Digital Commons Network^™

The Bengali Oil-Eaters: A Speculative Approach To New Materialism And The Nonhuman In Contemporary Petrofiction, Jenna Wayland

Honors Projects

Despite oil’s heavy saturation within the context of contemporary global life, novelistic registrations of oil frontiers and extractive drilling in contemporary world literature remain proportionally barren with regards to oil’s political and geographical importance across the world-system. Petro-cultural production, transnational in scale and imposing in material basis, relegates oil to a paradoxical literary deferment. The general invisibility of petrofiction within the petro-sphere suggests that the materialist basis of petroleum and its fraught geopolitical history has culturally transformed oil into a repressed, peripheral, and hidden material that subsequently renders the oil-encounter unseen in contemporary literature. This creative synthesis of the oil-encounter …

Dark As Day, Rachel Keady

CMC Senior Theses

“All works, no matter what or by whom painted, are nothing but bagatelles and childish trifles... unless they are made and painted from life, and there can be nothing... better than to follow nature." - Caravaggio

In the fall of 2021, I registered to take “Italian Baroque Art” with Professor Gorse at Pomona College, for the spring of 2022. Professor Faggen, one of my advisors, encouraged this and piqued my interest in the characters of this world. After some casual online research, I was transfixed by one artist in particular: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. How could I not be struck …

Falling Down The Rabbit Hole: World Building In Ya Literature, Claire Webb

Undergraduate Honors Theses

World building is a key component to many young adult novels, but what is world building and what are some different styles and techniques that authors use when constructing fictional universes? In this thesis, Falling Down the Rabbit Hole: World Building Techniques in YA Literature, I will examine Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865), The Princess Bride by William Goldman (1973), and my own unpublished novel, The Sun Kingdom, to compare different techniques and styles of world building. These works will be explored through the aspect of world building, focusing specifically on the importance of the geography, language, …

The Words. Or Holes. Or Both: Writing As An Integrative Methodology For Trauma, Daniel A. Castle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to identify methods authors have used to integrate their traumatic experiences. My work will analyze the genre of War Literature and specific authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and Kurt Vonnegut to explore the way writers describe the trauma of combat. Using insights from neuroscience and psychology, I will expand the field of Cognitive Literary Studies from a focus on the reader to a focus on the writer by linking neurological functions with narrative tools.

Samozvanets (The Pretender), Matthew Garrell, Alikzandr Malakov

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

he Russian word Samozvanets most directly translates to Imposter in English. However, for this thesis, I have selected the alternative interpretation of Pretender. Imposter implies the taking or assuming of another’s position. Pretender, more personally, carries the meaning of presenting self as something one is not. It is through the lens of the Pretender that I examine the idea of what it means to be a member of a particular ethnicity, and to engage with one’s cultural heritage. I do this through a collection of fictional stories, investigating various lives within the Russian diaspora following the dissolution of the Soviet …

Black-Eyed, Abigail Sipe

Honors Theses

Black-Eyed tells the story of Rowan Mae Baker, a ten-year-old girl dealing with too-big-for-a-ten-year-old problems. In the past year, Rowan moved from Jackson to Winona after the unexpected arrest and sudden death of her father. Then, almost a year later, Rowan is sexually assaulted by an older boy from her school. Rowan understands neither of these things. Throughout Black-Eyed, Rowan spends twelve hours running away from home while trying to figure out how to talk to her mom about the assault. Alone for the first time, she begins to observe and question the world around her, to process her …

Good Patients, Susan Mesler-Evans

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis is the first 21 chapters (approximately 150 pages) of a novel, Good Patients, accompanied by a complete synopsis. Good Patients is a social satire which seeks to touch on the flaws of the American healthcare system and social media culture, and how these two intersect for many people. To prepare for writing, I spent my first semester completing a guided reading list and preparing the synopsis, both of which were approved by my thesis chair. While writing, I consulted several medical articles to make my work as accurate as possible. The novel explores the way social media …

Writing Black Characters Out Of The Margins Of Fantasy With Secrets Of Candeo, Julienne Parks

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The crawling pace that the production of diverse fantasy books has set for itself continues to reveal that Black characters and the representation of Blackness in fiction is lacking in a detrimental way. Specifically speaking, this thesis focuses on the prevalent lack of Black characters in the fantasy genre, where Black people are cast as minor characters to a white protagonist’s story like Angela Johnson from Harry Potter; cast as abominations of anti-Black stereotypes in monsters like the Uruk-hai of Lord of the Rings; and cast as side(kick) characters like Vetch from Earthsea, aka Black characters who are …

Þorn: A Novel Excerpt Exploring Giantesses, Their Relation To Women's Bodily Expectations, And Patriarchal Control In The Literature Of Early Modern Britain And Contemporary America., Brady P Alexander

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will analyze examples of women of size in the literature of the British Isles throughout history, focusing predominantly upon the Early Modern Period, and will create a fiction piece in response to such attitudes. I argue that one of the most clear ways to dissect contemporary cultural attitudes about powerful women and women who occupy more space than men is to examine giantesses and other examples of women of size within this period of literature. From this, a novel excerpt will be written from the perspective of a time-traveling woman of size who engages with these texts and …

"Strong Female Characters"? An Analysis Of Six Female Fantasy Characters From Novel To Film, Valari Westeren

Honors Projects

This project is twofold. The first section analyzes six female fantasy characters in their literary and filmic incarnations—Dorothy Gale (The Wizard of Oz), Susan Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), Arwen Evenstar (The Lord of the Rings), Princess Buttercup (The Princess Bride), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), and Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief)—noting adaptational changes made to each and placing the twelve incarnations in conversation with each other. This conversation centers around the concept of the “strong female character,” …

Looking At Shadows: Four French Texts In English Translation, Kalena M. Hermes

World Languages and Cultures

This project present four French texts in English translation that share the theme of loss. This theme is perhaps one of the most poignant and relevant; loss is an experience that every human will encounter, and as people we continue across time to grapple with what it means for us and how to deal with it. These four texts will bring the perspectives of four authors to light in English. When we study how other countries and cultures deal with common human issues, we are able to gain new views on these issues. This project will make these texts accessible …

Experience Bobo Experience, Sara Smith

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Experience Bobo Experience -by Sara Marie Smith (Artist Statements and Images of work)

Spring 2018-CSUMB Undergraduate Capstone Project/ Visual Public Arts Department

My Senior Capstone is about using inspirational wisdom from acknowledged sources to address the quandaries of our human experiences. I have chosen a cognitive clown, named Bobo, to investigate Henry David Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Watts. Bobo, my character, goes on a journey of learning. Bobo is a line drawing, rendered in marker, with a circular head, two dot eyes, three puffs of hair with a clown smile and clown clothing. Experience Bobo Experience speaks to …

Dinner At Eight, Anastasia M. Berkovich

MSU Graduate Theses

This creative thesis is comprised of six short stories of fiction in various styles and lengths, as well as a critical introduction wherein I discuss the various influences on my work, ranging from Charles Baxter and Karen Joy Fowler to Doležel and John Gardner. All of these stories share a theme of family and loss. Each story also grapples in some way with changing times and places. I have endeavored, by using rhyming action, repeating images, and melodrama, to give each story a great sense of emotion, a feeling both specific to the story but connects to the wider reading …

"The Mouth Of The Void," "Hum", Hannah L. Comeriato

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project presents two distinct pieces of short fiction, linked through intentional stylized language, grammatical patterns, and a sectionalized narrative structure. Each individual piece of short fiction functions independently – as separate and distinct from the other, with no explicit connection in content (i.e. recurring characters, parallel timelines etc.). However, each narrative also displays a kind of complex interaction with the other, each crafted to produce, when read alongside one another, a shared indistinct aesthetic and emotional experience. This aesthetic and emotional experience is crafted, specifically, by the use of stylized verbs, the em-dash, and alternating dialogue-based and image-based sections. …

The New Pornography: The Rise Of Fanfic, Kelly Caputo

Capstones

Fanfic has quickly become the new pornography, showing how in modern culture, everything becomes sexualized.

https://newpornography.wordpress.com

Golden Fantasy: An Examination Of Generic & Literary Fantasy In Popular Writing, Zechariah James Morrison

Honors Projects

This essay attempts to analyze critical theory concerning the division between generic fantasy fiction and higher fantasy literature. In examining how these two different types of fantasy writing are identified by popular criticism, the space in-between is defined and labeled "golden fantasy". This kind of fantasy is identified by maintaining a balance between subversive originality, and derivative reproduction, and is generally popular among consumers and academics as a source of both entertainment and scholarly research. The essay is then followed by 3 original chapters by the essay writer, in an attempt to demonstrate some of the elements of golden fantasy …

An Unnamed God., Luke Cash Mansfield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This creative thesis is the story of a man returning home at the behest of a friend who is undergoing great difficulties in her life. While Docent Americana ostensibly travels home to help his friend, he is also trying to cope with challenges in his own life. He suffers from bipolar disorder and although he is receiving treatment for it the stresses of the experience trigger a manic episode that threatens his personal stability and his relationships with those around him. An Unnamed God is set in western Kentucky, affording a glimpse at the slow decay of rural communities as …

The Real Thing, Ruben T. Rodriguez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

THE REAL THING is a collection of short stories released from the confinement of the everyday. The stories allow characters to pop off the page from every angle. With an eye for anthropomorphism and ear for lyric, the collection is comprised of twenty-nine short stories, nineteen of which work in a flash fiction form.

Magical in its motions, and charming in its spirit, The Real Thing explores life’s losses and gains through the lens of the strange and at times the absurd. It invites its readers to cast away expectation, sit back, and watch the show.

Looker: Stories, George Robert Hargett

Master's Theses

The following stories, completed by the author between August 2013 and February 2015, deal with love, obscurity, isolation, failure, vulnerability and insecurity, looking and losing, the fears tied up in all these, and, once in a while, gaining.

Hallowed Be Thy Fall, Kristina Smeriglio

Department of Writing and Communication Theses

All Priella wanted was to find love. She roamed the fields of the Garden of Earthly Delights, day by day, in the hopes of finally attaining it. But, it wasn't that simple. In the midst of an existential crisis, unable to understand her difficulty in relating to others and achieving happiness, Priella meets the Archangel Michael who offers her a chance at salvation. Venturing into the unknown, Priella is forced to face the distorted ways of thinking that kept her hostage.

How To Protect A Literary Character Through Copyright And Trademark, Annie Provenzano

Journalism

This paper is about finding the best practices in which to protect a literary character as an individual and help authors keep the rights to their characters when the characters are taken out of the original work. It focuses on the basic copyright and trademark laws, how they apply to a literary character, what is afforded to the character for protection, and the lack of protection by the courts. The research helps facilitate ideas and advice on how to better protect a literary character before and after the process of copyrighting or trademarking the work.

Restoring The Harmony Of Humanity And Science, Simone Ilia Ms.

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …

Along The Horseshoe, Maurice R. Beaulieu

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

This thesis is a major component towards a completed short-story cycle. The author’s work uses a multi-faceted aspect of storytelling by employing its many characters and isolated chapters in a mosaic form. All stories operate independently while simultaneously linking together through familiar characters and setting. Every story involves characters who reside on the same suburban cul-de-sac, which forces them to interact with each other and influencing their lives. By having these characters return, sometimes by a brief presence only and other times by mention of their name, creates a concrete social atmosphere. The author’s work provides several glimpses into the …

Fuego Y Paz En Napsena, Suzanne Christine Heller

World Languages and Cultures

No abstract provided.

Dickensian Physiology Of Memory: Recall, Redintegration, And The Historical Novel, Timothy M. Curran

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Metaphor Manifested: An Examination Of Metaphor In Katherine Mansfield, Kathleen E. Kotaska

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Time Theory In The Short Fiction Of Jorge Luis Borges: The Language Of "Reality", Lyn Lamkin

Graduate Theses

Time boundaries delimit mankind's concerns while subtly affecting the perspective men have on all ontological questions. However, Jorge Luis Borges' short fiction develops an a-temporal perspective that denies the distinctions of a past, present, and future, obscuring traditional human conceptions of time and reality. He repetitively uses cycles and labyrinths as spatial metaphors for time to emphasize man's Inability to escape the maze of existence and to define a final reality that he can order. Borges' fiction suggests that only by trying to understand what exists beyond our universe in an unknowable. Infinite time continuum can human reality be ordered …

Representative Mormon Short Stories 1890 To 1940: Evolution Of Sentimentalism Toward Realism, Alice Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

Previously, no one has analyzed the short stories of Mormon periodicals from their inception in the late nineteenth century until 1940. The body of this study attempts to do so and has two main aims.

First, it evaluates the literary development of largely sentimental stories written for Mormon youth. Sentimentality in fiction was an extreme form of romanticism which flourished in America throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. As other forms of realistic writing became more acceptable in the nation, Mormon writers gradually accommodated their literary styles to conform with national trends. They retained a significant amount …

The Skepticism Of Anatole France, Margaret E. Camp

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

When Anatole France died 1n 1924, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had lived long enough to enjoy the honors which are not usually bestowed upon men until their death. His long life filled with years of labor and earnest endeavor to improve the lives of his fellow-men, through a better adjustment to society, culminated in his election to the French Academy.

By some critics he has been called the greatest writer of today. It is difficult to tell exactly upon what merits this distinction is based. Anatole France was not content to simply call himself a skeptic. …