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Neoliberalism In Contemporary Literature: The Nuclear Family’S Decimation In Jonathan Franzen’S The Corrections, Jillianne Larson

Honors Theses

Within any text, there is often evidence of the author’s own life along with cultural reflections. A specific example of this occurrence is Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections (2001). Since the novel was written in the early twenty-first century, it is an immediate reflection of post-millennial society, specifically the rise of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism was introduced to America as an economic venture; however, the policy’s impact can be frequently seen in relation to the nuclear family. As the idea gained popularity during the 1980s, neoliberalism began seeping into family units by way of one’s career and one’s home. This invasion has …

Naturalism And The New Woman: Fated Motherhood In Kate Chopin's The Awakening And Edith Wharton's The House Of Mirth, Lindsay J. Patorno

Honors Theses

Proto-feminist novels have garnered great critical attention in recent decades, largely owing to the reclamation efforts of feminist scholars from the 1960s onwards. These feminist scholars have remarked the fin-de-siècle emergence of a recurring narrative archetype: the unabashed New Woman, whose exploits in what were traditionally male-dominated spheres distinguished her from the domesticated matrons and sentimental bachelorettes of past literary paradigms. While the New Woman is now a commonplace among feminist critics, the following thesis uniquely interprets this feministic archetype in conjunction with the concurrent movement of American literary naturalism—a genre that proffers a deterministic worldview and is often regarded …

African-American Poetry, Music, And Politics, Tyler H. Macdonald

Honors Theses

The 2016 decision to award songwriter and musician Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature sparked a worldwide debate on the relationship between music and poetry and raised many questions about music’s place in literary canon. However, this debate is nothing new. Questions about the relationship between music and poetry have long been debated. Some scholars believe the two disciplines should be studied separately, while others prefer to consider the connections between the two.

My project begins with a question: if Bob Dylan’s songs can be considered poetry, what other forms of music might also be considered poetry? Rap implements …