Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Go Left, Young Folk : Meridel Le Sueur’S Radical Children’S Stories Invoke The Spirit Of The Red, White, And True, William J. Valladares

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

It is no secret to scholars of American literary Communism that left-wing authors blacklisted by adult and textbook publishers that caved in to government pressure during the Communist witch- hunts of the McCarthy era, often survived by writing children’s books. However, by accepting this overly simplified explanation, we risk ignoring a vital genre in recovering a link in American literary and cultural history that a right-of-center government attempted to erase.

In my thesis I will explore how left-wing writer Meridel Le Sueur, in her children’s books, Little Brother of the Wilderness: The Story of Johnny Appleseed, Nancy Hanks of Wilderness …

Brideshead Exposed : Evelyn Waugh, The Newspaper, And The Modern Age, Curtis Zimmermann

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores representations of newspapers and journalists in Evelyn Waugh’s novels, focusing specifically on Vile Bodies, Scoop and Brides head Revisited. The central argument of the thesis is that Waugh’s depiction of the newspaper industry is highly similar to his portrayals of modernity. In Waugh’s novels, newspapers, like modernity, cause tremendous problems for his characters. Even with these flaws, however, newspapers retain some overall value for society. In addition to providing insight into Waugh’s views of journalism, this thesis places Waugh’s novels in a historical context with a thorough examination of British journalism history.

The thesis is divided into …

Mending The Moor On The Early Modern English Stage : The Rise Of Shakespeare's Black Tragic Hero, Marcos S. Vargas

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Shakespeare’s two inverse representations dealing with the black male Moor— Aaron (Titus Andronicus) and Othello (Othello)—can figure prominently in a reading of his stage treatment of those notions of racial differences in the early modem era. By retracing early modem histories which affected the early formation of race and by emphasizing the popular representations of race on the early modem English stage, this study seeks to answer whether Shakespeare’s own treatment of race was typical or, in fact, anomalous for his time. Using re-conceptualized vocabularies of race laid out by recent early modem race scholars, this study applies that groundwork …

Ghostly Writing : Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers And Issues Of Visibility, Erin Barclay Nemiroff

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines three nineteenth-century female authors’ use of the ghost story to articulate and illustrate the anxiety and restriction they suffered under the ideals of True Womanhood. It discusses how Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, and Mary Wilkins Freeman were compelled to use this unorthodox method of expression because its innate characteristics granted them the creative liberty necessary for authentic female expression and an evolution into New Womanhood and tum-of-the-century feminism. It reveals how the ghost story allowed them to be taken seriously by their male counterparts, yet still provided them with the degree of camouflage necessary to prevent …

Class Indifference - A Divided Nation : Finding Common Ground Through American Pragmatism And Democratic Principles In The Composition Classroom, Stacey L. Morrison

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Social class plays a significant but often silent part in American politics, lives, and education. As the events of Hurricane Katrina clearly illustrate, the poor and working class often suffer discrimination that leaves them completely powerless. Their position in life shapes not only how they are seen and treated, but also how they see their world. Their cultures differ markedly from middle and upper class cultures, further alienating them from possible greater personal achievement in a system that champions middle-class values. Education, being a microcosm of our society, mirrors our class conflicts, often failing to teach working-class students in an …

A Record Of The Struggle : Chinua Achebe’S Anthills Of The Savannah, Fruita Louise Diaz-Jenkins

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In Anthills of the Savannah Chinua Achebe presents the struggle of a formerly colonized African nation, Kangan, a substitute for Nigeria, to become a post-colonial nation. Achebe’s three main characters, members of the elite, who are personally and politically involved with the nation’s ruler, narrate their version of events. Their separate but intertwined journeys from the center of power to the margins where the majority of the country’s population resides illuminate the elements necessary for an inclusive postcolonial nation to rise from the neocolonial ruins of a traditional society.

Achebe uses narrative strategies that illuminate the collapse of the neocolonial …

“These Would Have Been All My Friends” : Families Of Birth, Families Of Choice, And Personal Autonomy In Mansfield Park, Emma, And Persuasion, Tavya Jackson

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The six completed novels of Jane Austen all fall into the category of courtship novels, which focus on the heroines’ experiences as she meets, becomes acquainted with, and eventually marries the “right” man. Yet in Austen’s three later novels, Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Persuasion (1818), the three heroines engage in more than a quest for the most suitable husband. In each of these novels, the female characters appear to be employed in a search for a suitable family, which can only be obtained through marriage.

The quest for family that manifests itself in these novels is closely related …

Byron's Manfred And Shelley's Alastor : Narcissism And The Search For An Ideal, Charles Markham Townsend

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

“You May Explore Yourself Freely" : Gender And The Fantastic In Jeanette Winterson And Angela Carter, Elissa Cording

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson’s novels contain magical moments in which reality is questioned and a reader suspends disbelief in the fantastic. While we know that a living heart cannot be kept in ajar and a woman cannot be born with wings, we are meant to accept these moments as possible. The use of fantastical elements in The Passion, Sexing the Cherry and Nights at the Circus supports Winterson and Carter’s unique portrayals of gender. The blending of fantasy and reality allows for the exploration of non-traditional gender roles because as these authors rewrite genre they are also rethinking gender. …

From One To Many-Sided : Negotiating An Ethics Of Liberalism In Daniel Deronda, Anne Cecilia De Marzio

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Following recent attempts in Victorian Studies to retrieve the broad critical rubric of liberalism, this essay aims to identify the substance under cultivation in the character of Gwendolen Harleth as many-sidedness. Gwendolen’s bildung has as its telos a disposition attaining to a regulative ideal of liberal agency; that is, she grows into a woman who aspires to sympathize with other vantage points. The ascesis which Eliot’s supreme egoist finally practices evidences not a being divested of her animating spirit and characterized by lack as other critics have argued, but one who has learned from Daniel to aspire to Goethe’s “lofty …

Steeltown Roots : Duality, Detachment, And The Search For Identity In Postwar Pittsburgh Literature, Genna Elizabeth Knight

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

While the city is a common topic in American literature, if you were to Google “Pittsburgh literature,” chances are, rather than finding a list of stories about the Steel City, you would be linked to the Carnegie Library or the University of Pittsburgh. Inspired by its lack of attention, I have directed my efforts toward making a case for Pittsburgh’s modest yet significant role in American literature, particularly during its “postwar” period. The “postwar” sequence of events that occur between the city’s industrial prime following World War II and its transformation into an academic and cultural center for medicine and …

There’S No Place Like Home : The Changing Definition Of Exile In Salman Rushdie’S Midnight’S Children And Shame, Patricia J. Soliman

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The concept for this thesis was bom out of my interest in identity construction and contemporary viewpoints on migrancy and exile. I first discovered Salman Rushdie's fiction upon reading the novel Shame, and was immediately struck by his intention, not only to discuss the issues surrounding migrancy, but also to make the reader feel a sense of migrant alienation through his narrative technique. I began to explore the unique ways in which Rushdie uses language, characters and plot to redefine exile as a liberating and positive experience, rather than simply a devastating loss.

However, during my research, I also began …

Nick Hornby And The Plight Of Generation X, Michael Berkowitz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

"The Problematic Business Of Living Itself" : David Mamet's Devolving Theater, Kristopher Aaron Spring

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

David Mamet's ’style is remarkably minimal; there is little in the way of stage direction and his dialogue is often a staccato vernacular. At the same time, within the apparently loose frameworks of his plays lie the seeds of their own destruction: Mamet makes up for the lack of obvious, literal stage direction with the subtle downward spiral of the plot; the coarse frankness of the language depicts worlds nearly devoid of - or at least rapidly losing - their sense of morality or whatever implicit ideas and ideals are central to maintaining the appearance of the status quo. Whether …