Creative Writing Commons^™

Call And Response : Experiments In Storytelling, Deanne Fernandes

Masters Theses

Being part of RISD's inaugural Masters of Illustration cohort has been an immense honor. This journey has been nothing short of transformative and healing, as it has allowed me to unearth layers of self-discovery through my creative practice.

In my thesis, I introduce a fresh research methodology rooted in the principles of call and response, with adaptability, creativity, and storytelling as its foundational pillars. Through the lenses of visual storytelling, experimental animation, graphic journalism, and fictional world-building, I demonstrate how these techniques can effectively bridge the gap between theory and practice. This dynamic approach fosters meaningful connections among diverse perspectives …

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Small Moments: Anthropological Poetry, Lee Davis

Undergraduate Theses

Have you ever perhaps overheard a conversation and thought it reminded you of your own life, or someone you knew? You most likely moved on, and you most likely completely forgot about who you overheard. This collection of poetry was written to urge thought on these secret moments of connection which most people experience every day. Every poem in the collection was written from something I overheard in public, as though I were reading prompts. The pieces are fictional in the sense that I really know so little of the full context, but real in the sense that when I …

Re-Membering The Living Earth: A Year In Rural Sri Lanka, Samuel C. King

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The following thesis tells the story of my year in rural Sri Lanka. After college, I traveled from suburban New York to the highlands of the island country with the hopes of writing an ethnography on agrarian Buddhism. I soon realized, however, that I was not just embarking on an academic project, but an inner journey to explore ways of being that had been lost in the modern culture I had known. My narrative recounts how immersion in a rice cultivating village deepened my sense for what it means to live in reciprocity with the more-than-human world—a world of plants, …

"We Have Nothing To Lose But Our Chains": Paving The Way To A New Horizon For Marginalized Youth, Soledad Aguilar-Colón

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature and Social Studies of Bard College.

Football Can Save America, Francisco Attie

Capstones

Looking to cure the malaise of our day, I went to the football game, and, in the dying breaths of the match, found something much greater. https://medium.com/@Fran_Attie/football-can-save-america-2bb918f19a97

Entities: A Field Of Imaginary Games, Thrasyvoulos Ioannis Kalaitzidis

LSU Master's Theses

With this body of work, I am looking for visual symbols that help communicate unuttered meanings through storytelling and stimulate an affectual response to the viewer. This exploration is presented in two different forms: a surreal sculptural installation and a board game. The installation consists of large-scale sculptures made from light and soft materials (polyurethane foam, plastic waste, paper) that are available to move inside the gallery, while the board game is presented as a set of 3D prints with instructions on how the participants can play it. The materials used in the installation suggest a way to transform waste …

Adoration Above Objectification: The Promotion Of Other In Black, Mexican And Arabic Love Poetry, Joycelynn L. Baker

Honors Projects

This paper analyzes the philosophical fundamentals of sexual objectification and presents opposing literature, written in the 20th century, by Black, Mexican and Arabic male poets in contrast. In vigorous patriarchal environments that provide more opportunities to practice sexual objectification, the poets reframe male metaphysical perception and behavior in romantic or sexual contexts by promoting the autonomy and agency of women above themselves, and displaying their enjoyment of that situation. This paper will discuss how Western metaphysical philosophy impacts self-perception and belief in contemporary romantic contexts.

Serendipityblah, Amanda Linn Kunkel

English Theses & Dissertations

So, you’ve stumbled upon my neck of the woods, where the weird and fantastical reside. Wit and humor may save you here but beware of what draws near. Beneath the bright and smiling facade, you may find the danse macabre. Within these pages you’ll find magic and wonder, darkness, and failure. The setting is post-March 2020 in Norfolk, Virginia. An urban city at the heart of Hampton Roads where the lines between reality and otherworldliness blur. Witches protect ghosts in a downtown Abbey. The fae break new ground in the art district of Ghent. Even Death stalks the halls of …

Where Life And Language Meet: An Interdisciplinary Collection In Context Of My Sámi Heritage, Miles Jordan Stevens

HON 499 Honors Thesis or Creative Project

Where Life and Language Meet is an interdisciplinary project exploring my Sámi heritage through research and the creation of a poetry collection. Following a brief historical background on the Sámi, the project showcases how my original poems are informed by Sámi storytelling practices. The analytical essay also explores how these poems fit into a larger framework of contemporary literature. Overall, this project demonstrates the creation of poetry as not only cultural heritage work but also a showcase for a culture not significantly explored in contemporary Western scholarship.

Traversing Paradigms: An Environmental Journey To Body And Mind, Martin Ceja Mejia

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Traumatic life experiences altered the way I perceive the world. As a result, I embark on a journey to reshape my relationship to self, the built and natural world; to environment. In this thesis I ask: How do I want to relate to the environment? Considering I am a doubly colonized agent, I also aim to decolonize my relationship to environment along the process. Therefore, this work aims to formulate a new, personal, relationship to environment through academic literature, history, psychology, Indigenous knowledge and science, and literary studies, among other fields of knowledge. This work is interdisciplinary in nature; life …

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …

Victim Impact: The Manson Murders And The Rise Of The Victims’ Rights Movement, Merrill W. Steeg

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Uprooting Medievalism: Ya And The Future Of Fantasy, Zoe Phillips

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This thesis looks at the development of the young adult neo-medieval fantasy genre, measuring famous works from the Medieval period against works such as Tolkien's, to examine the impact of female protagonists and female authors on the genre and readers alike as neo-medieval fantasy continues to gain in popularity. Works examined include: Beowulf, Lanval, Le Roman de Silence, The Hobbit, Uprooted, and The Hero and the Crown.

The Subaltern Magazine, Rebecca Fox, Riese Nichols

Social Sciences

The Subaltern intends to reach Cal Poly students who do not feel as if their voices are heard and allow them the platform to share their stories. Our focus is on unheard stories from our campus - whether this involves race, class, gender identity, mental health, ethnicity, culture, or any unique part of one’s identity or experience. We hope that these stories will begin to shed light on what we usually consider “taboo” topics and allow students to feel as if they aren’t alone.

Being a very homogeneous campus, it is important for us to realize that privileged voices are …

The Red Swimsuit: Essays, Jacqueline Knirnschild

Honors Theses

This thesis is a collection of creative non-fiction essays that offers a collage of ethnography, reportage and memoir. The Red Swimsuit blurs the lines between what is considered social science, journalism and art. These essays will become part of a book- length work of creative non-fiction that will explore what it’s like to grow up as a woman in a globalized world wrought with social media, hookup culture and cross-cultural interactions. The Red Swimsuit provides first-hand experience, reflexive narration, and reflection on life as a member of Generation Z, also known as iGen.

Baton Rouge Slam!: An Obituary For Summer 2016: A Critical Performance Ethnography Of Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam, Joshua Hamzehee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This critical performance ethnography presents the theory, methodology, and practice surrounding the fieldwork, scripting, and performance of Baton Rouge SLAM!: An Obituary for Summer 2016. As participant-observer, director, and co-performer, I unpack social drama, performance ethnography, and slam culture by employing a lens rooted in critical race theory. Local poets permitted me to de- and re-contextualize their interviews into ensemble scenes and theatricalize their slam poems about the recent summer’s charged events. One year later, this involved and embodied process of ethnographic bricolage became the ensemble cast performance of Baton Rouge SLAM!: An Obituary for Summer 2016. Community members and …

The Veilmakers, Emily Nicole Giangiulio

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Joint Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature and The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

Reverse The Curse: Colonialist Legacies Of The Magic Poem, Karen E. Lepri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the conceptual relationships between poetry, magic, and race and their effects on both intellectual and creative practices from modernism through the post-war era. In doing so, this study works cross-disciplinarily, tracing early anthropological and sociological characterizations of primitive religion in connection to early-to-mid-twentieth-century literary study and writing. In working across disciplines at this particularly fungible moment in the history of the academy, this dissertation attempts to understand how the concurrent colonial global context effects the production and organization of knowledge just prior to and during modernism. It ultimately seeks to de-colonize literary thinking about poetry by performing …

For Wintonbury: An Expansion Of Narrative And Painting, Cassaundra Kayla Sanderson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In March 2017, I began planning the narratives of what would become my Thesis Exhibition. One year later marked my installation of the exhibit: For Wintonbury, located at the Fine Art Center Gallery at the University of Arkansas.

A merging of the visual arts and literary fiction, For Wintonbury offers a more immersive experience in storytelling. The painted scenes, drawings, three-dimensional compositions, and short stories each serve their own purposes in presenting partial glimpses into the longer narratives of Wintonbury. Through multiple media and entry points, the viewer is given the choice in which sequence and manner to take in …

Ban The Carriage Industry? Yea Or Neigh: An Examination Of The Arguments Around The Carriage Industry By A Certified Carriage Driver In-Training, Emma Greenberg Rehfeld

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Work/Death, Of Each In Their Own, Micah H. Weber

Theses and Dissertations

Writings in support of my visual thesis, including some background, and bibliographic information: Oregon/Death/Animation/Vocation and the artist as an agent of potential.

Interaction Between Human Experience, Landscape , And Coffee Production In The Blue Mountain Region Of Jamaica, Shohei Yoshida

Masters Theses

In today's coffee industry, individual farmers’ identities are hardly visible from the products we buy. Each coffee farmer has different lifestyles and methods of coffee farming. Such information about farmers can make each cups of coffee potentially unique in consumers’ experience. However, there are barriers which make consumers blind from the identities of the farmers making their coffee. I will explain about the barriers, and introduce the way to make consumers associate individual farmers' identities with each cup of coffee they drink. This thesis mainly consists of two parts: a theoretical part and a poetry part. There is a small …

Keeper Of Darkness, Meagan Elizabeth Kinley

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

"Keeper of Darkness" follows Hal as he encounters the monsters that makes up his dark world. When darkness shifts and an escape is found, he falls into the world of light erupting into a sea of questions about his world, as well as who is responsible for the eternal night.

Damas Y Caballeros, Guadalupe Mendez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Collected Poetry - Manuscript over socio - political and culturally relevant context.

May You Walk In Beauty: The Decline Of Navajo Land And Culture, Jocelyn Catterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The Navajo homeland, Dinetah, is bordered by four mountains that are sacred to the Navajo people: two in Colorado, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. Historically, Navajo medicine men have traveled to these mountains to renew prayers and collect medicinal herbs. Today, the mountains, which exist outside of the reservation boundaries, are used for resource extraction and various recreational pursuits. While many Navajo are fighting for the protection of these sacred lands and their traditional culture, others are disinterested. Traditional practices and beliefs are slowly disappearing within the Navajo Nation. The land-use issues associated with these sacred mountains …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Hotel Bukovyna, Rebecca Ann Bosshart

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This collection of short stories and first chapter of a novella take place in the historical area of Bukovyna, the beech tree land, partly located in Chernivetska region, western Ukraine. On the edge of it, or under it, or traveling to and from it, in contemporary time. I've been occupied with "the outsider," represented here, and where the seven stories reside, by the giant grande dame tourist hotel on Main Street, across from Shevchenko Park, in Chernivtsi, the region's city center. The occupants: the outsider looking in and around. Outsiders looking at other outsiders. An outsider being welcomed in. Most …