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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

More Than Fiction: Representations Of Youth In Young Adult Dystopian Fantasy Fiction And Its Importance, Daman Mcconnell Aug 2023

More Than Fiction: Representations Of Youth In Young Adult Dystopian Fantasy Fiction And Its Importance, Daman Mcconnell

University Honors Theses

This article takes on a comparative analysis between Young Adult Dystopian literature like Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows and Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, focusing on how adolescents are represented in the discussion of Dystopian Fiction. Though mainly focusing on Six of Crows, these novels can be considered places where society and the world these characters live in are unforgiving and restrictive, forcing the growth of these adolescents to accelerate toward adulthood. Within Six of Crows lies the representations of antagonists going against the youth as adults with twisted senses of morality. In addition, this article also discusses …


The Enigmatic Self: An Ongoing Exploration Of Literary Selfhood From The American Renaissance To Contemporary Young Adult Literature, Helene Leichter Apr 2023

The Enigmatic Self: An Ongoing Exploration Of Literary Selfhood From The American Renaissance To Contemporary Young Adult Literature, Helene Leichter

Honors Theses

Assuming the near impossible task of sorting through and delineating various conceptions of the self in and throughout literary and civil history, literary critic Irving Howe adopts a highly perceptive and profoundly analytical approach to the enigmatic individual. In the article quoted above, "The Self in Literature," Howe consolidates what he believes to be the most promising attempts at coding and decoding abstractions of the self across numerous literary, philosophical, and sociological texts. The success of Howe’s analysis lies in his ability to simultaneously embrace and scrutinize seemingly incompatible notions of bodily and spiritual discourse. With the knowledge that such …


Bodies Of Silence And Space: Victimhood, Complicity, And Resistance In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Sana H. Mufti Feb 2023

Bodies Of Silence And Space: Victimhood, Complicity, And Resistance In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Sana H. Mufti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the complexity of resistance and the conditions of power for women in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Using feminist theory, theories of neoliberalism, and Dominionism, this thesis works to understand the ways in which victimhood and complicity influence resistance in totalitarian regimes. I argue that neoliberal ideologies skew understandings of freedom, agency, and power in a way that ensures individuals, specifically women, remain trapped in the system. Focusing on reproduction, I examine how Gilead controls women’s bodies and reproductive abilities to ensure a future for itself. The Eve-Complex is one way that the state integrates itself …


This Was The World And I Was King: Land And Identity In Scottish Children's Literature Of The Golden Age, Rodney Fierce Aug 2021

This Was The World And I Was King: Land And Identity In Scottish Children's Literature Of The Golden Age, Rodney Fierce

Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on Scottish cultural identity and its erasure in nineteenth-century British children’s literature as successful Scottish authors became known as British authors, and British children’s literature was canonized as the genre’s first Golden Age. Specifically, it explores the ways that Catherine Sinclair, George MacDonald, R. M. Ballantyne, Robert Louis Stevenson, J. M. Barrie, and Helen Bannerman—six popular nineteenth-century Scottish authors—maintain a sense of Scottishness in their adventure fiction. By reading the texts in the historical context of the authors’ biographies, I demonstrate that the land in their works and the benevolent colonizers allowed to control it in some …


“My Brand Is Sick Girl”: Identity Formation In The Young Adult Chronic Illness Novels The Fault In Our Stars And Sick Kids In Love, Natalie Thompson Aug 2021

“My Brand Is Sick Girl”: Identity Formation In The Young Adult Chronic Illness Novels The Fault In Our Stars And Sick Kids In Love, Natalie Thompson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis explores the identities of the chronically ill protagonists in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz, specifically by looking at the young protagonist’s self-identity, their relationships with their family members, and the romantic relationship they have with the chronically ill male lead. John Green, who does not identify as chronically ill, writes a novel that ultimately reflects ableist ideas of the medical model of disability, which sees disability as a problem to be solved by medical intervention, and compulsory heterosexuality through the portrayal of Hazel and her relationship with …


Teaching Issues Of Identity Through Multicultural Young Adult Literature, Emily M. Withers Aug 2019

Teaching Issues Of Identity Through Multicultural Young Adult Literature, Emily M. Withers

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Despite changing demographics of high school classrooms, teaching practices and literature remain similar to decades-old practices focusing more on literary devices and symbolism than on topics relevant to the students. Many teachers don’t have the time to find new novels. And when they do find the texts, they are often at a loss for how to properly teach the novels. This thesis is a three-part paper advocating for teaching identity to high school students using a blend of classic literature and contemporary multicultural young adult literature. The first section focuses on personal experiences and research illustrating the need for more …


Queer Identity Construction In Benjamin Alire Sáenz’S Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe, Frank Ur Dec 2018

Queer Identity Construction In Benjamin Alire Sáenz’S Aristotle And Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe, Frank Ur

Senior Capstone Theses

Young Adult Literature has been consistently growing in popularity within recent years for its exploration of various topics such as LGBTQ Identity. Specifically, this canon of literature has begun the inclusive process of portraying minority voices and their navigation of queer identity. In this essay I explore Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s young adult novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Specifically, I explore the novel's main character and narrator Aristotle Mendoza. I move to examine the characteristics of machismo, heteronormativity, and internalized homophobia to analyze how Aristotle’s identity is at first made up by these characteristics and how …


Creating A Multiracial Lesson Plan, Clayton Davis May 2017

Creating A Multiracial Lesson Plan, Clayton Davis

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The purpose of this project is to teach students about multiracial identity issues. Multiracial populations in the U.S. continue to grow and it’s important for educators to address the needs of these students. A 5-E multiracial literature lesson plan was created for second grade that incorporates KWL and Text-to-World teaching strategies. A second grade class were read two children’s picture books, each featuring a biracial protagonist, and were asked to discuss and evaluate the content and commonalities of these stories. Students recorded what they learned in this lesson in their KWL’s. The results reveal that some students understood the problems …


Self-Discrepancies, Symbolic Self-Completion, And The Role Of Possessions In The Transition From High School To College, Ashlee Lochbaum Dec 2010

Self-Discrepancies, Symbolic Self-Completion, And The Role Of Possessions In The Transition From High School To College, Ashlee Lochbaum

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to explore some of the ways that possessions may be used symbolically to aid adjustment in first-semester freshmen who are transitioning to college. Based on prior literature, the transition to college is often accompanied by self-discrepancies which may be alleviated through symbolic self-completion using possessions. Overall, 219 students participated in this study. Results indicate that first-semester freshmen, as well as upperclassmen students, rely on the symbolic use of possessions in both managing negative affect and symbolizing the ideal college student identity. Furthermore, managing affect through the use of feeling regulators was found to …