Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Mrs. Browns Of Modernism, Kathleen O'Donnell

Honors Theses

I begin with this literary critical parable because I am interested in arguments about and attempts to define what modernism was. I situate the following project after the fall of the modernist canon, in a literary critical context in which it remains doubtful that modernisms could be modernism again. As a response to that situation, I propose a way of defining modernism that may do justice to the complexity and variety of modernist texts, while seeking also to recognize that which they had in common. Although what follows might be called an analysis of literary form, it is not a …

Traces, Paulette Guerin

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Articulating Silence In The Postcolonial Indian Novel, Kaelin O'Connell

Honors Theses

Whatever is worth seeing or hearing in India can be expressed in writing. As soon as everything of importance is expressed in writing, a man who is duly qualified may obtain more knowledge of India in one year, in his closet in England, than he could obtain during the course of the longest life, by the use of his eyes and ears in India.

-James Mill, The History of British India, 1817.

This quotation, from the first philosophical history of India, posits the common British colonial notion that language, specifically the written word, might capture all that is "worth …

Literary Love Making In Nicholas Sparks Novels: Finding The Balance Between The Writer’S Life And The Writer’S Work In Bestselling Romantic Literature, Ryan Spanich

Honors Theses

For almost a decade now Nicholas Sparks has been writing love stories. Not only has he been publishing his stories, but they have received high acclaim in each of their installments. Several of his novels have been made into major motion pictures and increased his popularity quite significantly. His status as a successful romantic fiction writer is undeniable, but the question is, why? What is it about Nicholas Sparks that makes his novels so engaging, and personally, what do I need to do as an aspiring novelist to try and acquire the same literary status? Sparks’s novels reach readers at …

Modernist Success In A Postmodern Failure: Jackson Pollock And Abstract Expressionism, The Avant-Garde And The Ascension Of Late Capitalism, Art After 1945, Russell Gullette

Honors Theses

It is hard to imagine the magnitude of the events at the end of World War II. The thought produced in the face of a myriad of deaths is almost unfeasible sixty years after the fact, but the energy was integral to the changing social landscape. Because of the country's prominence in and fortitude after the war, the U.S. was left responsible for reshaping and rejuvenating the international landscape that was destroyed by the years of brutal fighting and vile contestation. The American establishment was granted a major opportunity to establish itself amongst the global leaders. Such a grand responsibility …

League Of Their Own: The Competition For Jewish-American Identity In The Novels Of Philip Roth, Rebeccah Amendola

Honors Theses

In his insightful and sometimes troubled contemporary writings, Philip Roth demonstrates a nuanced understanding of how the development of Jewish-American identity is a painful and often hilariously paradoxical journey of discovery as Jewish traditions intersect (and often collide) with the American ideal of vertical advancement. Since the successful fulfillment of the American Dream requires some measure of assimilation into the majority American culture known as Americanization, Roth's Jewish-American characters are continually and precariously ill-balanced between retaining and abandoning their Jewish heritage in favor of a new American identity. Thus, if Americanization necessitates Anglo-conformity and the abandonment of immigrant mores, the …

The Travel Imagination And The Hybrid Reality In The Wake Of Colonialism, James Mclaughlin

Honors Theses

The “traveling imagination,” is of paramount importance to both western and postcolonial travelers. Since both groups create “travel imaginations” by extensive reading, the nature of the books that inform them must directly affect their travels. A westerner, for example, who reads only colonial-era accounts has the “travel imagination” of a different generation. If all perspectives were represented equally in libraries, the “travel imagination” of a given person would be entirely his/her own. But usually the “traveler’s imagination” is biased by prevailing opinion. Libraries are not democracies, and sometimes extensive reading only indoctrinates the reader with the biases of the canon. …

The Story Of A Picture Book: A Process Analysis, Christy Evans

Honors Theses

Creating a successful picture book is neither an easy nor simple process. The illustrations must-harmonize with the text, move the reader smoothly through a story, and be, as Burningham puts it, "verdant." To achieve this, an author/illustrator must be prepared for constant revision. In my story The Fantastic Transformation of Frog the main character experiences some bizarre changes, but reverts to his normal state in the end. Through my process of creating a picture book, my story also went through numerous changes, but, unlike the main character's changes, these changes were not reversed. They led to other changes.