Unmooring And Anchoring Bigger Thomas: Ontological Confusion And Mercy In Richard Wright’S Native Son,
2016
Brigham Young University
Unmooring And Anchoring Bigger Thomas: Ontological Confusion And Mercy In Richard Wright’S Native Son, Davey Cox
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
Richard Wright's novel, Native Son, puts Bigger Thomas on display as an isolated soul, ontologically separated from the world around him and confused about his place in it. The work of Phillipe Descola aids in understanding the cultural models that lead to this confusion by elucidating the underlying schemas by which people organize their experience. Bigger's isolation appears incurable, or difficult to approach at best. The novel's proposed solution is mercy, or closeness and connection, which both Jan and Max offer Bigger. Much of the novel's content and it's treatment thereof is relevant to the environmental justice movement of …
Activism, Community And Cultural Heritage: “Communitism” In Creek Literature,
2016
University of Dayton
Activism, Community And Cultural Heritage: “Communitism” In Creek Literature, Rachel Maria Cain
Honors Theses
"Communitism" refers to literature that encourages activism by celebrating and promoting American Indian communities. This thesis investigates how the literary works, The Fus Fixico Letters (1902 – 1908) and Drowning in Fire (2004), are communitist by supporting specific political and social changes in Creek communities. Through The Fus Fixico Letters Alexander Posey promoted his progressive political convictions, including that Creeks should embrace land allotment and endorse the creation a separate state for American Indians. Drowning in Fire, by Craig Womack, takes place throughout 1904 – 1993 and relates traditional Creek stories and practices to modern life. The novel delves …
Poetry And The Post-Apocalyptic Paradox: North American Indigenous Disruptions To The Westernized Self,
2016
University of Dayton
Poetry And The Post-Apocalyptic Paradox: North American Indigenous Disruptions To The Westernized Self, Joseph Benjamin Ziegler Ferber
Honors Theses
This three-chapter project explores the work of three poets, each identifying with different North American indigenous tribes. Their work challenges western poetic conventions and notions of individualism to offer alternative worldviews and complicate mainstream oversimplifications of American Indian identity. Brandi MacDougall investigates assumptions of the Western Self represented by the "I" Perspective common in Western thought; Sherman Alexie revises the sonnet form to portray the complexity of how contemporary American Indians navigate the blending of capitalist institutions and native traditions; Kristi Leora offers readers an enlightened conception of self-hood by balancing processes of western socialization with native cosmology. Ultimately, this …
Dreaming Free From The Chains: Teaching The Rhetorical Sovereignty Of Gerald Vizenor Through Bearheart,
2016
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Dreaming Free From The Chains: Teaching The Rhetorical Sovereignty Of Gerald Vizenor Through Bearheart, Lydia R. Presley
Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
The purpose of this thesis is to examine Gerald Vizenor’s novel Bearheart, through the lens of rhetorical sovereignty. What this means is that the crux of my understanding of Bearheart begins with the knowledge that the language, terminology, and style used by Vizenor are not only his choices, but also his inherent Native right to use. I argue that it is important to teach Vizenor’s theoretical ideas through Bearheart because each of its relatively short episodes, or series of episodes, deals with a key theoretical idea that can be explored not only in a Native American literature setting, but in …
“The Languages Of Other People”: The Experiences Of Tutors, Administrators, And Students In A South African Multilingual Writing Center,
2016
Indiana State University
“The Languages Of Other People”: The Experiences Of Tutors, Administrators, And Students In A South African Multilingual Writing Center, Nicole Bailey
All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This ethnography, conducted at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, conveys the experiences of tutors, students, and administrators in a multilingual writing lab. As the number of both multilingual and international students in American universities increases, more writing centers in the United States have begun to explore the idea of multilingual tutoring. This study offers implications for establishing American multilingual writing centers based on data that emerged from observations and interviews conducted at Stellenbosch. Several themes emerged from the data that have important implications for American centers. First, there must be a clear understanding of what defines a multilingual writing center. …
Ceasing To Run Underground: 20th-Century Women Writers And Hydro-Logical Thought,
2016
CUNY Graduate Center
Ceasing To Run Underground: 20th-Century Women Writers And Hydro-Logical Thought, Annie M. Cranstoun
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Starting from two central ecopoetic convictions—the constitutive role of environment in human experience (and vice versa), and text’s ability to connect with the world—this dissertation then moves in a different direction from most ecocritical projects. Instead of looking at the ways literary representation flows back into nature in the forms of attitude, praxis, and policy, this study focuses on the earlier part of the loop: the emergence of text from environment, particularly its aquatic parts, via the faculty of the imagination. In its scrutiny of images that spring directly from matter and its faith in the concept of a personal …
A Passage From Brooklyn To Ithaca: The Sea, The City And The Body In The Poetics Of Walt Whitman And C. P. Cavafy,
2016
CUNY Graduate Center
A Passage From Brooklyn To Ithaca: The Sea, The City And The Body In The Poetics Of Walt Whitman And C. P. Cavafy, Michael P. Skafidas
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This treatise is the first extensive comparative study of Walt Whitman and C. P. Cavafy. Despite the abundant scholarship dealing with the work and life of each, until now no critic has put the two poets together. Whitman’s poetry celebrates birth, youth, the self and the world as seen for the first time, while Cavafy’s diverts from the active present to resurrect a world whose key, in Eliot’s terms, is memory. Yet, I see the two poets conversing in the crossroads of the fin de siècle; the American Whitman and the Greek Cavafy embody the antithesis of hope and dislocation …
Loving The Unlovable Body In Lois Ann Yamanaka’S Saturday Night At The Pahala Theatre,
2016
CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College
Loving The Unlovable Body In Lois Ann Yamanaka’S Saturday Night At The Pahala Theatre, Christa Baiada
Publications and Research
Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s award-winning yet remarkably neglected Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre (1993) explores female adolescence and coming of age in a rich, polyphonic collection of verse novellas. “Loving the Unlovable Body” focuses on Yamanaka’s treatment of this transition as a fully embodied, fraught, and often painful experience by explicating the uses of several tropes used to express girls’ experiences of their bodies: eating, voice, eyes, fragmentation, and marking/naming. These metaphors contribute to the development of a complex range of possibilities from devastating to hopeful, presented in juxtaposition and interplay, for girls’ relationships to their culturally denigrated bodies and the …
The Significance Of John S. Mbiti's Works In The Study Of Pan-African Literature,
2016
Kent State University
The Significance Of John S. Mbiti's Works In The Study Of Pan-African Literature, Babacar Mbaye
The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs
No abstract provided.
Arts: Fiction And Fiction Writers: The Americas,
2016
Linfield College
Arts: Fiction And Fiction Writers: The Americas, Rachel Norman
Faculty Publications
This essay by Rachel Norman, which originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, discusses contemporary Muslim fiction published in the United States with a particular focus on three novels: Mojha Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Laila Halaby's Once in a Promised Land, and Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home.
Revolution, Redemption, And Romance: Reading Constructions Of Filipino Spanish American Identities And Politics Of Knowledge In Rizal’S Noli Me Tangere And El Filibusterismo Alongside Filipino American Fiction,
2016
Hamline University
Revolution, Redemption, And Romance: Reading Constructions Of Filipino Spanish American Identities And Politics Of Knowledge In Rizal’S Noli Me Tangere And El Filibusterismo Alongside Filipino American Fiction, Steven Beardsley
Departmental Honors Projects
This project analyzes the literary works and the iconic role of Filipino nationalist José Rizal before, during, and after the Spanish American War of 1898. Rizal’s social activism and writing inspired a revolution against the Friarocracy in the Philippines. He also influenced Filipino American writers who reference Rizal’s construction of the Filipino woman in Christianity and Filipinos fighting against colonial oppression. Additionally, Filipino American writers illustrate how being Filipino in the US today is a transcultural experience rather than a simple binary of traditional Philippines and modern America. Recognizing Spain as an earlier colonizing force is critical in understanding the …
Hip Hop And The Huxtables: Identity, Hip Hop, And The Cosby Effect In Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor,
2016
Bridgewater State University
Hip Hop And The Huxtables: Identity, Hip Hop, And The Cosby Effect In Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor, Jonathan Naumowicz
The Graduate Review
Identity is a tricky thing for anyone in the formative years of adolescence, a thing made much more complex when you don’t fit the mold of any preexisting social group. For a black American in the 1980s, the formulation of identity was a remarkably unique challenge. The rise of hip hop as a major element of American culture gave a far-reaching voice to the challenges faced many black Americans, but its roots in and content about impoverished, usually violent urban areas offered a decidedly limited and negative view of black Americans. In Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead delves into this complicated …
Pecan Grove Review Volume 17,
2016
St. Mary's University
Pecan Grove Review Volume 17, St. Mary's University
Pecan Grove Review
Creative writings by students, faculty, and staff of the St. Mary's University community.
Female Agency In Religious Disassembly Of Culture: Where Do Women Fit In?,
2016
Eastern Kentucky University
Female Agency In Religious Disassembly Of Culture: Where Do Women Fit In?, Megan Elizabeth Kirby
Online Theses and Dissertations
A study of The Color Purple and Possessing the Secret of Joy as they relate to cultural disassembly and the relationship to missionaries from Western cultures. Some focus is placed on Alice Walker's views on female genital mutilation and how that was impacted by Christian viewpoints. Theoretical perspectives from Homi Bhabha and Chandra Mohanty emphasize the role of so-called "third world women" in world politics and feminism.
The Color Of Memory: Reimagining The Antebellum South In Works By James Mcbride Through The Use Of Free Indirect Discourse,
2016
Virginia Commonwealth University
The Color Of Memory: Reimagining The Antebellum South In Works By James Mcbride Through The Use Of Free Indirect Discourse, Janel L. Holmes
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis examines the use of interior narrative techniques such as free indirect discourse and internal monologue in two of James McBride’s neo-slave narratives, Song Yet Sung (2008) and The Good Lord Bird (2013). Very limited critical attention has been given to these neo-slave narratives that illustrate McBrides attention to characterization and focalized narration. In these narratives McBride builds upon the revelations he explores in his bestselling memoir, The Color of Water (1996, 2006), where he learns to disassociate race and character. What he discovers about not only his mother, but also himself, inspires his re-imagination of the people who …
Science Fiction,
2016
Georgia Institute of Technology
Science Fiction, Lisa Yaszek, Jason W. Ellis
Publications and Research
Literary and cultural critics call science fiction the premiere story form of modernity because it relates the adventures of educated men and women who use science and technology to reshape the material world and build new, hopefully better societies. As such, it is no surprise that many authors working in this popular genre explore how educated men and women might use science and technology to reshape the physical body and build new, hopefully better versions of humanity itself. Yet, lingering even in the most optimistic imaginings of a posthuman future is the doubt that these transformations will be evenly distributed …
Overcoming More Than Physical Borders:
The Challenges Gender Creates For Hispanic Immigrants,
2016
Nebraska College Preparatory Academy
Overcoming More Than Physical Borders: The Challenges Gender Creates For Hispanic Immigrants, Guadalupe Esquivel
Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects
An analysis of T. Coraghessan Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain and Sandra Cisneros's “Woman Hollering Creek” shows the measures that Mexican women take to find their identity after immigrating. Facing discrimination on the basis of both race and gender, this task is more difficult for females than for their male counterparts. It is a challenge that continues for many women today as they balance two worlds and are expected to fully carry the roles of both. This is a focus on the main characters of the above texts, Americá Rincón and Cleofilas, respectively, as well as personal essays written by first …
Bridges Instead Of Borders: A Look Into Hispanic-American Literature And Its Effect On Hyphenated Youth,
2016
Eastern Illinois University
Bridges Instead Of Borders: A Look Into Hispanic-American Literature And Its Effect On Hyphenated Youth, Cristal Villarreal
Undergraduate Honors Theses
No abstract provided.
Father Of All Destruction: The Role Of The White Father In Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Cinema,
2016
University of Kentucky
Father Of All Destruction: The Role Of The White Father In Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Cinema, Felicia Cosey
Theses and Dissertations--English
Since September 11, 2001 a substantial number of English-language, post-apocalyptic films have been released. This renewed interest in the genre has prompted scholars to examine the circumstances within western society that make post-apocalyptic films appealing to audiences. The popularity of these films derives from a narrative structure that reinforces conservative notions of good and bad and moral absolutism. The post-9/11, post-apocalyptic film typically features a white male hero who, in one way or another, reestablishes the pre-apocalyptic social order through proclamations of mandatory and prohibitive laws that must be adhered to by the survivors. The hero of post-apocalyptic film does …
Southern Transfiguration: Competing Cultural Narratives Of (Ec)Centric Religion In The Works Of Faulkner, O’Connor, And Hurston,
2016
University of Kentucky
Southern Transfiguration: Competing Cultural Narratives Of (Ec)Centric Religion In The Works Of Faulkner, O’Connor, And Hurston, Craig D. Slaven
Theses and Dissertations--English
This project explores the ways in which key literary texts reproduce, undermine, or otherwise engage with cultural narratives of the so-called Bible Belt. Noting that the evangelicalism that dominated the South by the turn of the twentieth century was, for much of the antebellum period, a relatively marginal and sometimes subversive movement in a comparatively irreligious region, I argue that widely disseminated images and narratives instilled a false sense of nostalgia for an incomplete version of the South’s religious heritage. My introductory chapter demonstrates how the South’s commemorated “Old Time” religion was not especially old, and how this modernist construct …
