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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link To Black Women's (Mis)Treatment In Real Life And On The Page, Madisty R. Thomas Oct 2023

Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link To Black Women's (Mis)Treatment In Real Life And On The Page, Madisty R. Thomas

English Theses & Dissertations

As a work in progress, this thesis explores the interplay between historical and contemporary devaluation of and violence against Black women, materially and discursively, including visual mediums and written text. Specifically, I focus on the gothic novel to illuminate the impact race-based inventions such as chattel slavery and human exhibitions, as well as the generic tropes of the Gothic, have had on Black women’s representation and lived experience via a wide-ranging introduction and close examination of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. Additionally, the conclusion attempts to suggest how Black women and girls might survive in this antiblack world, thus escape …


Seeking Sabbath In Annie Dillard's Holy The Firm, Olivia Grace Dycus Oct 2023

Seeking Sabbath In Annie Dillard's Holy The Firm, Olivia Grace Dycus

English Theses & Dissertations

Annie Dillard’s third-ever publication, Holy the Firm, asks why an omniscient God allows natural evil to occur. In this deeply poetic and mystical series of essays, Dillard explores the relationship between time, artistry, and God in the face of devastating chaos. This thesis argues that Dillard’s emphasis on the importance of time reflects a Jewish notion of Sabbath as defined by Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel. Dillard offers time and creation as medium through which to commune with God just as Heschel does in his book, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. Heschel defines Sabbath as the coming …


Terrorists, Zombies, And Robots: The Political Unconscious, Thematics, And Affectual Structures Of The Post-9/11 American Fear Narrative, Nathanael J. Cloyd Apr 2020

Terrorists, Zombies, And Robots: The Political Unconscious, Thematics, And Affectual Structures Of The Post-9/11 American Fear Narrative, Nathanael J. Cloyd

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the post-9/11 American fear narrative across media and genre. First, it proposes the concepts of the fear narrative, the primary fear theme, and the secondary fear theme. Second, it proposes that the fear narrative has a long tradition in American culture, in which its themes have adapted and evolved in historically sedimented layers of development. Third, it proposes that American fear themes change depending on its historical context of production, its cultural regime, its genre, and the form of media in which it is expressed. To help uncover the political unconsciousness of the American fear narrative, it …


Woman At The Top: Rhetoric, Politics, And Feminism In The Texts And Life Of Annie Smith Peck, Hannah Scialdone-Kimberly Apr 2012

Woman At The Top: Rhetoric, Politics, And Feminism In The Texts And Life Of Annie Smith Peck, Hannah Scialdone-Kimberly

English Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this focuses on the autobiographical rhetoric and public identity of Annie Smith Peck, a scholar, mountain climber and woman rhetor from the turn of the century. My qualitative case study of Peck examines how she worked as a woman rhetor to create a popular identity for herself in both mountain climbing and scholarship. I also focus on how Peck worked to identify herself with her audience; here, I use Burke's concept of "identification," as a way of adding to (rather than substituting for) traditional rhetoric. My project brings new findings in that I examine data on Peck …


Genre, Database, And The Anatomy Of The Digital Archive, Elizabeth J. Vincelette Apr 2010

Genre, Database, And The Anatomy Of The Digital Archive, Elizabeth J. Vincelette

English Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to define shared characteristics of literary digital archives, specifically to explore how conceptual and structural qualities of such archives express generic qualities. In order to describe digital media such as database or digital archives, scholars resort to metaphors, and this study offers the metaphor of anatomy as a generic inscription with historical and methodological implications. The definition of the anatomy genre draws from Northrop Frye's in Anatomy of Criticism, in which Frye describes how anatomies are characterized by proliferating lists, the mixing of prose and non-prose forms, and self-reflexivity--under the guise of knowledge …


A Literary Evaluation Of Black Female Interaction In Toni Morrison's "Beloved", "Sula," "Jazz", Carol Ann Davenport Jul 1994

A Literary Evaluation Of Black Female Interaction In Toni Morrison's "Beloved", "Sula," "Jazz", Carol Ann Davenport

English Theses & Dissertations

This Master's thesis consists of three chapters that examine the roles, circumstances and effects of racism and sexism on the black female characters in three of Toni Morrison's novels, Beloved, Sula and Jazz. I propose that the elements of racism and sexism have left the female characters, Sethe, Denver, Ella, etc. in Beloved with few choices in life. Further, I suggest that the theme of "choice versus no choice" perpetuates hatred and self-hatred among black women and results in "metaphoric scarring." I explore in the characters, Sula, Eva, Hannah, Nel, and the black Bottom women, the damage inflicted on black …


Yellow Ribbons, D. Scott Drake Apr 1993

Yellow Ribbons, D. Scott Drake

English Theses & Dissertations

Yellow Ribbons is a feature-film screenplay that dramatizes various aspects of the Persian Gulf War. The hero of the story, Lieutenant Jason Hart, a talented but quixotic naval fighter pilot, participates in one of the last allied offensive military actions: the bombing of the retreating Iraqi army. Jake suffers a crisis of conscience in the climactic moment of the bombing and decides that he cannot continue to serve the navy as a fighter pilot. The story then shifts from the Persian Gulf to the United States. There Jake encounters a new set of obstacles as he struggles with his experience …