, illumination, knowledge and nature. He regards the east as an ignored territory of knowledge that contains invaluable wisdom waiting to be explored by western thinkers. As the world witnesses an increasing gap between the east and the west, Emerson represents the universal way of thinking, as he believes in seeking knowledge in every part of the world …


Swamp Boat, Gravy Boat: Memory And Place In Fiction, Kaycie Surrell Dec 2016

Swamp Boat, Gravy Boat: Memory And Place In Fiction, Kaycie Surrell

MSU Graduate Theses

The importance of memory to place is of particular interest to me and forms the basis for the bulk of my work. In my critical introduction I explore the work of authors and essayists who inspire my fiction work through their focus on place and memory. Specific authors include Sandra Cisneros, David Sedaris, and Pam Houston. Through my short fiction pieces I weave together the stories of my childhood from Florida to Missouri into a quilt that covers the important pieces of my life thus far. I am interested in how people are motivated by fear to write around their …


Gravities, Sierra Faye Sitzes Jul 2016

Gravities, Sierra Faye Sitzes

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis is an attempt to explore, through the genre of literary fiction, the influence of hometowns and childhood friendships and how the power of these entities result in either an escape or capture. My thesis is the first two parts of my three part novel, Gravities, and introduces the non-linear structure of the narrative as well as set up the antagonist, Charlise Rosengren, for her both literal and figurative fall. The novel's three protagonists—Mae Silva, June Silva, and Anna Spence—are each given a perspective in their own sections containing scenes that exemplify the power both Charlise and their hometown …


Education Policy And Practices Of English As A Foreign Language (Efl) In Iraq, Ihab Razzaq Altufaili May 2016

Education Policy And Practices Of English As A Foreign Language (Efl) In Iraq, Ihab Razzaq Altufaili

MSU Graduate Theses

English is the language of trade, finance, science, education, and politics, and several countries have an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) policy to improve their ability to compete. Accordingly, many countries have placed emphasis on EFL and have established an effective teaching methodology as part of that policy. Currently, the Ministry of Education in Iraq has changed their educational policy to start EFL in the first grade and has adopted new textbooks using the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. The purpose of this research is to study the Iraqi EFL education policy and practices after 2014 by assessing instructor …


The Need For Neal: The Importance Of Neal Cassady In The Work Of Jack Kerouac, Sydney Anders Ingram May 2016

The Need For Neal: The Importance Of Neal Cassady In The Work Of Jack Kerouac, Sydney Anders Ingram

MSU Graduate Theses

Neal Cassady has not been given enough credit for his role in the Beat Generation. This paper discusses Cassady's importance on the life and work of Jack Kerouac, especially focusing on his most famous novel, On the Road. Cassady lent himself as the hero of On the Road and supplied Kerouac with the spontaneous prose style that made him famous. This look at Cassady puts him into the context of the time period in which he lived and in which On the Road was written. Cassady is compared to the ideal American male of the day and those traits are …


Identifying Facebook-, Twitter-, And Instagram-Specific Rhetoric And Interaction: A Case Study, Sharon Kathleen Jones May 2016

Identifying Facebook-, Twitter-, And Instagram-Specific Rhetoric And Interaction: A Case Study, Sharon Kathleen Jones

MSU Graduate Theses

A great deal of research has examined social media best practices; however, there has been a gap in looking at nonprofits to examine the efficacy of Facebook-, Twitter-, and Instagram-specific rhetoric to engage stakeholders. This study examined a small, local nonprofit's posts on each of the above platforms, and used surveys and interviews to find which types of rhetoric create the best dialogue between the nonprofit and stakeholders. This study found that for Facebook, the best rhetoric to use are pictures and videos; for Twitter, the best rhetoric to use are retweets; and Instagram, the best types of rhetoric are …


Patsy Sings For Me: Stories, Brenna Elizabeth Womer May 2016

Patsy Sings For Me: Stories, Brenna Elizabeth Womer

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis begins with a critical introduction about the function of place in works of fiction and creative nonfiction. I use quotes from Joan Didion, Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Allison, and others to support the idea that, though many hold to the belief that people are shaped by place, really it is people who prescribe meaning to landscape and location, not the other way around. Place is at the mercy of memory and language. After the critical introduction, you will find short stories, flash fiction, essay, short memoir, and flash nonfiction. These works were not written with a specific theme in …


Modern Myth And Ideology In David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, Matthew Ryan Stewart May 2016

Modern Myth And Ideology In David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, Matthew Ryan Stewart

MSU Graduate Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze David Foster Wallace's novel The Pale King through the critical lenses of Lubomir Dolezel's Heterocosmica and Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" to arrive at a theory of the heroic in the novel. The Pale King features multiple characters experiencing various crises in the face of an invisible, adversarial force that can be understood through Dolezel's modern myth formulation, in which an invisible domain oppresses characters. This study analyzes three themes of the novel in which this interaction is most observable: the religious, the supernatural, and the civic themes. Althusser's work …


Investigating The Growth Of Vocabulary Size And Depth Of Word Knowledge In Iraqi Foreign Language Learners Of English, Akram Basim Mohsin Alfatle May 2016

Investigating The Growth Of Vocabulary Size And Depth Of Word Knowledge In Iraqi Foreign Language Learners Of English, Akram Basim Mohsin Alfatle

MSU Graduate Theses

This study examined the growth of vocabulary size and depth of word knowledge in Iraqi foreign language learners of English (EFLs) over four years of university instruction. The secondary objective was to investigate the influence of language learning and practice variables on the lexical growth of Iraqi EFLs. Tools included the Self-Rated Vocabulary Test (measure of vocabulary size, D'Anna, Zechmeister, & Hall, 1991) and the Word Associates Test (measure of depth of word knowledge, Read, 1998). A self-report questionnaire was used to collect demographic information and language learning variables from participants. Following a cross-sectional method, 120 students (N = 120), …


Apocrypha, Robert Taylor Supplee May 2016

Apocrypha, Robert Taylor Supplee

MSU Graduate Theses

APOCRYPHA is a poetry portfolio which explores the relationship between knowledge and pain through the examination of Platonic epistemologies, Christian theologies, and Neoplatonic poetry. These poems are inspired by a crisis of faith which necessitated the telling of this story. Pain is then extrapolated into a state of suffering as delineated by theorist Eric Cassell, which then affects the intactness of the authentic self. Official Christian ideology and Christian folk knowledge compete within the foregrounds of knowledge for control over the authentic self of the individual whose pain necessitates the telling of stories, specifically health narratives as described by theorist …


Skin And Smoke, Kelly Anne Baker Jan 2016

Skin And Smoke, Kelly Anne Baker

MSU Graduate Theses

My thesis consists of the first ten chapters of a horror novel, entitled Skin and Smoke. My novel focuses on the character of Violet Masterson and her attempts to create her own identify and reconcile with her family's past actions. Violet lives in the small, recently unincorporated town of Nuovita in central Washington. Following her grandmother's death, she must face the paranormal events occurring in Nuovita, while her father leaves on an unknown journey. My thesis addresses themes of loss, identity, and revenge. In Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he proposes that the monomyth ends with the …


The Representation Of The Iraqi War, Middle Eastern Culture, And Women In Benjamin Buchholz's One Hundred And One Nights, Entidhar Hamzah Abbas Al-Rashid Jan 2016

The Representation Of The Iraqi War, Middle Eastern Culture, And Women In Benjamin Buchholz's One Hundred And One Nights, Entidhar Hamzah Abbas Al-Rashid

MSU Graduate Theses

The Iraqi war not only affected Iraqi culture but also had a significant impact on a historically marginalized member of Iraqi society, namely, women. The American novelist Benjamin Buchholz explored the life of Iraqis from a unique perspective after his 2003 deployment. Instead of writing from the perspective of an American soldier, he gave an Iraqi perspective on the effect of the US-led invasion on Iraqi culture through the eyes of his two main protagonists, Abu Saheeh and Layla. In his novel, One Hundred and One Nights, Buchholz addresses the effect of war on Iraqi culture generally and Middle Eastern …


The Terrible Women I'Ve Been, Meagan Rose Stoops Jan 2016

The Terrible Women I'Ve Been, Meagan Rose Stoops

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis is a collection of eight short fictions exploring the characterization of unlikable women in fiction. Each work herein incorporates the themes of romantic relationships and denial of traditional female gender roles. The female characters within embody traits of bitterness, passion, perseverance, rage, cunning, and pursuits of self-preservation and love as motivating forces. Through these characters' actions and choices, the narratives dissolve and reject the commonly accepted portrayals of women in fiction in an attempt to grasp at a greater, more complex truth of human nature and the female psyche.


A Longitudinal Investigation Of A Sequential Arabic-English Bilingual Child’S Vocabulary Development, Seba A. Al-Hindawy Jan 2016

A Longitudinal Investigation Of A Sequential Arabic-English Bilingual Child’S Vocabulary Development, Seba A. Al-Hindawy

MSU Graduate Theses

The purpose of the study was to explore the lexical development of a sequential bilingual Arabic-English speaking child. The study contributes to the growing research literature on the language behaviors of early bilingual children and specifically to the discussion of bilingual developmental milestones. The child's vocabulary growth was assessed over the course of a year with the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI-III, English and Arabic versions), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-4), parent interviews, and the Frog Story Narrative Test. Lexical measures were analyzed over time and indicated that the child progressed in the dominant language, English, similarly to the …