Digital Commons Network^™

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

The Downfall Of Daniel Fitzpatrick: A Creative Short Story, Renee Horsley

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Daniel grew up with humble beginnings in Starlight, Nebraska. His loving parents provided him and his four other siblings with as much as they could. Victoria grew up wealthy in a small town in Georgia but by fifth grade, Victoria would move to Starlight due to her father’s business proposition. Soon Daniel and Victoria’s worlds collided setting the way for the most epic and yet tragic love story to ever hit Starlight Nebraska. A creative short story that intertwines the disciplines of criminal justice, intergroup dialogue, psychology, and the law.

She Poses On A Wailing Stage, Kara Marie Hollowell

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

She Poses on a Wailing Stage is a work of autofiction that is part epistolary and part bildungsroman. The main protagonist Charlotte is for me a vessel to channel my thoughts on the aftermath of an abusive relationship I found myself trapped. She Poses on a Wailing Stage is a story that, at its core, is about a woman overcoming the negative effects of loneliness and becoming an active agent in her escape with the help of a support system to obtain a more fulfilling and truthful life. My goal of this novel is to challenge the perception of abused …

“Screen Riders” An Exploration Of Breaking Away From The Norms Of Cinematic Storytelling, Jake Alexander Escamilla

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout my time in college, I would always hear people discussing how originality is dead and that everything has been done before. Though I do believe there is some air of truth to these statements, I hold tight to the idea that originality is not truly gone. My belief is that the entertainment industry is so set on playing it safe, they do not wish to break away and explore new ideas which have never been done before. I believe that if more creatives were given the freedom to try new combinations and had more fun doing what they love, …

Derailed Fortunes: California's Forgotten Railroad, Alexis Depaolis

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

At a mahogany bar in Collins Saloon of San Francisco’s Montgomery Street, a successful businessman James G. Fair traced a trail of water droplets for his partner Alfred E. Davis to create the map of a visionary rail line soon to be known as the South Pacific Coast. Using historical records and photographs compiled by a selection of local authors and historians, this non-fiction retelling of Davis’ experience highlights the tribulations and triumphs of the most successful narrow gauge line in California history in order to share a largely forgotten but crucial aspect of local industrial archeology, as well as …

Georgia, Lesley Brian Bargo

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The Vietnam War cast a massive shadow, both home and abroad. Relationships, morality, and humanity hang in the balance.

Set Wide The Window, Olivia Tristan Ramo

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Kept Things, Caroline J. Tuss

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The things that occupy our lives tell human stories. They often go beyond literal interpretation, leaving space for places, people, desires, dreams, and ideologies to be signified and examined. Personal history is a well-traveled source of inspiration, and it provides significant, meaningful symbols for the concepts I’m engaging with in my newest collection. My project, titled Kept Things, is a collection of three nonfiction pieces examining why and how things are kept, lost, and discarded, whether we have a choice in the matter or not. The significance of symbols to identity and memory acts as a through-line between each …

How A Book Changed A Nation [2022], Teodora Buzea

Master's Theses

“We don’t believe in vampires.”

I didn’t bother to turn away from the TV to look at my parents. On screen, a crew of young men were interviewing an old woman. She spoke only Romanian, and a too-perfect female voice spoke for her in English. I could see the confident fear in her expression as she exclaimed that vampires were indeed real and that she was always scared of them. She wasn’t alone. All of Transylvania were aware of the existence of vampires. Truly, these young men— ghost hunters and cryptologists—were right to come here to this haunted nation. The …

I Used To Weave Crowns: A Novel, Natanya Biskar

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This novel-in-progress explores the nature of memory, grief, and the complexities of coming of age. Through the voice of the narrator, Ada Strunsky, who is by turns both prickly and tender, we are drawn into the world of San Francisco at the end of the 19th century, a time of social and economic upheaval, when monopolists made fortunes and oyster thieves roamed the Bay. Through an associative structure, the novel seeks to capture the feeling of memory, which is often non-linear, more impressionistic than logical. As Ada seeks to untangle her complicity in crimes both literal and emotional, she takes …

Catching Smoke, Megan Duffey

Creative Nonfiction MFA Theses

"Catching Smoke" is a creative nonfiction essay collection that focuses on living in the south and the hardships associated with matters of poverty, addiction, incarceration, and family cycles. This collection ponders all the ways that the concept of smoke affected my family's life and gives multiple meanings to the phrase and title "Catching Smoke." Artifacts (pictures, letters, etc.) are used throughout to express a family narrative concerned with keeping a record, destroying family secrets, and examining the "shadows" of truth.

Inheritance: A Memoir, Jennifer Skoog

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I was born and raised on a small farm in central Minnesota, the youngest of nine. Our lives centered around a dogmatic faith that banned sex education and birth control in any form. The consequences of these teachings put my life on a tragic course, and I paid dearly for my ignorance. With the help of a therapist and a deep commitment to myself, I left the faith. After I earned a college degree in my early 40s, I began to critically examine my upbringing. Through my educational journey in Black studies, I saw deeply troubling ways in which my …

Skyward, Christian R. Griffin

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Impressions On The American Cowboy: End Of The Trail, Ghost Town And Rough Men, Jude Edmund Markey-Smith

Senior Projects Spring 2022

“Impressions on the American Cowboy” seeks to consider, expose, and investigate the symbol of the cowboy in our culture–– in all of its twisted romance. After reflecting on my personal experiences as well as various historical texts and works of western fiction, I set out to make my own western-themed work. My intention is to comment and explore the so-called “man problem” across disciplines in live performed time and space. This work attempts to think critically about how and why cowboy culture has persisted, and to delve into this particular and troubling projection of masculine consciousness.

England's Fairest Creatures, Madison Hart

MSU Graduate Theses

Set in 1616 Jacobean England, surrounding a tragic chamber pot incident, the place setting of the small fishing town of Lechlade, England, begins our story. From generations of fisherman, Elias Eaton, is the first Eaton not to bear a son. Instead, his fierce daughter in her mid-twenties, Julia, our protagonist, helps her father at the docks daily. Although Julia is a champion for women of her time, she dreams of there being something more out there for her than the town that has shackled Eatons for centuries. Julia’s mother, Sybil, is the daughter to the town baker. Her literate father …

Sometimes I Think I’M Going Crazy, Connor Kesslering

Graduate Thesis Collection

"Sometimes I Think I’m Going Crazy" is a short story collection containing three stories of more or less equal length. Each of three main characters face conflict that tests their resolve and ultimately forces them to reevaluate who they are as human beings. Stress helps people to grow and evolve and the protagonists in these stories are forced to face their greatest fears head on and (with varying degrees of success) come out the other end better for it. But not before going a little crazy in the process.

Differents: Essays About A Human (And Humans), Will Gerdes-Mcclain

Creative Nonfiction MFA Theses

adult language and themes. :\

Fourth Wall An Exploration Of Lyric Possibility, Emma Pfeiffer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Suburban Panic, Ella Ania Baldwin

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Fledging, Eliza M. Watson

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Fledging is a fictionalized exploration on the complexities of female agency, identity, and relationships in the face of migration. Told through a series of connected short stories inspired by magical realism, memory, and Irish mythology, Fledging seeks to acknowledge the pain and beauty of grief, love, loss, and motherhood.

Paying Attention To Water Relations: Poetic Inquiry And Pedagogical Documentation As Curious Practices, Claire O’Callaghan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This project explores climate pedagogies with particular interest in Western Australia’s current water crisis. Human and more-than-human relations are explored with young children and educators from an early learning centre in Perth, Western Australia, with a view to reimagining education in the context of rapid environmental change. The project is grounded in feminist new materialist knowledge and is framed by an attentive focus to amplify the non-binary nature of both human and more-than-human counterparts. The research focuses on challenging colonial ways of knowing water, by decentring the child, unsettling norms, and reinstating reciprocity between human and more-than-human others (Nxumalo & …

Big Infinity: A Cancer Journey, Christy L. Lorio Mrs.

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Local, Jane Barnes

English Honors Theses

"Local" is a collection of poems broken into five sections: Locale, Catholicism, Maman, Death & Ghosts, and an epilogue. This collection explores the particular milieu of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and focuses on my experiences attending a Catholic school there and the deaths and losses I dealt with during that time. A number of these poems follow a long, narrative style and employ a confessional tone; the locale of rural Pennsylvania is present, either directly or indirectly as an undercurrent, in every piece. It was heavily influenced by Gwendolyn Brooks' work cultivating a poetic locale in her works, such as "A Street …

The Youngest, Trezlen Drake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a collection of poems that considers life in a southern Black family, memory, nostalgia, dysfunction, race and gender, and generational trauma. These poems are influenced by poetry, fiction, music, popular culture, and scholarship, each providing a different perspective on life and language to talk about that which can sometimes be unspeakable.

A recurring character in this collection is the girlchild, reminiscent of Marge Piercy’s character in “Barbie Doll.” The girlchild here is the figure of the woman or girl who experiences trauma, and what some consider to be unspeakable.

These poems are also an exploration and disruption …

Catch Hell Blues, Nick Jebsen

Senior Projects Spring 2020

My novella features four friends attempting to navigate the transition between high school and adulthood while coming of age in the midst of political turmoil and an American epidemic of substance misuse. They attend a house party, inebriate, and drive around Los Angeles in a 1996 BMW 7 series while waxing philosophic about God, free-will, and beauty. After purchasing more alcohol, they vandalize a Confederate flag, which incites a road-rage incident. The second half of the novella details their separation from one another and struggles with personal loss and substance abuse.

Robert Catherine, Sarah Nelson Rupp

Theses and Dissertations

Robert Catherine is an experimental augmented reality novel engaged in the speculative realist question: What is the point to anything if everything?

A perverted and downwardly mobile Richmond millennial man quarantined because of the Coronavirus writes a series of creative non-fiction essays for his girlfriend about suicide, panic attacks, ADHD, DNA testing, capitalism, depression, and sexual repression.

Son Of Red Earth Or The George Story: Novel Excerpt, Callie Ann Atkinson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Resurrection Of Nora O'Brien, Abigail Elizabeth Benson

MSU Graduate Theses

There is a cave, hidden in the hills, that brings the dead back to life. Its power is the driving force behind the blood feud between the Walshes and the O’Briens that lasts for generations. Jeremiah Walsh, a young boy growing up just after the civil war, is entrusted with the location of the cave and its secrets. But when he kills to protect his family legacy, he is stricken with guilt and questions his loyalties. His story parallels Nora O’Brien’s, a teenage girl who moves to the Ozarks with her family after the death of her grandfather. As she …

Eulogy, Kim T. Allison

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Particular to the three short stories in Eulogyis the importance of place, as they are set in the fictional location of Potter’s Island, which is based on my childhood sense of Florida.Contradictions, complications, and disappointments can be uniquely tied to a sense of place. My own parents and grandparents moved to Florida when I was three years old, but where they lived, how they lived and worked, and what dreams they pursued was only partially an immigrant’s story of wanting a better life.

The past has weight—a weight that must be dealt with, for real people, and for …

"A Complicated Story, An Unsolved Mystery": An Experiment In Poetry And The Ethics Of Representation, Darren Wood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The New York Juvenile Asylum, founded in 1851, was one of New York’s first institutional responses to the problems associated with the poor. It, and the theories of asylum that undergird the institution, still exist today in the form of Children’s Village. The location of Children’s Village, located just a few hundred yards from my home, prompted me to consider the distance between my family and the children who reside at Children’s Village; between my historical context and that of the children who resided at the New York Juvenile Asylum - and their parents who surrendered them there; and between …