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Decolonization Of The Writing Classroom: Creating Space For Decolonial Theory, Tools, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Methods To Improve The Emerging Bilingual Student Experience, Desiree L. Brown

Masters Theses

In this thesis, the author addresses the colonial roots of the secondary writing classroom and the origin of standard academic English which enables strict standardized testing and writing assessment requirements that in-turn incite linguistic violence towards emerging bilingual students. The author frames her study within the framework of April Baker-Bell and Asao B. Inoue through a reflective/reflexive study of her teaching in a ninth grade writing classroom in a primarily Hispanic school district in South Texas, which is assessed by the state of Texas through STAAR. This study seeks to identify instances of linguistic violence being perpetuated in the writing …

Revolting Delight: Posthuman Subversion In The Work Of Leonora Carrington, Jacob Breeding

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the posthuman implications of Leonora Carrington’s writing, painting, and other works. Carrington’s is a remedial project, one that points to a healthier potential future beyond the conceptual limits of humanism. Her body of work disorders the projected/created order of human society (with its arrogant philosophies and systems of knowledge) and supplies a sublimely recombined “order” of its own—one that, in its very grotesquerie, defies human hubris and solipsism and celebrates everything else besides. In spite of the undermining inherent in her work, Carrington provides a positive alternative to some of the “-isms” that spring from humanism and …

Creation, Destruction, And The Tension Between: A Cautionary Note On Individuation In Tristan Egolf, W. G. Sebald, And Niall Williams, Nicholas Kanaar

Masters Theses

The modern individual faces a psychological disconnect between his conscious mind and unconscious due primarily to the outward attachments that dictate false tenets of ontological worth. This thesis investigates the benchmark of creation and destruction and narrows in on its utility in the individual’s pursuit for individuation. The creation and destruction paradox is used to penetrate liminal space where personal transformation occurs, and it is used within those spaces to strip away old, ego-centric ideals in the service of new ones. C. G. Jung’s “archetypes of transformation” are the main tools of the psyche for assisting the conscious mind to …

Cultural Subtexts And Social Functions Of Domestic Music-Making In Jane Austen’S England, Lidia A. Chang

Masters Theses

Barring a few notable exceptions, English music between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries earns scant notice in music history textbooks, despite overwhelming evidence that England enjoyed a vibrant musical culture, especially during the Georgian era. However, I will argue that the English of this period were, in many respects, even more committed to music than their continental counterparts. The problem, for England, was not that it made no music during this period, but that it made the wrong kind of music, and enjoyed it in the wrong ways. At a time when Germanic critics like E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.B. Marx …

A Professorial Nation: The Pedagogical Gardens Of William Crimsworth, Jane Eyre, And Lucy Snowe, Elise Green

Masters Theses

Charlotte Brontë was not an intentional pedagogue, but nevertheless, her works reflect the dynamics of an educational ideology that depends on the natural environment. In Brontë's works, including The Professor, Jane Eyre, and Villette, safe learning environments are most commonly found in gardens, providing spaces--literally and metaphorically--dedicated to individual growth. These spaces are not isolated, however, as they are located in bustling towns such as Villette and schoolyards like those of Jane Eyre. Likewise, the individual does not grow in isolation; rather, development is a process that is fostered by an individual's interaction with his or her environment. In essence, …

When Family And Politics Mix: Female Agency, Mixed Spaces, And Coercive Kinship In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, The Awntyrs Off Arthure At Terne Wathelyne, And “The Deth Of Arthur” From Le Morte Darthur, Lainie Pomerleau

Masters Theses

In this paper I will be examining the relationship and rivalry between Morgan and Guinevere, sisters by law, and the intricate combination of love, family loyalty, and political obedience they both elicit from their shared nephew, Gawain through the systemized use of coercive kinship. I will be arguing that Morgan and Guinevere are connected by a desire to exert control and influence on the masculine, chivalric world of Camelot. In order to do so, Guinevere accesses and utilizes the masculinized, political forms of influence available to her, while Morgan is dependent on the more traditionally female modes of access through …

Pubs, Temperance, And The Construction Of Irishness In James Joyce's Ulysses, Leslie Sweet Myrick

Masters Theses

Ulysses can be read as a bar crawl; three episodes and part of a fourth are set in public houses, while various characters walk to and from drinking activities and establishments throughout the day. However, Ulysses' main character, Leopold Bloom, is an extremely moderate drinker and not considered "a regular" patron at any public house. His practicing of temperance is one example of how Bloom does not embody the typical Irish masculinity. However, the drinking culture in Ulysses has not been fully explored in context of the temperance movement which was an ongoing cause in 1904 Dublin despite Guinness's Brewery …

No Place Like Home: Fiction Of Scandinavian Women And The American Prairie, Rebecca Frances Crockett

Masters Theses

This thesis examines various fictional depictions of Scandinavian pioneer women and their struggle to adapt to the American prairie. It looks specifically at three novels: Johan Bojer’s The Emigrants, O.E. Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth, and Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!. All three novels depict Scandinavian immigrant groups who settle in the Great Plains area during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The thesis looks in detail at the numerous ways in which each author’s female characters adapt or fail to adapt to the landscape, exploring the possible reasons for these successes and failures. It argues that …

Snaps Of Eden, Michael J. Hudson

Masters Theses

The following poems are and attempt at reclamation and reconciliation. The first section wades through the delicate subject of personal history and is an attempt to show truth as a means of both self and communal healing. The second is plaintive, a brief effort to interlope into and understand worlds outside (but not foreign) to my own. The third is a poetic essay detailing the journey of a young woman facing the horrors of an undeclared, and seemingly eternal war. The fourth and final sections serve as a means of exploration of the self and place; tackling issues of sex, …

Embodied Vision: Sublimity And Mystery In The Fiction Of Flannery O’Connor, Andrew Patrick Hicks

Masters Theses

This thesis serves as a study of representative pieces of Flannery O’Connor’s fiction alongside three particular theories of the sublime, and offers an exploration of the ways in which O’Connor employs and modifies and aesthetics of sublimity throughout her fiction. Three particular theories of the sublime are considered throughout this study: Edmund Burke’s empiricist sublime, Jean-François Lyotard’s postmodern sublime, and Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt’s theological sublime. Burke’s theory is considered alongside both the early O’Connor story “The Turkey” and the later “Greenleaf,” while the story “Parker’s Back” is read in light of Lyotard’s theory and the novel The Violent Bear It …

Experiencing The Modern American City And Addressing The Slum In The United States And Brazil: 1890-1933, Nathaniel Z. Heggins Bryant

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the treatment of slum spaces in the US and Brazil spanning the period 1890-1933, seeking to understand better the ethics of representation regarding the slum as well as the varying aesthetic agendas and political engagements of four novelists. The works under consideration are A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890) by William Dean Howells, The Slum (1890) by Aluísio Azevedo, Manhattan Transfer (1925) by John Dos Passos, and Industrial Park (1933), by Patrícia Galvão. I chart the varying methods of representation associated with each novel, from Howell’s critical realism to Azevedo’s unique version of naturalism to the fragmented …

Writing Back With Light: Postcolonial Film Adaptations Of The Literature Of Empire, Jerod R. Hollyfield

Masters Theses

Since decolonization began after World War II, citizens of colonized nations have attempted to subvert the literature of empire in order to write back to their oppressors and construct national identities. With visual media, such as film, surpassing print as the dominant form of artistic communication, many artists from former colonies have begun using the film medium as another channel to forge identities for their nations. However, in the wake of a decolonized world marked by the increasing power of multinational corporations, artists desiring to write back must address not only their colonizers but also a new form of imperialism …

Dismantling The Master’S Schoolhouse: The Rhetoric Of Education In African American Autobiography And Fiction, Miya G. Abbot

Masters Theses

This thesis examines rhetorical understandings of education for African Americans in literature of three important time periods of American history. From the post-Reconstruction South, to Northern cities in the 1950s, and finally to 1990s Los Angeles, this is an examination of how African American authors of fiction and autobiography have presented the relationship between literacy acquisition and identity. Underlying the historical and rhetorical examination is the argument that, for African American students, the virtue of the educational space is dubious. It is at once the gateway to the "American dream" of prosperity, and the venue for the reinforcement of systemic …

The Artist’S Loving Hand: The Travel Letters Of Emily Eden, Isabella Bird, And Mothercatherine Mcauley Written To Their Sisters In 19th Century Britain And Ireland, Holly Elizabeth Ratcliff

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to observe the qualities of and techniques enlisted by British and Irish women travel writers corresponding with their sisters who remained at home. Some of the most vivid and telling works regarding the travels of extraordinary women are contained in the letters that they wrote to their families. These letters often involved brief factual commentaries; detailed descriptions of friends, other family members, or strangers encountered on a journey; advice and encouragement for life continuing on as normal back at home; and pictures or paintings that could serve as postcards to capture visions of people …

William Butler Yeats And The Cuchulain Cycle, Zhibo Wang

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Family In Modern Northern Irish Drama, Ray Wallace

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to show the plight of the family in Northern Ireland. The four plays which are the subject of this study--Within Two Shadows by Wilson John Haire, The Flats By John Boyd, Nightfall to Belfast by Patrick Galvin, and The Death of Humpty Dumpty by J. Graham Reid--deal with this innocent faction and highlight three principal effects of the troubles on their family lives. First, the families suffer internal division. They are alienated by religious/political differences which are as inseparable in these dramas as they are in Northern Irish life. Socialist doctrine opposes Christian …

From Ritual To Resurrection: The Exploratory Poetic Of Seamus Heaney, Susan L. Morris

Masters Theses

Heaney's poetry has grown and changed since the publication of his first collection of poetry, Death of a Naturalist. This paper is an attempt to present the development of Heaney's exploratory poetic which was created through his use of language and image, allowing him metaphorical vehicles for the examination of oppositions.

Heaney began his poetic exploration, or "dig," with the collections Death of a Naturalist and Door Into the Dark. The poetry presents nature images which represent Heaney's search into the unknown, the dark places. These images symbolize a searching for the imagination and for the purpose of …

The Troubled Ecstasy Of Yeats's "Purgatory" And "At The Hawk's Well", Gregory Michael Sadlek

Masters Theses

A great amount of W. B. Yeats's writing attests to his fascination with the preternatural. Indeed, it seems that Yeats felt the sacred experience to be somehow central in the living of a full life. Further, in his essay "The Celtic Element in Literature," he proposed that all great literature arises out of the passion which flows from the sacred experience. Yeats thought that drama as well as poetry, then, must plumb this core of life. And in his essay "The Tragic Theatre" he declared that great tragedy deals with feelings and experiences which are universal and timeless and which …

From Romance To Realism: A Study Of Sinclair Lewis's Early Novels Culminating In Main Street, Sylvia Walborn

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Southern Journal Of 1838: Its Historical, Social And Literary Backgrounds, Emmie Delle Mullen

Masters Theses

(From the Introduction)

The discovery and study of a journal of considerable age is not unique. Journals, both published and unpublished, written alike by the famed and the obscure, are legion. A recently compiled bibliography of American diaries before 1861, which includes only the published diaries, is a substantial volume. It is, therefore, with some trepidation that I undertake for my thesis the study and editing of the journal of an almost completely unknown Southern woman who wrote it more than a century ago.

Thackeray's Reading, Mary H. Jenks

Masters Theses

Introduction: Before one can hope to gain an understanding of any author's work, and certainly before one can make any valid criticisms or interpretations of his writings, one should learn as much as possible about his life and his literary backgrounds. In studying the works of William Makepeace Thackeray, one observes that the tremendous amount and variety of his reading had a proportionate influence on the quality and range of his work. To date no serious study has been made of Thackeray's reading, although there have been numerous publications on his style, critical ability, humor, satire, travels, and personal life.

The Social And Political Philosophy Of Shelley As Revealed In His Poetry, Eulalie Imogene Powell

Masters Theses

"The interest in a study of the philosophy of Shelley does not lie in the hope of discovering anything new, since there is little in anyone's belief that is without historic parallel. Rather, the sources of such an interest are first, the medium of poetry through which Shelley expressed his belief, and secondly, the transference of these beliefs into the acts of his life. It is to a consideration of the first of these that this paper is limited. Biographical facts will be used only for the elucidation of the theories expressed in his poems. Briefly, the purpose of this …

The Origin And Development Of The Arthurian Story In English Literature To The Nineteenth Century, Nadine Matlock Sease

Masters Theses

"It is the purpose of this paper to trace the story of the Arthurian romance from its origin to the nineteenth century with especial reference to the literature of the English language"--pages 1-2.