Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Split At The Root, Robert S. Gryder

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Influenced by— and sometimes in conversation with— diverse literary voices such as Dorothy Allision (BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA), Harry Crews (A CHILDHOOD), and Mark Doty (FIREBIRD), SPLIT AT THE ROOT is a literary bildungsroman told primarily in the narrative mode. The memoir traces the narrator’s volatile beginnings in the trailer parks of rural South Carolina in the 1980s to the day he accepted, sight unseen, an offer of admission to Yale University, boarding a plane in 1993 for the first time in his life. This memoir explores the narrator’s quest for agency, deploying the essayist mode to interrogate along the …

Apparent Magnitude, Diana Anaya

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

APPARENT MAGNITUDE is a collection of lyric essays that explores family relationships, the Cuban-American immigrant experience, coming-of-age, and sexual trauma through the dual lenses of science and myth. This collection uses experimental forms, playing with the page. The experiences of an immigrant Cuban family are recounted through extended metaphors of celestial bodies, fairy tales, fables, and myths.

The literary influences of APPARENT MAGNITUDE include Rebecca McClanahan’s lyric essay, “Interstellar,” as well as A SMALL PLACE by Jamaica Kincaid. McClanahan’s use of scientific language and the metaphor of celestial bodies informs the way this collection approaches autobiographical experience. Kincaid’s prose style …

A Feminist Perspective On The Lack Of Full Ordination For Burmese Buddhist Nuns, Darbee Nicole Hagerty

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the position of Buddhist nuns (thila-shins) in contemporary Burmese society. The Sangha, a branch of the Burmese state, has disallowed them from seeking full ordination as bhikkhunis. Based on interviews and observations conducted in Myanmar in June-July 2015, the thesis examines the current socioeconomic status of thila-shins using a transnational feminist framework. It argues that Burmese Buddhist nuns are not simply passive victims of a patriarchal structure, but agents and actors within their own spaces who have their own agendas. The central questions are: How do thila-shins understand their social, economic, and religious position? How does ordination …

Parent-Child Interactions In The Presence Of Risk For Adhd With And Without Language Impairment, Sisan Walker Angel

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to analyze how parent-child interactions differ in discourse structure, communicative function and linguistic behaviors between children who are at high-risk for developing a behavioral disorder such as ADHD, and those who are at high-risk for developing a behavioral disorder with a co-occurring language impairment. Participants consisted of 20 children ages three to five years old and their parents. A five-minute parent-child interaction was video recorded and analyzed using an adapted version of the “Coding parent/child interaction as a clinical outcome: a research note” designed by Law, Barnett, and Kot (1999).

Results revealed slight differences …

Nec(Romantic), Cathleen F. Chambless

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

NEC(ROMANTIC) is a poetry collection thematically linked through images of insects, celestial bodies, bones, and other elements of the supernatural. These images are indicative of spells, but the parenthesis around romantic in the collection’s title also implies idealism. The poems explore the author’s experiences with death, grief, love, oppression, and addiction. NEC(ROMANTIC) employs the use of traditional forms such as the villanelle, sestina, and haiku to organize these experiences. Prose poetry and a peca kucha ground the center of NEC(ROMANTIC) which alternates between lyrical and narrative gestures.

NEC(ROMANTIC) is influenced by Sylvia Plath. The author uses Plath’s methods of compression, …