Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Sue, Heath Joseph Wooten

All NMU Master's Theses

Sue is a collection of poetry investigating the cyclical nature of grief through the lens of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s schemas of paranoid and reparative readings. The poems employ motifs such as hunting, disease, and human remains to capture the temporal disorientation experienced in the wake of loss. Via an extensive use of metaphor and recurring poem titles, Sue exploits the multivalence of language to conjure a dense field of meaning, meant to capture the undecidability of language noted by philosopher Jacques Derrida. This collection also employs several vectors of derivation, including erasure of text lifted from the 2002 strategy video …

Entropy, Kristin Schock

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Things We Have In Common: Essays And Experiments, Willow Grosz

All NMU Master's Theses

Things We Have in Common is a collection of short stories, flash pieces, and image-text experiments that attempts, in the wake of the death of my mother, to excavate the relationship between memory and narrative, identity and belonging against a backdrop of the main forces that have influenced my familial group, namely generational poverty, a changing relationship with our Athabascan and Caucasian heritages, and the complicated ecology, geography, and culture of Alaska. Like many forays into memory, this project represents a joyous failure. Please read this collection as a love letter to Alaska.

That Said, Karl Alderic Schroeder

All NMU Master's Theses

That Said, a creative thesis of poetry and poetics in two parts, explores points of contact between human interaction, capitalism, consciousness, and the process of meaning itself. The collection appropriates the language of business, scholarship, and politics alongside philosophical substructures from such disparate traditions as Marxism, Existentialism, and Taoism to provide a several windows of perspective into anxiety, relationships, identity, and consumerism. Through the blending of both direct and experimental forms and processes, nontraditional and everyday diction and syntax, and multifaceted content of both personal and external significance, these poems may simultaneously amuse, alienate, and inspire philosophical and critical …

I Was Thinking Something In The Car, But Now I Forgot, Olliemae Bartlett

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection consists of modern free verse poetry left around town, captured with an instant camera using a capitalist lens and developed in the bottom of a purse. Sometimes found, sometimes torn down, sometimes scribbled, riddled, pickled, stickled, belittled, embrittled and initialed, sometimes made by mistake but always left hungry and up for debate.

In I Was Thinking Something In the Car, But now I forgot, the voice is your voice, only from over here, somewhere you’ve never been but could imagine if you tried. The voice speaks to the machine we’ve made together: the florescent, 24hr signs, press 3 …

Wait For It To Bloom., Deziree Brown

All NMU Master's Theses

"wait for it to bloom." is a poetry collection of free verse poetry that examines black motherhood and womanhood in order to interrogate the sociopolitical implications of black women’s existence in a patriarchal, capitalistic society. Due to the intersections of our identities, black women face a specific type of discrimination that spans both racism and sexism, among other types of discrimination. The healing properties associated with astronomy and mythology are used as entry points to discuss this trauma, while popular culture is used to address these issues that happen daily in the media directly. This consistent bombardment of prejudice, along …

Bramble And Knife, Sara Ryan

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis is a collection of poems that center on the themes of extinction, family, the female body, and the presence of the animal. During my time in the Upper Peninsula, I found a connection with the natural world around me, and this led to my fascination with animals and extinction, both of which manifested in my poetry. As I struggled with the residual effects of toxic relationships, as well as the bleak romantic landscape of the UP, I saw my own body reflected in the bodies of animals. I specifically noticed this reflection while studying the art of taxidermy; …

Lonely This Side Of Nowhere, Anne Okonowski

All NMU Master's Theses

In this creative work, the writer explores familial relationships as well as what is home. Combining nonfiction essays, fiction, poetry, and images in one narrative, this work is comprised of multiple stories to create a related narrative. This project is a celebration of storytelling through multiple genres, and draws from multiple sources of inspiration, including both creative and critical works.

Ode To The Heart, Marc Pickelman

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

An Unstable Container, John Lapine

All NMU Master's Theses

An Unstable Container is a collection of short creative nonfiction essays and poetry, with influences from personal memoir, lyric essays, race and gender studies, and poetry. The work examines the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, and the ways in which language, society, and the human body contribute to the construction of one's sense of self. Through the lenses of language, modern technology, medicine, and genetics, An Unstable Container explores blackness, queerness, masculine identity, growing up in rural Michigan, and the dangers and pleasures of corporeality. The collection also interrogates the social institutions of marriage and religion, gender roles, and …

Expatriates Of "Good" Motherhood: Bearing Witness, Guilt, And Burdens Of Transgressive Motherhood, Kelsey Nicole Lueptow

All NMU Master's Theses

To be an expatriate requires emotional stamina to withstand culture shock, loneliness, and self-doubt. To be an expatriate of “good” motherhood is no less shocking, no less lonely, and no less anxiety-inducing. This collection braids original creative pieces with critical inquiry into the roots of disorienting riptides of motherhood mythology. The creative pieces include flash nonfiction essays and poetry; the critical inquiry explores historical narratives, critical theory, feminist theory, and literary narratives. By braiding these different forms, the work aims to create a collage of cultural artifacts, whose composition can better illuminate the darkest corners of elusive motherhood mythology.

Finding Tuwaqachi, And Other Essays, Cory G. Ferrer

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis is a collection in four parts, divided by genre with the exception of the titular essay series, Finding Tuwaqachi. Insecurity, affirmation, and our need to connection emerge as the primary themes of this work. The essay series, Finding Tuwaqachi, takes a close look at intentional community and center for alternative therapy located in southern Michigan during the 1970s, by examining several lives caught up in this project. Part two of this collection comprises a series of lyric essays which explore the need to be heard, as well as the ultimate fallibility of our attempts to understand and …

Her Body Breathes Into Mine, Zarah C. Moeggenberg

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of poetry highlights the complex human experience of what it means to be a woman who loves women. Adding to the discourse of lesbian poetry, within spoken word poetry and for-the-page poetry, these poems doubly voice silenced perspectives and identities. A large portion of the work is spoken word poetry, which seeks to make the subgenre more accessible to a larger audience. Set primarily in the Midwest, these poems voice queer identity that asks us to consider what makes someone a person, as identity is much more than sexuality. Love, sex, loss, sexuality and gender expression are themes …