Arts and Humanities Commons^™

In-Between The Wind, Victoria L. Vontz

LSU Master's Theses

In-between the Wind is a compilation of poems, short stories, theories, photographs, and drawings that reveal my relationship and connection with nature. Through prose, I expose and question my place in the world, how I see it and how I am connected to it, while photographic images and drawings leave space for thoughtful and reflective meditation. The work draws upon memories, discusses theories of connection, and aims to record ephemeral moments that often seem to be too easily forgotten.

The Undiscovered Country, Luke A. Atkinson

LSU Master's Theses

The Undiscovered Country is a compendium of paintings, prose, and poetry that defines the place of creation. This work is a response to life as I find it, in as honest and truthful a way as my ability allows. Sergei Prokofiev said, “The more the sea rages, the more precious a hard rock among the waves becomes.” My paintings are solid rocks that I cling to. Hopefully, someone else can too.

The Function Of Poetry In The Maqamat Al-Hariri, Hussam Almujalli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Maqamat al-Hariri is one of the most notable examples of prose in Arabic literature. Called one of the most eloquent statements of medieval Arabic prose, it also serves as a religious, social, cultural, and political document of the Abbasid Caliphate. As a writer, al-Hariri became a famous figure in Arabic literature after writing his maqamat. This dissertation studies al-Hariri as a poet through his most important prose work, the Maqamat al-Hariri.

Chapter 1 of the dissertation provides an overview of the maqama genre, including its definition, themes, stylistic features, character types, a brief history of maqamat studies, …

Momentary Eddies, Leah Marie Hamel

LSU Master's Theses

Our lives are in a constant state of change, from the most intimate scale physically and emotionally to the world surrounding us externally. The relationships we build with ourselves, others, and the world surrounding us are important structures we carry with us throughout life. Momentary Eddies is a visual poem about the interconnectedness of our inner and outer landscapes. I have created a hauntingly dreamlike space that explores a landscape of emotions that are an entangled part of personal intimate relationships and how the emotional and physical topographies of these relationships connect to the environment surrounding us. These paper sculptures …

La Philosophie Poétique D'Édouard Glissant, Un Monisme Vitaliste, David Llorca

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Édouard Glissant (1928-2011) is a world famous poet and novelist from French Island Martinique who, following the footsteps of Aimé Césaire, tried to heal the traumatic disruption and resolve the identity crisis of Creole people after the abominations of slavery and colonization by poetic sublimation and engaged thoughts. How is Glissant a philosopher? How does he articu-late poetry and philosophy together? What does he understand by “Relation”, why is it central in his thought and how does the articulation of all his concepts around it make a philosophical en-semble? How original and cohesive is this ensemble? Also, as we know …

Fuckstutter, Anthony Francis Ramstetter

LSU Master's Theses

This manuscript is my Master thesis, which I have compiled to fulfill the requirements of a creative writing examination in poetry. It collects various pathways of poetry in terms of both form & content into professional & publishable finality. The thesis presents sections (untitled) which include subsequent themes & variations that qualifies, consolidates, & measures the poet’s work during this program of writing herein.

A Cleansing Breath: A Journey Of Creation On The Hard Road, Addie Leigh Barnhart

LSU Master's Theses

To adhere to the structure of Louisiana State University and Swine Palace’s Actor Training program, the M.F.A. candidates are required to develop new work. This project is in place to cultivate the individual actor’s sensitivities to his/her own process in theatre making, grow as an artist, and begin the long journey of devising and constructing work, in this case a solo play, that has the potential to continue to grow after graduation. My piece is derived from several of the classic Greek plays and myths but told with a twist on the traditional stories and entirely from different women’s perspectives. …

A Charming Re(A)D, Chelsea Ramirez

LSU Master's Theses

A Charming Re(a)d is an MFA Thesis Exhibition portraying the domestic still life surrounding the human emotional attachments to objects. A residual memory surfaces within a specific gathering of things: a moment that resonates over time becoming peculiarly precious in the daily routine. A Charming Re(a)d combines poetry with experimental collages with paint and a ceramic sculptural sound installation all rooted in drawing. Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons and pieces of the artist’s own written text appear as descriptive, abstract prose that define mundane objects with substance. These elements come together to further commemorate the domestic home. The written portion is …

A Peculiar Paradigm Of Perpetual Parallax, Randi Marie Willett

LSU Master's Theses

Reality estranges as an encumbrance, a cage that traps with its clipped wings, layered veils, and stiff blankets. This hold subsists as an immovable vessel potted but never earthbound—mounted in a strained compartment, like jars with tight lids, lacking: in air, in breath, in imaginary attributes. Finally, with a last breath, an emergence blooms upon that which contextualizes momentary “reality” or rather that which defines a metaphorical escape from… actuality. My singular endeavor is to escape. My momentary escape is found in the illusory. My illusion is a perception of reality and with this perception I find my singular endeavor... …

Avis De Recherche : Valentine Penrose, Œuvre Et Vie D'Une Artiste Surréaliste, Séverine Aline Orban

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

"Avis de Recherche: Valentine Penrose, vie et œuvre d’une artiste surréaliste" presents a new appreciation of the work of French artist, poet and novelist Valentine Penrose associated with the Surrealist Movement. This research offers the first detailed and accurate version of Valentine Penrose’s biography, which shows her relationship with artists and writers of her time, and her engagement during the Spanish Civil War and WWII. It compiles and publishes for the first time all her unpublished and ‘forgotten’ works with accompanying analyses for each piece. It demonstrates through the recording of her life and the exploration of her poetry how …

Trans-Atlantic Circulation Of Black Tropes: Èsù And The West African Griot As Poetic References For Liberation In Cultures Of The African Diaspora, Jean-Baptiste Meunier

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation, under the direction of Dr Pius Ngandu Nkashama explores the spread of African rhetorical tropes in the Atlantic world. Building on Henry Louis Gates theory of Signifying, I use the West African God of fate Èsù and the West African cultural figure of the griot as cultural referents for the persistence of African tropes in the New World and their subsequent dissemination throughout the Atlantic world. Analyzing those two West African referents and their connections to New World cultures such as Afro-Brazilian capoeira angola, hip hop and African-American poetry, I attempt to demonstrate the centrality of the trope …

Wiggle Veil (Or, Love Needs Objects), Adrienne Lynch

LSU Master's Theses

The six sculptural works that comprise my thesis exhibition emerged from a prolonged series of investigations into the intricately interconnected phenomenon of embodied experience in the world as we know it. These works explore the connections between mysteries in our inner and outer worlds, taking as inescapable fact the notion that our bodily vessels, in all their complexity and subtlety, are the vehicles through which we encounter the world. As such, this work posits embodiment as both frame and anchor for all knowledge and experience. These sculptures, made from ceramic materials and mixed media such as sugar, salt, string, and …

The Illumination Of E. E. Cummings' Poetry In J. A. C. Redford's "Love Is The Every Only God", Amy Louise Aucoin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The choral work love is the every only god, composed by J. A. C. Redford, was published in 2001, placing it among the initial choral concert works published in the twenty-first century. love is the every only god is a song cycle for divisi mixed chorus with piano accompaniment based on six poems by E. E. Cummings. The work is organized into six movements with two interludes and lasts approximately twenty-five minutes. Beyond his regard for the art of poetry and care in choosing a text, Redford sees himself as an illuminator of the text, providing the listener with a …

Zachary Richard's "Faire Récolte": A Translation From The French, Michael D. Bierschenk

LSU Master's Theses

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Cajun language, which had been entirely oral for most of its history, began to emerge as a productive literary language. One of the prominent new authors of the period was Zachary Richard, also an important Cajun musician. One of his collections of poetry, Faire récolte (Les Éditions Perce-Neige, 1997), is translated here. This thesis also includes a translator's note that briefly explores the broad themes of the poems and the methods used in translating them.

Caller Id, Plamen Ivanov Arnaudov

LSU Master's Theses

As one might expect from a young poet writing at the turn of a millennium, recurrent in "Caller ID" is the theme of struggle with literary tradition and of seeing it as both necessary and constricting to the project of forging one's own creative identity. The collision between history and the self is visible in the often conflicted references to great philosophers and poets of the past as well as in the call for renewal of the body poetic after an envisioned 'end of history' marked by creative sterility and exhaustion. The proposed renewal does not entail destruction of tradition …

The Blues In Three Parts: A Collection Of Poetry, Short Stories, And A Screenplay, Desha Tolar Kelly

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis is entitled, “The Blues in Three Parts: A Collection of Poetry, Short Stories, and a Screenplay.” The first part, a collection of poetry, contains themes of childhood and adolescence, love and loss, life struggles, writing, and death. The second part, a collection of short stories, contains five stories centered on similar themes. The third and final part, a screenplay entitled “Cow”, contains elements of the first two parts as well. The epigraph, which contemplates the idea that the blues is not only music, but all the ups and downs of life, sets the stage for the central thread, …

In The Temple Of Off-Ramps, Nat W. Hardy

LSU Master's Theses

Any creative thesis of poetry is an attempt to distill one’s aesthetic sensibilities into a single masterwork. This particular venture is not unique in that respect. What separates this lyrical endeavour from more flaccid mainstream poetry, however, is its visionary temper, for this is a poetics of revolt for truly revolting times. This poetics of subversion embodies a reactionary aesthetic that traverses both the beauty and the horror of our world, and as the poems expose social injustice, they venture sporadically into the sublime delicacy of disgust. “In the Temple of Off-Ramps” is ultimately a search for meaning in the …