'Tomboy' Is Anachronistic. But The Concept Still Has Something To Teach Us,
2019
West Virginia University
'Tomboy' Is Anachronistic. But The Concept Still Has Something To Teach Us, Lynne Stahl
Faculty & Staff Scholarship
This article explores the tomboy trope in film and literature and the "taming" that characterizes it, framing both in relation to contemporary debates about gender and sexual identity as well as cultural anxieties around queer, trans, and nonbinary identity. Examining texts from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women to the 1980 film Little Darlings, the article argues that even while the term tomboy may be obsolete, tomboy narratives document processes of rebellion that hold continuing value.
Book Review: Palaces For The People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, And The Decline Of Civic Life, Eric Klinenberg,
2019
Syracuse University
Book Review: Palaces For The People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, And The Decline Of Civic Life, Eric Klinenberg, Georgia Westbrook
School of Information Student Research Journal
No abstract provided.
The Grand Illusion: The Adventurs Of Hucklebarry Finn And Samuel Clemen' Masterful Ruse,
2019
Augsburg College
The Grand Illusion: The Adventurs Of Hucklebarry Finn And Samuel Clemen' Masterful Ruse, Molly Dunne
Augsburg Honors Review
Among the many, great works of American literature, it is indisputably The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that most widely and firmly secures its place within the American canon. Fathers buy the adventure novel for their sons, schoolteachers read it to their students, undergraduates write term papers about it, and adults continually return to it, if only for the nostalgia of their youth. And yet, for the astute reader, a number of problems appear within this "greatest of children's books" (Harper & Brother's 8), namely the anticlimactic and entirely unsatisfactory d6- nouement, that seem to challenge the very meaning of Mark …
Dramatizing The Void: Crime Fiction's Journey To Forgetting,
2019
Michigan State University
Dramatizing The Void: Crime Fiction's Journey To Forgetting, Kylene N. Cave
Andrews Research Conference
Scholars often cite the transition from the golden age to the hardboiled tradition in the 1920s and 1930s as the most radical shift in crime fiction. By 1945, crime stories regularly exhibited destabilized language, increased interest in psychology of the mind, and a blatant rejection of conclusive endings as a means of exploring the unreliable nature of memory and eye-witness testimony. Whereas the crime fiction narratives preceding 1945 embodied a clear sense of logic and order, and established hermeneutics and signifying practices as the keys to unlocking the mysteries behind human behavior; post-45 crime fiction not only rejects these notions, …
“An’ No Place To Lead ‘Em”: The Grapes Of Wrath And The Breakdown Of Myth,
2019
University of New Orleans
“An’ No Place To Lead ‘Em”: The Grapes Of Wrath And The Breakdown Of Myth, Nicholas F. Comeaux
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
In spite of its common designation as an outmoded classic of sentimental middlebrow literature, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath remains relevant as a milestone in an extended liminal stage between the failing cultural myths of the past and the founding of newly relevant shared stories. This stage begins with the Enlightenment and continues to present-day conflicts over identity, labor, migrants, notions of truth itself, the function and responsibilities of government, and our shared ecological destiny. Arriving near the end of the Depression and its concurrent economic and environmental disasters, The Grapes of Wrath reflects a particularly chaotic stage in …
John Gardner’S Grendel: The Importance Of Community In Making Moral Art,
2019
University of New Orleans
John Gardner’S Grendel: The Importance Of Community In Making Moral Art, Catherine C. Cooper
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
John Gardner’s Grendel examines the ways in which humans make meaning out of their lives. By changing the original Beowulf monster into a creature who constantly questions the conflicting narratives set before him, Gardner encourages us to confront these tensions also. However, his emphasis on Grendel’s alienation helps us realize that community is essential to creating meaning. Most obviously, community creates relationships that foster a sense of moral obligation between its members, even in the face of the type of uncertainty felt by Grendel. Moreover, community cannot exist without dialogue, which perpetually stimulates the imagination to respond to the tensions …
“To Be Men, Not Destroyers”: Developing Dabrowskian Personalities In Ezra Pound’S The Cantos And Neil Gaiman’S American Gods,
2019
University of New Orleans, New Orleans
“To Be Men, Not Destroyers”: Developing Dabrowskian Personalities In Ezra Pound’S The Cantos And Neil Gaiman’S American Gods, Michelle A. Nicholson
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Kazimierz Dabrowski’s psychological theory of positive disintegration is a lesser known theory of personality development that offers an alternative critical perspective of literature. It provides a framework for the characterization of postmodern protagonists who move beyond heroic indoctrination to construct their own self-organized, autonomous identities. Ezra Pound’s The Cantos captures the speaker-poet’s extensive process of inner conflict, providing a unique opportunity to track the progress of the hero’s transformation into a personality, or a man. American Gods is a more fully realized portrayal of a character who undergoes the complete paradigmatic collapse of positive disintegration and deliberate self-derived self-revision …
The Color Of Invisibility,
2019
University of New Orleans
The Color Of Invisibility, Bryan A. Vanmeter
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
This thesis is an analysis of Ralph Ellison’s use of color terminology in his novel, Invisible Man. By taking an in depth look at the circumstances in which Ellison uses specific color terms, the reader can ascertain the author’s thoughts on various historical events, as well as the differences between characters in the novel such as Ras, Dr. Bledsoe, and Rinehart.
Secret Selves: Surveillance And Twentieth-Century African American Literature,
2019
Southern Methodist University
Secret Selves: Surveillance And Twentieth-Century African American Literature, Kelsey Kiser
English Theses and Dissertations
Black writers, thinkers, and artists found themselves on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s watch list for radicalism and sedition as early as 1919. Secret Selves explores how twentieth-century African American writers, namely Claude McKay, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Ishmael Reed, and Gloria Naylor responded to a surveillance state that monitored their lives and works for radicalism and sedition. By recrafting the African American künstlerroman—a genre that birthed the African American literary tradition—these writers embedded codes into their works that concealed personal details from Bureau agents and simultaneously articulated a new narrative: that to be black and to …
“Of Nobler Song Than Mine”: Social Justice In The Life, Times, And Writings Of Fitz-James O'Brien,
2019
Southern Methodist University
“Of Nobler Song Than Mine”: Social Justice In The Life, Times, And Writings Of Fitz-James O'Brien, John P. Irish
Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation will be a detailed study of the life, times, and writings of a mid-nineteenth century Irish-American writer, Fitz-James O’Brien. This will be the first full length study of O’Brien’s thought and writings. O’Brien was known, during his day, for two different types of writing: fiction of the supernatural and his writings on social justice, written in the emerging style of literary realism. It is his writings on social justice which this dissertation will explore. O’Brien’s writings on social justice covered three main topics: children, women, and animals. I look at how the historical context, O’Brien’s life, and his …
Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us,
2019
Chapman University
Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms Of Capital” In Fitzgerald’S Gatsby And Watts’ No One Is Coming To Save Us, Allie Harrison Vernon
English (MA) Theses
Looking primarily at two critically acclaimed texts that concern themselves with American citizenship—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Stephanie Powell Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us—I analyze the claims made about citizenship identities, rights, and consequential access to said rights. I ask, how do these narratives about citizenship sustain, create, or re-envision American myth? Similarly, how do the narratives interact with the dominant culture at large? Do any of these texts achieve oppositional value, and/or modify the complex hegemonic structure? I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Forms of Capital” to investigate the ways in which economic, cultural, …
Carleton, William Mckendree, 1845-1912 (Sc 3432),
2019
Western Kentucky University
Carleton, William Mckendree, 1845-1912 (Sc 3432), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
Manuscript Collection Finding Aids
Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3432. Typescripted excerpt from Will Carleton’s narrative poem, “First Settler’s Story,” first published in 1881, as recited in March 1895 by Berta M. Morton.
Stepping Beyond The Veil And Breaking The Pittsburgh Cycle: The American Dream, Otherness, And Generational Trauma In August Wilson's Cycle Plays,
2019
Seton Hall University
Stepping Beyond The Veil And Breaking The Pittsburgh Cycle: The American Dream, Otherness, And Generational Trauma In August Wilson's Cycle Plays, Kaitlin Stellingwerf
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle is a series of ten plays that aims to “amend, to explore, and to add to our African consciousness and our African aesthetic” (Wilson qtd. in Gantt 5). Each play is set in a different decade but all share incredibly similar protagonists; all of them are African American men in their mid to late adulthood. The stories are separated by years but all articulate the generational trauma embedded in the African American consciousness in the twentieth century. Wilson’s plays span between the generations of African Americans living in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation to a …
Roberts, Elizabeth Madox, 1881-1941 - Relating To (Sc 3425),
2019
Western Kentucky University
Roberts, Elizabeth Madox, 1881-1941 - Relating To (Sc 3425), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
Manuscript Collection Finding Aids
Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3425. Notes by an unidentified individual of an interview of author Elizabeth Madox Roberts. Apparently sent to WKU student Paul Wharton from Roberts’ home city of Springfield, Kentucky, the notes recount her comments on her novels The Time of Man and He Sent Forth a Raven, and on the title of her most recent book, Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.
Beeler, Andrew J., Jr., 1912-1998 (Sc 3418),
2019
Western Kentucky University
Beeler, Andrew J., Jr., 1912-1998 (Sc 3418), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
Manuscript Collection Finding Aids
Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3418. Letters to WKU faculty member Frances Richards from A. J. Beeler, curriculum director for the Louisville, Kentucky public schools. A letter of 1 May 1946 encloses his list of recent Kentucky literature, and a letter of 3 January 1958 reports on his family and Christmas holiday. Includes his reviews of three books by Janice Holt Giles.
Refuse: Excess And Resistance In Gilded Age Print And Literature,
2019
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Refuse: Excess And Resistance In Gilded Age Print And Literature, Leah Michelle Powell
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
In the late-nineteenth century, mechanization led to fears about the possible consequences of overproduction while immigration led to fears about the possible consequences of overpopulation. This dissertation examines Gilded Age texts that represent regionalized spaces in efforts to process interlinked anxieties about a surplus of people and a surplus of things. I argue that images of excess and cheapness were rhetorically powerful in efforts to both control and advocate for unassimilated and nonstandard people and places in a nation increasingly dominated by an urban commodity economy. This focus on excess often takes the form of verbal or visual imagery, but …
The Narrative Of Revolution: Socialism And The Masses 1911-1917,
2019
CUNY Hunter College
The Narrative Of Revolution: Socialism And The Masses 1911-1917, Stephen K. Walkiewicz
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis seeks to situate The Masses magazine (1911-1917) within a specific discursive tradition of revolution, revealing a narrative pattern that is linked with discourse that began to emerge during and after the French Revolution. As the term “socialism” begins to resonate again within popular American political discourse (and as a potentially viable course of action rather than a curse for damnable offense), it is worthwhile to trace its significance within American history to better understand its aesthetic dimensions, its radical difference, and its way of devising problems and answers. In short, this thesis poses the question: what ideological structures …
“Flowing Along The Wall”: Anarcha-Feminist Bioethics And Resistance In Octavia E. Butler’S Dawn 2019.,
2019
SUNY College Cortland
“Flowing Along The Wall”: Anarcha-Feminist Bioethics And Resistance In Octavia E. Butler’S Dawn 2019., Theresa Mendez
Master's Theses
Science fiction (sf) texts conversant with the temporal play between past, present, and future push readers to imagine the extremes of human and environmental existence, interaction, and potential. Simultaneously, despite the sf genre’s tendency to traffic in extremes, these texts provoke readers to consider the ways in which these imagined worlds are grounded in history as well as in the contemporary social moment. As Donna Haraway has argued, “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion” (306). This illusory boundary must continue to be traversed in order to consider how sf literatures, particularly those which imagine …
Posthuman And Alien Breeding: The Implications Of Cybersex In Octavia Butler’S Dawn 2019.,
2019
SUNY College Cortland
Posthuman And Alien Breeding: The Implications Of Cybersex In Octavia Butler’S Dawn 2019., Elizabeth Rutkowski
Master's Theses
Speculative science fiction affords new ways for authors to represent social problems of the modern day in an apocalyptic manner. Authors such as Octavia Butler use science fiction to analyze social injustices revolving around race, gender, and sexuality. Throughout her novel Dawn, Butler uses the posthuman to represent minority groups in the late twentieth century. The posthuman represents those who have moved from humanity towards a new opportunity that is mixed with the potential for struggle. 1 As demonstrated through Butler’s work posthumanism blurs the lines between binaries such as male / female, straight / gay, and consensual / nonconsensual …
Stewart, Robert Lee, 1873-1963 (Sc 3415),
2019
Western Kentucky University
Stewart, Robert Lee, 1873-1963 (Sc 3415), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
Manuscript Collection Finding Aids
Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3415. Letters, 30 May 1956 and 15 May 1957, to Mary Ellen Richards, Franklin, Kentucky, from Lee Stewart, Morehead, Kentucky. He encloses poems and song lyrics relating to Kentucky history, and comments on the Rowan County, Kentucky centennial celebrations. He also encloses his newspaper article about a Fayette County, Kentucky judge, legislator and poet.
