Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Home Abroad, Sheila Madary

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Comprised of four essays, this collection of creative nonfiction focuses on facets of daily life and culture in Germany. The author recounts her experiences as she and her family assimilate into a foreign culture and adapt to using its language. The first essay tells of the family’s unexpected but rewarding sojourn in Germany after losing everything to Hurricane Katrina. The subsequent essays display a broader range of experiences and cultural observations upon the family’s return to Germany four years later. These include a narrative of the family’s move to a small town in central Germany, an interview with a local …

The Restinga, Valerie Harbolovic

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Restinga explores dysfunctional sexual relationships in the familiar context of a love triangle, but it is set in the exotic African landscape of pre-war colonial Angola in 1960, where the author spent her childhood. The Restinga evolved from a short story presented at a graduate fiction workshop led by Joseph and Amanda Boyden at the University of New Orleans’ Madrid campus in the summer of 2007.

Research for this project included:

• Many interviews with the author’s parents
• Compilation and review of family home movies made at the time
• Interview with Richard J. Houk, author of the article: “The Hotel …

Frank And Gala, Heather M. Mcgrail

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through the gossip and rumors in a small town in Minnesota, the townspeople discuss and react to the Levison family's claimed perfection.

Wisteria And Other Stories, Michael Clayton

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

We are forever shaped by the worlds we live in. The following stories are musings on the importance of time and place and on the conflicts that arise for characters who are born into and who live with or rail against those forces. The stories are set in and around Laurel County, Georgia over a period of decades. They look at the people who are made there and the lessons they learn or fail to learn as they work to make their way there.

Barthian Bliss In The Films Of Darren Aronofsky., Mark M. Hogstrom

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this essay I argue that the films of director Darren Aronofsky correspond to the Text of Bliss defined in Roland Barthes' The Pleasure of the Text. Using several aspects of audience reception to dissect Aronofsky’s films justifies identifying his oeuvre as texts of bliss: works that disquiet viewers by unsettling their assumptions of the world around them and their own relationships with it. This Barthes-based appropriation of literary theory to audience reception theory in Film Studies serves as an example of how personally-developed classification systems can be used to circumvent relying on popular opinion and corporate aims for guidance …

Western Culture And The Spread Of Serial Murder, Angela Pilson

Honors Theses

Serial murders may have occurred in non-Western cultures, like Japan, South Africa, and Pakistan, before the introduction of Western ideals. These murders would have gone unnoticed and unreported if the populace did not know or understand the significant differences between serial murder and other types of violence and death. The people and authorities in non-Western cultures would not know of these differences unless they were made known to them or if they started to investigate the murders more closely. People from Western cultures who move to non-Western areas or communicate with non-Western natives may introduce these differences and familiarize the …

Touching Bodies/Bodies Touching: The Ethics Of Touch In Victorian Literature (1860-1900), Ann M.C. Gagne

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Tactility becomes a marked preoccupation in mid-Victorian literature. The description of how characters touch one another and negotiate their surroundings through tactility reinforces the ethics of intersubjectivity in Victorian England. I argue that touch becomes representative of embodied experience in Victorian literature. As well, touch goes beyond the explicit moral taxonomies found in etiquette books to provide implicit guiding principles for the negotiation of both the public and the private. The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDAs) serve as a point of departure for an analysis of tactility in Victorian literature for the CDAs emphasized and reinforced the importance of legislating touch. …

Inside And Outside 1101: First-Year Student Perceptions Of Academic Writing, Laura E. Jones

English Theses

First-year undergraduate students have vastly different perceptions of academic writing, the writing process, and the value of writing within their specific academic disciplines. These perceptions differ not only from their instructors but also from their peers. Yet, while reams of literature discuss, debate, and decipher student perspectives of writing from a scholarly point of view, the first-year student voice is conspicuously absent from this discussion. This study followed 92 first-year students through their first college composition course, English 1101, in order to capture the student perspective of how writing fits in their academic careers. The results indicate that while most …

Queering The Family Space: Confronting The Child Figure And The Evolving Dynamics Of Intergenerational Relations In Don Delillo's White Noise, Joshua Little

English Theses

Criticism surrounding the children of the Gladney family in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise remains a contested issue. I argue the children and their social environment reflect Lee Edelman’s analysis of the Child figure and its bolstering of reproductive futurism. The Child figure upholds a heteronormative social order that precludes equal rights and social viability for non-normative family structures and those opposed to an inherently conservative ideology. I find the continually evolving family structure elicits new dynamics among its members, offering greater social independence for all, which institutes a stronger familial bond and ensures a greater chance for its vitality. …

The Invisible Other: White Trash In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! And The Hamlet, Bryant Edwards Trihey

Theses & Honors Papers

The idea of a “white soul” and the protection of its purity was prolific during William Faulkner’s adolescence in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which is why he feared the establishment of a hybrid mix of races, especially one that tarnished whiteness. This thesis exams whiteness in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and The Hamlet. The findings on this thesis indicate that only white trash can fix the problem that is white trash, which means that white trash is not even safe from itself. Faulkner finished Absalom, Absalom! with further avowal of his fear of the tainting of the white …

Biological Inheritance And The Social Order In Late-Victorian Fiction And Science, Sherrin Berezowsky

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation investigates the heightened interest in heredity as a biological inheritance that arises after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and how this interest intersects with concerns about class mobility and the shifting social order. Within this framework, this project considers how heredity became a means of organizing and regulating bodies in keeping with what Michel Foucault terms bio-power. It unearths the cultural work within literary and scientific writings as they respond to narratives of self-help and self-improvement by imagining heredity as a means of stabilizing the social order, and by extension the nation, at …

Revisiting "Hapworth": The Catharsis Of Buddy Glass, Brian Mctague

Theses and Dissertations

J.D. Salinger's "Hapworth 16, 1924," his last published work, is notorious for the initial critical silence it received, as well as the subsequent general consensus that it was a text to revile if not avoid. This thesis proposes that while "Hapworth" is a difficult and perplexing piece, there is a good deal about it that deserves if not outright praise, then a close critical re-examination. Assuming the "author" of the story is not the seven-year-old version of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" suicide Seymour Glass, as the story purports, but his grieving younger brother Buddy, who has spent the years …

Total Men!: Literature, Nationalism, And Mascuilinity In Early Canada, Aaron J. Schneider

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis identifies the figure of the totally competent man (a model of early Canadian masculinity distinguished by an unprecedented breadth of competence) as a recurrent feature of early Canadian literary texts, and examines the development and representation of this figure with particular attention to its deployment as a model of national manhood by early Canadian literary nationalists. It argues that the production of a broadly competent model of manhood as an ideal model of national manhood by early Canadian literary nationalists was an anxious work carried out in the face of real and sensible threats to the new nation …

“A Moral Wilderness”: Nathaniel Hawthorne’S The Scarlet Letter, Lehtie Chalise Thomson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter portrays his understanding of Puritan doctrines and culture. He addresses sin and redemption through his primary characters Hester Prynne and the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, whose adultery has resulted in the birth of Pearl and Hester’s scarlet A. He demonstrates Hester’s refusal to publically accept her sin as such. He also outlines the physical demise and spiritual indecision of the minister as Dimmesdale struggles to live two opposing lives. I call attention to how Hawthorne takes his knowledge of the New England Puritans and alters the historical context to emphasize his Romantic views of sin …

A Study Of The Early American Author Judith Sargent Murray, Her Role In Early American Print Culture And Her Misappropriation By Twentieth-Century Feminism, Robert Allen Fowler

Master's Theses

In 1798, Judith Sargent Murray published a three-volume collection of one hundred miscellaneous essays on topics ranging from social politesse to women’s education to international politics. Her diligence, forethought and manipulation of pseudonyms in the print-hungry post-Revolutionary America create a unique place for her in the history of American letters. However, in the twentieth century, modern feminism has attempted to claim Murray as one of their own, choosing between one and four examples of her work as proof of her forward-looking philosophy, while ignoring significant pieces of those same works as well as much of her oeuvre as a whole …

Strike Out Across The Shoreless Ocean, Julia Claire Paajanen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

What happens between a reader and a poem is none of my business. The world has always been yours; find your own way.

(1) Every choice is correct.

(2) Everything is true.

(3) What is anything, unless so far as it is enjoyed?

All you have to do is see the course, and when you see it, go.

Image Selling: How Depictions Of Power Relations, Plasticity, And Abjection In High-Fashion Advertisements Construct Terrifying Social Narratives, Jennifer Lee Litton

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This paper examines how high-fashion advertisements use visual rhetoric in order to construct social narratives related to power struggles, plasticity, and abjection. In creating these types of images, high-fashion advertisers send explicit messages to their viewers regarding the ways they should engage with the depicted social narratives, ranging from objectification to violence to death. Through a close rhetorical analysis and observational study of high-fashion advertisements, this paper discusses the problematic nature of the marketing techniques and how they skew interpretations of social issues.

Unveiling Jewett's Hidden Voice: Discovering The Aborted Future Of Dunnet Landing In The Country Of The Pointed Firs, Katie Mcclelland

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Recent scholarship addresses a deeper significance to Jewett‟s female characters than was previously attributed in canonical history. Jewett imbues her women with complexity, but intentionally avoids portraying her females as disproportionately heroic. Indeed, a pervading recurrence of abortions and otherwise lost children among the predominately female community of Dunnet Landing creates a framework of death by which to interpret the actions and motivations of Jewett‟s characters. My thesis explores the larger metaphor Jewett establishes by juxtaposing the literal abortions of her female characters and the figurative abortion of Dunnet Landing‟s future; moreover, the aborted futures of Jewett‟s female characters mirror …

Sublime Beauty & Horrible Fucking Things - The Finer Worlds Of Warren Ellis, William James Allred

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work constitutes an in-depth discussion of the muted postmodern characteristics of contemporary comics writer and novelist Warren Ellis, highlighting his major long-form works within comics, Planetary, Transmetropolitan, StormWatch, and The Authority, as well as several shorter works such as Ocean, Orbiter, and Global Frequency. In addition, Ellis is situated within the British science fiction tradition, specifically, the British Boom movement which contains other comics writers such as Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore.

The Thundering Throne: Personality, Poetics, And Gender In The Court Of King Henry Viii, Rebecca Marie Moore

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work examines gender in the court of King Henry VIII, focusing specifically on the role that the power and weight of Henry's personal decisions played in shaping the contemporary Social definitions of femininity, masculinity, and courtiership. The space of courtiership is particularly open to such inquiry because this space was so often one that revealed the fissures and failures in attempts to maintain the strict binaries that privileged hegemonic masculinity under Henry. These definitions, then, will be reflected in, as well as shaped by, court poetry and, as explored in the final chapter, prose. Literature produced within the context …

Willa Cather's O Pioneers!: Violence And Modernist Aesthetics, Jordan F. Hobson

English Theses

Willa Cather's 1913 novel, O Pioneers! concludes with an unexpected moment of extreme violence as two young lovers, Emil Bergson and Marie Shabata, are murdered by Marie's husband in a mulberry orchard. Cather's novel is almost wholly devoted to the psychological interior of the protagonist, Alexandra Bergson, thereby rendering this violent interruption more dynamic as it essentially undercuts the generally lulling interiority of the narration. My interest here is to examine this strange moment of violence and Alexandra's subsequent forgiveness of Frank for the murder of her brother and his own wife through the theoretical paradigms of René Girard, Jacques …

Legal Discourse, Conceptual Metaphors, And Basic Writing Programming: A Study Of Ayers V. Fordice, Joyce Olewski Inman

Dissertations

In what ways does legal discourse influence our perceptions of students labeled as basic writers and these students’ perceptions of themselves? How does standards-based discourse affect student writers’ abilities to define themselves in academe? This dissertation involves an examination of legal and public discourse surrounding Ayers v. Fordice, one of the most prominent desegregation cases in higher education, in an attempt to answer these questions. Its intent is to explore how conceptual metaphors prevalent in these discourses affect our understandings of basic writing programming in the state of Mississippi but also in the field of composition more globally.

My …

Moral Performances: Melodrama And Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Jeffrey Taylor Pusch

Dissertations

Despite a high number of ticket sales, theater reviews, and innumerable letters and diary entries detailing trips to the theater, the stereotype that theater in nineteenth-century America was almost culturally invisible continued well into the twentieth century. Indeed, a scan of anthologies of American literature fails to yield any examples of nineteenth-century drama, even though figures like Henry James were also theater critics and playwrights. Just as it did in American life, theater exhibits a strong presence in the literature of the time. Considering theater’s pervasiveness, this dissertation seeks to restore it to its proper place in our study of …

The Two Gates, Evan Mitchell Frees

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis contains one short story and one novella. Both are set in a historical setting and contain themes of loyalty, duty, morality, and spirituality. What connects them is a common setting and similar conflicts, both internal and external, as well as the protagonist of the novella’s involvement with the conclusion of the short story. In my introduction, I show how three authors use setting to help portray three novels and one short story that are set in historical time periods and cultures. I then explain how I’ve adopted certain techniques to aid me with the creation of historical and …

Carrollian Language Arts & Rhetoric: Dodgson's Quest For Order & Meaning, With A Purpose, Madonna Farjado Kemp

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Lewis Carroll (Rev. Charles Dodgson) is a language specialist who has verifiably altered our lexicon and created fictional worlds that serve as commentary on our ability to effectively create meaning within our existing communicative systems. This ability to create language and illustrations of everyday language issues can be traced back to his personal quest for order and meaning; the logician and teacher has uncovered the accepted language and language practices that can result in verbal confusion and ineffective speech, as well as the accepted practices that can help us to avoid verbal confusion and social conflict—all of which reveals a …

For The Benefit Of Others: Harriet Martineau: Feminist, Abolitionist And Travel Writer, Laura J. Labovitz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the distinctive and remarkable traits of Harriet Martineau was her need to publish information that she believed would benefit society. Her publications - Illustrations of Political Economy (1832), Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838) - have the distinct characteristic of being published with the intent to inform and educate the British public. Scholars have focused on her later 1848 publication, Eastern Life: Present and Past, as her most important publication. Yet I will argue that it was her earlier works which set the stage for this later, better known book. Her travel to the …

The Watchmaker Series, Christopher Michael Seelie

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Watchmaker Series celebrates and inquires into time as a biproduct of consciousness and practices the application of this notion in poetry. The series begins with the numeral poems, all of which relate directly to the theoretical and polemical aspects. Along the way, other poems with individual titles are interspersed to reflect or redirect the abstract considerations to more concrete subjects. Gradually, as the series progresses, the interacting and recurring associations meld theory and practice into a compositional whole.

The central notion that contemporary poetry is not a machine made of words but rather, like the watch that gives itself …

Social Money: Literary Engagements With Economics In Early Modern English Drama, Myungjin Choi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis investigates the impact of economic philosophy and history on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English drama. It focuses primarily on the ways in which emergent mercantilist theories, new labour models, and changing class structures informed literary production. The significant influence exerted on the English public by financial developments during the early modern period suggests that economic concerns were of preeminent relevance to public discourse. As a result, playwrights cognizant of these worries produced plays that incorporated the distinctive language and character of economic thought and engaged their audiences through tableaus representative of select aspects of London’s financial landscape. In my …

Kurt Vonnegut's Early Novels: Searching For Meaning In A Meaningless World, Matthew Praxmarer

All Student Theses

This thesis investigates three novels by Kurt Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and the philosophical stance which informs these works. The Sirens of Titan represents Vonnegut’s cosmology as well as his first attempts to propose one purpose for human life not based on any absolute knowledge. Cat’s Cradle proposes a provisional, ever-changing belief system in the religion of Bokonon, a religion which also speaks to Vonnegut’s humanism. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater satirizes the discourses of the free enterprise system through protagonist Eliot as he struggles to use his wealth …

Corporeal Returns: Theatrical Embodiment And Spectator Response In Early Modern Drama, Caroline R. Lamb

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Taking its cue from the many Renaissance playwrights who emphasized their spectators’ participation, this dissertation develops a model of audience response based on what texts from the period reveal about early modern spectators’ active engagements with staged bodies and stage space. Discussing plays by Shakespeare, Peele, Beaumont, Marston, Ford, Middleton, and Tourneur, I establish an analytical arc that travels gradually deeper into the body, moving from performances that depict the superficial violation of the body to those that represent its violent penetration onstage, thereby encouraging spectators to contemplate the body’s physiological recesses. Early modern anatomical science and its exploration of …