Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lolita In The Contemporary American Classroom: Pedagogical And Learning Approaches, Jasmine Revels

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of this study is to discover effective collegiate-level teaching and learning strategies for Vladimir Nabokov’s 1958 novel Lolita in the midst of the current American political and social climate. Some of the factors of the current political and social climate in the United States thought to have an effect on the teaching of Lolita, and were thus considered for further inquiry, were cancel culture, the Me Too Movement, and trigger warnings. Primary research was collected from college students and English college professors. To obtain this research and the opinions of respondents regarding this topic, a combination of both …

Factors That Impact Efl Acquisition In Cape Verde, William Patrick Rezende Moreno

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that impact English as a foreign language acquisition in Cape Verde. While in Cape Verde students are taught English as a foreign language (EFL from now on) for many years, upon graduation many of them are unable to have basic conversations in English. As a result, many students in Cape Verde lose the opportunity to get a better job inside and outside Cape Verde or potential scholarships to study in an English-speaking country. This study intended to explore the students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards EFL in Cape Verde. The main …

Violet Is One Letter Off From Violent, Audrey E. Spina

Master’s Theses and Projects

The poems in this creative collection, Violet is one letter off from violent, aim to add to the critical conversation in contemporary poetry about violence, women’s anger, patriarchal oppression, and physical and sexual assault, specifically drawing on analyses from the poetry of Rachel McKibbens, Tarfia Faizullah, Emily Skaja, Erika L. Sánchez, Tracy K. Smith, Safiya Sinclair, and Paisley Rekdal. My myriad speakers, who take both first and third person points of narrative view, reclaim and reproduce their own stories in ways that are complex, vulnerable, and angry as a result of living under and through traumatic experiences in domestic and …

Cold Snap, Skylar Beauregard

Master’s Theses and Projects

For my Master’s Thesis project, I will be writing an original piece of realistic fiction inspired by the “dirty realism” literary movement of the 20th century. This piece of fiction, at the end of these two semesters, will resemble a novella in length and style while focusing on execution and maintenance of profluence as an element of narrative craft. My first semester will be spent conducting topical research on female urban youth and modern sex work in the form of short interviews and field research, closely reading some relevant contemporary “dirty realism” pieces of fiction, and using craft-based handbooks to …

Flipgrid And Second Language Acquisition Using Flipgrid To Promote Speaking Skills For English Language Learners, Annelise Difilippantonio-Pen

Master’s Theses and Projects

Integrating twenty-first century skills within the classroom has become a global driving force within the educational field. While schools have adopted models of one-to-one technology or digital formats for native English speakers, addressing the twenty-first century skills for English language learners have been absent. Given that the present global society is driven on bilingualism and multilingualism, English language learners need to be given the equitable digital opportunity to build their twenty-first century skills. The purpose of this mixed methods research study is to explore the influence and use of the digital application, Flipgrid, on the oral, English development for foundational, …

Sense, Sensibility, Sympathy, Social Class Upheaval In Jane Austen’S Novels, Megan M. Libby

Master’s Theses and Projects

This thesis will explore Jane Austen’s social commentary on class structure and boundaries as they evolved from her writing of Sense and Sensibility to Persuasion. By identifying and researching the philosophical concepts of sense, sensibility, and sympathy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I examine how Austen shifted her beliefs to reflect the changes in social class occurring in England during her lifetime. I will be conducting close readings of the two novels, along with various historical texts, diary entries, and letters from the time period in question in order to recognize how historical events influenced the social structure in …

“Well, I’Ve Whispered ‘Racism’ In A Post-Racial World”: Satire And The Absurdity Of “Post-Racial” America, Joseph Gorman

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of this thesis project is to look at the works of contemporary African American satirists as they confront post-racial ideology. In looking at the works of Jordan Peele, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, and Boots Riley, thematic threads emerge to form a portrait of dire unrest amongst those non-white identities living in an allegedly post-racial world. Before analyzing the works, I first contextualize the thesis with a brief discussion of satire as a literary genre and African American satire as a literary subgenre, as well as address the emergence of post-racial ideology during the tenure of Barack Obama as …

“Closer To The Objective”: Following Helen From Troy To Chicago, Jillian Boger

Master’s Theses and Projects

“Closer to the Objective”: Following Helen from Troy to Chicago looks at the function of women in war and war-adjacent texts. Women are contextualized against the figure of Helen of Troy, who sets the standard for how women in war narratives have historically been treated in literature in film. The war narrative has existed as long as literature itself as existed, and in the Western canon, storytellers are constantly looking back at the Iliad, which serves as an Ur text in terms of how the war narrative--and in particular, the American war narrative--continues to be told today. Those American-centric war …

The Collective (A Novel): Part One, Jeffrey S. Davidson

Master’s Theses and Projects

The novel in draft, “The Collective,” is the result of an eight-month effort, which began in one of Professor Bruce Machart’s writing workshops at Bridgewater State University, spring of 2016. It sat for a couple of years of minor edits and revisions while I waited for the opportunity to once again work with Professor Machart. What follows is the first of four sections of the novel, book one of four if you will. The first eighty pages of a significantly longer work, this thesis lays the footstones of a dramatic defamiliarization of the Santa Claus myth. I’ve turned everything about …

Connected: An Artist’S Investigation Into Digital Communication, Brenda Roveda

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of my thesis was to develop a body of utilitarian ceramic pottery, which examines the internal conflict I have with digital communication and its impact on social interactions. I draw inspiration from historic ceramic artworks for my wheel-thrown and hand-built forms. My traditionally inspired utilitarian forms are ornamented with surface decorations that represent contemporary symbols of the digital age. By doing this I intend to create artworks that allow the viewer to contemplate the evolution of human communication and their own reliance on technological devices.

My studio investigations incorporate scholarly research of historic artworks and time periods combined …

Fight The Power: Subversion In The Oral Tradition Of African-American Art, Craig Demelo

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

This Light Is Not My Own: Détournement, Authorial Intent, And Activated Spectatorship In Visual Art, Ryan Mehigan

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Katherine Dunn’S Geek Love And The Question Of Being Human In Freak Form, Abigail Hess

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Languish: Chapters From A Novel, Melissa L. Ryan

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Treatment Of Violence In Young Adult Literature: Rick Yancey's Monstrumology Series, Hannah Ruth Balsavich

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Little Left Of Normal, Nicole Archambault

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Saint Jude Knows Us By Name And Other Stories, Abigail Wooton

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Broken Hearts: Short Stories, Angelique Paparella

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Film Genre And David Fincher's Gone Girl, Emily Vanleuvan

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

She Said, He Said: The Gendering Of Truth In Memoir, Angela M. Furioso

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Between Authenticity And The Postracial: Cultural Trafficking And Identity In Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor And Percival Everett's Erasure, Jonathan Naumowicz

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Liberating Irony: Investigating Postmodern Techniques In David Foster Wallace's Short Fiction, Timothy Urban

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Hebrew-Jewish Disconnection, Jacey Peers

Master’s Theses and Projects

A common language creates a cultural community regardless of geographical boundaries. In the Jewish community this language is Hebrew. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship that American Jews have with the Hebrew language in terms of comprehension, the value they place on Hebrew, and how they position themselves on the Jewish spectrum (religiously and culturally). The research carried out was both qualitative and quantitative, including both a survey and interviews. While the subjective assessments by questionnaire takers indicated that many did not find a deep connection between Hebrew and their religious identity, a closer look provided …

High School Performance Of Cape Verdean Immigrant Students In New Bedford: A Linguistic Perspective, Mauro S. Dos Reis

Master’s Theses and Projects

The English language (EL) has become the world’s lingua franca. It has entered a great number of countries’ educational systems and it has become a requirement to succeed academically and professionally. Cape Verde is one of the countries that have included EL in their school programs; the quality of the learning process in English is a permanent issue for Cape Verdean schools. In this project, Cape Verdean immigrant students in New Bedford, Massachusetts, who started their high school education in Cape Verde and continued in the New Bedford High Schools will be interviewed in order to explore their integration in …

The Narrative Of Traumatic Memory In Postcolonial Irish Fiction, Kayla Mccarthy-Curtis

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Knowing Your Place: The Impact Of Public Sphere Rhetoric On Face-To-Face Communities, And The Rhetorics That Support Racial Equality, Laura Hanson Ells

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Looking For The Arab(-American) Woman's Body In Najla Said's Looking For Palestine: Growing Up Confused In An Arab-American Family, Shatha Ali Alhawamdeh

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Narrative Of Solitude In Mary Shelley's The Last Man, Margaret Atwood's The Year Of The Flood, And Cormac Mccarthy's The Road, John Nelson Balsavich

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Susan Abulhawa's Mornings In Jenin, Naomi Nye's Habibi, And Shaw Dallal's Scattered Like Seeds: A Critical Insight Into The Dialectic Of Past And Present In Contemporary Arab American Literature, Yassir Al Soud

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

A Phenomenological Exploration Of Objects In Time Travel Short Fiction, Andrea D. Howe

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.