Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Afterparty, Patrick M. Werle

Creative Writing Programs

Afterparty is built on the question, “Can one overcome the past?”...I think. While the work flows on a loose timeline, I do not intend the manuscript to be a story. As the poems drift in and out of time periods; childhood, adolescence, fatherhood, I hope that this is also a collection that can be opened in the middle or paged through and still be successful. Of course, as the artist, I would love for people to take the journey beginning to end. And I also believe that poetry collections should be able to have a reader jump in at any …

Tropes Trump Politics, Aaron Berkowitz

Capstones

This critical essay examines the use of tropes and themes in modern comic books and how they are used to protest President Donald Trump’s policies, actions and supporters. It begins with a detailed history of tropes used in comic books and how some of the first superhero comic book writers created these tropes in order to protest the social injustices of their times. It shifts to the first trope, the “compromised hero” where a hero is turned evil. It is used in “Secret Empire,” a book where Captain America turns evil and takes over the presidency. His rise to power …

Two Southern Women Writers: The Civil War Journals Of Emily Jane Liles Harris And Mary Boykin Chesnut, Robert L. Wilson

Graduate Theses

Through the examination of primary texts, along with appropriate secondary criticism, I argue that Southern women during the Civil War were not the mythological “Southern Belle” that they have often been portrayed as, but that they were intelligent, strong, and passionate writers. I examine the farm journal of Emily Jane Liles Harris and contrast it to the private journal kept by Mary Boykin Chesnut, to explore the role that education and literacy, writing, and authorial voice played in women’s lives during the War. Close attention to the role education and background played in the lives of these women, the uniqueness …

When In Spain: Intercultural Competence In Hemingway’S The Sun Also Rises, Alexa Barta

Honors Capstone Projects

An analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises through the lenses of modern-day intercultural competence studies.

Bohemians: Greenwich Village And The Masses, Joanna Levin

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter traces the convergence of 'the revolt against puritanism' and 'the revolt against capitalism' in the 1910s, focusing on the most celebrated American bohemia Greenwich Village - and on The Masses, the Village periodical that provided the most influential expression of the double-edged bohemian revolt. The effort to combine the personal and the political, the artistic and the social helped fuel a host of interconnected movements and alliances within the bohemian milieu, and the bohemians called upon both Marx and Freud in the effort to promote revolutionary change. Often riddled with internal contradictions and susceptible to forces of …

Dreadful Reality: Fear And Madness In The Fiction Of H. P. Lovecraft, Phillip J. Snyder

Honors Theses

The effectiveness of H. P. Lovecraft’s horror relies on an atmosphere of dread in his stories. Both the verisimilitude of Lovecraft’s stories and the dilemma many of his protagonists face in losing their sanity or being perceived to have lost their sanity play a large role in creating this atmosphere. By viewing Lovecraft’s fiction through the lens of recent psychological research on fear, this project shows how his intuitive understanding of fear and his vivid imagery and sensory descriptions conform to our understanding of unconscious automatic threat avoidance behaviors. Because Lovecraft’s behavioral descriptions accurately reflect these behaviors, they increase the …

Projecting Culture Through Literary Exportation: How Imitation In Scandinavian Crime Fiction Reveals Regional Mores, Bradley Hartsell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the beginnings of Swedish hardboiled crime literature, in part tracking its lineage to American culture and unpacking Swedish identity. Following the introduction, the second chapter asserts how this genre began as a form of escapism, specifically in Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s Roseanna. The third chapter compares predecessor Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep with Roseanna, and how Sweden’s greater gender tolerance significantly outshining America’s is reflected in literature. The fourth chapter examines how Henning Mankell’s novels fail to fully accept Sweden’s complicity in neo-Nazism as an active component of Swedish identity. The final chapter reveals …

Hawthorne: Heavy Handed?, Natalie Dueker

Scholars Week

Abstract

This paper will take a formalist approach and focus on the symbolism in numerous works by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The paper will not only discuss in detail Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, but will also discuss a select few of Hawthorne’s short stories such as “The Birthmark,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Minister’s Black Veil.” This paper will cover the symbolism in the short stories and the novel, how those symbols affect or relate to the characters and how they affect or alter the story as a whole. Common symbolism found throughout Hawthorne’s …

I Know You Are, But What Am I? Hawthorne's Projection Within The Minister's Black Veil, Coral Serrano

Scholars Week

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” has been analyzed from various perspectives, but thus far in the published literature, very few have examined this work using psychoanalytic criticism. It is even more rare to find research over “The Minister’s Black Veil” addressing the use of psychological projection. Through the character of Mr. Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Hawthorne projects his difficulties publicly expressing his criticism and opinion of religion because of the overshadowing actions of his forefathers. Evidence of this is laced within the short story: references to mental illness, the connotations of adjectives and other words …

Dialogue And "Dialect": Character Speech In American Fiction, Carly Overfelt

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the linguistic construction of race and place in turn-of-the-century American novels and short stories. Literary analyses of character speech continue to reinforce the old dichotomy of Standard versus nonstandard/dialectal English. I challenge the ideology of Standard English in my readings of works by Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt, Sarah Orne Jewett, and little-known Cherokee author, Ora V. Eddleman Reed, among others. I argue that these texts create their own standards that interact with (and sometimes resist) the language ideology of their time. By analyzing all variation, rather than only what has been traditionally viewed as “dialect,” I reveal …

‘Woman Thou Art Loosed’: Black Female Sexuality Unhinged In The Fiction Of Frances Harper And Pauline Hopkins, Crystal Donkor

Doctoral Dissertations

Race-sex narratives that dominated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries permeated the political, scientific, and social fabric of the nation, but did not solely center on black bodies. These narratives demeaned and degraded a race of black citizens, characterizing them as sexually deviant social pariahs. Consequently, these same notions elevated whites to the highest rungs of society, marking them as moral and desirable. This crafting of racial identity acted as just one way to justify racial subordination through the creation of notions that proved detrimental to black life and worthiness. Writer-activists penning their tales of fiction after the Civil War …

Presentation And Final Research Paper For Eng 102 [English], Anita Baksh

Open Educational Resources

English 102 is a required course for almost all LaGuardia students. While most students enroll in the course in their second semester, there are some advanced students who take the course later. It is recommended that Composition I and II be taken in sequence since the latter builds upon skills acquired in the first composition course. Composition II is a process-based writing course. Students further develop the critical thinking, writing, and research skills they acquired in ENG 101. They learn close-reading techniques and study diverse texts in at least three genres (poetry, drama, and fiction). Students are required to write …

Young Adult Literature: The Reality On The Page, Chelsea Elmore

Selected Honors Theses

The genre of young adult literature has grown from a didactic category made of problem novels and taboo themes into a mimetic vision of modern life by way of dystopian fiction. In my thesis, I will discuss the ways in which young adult literature has changed over time and what those changes will mean for its readers and its future as a genre. The first section will analyze three groundbreaking novels that have disrupted the previously established didactic mindset of young adult literature. The publication of such novels (The Catcher in the Rye, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret …

A Refuge For Jae-In Doe: Fugues In The Key Of English Major, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

"A Refuge for Jae-in Doe: Fugues in the Key of English Major"

Author(s):

Seo-Young Chu (see profile)

Date:

2017

Subject(s):

Feminism, Creative nonfiction, Asian American literature, Sonnets, Social justice, Trauma

Item Type:

Essay

Tag(s):

#MeToo, Stanford, women in academia, early american

Permanent URL:

http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/cp82-8f39

Virginia As A Response To Parental Influence, Ashley Quaye Andrews Lear

Ashley Quaye Andrews Lear

In his 1807 poem, "Resolution and Independence," a poem that brings to mind Oliver Treadwell's artistic crisis in Virginia, William Wordsworth describes the precipice that he faces when trying to come to terms with the emotional extremes he must allow himself in creating the art he desires.

Mind Over Magic: Repetition-Compulsion, Power Instinct, And Apprehension In Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard Of Earthsea, Phillip Snyder

The Catalyst

This paper analyzes what the actions of Ged, the protagonist in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, say about fear and its master and how these actions add to our understanding of Sigmund Freud’s concepts of repetition-compulsion, Power Instinct, and Apprehension.

Andy's Inner Society: Warhol's Philosophy And Sense Of Self, Amyjoy V. Sedberry

The Catalyst

Andy Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol is an intimate look at the internal world of the painter and graphic artist. The general public often assumes that Warhol’s life was little more than a whirlwind of success and partying. His Philosophy conflicts with the general presuppositions about who Andy Warhol was. It reads like a diary and is rich with disclosures of his beliefs about love, beauty, success and underwear. Despite the intimate nature of these subjects and the apparently candid delivery of Warhol’s philosophies and life experiences, he maintains a cagey and detached voice throughout. I argue that his …

Slave Rebellion, Fugitive Literature, And The Force Of Law, Jeffrey Hole

First-Year Honors Program Research Seminars

From the Stono Rebellion in 1739 to the revolt aboard the ship Amistad in 1839, from Nat Turner’s uprising in 1831 to the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859—on land and on sea, in U.S. territory and international spaces—slaves and abolitionist allies resisted the legal doctrines and martial enforcement of the slave system. In this presentation, we will explore how nineteenth-century literature imagined and depicted slave rebellion, particularly in the decade before the Civil War and in the aftermath of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. A component of the Great Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act strengthened a set …

To Build The Fire Of Revolution, Stephen Roddewig

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Scholarly examinations of naturalism in Jack London’s 1908 short story “To Build a Fire” often overlook the influence of the socialist political movement. After surveying the American Socialist Party movement and London’s activism in “How I Became a Socialist,” this essay uses the frame of Marxist rhetorical criticism to inspect sociopolitical themes in London’s famous story. London’s critiques of Individualism in “How I Became a Socialist” parallel one of his concerns in “To Build a Fire” as his unnamed protagonist progresses through the Yukon with the larger ideals of American society and the capitalist economy guiding his actions. Although masculinity, …

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky

Theses and Dissertations

This paper theorizes that authors, in an act I have termed “literary exorcism,” project and expunge parts of their identities that are in conflict with the overriding political agenda of their texts, into the figure of the villain. Drawing upon theories of power put forth by Judith Butler, I argue that this sort of projection arises in reaction to dominant ideas and institutions, but that authors find ways to manipulate this process over time. By examining a broad cross-section of English-language literature over several centuries, this phenomenon and its evolution can be observed, as well as the means by which …

Mechanical Parts, Kyle W. White-Mcginn

Creative Writing Programs

A collection of poems related to cancer, boxing, and a fictionalized Rochester, Minnesota (renamed Medicine City).

Chop-Suey: Asian Bodies Consumed In The Harlem Renaissance, Cole Chang

Gateway Prize for Excellent Writing

No abstract provided.

Desire, Curiosity, And The Search For Truth In Proust, Moreno, And Bechdel, Santiago Parga Linares

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Marcel Proust’s influence on twentieth century literature is broad and has been well documented. This dissertation attempts a comparative reading of À la recherche du temps perdu that places it in contrast with Colombian writer Marvel Moreno’s 1987 novel, En diciembre llegaban las brisas, and Alison Bechdel’s 2006 comic memoir, Fun Home. Starting from a Deleuzian reading of the Recherche, this dissertation proposes the notion of the “proustian truth seeker”, a thematic and stylistic phenomenon which can be traced in all three writers. The characteristics of the truth seeker can be used to understand the ways in …

The Body Subject To The Laws: Louise Erdrich’S Metaphorical Incarnation Of Federal Indian Law In "The Round House", Laurel Jimenez

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

Author Louise Erdrich, a member of the Chippewa tribe in North Dakota, is renowned for addressing historical and current social justice issues facing Native Americans in many of her critically acclaimed novels. The Round House is no exception. Erdrich begins her novel by describing a violent attack against the young protagonist's mother; an attack that is only made possible by the systemic racism and lack of tribal sovereignty that underpins Federal Indian Law and policy. Erdrich transmutes the evil couched within those laws into one deplorable incident. The unfolding affects from that incident expose how-- not only historically, but even …

Incomplete Utopianism: Homosexuality In The Dispossessed, Beck O. Adelante

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

This paper draws on research about queer theory and history to analyze, through a literary utopian lens, Ursula K. Le Guin’s treatment of homosexuality in her novel The Dispossessed. The novel itself is said to be “an ambiguous utopia,” a description that holds up in an analysis of the other various parts of the novel. When it comes to sexuality, however, Le Guin’s discussion and writing on the topic is notably lacking. It is paid lip service through a brief showing of neutral attitude on the “anarchist” planet in the novel, but never given further analysis or a more …

Words + Pictures: A Manifesto, Jean Braithwaite

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In the second decade of the 21^st century, academic comics studies is well established as a serious intellectual subject, but for many non-specialists, including university administrators, a sense of frivolity still attaches to comics. This brief essay braids together personal history and intellectual analysis: 1) it compares the cultural position of comics today to the position of novels in the 19^th century; 2) it analyzes the complementary nature of the verbal and visual channels; 3) it argues that neither words nor pictures should be considered primary in a narratology of comics; and 4) that comics are eminently well …

An Unexpected Life Through Comics: An Interview With Ben Katchor, Frederick Luis Aldama

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This interview conducted with Ben Katchor takes readers on a journey through his life, work, and different eras of comic strip and comic book creation. Katchor shares with Frederick Luis Aldama his origins as a word and drawing storyteller as well as his trials, tribulations, and successes throughout the latter 20th century.

Frederick Luis Aldama. Latino Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey By Interview. San Diego: ¡Hyperbole Books!, 2017., Jessica Rutherford

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Frederick Aldama. Latino Comic Book Storytelling: An Odyssey by Interview. San Diego: ¡Hyperbole Books!, 2017.

Andrew J. Kunka. Autobiographical Comics. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017., Nicole Dib

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Andrew J. Kunka. Autobiographical Comics. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

The Still Uproar Of Conrad's Press: A Breakdown Of "High" Literature In The Modern Metropolis, Alexandra Mulry

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.