Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Of Ghosts And Spaceships: Reclaiming Chinese National Identity Through Science Fiction, Nicholas M. Stillman

Global Honors Theses

This paper examines the extent to which Chinese science fiction literature has played a role in the reframing of Chinese national identity as one that is based in scientific and technological development. Specifically, whether the recent push during a 2007 conference in Chengdu for increased science fiction consumption has resulted in more scientific development and more positivist science fictional literature.

The paper both evaluates the current state of science fiction in China and the potential impact of its narratives through an analysis of the historical context of the role of science fiction in China compared to the more modern usage …

Radical Rejections And Sloppy Seconds, Meaghan Dodson

English Student Scholarship

Jane Austen is famous for her heroines and their marriages; at the same time, however, she is also infamous for these same heroines rejecting proposals of marriage. This paper explores how Austen uses the failed marriage proposal to show how women need not fear putting their own happiness first - an idea that is just as radical in our own day and age.

'Precious Objects': Strange 'Things' In James And Wharton, John Kinard

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, I attempt to examine the importance of things, the strange agency of objects, which emerges in the literature of the late nineteenth century. To this end, I examine the economy of things in both Henry James and Edith Wharton. I attempt to connect this object agency with the emergent discourses and technologies of the time, and to link these both with media and queer theory.

Bound By Words: Oath-Taking And Oath-Breaking In Medieval Lceland And Anglo-Saxon England, Gregory L. Laing

Dissertations

The legal and literary texts of early medieval England and Iceland share a common emphasis on truth and demonstrate its importance through the sheer volume of textual references. One of the most common applications of truth-seeking in these sources occurs in the swearing of oaths. Instances of oath-taking and oath-breaking, therefore, are critical textual loci wherein the language of swearing unites an individual’s socially constructed reputation and his personal guarantees under the careful supervision of the community. Traditionally, scholars looking at truth and attestation from the later medieval period tend to view early cases of swearing as procedural, artless, or …

Gender Benders: Shakespeare's Rosalind And Woolf's Orlando, Katrina Armenteros

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

English Renaissance playwright, William Shakespeare and twentieth century modernist author, Virginia Woolf’s works, “As You Like It” (1599) and “Orlando” (1928), respectively posit a vision of gender that transcends the physical sex of the body. The play’s heroine, Rosalind, and the novel’s protagonist, Orlando, each challenge the stability of the binary categories of male and female, demonstrating how gender is not absolute but rather a constantly adapting and evolving construct. This thesis traces the development of Rosalind and Orlando by analyzing and comparing both protagonists’ journeys towards concordia discors, considering how gender transformation plays a pivotal role in helping …

Hell Of A Life, Julia Frantzen

Fall 2014, Storytelling and the Life of Faith

This paper reflects on the work completed for the Storytelling and the Life of Faith Colloquium. It reflects on the author's time in college, time abroad, life, and the course itself. It includes not only introspections on the course readings but also the larger course themes including the use of memory, and universal truths — be there any. It’s about struggle, the internal and the external, it’s an overview of a lot of realizations the author had during her college career. It’s about learning to be ok with the fluctuation called life.

All At One Point: The New Physics Of Italo Calvino And Jorge Luis Borges, Mark Thomas Rinaldi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work of comparative literary criticism focuses on the presence of mathematical and scientific concepts and imagery in the works of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, beginning with an historical overview of scientific philosophy and an introduction to the most significant scientific concepts of the last several centuries, before shifting to deep, scientifically-driven analyses of numerous individual fictions, and finally concluding with a meditation on the unexpectedly fictive aspects of science and mathematics. The close readings of these authors' fictions are contextualized with thorough explanations of the potential literary implications of theories from physics, mathematics, neuroscience and chaos theory. …

Simply Genre Films: Extracting “King Lear” From “House Of Strangers” And “Broken Lance", Sophia G. I. Funk

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and refute Yvonne Griggs’ claims that the films “House of Strangers” (1949) and “Broken Lance” (1954) are as Griggs deems “genre-based adaptations” of William Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” I argue that the films, although they have some essential elements of “King Lear,” lack intentionality and reception, pivotal components in determining viability as a Shakespearean film adaptation. Using Griggs’ book as my critical background, I will show that these films are better classified under their respective genre categories, Western and film noir, not as “King Lear” genre adaptations. I will …

Lament As Transitional Justice, Michael Galchinsky

English Faculty Publications

Works of human rights literature help to ground the formal rights system in an informal rights ethos. Writers have developed four major modes of human rights literature: protest, testimony, lament, and laughter. Through interpretations of poetry in Carolyn Forché’s anthology, Against Forgetting, and novels from Rwanda, the United States, and Bosnia, I focus on the mode of lament, the literature of mourning. Lament is a social and ritualized form, the purposes of which are congruent with the aims of transitional justice institutions. Both laments and truth commissions employ grieving narratives to help survivors of human rights trauma bequeath to the …

Utopian Literature From The Sixteenth Century To Present Day, Lisa Sikkink

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, and George Orwell’s 1984 are all works of utopian literature. Although they were written during different time periods, the issues they explore are remarkably similar. My research project explores such ideas as literature, sex and reproduction, society, and family life in these utopian works in order to demonstrate these affinities.

The Influence Of Literacy On The Lives Of Twentieth Century Southern Female Minority Figures, Laura Leighann Dicks

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The American South has long been a region associated with myth and fantasy; in popular culture especially, the region is consistently tied to skewed notions of the antebellum South that include images of large plantation homes, women in hoop skirts, and magnolia trees that manifest in television and film representations such as Gone With the Wind (1939). Juxtaposed with these idealized, mythic images is the hillbilly trope, reinforced by radio shows such as Lum and Abner, and films such as Scatterbrain (1940). Out of this idea comes the southern illiteracy stereotype, which suggests that southerners are collectively unconcerned with education …

Framing Identity: Repudiating The Ideal In Chicana Literature, Michael A. Flores

All NMU Master's Theses

In the 1960s Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez penned his now canonical, epic poem “I Am Joaquin.” The poem chronicles the historic oppression of a transnational, Mexican people as well as revolutionary acts of their forefathers in resisting tyranny. Coinciding with a series of renewed, sociopolitical campaigns, collectively known as the Chicano Movement, Gonzales’ poem uses vivid imagery to present an idealized representation of Chicanos and encouraged his reader to engage in revolutionary action. Though the poem encourages strong leadership, upward mobility, and political engagement the representations of women in his text are misogynistic and limiting.

His presentation of the “black-shawled …

Agent Red: Fashioning Agency In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Christopher M. Yalen

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, we are introduced to a dystopian patriarchal society named Gilead, where women are relegated to the roles of wife, servant, and surrogate. Although the men of Gilead have built this society with men at the top, the women of the novel show a surprising amount of agency within their own spheres of influence. So the question remains: who is really in control of Gilead? While men are certainly remain the figureheads of power in The Handmaid's Tale, we find that the women of the novel have copious influence within their own realms, …

“The Woman” And The Women Of Sherlock Holmes, Cassandra Poole

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Women appear in nearly every Sherlock Holmes novel and short story. The vast majority are victims. Against the recurring oppression of women and women’s sexuality in the Holmes canon, a few exceptional female characters escape their Victorian gender roles. One rises above all others. She is “the woman,” Irene Adler, whose strength, intelligence, and independence have made her a recurring star in extra-canonical books, television shows, film adaptations, and Sherlockian fan fiction. This essay focuses on women and women’s sexuality within and beyond the Holmes canon to explore our enduring fascination with “the only woman to ever best Sherlock Holmes.”

To Be A Man: A Re-Assessment Of Black Masculinity In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun And Les Blancs, Julie M. Burrell

English Faculty Publications

The first Black woman to pen a Broadway play, Lorraine Hansberry scripted a majority of male protagonists. Critics tend to see Hansberry’s depiction of Black men as either an unfortunate departure from her feminist concerns, or as damaging representations of Black masculinity. In contrast to such views, this essay maps the trajectory of Hansberry’s career-long project of scripting positive visions of Black masculinity, from the politically progressive, while still patriarchal, structures of masculinity in A Raisin in the Sun, to the heterogeneous performances of revolutionary masculinity in Les Blancs. Further, in her role as public intellectual, Hansberry questioned prevailing assumptions …

The Wizarding Words Of J. K. Rowling: Literary Merit In The Harry Potter Series, Brenna Sherrill

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Since hitting bookshelves in 1997, the Harry Potter series has taken the popular culture world by storm in an unprecedented way, breaking sales records for both books and films, and dramatically increasing readership among young readers. Despite its immense and unique success, this series, like many other examples of pop culture, doesn’t often receive the credit it deserves with respect to its literary merits. However, it is undeniable that the Potter books reflect many of the traits found in all great works of literature, including complex character development and abundant literary devices that elevate the intellectual level of the series. …

"Your Doctor Knows The Symbols", Andrew Michael Gorman

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

In Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self, Stacy Alaimo effectively formulates the concept of “trans-corporeality,” a theoretical frame for thinking about the human body as a site of exchange with the environment. Trans-corporeality “grapples with the ways in which environmental ethics, social theories, popular understandings of science, and conceptions of the human self are profoundly altered by the recognition that ‘the environment’ is not located somewhere out there, but is always the very substance of ourselves” (4). In this, trans- corporeality highlights that while human action is imposed onto the environment, actions of the environment are simultaneously …

Queer Tastes: An Exploration Of Food And Sexuality In Southern Lesbian Literature, Jacqueline Kristine Lawrence

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Southern identities are undoubtedly influenced by the region's foodways. However, the South tends to neglect and even to negate certain peoples and their identities. Women, especially lesbians, are often silenced within southern literature. Where Tennessee Williams used literature to bridge gaps between gay men and the South, southern lesbian literature severely lacks a traceable history of such connections. The principal objective of this thesis is to explore the ways in which southern lesbians manipulate food metaphors to describe their sexual desires and identities. This thesis only begins to lay out a history of southern lesbian literature as many lesbian writers …

The Deception Of Perception: Browning, Childe Roland, And Supersensory Belief, Catherine Blass

All Theses

Browning's fascination with the senses and the mind as determiners of reality floods his work. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,' in particular, offers a more complicated, sincere exploration of this topic that had become central to Victorian debate. As Browning acknowledges repeatedly through his poetry, the debate between sensory data (empiricism) and supersensory belief (idealism) could not be understood in clear-cut categories. In much of his poetry, however, he grounds these questions in deceptively simple discussions of mesmerism or the Victorian philosophy of the mind. Although those two topics may seem disparate to twenty-first century readers, Victorian belief …

Dionysus Torn To Pieces: An Examination Of The Sound And The Fury In Light Of The Philosophy Of Friedrich Nietzsche, Scott R. Dubree

Student Publications

Over the course of this thesis the author considers the problem of truth in life as manifested in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury by means of the Nietzschean conception of the Dionysian. The examination unfolds in a sequential analysis of the novel’s four sections, an analysis framed by Nietzsche’s four theses on “‘Reason’ in Philosophy:” the author considers the first section (Ben) symbolic of man’s subversion to what is directly before his eyes, and yet discovers in Ben’s idiocy a refutation of that same apparent reality in a presently-realized past, personified in Ben’s sister, Caddy; the bounds and …

Course Syllabus (Sp14) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "The Sublime, The Uncanny, And The Imagination", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty Scholarship

Course Description:

In a world in which what counts as knowledge is predominantly restricted to the measurable and the calculable, those elements of human experience which elude and exceed these parameters are often ignored and discounted. In this course, we will examine questions of the sublime, the uncanny, and the speculative as treated in literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy in order to think and write critically about them. Here, we will consider the possible extent to which an openness to such experiences can enrich our lives.

How D.H. Lawrence Amends Dostoevsky’S Reality, Amanda R. Brown

Spring 2014, Dostoevsky

This paper explores the reception of Dostoevsky by British modernists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Particularly, it focuses on D.H. Lawrence's reaction to Dostoevsky. Outlined in the body of the paper is Lawrence's reality, which is deemed far more radical than Dostoevsky's reality, which is also described in depth. Both Dostoevsky's and Lawrence's world-visions are examined through their portrayal of religion, moral guilt, rationality, and sense of self. Lawrence creates a new religion and characters devoid of guilt. He replaces traditional rationality with a novel system of physical consciousness and portrays genuine characters. On the other hand, …

Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov, And Freedom In Crime And Punishment, Ryan P. Fink

Spring 2014, Dostoevsky

An analysis of the character of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and his journey towards a truer understanding of freedom. This paper comments on 'freedom' as understood by St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, and applies this view of freedom to the characters of Raskolnikov, Sonya, Svidrigailov and Porfiry. The paper shows how the Thomistic-Aristotelian view of freedom is prevalent in this work by Dostoevsky.

The Evolution Of The Villain In American Cinema, Kelsey Mcclure

Honors Projects in English and Cultural Studies

The villain character has evolved greatly throughout American cinema. Post World War II, the evolution is most striking by comparing films from the 1950s, 1970s, and 2000s. With a selection of four movies from each respective decade, the villains will be contrasted to identify any similarities and differences across decades to determine if the political environment has an impact on the way in which the villain character is portrayed.

Objective:

The purpose of this project was for me to determine if villains were constructed based on views of the American people at the times in which the films were created. …

Of Love, Of Money, Of Unquestionable Practicality: The Choices Of F. Scott Fitzgerald’S Early Heroines, Katelyn M. Quirin

Student Publications

Between 1920-1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald explored the choices of young, affluent women, particularly in regards to marriage. His fascination with this topic began with Rosalind in This Side of Paradise, and her practical yet immature decision. Through his early short stories, Fitzgerald explores different motives behind his heroines’ decisions, varying points-of-view, and the consequences of his heroines’ actions. Fitzgerald’s fascination with these characters culminates in The Great Gatsby with his most complex characters and situations.

Thoroughly Under The Skin, Patrick Pride

Honors Projects

This honors project examines the connections between literature and political theory. Specifically I will follow the journey of the British literary critic Raymond Williams. Williams had a very interesting life. He grew up in the Black Mountains of Wales as the son of a railroad worker: a life he memorialized in his autobiographical novel Border Country (1960). In his obituary of Williams in The New Statesman in 1988, Stuart Hall reminds us how Williams’s deep sense of attachment to the Welsh working class border community of inhabited shared commitments in which he grew up. This community of shared commitments was …

Theological Creative Nonfiction: Christian Literature For Christian Life, Elizabeth R. Hurt

Senior Honors Theses

Since the Christian worldview is composed of more than theoretical truth, Christian literature should reflect these other aspects, such as how that truth is applied in the lives of the saints. Furthermore, the praxis element of worldview is reflected in literature more naturally in narrative genres than in more expository writings like systematic theology. Narrative genres mirror the complex, temporal way a person lives his life, and because of this are able to show how objective truth is applied in subjective situations. For this reason, Christians need contemporary writing that reflects the process of everyday Christian living to offer a …

Anti-Romance: How William Shakespeare’S “King Lear” Informed John Keats’S “Lamia”, Shelly S. Gonzalez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze John Keats’s “Lamia” and his style of Anti-Romance as informed by William Shakespeare’s own experimentation with Romance and Anti-Romance in “King Lear.”

In order to fulfill the purpose of my thesis, I explore both the Romance and the Anti-Romance genres and develop a definition of the latter that is more particular to “King Lear” and “Lamia.” I also look at the source material for both “King Lear” and “Lamia” to see how Shakespeare and Keats were handling the originally Romantic material. Both Shakespeare and Keats altered the original material by subverting the …

Gender And Space In British Literature, 1660-1820, Karen Gevirtz

Karen Bloom Gevirtz

Unmasking The Protester: The Meanings And Myths Of Collective Civil Resistance Movements In African American And Polish Postresistance Prose Fiction, Agnieszka Herra

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My contention is that the narrative framework of social movements, especially the ones deemed “successful” such as the American Civil Rights Movement and the Polish Solidarity Movement, reflects unity and collectivity within collective memory. During the period of the movements’ duration, this provides a clear rhetorical purpose: to give the appearance of unity in order to give effective voice to the demands. I argue that the voices that did not fit into the collective movements emerge subsequently to question this monologic language in literary form. This dissertation uses Bakhtin’s notion of dialogic language to argue that novels in the postresistance …