Digital Commons Network^™

Pullinger's And Joseph's Inanimate Alice And Intercultural Engagement, Ana Abril

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Pullinger's and Joseph's Inanimate Alice and Intercultural Engagement" Ana Abril analyzes Kate Pullinger's and Chris Joseph's digital graphic novel and game. Inanimate Alice offers a model for online education environments and has been widely acclaimed. However, Abril's ana-lysis suggests possible ways for improving the empathic and educational potential of the novel/game for interpersonal and intercultural benefit. Abril bases her analysis on the theories of human interpersonal communication and then applies these findings to Inanimate Alice and suggests improvement so that participants would be able to decide if they want to play from the viewpoint of their own …

Invincible: Legacy And Propaganda In Superhero Comics, Natalie R. Sheppard

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Captain America and Iron Man are both iconic American heroes, representing different American values. Captain America was created during the Golden Age of comics and represents a longing for the past, while Iron Man was created at the height of the Cold War and looks forward to a new America. This paper will first establish the historical and cultural relationship between comic books and propaganda, beginning with the first appearance of Superman. It will pay special attention to the similarities and differences of Captain America and Iron Man, focusing on their representation of American values over time, and discuss how …

Marvel Comics And New York Stories: Anti-Heroes And Street Level Vigilantes Daredevil And The Punisher, Jesse Allen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis argues that the creation of street level, vigilante heroes The Punisher and Daredevil created by Marvel Comics authors and illustrators in the late 1970s and early 1980s reflected the socio-economic environment of New York City at this same moment in history. By examining an era of New York that was fiscally and socially tense along with the development of characters created by the New York based Marvel Comics, I aim to show how their creation was directly related to the environment which they were produced in.

The [Ftaires!] To Remembrance: Language, Memory, And Visual Rhetoric In Chaucer's House Of Fame And Danielewski's House Of Leaves, Shannon Danae Kilgore

Honors Program Theses

Geoffrey Chaucer's dream poem The House of Fame explores virtual technologies of memory and reading, which are similar to the themes explored in Danielewski's House of Leaves. "[ftaires!]", apart from referencing the anecdotal (and humorous) misspelling of "stairs" in House of Leaves, is one such linguistically and visually informed phenomenon that speaks directly to how we think about, and give remembrance to, our own digital and textual culture. This paper posits that graphic design, illustrations, and other textual cues (such as the [ftaires!] mispelling in House of Leaves] have a subtle yet powerful psychological influence on our reading and …

Wst 2309g-003: Women, Men, And Culture, Jeannie Ludlow

Fall 2014

No abstract provided.

Eng 3705-001: American Multicultural Literatures, Jeannie Ludlow

Fall 2014

No abstract provided.

Though This Be Madness, Yet There Is Method In’T: Using Graphic Shakespeare Texts To Create Meaningful Engagement In The High School Classroom, Eric Kallenborn

All Student Theses

This thesis covers the attempt to successfully motivate and connect with high school students by giving them the option of reading a graphic form of Hamlet instead of the original text. This research was conducted to not only dispel the myth that comics and graphic novels are juvenile and adolescent but to also explain the benefits of such texts to educators and administrators.

For this research, 10^th graders were assigned Hamlet and were allowed to select the graphic text over the traditional text, allowing for student buy-in from the selection. Students also took part in a project that …

Narrative Space And Serialized Forms: Story-Spaces For The Mass Market In Victorian Print And Contemporary Television, Laura Daniel Buchholz

English Theses & Dissertations

Despite Bakhtin's notion of the chronotope and recent advancements in spatial theory by David Herman, Marie-Laure Ryan and Susan Friedman, narrative space is arguably still one of the most under-researched elements in narrative theory, taking a back seat to its corollary of narrative time and plot. This oversight can be largely attributed to the structuralist separation of text types exemplified by Genette's assertions that description and narrative were distinctly different forms. Recent approaches such as David Herman's rejection of such a separation in Story Logic, however, argue that "spatial reference plays a crucial, not optional or derivative role in …

The Black And The Blue: Comedy, Laughter, And Deformity In Ellison’S Invisible Man, Olivia Grace Popiel

English

In Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, comedy plays an important yet convoluted role. In his own rendering of the Blues Aesthetic, Ellison is able to present laughter and humor as a healthy and natural reaction to painful and distressing events. The significance of this technique, which builds upon double consciousness , is evident in Ellison’s many essays, where he suggests that laughter may be the only way for America to accept the crude reality of its foundations and move forward. In my thesis, I differentiate between four general types of comedy found in Invisible Man. These can be summarized as …

Breaking Bad: On The Western Genre And Audience Reception, Marisa Mazart

English

“Breaking Bad: on the Western Genre and Audience Reception” examines the recent TV series Breaking Bad making use of cultural scholar Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theories in order to better understand what meaning is imbued into the series and what meaning is extracted by the audiences. By treating Breaking Bad as a cultural artifact moving across what Hall defines as the parts of the circuit of culture – production, identification, representation, consumption and regulation – I will be able to answer the question of why the show is so popular and to consider the significance of that popularity. While …

Reflective Tales : Tracing Fairy Tales In Popular Culture Through The Depiction Of Maternity In Three “Snow White” Variants., Alexandra O'Keefe

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Ethos Of Conspiracy Argument : "Character" As Persuader In Conspiracy Rhetoric., Michael James Sobiech

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conspiracy theory has, as Timothy Melley states in Empire of Conspiracy (2000), “animated our political culture from the early Republican period to the present, at times powerfully swaying popular opinion” (vii). Though it has attracted attention from a wide range of disciplines, conspiracy theory has not received significant notice within rhetoric and composition. My dissertation adds to the interdisciplinary body of scholarship concerning conspiracy theory by examining it as rhetoric, focusing on how the construction of a conspiracy proponent’s ethos/character affects the persuasiveness of a conspiracy theory. I argue that ethos construction plays a much more significant role in conspiracy …

Sehnsucht, Dena Ten Pas

Theses & Honors Papers

Sehnsucht is German, referring to a longing or yearning, sometimes further qualified as the longing for something unknown or something that will never be possible.

Radiate, Sean L. Corbin

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English by Sean L Corbin in April of 2014.

Almost A Man: A Collection Of Short Drama, Tyler Fruge'

English & Modern Languages: Theses, Dissertations & Student Publications

The purpose of this thesis is to examine through drama the concept of manhood and what our culture defines as being a man. Manhood is what my characters struggle to achieve, but they fall short of their goals due to issues of co-dependency, immaturity, and refusal to give up control; they are well-composed and obedient externally, yet struggle internally. My characters were brought up and raised in a setting with inarguable demands, explicitly on what to believe, how to behave, and what is and isn’t acceptable. They’ve never been taught/told it’s okay to say “I’m not sure if I agree …

Opus, 2013-2014, Issue Xii, Suny Geneseo English Club

Opus

Artwork
5 Elyssa Slawinski
7 Joey O'Connor, I Want to Fake My Death on Facebook
10 Ariana DiPreta, Solitary Curiosity
11 Elyssa Slawinski
13 Jaqueline Christensen, Content Emily
16 Ariana DiPreta, Heaven Meets Scotland
18 Joey O'Connor, Splintering
22 Jaqueline Christensen, Seeyum
Joey O'Connor, Glitz
23 Megan Nolan, Tunnel
27 Sarah Simon, Concert Stand
30 Ariana DiPreta, Edinburgh
31 Sarah Pray, Reflecting
34 Jaqueline Christensen, Brody
36 Elder Ferreira, The Leaf

Prose, Poetry
5 Meghan Kearns, A Welcome
6 Mademoiselle Clair, Writing a Submission
8 Jim Ryan, How to Satisfy a Sweet Tooth
Pam Haas, Crackle
9 Keara Roy Hagerty, …

Murmurs, Masks, And Murder: Deviancy In Patricia Highsmith's "The Price Of Salt", "The Talented Mr. Ripley", And "Strangers On A Train", Rebecca L. Prigot

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

R. Crumb’S The Book Of Genesis Illustrated: Biblical Narrative And The Impact Of Illustration, Liza A. Borders

Senior Honors Theses

An artist known for his sexually charged, grotesque art joins with the sacred text of the Bible’s Genesis in R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated. An academic approach to the graphic novel recognizes the depth of meaning the art develops through the story. The intriguing facial expressions within Crumb’s book call into question the motives of the active participants within the narrative of Noah and the infamous floating zoo. Deviant from a Christian view of the Bible, Crumb disputes the honor of Scripture and perpetuates his typical social satire though he uses a biblical text. Reflecting upon a traditional …

To All Sisters: Defending Lorraine Hansberry's Integral Role In The Black Arts Movement In Juxtaposition With The Works Of Sonia Sanchez & Adrienne Kennedy, Candace L. Baker

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Graphic Drama: Reading Shakespeare In The Comics Medium, Russell H. Mcconnell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This project adopts a formalist method of literary analysis to approach the modern genre of Shakespearean comic book adaptations. These texts have as yet received little attention from the academy, despite their sophisticated engagement with problems of visualizing the transition from stage to comics page, as well as their capacity for making original contributions to the interpretation of Shakespearean drama. The formalist method that this thesis employs is derived from the foundational work of comics theorists Will Eisner and Scott McCloud, combined with an understanding of Shakespearean language and stage conventions. Once this method is developed and explained, the dissertation …

The Broadsheet- Issue 6, Merrimack College

The Broadsheet

Merrimack College's English Department newsletter.

This issue features:

• Baba Brinkman
• Janelle Clark
• Tony Rosetti
• Sabbatical Projects
• Upcoming Events
• New Courses

Wimps, Dorks, And Reluctant Readers: Redefining Literacy In Multimodal Middle Grade Diary Books, Rachel Lee Rickard

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Since the release of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the multimodal, middle-grade diary book has gained popularity. The series features “handwritten,” journal entries and drawings and has elicited many imitators, the most prominent of which is Rachel Renee Russell’s Dork Diaries. While the diary form is not new to children’s literature, these series reinvent the established conventions through drawings and supplementary online environments. Both series are routinely identified as for reluctant readers; however, their diversity of form actually leads to complex reader engagement. My purpose is to refute the idea that the books are useful only …

How Do Comics Artists Use Speech Balloons?, Frank Bramlett

English Faculty Publications

This post is the first in a series on how comics artists represent talk in comics. I’ll be writing about speech balloons and how the discipline of conversation analysis (CA) helps us understand how creative these artists can be when they try to show the intricacies of everyday talk.

Consider the following two panels. These are from the webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse by Jon Rosenberg. (Click on each of the titles to see the full comic.)

Eng 3405-002: Children's Literature, John Moore

Spring 2014

No abstract provided.

Eng 4905-001: Studies In Youth Literature, John Moore

Spring 2014

No abstract provided.

The Royal Review: 2013-2014, Kathleen Conway

The Royal Review

No abstract provided.

Flying In Place: Black Superheroes And Their Origin Stories, Kolton Harris

English Honors Papers

In recent years, the black superhero has received more attention from scholars. With this surge of interest, comes a wealth of uncharted territory. My paper examined the origin stories of black superheroes, some of which have not yet been critically analyzed. The basis for my analysis is the overwhelming repetition of an urban black narrative that serves as the template for black superhero origin stories. It has proven to be narratively restricting and highly dependent on stereotypes.

Throughout this paper, I offer close readings of black superheroes that are informed by criticism of black masculinity. While the superhero narrative is …

Brave New Forms: Adaptation, Remediation, And Intertextuality In The Multimodal World Of Hugo Cabret, Chelsea Marie Bromley

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Digital technologies have changed the way readers approach, experience, and respond to texts. In our hyper-mediated culture, images and texts converge and disseminate across multiple media platforms, changing once-passive readers and spectators into active agents in the intellectual and creative process of interpretation. This thesis examines the multimodal world of Hugo Cabret—the hybrid graphic novel, the film adaptation, and the novel’s official website—in an effort to better understand how intertextuality, convergence culture, and remediation play with media forms, represent an ideological shift toward participatory culture, and rework older, traditional media in the creation of new media and new media users. …

Magical Me: Self-Insertion Fanfiction As Literary Critique, Melody Strmel

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the traditions of textual interaction that impact the forms of reading engaged in with fanfiction. This thesis continues by exploring how self-insertion fanfiction functions as a medium through which authors express their reading of the text primary through the emotional impact of the text through wish fulfillment, and the interaction of their cultural moment and the text. Furthermore, it argues that self-insertion fanfiction is a mode of literary critique in which the author acknowledges the effect of a mediated world on their perception of self and reality. Through this recognition of a constructed self, the author rejects …

Science Fiction In The United States, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.