Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Healing And Resistance Through Humor: A Literary And Cultural Analysis Of Chicana And Latina Cultural Production, Victoria E. Valdez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes elements of humor used by Chicana cultural producers (poets, performance artists, stand up comediennes) to subvert negative stereotypes of Chicanas. Chicana humorists have challenged harmful images of Mexican American women through poetry, prose, performances, and stand-up comedy. While Américo Paredes created a scholarly foundation for the study of Chicano humor, it is evident that Chicanos and members of dominant society mock Chicanas with their brand of humor. I argue writers like Michele Serros and Lorna Dee Cervantes resist dichotomous Chicana imagery and instead create and add to Chicana representation with humor. This thesis examines performance artist Maria …

The Witch, The Blonde, And The Cultural "Other": Applying Cluster Criticism To Grimm And Disney Princess Stories, Valerie F. Garza

Theses and Dissertations

The Brothers Grimm and the Walt Disney Company have produced popular fairy tales for large audiences. In this work, cluster criticism—a rhetorical criticism that involves identifying key terms and charting word clusters around those terms—is applied to four Grimm fairy tales and four Disney princess films. This study aims to reveal the worldview of the rhetors and explore how values present in Grimm tales manifest in contemporary Disney films. Disney princess films in this study have been categorized as “White/European” and “Non-White/Cultural ‘Other.’” Because film is a form of non-discursive rhetoric, an adaptation of cluster criticism designed for film was …

Reclaiming The Dark: Defining Darkness As Feminist Agency Within The Garden Of Eden, "Never Marry A Mexican," And Selected Social Media Platforms, Teresa Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis explores Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden (1986), Sandra Cisneros’ “Never Marry a Mexican” (1991), and the social media platforms of Tomi Lahren, The Root, and Xicanisma on Facebook and Instagram . In my exploration of these texts and platforms, I define darkness within its multiple definitions primarily via the theme of destruction, sexuality, and/or a literal racial, physical darkness. Furthermore, in this project I challenged the traditionally pejorative analysis of darkness within American literature and provided a chronological presentation of the transformative function darkness imparts on these two texts and selected social media platforms. Ultimately, reclaiming …

Global-To-Local-To-Global: A Model For Tutoring Esl Students In The Writing Center, David Aguilar

Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception, the writing center has always focused on traditional students, and today that tradition is continued in such a way that the overwhelming amount of research dedicated to writing center theory and practice addresses the concerns of those students. However, universities with unique student populations, such as the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley with its majority of Hispanic students, require novel practices within their writing centers. Moreover, much of the linguistic, social, and cultural factors of the region are not well documented and therefore are not addressed by the mainstream theory and practices of other universities. With …

(Re)Constructing American Linguistic Identity: Disrupting The American Linguistic Standard In First Year Composition, Brittany N. Ramirez

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is a theoretical and analytical perspective on the construction of American Linguistic Identity through a Nationalist lens. By re-theorizing the concept of the nation as a “text”, and nationalism as the “composition” of that nation, this work challenges the dominant historical American linguistic narrative. This narrative is informed by an American Linguistic memory that is based on an Anglo-Saxon linguistic hegemony throughout American history. American linguistic memory has perpetuated a tacit English-Only policy in higher education, primarily through first year college composition courses. The tacit English-Only policy has influenced educators’ perceptions of students in the composition classroom as …

Women's Rhetoric And The Romance Novel Genre, Kathryn M. O'Neil

Theses and Dissertations

Romance novel readers and authors often face shaming by those who have power/influence over them; namely the popular media and academic community, who claim the genre is sexist and formulaic. Because of this, women are made to feel guilty for enjoying romance. However, by applying Krista Ratcliffe’s rhetorical listening technique to Janet Radway’s ethnography, Reading the Romance, select romance novel texts, and interviews with ten romance authors, we discover that the romance novel genre is more complex than it gets credit for. Romance novels can be empowering and provide solidarity among readers and between readers and authors. Through the …

Re: Publics: Woman Of Color Feminist Rhetorical Process Shaping Safe Spaces For A Rehumanizing Discourse, Eloisa E. Moreno

Theses and Dissertations

The discourse of women of color feminists over the last thirty years follows what I refer to as woman of color feminist rhetorical process in three recursive phases: location, deliberation, and restoration. The process is a significant contribution to rhetorical theory in the form of woman of color consciousness. This way of knowing considers complex identities at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual identity. The woman of color feminist rhetorician asks us to view self, community, and our notions of love as political constructs. By doing so, we are able to move beyond identity politics and build new …

Adolescent Street Literacy: The Art Of The Hustle, Regina L. Welch

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis is an ethnographic analysis of street youths, runaways and foster children. It focuses on the rhetorical and literacy practices that serve as a foundation for an underground community. Very little research, within the English field or from a literacy perspective, has been done on this demographic. This study includes data from interviews conducted with eight individuals who were “homeless” between the ages of 12 and 18 years old. Homeless is being defined as any duration spent absent of a stable living situation, including, but not limited to, foster homes, sleeping on the streets or in temporary settings, with …

Creolization Of Identity In Caribbean Texts: Towards The Healing Of The Creole, Victoria A. Marin

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Creolization became an important element to creole identity by explaining the development of cultural mixing in the Caribbean. While many scholars have focused on the marginalization of creole identity at the hands of the colonizer, this paper addresses the way creole subjects use creolization as a form of agency. Two specific post-colonial texts will be explored in the order of Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and Michelle Cliff's No Telephone to Heaven. The essay begins with Wide Sargasso Sea to gain an early historical context of the treatment of creole women, and to establish the need of developing a voice …

Women's Speech As Reflected In The Television Series, Friends, Gema Del Moral

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This research focuses on analyzing how contemporary women’s speech is reflected in the popular television show Friends through the characters’ differences in gender and their variances in language forms. The aim of this thesis is to find out if there are certain lexical and syntactical characteristics that distinguish women’s language from men’s language. In this study, a corpus linguistic approach is used to collect the data and make a quantitative analysis based on the verbal communication of the characters involved in Season 4 of Friends. The analysis of the linguistic features of verbal communication of all the characters in Season …

A Sociolinguistic Study On The Use Of Coke In The Rgv, Kylie Ross

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a sociolinguistic study, examining the relationship between the usage of the term coke and the population of the RGV, which seeks to explain why (if) this phenomenon persists and identify connections between Spanish/Mexican cultures intertwined in the network of English/Spanish usage. It pursues to go a step further, addressing what social factors have an influence on the term choice and what implications this influence can provide for SLA in specific regions. To do this, various groups have been polled, surveyed and informally interviewed in an effort to make connections between the usage of coke and social conventions. The …

Landing: On The Other Side, Marianita Escamilla

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Landing: On the Other Side a collection of essays that discuss one woman's struggle with the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia (FM). The narratives are organized non-chronologically because the more pervasive effects of this chronic illness manifest in waves that do not follow a simple means of progression. Rather, FM's most powerful symptom is the highly variable pain strength coupled with its unpredictability.

The mass marketability of this text, as with other illness/disability narratives, lies in the universal message of prevailing against adversity. A person need not suffer from this illness or any ailment to comprehend the narrator's plight. While this …

Postmodern And Posthuman Literature, John P. Gallagher

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The thesis is an analysis and application of Posthuman theory. Beginning with a debate on societal progress between Slavoj Zizek and Francis Fukuyama, the thesis explores the possibility of a Posthuman ethics. The main theoretical contributors are Carey Wolfe, Corey Anton, and Benedict Anderson. The primary texts analyzed are Eric Blair's (George Orwell) 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and William Gibson's Neuromancer.

"But, Whatever The Reason, His Heart Or His Shoes, He Stood There On Christmas Eve, Hating The Whos": Dr. Seuss' The Grinch As The Racialized Other In American Culture, Marina Malli

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis analyzes Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch as a modern myth in US society that provides an imaginary resolution to the perceived encroachment of racial and cultural heterogeneity in the various time periods in which the text has circulated. Each chapter closely reads three different versions of the story, including Dr. Seuss’ children’s book published in 1957, the 1966 animated TV special directed by Chuck Jones, and the 2000 film directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey. In each chapter, I consider the racial politics prevalent in each time period in order to elucidate my claim that various media …

Herman Melville And Richard Wright: Camaraderie And Revolt, Linda Braune

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In 1940, Black leftist writer Richard Wright, in his classic Native Son, sought out a great figure in the American Black canon, W. E. B. Du Bois, to understand and delineate double consciousness of Blacks. But it is surprising, perhaps, that Wright also drew from a major figure in the white canon, Herman Melville, in order to explore the overcoming of double consciousness and its effects. Although another tradition might interpret Melville’s Captain Ahab as “predicting” Wright’s story of Bigger Thomas, I suggest that it is the Pequod crew of Moby-Dick, not the driven and driving Captain, which compels Wright’s …

The Construction And Performance Of Masculinity Through The Voice Of Mexican American Male Authors: Arturo Islas' "The Rain God" And Rigoberto González's "Men Without Bliss", Edna Elizabeth Camacho

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The thesis closely analyzes Arturo Islas’ novel The Rain God (1984) and Rigoberto Gonzalez’s collection of short stories Men Without Bliss (2008) as representations of Mexican American literature that attempt to construct and define masculinity through the actions of male characters. The Rain God, explores the performance of masculinity through the image of the body, similarly to the performance of an actor on a stage. Islas introduces four men who hide, and deny a space for expunging their emotions. Men Without Bliss, showcases the emotions that men suppress and exemplifies their vulnerability as their strength rather than a debilitating characteristic …

Portrayals Of The Dehumanization Of The American Prisoner In Miguel Piñero's “Short Eyes” And Tom Fontana's “Oz”, Gerardo C. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis analyzes the way in which Miguel Piñero, through his 1974 play Short Eyes, and Tom Fontana, through his television series Oz, portray the way in which American prisoners are transformed by a racially-defined code of behavior. This code of behavior, defined by Miguel Piñero as “the program” encourages inmates to over-identify themselves in terms of race and leads them to engage in behavior that contributes to their dehumanization. In the first chapter, the introduction, I establish the social, political, and theoretical concepts through which it is possible to analyze the process of prisoner identity transformation in these two …

Aqui Es: The Rhetoric Of Identification In An Act Of Local Branding, Bonnie M. Garcia

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Brands are a large part of our cultural discourse. In the Rio Grande Valley a group of network-marketing sponsored entrepreneurs has tapped into branding as a rhetorical resource. I use Burke’s concept of consubstantiation to analyze the rhetorical motives represented both in the use of branding in general and in the “Aqui Es” sign utilized by local nutrition clubs. Burke’s concept of consubstantiation allows me to contextualize the production of the sign and open avenues to explore the relationships behind the sign’s use. I then utilize Lacanian psychoanalysis to explain the psychological motives behind the sign’s use and production. I …

An Analysis Of Narrative Types And An Investigation Into The Privileging Of Narrative Types On Standardized Testing, Rachel Villarreal Garza

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Research on the narrative writing of males and females shows significant differences between the two, and scores for standardized writing tests consistently demonstrate females outperforming males. Based on this information, it is important to investigate whether there are links between narrative content and this gender gap. In this study, I selected fifty officially scored essays written in response to an eleventh grade English Language Arts Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills exam. Essays were coded for broad and specific narrative types according to categories adapted from research on the writing of males and females. I then determined whether certain narrative …

The New Chicana Heroine: Representations Of Anzaldua's Mestiza Consciousness In Chicana Feminist Cultural Productions, Monica E. Montelongo

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis analyzes Gloria Anzaldúa‟s mestiza consciousness as a representation seen thematically in Chicana feminist cultural productions. Mestiza consciousness, defined in Anzaldúa‟s Borderlands/La Frontera, is a non-binary feminist ideology, which proposes a third space in female identity, explored in terms of gender, class, race, and sexuality identification. The representation of mestiza consciousness in Chicana feminist cultural productions is proposed as a new trope in Chicana\o cultural studies, which I term the “New Chicana Heroine.” The New Chicana Heroine is both a proposal and representation of a third space in female identity. An examination of several authors, artists, and filmmakers, spanning …

With His Guitar In His Hand: Representations Of U.S. - Mexico Border Masculinity In Robert Rodriguez's “El Mariachi”, Marlene Galvan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis closely examines Robert Rodriguez’s film El Mariachi and its portrayal of border masculinity - the masculine identity which exists on the physical space between the U.S. and Mexico, but also the masculinity created by the melding of cultures. The film ignores this complexity and instead dichotomizes maleness along the traditionally Western lines of hard versus soft masculinity. Further, the film glorifies violence, the exploitation of female bodies, shows women as only useful agents of man, punishes transgressive women, and depicts men as only possessing or aspiring to possess individualistic, economic, phallocentric, and patriarchal power which reinforces a variation …

Sex At The Park: Stories From My Days With Ninfa, Dalel Serda

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This creative nonfiction manuscript chronicles the burgeoning relationship between the narrator and her subject, Ninfa—the folkloric, enduring and elusive Harlingen, Texas prostitute. This project aims to document the process of demystification the narrator undergoes as the women get to know each other. Furthermore, in the process of gathering the materials that will tell her subject’s story, the narrator attempts to tell the story about getting the story, about what led to this story and of what resulted. In sum, this work explores the often-blurry boundaries and complexities of what is inevitably a friendship.

Finding Hart: The Lost Text And Biography Of Hart Stilwell, Brandon D. Shuler

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Hart Stilwell was a noted newspaperman, journalist, outdoor writer, and political activist. He is most noted for the books Border City (1945), Uncovered Wagon (1947), and Campus Town (1950), which were, as confessed to J. Frank Dobie, Stilwell’s life story. Finding Hart: The Lost Text and Biography of Hart Stilwell pieces together the most inclusive biographical sketch of this enigmatic man of Texas letters to date through his correspondences and autobiographical novels. The author has also included an edited and footnoted version of a previously unpublished Stilwell manuscript, Glory of the Silver King, a history of Texas and northeast Mexico …

Chicana Identity: Recognizing The Hybrid Self In Demetria Martínez's “Mother Tongue”, Cathy Ann Cortina

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study argues that although borders divide and fragment identity, there can be an embracement of a hybrid identity. Mártinez's novel, Mother Tongue, uses the representation of a Mexican-American female who has recognized and endeavored to cross a border to better understand the complexities of her hybrid identity. This journey is represented through Mary, a young woman who resides on a physical border between the United States and Mexico and lives on a cultural border between New Mexico and El Salvador. Martínez presents the cultural, historical, linguistic, and psychological aspects of living on a border between the United States …

Re-Envisioning George Washington Gómez: A Historical And Biographical Verification Of A South Texas Novel, Diana Noreen Rivera

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The late Dr. Américo Paredes, in addition to his exemplary scholastic contributions to Mexican American scholarship, has achieved critical acclaim for his fiction. While scholars proclaim Paredes' fictional texts, which were written and set amidst a racially intensified social structure during the first half of the twentieth century, as remarkable portrayals of South Texas life, this paper calls for a “re-envisioning” of his literary works. Rather than a mere portrayal of South Texas society, using Paredes' most influential novel, George Washington Gómez , I explore the work's autobiographical content and assert that, because of its factual basis, scholars re-access his …

Mariguano, Juan Ochoa

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This book is in many ways autobiographical, but at the same time attempts to tell the story of the many silent characters that have long been omitted from most works on border life. By “silent characters” I am referring to those who operate on the margins of a marginalized society. The reader will be allowed to glimpse inside the life of a social group that values silence and indifference as basic survival skills.

It is this value on silence and indifference that have forced these stories to go unrecorded for so long. Aside from meeting my thesis requirements, it is …