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Toni Morrison’S Depiction Of Beauty Standards In Relation To Class, Politics Of Respectability, And Consumerism In Song Of Solomon, Karen Jensen

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In Song of Solomon, published during a transitional moment in the history of U.S. feminism, Toni Morrison portrays the destructive forces of hegemonic female beauty standards, materialism, and consumerism in a Midwestern African-American community from the 1930s to the 1960s. She reveals a hierarchy in which men define standards of beauty and respectability that enforce white bourgeois ideals. Focusing on five female characters, this thesis examines this hierarchy; the agents who maintain it; and the ways in which it affects female characters who accept and/or reject it. While one of the characters, Hagar, perishes in her attempt to live …

Learning To "Teacher Think": Using English Education As A Model For Writing Teacher Preparation In The Composition Practicum, Angela Celestine Lankford

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the impact of "teacher thinking" exercises in the Composition Practicum as a means of instilling a clearer sense of professional development in graduate instructors. Teacher thinking is a teacher training method that asks the novice instructor to see from the perspective of learners within their writing classrooms. Scholarship on writing teacher preparation programs suggests that English educators regularly employ teacher thinking exercises in the training of secondary school teachers. Teacher thinking has allowed many English education majors to conceptualize and obtain teaching identities by helping them to envision the intricate layers of teaching earlier in their careers. …

Grammar In The Composition Classroom: Rewriting The Tradition, Debra Lynn Reece

Theses and Dissertations

In the last 50 years, the trend in the field of composition pedagogy has turned away from traditional grammar instruction, condemning pedagogical practices that focus on preventing and remediating error. In the early 1960s, Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer invoked the death sentence on traditional grammar instruction: "The teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (37-38). Having been enlightened by this scholarship, the field refocused instruction to emphasize elements like writing process, collaboration, modeling, and prewriting, pushing …

After Dark: Reading Canadian Literature In A Light-Polluted Age, David S. Hickey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A threat to nocturnal ecosystems and human health alike, light pollution is an unnecessary problem that comes at an enormous cost. The International Dark-Sky Association has recently estimated that the energy expended on light scatter alone is responsible for no less than twelve million tons of carbon dioxide and costs municipal governments at least $1 billion annually (“Economic Issues” 2). Emerging research also suggests that excessive artificial light at night may compromise melatonin production, a hormone that has been linked to the suppression of certain cancers (Stevens 28; Haim 32). As scotobiologists seek to solidify the connection between the disruption …

Fantasy Versus Fairy Tale: How Modern Fairy Tale Variants Measure Up To One Of The Greatest Literary Traditions Of All Time., Cheryl Lee

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will examine both the history of the fairy tale and the modern adaptations of these popular stories in order to illustrate how fairy tales have evolved into their modern counterparts. The implications and circumstances of several recent variants are questioned and compared to a concise definition of the fairy tale. It is determined that, although the modern versions resemble classic fairy tales, they are not a detriment to the tradition of the tales, and may, in fact, begin their own literary tradition.

A "Time-Conscious" Christmas Carol, Jack Lundquist

Theses and Dissertations

Shortly after Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was released in 1843, a tradition of adaptation began which has continued seemingly unabated to the present day. Consequently, the tale has become so widely known that one is arguably as likely to have first encountered the iconic miser Scrooge through any number of audio-visual adaptations as through the original work itself. Significant critical attention has been paid to the nature of Scrooge's drastic change from miser to philanthropist. Many would argue that the change, happening both literally and figuratively overnight, is not representative of a genuine psychological transformation. On Christmas day, 2010, …

Material Geography, Mountains, And A-Nationalism In Thurman's The Blacker The Berry, Stephanie Jean Burns

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars over the last two decades or so have become increasingly interested in methods of interpreting history, society, and literature that do not rely on nationalistic paradigms. One vein of the transnational analytic trend is interested not only in the multiplicity of cultural geographies but also in the materiality of geography. Such critical work is extremely helpful in challenging myopic nationalist readings; yet the materiality of geography used as a theoretical lens has even greater potential. Using geographical formations as a basis for literary analysis can yield a theoretical base that has nothing to do with the borders of nations …

Branches, Lucy Bowman

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Lucy Bowman December 6, 2013.

Biracial Identity In Texts Read By Secondary Education Students, Jared Madden

Honors Theses

This thesis sought to examine how biracial identity is portrayed in the literature read by students in secondary education. Unfortunately, the findings indicated that biracialism is not being adequately portrayed in this literature. Students rarely encounter biracial characters, when they do these characters are usually peripheral, and sometimes the biracialism of these characters is presented as an obstacle to be overcome. Furthermore, teachers (at least in this researcher’s local area) seem to be extremely apathetic towards even discussing this issue. The impact which all of this can have on secondary students with a biracial background is discussed. However, there are …

God Only Knows: Family In The Films Of Paul Thomas Anderson, Jordan Rossio

Honors Theses

This project looks at the theme of surrogate families in the first three films of director Paul Thomas Anderson, and shows how these films share a common theme. That theme is how these surrogate families that we create can often become more important and powerful than the families into which we are born. The research is drawn from mostly primary sources. These include magazine, newspaper, and television interviews with the director as well as the audio commentaries and behind the scenes documentaries that are featured on the DVDs of the films. The conclusion of this project found how this theme …

Identity And Gender Constructs In "Written On The Body", Paige Van De Winkle

Honors Theses

In Jeanette Winterson's novel Written on the Body, the ungendered narrator leads the reader through his/her love story with Louise. At moments, the narrator appears to reveal his/her gender, but these moments only reveal the reader's own assumptions about gender and identity which prove to be social constructions, and inconclusive evidence about the narator's gender. The novel shows that gender is not an inherent part of identity, and emphasizes themes that are universal and more important than gender differences, such as biology and the body. The body proves to be beautiful and universal, and gender is an insignificant part …

The Role Of El Cid In Medieval Spanish Culture And Epic Literature, Emily Chaney

Honors Theses

This research looks at the medieval Spanish epic poem, the Poema de Mio Cid, and how it reflects the world of Spanish culture and literature, its place in the landscape of epic poetry on the European continent, and the noble virtues of the hero, el Cid. The Poema is an anonymous cantar de gesta, or "song of heroic deeds," likely composed around the early thirteenth century by a person (or persons) very familiar with Castilian noble society and law in effect during the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, as well as the area of northern Spain around …

Understanding Urban Education, Emily Watkins

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Ethical Philosophy Of Emmanuel Levinas: A Phenomenological Approach To Cormac Mccarthy’S The Road, Ashley Elisabeth Murphy

Master’s Theses and Projects

Contents:

• Chapter 1: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
• Chapter 2: Proximity, Justice, and Memory: Elements to Rebuild an Ethical Society
• Chapter 3: Violence in The Road: The Face, Killing, and Freedom
• Chapter 4: Investigating God and the Other in McCarthy’s The Road
• Chapter 5: Engaging the Other: Exploring Language in The Road

Melancholia & Metaphor In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains Of The Day, Kristin Lasheaú Teston

Master's Theses

Critics widely acknowledge the psychological grounding of Kazuo Ishiguro's writing. His 1989 novel The Remains of the Day presents a central character deeply afflicted by his inability to acknowledge his condition. Both literal and figurative loss proliferates throughout the novel, and turning to Sigmund Freud's influential essay, "Mourning and Melancholia," allows us to understand how loss influences Stevens's narrative. In this essay, Freud explores conditions that result after the loss of person or an ideal. For Stevens, the lost object is the myth of pre-war English traditions. Freud's theories regarding melancholia provide a crucial insight to Stevens's inability to acknowledge …

Creating Female Space: The Feminine Sublime In The Awakening And The House Of Mirth, Emily F. Faison

Selected Honors Theses

This thesis examines the Edna Pontellier and Lily Bart, the respective protagonists of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, integrating the theoretical concept of the sublime, particularly engaging Barbara Freemans’s idea of a feminine sublime, as discussed in her book, The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women’s Fiction. In three chapters, the thesis provides an overview and brief history of the theory of the sublime, contextualizing Freeman’s argument, and measures the success of both Edna’s and Lily’s attempts to engage the sublime as they each struggle to find their place as women …

Skin Story: With Critical Introduction: “Scars Left By The Commonplace For Women”., Bethany I. Adkins

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A creative thesis with a story about themes of domestic violence focused particularly on an aspect of rape culture that does not directly involve rape: blamed femaleness. The critical introduction seeks to make this tie explicit to the text of the story.

Redemption, Brittany Boone

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Redemption is a novella about a young woman who faces many struggles. She faces extreme danger from her abusive husband and must find a way to escape. The novella gives readers a look into the world of a major issue: Domestic abuse.

Occupying The Pedestal: Gender Issues In Ellen Gilchrist, Karon Reese

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ellen Gilchrist's works shows the struggles of women living in a postmodern South. This dissertation explores Gilchrist's representations of southern women as they transition from the old South to modernity. Gilchrist's work depicts women who attempt to break off the pedestal of white Southern womanhood, but never quite do, often simultaneously disrupting and confirming traditional notions of a "good Southern lady." Gilchrist shows how women occupy the pedestal as a form of refuge and also as a form of protest. These are women who, as they navigate the transition to a new South, are reluctant to surrender the privilege of …

Updike, Morrison, And Roth: The Politics Of American Identity, Christopher Steven Love

Dissertations

My dissertation analyzes American identity in the works of John Updike, Toni Morrison, and Philip Roth. Specifically, I examine American identity in Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy (1960-1990); Morrison’s trilogy of novels Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1998); and Roth’s trilogy comprising the novels American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000). The studied texts of these three novelists, I argue, attack national myths and undermine exclusive narratives that are incongruent with the nation’s ideal identity as a pluralistic and democratic nation.

Old English Ecologies: Environmental Readings Of Anglo-Saxon Texts And Culture, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Dissertations

Conventionally, scholars have viewed representations of the natural world in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature as peripheral, static, or largely symbolic: a “backdrop” before which the events of human and divine history unfold. In “Old English Ecologies,” I apply the relatively new critical perspectives of ecocriticism and placebased study to the Anglo-Saxon canon to reveal the depth and changeability in these literary landscapes. Overall, this interdisciplinary study of Anglo-Saxon texts brings together literary and environmental sources and modes of inquiry to explore the place of humans (and non-humans) within the natural environments of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as the ways in …

Park Valley, Utah's Shivaree Tradition: A Rite Of Social Acceptance, Rosa Lee Thornley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This investigation of the ritualized tradition of shivaree found in the isolated ranching community of Park Valley, Utah presents a unique version of the practice. The marriage custom of charivari/shivaree evolved from a punitive form of social control in Europe and Great Britain, to a raucous American celebration that welcomed newlyweds into a community. The cultural landscape combined with the contemporary rural society sets the backdrop to argue that Park Valley’s impromptu performances went beyond just offering a hand of welcome; their shivarees, performed after the formal marriage festivities, functioned as a complex rite of social acceptance.

The analysis of …

Fake News, Real Hip: Rhetorical Dimensions Of Ironic Communication In Mass Media, Paige L. Broussard

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This paper explores the growing genre of fake news, a blend of information, entertainment, and satire, in main stream mass media, specifically examining the work of Stephen Colbert. First, this work examines classic definitions of satire and contemporary definitions and usages of irony in an effort to understand how they function in the fake news genre. Using a theory of postmodern knowledge, this work aims to illustrate how satiric news functions epistemologically using both logical and narrative paradigms. Specific artifacts are examined from Colbert’s speech in an effort to understand how rhetorical strategies function during his performances.

Maps On The Backs Of Our Eyes, Joan Paulette Robinson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A collection of poems related to places in the Mojave Desert and the Las Vegas area or in rural central Michigan. Most poems deal with history and memory and the overlapping nature of experience.

“Between The Dream And Reality”: Divination In The Novels Of Cormac Mccarthy, Robert A. Kottage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Divination is a trope Cormac McCarthy employs time and again in his work. Augury, haruspicy, cartomancy, voodoo, sortition and oneiromancy all take their places in the texts, overtly or otherwise, as well as divination by bloodshed (a practice so ubiquitous as to have no formal name). But mantic practices which aim at an understanding of the divine mind prove problematic in a universe that often appears godless—or worse.

My thesis uses divination as the starting point for a close reading of each of McCarthy’s novels. Research into Babylonian, Greek, Roman and African soothsaying practices is included, as well as the …

The Promise: A Mythic-Archetypal And Gender-Oriented Analysis Of J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day For Bananafish", Warren Spratley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of J.D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” from both mythic-archetypal and gender-oriented perspectives. It looks specifically at the way a gender-oriented reading allows one to interpret “Bananafish” as a radical reassessment of Carl Jung’s ideas about the process of individuation, as well as Joseph Campbell’s conception of what he describes as the monomyth in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The reader is asked to look at how patriarchal values have greatly limited the development of these characters’ identities over time, and the complex archetypal and mythic implications of this limitation.

The Door Is Locked For Your Protection, Scott Bayer

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Scott Bayer November 25, 2013.

"Dae Scotsmen Dream O 'Lectric Leids?" Robert Crawford's Cyborg Scotland, Alexander Burke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies a Cybernetic interpretation to a selection of poetry by the Scottish Informationist poet Robert Crawford, drawn mostly from two collections: A Scottish Assembly (1990) and Sharawaggi: Poems in Scots (1990). Crawford is contextualized by observing the poetic influences of Robert Burns, John Davidson, and Hugh MacDiarmid, as well as the philosophical influence of George Elder Davie’s The Democratic Intellect. This paper argues that, in response to the Two Cultures hypothesis put forth by C. P. Snow and the widely-held belief that Scotland is irrevocably fractured, the shifting boundaries of the many disparate Scottish cultures are mediated by …

Dark Sympathy: Desiring The Other In Godwin, Coleridge, And Shelley, Jeffrey T. King

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dark Sympathy: Desiring the Other in Godwin, Coleridge, and Shelley explores how Romantic writers took up and responded to eighteenth-century discourses of sympathy in the context of an increasingly influential materialist epistemology and ontology. In its formulation by David Hume and Adam Smith, sympathy plays a central role in society, using the imagination to smooth over uncertainties about the status of the self and its relation to the world that might otherwise paralyze human activity. Sympathy therefore carries a twofold purpose: on the one hand, it provides a feasible substitute for personal identity; on the other hand, it facilitates social …

Who Do You Play For? : Naming, Difference And The Creation Of Scandal In Literature, Tristan Lipe

Theses and Dissertations

An exploration of how the creation of groups and interactions between groups impact people in the world. Beginning with an introduction that explores, specifically, how the creation of groups can function in the literary world when they are used as scandals. The introduction focuses on the rise of Poet, Kenneth Goldsmith and his use of Conceptualism to promote his brand. Following the introduction is a poetic exploration of groups and group conflict. It draws on social psychology, sociology as well as instances of violence partially resulting from rivalry between groups.