The Politics & Poetics Of Audience Creation In Contemporary Epistolary Memoir,
2023
University of Denver
The Politics & Poetics Of Audience Creation In Contemporary Epistolary Memoir, Sarah M. Davis
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis examines Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Kiese Laymon’s Heavy as works of life writing that leverage the epistolary form to engage their direct maternal addressees and audiences beyond them in revision and reconstruction of identity. Secondary audiences are considered in light of Michael Warner’s “Publics and Counterpublics,” and the social affordances of the epistolary form and self-constructive affordances of life writing are analyzed in tandem as a hybrid epistolary memoir form. Specifically, this project explores how the epistolary memoir form affords Vuong and Laymon opportunities for the process of personal, relational, and communal identity construction, …
Historical Realism And Stoic Heroes In The Work Of John Williams,
2023
University of Denver
Historical Realism And Stoic Heroes In The Work Of John Williams, Cameron Sepede
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis investigates how John Williams’s three major works of fiction — Butcher’s Crossing, Stoner, and Augustus — are narratively structured around three main characters who embody the tenets of stoic and Emersonian transcendental philosophy, respectively. Williams uses these characters to promote and critique preconceived notions of heroic masculinity as structured within these philosophies. Through an analysis of form, this thesis will explore how Williams scaffolds his three main characters around the language and ideas present within each philosophical school. Williams’s portrayal of heroic masculinity, as seen through a feminist perspective, questions the ideal masculine hero, which will be …
Haunted Homelands: Mary Hunter Austin's Search For Belonging In California's Central Valley,
2023
CUNY Graduate Center
Haunted Homelands: Mary Hunter Austin's Search For Belonging In California's Central Valley, Aimee M. Maddalena
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
From childhood, Mary Hunter Austin resisted the social conformity expected of a young girl in 1850’s Carlinville, Illinois. Instead, causing her mother to “shed tears of vexation,” she was outspoken, opinionated, and read the “wrong” books, which, according to her mother, “was what made you queer so that people didn’t like you.” Young Mary had a rich inner life and was drawn in a spiritual, mystical way to the minutiae of the natural world. Also, she questioned the strict social structure that caused her mother to be outcast as a widow, while, at the same time, young women were beginning …
International Student Orientations: Indian Students At American Universities Around The Turn Of The Twentieth Century,
2023
CUNY Graduate Center
International Student Orientations: Indian Students At American Universities Around The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Param S. Ajmera
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation examines the writings and experiences of five Indian international students in the United States during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By drawing attention to these students, I attend to the ways in which notions of freedom, progress, and inclusivity associated with American higher education, and liberalism more generally, are related to structures of racialized and colonial dispossession in India. I build these arguments by reading archival sources such as university administrative records, student publications, personal and official correspondence, as well as understudied aesthetic works, such as memoirs, travel narratives, essays, doctoral dissertations, and public lectures. These historical …
The Personal And The Planetal: Essaying The Ecological,
2023
CUNY Graduate Center
The Personal And The Planetal: Essaying The Ecological, Eric Dean Wilson
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
“The Personal and the Planetal: Essaying the Ecological” investigates contemporary American personal essays in an environmental mode in order to illuminate the boundaries between “self” and “planet.” It does so with an eye toward ecological devastation—namely, the violent effects of global warming—because I sense that thinking about the essay can help us better understand the ethical problems of climate change. Part of our climate crisis is a failure to recognize the boundaries of the personal and what I call the “planetal” (in an attempt to defamiliarize it from the more common “planetary”). Using a method that I call “the ecological …
Individualism And Nonconformity In Ralph Waldo Emerson's ‘Self-Reliance',
2023
Eastern Washington University
Individualism And Nonconformity In Ralph Waldo Emerson's ‘Self-Reliance', Brendan Roof
2023 Symposium
My presentation utilizes the etymology of the word genius to explore Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.” Emerson would empower the individual in a conformist society to find harmony through nonconformity. The etymology of genius as a spiritual guide reinforces his stance on individualism, namely by qualifying the spirit, or the individual’s discretion, as all-powerful and constant. The word is rooted in the belief that a “spirit attendant” overlooks and guides the host body of each individual. Genius has also been defined as the “personification of a person’s natural appetites.” In terms of Emerson’s genius, man’s inherent appetite to belong to a collective reinforces …
Reproduction: The Ultimate Enemy Of Racial Passing In Harlem Renaissance Literature,
2023
CUNY Queens College
Reproduction: The Ultimate Enemy Of Racial Passing In Harlem Renaissance Literature, Veronica Kordmany
Student Theses
"In this essay, I examine three texts that consider the repercussions of passing for Black Americans. Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) serves as a namesake for this general idea, as two light-skinned African American women represent the divisionary approach to racial passing. In George S. Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) we see a passing Black man’s virility being tested as he enters an ‘alternate universe’, in which a scientific invention grants him full access to the wondrous white world he’d always dreamed of entering. Finally, in the middle of this textual spectrum is Angelina W. Grimké’s 1919 short story, “The Closing …
Digitizing The American West: Analyzing Rhetoric In Red Dead Redemption 2,
2023
Seton Hall University
Digitizing The American West: Analyzing Rhetoric In Red Dead Redemption 2, Amalia Mcevoy
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
High-budget, long-form storytelling games offer dozens of hours of content for audiences to explore and learn from. Although far different from sitting and reading a book, there is a distinct connection to be made between how literature is experienced and how audiences can experience a narrative-heavy video game. Based on this connection, there are bridges to be built between video games and literature, understanding how one field can benefit from the other as well as how one field can be informed by the other. An analysis of the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 using reader response theory can illustrate …
“Speechless, Placeless Power”: Affect And Trauma In Moby-Dick And “Bartleby, The Scrivener”,
2023
Seton Hall University
“Speechless, Placeless Power”: Affect And Trauma In Moby-Dick And “Bartleby, The Scrivener”, Lauren Colandro
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and “Bartleby, the Scrivener” contain affectively unsound figures such as Captain Ahab and Bartleby that seem to disrupt larger narrative functions, both developing these characteristics in response to prior trauma. However, narrators are not privy to the extent of their feelings because of their idealistic attachments to the disruptive figures. This thesis examines the commonalities of Melville’s disruptive characters in both stories using affect theory, as well as how their disruptions illuminate the effects of repressed trauma in an increasingly capital-driven society.
Recovering Pearl: Utopian Projections In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter",
2023
Seton Hall University
Recovering Pearl: Utopian Projections In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", Evan Weiss
Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)
Much of the recent scholarly criticism of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter aims to demonstrate the novel’s function as an allegory for Hawthorne’s anti-reformist (and especially anti-abolitionist) views at the height of the antebellum crisis. This commitment to revealing Hawthorne’s conservatism tends to cast the novel’s major figures as pieces within a self-balancing paradigm of good (intentions) and evil (acts) that ultimately symbolizes the author’s preference for inaction on the major political and humanitarian issue of his time—slavery. Curiously, however, the character of Pearl, Hester Prynne’s “wild,” “bird-like” child who dominates nearly every scene in which she appears, is almost …
“She Didn’T Know I Was In The Room”: The Effects Of Hatfield’S Illustrations On Readers’ Interpretations Of “The Yellow Wallpaper”,
2023
Cleveland State University
“She Didn’T Know I Was In The Room”: The Effects Of Hatfield’S Illustrations On Readers’ Interpretations Of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Mason Repas
The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University
When Charlotte Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," was first published in New England Magazine in 1892, staff illustrator Joseph Hatfield created three realistic-style images to accompany the text. Research suggests that Gilman had no control or influence over these images, which altered readers' perception of her story about the dangers of the rest cure for female hysteria. While Hatfield faced artistic limitations and his intentions are not discoverable today, the choices and details in his illustrations support interpretations of the short story as a piece of horror fiction in which his cohesive series of images is a more reliable …
Sweat Equity: Lynn Nottage's Radical Dialectic Of Deindustrialization,
2023
Chapman University
Sweat Equity: Lynn Nottage's Radical Dialectic Of Deindustrialization, Jocelyn L. Buckner
Theatre Faculty Books and Book Chapters
"Lynn Nottage has devoted her career to researching and telling stories of Black individuals and communities with expressed interest in laborers, advocating for their agency, humanity, and legacy. In her second Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Sweat, Nottage dramatizes more recent US history, illuminating the lives of workers marginalized by the deindustrialization of the Rust Belt in the early 2000s. Sweat is emblematic of Nottage's sustained effort to deploy playwriting as activism and stand in solidarity with those whose stories she chooses to tell. As a constant theme in her works, Lynn Nottage's stories align with marginalized workers' efforts and histories, …
Review Of Jack Lewis And His American Cousin, Nat Hawthorne: A Study Of
Instructive Affinities,
2023
Morehead State University
Review Of Jack Lewis And His American Cousin, Nat Hawthorne: A Study Of Instructive Affinities, John Stanifer
Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal
A review of D. G. Kehl, Jack Lewis and His American Cousin, Nat Hawthorne: A Study of Instructive Affinities (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2013). ix + 247 pages. $29.00. ISBN 9781610978361.
Beyond Blackface: Minstrel Shows In Modern Day America,
2023
Lindenwood University
Beyond Blackface: Minstrel Shows In Modern Day America, Cheyenne Burns
The Confluence
This essay explores the history of Blackface in America and how not addressing or treating Blackface as a taboo has allowed for microaggressions within the media to continue.
Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird And Queer Temporalities In Lovecraft Country And Detransition, Baby,
2023
Chapman University
Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird And Queer Temporalities In Lovecraft Country And Detransition, Baby, Eurydice Dye
English (MA) Theses
By analyzing H. P. Lovecraft’s work through the lens of queer temporality, I offer a queer perspective on Lovecraft, reading the monstrous outside in his work as a queer figure and casting the temporal conflict common to Lovecraftian horror as a conflict between dominant time and outside time. I argue that, by placing queerly-temporal protagonists in conflict with dominant temporalities, queer fiction is essentially an inversion of Lovecraftian horror. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the novel, I develop a theory of the queer chronotope in fiction to align with the queer temporalities that queer characters inhabit. …
Through Her Eyes: Learning And Teaching About Racism Through "To Kill A Mockingbird" And "The Bluest Eye",
2023
College of the Holy Cross
Through Her Eyes: Learning And Teaching About Racism Through "To Kill A Mockingbird" And "The Bluest Eye", Sloane Larsen
English Honors Theses
This thesis argues that Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird both merit a place in te United States’ secondary education systems by using use them in the classroom to encourage students to recognize and challenge their biases, perspectives, and choices. One of the many complex questions this thesis addresses is the efficacy of teaching students about racism using such novels. Teaching these novels through Critical Race Theory could help create a new generation of students who are more likely to address and challenge their biases and privilege. At the same time, this approach requires …
What's That Word . . . : The Real Reverse Dictionary,
2023
University of Rhode Island
What's That Word . . . : The Real Reverse Dictionary, Giacomo Wholey
Senior Honors Projects
No abstract provided.
Oceans Of Literature - The Little Mermaid,
2023
Chapman University
Oceans Of Literature - The Little Mermaid, Makena Metz
English (MA) Theses
Mermaid stories have existed for millennia, stemming back to the ancient cultures of the world. Influenced by the mythos established in books like The Iliad, sirens and mermaids were a part of European culture for centuries. The mermaid as chimera monster that represented the duality of danger and seduction was subverted in 1837, when Hans Christian Andersen wrote the seminal fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.” In our present day, we can find that this short story has created a canon of “mermaid” literature, especially in the fantasy canon, and has majorly impacted our pop culture and digital spheres. By tracing …
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler,
2023
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg
Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects
During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …
Media Analysis And Journalistic Applications,
2023
California State University, Monterey Bay
Media Analysis And Journalistic Applications, Jose Villasenor Cervantes
Capstone Projects and Master's Theses
Media has been a part of our lives now for a better part of over a century or more. From newspapers, radio, tv, film, music. All of these have impacted our lives since their creation and have influenced our society for better or worse for educational or not so educational purposes. Media in all of its aspects have been around for many years and that has translated to every part of our society. We see a film and we quickly talk about its whether it was good or bad but we analyze it. This goes for everyone from children to …
