Tarot Fabula: Radical Digital Cards, Shuffled Narrative Structures, And Playing The Future In An Era Of Algorithms, Rachel M.L. Dixon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since their earliest recorded use in the 1400s, tarot cards figure as objects for game play, artistic creativity, spiritual divination, and self-discovery. Tarot Fabula (https://tarot-fabula.com) introduces a ludic, interactive website interface that challenges 20th century tarot reading practices as linear narratives. Statistically random reshufflings of tarot decks from archival collections prompt the reader to become a narrative co-creator, drawing them into conversation with traditional reading and interpretive practices as they remix narrative elements portrayed on the cards. Tarot Fabula’s shuffling and reshuffling of cards as historical objects merges contemporary computational methods for generating random results with an interrogation of …

The Lingua Anglica, Liliana Kotval

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The term Lingua Franca can be dated back to the Middle Ages, where the “Frankish language” was a French-and-Italian-based jargon spoken between crusaders and traders in the Eastern Mediterranean to optimize communication through a common tongue. Today, English is the Lingua Franca of Europe and, just like the Lingua Franca of the Middle Ages, optimizes communication between those in a culturally and linguistically rich continent.

English- due to several historical reasons, including the internationalization of Europe following World War II, competitive economic world powers, such as the United States, the expansion of the internet, among others- has proven to be …

Relandscaping Eden: Northern European Topography As Theology In Auden’S Poems, Merrill Brouder

English Honors Theses

This paper explores the contradiction Auden creates in his simultaneous description of the European North (The English and Scottish Highlands, Scotland, Iceland, and northern Norway) as an “Eden” and his awareness of the violent and pagan history of these places. It proposes that these dialectically opposed visions of the European landscape can be reconciled through a synthesis rooted in Auden’s eclectic version of history—both theological and secular—and his own desire for an Eden that is informed by the spontaneity of the Homeric Arcadia, the gravity of the Christian Eden, and apophatic theology.

Student Centered Language Teaching: A Focus On Student Identity, Rachel Mano

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

This portfolio is a compilation of essays that describe what the writer has come to see as essential topics in second language acquisition. It begins with a professional environment piece, and then a teaching philosophy statement focused on student identity and interaction in the classroom. This is followed by an essay on observations of teaching. The next two sections focus on pragmatic resistance among advanced learners and the importance of preparing learners for peer interaction. The portfolio concludes with an annotated bibliography outlining the main concepts associated with Communicative Language Teaching, a method that is commonly employed in second language …

Framing The Portrait Of Life: Functions Of Embedded Texts In Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift, Caroline Sisk

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Socioeconomic Analysis Of Francophone And Anglophone West Africa, Jackson Gagne

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project seeks to examine and analyze the socioeconomic performances of four West-African countries; two from Francophone (French-speaking) West Africa and two from Anglophone (English-speaking) West Africa. It will tackle questions such as:

• What is the current socioeconomic condition of countries in this region?
• Which country is most suitable for investment?
• Is there a marked difference between the Francophone and Anglophone countries of West Africa?

And many more.

Contradictions Of Freedom In The Tempest And The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Menaka Serres

Theses and Dissertations

In William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-1611) and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) the character negotiate contradictions of freedom: the entitlements that justify violence as well as oppression on the one hand and rights that grant access to emancipation from violence and imposition on the other.

Why Study Language? Discussing Language And Its Influence On Gender Discrimination, Katelyn Eisenmann

Honors Projects

An applied research project, with the culminating piece being a panel discussion that focused on the ways in which language use and structure contribute to attitudes and perceptions of gender within our society, and the politics that surround concepts of gender.

How The “Ploughman Poet” Jumpstarted Highlandism:, Allison Ward

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Begging the question of how the Scottish society has been reduced and commercialized to the romanticized, Scottish fantasy we see Scotland as today because of a process labeled ‘Highlandism’. The eighteenth-century poet Robert Burns became the focal point because of the impact of his major role in this creation and spread of this Sottish fantasy. Burns used his poetry as a method of delivery to sell nostalgia for a fictional, romantic, and exotic Scotland that had been created from symbols once associated with the Highlands to a now global audience.

Breaking down the historical, economic, and cultural shifts occurring around …

Projecting Culture Through Literary Exportation: How Imitation In Scandinavian Crime Fiction Reveals Regional Mores, Bradley Hartsell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reexamines the beginnings of Swedish hardboiled crime literature, in part tracking its lineage to American culture and unpacking Swedish identity. Following the introduction, the second chapter asserts how this genre began as a form of escapism, specifically in Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s Roseanna. The third chapter compares predecessor Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep with Roseanna, and how Sweden’s greater gender tolerance significantly outshining America’s is reflected in literature. The fourth chapter examines how Henning Mankell’s novels fail to fully accept Sweden’s complicity in neo-Nazism as an active component of Swedish identity. The final chapter reveals …

The Horse And The Heroic Quest: Equestrian Indicators Of Morality In Lancelot, Don Quixote, And Tolkien, Kirsten G. Rodning

English MA Theses

There is a strong connection in Don Quixote and the works of Chretièn de Troyes and J.R.R. Tolkien between a character’s moral decisions and the way that said character treats his horse or horses. The Horse and the Heroic Quest: Equestrian Indicators of Morality in Lancelot, Don Quixote, and Tolkien studies the moral factors that affect the way heroic characters are revealed to readers and how these morals relate to the ways in which characters interact with horses. This ecocritical study focuses on the protagonists in Chretièn’s Lancelot, Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and …

"Between Sunset And River": Nabokov's Bridge To The Otherworld, Jesse R. Weiss

Senior Projects Spring 2016

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

Lisbeth Salander Lost In Translation - An Exploration Of The English Version Of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Kajsa Paludan

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This thesis sets out to explore the cultural differences between Sweden and the United States by examining the substantial changes made to Men Who Hate Women, including the change in the book’s title in English to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. My thesis focuses in particular on changes in the depiction of the female protagonist: Lisbeth Salander. Unfortunately we do not have access to translator Steven T. Murray’s original translation, though we know that the English publisher and rights holder Christopher MacLehose chose to enhance Larsson’s work in order to make the novel more interesting for English-speaking …

Unmasking The Protester: The Meanings And Myths Of Collective Civil Resistance Movements In African American And Polish Postresistance Prose Fiction, Agnieszka Herra

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My contention is that the narrative framework of social movements, especially the ones deemed “successful” such as the American Civil Rights Movement and the Polish Solidarity Movement, reflects unity and collectivity within collective memory. During the period of the movements’ duration, this provides a clear rhetorical purpose: to give the appearance of unity in order to give effective voice to the demands. I argue that the voices that did not fit into the collective movements emerge subsequently to question this monologic language in literary form. This dissertation uses Bakhtin’s notion of dialogic language to argue that novels in the postresistance …

Frankenstein: Man Or Monster?, Leigh P. Mackintosh

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Since its first publication in 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein has left a lasting impression upon the world speaking to a multitude of audiences including artists, scientists, philosophers, and society as a whole. Considering the impact of Frankenstein through its evolution as a cultural myth in various plays and films, this thesis will provide a way to gauge the relevance of Shelley’s story as an adaptation. Only by knowing what has been done in the past and how the materials have been used by other playwrights and screenwriters can one understand how to handle them as an original work. The …