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Italian American Literature And Food: A Match Made In The Kitchen A Handbook, Monica Marchi

English Dissertations

Food is a recurrent theme in Italian American literature and authors have used it to highlight the importance of family, women, and the community at large and to teach about Italian customs to the U.S. public. Oftentimes, for the older Italian immigrants, food triggers fond memories of the Old country, while, for the younger generations, it might cause shame that leads to clashes with the older generations. Characters use food as a tool to express power and, later, status and to communicate. Food also defines relationships, gives an identity to the Italian immigrants on foreign soil, and allows them to …

Secular Understanding And Shattering The Myth Of The American Dream: A Chronological Analysis Of Changing Attitudes And Depictions Of Murder Within The Twentieth-Century American Literary Canon, Tsipi Wagner

English Dissertations

Extreme violence, which often results in murder, is a prominent theme in the American literary canon; therefore, it deserves a wider and more focused lens in the study of Twentieth-Century American literature. Murder and entertainment seldom coexist in canonical literature, but the very nature of the murder, foreign to many readers, consequently piques one’s curiosity, and demands special attention.

The literary texts I have chosen to discuss are four novels and three plays. They all belong to the genre known in literature as ‘a crime novel or play.’ The murderers are easily identified, and their criminal acts have been carried …

Y'All Go Out And Make Us Proud: The Commencement Address And The Southern Writer, Dana J. Nichols

English Dissertations

The college commencement address is traditionally regarded as the low point of an otherwise auspicious occasion. An ephemeral form of ceremonial oratory, the commencement speech is reviled for its conventional platitudes, its easy piety, and its abstractions on the well-lived life, the sunny future, and the ethics of adulthood. The South may differ, however, in its approach to the commencement speech genre, especially in the years between World War II and the millennium, when one of the South’s most significant assets became the southern writer. Throughout this dissertation, I have tried to situate eight commencement addresses given by such prominent …