Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Potpourri, Louis A. Willis

Masters Theses

The American Heritage Dictionary defines potpourri as “a combination of various incongruous elements; a miscellaneous anthology or collection.” This collection of nine essays and a short story includes seven autobiographical essays in which through memory, I try to make sense of the potpourri of some of my life experiences. Of the last two essays, one is my thoughts on the stylistic technique two 20^th century writers used to give the former slaves a voice. The last essay is my search for a technique for telling stories. The short story is an attempt to put into practice the storytelling technique …

Incivilities In The College Classroom: The Effects Of Teaching Style And Teacher Gender, Misty Renee Bailey

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher gender, teaching style, and classroom incivilities in composition and business writing courses at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Incivility frequencies were collected from approximately 581 students and twenty-four teachers using surveys.

While it cannot be stated that teacher gender combined with teaching style causes more incivilities, this study revealed a correlation between the frequency of incivilities and teacher gender controlled for teaching style. Students of female teachers who use student-centered pedagogical methods report more incivility occurrences than students of male teachers who use student-centered pedagogical methods.

Findings also …

The Rebel Collection, Erika Leigh Andra

Masters Theses

This collection of creative writing incorporates an introduction, three short stories, and a creative non-fiction piece, all of which represent my emotional exploration of both intense subject matters and an autobiographical impulse (blending the lines between fiction and non-fiction).

The introduction to “The Rebel Collection” pointedly scrutinizes my writing aesthetics and includes lists of authors and works which have profoundly influenced me. The creative non-fiction piece, “My Writer’s Eye,” relates my adventures from a mission trip to Mexico, during which I examined religion, writing, and class structures. The first short story, “Shells,” delves into the mind of a woman in …

Milk Glass Moon, Rebecca K. Brooks

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to tell the mostly untold story of the 900 or so families that left the Oak Ridge valley in 1942-42 in order for the federal government to build the Manhattan Project, the secret project that built the atomic bomb.

The story is fiction but based loosely on the experience of the Sam and Mary Kesterson family. While the story covers the experiences of most of the family, it is told primarily through Lydia Mae Johnson’s point of view, a young teen who must confront adult issues early: a strange man comes into the community, …

Unremembered Politics: A Discursive Analysis Of Lyrical Ballads And American Revolutionary Politics, Graham Buckner Stowe

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to define Wordsworth’s political stance in his 1798 Lyrical Ballads. Up to this point, his work’s politics have been defined negatively, that is, he has been described by what he is not. Instead, I suggest that reading his poems through the lens of an American Revolutionary discourse offers us definitive view of his political position. To these ends, my first chapter establishes this discourse, outlining the three elements of the discourse on which I focus. Most important of these is the elevation of common humanity present in Wordsworth and the discourse outlined. Also present are an anti-urban …

'The Third Sex': Interpellation Of The Woman Physician In Nineteenth-Century Literature, Margaret Jay Jessee

Masters Theses

As American women entered the medical profession for the first time, the literature of the late nineteenth century America reflects the debates surrounding women professionals. I will focus on three novels written during this controversial and interesting time. William Dean Howells's Dr. Breen 's Practice (1881) and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Dr. Zay (1882) deal with similar subjects, both novels portraying a female doctor and her struggle to decide between marriage and a career. Published in 1884, Sarah Orne Jewett' s A Country Doctor was the third novel seen in three years with a female doctor as the main character.

The …

Blood Kin: Poems, Sara Ann Baker

Masters Theses

This manuscript contains poems written and revised during my two years in the M.A. program in English. Themes include family, divorce, love, madness, religion, and nature. I wanted to develop a manuscript that truly reflected the past two years in terms of my life and in terms of my writing. The introduction details my journey to this point, explaining why certain I have been influenced by poets such as Sylvia Plath and Sappho. Overall, I see this manuscript as a reflection of life coming full circle, acting out part of the cycle of life. The journey from the first poem, …

Orchids On A Windowsill, Julie Ann Predny

Masters Theses

“Orchids on a Windowsill” is a collection of poems presented for partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in English, with Concentration in Writing. An introduction is provided to name major influences on the poems and a general philosophy on writing.

Our General Mother:’ Eve’S Mythic Power And The Poetry Of Aemilia Lanyer, John Milton, Elizabeth Barrett, And Christina Rossetti, Sarah C. Mccollum

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze Ameilia Lanyer, John Milton, Elizabeth Barrett, and Christina Rossetti’s versions of Eve. In my first chapter, I pair Lanyer and Milton’s work and focus on the demands and expectations they place on the reader. Both authors desire that their readers be intellectually and spiritually astute enough to accept their arguments about Eve, but also be willing to see themselves as Eve. In my second chapter, I discuss Milton’s influence on Barrett, and center my treatment of Barrett on the way Barrett’s ambivalence toward male authority manifests itself in her depictions of Eve. …

Sunsphere, Andrew Everett Farkas

Masters Theses

This is a short story collection centered around the Sunsphere (the structure in Knoxville that was built for the 1982 World’s Fair), utilizing various concepts of energy as its central metaphors. Containing seven short stories, Sunsphere is in the tradition of such writers as Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, John Barth, and Jorge Luis Borges (among others). The concepts of energy covered herein are “work,” in “Do Kids in California Dream of North Carolina?,” “potential energy,” in “Chekhov’s Shotgun,” “kinetic energy,” in “No Tomorrow” and “The Physics of the Bottomless Pit,” “internal energy,” in “Everything Under the Sunsphere” and “Wordsworth’s Volcano,” …

Envisioning Identity: Theatrical And Political Innovations In Caryl Churchill's Plays, Jina Yi

Masters Theses

Caryl Churchill, a contemporary British playwright and declared socialist feminist, combines theatrical inventiveness with social critique in her plays. Churchill consistently relates to political ideas in theatrical terms. This study offers a close reading of Churchill’s most representative works, Cloud Nine (1979) and Top Girls (1982), detailing the development of her dramatic craft. In Cloud Nine and Top Girls, Churchill examines political structures through a conscious evaluation of traditional theatre structure. In particular, Churchill finds Brechtian epic theatre’s politics invaluable to her socialist feminist dramaturgy. Detailed analysis of the two works enables us to determine the extent to which …

Html And Pdf Documents: A Study In Terms Of Genre Theory, Meghan Mccarty

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to determine, in light of current genre theory, if Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) documents and Portable Document Format (PDF) documents are representative of separate and distinct genres. I chose a set of NASA documents, some published in HTML only, some published in PDF only, and one published in both HTML and PDF, as the focus of this study.

Using current genre theory and layout and design recommendations for print and HTML documents, I determined that HTML and PDF documents are not examples of distinct genres based on the NASA documents.

Rhetoric Of Change: Crisis, Paradigm, Process And Computers In Composition, Peggy A. Eddy

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

National Writing, Personal Journey: Shifting Moral Ideas In The Gothic Novels Of Charles Brockden Brown, Stanley Eugene Weiss

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Female Identity In The Works Of Willa Cather: A Product Of Cultural Context, Tara N. Veach

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Donne And Herbert: Constructing A Religious Identity Amidst Powerful Cultural Forces, Jeffrey J. Fathauer

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Translating Shakespeare: Film Representation Of Dramatic Art, Benjamin Russell Atkins

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Vagabonds , Brianne Bolin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Witness: Literary Representations Of Slave Insurrection In The West Indies And America, 1781-1861, Joshua Sopiarz

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.