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Articles 31 - 60 of 108
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An Unnamed God., Luke Cash Mansfield
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 …
Apotheosis Blues, Brandon Christopher Dahlberg
Apotheosis Blues, Brandon Christopher Dahlberg
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Apothesosis Blues is a novel draft about a metoerite that crashes outside a small Mississippi town. The novel follows the life a newly married couple and an aging parent whom the couple cares for. The metoerite crash sets off a chain of events in the small town and various characters react to these in different ways.
Constellations, Erin Leigh Pounders
Constellations, Erin Leigh Pounders
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
AbstractConstellations consists of a collection of ten “linked” short stories. The short stories share the setting of Memphis, Tennessee and have recurring characters. Using realism, the stories attempt to examine the Modern American South, specifically Memphis. In this collection, the social milieu of the Old South, which is in its final throes, is explored, exploited, parodied, and sometimes honored. Focusing upon the characters of Garnet Pigeon and her daughter, Caroline, Constellations explores generational differences along with themes such as relationships between mothers and their children, class and social status, feminism, grief and loss, revenge, love, and the art of knowing …
Effects On Misinformation: The Role Of Perceived Realism And Transportation Into Fiction, Alyssa Nicole Blair
Effects On Misinformation: The Role Of Perceived Realism And Transportation Into Fiction, Alyssa Nicole Blair
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The present study investigated the role of individual differences in the acquisition of information from fictional texts. Using the established misinformation paradigm, information was embedded in implausible or plausible stories and framed in accurate, misleading, or neutral statements. Participants (N = 101) were asked ro read six stories and give ratings of perceived realism and transportation for each story and then complete a general knowledge test that included 36 target items. It was hypothesized that question difficulty, fact framing, and the plausibility of story context would all influence the amount of correct and incorrect information gathered from the stories but …
Lightning Flowers, Nickalus Rupert
Lightning Flowers, Nickalus Rupert
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Lightning Flowers traces the psychological collapse of Waylan Dranger, an East Texas construction worker / folk artist. Waylan suffers from hallucinatory encounters with Reeve, his missing brother. Reeve often blames Waylan for his disappearance and implied death. Waylan also worries that Sam, his live-in girlfriend, will leave him before he can resolve his own increasingly erratic behavior. Largely, Lightning Flowers is preoccupied with the consequences of nostalgic thinking. Among others, the novel grapples with the following questions: What defines contemporary notions of "brotherhood"? To what extent does one's survival necessitate self-delusion? How do social stigmas inform our experience of mental …
Road Stories, Louis Mindar
Road Stories, Louis Mindar
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Road Stories is a collection of three novellas that explore the pull, allure, sanctuary, serendipity, and adventure of life on the open road. The novellas examine how for some, the road holds the promise of a new day, an improved life, a better opportunity, or a deeper love; while for others, it is nothing more than an assortment of jumbled blue lines on a map. In Tierra del Fuego, a man takes to the road to figure out how to deal with the grief and sense of betrayal he feels following the death of his wife. Lake of the Falls …
Friday Is A Planet: Stories, Allison Pinkerton
Friday Is A Planet: Stories, Allison Pinkerton
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Friday is a Planet: Stories is a collection of short fiction that explores the ways loss can alter family bonds. Characters in these stories have lost daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends. Some characters go to extreme lengths to return to their loved ones—one woman hallucinates, another time travels. Others deal with the loss in more conventional ways, through support groups and the emotional outlet of community theatre. What ties these stories together is a sense of post-loss confusion and mystery. The characters are unsure how to move forward, or if they should try. The men and women in these stories …
Sunset View, Danielle Armstrong
Sunset View, Danielle Armstrong
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Sunset View is a linked collection of short fiction that explores the dynamics of dysfunctional families. Characters in this collection have been affected by the neglect, absence, or death of their family members and friends. They search for recognition and love as they try to find their place in life. Some turn to animals or fleeting relationships to fill this void. Others attempt suicide or simply disappear. The characters are in denial, unsure how to deal with grief, and often make decisions that alienate them from the friends and family they do have. Set in northeast Tennessee and named after …
Black Skies And Gray Matter, Jacquelyn Bennett
Black Skies And Gray Matter, Jacquelyn Bennett
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Black Skies and Gray Matter is a collection of stories thematically centered on characters that are lonely or lost in the world. These stories explore the characters' personalities through their interactions with others (strangers, family, friends, and spouses) and the difficulties they face being misunderstood. Their journeys are ones of trying to find happiness and their place in society (or rejecting it). As they face alienation, they must endure the trials of everyday life (some more extreme than others) and, at the same time, search for kindred spirits, a sense of belonging. Some stay true to themselves while others conform …
Ascending Mango Hill, Lorri Camueiras
Ascending Mango Hill, Lorri Camueiras
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Ascending Mango Hill is a collection of work that represents me. The intention is to connect with readers by depicting protagonists who are unable to fit in, a theme most readers can relate to. Many times the protagonist must find the courage to confront a situation rather than remain quiet. The collection is separated into two sections: The Essays and The Short Stories. The essays detail my own experiences at being an outsider while exploring the topics of family and personal growth. In the stories, characters must overcome unresolved childhood issues, recognize unhealthy relationships, and decide when to set off …
Lonely Monsters, Patricia Davis
Lonely Monsters, Patricia Davis
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Lonely Monsters is a full-length feature screenplay that explores the ways in which a classic damsel narrative may be reconsidered. It offers ideas on how death and girlhood may find symmetry. The characters within Lonely Monsters deal with loss, identity of the self versus the world's ideas on self-identity, place, gender, and class. Utilizing the elements of a fairy tale, the narrative seeks to complicate the roles of gender in a cautionary tale. Set in the fictional Florida town of Puerto Palmera, an economic divide between the Estates and the Glades makes for a ripe, troublesome environment for a foul …
Up And Down, Guibing Qin
Up And Down, Guibing Qin
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In 1953, one day before the Korean Armistice Agreement, two Chinese young peasants decide to join the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army. Wu Xiu-quan is hesitant because he is the only son and he has a young child bride of seven years waiting to marry him. Wu Xiu-bang, his cousin, convinces him that joining the army would bring honor to his family. The cousins hiked over night to get to the enlist office by the Yangtze River, only to be told that the Korean War has ended. They were sent home. Wu Xiu-quan’s father captured him and gives him a good …
When Women Kill, Giovanna C. Lima
When Women Kill, Giovanna C. Lima
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The media is one of the strongest influences on how society views the criminal justice system and all actors therein. This is especially true for offenders of violent crime. Notably, women who kill are rare. However, when women do murder someone, the media tends to over expose them and portray them in different ways. The current study is intended to examine how the media portrays women murderers. In particular, this research is focused on how fictional and true crime programs portray female killers. Do they portray them in a positive or negative light? Do they portray them realistically? Are true …
A Look To Burst The Brightest Neon Hearts: Attempts, Eric Fershtman
A Look To Burst The Brightest Neon Hearts: Attempts, Eric Fershtman
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
A Look to Burst the Brightest Neon Hearts is an inquiry, via constellation of stories diffuse in structure and subject matter, into the various (and really weird) phenomena comprising contemporary American existence. Cumulatively, the stories seek to: (1) kick up, like bottom feeders searching biogenous sediment, an underlying value system, and (2) explore how language both breastfeeds and like, weans this value system-e.g., what dark matter is it that tethers bromances to reality TV? Quantum mechanics to pop music? How can a country be responsible for both the world's highest incarceration rates, and OKCupid? These stories also explore various American …
Land Of Flowers, Michael Morrison
Land Of Flowers, Michael Morrison
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Land of Flowers is a collection of short fiction presenting a Florida that stands in counterpoint to the image the state holds in the national consciousness-an image of a backward region rife with rednecks, retirees, racists, and religious kooks. In contrast, these stories feature the natives, the tourists, the immigrants, and also the transplants who are drawn to this "paradise" with hopes of finding warmth, escape, and a new life that so often fails to materialize. Many of the inhabitants of these stories are mired in a state of introspection. In the title piece, an early Spanish explorer contemplates his …
Last Kind Word, Dianne Richardson
Last Kind Word, Dianne Richardson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Last Kind Word is a novel that explores the ways people seek control and power in the face of the unknowable. Set in the fictional town of Thorpe, South Carolina, the story follows four main characters-Donna Neese, Melissa Burnside, Anthony Washington, and Jill McManus-struggling in the aftermath of biracial teenager Micah Burnside's disappearance. They search for a replacement for the lost connection to Micah and for a sense of control at a time when their lives seem to lack it, when other forces, be they people or circumstances or spirits, hold power over them. In the midst of this, the …
Martin Cenquizqui, Christina Guillen
Martin Cenquizqui, Christina Guillen
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The historical novel, Cortes Cenquizqui, set in sixteenth century Mexico and Spain, follows the conflicted lives and minds of several characters through an age of freshly crossing culture, language, and power. The narrator, Maria de Quesada of high ranking Spanish and Mexica parents, resents the white world for condemning her work as a female healer or curandera. Yet she acknowledges that she is ill-equipped to leave Mexico City to live in the outlying Indigenous villages. Maria recalls the tale of her three brothers who were caught in a web of pride and prejudices. Her interjections throughout shed light on questions …
Modern(Izing) Burial In Interwar American Literature, Victoria Marie Bryan
Modern(Izing) Burial In Interwar American Literature, Victoria Marie Bryan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation aims to study literary representations of interwar American deathways as reflections of modernity. The study of burial in United States history tends to focus on mid- to late-nineteenth century movements that distance the dead from the living. This dissertation argues that these practices left Americans ill-equipped to process the influx of death from the conflict areas of World War I, keen to allow the further development of the funeral industry during the interwar period, and anxious about the certain rise in death tolls that would result from World War II. Interwar literature, therefore, exhibits a difficulty in meaning-making …
Mindset Perfect, Jeremy Eugene Sullivan
Mindset Perfect, Jeremy Eugene Sullivan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Mindset Perfect is a short story collection about the residents who live in the fictional city of Lincoln, Mississippi. Centering mostly on the Moore family, this collection of stories explores themes like religion, gossip, death, and marriage. This collection gives readers an insight into what it is like to live in a small Southern town, where everyone tends to know everyone. Beginning with "Mr. Tansey's Daughter," a story about a prodigal child returning to her hometown after a long absence, and ending with "The Redemption of Donald McCoy," which features a life long resident of Lincoln finally leaving his hometown …
The Age Of Sail: Stories And A Novella, Elizabeth Marie Cameron
The Age Of Sail: Stories And A Novella, Elizabeth Marie Cameron
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The five works of fiction in this collection aim to examine the role of family as a unit of order, and the ways in which this order defines identity, determines and subverts behavior, tempers or inflates expectations, and substitutes domestic politics for socio-cultural realities. These stories feature characters bewildered by the fluid boundaries between the personal and the social, by how the sacrifices and mistakes made in the family alter their experience in the public sphere, and by how the sacrifices and mistakes made in the public sphere upend or destroy the family. The range of ages depicted highlights the …
The Former Lives Of Buildings, Bethany Duvall-Francisco
The Former Lives Of Buildings, Bethany Duvall-Francisco
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The Former Lives of Buildings is a novel about thirty-one-year-old architect Adelle Corey. Adelle is a woman in denial. A nightmare figure called the Baron steals memories of her closest relationships and most poignant experiences. He hides the memories in Adelle’s dreams, where he reconstructs them into buildings. The only way she can recover the memories is by cutting or tattooing these buildings into her skin. Adelle uses notebooks, mnemonic devices, and academic trivia to keep track of her daily routines. The novel takes place in contemporary times and opens in the burn unit of Bridgeport Hospital, Connecticut, where Adelle …
Mirrors And Vanities, Leslie Salas
Mirrors And Vanities, Leslie Salas
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Mirrors and Vanities is a multi-modal collection which showcases the diversity of working in long and short storytelling forms. Featured in this thesis are fiction, nonfiction, graphic narrative, and screenplay. Using unconventional approaches to storytelling in order to achieve emotional resonance with the audience while maintaining high standards for craft, these stories and essays explore the costs inherent to the subtle nuances of interpersonal relationships. The fiction focuses on the complications of characters keeping secrets. A husband discovers the truth behind his wife’s miscarriage. A girl visits her fiancé in purgatory. A boy crosses a line and loses his best …
Drops Of Light In The Dark, April Urban
Drops Of Light In The Dark, April Urban
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The short stories in this collection focus on young individuals’, especially women’s, experience and development as they navigate personal relationships and search for a place in the world. Both longer stories and flash fiction are included, and stories are told in past and present tense, and from first, second, and third person point of view. However, the narration of all of these stories stays close to the characters’ points of view, inhabiting their visceral experience. These stories take place in a variety of settings, including a beachside motel, college campuses, bars, and offices. All of these characters, though, struggle with …
Preventable Conditions, William Wight
Preventable Conditions, William Wight
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Preventable Conditions is a collection of literary short stories intended to explore themes of familial communication, complementary dysfunctions, and the degree to which we all try to hide from or correct our own mistakes. The first five stories in the collection are related, while the last three stand alone. Each of the stories before “Fair Grounds” is told from the perspective of a different member of the Powell family, a fictional clan from Marietta, Georgia. The Powell family stories largely adhere to the basic conventions of realism, while the three remaining pieces venture closer to the absurd.
Reason For Rejoice, Jennifer Karr
Reason For Rejoice, Jennifer Karr
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection of short stories features characters who face unexpected situations arising from ordinary circumstances. Most of the characters find themselves compelled to react in ways that may even surprise themselves. A young woman finds her first feeling of joy in a long time in the face of her mother’s possible death. Best friends recall their years spent doing drugs and ignoring responsibility. When a woman confronts her fear of sex, she finds herself literally in another world. Rather than sticking with one form, several stories depart from traditional structures. One flash fiction piece is told in the first-person collective …
Toward The Red Shore, Gary Bomhoff
Toward The Red Shore, Gary Bomhoff
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
A fictional novel utilizing third person limited narration from the perspective of the primary character, Ilya Kollide, who narrates the story as though it were happening in his head as it occurred, with frequent embellishments. He has come to live near an old mansion on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, named Neimasaurus, to find an antiquated, dusty world of faded aristocracy. Temporarily orphaned at the age sixteen by the recent death of his parents, he has traveled four thousand miles to live with his last living relative, an uncle named Demetri, whom he has never met. The year is 1990, only this …
A Clutch, A Pride, A Murder, John Miles
A Clutch, A Pride, A Murder, John Miles
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
A Clutch, A Pride, A Murder is a linked collection of seven short fiction pieces and one novella that examine a world much like our own, but with the cover revealed—a world laid bare, exposed by its desires, its emotions, its beauties, and all its machinations. All of the stories involve, either directly or indirectly, the fictional Ohio city of Milton. Some of the stories take place within this seemingly typical American city, while others only involve characters coming from or in some cases returning to this unassuming location. Regardless, the events of these stories either in cause or effect …
The Never-Knowns, Ryan Haskins
The Never-Knowns, Ryan Haskins
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The Never-Knowns is a novel about a high-intensity behavioral group home for adults with severe to profound developmental disabilities, its residents, and the staff who are employed there. Focusing on plural protagonists, no single narrative is ever fully realized or resolved, leaving only a cryptic aggregate of experiences, revelations, and trauma. In a typical suburban neighborhood, much like any of us grew up in or now live, there is a house down the block that no one discusses openly. This house seems like all the rest, well landscaped and tidy. Although three times a day much coming and going of …
The Voices Of Reason: Counterstories Of The Urbanization Of A Suburban Black School In Georgia, Shana Hunt
The Voices Of Reason: Counterstories Of The Urbanization Of A Suburban Black School In Georgia, Shana Hunt
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This inquiry explores the discrepancy of educational opportunities in a Black suburban public school near Atlanta, Georgia. Predominately Black suburban schools in the South have become increasingly similar to Black urban schools. Both Black urban and suburban schools have become places of complacency for teachers and students. There is an incessant fluctuation of teachers and an increase in low expectations for academic success in Black suburban schools. Both Black urban and suburban schools have limited funding while White schools, many times less than ten miles away, experience the benefits of magnet programs, cutting-edge technology and rigorous curricula. Many Black suburban …
Powerful Print: Identifying The Influence Of Narrative Reading Over Student's Opinion Formation, Sarah A. Lord
Powerful Print: Identifying The Influence Of Narrative Reading Over Student's Opinion Formation, Sarah A. Lord
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This study examined the ways in which reading works of fiction affects the formation of student’s opinions and attitudes by using literature circles discussions and journal writing. It uses Louise Rosenblatt’s (1938) Reader Response Theory supported by Lev Vygotsky’s (1962) writings about the social dynamics of language development. Methodologically I followed the example of literature circles set forth by Janice Almasi and Linda Gambrell (1994, 1995).
Participants were fifth grade students in a rural South Georgia elementary school who participated during the 2010-2011 school year. The students participated in small peer-led discussion groups. The students chose the books they would …