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Break The Sky: An Exploration Of Ethics With Swords And Superheroes, Kris Miranda Jan 2009

Break The Sky: An Exploration Of Ethics With Swords And Superheroes, Kris Miranda

Honors Theses

In an extended piece of speculative fiction (specifically, a cross between the sword-and-sorcery and superhero genres), I try to explore the complexities of ethical deliberation in difficult circumstances. Through my protagonist I also present an “alternative” to Enlightenment ethics. I’ve referred to this alternative as an “ethics of the badass and the beautiful,” a little (but only a little) jokingly. The reason for doing all of this through fiction, and not a conventional philosophical paper, is that I believe my ethical education started in stories, and it’s still in good stories and the creative exploration of concretely realized personalities (as …


The Inextinguishable Longing For Elsewhere: Escapism In Recent Pulitzer Prize Winning Novels, Charles Barton Wynn Jan 2009

The Inextinguishable Longing For Elsewhere: Escapism In Recent Pulitzer Prize Winning Novels, Charles Barton Wynn

Honors Theses

In reading a selection of Pulitzer Prize winning literature since 1980,1 found that many of the novels included characters who, either literally or metaphorically, longed to escape from the reality of their lives. Four novels in particular embodied this theme: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, Martin Dressier: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. All four books treated escape and escapism ambiguously-sometimes escape is a flaw; sometimes escape is a virtue. Upon closer readings of the four …