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Articles 1 - 30 of 103
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
The Affable Raphael: Milton's Surrogate Instructor In Paradise Lost., Beau Kilpatrick
The Affable Raphael: Milton's Surrogate Instructor In Paradise Lost., Beau Kilpatrick
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) is a beautifully written epic that continues to be a stalwart text in the English literary canon, with unlimited potential for interpretation. In this dissertation I propose that Paradise Lost can be read as a pedagogical lesson for Milton’s “fit audience,” where the author implements his views on education in the context of heaven, hell, and Paradise. In the poem, Milton presents three pedagogical methodologies: first, the wrong way to knowledge is presented through Satan’s manipulations of the fallen angels and Eve; second, the divine way to knowledge is illustrated via Michael’s prophecy to Adam …
The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams
The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
When workers left the labor market in large numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, proclamations of a labor shortage emerged extensively throughout the news. In this study, I analyze the coverage of the worker shortage among three news sources with different political orientations. Several themes emerged from analyzing a total of 75 articles. The findings showed that the perspective shown in the article, the cause of the labor shortage, restaurant worker portrayal, support of solutions, and opinion of the labor shortage all differed based on the political identity of the news source. This research supports previous findings that show there is …
The Madwoman In The Refrigerator And A Song Of Ice And Fire., Alex Herm
The Madwoman In The Refrigerator And A Song Of Ice And Fire., Alex Herm
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
There is an existing trope in the fantasy genre I call the madwoman in the refrigerator—in which a female character is killed, maimed, raped, depowered, and/or made to go mad or insane when she is no longer able to uphold the conventional genre expectations of her role in the narrative, such as the angel, monster, or angelic monster. It is a combination of the theory from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that women are demure angels when they are fulfilling stereotypical feminine roles in a narrative and when desire or agency is found, the woman is a monster, portrayed as …
Kurt Vonnegut, Modernity, And The Self: A Guide To The Good Life., Josh Simpson
Kurt Vonnegut, Modernity, And The Self: A Guide To The Good Life., Josh Simpson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
What are people for? This is a question Kurt Vonnegut raises in his first novel, 1952’s Player Piano. Over five decades later, when he concludes a career with 2005’s A Man Without a Country, he is still asking, “What is life all about?” (66). These are the central questions for Vonnegut, and his novels, short stories, essays, interviews, correspondence, and commencement addresses offer a singular, life-long attempt at an answer. In this dissertation I offer a reading of Vonnegut not just as a writer concerned with philosophical questions, but rather, on a deeper, more personal level, as a …
Definitions And Depictions Of Rhetorical Practice In Medieval English Fürstenspiegel., Joseph Ethan Blaine Sharp
Definitions And Depictions Of Rhetorical Practice In Medieval English Fürstenspiegel., Joseph Ethan Blaine Sharp
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines how medieval authors defined rhetoric and depicted rhetorical practice in medieval English Fürstenspiegel. It begins by analyzing how the field of medieval rhetorical historiography has overlooked the Fürstenspiegel as a rhetorical genre due to its overt reliance on meta-rhetorical handbook genres as the objects of its analysis. This dissertation challenges traditional narratives that positions medieval rhetoric as a primarily academic discipline divorced from political practice by engaging in horizontal reading practices that examine the broader culture of medieval rhetorical practice alongside the definitions of rhetoric found in medieval English Fürstenspiegel. In so doing, this dissertation …
The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson
The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
It is now an almost foregone conclusion that classic depictions of vampirism resonate with contemporary queer audiences. A sympathetic response to the monster’s persecution is often the key factor in these arguments, yet little attention is paid to the textual details that prompt such a process of identification. This study posits that the iconography used to establish a connection between monstrosity and non-normative sexuality has its origins in Victorian Gothic fiction, whose descriptions of vampirism were assimilated into the discourse of the fin-de-siècle medical field known as sexology. Theories that defined homosexuality as an illness with physical and psychological symptoms …
Imagination In Practice: Writing Studies And The Application Of Hospitality., Edward Alan English
Imagination In Practice: Writing Studies And The Application Of Hospitality., Edward Alan English
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The question of how to ethically teach, learn, and engage in an evolving world remains one of the most longstanding investigations in writing studies scholarship. Examining some of the most foundational frameworks for writing pedagogy reveals that their underlying motivations share common concerns for how to learn from and empower students. This dissertation builds from this trend and foregrounds the observations, stories, and experiences of consultants and writers at the University of Louisville’s Writing Center through a qualitative study that is informed by case study methodology and collaborative action research. I draw on primary data collected from one focus group …
Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu
Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This project examines the use of female insanity and anger in narrative fiction, as demonstrated by the character of the madwoman. Madness is a concept that has long been gendered female throughout Western history, in medicine, language, religion, and culture. Socially and culturally constructed madness can be used to determine the boundaries of society, the norms and values from which “madness” deviates, while the character of the madwoman can be used to demonstrate how women have challenged these boundaries and how the roles of women and definitions of femininity have changed over time. This study analyzes the madwoman trope from …
Þorn: A Novel Excerpt Exploring Giantesses, Their Relation To Women's Bodily Expectations, And Patriarchal Control In The Literature Of Early Modern Britain And Contemporary America., Brady P Alexander
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This thesis will analyze examples of women of size in the literature of the British Isles throughout history, focusing predominantly upon the Early Modern Period, and will create a fiction piece in response to such attitudes. I argue that one of the most clear ways to dissect contemporary cultural attitudes about powerful women and women who occupy more space than men is to examine giantesses and other examples of women of size within this period of literature. From this, a novel excerpt will be written from the perspective of a time-traveling woman of size who engages with these texts and …
Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison Laroy
Nonprofit Social Media Internships: A Handbook, Allison Laroy
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This thesis examines how nonprofits can best prepare their interns and how interns can best prepare themselves for a role in engaging audiences through social media. Through a literature review on nonprofit social media and internships, a series of qualitative interviews with interns and supervisors, and my own lived experiences as a social media intern, I develop a handbook for nonprofit social media internships. This guide is relevant to the specific experiences of nonprofit social media internships, includes advice on training, mentorship, and best practices, and finally, it incorporates further resources on nonprofit social media that interns and supervisors can …
In A Victorian Fog: Constructing Identities In Female Gothic Novels., Hayley Salo
In A Victorian Fog: Constructing Identities In Female Gothic Novels., Hayley Salo
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Drawing on feminist criticism and postcolonial theory, this study analyzes conversations about female identity within and around Victorian female gothic novels and how they contribute to the genre’s appeal to modern readers. In particular, it is a case study of how the discourse develops through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). Each novel presents the challenges women face when their sense of self is based on the expectations of others, and Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre further explore the potential for women to create their own, unique identity while still remaining …
Resonating Otherness: Rethinking The Body Through Octavia Butler's Dawn., Tristan Dewitt Carr
Resonating Otherness: Rethinking The Body Through Octavia Butler's Dawn., Tristan Dewitt Carr
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis focuses on the intersection between sound and bodies as a way of re-envision the concept of human, using Octavia Butler’s Dawn as a case study. Specifically, this study contends that Butler’s re-envisioning is sonic, imagining the concept of self as it is understood by Jean-Luc Nancy’s idea of the “resonant subject,” in that sound embroils us within our environment. This sonic, resonant body is revealed in Dawn through Butler’s adaption of Roland Barthes’ concept of “grain,” which is not merely embodied sound, but the result of artifice – a carefully crafted “slip” that allows for a way of …
Mitigating Black Claustrophobia: Space, Trauma, And Healing Modalities In The Postcolonial Narrative., Saleema Mustafa Campbell
Mitigating Black Claustrophobia: Space, Trauma, And Healing Modalities In The Postcolonial Narrative., Saleema Mustafa Campbell
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines the space or spaces of blackness and the black body in the United States. This nation was shaped by the institution of slavery, and its greatest legacy is the trauma that still resonates in social structures and spaces complicating the lived experiences of many. The various responses to these traumas are documented in literary form by authors who serve as cultural witnesses. The narratives featured in this research project, collectively and individually, offer a voice to the traumatic plight of individuals in the U.S. who struggle to contemplate and rectify the traumas of this nation’s past. This …
Experimenting With Adulthood: Liminal Play In Young Adult Literature., Kylee Auten
Experimenting With Adulthood: Liminal Play In Young Adult Literature., Kylee Auten
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
Play is an unavoidable element of literature intended for younger audiences. Many scholars have taken up the task of describing, analyzing, and criticizing displays of play in young adult (YA) literature. Involved in discussions of play are the concepts of performance and innocence. Another way of examining play is through the characters’ state of liminality. Their in-between status provides them with the possibility to push against social expectations, escape the realities of their daily lives, and subvert authority figures. Because characters occupy both childhood and adulthood in terms of societal expectations, they possess some positive and some negative qualities of …
These Places We Walk : Stories Of Mental Illness In American Society., Rachel Grace Trimble
These Places We Walk : Stories Of Mental Illness In American Society., Rachel Grace Trimble
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This paper examines research on mental illness and mental health literacy as well as an examination of literary elements in interlinked stories in order to write a linked collection of five short stories about mental illnesses. Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Wounds And Writing : Building Trauma-Informed Approaches To Writing Pedagogy., Michelle L. Day
Wounds And Writing : Building Trauma-Informed Approaches To Writing Pedagogy., Michelle L. Day
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation builds a trauma-informed approach to writing pedagogy informed by writing studies scholarship about trauma and inclusive pedagogy, clinical social work literature on trauma-informed care, and interviews with nine current University of Louisville writing faculty about their experiences academically supporting distressed students. I identify three central touchstones—“students are coddled,” “teacher’s aren’t therapists,” and “institutions don’t support trauma-informed teaching”—in scholarly and public debates regarding what to do about student trauma/distress in higher education. After exploring the valid concerns and misconceptions underpinning these touchstones, I illustrate how clinical research offers a way forward to help writing instructors develop more complex understandings …
Remaking Identities, Reworking Graduate Study : Stories From First-Generation-To-College Rhetoric And Composition Phd Students On Navigating The Doctorate., Ashanka Kumari
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation responds to the decreasing number of first-generation-to-college doctorates in the humanities and the limited scholarship on graduate students in Rhetoric and Composition. Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have long been invested in discussions of academic and/or disciplinary enculturation, yet these discussions primarily focus on undergraduate students, with few studies on graduate students and far fewer on the doctoral students training to become the next wave of a profession. In this dissertation, I argue that if we engage intersectional identities as assets in the design of doctoral programs, access to higher education and academic enculturation can become more manageable …
Reading The Readers : Analyses Of Shakespearean And Cervantine Characters As (Dys)Functional Readers., Erin Shannon O'Reilly
Reading The Readers : Analyses Of Shakespearean And Cervantine Characters As (Dys)Functional Readers., Erin Shannon O'Reilly
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation analyzes how the protagonists of Don Quixote and The Tempest perform the act of reading. It explores how the authors create interpretive communities within their works and bring them into conflict in order to foreground the dysfunctionality of particular types of reading. While functional readers are capable of reading among and beyond diverse interpretive communities, dysfunctional readers operate within a single community to the exclusion of other possible interpretations. Chapter One examines Cervantes’s creation of multiple interpretive communities within the first six chapters of Don Quixote, and how Don Quixote acts as dysfunctional reader through his inability …
Coming To Terms With Gonzo Journalism : An Analysis In Russian Formalism., Beau Kilpatrick
Coming To Terms With Gonzo Journalism : An Analysis In Russian Formalism., Beau Kilpatrick
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Gonzo journalism is notoriously difficult to define because of its ambiguous nature. To date, scholarly definitions focus on historical interpretations of Gonzo’s content, its connection to social and political contexts, or the biography of Hunter S. Thompson. These definitional attempts neglect the formal devices of the composition. This thesis aims to redefine Gonzo as its own genre by using the nearly forgotten methods of Russian formalism—specifically the works of Victor Shklovsky, Vladimir Propp, and Boris Tomashevsky—to analyze the formal devices and components of its form. The results are twofold; first, it acts to rejuvenate an unpopular literary theory by illustrating …
'Where History Meets The Future' : A Historiographic Exploration Of Mississippi : The View From Tougaloo., Khirsten L. Echols
'Where History Meets The Future' : A Historiographic Exploration Of Mississippi : The View From Tougaloo., Khirsten L. Echols
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
“Where History Meets the Future”: A Historiographic Exploration of Mississippi: The View from Tougaloo explores the historical narratives of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, with a special emphasis on Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi. In particular, this dissertation examines the ways in which Tougaloo’s official history omits the voices of its student populations. It offers, then, a revisionist reading of the school’s history, constructing a narrative from the perspective of students. Based on hours of archival research and examination of the school’s student newspaper, this dissertation constructs a method that incorporates student voices into the historical narrative. The collection of …
Universal Truths, Verisimilitude, And Hyperreality: Baudrillard’S Simulacra And Simulation In Pride And Prejudice And The Lizzie Bennet Diaries., Kathryn M. Kohls
Universal Truths, Verisimilitude, And Hyperreality: Baudrillard’S Simulacra And Simulation In Pride And Prejudice And The Lizzie Bennet Diaries., Kathryn M. Kohls
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project applies Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1981) to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Hank Green and Bernie Su’s The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012). By applying Baudrillard’s theory, one can see that Austen’s marriage plot is a shrewd critique of how social simulacra, simulations of reality, dictate how society is structured and interacts. These manipulative simulations are able to be transgressed by the novel’s protagonists, Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Their ability to find an unsimulated real is appealing to contemporary audiences caught in the hyperreality of the internet age. This leads to a panicked production to …
There Is Water In The World For Us : The Environmental Theories Of Alice Walker., Janae Lewis Hall
There Is Water In The World For Us : The Environmental Theories Of Alice Walker., Janae Lewis Hall
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The emergence of African-American Environmental thought responds to the ongoing erasure of Black experiences and their perspectives on nature. Mainstream environmentalism maintains a legacy of perceived innocence and incorruptibility towards the land, while Black Environmentalism demonstrates the limitations of that ideology. Limitations include the erasure of history in regards to stealing land from Indigenous people, the brutality of slavery, legalized lynching, forced removal from the land, exploitation in sharecropping, destruction of sacred lands, heavy pollution in urban centers, and harmful environmental policies. For Black and Indigenous peoples, it is impossible to view American soil as innocent. This project surveyed the …
Breaking With Tradition(?) : Female Representations Of Heroism In Old English Poetry., Kathryn A. Green
Breaking With Tradition(?) : Female Representations Of Heroism In Old English Poetry., Kathryn A. Green
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
For the Anglo-Saxons, strength, bravery, and the willingness to put oneself in harm’s way for king and kingdom were not only part of contemporary society but recurring themes in Old English literature. Poems like Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon reinforce the important bond between lord and retainer and the heroic ethos key to that relationship. Women were not historically part of this relationship and, therefore, not subject to the heroic code in the same way; consequently, they are rarely seen as anything more than conventional mothers, queens, wives, sisters, daughters, and virgins, all identified by their relationships to men, …
Flesh In Line With The Mind : Gender In Caitlin Kiernan’S The Drowning Girl., Sarah Buckley
Flesh In Line With The Mind : Gender In Caitlin Kiernan’S The Drowning Girl., Sarah Buckley
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This paper analyzes how Caitlyn R. Kiernan in her novel The Drowning Girl characterizes gender identity, particularly in regards to women, both transgender and cisgender. The book's characterization of gender roles for cisgender men, cisgender women, and transgender women, while seeming on the surface to subvert sexist stereotypes, reproduces the pitfalls of feminist literary criticism popularized in the 1970s and 1980s. Notably, such themes include viewing women's madness as a method of transcending masculine rationality, a dichotomized essentialism of masculinity and femininity, and universalizing women's experience without regards to race, class, and nationality. Transgender autobiographical and literary archetypes employed in …
"Y'All And All These Assessments Is A Little Bit Too Much" : The Effects Of High-Stakes Testing On Critical Literacy Pedagogy., Diana Lalata
"Y'All And All These Assessments Is A Little Bit Too Much" : The Effects Of High-Stakes Testing On Critical Literacy Pedagogy., Diana Lalata
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
As the United States of America becomes increasingly diverse, there is a need for teachers to embrace multiculturalism within the classroom. Shifting away from the traditional “banking model” of teaching, educational researchers call for a more critical approach—one in which teachers and students challenge dominant beliefs and practices of education. Foregrounded in those aims of cultural competence and critical consciousness, “critical literacy pedagogy” addresses the politicization of literacy education and employs conscious curriculum and teaching strategies to empower marginalized voices. Although a number of case studies on critical literacy pedagogy show considerable promise in disrupting dominant discourse and developing cultural …
Vonnegut's Composite Work : The Importance Of Illustration In Breakfast Of Champions., Blake Schreiner
Vonnegut's Composite Work : The Importance Of Illustration In Breakfast Of Champions., Blake Schreiner
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This paper examines Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel, Breakfast of Champions, in the context of word-image theory and multimedia publication. Drawing from the critical discourse surrounding the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake, the paper discusses Vonnegut's experimentation with a "composite" work and re-evaluates the significance of the novel in light of this innovation.
Greening Gawain : Connecting Environmental Damage And Masculinity In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight., Austin Putty
Greening Gawain : Connecting Environmental Damage And Masculinity In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight., Austin Putty
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This paper explores medieval environmental attitudes through a historical reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the study of which provides a blueprint for what may be a method of combating climate change denial at its cultural roots, which I will argue in this paper links to an outdated mode of European warrior masculinity. This paper will demonstrate the connections between hegemonic masculinity and environmental degradation at work as a discourse in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight through chivalric behaviors, as well as a burgeoning environmental conscientiousness at play that undermines it. The conflict between Gawain and …
Ironic Deference : An Inquiry Into The Nineteenth-Century Feminist Rhetoric Of Kesiah Shelton., Melissa Rothman
Ironic Deference : An Inquiry Into The Nineteenth-Century Feminist Rhetoric Of Kesiah Shelton., Melissa Rothman
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project examines the works of Kesiah Shelton, a writer for popular magazines in the late nineteenth century who used irony in interesting ways to critique the social norms of the period. Although, scholars have noted that female authorship was a an expanding field during this period, there were very specific gendered expectations limiting what female authors wrote about; women were primarily limited to writing about domestic matters and were discouraged from taking up other topics associated with the male public sphere such as politics. Many scholars have noted how the cult of domesticity valorized women as superior moral beings, …
Breaking The Cycle Of Silence : The Significance Of Anya Seton's Historical Fiction., Lindsey Marie Okoroafo (Jesnek)
Breaking The Cycle Of Silence : The Significance Of Anya Seton's Historical Fiction., Lindsey Marie Okoroafo (Jesnek)
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines the feminist significance of Anya Seton’s historical novels, My Theodosia (1941), Katherine (1954), and The Winthrop Woman (1958). The two main goals of this project are to 1.) identify and explain the reasons why Seton’s historical novels have not received the scholarly attention they are due, and 2.) to call attention to the ways in which My Theodosia, Katherine, and The Winthrop Woman offer important feminist interventions to patriarchal social order. Ultimately, I argue that My Theodosia, Katherine, and The Winthrop Woman deserve more scholarly attention because they are significant contributions to women’s …
From Damsel In Distress To Active Agent : Female Agency In Children's And Young Adult Fiction., Megan Sarah Mcdonough
From Damsel In Distress To Active Agent : Female Agency In Children's And Young Adult Fiction., Megan Sarah Mcdonough
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation analyzes the different ways in which female characters in children’s and young adult fiction can claim agency. Using adaptation theory, feminist theory, and theories of agency and autonomy, this project examines how portrayals of female protagonists have changed to accept a multiplicity of strong females, and why we need these different kinds of characters within our culture. Working with the definition of agency as the choices one makes and the subsequent actions she takes, this dissertation examines how female characters from paradigm shifting texts claim agency. Each chapter uses a specific feminist lens to explore literary texts and …