Digital Commons Network^™

Cultivating Eliot's Historical Sense: Eliotic Time And The Waste Land's Response To Alienation, Thomas Ball

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land marshals his account of historical sense as a response to the problem of alienation in modernity. Eliot’s historical sense depends upon an awareness of the endurance of the past, demanding a reorientation to the structure of temporality. I interrogate the temporal ramifications of Eliot’s account, arguing that it resonates with Henri Bergson’s durational theory of time. I ultimately investigate Eliot’s relationship to Bergson, suggesting that Eliot intervenes in the Bergsonian framework by establishing duration as a cultural, rather than individual or ontological, reality.

M0mentary Lapses, Alice Salyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition Momentary Lapses, held at Tipton Gallery, February 25-March 8, 2019. The mixed media works and video examine the intersections between digital, somatic and societal decay through the mediation of the digital image by physical anthropogenic efforts.

Themes in the work include glitch art and theory, entropy, memory, decay, and loss. Contemporary American society’s desensitization associated with the oversaturation of digital imagery is discussed, as well as Guy Debord’s theory of the Spectacle, and the artistic practices of Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg.

And This, Our Measure: Figurative Realism And Workaday Culture., Perry Walter Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Man has created vast and powerful systems. These systems and their associated protocols, dogmas, and conventions tend to limit rather than liberate. Evaluation based on homogeneity threatens the devaluation of our humanity. This paper and the artwork it supports examine contemporary culture and its failings in the stewardship of the humanist ideal.

My paintings referenced herein are satirical narratives. The story told is one of alienation and evisceration. The visual subject matter is the human figure and environments dominated by architectural geometry. The male figures are conspicuously turned from view, a visual cue to their estrangement. Parallel and subordinate thoughts …

Gravity Fails, Kereth Cowe-Spigai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gravity Fails is a collection of four short stories and two memoirs that explore the ways in which characters adjust and fit into to a world that is destructive, fragmented and sometimes alien. Many of these pieces deal not with the moment of crisis, but with the aftermath. In "Gravity Fails," the young Danielle struggles to feel safe after the violent murder of her mother. Eliza Morrison negotiates the disappearance of her husband in "More Colors." "Following Rebecca" chronicles a woman's return to normalcy after her alcoholic husband divorces her. These characters are not happy; they are not healthy. Their …

Alienation And Isolation In Interracial Marriages In East Tennessee., Sheila Dianne Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I conducted this study to determine if African American men and women who marry white men and women in East Tennessee perceive experiences of isolation and alienation from their families and friends as a result of their selection of a mate from a race other than the one into which they were born. I interviewed ten individuals who are or have been interracially married. As a result of my research, I found that my results compare favorably with those of scholarly studies that discovered alienation and isolation among interracial couples.

I used descriptive research methods to analyze a segment of …

Hopelessness And Despair: Alienation And Oppression In The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter By Carson Mccullers., Stacey Reece

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter thrust Carson McCullers onto the literary scene at the age of 23. The year was 1940, and anticapitalistic fervor was at its peak. McCullers, familiar with the writings of Karl Marx, expresses in this novel her concern for the exploited classes, her disdain for a materialistic society that keeps the masses oppressed, and her conviction that societal reform was desperately needed. Marxist theory is evident in every aspect of this novel, from the characters to the setting. Alienation, failure to communicate, poverty, and an atmosphere of despair permeate the work. A product of the …