Digital Commons Network^™

Preserving Wonder And Welcoming Boredom: The Importance Of Quietly Incredible Adventures In Today’S Rushed Childhood, Amalia Hillmann

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

Once upon childhoods past, children’s early years were filled with exploration of and delight in the world around them. They learned through independent play and chasing curiosity without the micromanagement of intervening adults. Inter-generational relationships grew character and knowledge via shared stories and skills and encouraged collaborative experiences and tasks. Today’s culture is losing this inquisitive, play-filled heart of childhood. Children are increasingly pulled through their earliest years and pushed into adolescence prematurely by impatient communities, unrealistic academic expectations, and distracted parenting. The loss of slightly-wild, unstructured adventures and rooted parent-child relationships in pre-teen years should be of interest to …

Sense Make Before Book, Bradley Sinanan

Theses and Dissertations

“Sense Make Before Book” is an Indo-Caribbean turn of phrase which refers to common sense being more important than book smarts. My sister sent me a post the other day on Instagram of an Trinidadian woman using this phrase, saying it was one of Indo-Caribbean origin. I was interested and asked my mom about it. My mom says that when she was younger my grandpa said it often around their house in Princes Town, Trinidad and Tobago. This adage feels charged thinking about the history of indenture and its effects on the Indo-Caribbean diaspora.

The written word of archival history …

Notes Toward A Personal Afrofuturism, Jalen T. Adams

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is penned by a young adult who is generally confused about a lot of things regarding life, but has one singular focus that is perhaps larger than life—trying to find the bridge between a future already lived, and a past yet to happen. These are his findings so far.

Green Grass: A Collection Of Short Stories, Julia Wynne

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Within the country club setting, the levels of financial wealth span greatly, from young adults in search of summer employment to businessmen sealing deals on the 18th hole while retired couples vacation in spacious homes situated directly on the course. Often associated with privilege and luxury, golf is much more than just a game, involving defined dress codes, social events, organized leagues, and tournaments. Centered around the lives of staff and members of an Arizona country club, Green Grass is a collection of short stories that uses the game of golf to explore privilege, money, and motivation. Golf is a …

Give Them Bread, Mara E. Kneafsey

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The title, Give Them Bread, is based off a quote by Roman poet, Juvenal: “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” The story contains elements of horror, dream-like imagery, and surrealism—a mode of art that, topically, emerged in the early 20^th century. It contains accounts of Italian history, references to commedia dell’arte, and inspired by Italian literary works such as Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and Curzio Malaparte’s macabre novels, Kaputt and La Pelle. The grander purpose of Give Them Bread is to examine the meaning of truth in a political, moral, philosophical, spiritual, and …

Too Old For Monsters : A Collection Of Stories, L. A. Hause

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Ursula K. Le Guin writes, “We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?” In my collection of short stories, Too Old for Monsters, I hold out my hands to every reader—the lonely and suffering person, the uncertain and wavering, the joyous and the brave, the growing and the stalling, and the myriad in-betweens. Writing explores the human experience, but this collection also explores the tangled mess of life beyond the merely human. These stories address the bone-saw sharp ache of loss and …

The River Flowing, Bailey Storm

English Literature | Senior Theses

This piece is set in Kittery Point, ME, where my cousins lived, a place in which I spent many summers growing up. I define these summers as pinpoints in my youth that helped me discover the first touches of independence away from my home in Pennsylvania. All of the time I spent alone was prominent for what I remember of this time. I was incredibly shy and detached from my cousins' friends. Though I loved being a young teenager in Maine, I could never quite grasp the social life similar to Wyatt when he is back home in Kittery from …

A Constellation In Training, Marko C. Capoferri

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Capoferri, Marko, M.F.A., Fall 2023 Creative Writing - Poetry

Light, Loneliness, and Location

Chairperson: Sean Hill

In many better-known works by the 20^th century painter Edward Hopper, I find a locus of visual concerns that overlay the fixations of the majority—if not all—of the poems that comprise my thesis, what I like to think of as the three L’s: light, loneliness, and location (to which I could also add, as secondary colors, longing and landscape). Additionally, there are what Mark Strand identifies as “two imperatives” in Hopper’s work, “the one that urges us to continue and the other that …

Creating Space For Black Queer Narratives: A Conversation Between Nella Larsen And James Baldwin, Trinity L. Hollis

Student Theses and Dissertations

My project seeks to use the fiction of James Baldwin and Nella Larsen to understand how queerness interacts with race, namely Black identity. I’m guided by Black feminist thought to consider themes of intersectionality, the notion that all aspects of identity are experienced simultaneously. This thesis makes an effort not to alienate one identity from another; the literature that I’m close reading is proof that Blackness and queerness inform each other.

Honeysuckles & Irises: Effigies Of The Land, Ami` L. Hanna-Huff

English Creative Writing Theses

Here is a memoir of my paternal line through the lens of my Great-Grandmother and myself. A reclamation of the land I hail from and a connection to a history previously felt distant, this examination of race and gender explicitly focused on the African American Southern female experience; I try to make sense of the juxtaposing positions in our lives. The culture built from its creation through Tennessee personified. Here, I integrate history and theory with lyrics and prose to experience the eighty-one years of progress brought between our births and the lingering anxiety of slavery. My great-grandmother, Hazel Irene …

Lemons And Other Grand Delusions, Jake A. Yarnold

Master's Theses

Lemons and Other Grand Delusions explores a host of characters as they come face to face with their greatest fears, as they get exactly what they think they want. From magic dimension-bending lemons, to automatons powered by the Philosopher’s Stone, as the powers from beyond become in-hand realities, the characters find their greatest desires are not as simple and powerful in their hands as they first thought. Exploring the limits of greed and desire within ourselves and in the society we live in, the collection asks who are we, if not a collection of our own desires, and the impulses …

Beyond Words: An Exploration Of Research And Writing For Indigenous Land Acknowledgements, Oksana Flores

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone delves into the practical application and importance of land acknowledgments within the frameworks of Critical Indigenous Theory and Narrative Theory. Through the utilization of archival research methods, the project not only offers recommendations for crafting an effective land acknowledgment but also provides the necessary historical foundation for the implementation of such a statement at Kennesaw State University. This effort serves to strengthen the university's commitment to diversity and equity on campus.

Thunderfort, Lever Stewart

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Thunderfort is a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) that utilizes both synchronous and asynchronous communication in both its rules and its fictitious setting. This project seeks to provide a unique TTRPG experience that is partially or fully digital, played out via text chatting and digital dice rolling. Such a game is also intended to be enjoyed by players without said players needing to worry about game session scheduling conflicts, since a large part of the game is played via digital, asynchronous communication. The full, most up-to-date text can also be accessed at thunderfort.lsflegal.com.

A Million Little Griefs, Justine Hayes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A Million Little Griefs is a poetry collection that explores themes of time, place and identity through personal experiences and observations of a young mother living cross-culturally in Malawi, Africa. The book is divided into the three sections, Embrace, Ground, and Release (EGR,) which create a cyclical trajectory that serves as a guide for walking through transitions and new experiences.

Coffee Black & Melancholy Bright, Lisha Elizabeth Mccurry

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A hybrid memoir encompassing a collection of personal essays and poetry that tells a story of depression, grief, and family intersecting in a journey through destruction and healing.

Illuminations, Kristina Michelle Thoman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Abstract: Illumination is the multi-general story of a Jewish family, and their oral traditions. The story will trace the family from just before the biblical exodus, through the holocaust, and follow them to modern day America. The family will face antisemitism at each place in history along the way, losing a child to the pharaoh's cruel decree to slay the male children of the Hebrew slaves, narrowly escaping a death camp in the holocaust, and finally facing growing anti-Jewish hate in America. In the last act of the story, the family will be faced with the question, if you are …

The Homecoming Game, Olivia Dorothy Daras

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Homecoming Game follows 16-year-old Ellie as she discovers that growing up is a lot more difficult than she thought it would be. To her horror, high school has become less about getting good grades and more about your popularity status — or so that’s what her best friend tells her. The growing pains of being a teenager and dealing with a not-so-perfect home life culminate when something utterly insane happens: she’s asked to the Homecoming Dance by someone other than the guy she’s been kind of dating. With her social life and personal life in flux, Ellie has to …

The Quiet And Other Fantastical Tales, Emily Nicole Cerda

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis briefly discusses the genres and subgenres of speculative fiction—focusing on fantasy, horror, and science fiction—and is primarily a short story collection that also includes a few novel chapters. The critical introduction delves into the present and overly complex subgenre categorization methods, how and why new subgenres are created, and provides simple definitions for the main genres of speculative fiction and fantasy subgenres.

The subgenres that will be discussed through either a short story, novel chapter(s), or definition include, but are not limited to: fairytales, portal fantasy, paranormal romance, dark fantasy, historical fantasy, magical realism, epic fantasy, mythic fiction, …

The Wackiness Of Wacky World, Michael Dan Mccormick

Theses and Dissertations

This critical introduction takes a closer look at the situations presented in my manuscript “Wacky World” and offer insight on the actions seen from the main character. This insight is meant to clear confusion as to whether or not the character can be viewed as a heroic figure and explore his personality to draw conclusions. “Wacky World”, a full-length play, tells the story of a man with an obsession with a defunct theme park and the deranged actions that he takes in order to prevent its demolition.

I explore the topic on whether or not sympathy …

Smoke And Mirrors, Adara London

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

When a human trafficking ring comes to town, a grieving graduate student must choose between investigating on her own to save her sister or leaving the investigation to her impassive cop boyfriend.

What The Unburied Said, Katharine Rees

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

"What the Unburied Said" is a short collection of documentary poetry written during the waning years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In conversation with T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, it seeks to exalt the beauty of humans who help each other live within an often-tragic, always-fascinating world.

Food As A Literary Device In The Hunger Games: World Building, Characterization, And Plot Momentum, Linzee Mitchell

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Food relates to the experience of life, survival, and memory. It impacts us every day, whether we have plenty of it or not. It influences our memories and connects us to one another, while structuring details of our identities and cultures. As a creative writer and English major, I recognize that food influences a story to accentuate literary concepts and unveil them, such as a character’s compassion or the poison that a villain uses to unfold the plot. The best example of food as an impactful device within a story is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. From the first …

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, …

Tales Of The Keyworld: An Examination Of The Study And Application Of Craft Theory For Writers, Lauren Bruce

Honors Theses

The following consists of a craft essay focused on character and close third-person narration and a novel excerpt. The craft essay begins with a discussion of what craft theory is and how it is useful to writers when used together with reading analysis. It then synthesizes the conversation around close third-person narration and character and applies it to a close reading analysis of Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. The novel excerpt comes from the middle of a work in progress and concerns members of the Keyworld, a fantastical sub-layer of the modern world unknown to most humans.

A Talk With Time, Samanatha Kuban

Master's Theses

I chose to write a collection of genre-mixing short stories to depict the vastness and complexity of time as my English Master’s thesis project. Thinking about the constructs of time and how they function or do not function within our society sparked my interest in this field of knowledge and discussion. I am a person that tends to feel a large amount of anxiety surrounding the passage of time or time limits so reading deeper into studies of time and how we think about it in various ways proved to be an outlet for a better understanding. I chose to …

Amigos Imaginarios. A Noir Novel, Andrés Antonio Torres-Scott

Theses and Dissertations

Amigos imaginarios is a blend of a Latin American Noir and a Nordic Noir novel, where horror moves away from the supernatural to give way to sublime and inevitable psychological and social terrors. Inspired by a real event in a Catholic boarding school in Chalco, México, in 2007, where 512 girls and an undefined number of nuns suffered from total paralysis of their legs. Amigos imaginarios’ protagonist is psychologist Leonella D’Alvarada, while she treats the case of Emily’s imaginary friend, Calib, the Catholic church requests her help to halt a psychogenic epidemic at a boarding house for low-income girls. The …

The Black Garden, Madalene Klocke

Theses

“The Black Garden” is a novel-length fantasy fiction work. It follows the narrative of Ryan, an 18-year-old girl, who has great expectations for what her first year at university will hold. Her entire world view is tilted when she attends a party with her new roommate, Blair, and wakes up in an unfamiliar place. Ryan must fight to keep her sanity as she is thrust into the world of faeries, witches, and far worse creatures than she could have ever imagined: including her parents.

Big Screen Heroes With Paper Voices: A Superhero Adaptation Research Essay, Zachary Green

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Superheroes may have taken over your phone, tablet, and television screens through the endless adaptations that pelt us from upon high mouse-shaped ears, but their rich history goes back much further than that; they have gripped the public imagination since their creation in comic strips published in newspapers almost one-hundred years ago. But, why exactly has their effect on popular culture, and their subsequent adaptations in various forms of media been so pervasive in the last twenty-five years? What makes these stories and comic book characters, and particularly Marvel comic book characters, so interesting to modern audiences? This essay demonstrates …

Memories Of Hope And Loss: “Kerhi Maa Ne Bhagat Singh Jameya”, Sheher Bano

Masters Theses

My Masters thesis focuses on socialist Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh’s memory in contemporary Pakistani Punjab. I use the analytical category of memory to argue that Bhagat Singh is invoked by various groups and individuals, specifically those who identify as leftists or Marxists, in contemporary Pakistan to serve a range of political purposes. My analysis particularly sheds light on how activists and writers use the figure of Bhagat Singh to highlight the erasure of regional and lingual identities in Pakistan. Their remembrances underline a perceived historical injustice; the imposition of a national identity based on Urdu language and Sunni Muslim-ness, …

Iowa Gothic, Caroline Bailey Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

Iowa Gothic deals with the stories that we tell ourselves, for better or worse, and is an interconnected short story collection set in the fictional town of Madison, Iowa. The stories are grounded in realism, but are also slightly off from the way we typically experience the world: a hoarder who tries to win a cooking contest by boiling a rabbit, a woman who recreates her neighbors' living rooms out of their yard sale items, a hypnotic rooster that starts a feud, residents who believe in ghosts, or at least the communal value of ghost stories. By asking the reader …