Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Leaving Myself Behind, Shea Montgomery

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This work presents poems detailing different events of my life in an almost chronological order, while at the same time juxtaposing them against the backdrop of a life changing car accident I suffered through when I was 21. The events detailed within the poems reflect moments in my life that occurred either before or after this car accident, and I have arranged them in such a way that I hope will show my own struggles with masculinity while growing up, while at the same time realizing my own mortality by the end.

The poems contained within this work detail my …

Advertising "In These Times:" How Historical Context Influenced Advertisements For Willa Cather's Fiction, Erika K. Hamilton

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Willa Cather's novels were published during a time of upheaval. In the three decades between Alexander's Bridge and Sapphira and the Slave Girl, America's optimism, social mores, culture, literature and advertising trends were shaken and changed by World War One, the "Roaring Twenties," and the Great Depression. This dissertation examines how Cather's fiction was advertised in periodicals during this time, how literary and historical context influenced advertisements, and how publicity for Cather conversed with and diverged from advertising trends. Each chapter explores Cather's opinions on publicity strategies such as author photos, reviews, gossip, prizes, speaking engagements and endorsements, while …

Shelterbelt: Land That Speaks, Ryan Oberhelman

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis is a collection of short stories drafted in between 2012 and 2014. The stories in this collection have been selected for their common themes of masculinity, work, fractured families, and rural decline. Many stories offer fragmented, non-linear approaches to narrative.

Note: This thesis deposited as hard copy only. There is no digital document associated with this record. beyond the title page and abstract.

Student Engagement And Action In Classroom And Community: Place-Based Education And Social Action For The High-Achieving Student, Rachel M. Jank

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper briefly discusses the work done in a college-preparatory, Senior English class to combat the disengagement present in many educational institutions. This disconnect does not allow for learning retention and, therefore, does not allow for students to apply the moment of learning to life outside of the secondary classroom. The work I do is based off of Jessica Singer Early, Bruce Bigelow, Linda Christensen, and many other master teachers who work with the educational designs of Place Consciousness and Social Action within their respective classrooms. The theories of John Dewey and Paulo Freire suggest that a non-traditional style of …

Poets Don't Ride Motorcycles, Andrew G. Tully

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This is a collection of poems that focus more on minutia and happenstance than larger universal themes. Using free-form lines and stanzas, spare construction, and dark yet powerful imagery, these poems remind readers of the meaningful emotional impact everyday items and interactions can have. The extraordinary and unusual are important too, and form a stark contrast to the poems about the mundane. These poems are not meant to be a final collection, but are a solid base for a book-length manuscript that will expand on the themes, images, and stories contained in this thesis.

Adviser: Kwame Dawes

Pedagogy In Action: Teaching And Writing As Rhetorical Performance, Lesley E. Bartlett

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Drawing from work in composition studies, rhetorical theory, and feminist theory, this project builds on questions of identity, embodiment, and privilege to enrich conversations about writing pedagogy and teacher development in Composition and Rhetoric. I begin with the assumption that all acts of writing and teaching are performances, whether they are marked as such or not. I engage rhetorical and feminist theories to critically read classroom moments, student writing, and composition scholarship as I urge writing teachers to reflect on the extent to which their embodied pedagogical performances align with their theoretical commitments regarding student learning and teacher development. My …

Adding To Blake Set To Music: A Bibliography, Ashanka Kumari

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

William Blake, like other Romantic-era poets, was inspired by and wrote about the world around him. The hundreds of poems he wrote later inspired other genres such as music. In 1990 the University of California Press published Blake Set to Music: A Bibliography of Musical Settings of the Poems and Prose of William Blake written by Donald Fitch. This bibliography lists 1,412 pieces up to 1988. The following bibliography consists of pieces of music written after Fitch’s bibliography was published or, in a few cases, a composition written before Fitch’s bibliography was published, but not mentioned in that bibliography. This …

Getting Away: Three Chapters Of A Novel Draft, Martin M. Chaffee

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis consists of three chapters of a novel in progress. Getting Out is the story of Joel and Sarah Bauer, a couple in their mid-twenties who teach at an international school in Maracaibo, Venezuela. They are struggling to break the news to Sarah’s conservative Christian parents, Bill and Cindy, that they are planning to make a career as international teachers instead of returning home as previously planned. Anticipating that Bill and Cindy will receive the news poorly, Joel and Sarah have decided to fly her parents to Maracaibo to break the news. But on the morning of her parents' …