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The Noble Savage And Ecological Indian: Cultural Dissonance And Representations Of Native Americans In Literature, Brooke D. Mcnaughton

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This thesis provides a unique approach to understanding the historical origins and contemporary social ramifications of the use of the concepts of the Noble Savage and the Ecological Indian within literature. I first examine the history of the Noble Savage concept in literature by examining relevant social movements, and then its eventual transition into its modern counterpart, the Ecological Indian. Authors who employ the use of these concepts typically portray Natives in a way which provides an idealized alternative for white cultural woes. Consequently, this idealization creates problems with modern Native identity. In the second half of this project I …

Humphry Davy: Science, Authorship, And The Changing Romantic, Marianne Lind Baker

Theses and Dissertations

In the mid to late 1700s, men of letters became more and more interested in the natural world. From studies in astronomy to biology, chemistry, and medicine, these "philosophers" pioneered what would become our current scientific categories. While the significance of their contributions to these fields has been widely appreciated historically, the interconnection between these men and their literary counterparts has not. A study of the "Romantic man of science" reveals how much that figure has in common with the traditional "Romantic" literary figure embodied by poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This thesis interrogates connections between Romantic …

Beyond The Battlefield: Direct And Prosthetic Memory Of The American War In Viet Nam, Susan L. Eastman

Doctoral Dissertations

“Beyond the Battlefield: Direct and Prosthetic Memory of the American War in Viet Nam” examines shifts in American, Viet Namese, and Philippine memorial, literary, and cinematic remembrance of the war through the cultural lenses of later wars: the Gulf War (1990-1991) and the “War on Terror” that began in 2001. As opposed to earlier portrayals of the American War in Viet Nam (1964-1975), turn-to-the-twenty-first-century representations engage in an ever-broadening collected cultural memory—a compilation of multifaceted, sometimes competing, individual and group memories—of the war. “Beyond the Battlefield” begins with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) because it serves as the impetus for …

A Person Of Interest, Jesse Lepre

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Presents a drama-based screenplay which explores the stereotyping of the modern Italian-American male in contemporary American society.

William Apess And Sherman Alexie: Imagining Indianness In (Non)Fiction, Gabriel M. Andrews

English Theses

This paper proposes the notion that early Native American autobiographical writings from such authors as William Apess provide rich sources for understanding syncretic authors and their engagement with dominant Anglo-Christian culture. Authors like William Apess construct an understanding of what constitutes Indianness in similar and different ways to the master narratives produced for Native peoples. By studying this nonfiction, critics can gain a broader understanding of contemporary Indian fiction like that of Sherman Alexie. The similarities and differences between the strategies of these two authors reveal entrenched stereotypes lasting centuries as well as instances of bold re-signification, a re-definition of …

The Accidental Practitioner: Principles Of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy In The Works Of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph J. Ward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Just as psychology and philosophy have influenced the field of literary studies, literature provides insight about the theories and practices of its sister disciplines. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate how literary works of Kurt Vonnegut illuminate principles of the influential branch of psychotherapy known as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

This thesis traces the similar philosophies and shared beliefs of Vonnegut and REBT's founder, Albert Ellis, and details how Ellis's REBT is illustrated in selected works of Vonnegut, specifically, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Galapagos, and Timequake. The thesis concludes by suggesting that Vonnegut's …

Women Mourners, Mourning "Nobody", Jennifer Pecora

Theses and Dissertations

Historian David Bell recently suggested that scholars reconsider the impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) upon modern culture, naming them the first "total war" in modern history. My thesis explores the significance of the wars specifically in the British mourning culture of the period by studying the war literature of four women writers: Anna Letitia Barbauld, Amelia Opie, Jane Austen, and Felicia Hemans. This paper further asks how these authors contributed to the development of a national consciousness studied by Georg Lukács, Benedict Anderson, and others. I argue that women had a representative experience of non-combatants' struggle to …

Hold, Hold, My Heart, Andrew Berthrong

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis consists of a traditional introduction followed by a first-person, fictional story told in seven chapters. The story begins with the protagonist in his apartment preparing to write, a brief account of his stalling, and then his beginning to write. Those chapters taking place in the vicinity of the apartment are in the present tense and those relating past adventures are written in third person, one chapter for each adventure: Africa, sailing, and Navajo Mountain. After each adventure, the narration returns to the apartment.

This piece is the embodiment of both the vigorous internal work in search of understanding …

Imagining Sri Lanka, Derick Kirishan Ariyam

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Analyzes the works of three Sri Lankan expatriates, the writers, Shyam Selvadurai and Michael Ondaatje, and the artist, M.I.A., giving particular attention to Selvadurai's Funny Boy and Ondaatje's Running in the Family, Anil's Ghost, and The Cinnamon Peeler. Though all three have been charged as "inauthentic" due to their dislocated positions, uncovers the various productive and complicated ways Sri Lanka has been configured by those outside its shores.

Dismantling The Cult Of Manliness, Peter Capalbo

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Explores the argument that several of Virginia Woolf's male characters, including Septimus Smith, Mr. Ramsay, and Bernard (in The Waves), challenge traditional male gender expectations in Britain after World War I. Examines Woolf's use of the concept of manliness in structuring her novels and her presentation of a series of men who do not conform to the British ideal of masculinity and who, thereby, allow her to expose the multiple fallacies of that ideal and a culture supported by such a concept. Posits that Woolf's work suggests that a new, more inclusive, understanding of gender is an important first step …

The Relationship Among Beginning And Advanced American Sign Language Students And Credentialed Interpreters Across Two Domains Of Visual Imagery: Vividness And Manipulation, Linda Stauffer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Given the visual-gestural nature of ASL it is reasonable to assume that visualization abilities may be one predictor of aptitude for learning ASL. This study tested a hypothesis that visualization abilities are a foundational aptitude for learning a signed language and that measurements of these skills will increase as students progress from beginning ASL students to advanced language learners and, ultimately to credentialed interpreters. Participants in this study consisted of 90 beginning and 66 advanced ASL students in five interpreter education programs in four southern states along with 68 credentialed interpreters. Students and interpreters were administered the Vividness of Visual …

The Need For Revision: Curriculum, Literature, And The 21st Century, David P. Owen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that curriculum, especially as it is practiced in high school education, needs revision, that literature is the place to start that revision, and that literature class itself needs to be revised to incorporate a much broader understanding of the texts to be studied so that such work might take place there. This dissertation also recognizes that the work of teaching literature and humanities classes is especially difficult today, and argues that this difficulty has dire ramifications for all teachers and researchers in and of public education, and particularly for the field of curriculum studies. This work argues …

Literature And The Moral Imagination: Smithean Sympathy And The Construction Of Experience Through Readership, Elizabeth M.K.A. Sund

Philosophy Theses

In this thesis I argue literary readership allows us to gain imagined experiences necessary to sympathize with people whose experiences are different from our own. I begin with a discussion of Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy and moral education. Although sympathy is a process we take part in naturally as members of a society, we can only be skilled spectators if we practice taking the position of the impartial spectator and critically reflect on our judgments. As I will argue in this thesis, literature provides a way for us to practice spectatorship without the consequences that come along with making …

Genre, Database, And The Anatomy Of The Digital Archive, Elizabeth J. Vincelette

English Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to define shared characteristics of literary digital archives, specifically to explore how conceptual and structural qualities of such archives express generic qualities. In order to describe digital media such as database or digital archives, scholars resort to metaphors, and this study offers the metaphor of anatomy as a generic inscription with historical and methodological implications. The definition of the anatomy genre draws from Northrop Frye's in Anatomy of Criticism, in which Frye describes how anatomies are characterized by proliferating lists, the mixing of prose and non-prose forms, and self-reflexivity--under the guise of knowledge …

A Corpus Analysis Of Stance Marker Use In International And Egyptian Medical Research Articles, Sarah Ahmed Seleem

Theses and Dissertations

The need for stance expression and making the position of the writers clear about what they are reporting is well documented in the literature (Biber, 2006; Kelly & Bazerman, 2003; Hyland, 2005; 2008; Molino, 2010; Myers, 1989; Williams, 2006). Even hard knowledge disciplines that were traditionally expected to sound objective and detached employ stance projection strategies by which researchers express their opinions, degree of certainty or ownership of the different claims that are stated in their work (Harwood, 2005 ; Hyland, 2005). Authors of research who are writing in English as their second language (L2) are reported to find difficulty …

We Will Make Your Head Explode, Jaclyn Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We Will Make Your Head Explode is a collection of short fiction stories that explore themes of friendship, family, love, lust, jealousy, loyalty, and disappointment. The characters in these stories are utterly human; they are pushed, pulled, and often fall victim to circumstance. A woman grapples between her love of roadside attractions and her boyfriend's grief. A son is forced to decide whether or not to honor his mother's final wishes. A college student is blind to her brother's evolution beyond their family. A woman discovers new possibilities while stalking graveyards to escape the memory of a man who left …

Corpses Revealed: The Staging Of The Theatrical Corpse In Early Modern Drama, N M. Imbracsio

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation examines the theatrical depiction of corpses as both stage-objects for theoretical speculation and as performance phenomena of the early modern English stage. Investigating popular drama on the London stage from 1587 -- 1683, I demonstrate that the performance of the dead body by the living actor (what I term the "theatrical corpse") is informed by early modern secular and religious polemics over the materiality of the body, the efficacy of performative behavior, and emerging theories of theatrical presence.

Previously, literary scholars have approached the performance of death on the stage using the insights of psychoanalysis or medical science, …

Shells, Joline L. Scott

ETD Archive

This thesis combines four short stories which revolve around themes of loss and disorientation. The first three stories, "Costa Rica," "Greece," and "On the Way Down to Florida" are derived from a larger work entitled GhostShells, and are connected by character development and a common mystery. The fourth piece, "Car Crash," is an independent piece that centers around a minor auto accident and the community activity it creates. All four pieces are linked by a central assertion that our physical bodies are merely shells for the souls within, and may be empty or full depending on the state of the …

Interactive Text-Image Conceptual Models For Literary Interpretation And Composition In The Digital Age, Beth Nixon Weaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on text-image conceptual models for literary interpretation and composition in the digital age. The models investigate an interactive blend of textually-based linear-sequential approaches and visually-based spatial-simultaneous approaches. The models employ Gestalt-inspired figure-ground segregation models, along with other theoretical models, that demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of images as conceptual tools as well as alternate forms of text. The models encourage an interpretative style with active participants in openended, multi-sensory meaning-making processes. The models use the flexible tools of modern technology as approaches to meaning-making with art strategies used for research strategies as well as a means to appreciate …

Weaving Through Reality: Dance As An Active Emblem Of Fantasy In Performance Literature, Tara Maylyn Frankel

CMC Senior Theses

Literature uses dance to reveal underlying messages of fantasy through the themes of the central narrative of female characters. Examining the original texts with respect to their varying adaptations for film and stage, performance literature reveals how directors relate a three-dimensional story to an audience from a two-dimensional world. Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” shows an underlying semiotic code where transitioning from the black and white of reality to the red of fantasy is only accomplished through dancing. Oscar Wilde’s Salome displays an eroticization of the exotic solo-improvised dance that provides a semblance of control for the main character. …

La Obra De Arte Frente Al (Super)Mercado: Ética, Éstética, Política Y Consumo En El Cono Sur, Cesar Barros Arteaga

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Over the last three decades, Southern Cone societies have been transformed dramatically by the global and local determinations of late capitalism. Consumption mechanisms of interpellation and representation have had a central role in these changes. As many contemporary scholars have pointed out, consumption is not just an economic practice of acquisition and exchange, but also, a powerful mechanism of identity formation, designed to foster the reproduction of capitalist division of labor. In Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay these mechanisms are entangled with an array of official political and historical discourses that erase memory and economical, gender, and race inequalities in order …

La Vanguardia Y Sus Retornos: Confabulaciones Del Presente En Cuatro Escritores Latinoamericanos, Maria De Los Angeles Donoso Macaya

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

La vanguardia y sus retornos: confabulaciones del presente en cuatro escritores latinoamericanos [The Avant-garde and its Returns: Confabulating the Present in Four Latin American Writers] When reading contemporary Latin American writers from different countries and distinct cultural backgrounds, the relevance of the avant-garde in their work becomes apparent. By placing close readings of texts by C├⌐sar Aira, Mario Bellatin, Roberto Bola├▒o, and Diamela Eltit, in dialogue with theoretical and philosophical works by Bergson, Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Deleuze, I argue that it is possible to recognize an unexpected and engaging return to the avant-garde in a present which has been commonly …

Humores Nacionales: Sátira, Costumbrismo Y Disparate En La Literatura Comica De Mexico (1960-2010), Jose Galindo

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This work looks into humor in Mexican Literature from 1960 through 2010. The first chapter analyzes how humorists have responded to symbols and narratives of Mexican nationalism. The second chapter focuses on how humor has dealt with customs--religious practices, gender relations and family dynamics. The third chapter studies humor vis a vis the world of books and authors, that is, writers making fun of their own guild--the ambitions, betrayals, expectations and posturing common in the literary life. The fourth and final chapter focuses on gallows humor and scatological humor. Narrative, theater, chronic and essays are the genres studied throughout the …

Hermann Hesse As Ambivalent Modernist, Theodore Jackson

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation asserts that the Hermann Hesse approaches the themes and techniques of literary Modernism with ambivalence. The first chapter outlines the role of philosophical and literary walking in Hesse's work in general as well as how these depictions differ from those produced by his predecessors. The second chapter takes Hesse's reinterpretation of Nietzsche and Rousseau and applies it to three of Hesse's early novels, Unterm Rad, Peter Camenzind, and Knulp. The third chapter examines Der Steppenwolf as an ambivalently Modernist autobiography, using Eugene Stelzig's notion of Seelenbiographie. The last chapter examines Hesse's two final novels, Die Morgenlandfahrt and Das …

Thomas Hoccleve And The Poetics Of Reading, Elon Lang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Thomas Hoccleve, the early fifteenth-century London poet who first promoted the notion that Chaucer was the father of English literature, demonstrates an acute awareness that readers would change the form of his own texts over time. Although many scholars consider Hoccleve's style to be derivative of his English predecessors, I argue that his awareness of readers contributed to an innovative style that casts writing and reading as mutually dependent acts of performance. Thus, in depictions of manuscript production and circulation processes, Hoccleve treats his audiences as his creative collaborators. The rich surviving manuscript history for Hoccleve reveals how his texts …

Bodies Of Parchment: Representing The Passion And Reading Manuscripts In Late Medieval England, Sarah Noonan

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

In a diverse range of late-fourteenth- and fifteenth-century devotional literature, Christ's body is metaphorically related to a book or a document at the moment of his crucifixion. His skin transforms into parchment, whips and scourges become pens, and a steady flow of blood, of ink, covers his body and the written page. And each word written onto his parchment body welcomes sustained study, acting as a potential meditative focal point for the devout reader. Through this metaphor and the accompanying materiality of the texts that include it, medieval authors and audiences could imagine intimately interacting with Christ's body during the …

Accounting For Mysteries: Narratives Of Intuition And Empiricism In The Victorian Novel, Brooke Taylor

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation explores the tensions between an empirical epistemology and an intuitive method of knowing the world as depicted in popular Victorian novels. These narratives attempt to assimilate alternate modes of understanding; however, the uneasiness of the relationship between empiricism and intuition speaks to larger cultural tensions about the possibility of reconciling fact and feeling in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. I argue that intuitive and imaginative modes of cognition are continually privileged in novels that explicitly claim to adhere to empirical forms of knowledge. As I examine the work of Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, and George …

Impossible Whiteness: Race, Gender, And American Identity In Early Twentieth-Century American Literature, Tarah Demant

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

In Impossible Whiteness, I reveal whiteness--though oftentimes still an implicit critical assumption of normalcy--as a complex, shifting category in the literature of early twentieth-century America, and show how gender, particularly, disrupts American whiteness. I deconstruct the various ways in which whiteness is defined legally, culturally, and in the marketplace, and demonstrate how Edith Wharton, Anzia Yezierska, and F. Scott Fitzgerald trace these standards of whiteness and the inevitable failure of such racial: and implicitly gendered) refinement. Though critical literature has been slow to consider the role of race for these authors, I reveal them as actively participating in contemporary dialogues …

Flexible Literacies, Cultural Crossings And Global Identities : Three Singaporean Adolescent Boys' Reading And Identity Practices' In A Globalized World, Chin Ee Loh

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This case examines the reading and identity practices of three highly literate adolescent boys from an elite all-boys school in Singapore, focusing on how they constructed their identities as global and local citizens through their reading practices. There have not been any studies examining the reading and identity practices of adolescent boys who have had every access to literacy, and this study contributes to much-needed research on youth literacy, identity, and globalization. The data consist of survey and interview data, classroom observations and email reading logs collected from September 2008 to September 2009.

Border Markers, Jenny Ferguson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Border Markers is a novel-in-flashes composed of thirty-three, inter-connected flash fiction stories set in Canada's only border city, Lloydminster. The flashes in this novel are complete stories, with a beginning, a middle and an end, each composed of under 1,000 words. Some of the themes explored in this novel-in-flashes include how communities create insiders and outsiders, and the different ways individuals and communities deal with guilt.