Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Becoming Body In Euripides: Affect And Object In Bacchae, The Trojan Women, And Hecuba, Olivia Kulczycky

Honors Projects

In this thesis, I explore the material and immaterial flux of bodies in three plays by Euripides as they attempt to reach the Deleuzian body without organs (BwO). The first chapter, “Flesh,” focuses on the corporeal body of Dionysus in Bacchae as he transcends its boundaries to reach the BwO. The next chapter, “(No)Thing,” examines presence, absence, and elements in The Trojan Women, drawing attention to the role of affective breath. In my thesis’ final chapter, “Sound,” I analyze the sonic body of lamentation that Hecuba builds in Hecuba to territorialize herself with a refrain and deterritorialize herself to reach …

African Muslim Slaves: Literacy And Arabic Narratives, Ruba Bouzan

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

This thesis examines African Muslim slaves and their Arabic writings that influenced their enslavement. The first part of my research considers the historical context that weaves two American presidents together with their distant interaction with Muslim slaves. It also discusses three prominent Muslim slaves in American history: Ayyub bin Suleiman, Abdul Rahman Ibrahima, and Omar ibn Said. Throughout the discussion of the lives of these three men, I analyze their Arabic writing and their use of mimicry throughout, and the ways in which this influenced their patrons‚Äô views of them. The second part explores their differing levels of Arabic literacy …

"I Did Not Plant The Seeds Too Deeply": Intergenerational Trauma And Shame In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye And Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory, Grace Ann Kimmell

Honors Projects

When trauma‚Äôs genesis is in societal racism or the patriarchal power structure, it can leach its way into our intimate family relationships. Those damaged relationships can in turn create a profound loss or division within the self, as Freud explains in ‚ÄúMourning and Melancholia.‚Äù The trauma victim has lost what a parent or family should be and the security that comes with feeling accepted and loved. If trauma begins with systemic racism and sexism and gets passed down intergenerationally, what is its effect on a black female child‚Äôs identity? Is this trauma survivable? What is necessary to recover? My thesis …

The Evolution Of The Spinster: Austen And Woolf's Single Women Characters, Naomi Stewart

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

This thesis explores the single woman's situation in the 18th and 19th centuries. It examines changes to the role of the woman in these times, and what has not changed.

"Sufficient To Have Stood, Though Free To Fall": Free Will In John Milton's Paradise Lost, David Martineau

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

In Book I of Paradise Lost, John Milton (1608-1674) asserts his intent to “justifie the wayes of God to men” (Paradise Lost1 I 26), paving the way for a revolutionary discussion of human nature, divinity, and the problem of evil, all couched in an epic retelling of Satan’s fall from grace, his temptation of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, as recounted in the Book of Genesis. In his treatment of the biblical account, Milton necessarily broaches a variety of subjects which were both relevant during his time and remain relevant in …

Ambassador Between Two Nations: Shakespeare In American Ideology, Nicholas Jaroma

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

The purpose of this thesis was to examine William Shakespeare’s role in American ideology. Utilizing the theoretical approaches of Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, adaptation and appropriation theories, and Critical Race Theory, I argue that Shakespeare is an integral part of American history and culture by how his works factor into American ideologies, particularly within ideologies focusing on race and colonialism. Specific plays and Shakespeare’s texts are analyzed, and I also follow the literary history of Americans in response to these plays. My first chapter looks at the Revolutionary and early republic eras, with particular focus on John Adams, his son …

A Greco-Latin Numerical List In A St. Gall Fragment, Brandon W. Hawk

Faculty Publications

This article provides a detailed examination of a manuscript page in St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1395, with special attention given to an unnoticed Greco-Latin numerical list. The main content of the page derives from Bede’s De temporum ratione, and the fragment offers information about the transmission of this computational text. Furthermore, scribal notes accompanying the list show early medieval uses of Greek learning alongside Latin sources—a phenomenon reflected in a number of other manuscripts from the same time period. Such glosses are also related to the overall trends of Carolingian learning, as well as some possible Insular connections.

Waving The Red Flag, Christopher Cassaday

Honors Projects

"Waving The Red Flag," is a collections of three fictional short stories written using both fragmented and linear narratives.

The Evil Mad: Villainous Neurosis In Batman, Chelsea C. Riordan

Honors Projects

An analysis of Batman media-- specifically, various cartoons and comic books-- with an eye towards the franchise's representation of mental illness and disability. This honors project examines Batman through the lens of multiple genres and understands it as a cultural artifact that reflects mainstream anxieties regarding the mentally ill and mental illness.

Prosthesis: From Grammar To Medicine In The Earliest History Of The World, Brandon W. Hawk

Faculty Publications

This article provides an examination of the earliest history of the term prosthesis in English, re-evaluating other such histories with previously unrecognized archival material from early printed books. These sources include sixteenth- and seventeenth-century early printed books such as handbooks of grammar, English dictionaries, British Latin dictionaries, and medical treatises on surgery. Such an investigation reveals both a more nuanced trajectory of the early history of the word in English and fuller context for a shift in meaning from usages in the study of grammar and rhetoric to the study of medicine and surgery. This narrative, then, speaks to the …

There Will Be Oil: The Celebration And Inevitability Of Petroleum Through Upton Sinclair And Paul Thomas Anderson, Sarah Mae Fleming

Honors Projects

An analysis of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair and the film There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, with a focus on the presence of oil in these texts.

Writing Voice And Character For The Page And Stage, Remson Dejoseph

Honors Projects

A collection of three stories consisting of a 10 minute Play, a One-Act Play, and an Expository Character piece in prose. All three pieces take advantage of voice in the particular medium to convey the characters and push the story.

Carmilla's Creampuffs, Amanda Irwin

Honors Projects

By using "Carmilla" as the ideal model of a web series with its approach to queer adaptation, brand partnerships, and overall fandom involvement, the qualities that web series must posses in order to be considered successful are outlined.

Crossing The Line, Cameron Bryce

Honors Projects

In The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, author H. Porter Abbott defines narrative as “the representation of an event or a series of events” (13). Given this broad definition, narrative events can be represented in a number of ways, as seen in different storytelling mediums like literature, film, television, paintings, video games, or even daily oral storytelling. Narrative is the way in which one communicates a story. In literature, writers must use text and the placement of text on a page or a screen in order to convey a series of events. Writers can utilize narrators in literature in a number …

He, Jessica Bourget

Honors Projects

This small collection of essays addresses the author's relationship to men in her life, in particular her father and stepfather. In "Somewhere Else," she writes about her often changing and unstable relationship with her biological father. She continues this exploration in "What They Don't Tell You" in a different way, addressing her father and mother's relationship and comparing it to an unhealthy dating relationship in her own life. In her last piece, she writes about her stepfather dealing with the death of his brother and simultaneous adoption of his nephew, while also coming to terms with the reality of her …

Teaching History Of The English Language With The Blickling Homilies, Brandon W. Hawk

Faculty Publications

The increasing digitization of medieval and early modern archives provides a wealth of materials for teaching with primary sources beyond printed textbooks. The growth of online manuscripts is especially a boon for presenting primary sources in facsimiles of their original forms for History of the English Language courses.[1] While a general textbook works to give students a sense of the overall scope of each period and the developments in the language—for this iteration of the course, I used the second edition of The English Language: A Historical Introduction, by Charles Barber, Joan C. Beal, and Philip A. Shaw—primary materials …

Psalm 151 In Anglo-Saxon England, Brandon W. Hawk

Faculty Publications

The Psalms were a central aspect of Anglo-Saxon religious and biblical learning, and for this reason they have garnered much attention in recent scholarship. Yet the apocryphal, supernumerary Psalm 151 in particular would benefit from greater sustained attention. By focusing on this individual psalm, the present article situates the apocryphon within its intellectual, material, and literary contexts. In the first part of this essay, the surviving patristic and medieval evidence for learned attitudes toward the psalm in relation to the rest of the canonical Psalter are discussed, as well as the manuscript witnesses in AngloSaxon England. In the second part …

Isidorian Influences In Ælfric's Preface To Genesis, Brandon W. Hawk

Faculty Publications

In this article, I propose Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae as a source for three passages in Ælfric’s Preface to Genesis. With these source identifications established, I further develop the argument to claim that Isidorian techniques are a key influence on Ælfric’s assumptions about biblical language, translation, and interpretation as reflected in the Preface. Such assumptions, in fact, inform the vernacular pedagogical project at the heart of the Preface as an introduction to his translation of Genesis into Old English.

"Your Doctor Knows The Symbols", Andrew Michael Gorman

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

In Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self, Stacy Alaimo effectively formulates the concept of “trans-corporeality,” a theoretical frame for thinking about the human body as a site of exchange with the environment. Trans-corporeality “grapples with the ways in which environmental ethics, social theories, popular understandings of science, and conceptions of the human self are profoundly altered by the recognition that ‘the environment’ is not located somewhere out there, but is always the very substance of ourselves” (4). In this, trans- corporeality highlights that while human action is imposed onto the environment, actions of the environment are simultaneously …

Thoroughly Under The Skin, Patrick Pride

Honors Projects

This honors project examines the connections between literature and political theory. Specifically I will follow the journey of the British literary critic Raymond Williams. Williams had a very interesting life. He grew up in the Black Mountains of Wales as the son of a railroad worker: a life he memorialized in his autobiographical novel Border Country (1960). In his obituary of Williams in The New Statesman in 1988, Stuart Hall reminds us how Williams’s deep sense of attachment to the Welsh working class border community of inhabited shared commitments in which he grew up. This community of shared commitments was …

Helping Students Gain A Better Understanding Of Writing, Jessica L. Ulmer

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

The primary purpose of this study is to develop a curriculum for first-year writing that can be taught at the two-year college to help students transfer writing skills to courses taken afterwards. The second chapter aims to define what transfer is and identify a few different approaches to teach for transfer, which led to the discovery of the Writing about Writing pedagogy as developed by Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle. This research was influenced heavily by Anne Beaufort’s College Writing and Beyond as well. Following this, the third chapter examines the nature of the two-year college that makes it uniquely …

The Expositio In Epistolas Beati Pauli Ex Operibus S. Augustini By Florus In Strasbourg, Bnu Ms.0.309, Brandon W. Hawk

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to correct the catalogue description for Strasbourg, Bibliothéque Nationale et Universitaire MS.0.309. While the catalogue identifies the contents of the manuscript as a compilation of comments on Paul’s epistles collected by Bede, the work is actually a similar collection by Florus of Lyon. The article contains an overview of previous scholarship identifying and distinguishing these two collections, as well as a corrected description of the contents of Strasbourg 309 based on the author’s examination.

A Study Of Cape Verdeanness In Postcolonial Cape Verdean Poetry, David Joseph Alpert

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Cape Verdeanness is another name for Cape Verdean cultural identity. Postcolonial Cape Verdeanness refers to Cape Verdeanness as it has expressed itself since July 5, 1975, the first day of Cape Verdean independence. Postcolonial Cape Verdeanness has previously been described at length in the social sciences scholarship. Postcolonial Cape Verdeanness has previously been implicitly rather than explicitly represented in descriptions of postcolonial Cape Verdean poetry in the scholarly literature.

This study is a first of its kind consideration of postcolonial Cape Verdeanness. It is also the first time Cape Verdeanness of any kind has been explicitly represented by means of …

Gender And Ideology In Disney's Beast Fables, Stephanie Mastrostefano

Honors Projects

The Walt Disney Corporation is one of the dominant ideological state apparatuses of the last eighty years. One of the ways in which the Walt Disney Corporation naturalizes a particular ideological value system is in the animated feature film’s representation of gender. Using Judith Butler’s work on gender representation as the critical framework, along with Louis Althusser’s concept of ideology, and Michel Foucault’s definition of cultural discourse, I analyze and interpret key representations of gender in anthropomorphized animal protagonists within the Disney “Beast Fable” films, Bambi (1942), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and The Lion King (1994). My analysis of …

The Buried Seed: Generational Narcissism In D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, Christine Dennen

Honors Projects

D.H. Lawrence’s novel The Rainbow follows three generations of the Brangwen family as they experience problems of identity while trying to navigate a changing world. The identity issues in the novel can be understood as symptomatic of what clinical psychologists term Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Each generation embodies narcissistic traits that prevent them from living happy, full lives. The thesis focuses on the generational aspect of the novel and how the repeated narcissistic issues found in each generation build on and reflect one another, culminating in the character of Ursula. With this character Lawrence portrays the struggles necessary to transcend the …

Superheros As Social Practice, Sara K. Reilly

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

In this thesis, I investigate two representative examples of the superhero as teaching machine of nationalism and consumerism, Superman and Iron Man. In the Superman chapter, I trace the corporate use of superheroes through Superman’s history of appropriation by corporations to sell both abstract ideals and material products. I also consider the rise of the role of media technology and media corporations, beginning with the radio show in 1941 and ending with the first “serious” superhero film in 1978, to show how the viewing audience internalizes messages of nationalism and consumerism. In the Iron Man chapter, I focus on the …

Along The Horseshoe, Maurice R. Beaulieu

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

This thesis is a major component towards a completed short-story cycle. The author’s work uses a multi-faceted aspect of storytelling by employing its many characters and isolated chapters in a mosaic form. All stories operate independently while simultaneously linking together through familiar characters and setting. Every story involves characters who reside on the same suburban cul-de-sac, which forces them to interact with each other and influencing their lives. By having these characters return, sometimes by a brief presence only and other times by mention of their name, creates a concrete social atmosphere. The author’s work provides several glimpses into the …

"Ok, I'M A Teacher Now:" Reading Young Adult Literature In A Teacher Education Program, Brittany Richer

Honors Projects

After taking a young adult literature course as part of my Secondary Education/ English program, I felt I had gained only a limited understanding of the importance of the genre to my future career. In the class, we read several popular young adult texts, learned about their authors, identified censorship issues, and mentioned a few strategies related to the teaching of the texts. Much of the “understanding” related only to future applications in imagined classrooms, which left no room for critical reflection about what we might learn from reading the texts about ourselves as students and teachers. A sense of …

An Opposing Self, Christine M. Gamache

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

People have always been both frightened and fascinated by the unknown, and themes touching on the existence of things beyond human understanding have longevity in the literary arena as well as in popular culture. One such theme is that of the doppelgänger, or double, which has been around for centuries but was first made popular by Jean-Paul’s (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter) work Hesperus in 1795. Due to a resurgence in the nineteenth century in the popularity of Gothic literature, doppelgängers, or variations of this double motif, found their way into some of the most famous works of literature …

"Sometimes Saying Nothing...Says The Most", Lawrence O'Brien

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

After nearly one hundred years of publication and copious literary criticism, Emily Dickinson remains one of the most enigmatic figures in American literature and her poetry among the most inscrutable. In deceptively simple ballad stanza, Dickinson can be by turns, mysterious or playful or deadly serious or misleading or insightful or obscure, but, above all, puzzling. Her poems consistently and continually resist easy paraphrase or simple interpretation, very often towards the end of challenging accepted "truth" by revealing inherent contradictions. She has some clear affinities to both the methodologies of apophatic discourse and to différance, which Derrida himself has said …