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The Psychological Grotesque In Modern American Literature, Amanda Turnbull Jan 2018

The Psychological Grotesque In Modern American Literature, Amanda Turnbull

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

In his novel Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson describes a grotesque as someone who has “snatched up” a “truth,” “called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it” (23-4). This one defining “truth” manifests in the grotesque’s life in the form of a number of significant psychological deformities such as fanaticism, denial of reality, and turning inward upon oneself, isolating the grotesque from those around him and arresting his emotional and psychological growth. Using Anderson’s paradigm, this thesis explores the pervasive use of the psychological grotesque in modern American literature by examining the overlapping features of grotesque characters …


The Man Who Put His Head In A Microwave Oven: A Look At James Incandenza From Infinite Jest, Esteban Meneses Jan 2018

The Man Who Put His Head In A Microwave Oven: A Look At James Incandenza From Infinite Jest, Esteban Meneses

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

I will attempt to reconstruct and interpret the elusive ‘Infinite Jest,’ the film within the novel of the same title. As James Incandenza’s final product whose cryptic message originates in the filmmaker’s broken upbringing and damaged relationship with his own family, the movie points beyond the novel to the world of the reader and serves as Wallace’s mirrored evaluation of the purpose and moral considerations on literary fiction, itself part of American culture. By analyzing primarily Incandenza’s relationship with his father in the two 1960s scenes, I intend to provide a missing component in previous IJ scholarship toward the elucidation …


Under The Influence: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Psychedelics, Jody Roun Jan 2018

Under The Influence: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Psychedelics, Jody Roun

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The following research will outline the effects of psychedelics from an interdisciplinary approach, which is to say that I will explore the neuroscience behind psychedelic drugs and how it relates to creativity, as a primary focus, while examining the role of additional points included along the way. The goal of this research, is to gain a deeper understanding of psychedelics and truly decipher what it means to be under the influence, as the most important goal of this human existence is to achieve understanding. The aforementioned is a point that great minds like Albert Einstein and Humphry Osmond impressed on …


Reimagining The Narrative: A Contemporary Creative Collection Of Interracial Perspective, Holly Jefferies Jan 2018

Reimagining The Narrative: A Contemporary Creative Collection Of Interracial Perspective, Holly Jefferies

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This essay offers a critical analysis of my creative thesis, Reimagining the Narrative: A Contemporary Creative Collection of Interracial Perspective, which consists of five fabric art scrolls, illustrating contemporary narrative views about interracial relations. I present such information to demonstrate the need to retell history from a visual interracial perspective, so that it might be seen through a new lens. In this critical essay, I argue that while historical context and documentation records history and provides insight into historical narratives, contemporary views within writing and art persist in their capacity to not only offer new points of view, but also …


Sacramental Imagery In The Fiction Of James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, And Wendell Berry, David Jones Jan 2018

Sacramental Imagery In The Fiction Of James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, And Wendell Berry, David Jones

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Alienation, nihilism, disenchantment, and destruction of the Earth are some of the widespread maladies of modernity and post-modernity. Dualisms between body and soul, the physical and spiritual, nature and grace, and fact and value have separated humans from other people, from the Earth, from the divine, and ultimately from themselves. Ambivalence about embodiment has characterized Western Civilization since at least the time of Plato and early Christianity. Over time, a confluence of powerful philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas and movements deepened the fissures of these destructive dualisms. Modern science with its claims to hegemony over objective ways of knowing the …


The Metamodern Man, Nathan R. Arrowsmith Jan 2018

The Metamodern Man, Nathan R. Arrowsmith

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Abstract The first time I heard the term, “Metamodern Age,” I was actively involved in a discussion about the various themes in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The setting was a Master of Liberal Studies class (Rollins College, MLS 604), entitled “Modernity” taught by Dr. Tom Cook. It was October of 2015. Frankenstein, also known as The Modern Prometheus, is a masterpiece and a solid sample from the Modern Era. Following approximately fifty years of Postmodern Era sludge, we are now in what could be identified as the Metamodern Era. Our Modernity class speculated confidently that the current Age of Metamodernism is …