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Transatlantic Utopia: American Antebellum Novels And Their Reflexive Historicism, Andrew J. Lamb
Transatlantic Utopia: American Antebellum Novels And Their Reflexive Historicism, Andrew J. Lamb
English Dissertations
This dissertation argues that the utopian novel offers an invaluable lens for understanding the social fabric of the antebellum America. The project focuses mainly on four works: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance (1852), a fantasy roman à clef of the Brook Farm utopian colony; William Gilmore Simms’ The Yemassee (1835), a novel about the native American threat to the utopia of a slaveocracy; Martin Delany’s Blake; or the Huts of America (1859), a call for pan-African revolt in North America; and Robert Henry Newell’s Avery Glibun; or, Between Two Fires (1867), a fantasy bildungsroman about the antebellum period as a …
Destroyed By Madness: Fighting Stigma And Building Empathy Through The Narrative Experience, Kelley N. Gladden Walker
Destroyed By Madness: Fighting Stigma And Building Empathy Through The Narrative Experience, Kelley N. Gladden Walker
English Dissertations
This dissertation challenges the stigma of mental illness by analyzing 20th century American life narratives written by persons with mental disorders. Focusing on the writing and lives of Zelda Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Mary Jane Ward, Kay Redfield Jamison, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Tennessee Williams, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Cameron West, and Susanna Kaysen, while applying the theories of Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, Sigmund Freud, William C. Cockerham, and Otto F. Wahl, I contend mental illness life narratives fight stigmatization by questioning the common stereotypes perpetuated by dominant cultural narratives. Through a historical lens, the project explores a variety of sources from 20 …
“And I’M Going To Destroy You.”: Persona And Gender Performativity In Ernest Hemingway’S The Garden Of Eden, Nicole Minton
“And I’M Going To Destroy You.”: Persona And Gender Performativity In Ernest Hemingway’S The Garden Of Eden, Nicole Minton
UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones
While debate of Ernest Hemingway’s authorial masculine persona in connection to The Garden of Eden has been a point of interest in literary scholarship, no single work has tied together theory of gender performativity to persona. A borderline parodic display of masculine adventure has encouraged a one-dimensional view of Hemingway, who is viewed by audiences as the pinnacle of masculinity. However, this image is complicated by the publication of Eden, which reveals an author interested in gender and sexual identity fluidity. Rarely has a single text called into question so controversially an author’s public image. Eden showcases an empathetic …
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg
Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects
During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …
Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis
Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis
Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports
This dissertation analyzes how increased mainstream awareness of climate change and other complex environmental phenomena transforms some of the basic tools we use to understand the world, including notions of agency, evidence, and causality. More specifically, this project highlights numerous contemporary literary and cultural narratives that formally and thematically depict impromptu systems of action and comprehension developed by humans confronting the unique forms of information overload that result from damaged and rapidly changing environments. Following critics like Ulrich Beck, Rob Nixon, and Stacy Alaimo, I suggest our current era of ecological instability and destructive environmental practices dictate what I refer …