Digital Commons Network^™

Shaping A Nation And Transforming Identity: Ovidian Mythic Allusions In William Shakespeare’S A Midsummer Night’S Dream And John Milton’S “Lycidas”, Gabriella Schuett

English Theses

This thesis examines the ways in which the classical underpinnings of two major Renaissance works shape the exploration of national identity in those works. By identifying mythological allusion as a semiotic system, we can understand how its presence in written texts informed the cultural, social, and political identities of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readers. Mythic allusions function as signs in a literary text which signify greater meaning, and when an audience has access to the collective body of classical knowledge, they can piece together the cultural implications of the allusion’s presence within the text. Examining the mythological allusions in Milton’s Lycidas …

Useful Untruth: The Utility Of Deceptive Rhetoric In Apps, Websites, And Games, Brandon Hardy

English Theses

Deception is a prevalent digital rhetoric strategy used in websites, apps, and games to nudge user behavior. A deceptive design employs multi-modalities to influence how people perceive choices. In user experience (UX) design, deception is often seen as an unethical practice that leads to “dark patterns,” designs in digital media that take advantage of users by exploiting their emotions and cognitive biases to mislead them toward detrimental behavior. But not all deceptive designs are dark patterns. In fact, deception can be applied to purposes that benefit users’ digital wellbeing and improve the usefulness of digital media. This thesis explores the …

Magical Realism In Chicano Literature, Laura Vazquez

English Theses

This thesis examines how Chicanos use the literary mode of magical realism to express their cultural identity. Mislabeling works from authors of Latin or Hispanic descent continues as literature from the bordertowns along the US – Mexican border reached general audiences. This work clarifies this misclassification by defining magical realism and Curanderismo, often confused with witchcraft. Chicano magical realism shows the reclamation of identity and cultures thriving in the borderlands. Magic lives in the third spaces created throughout their communities, and Chicano magical realism explores what it means to be Chicano through supernatural elements in their fiction. After distinguishing between …

Bless Your Heart: A Deconstruction Of Southern Hostility Disguised As Southern Hospitality And Its Effects On Black Identity In “Blues For Mister Charlie” And The Vanishing Half, Sterling S. Neill

English Theses

Southern hospitality, whether real or perceived, is a cultural stereotype tied to the Southern region of the United States. Studies on Southern hospitality are growing, possibly due to the recent surge of anti-Black legislation including disbandment of Affirmative Action, critical race theory, and women and gender studies in schools. As more racist and sexist doctrine is dispersed throughout America, it is imperative to evaluate false narratives, such as Southern hospitality, that perpetuate and reinforce structural discrimination, which historical literary works can function to counter. This thesis examines Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin and The Vanishing Half by Brit …

Milton's Vocal Hierarchy In Paradise Lost, John Mcnabb

English Theses

Despite the important work that has been done on both the narrative voice and the interplay between the characters' voices in Paradise Lost, the thematic importance of the way in which the physical, audible voices of the various characters exist within the poem has not been explored. My thesis fills this critical void, focusing on the audible voices of God, the Son, Satan, Adam, and Eve to address the poem’s hierarchy: God as absolute ruler, the Son as viceroy, Satan as insurgent, and Adam and Eve as potential residents of Heaven pending their exercise of free will. I argue …

Recruitment Rhetoric Of Metro Atlanta-Based Corporations, Cameron Moore

English Theses

This thesis, paired with the website “Recruitment Rhetoric” https://cmoore1240.wixsite.com/recruitment-rhetoric, seeks to analyze the ways in which selected metro Atlanta-based corporations utilize and construct recruitment rhetoric based on three theories: the rhetorical situation, mythos, and cultish. From this analysis, this paper then constructs a pedagogical strategy to teach recruitment rhetoric in freshman composition courses at Georgia State University to help undergraduate students develop a rhetorical literacy around corporate recruitment as they enter the workforce. Ultimately, this project aims to start a necessary conversation in the field that develops and interrogates recruitment rhetoric literacy practices.

"Among These Rocks": A Kierkegaardian Reading Of T. S. Eliot's Poetic Personas 1915-27, Robert Abbott

English Theses

I attempt to draw out the existential-spiritual development of T. S. Eliot’s poetic personas from J. Alfred Prufrock to the Fisher King to the Hollow Men to, finally, the “agèd eagle” with “seaward flying / Unbroken wings” of Ash Wednesday. I assess “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, and Ash Wednesday with the methodology of Søren Kierkegaard’s brand of existentialism, focusing especially on the individual’s free will in reference to spirituality and religion. I apply Kierkegaard’s theory of the three stages of existence necessary for becoming a true self in …

Werewolf Identity In Cormac Mccarthy’S Child Of God, Elias Acuna

English Theses

Lester Ballard’s character in Child of God is one example of a socially marginalized outcast who figures prominently in Southern Gothic literature. Furthermore, he is ostracized from a homogenous community and propagates terror in its outskirts. Ballard’s disturbingly quotidian life allows for a werewolf motif to emerge, echoing the werewolf mythos of ancient Greek and Medieval tales. Placing Ballard’s violent delights within the context of werewolf studies illuminates a series of questions concerning identity, existentialism, and alterity in a text devoid of the supernatural. This thesis contends that the text’s lycanthropic links manifest not through traditional werewolf conventions but as …

The Queer Plot Of Stoner: Covert Homoeroticism In John Williams' Cult Academic Novel, Alice Rachel Ashe

English Theses

This thesis posits a queer reading of John Williams’ Stoner; in doing so, it employs close textual analysis and draws from various queer theoretical thinkers, including Eve Sedgwick, Jack Halberstam, and Lee Edelman. The overlapping field of disability studies also features heavily, specifically concerning the characters Charles Walker and Hollis Lomax. The thesis argues that Stoner can be read as a covertly queer love plot between the novel’s protagonist (William Stoner) and his academic rival (Hollis Lomax), with Sedgwick’s Between Men providing the most critical theoretical foundation for this argument and my own close readings of certain key textual …

"With Undiscording Voice": Discord And Original Sin In Milton's Poetic Imagination, Maggie Miller

English Theses

Within his poetic imagination, John Milton frames the relationship between God and humanity around two cardinal doctrines: humanity’s prelapsarian state of harmony with God and humanity’s separation from God through original sin. Milton relies upon figurative language and images to articulate this binary of harmony and separation, or concord and discord. Although scholarship has devoted significant attention to images of harmony and discord in Milton’s poetry, very little attention has been given uniquely to discord, and even less to Milton’s many usages of the word in theological, interpersonal, allegorical, and musical or auditory contexts. Arguing for the significance of discord …

Collective Identity And Feminist Rhetorics: 19th-Century Relief Society Leaders' Use Of Ethos-Based Identities As A Pathetic Appeal To The Women Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Tiffany Gray

English Theses

Latter-day Saint women have led the Relief Society by implementing a rhetorical practice that seeks to unite the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 19^th-century Relief Society leaders began a rhetorical pattern of persuasion by utilizing ethos-based rhetorics found in their use of the collective identity ‘Sister’ and feminist identity of ‘Charity Work.’ As exemplified by commemorative acts of remembrance of the Relief Society’s March 17^th Birthday and the perpetuated use of the terms established by the first leaders of the Relief Society, Latter-day Saint women continue to invoke pathos as a relationship …

Combatting Disability Erasure In Literary Studies: How A Literary Archive And Distant Reading Can Give Disabled Characters The Attention They Have Been Denied, Barbara C. Shea

English Theses

I have created a digital archive documenting literary works that feature disabled characters. Using distant reading within this digital archive provides insight into the representation of disability in literature, aids in creating a disability literary canon, and prioritizes disability within the realm of critical literary studies. Despite the widening of canon and the increasing visibility of disability studies in the academy, there needs to be an archive that features works with disabled characters. Literary visualizations created through distant reading provide a new way to read texts. My thesis, “Combatting Disability Erasure in Literary Studies: How a Literary Archive and Distant …

Transnational Perspectives On Neil Gaiman's Sandman, Elisha T. Schuett

English Theses

Both comics studies and transnational literary studies have become increasingly popular in English departments over the past two decades. However, transnational studies and graphic narrative have only more recently crossed paths in academia. This transnational exploration of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman texts will closely examine two initial narrative arcs within the original 75 issues. After an initial inspection of the transnational properties inherent to graphic narrative and the idiosyncrasies of Sandman’s visual mode, this project will examine how the text’s narrative and form reflect Stephen Clingman’s grammatical construction of a transitive syntax of the self and Christian Moraru’s cosmodernism, a …

Bargaining Dreams And Myths: The Relationship Between The Literacy Myth, The American Dream, And The Immigrant Bargain, Brianny M. Paulino Feliz

English Theses

The following research thesis explores the ideologies surrounding the literacy myth, the American Dream, and the immigrant bargain and how these terms affect the lives and literacy practices of American immigrants and their pursuit of higher education. Research from the field of rhetoric and composition and social and political sciences is surveyed as a means to define the relationship between all three terms and trace how their ideologies affect those from immigrant backgrounds. This thesis uncovers capitalistic ideologies present in the myth, the Dream, and the bargain that romanticize the role of schooling and labor in attaining upward mobility and …

God, Dog, And The Problem Of The Immanent Frame, Sung Park

English Theses

In this project I rethink a key analytical category borrowed from religious studies—ritual—through the joint intervention of postsecular critique and Indigenous literature. My work unfolds in two parts: first in a critique of Eurocentric historicism and then in a move towards an anti-historicist interpretive horizon that nevertheless relates back to history. Chapter 2 then analyzes the Cherokee-Canadian author Thomas King’s 1993 novel, Green Grass, Running Water. I demonstrate that postsecular interpretation readily builds connections across time and space, prompting the reformation of categories such as ritual so that they may exceed their Eurocentric roots. What emerges from Green Grass, …

Considering The Agency Of Faith In Reimagining Narrative And Shared Space In Beth Moore?S Departure From The Southern Baptist Convention, Samantha Joann Rae

English Theses

The aim of the following thesis is to unite Giambattista Vico’s conception of imagination and necessity within rhetorical theories of narrative and shared space. Grounded in a case study of Beth Moore’s exit from the Southern Baptist Convention, this research demonstrates the ways in which faith responds to the necessity of reimagining. The role of faith as a rhetorical agent of identity guides this discussion, which is framed in feminist rhetorical theory to highlight the precarious position of women’s roles within the church from historical to contemporary contexts. Recognizing the reciprocity of narrative and shared space within the findings of …

"[H]Earing Beyond What We Are Able To Hear: Reframing Grievable Lives In Thomas Pynchon?S V. And Stephen Wright?S Meditations In Green, F. Tyler Elrod

English Theses

This thesis examines how Thomas Pynchon and Stephen Wright challenge Western imperialism in V. and Meditations in Green, respectively. Both works, whose initial publication dates bookend the Vietnam war, are critical of the West’s efforts to whitewash colonial violence: V. in Southwest Africa, and Meditations in Green in Vietnam. These criticisms call into question how historical events are (mis)remembered in the West, whose agencies have historically been recognized within Western discourses, and whose lives the West has traditionally considered grievable. Both novels work to undo these ‘misrememberings’ of history. Ultimately, in this undoing, both works can be read …

Power, Domesticity, And Insanity: Gender Roles In Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, Danielle Hestand

English Theses

Scholarship on Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret typically focuses on Lady Audley. This thesis adds to the scholarship by analyzing the main characters Robert, George, Alicia, and Clara through a feminist lens in order to confound contemporary notions about gender roles. I argue that Braddon gives Robert and George traits often associated with women in the Victorian period, such as intense emotions, to overturn assumptions that men should not have feminine traits. I then claim that Braddon bestows on Alicia and Clara some characteristics associated with men to suggest that women should also not have to obey all gender …

Self-Mutilation As Nonverbal Communication In Young Adult Literature, Morgan L. Hunter

English Theses

This thesis expands on young adult (YA) scholarship by applying feminist and trauma theory to characters who self-harm in contemporary YA literature. In doing so, I emphasize how self-harm allows these specific characters to transform their bodies into books, serving as a complex method of nonverbal communication. By focusing on the significance of how the characters use their bodies as conduits of communication through cutting, I show how Camille from Sharp Objects and Callie from Cut are able to write their own stories by claiming and embodying their trauma, and how the literary form presents complexities of self-harm that other …

A Call For The Study Of Irish Rhetoric, Rachel E. Woods

English Theses

This thesis examines the existing scholarship in Irish rhetoric and the narrative that has been built thus far. Current knowledge of Irish rhetoric examines minute periods in the literature and communication rather than a coherent overview of its rhetorical development. This thesis identifies and analyzes three periods of rhetorical significance using the stipulative characterization of Irish rhetoric being narrative based relying on recursive elements from Irish history. It then posits a new perspective and language to typify Irish rhetoric using the metaphor of a Celtic braid. Through the composition of a braid, I classify three strands of rhetoric and trace …

Derrida's Style: Formalism As An Address To The Other, Benjamin Leake

English Theses

Deconstruction’s widely accepted death has been closely associated with the death of its primary methodology: the practice of close reading, which has fallen into disfavor over the past three decades due to its association with formalism. The New Historical and political modes offer themselves as having inherited the important, iconoclastic features of deconstruction and at the same time offering a correction to its perceived faults. Three major figures in this turn, Stephen Greenblatt, Judith Butler, and Gayatri Spivak describe their work in accordance with this narrative of inheritance and correction. In this essay, I look at deconstruction’s relationship to formalism …

Livestreaming Vico: Imagination And The Ecology Of Literacy In Online Gaming, Dylan Maroney

English Theses

The following research thesis seeks to understand the connection between Giambattista Vico’s conception of imagination and literacy in online spaces. This research delves into how users of the video game based live streaming platform Twitch.tv utilize imagination in written communication primarily through pictographs commonly referred to as emotes, and how broadcasters and moderators on the platform act as literacy sponsors for these unique language practices on the platform.

The Taste Of Toxic Rhetoric Within Tiktok?S Cosplay Community, Amber Murray

English Theses

The following thesis aims to illustrate how Enlightenment-era conceptions of taste as discussed in the writings of David Hume and Hugh Blair appear in the toxic rhetoric espoused by some members of the cosplay community on the social media platform TikTok. Through an analysis of a representative comment section, this study identifies how Hume’s idea of a “true judge” and Blair’s belief in the improvable and “correct” qualities of taste are utilized in an attempt to justify one of the most distasteful behaviors within today’s society – racism. In drawing these connections, this research illustrates a complex duality of taste …

Surveilling Wolves, Reticent Rabbits, And Pecking Parties: Discourse As Power Mechanism For Policing Queerness In Ken Kesey?S One Flew Over The Cuckoo?S Nest, Sarah E. Darling

English Theses

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) presents a mental health institution, which, through narrator “Chief” Bromden’s eyes, is a factory for “the Combine,” the all-encompassing, normalizing power structure throughout society. Nurse Ratched, a caricature of the emasculating villainess, controls the men inside the ward through surveillance, forced confessional discourse, and discipline. Scholarship has primarily focused on the misogyny and hypermasculinity in the novel, wholly ignoring the queerness that undercurrents Bromden and fellow patient Dale Harding. Bromden—inherently queered as a Native man in a settler state— and Harding— symbolic of internalized heteronormative pressures— together represent how institutions and …

Lillian Smith's Killers Of The Dream And Michel Foucault: Structural Racism, Critical Theory, And The U.S. South, Emily Pierce

English Theses

While scholarship on Lillian Smith and her works has increased in recent years, there is a lack in variety when it comes to how scholars discuss her work. In the same vein, no one has discussed Smith as a critical theorist in her own right despite her analysis of the U.S. South in Killers of the Dream. This thesis argues for re-examining Smith as an unrecognized critical theorist of the twentieth century by analyzing Killers of the Dream. It also explores Smith’s theories in relation to that of Michel Foucault’s and what her theories regarding structural racism add …

The Feast Of Languages: A Perspectival Reading Of James Joyce?S Ulysses, Edward Prioleau Ellis

English Theses

Criticism of James Joyce’s Ulysses has often centered on the novel’s unconventional narrative structure. Most critics recognize a consistent style in the first six episodes of the novel, but, beginning with the seventh episode, “Aeolus,” the narration changes rapidly and dramatically. This proliferation of voices has led many critics to suggest that the novel represents a break from the traditional view of literature as imitating nature. To the contrary, I argue that Ulysses should be read as a work of representational fiction modeled in large part on the multi-perspectival nonfiction of Daniel Defoe, especially his extended journalistic work The Storm …

Too Weird For Words: An Analysis Of The Weird Across Media, Joshua Winston

English Theses

This thesis draws on recent scholarship and criticism within speculative fiction in order to present a contemporary definition of the notoriously elusive weird fiction and investigates the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of the weird as they ooze or seep beyond the confines of a purely literary existence. In doing so, the thesis also investigates how the weird absorbs and visually represents political and social issues and ideologies such as racism, post-humanism and climate change while also unearthing conflicts of identity, coherency and generic instability, within the mode. It first accomplishes this by revisiting the works of H.P. Lovecraft in order …

Queering The Monstrous Feminine: Lesbian Vampires, Folklore, And Trauma In Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, Emilee Calametti

English Theses

The discussion regarding vampire history is a popular topic among scholars dating back earlier than the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rise of Gothic literature and is echoed within early Gothic texts. Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella Carmilladeserves a secure place within the literary canon for its pull on the genre’s connection to the female image, while preceding Bram Stoker’s Dracula by twenty-six years. Not only does the novella demonstrate a crucial development in the genre, but it also disrupts social norms of Victorian women by queering the title character as well as the heroine. While the connection this novella has with …

Rethinking Discourse Communities In The Digital Age: The Effects Of Streaming On Discourse Of Gaming Communities, Russell Beason

English Theses

This thesis applies of John Swales’ theory of discourse community (DC) to online streaming sites—a context that creates what this thesis defines as a streamed-discourse community—while examining the context of online streamed discussions, and why they are relevant to rhetorical barriers to digital community building within composition/rhetoric scholarship, especially discourse community research such as Swales' that considers how discourse within a group can create distinct types of communities and social activities.

The Evolution Of The Lyrics Of The Beatles As A Social Function Within The Popular Culture, Leslie King

English Theses

ABSTRACT

This thesis analyzes the rhetorical ascendance achieved by the musical group, The Beatles, during a career that propelled them from largely musical performers/entertainers to consummate and fully-fledged artists. This thesis examines two time periods in the group’s career, and then explores the elements that affected the performer-to-artist transition, focusing exclusively on the rhetoric, not the meaning of the song lyrics. A cornerstone of the research was an analytic comparison of parts of speech.