“How Close To The Edge We Are”: Ecologically Reading The Frontiers Of Joan Didion’S Early Nonfiction,
2025
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
“How Close To The Edge We Are”: Ecologically Reading The Frontiers Of Joan Didion’S Early Nonfiction, Mia R. Speller
Honors Theses
Joan Didion’s work is heavily regional and rooted in place, whether that be the place about which she writes or, by contrast, the place she leaves in order to do her writing. This place-based context takes root in many American ideologies and mythos, like that of the frontier mentality and golden dream. For this reason, exploring Didion’s use of natural metaphor and description as she discusses various cultural phenomena is essential to understanding the layers of her social critiques of 1960’s and 1970’s American culture, especially as they reflect on the failures of the frontier ideology. Further, looking at her …
The Shame Of (Be)Longing In Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy,
2025
Clemson University
The Shame Of (Be)Longing In Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy, Grace S. Miholic
All Theses
This thesis examines the role of shame in Kincaid's Lucy. Separated into four separate sections, the thesis moves through Lucy’s relationship with her boss, Mariah, her Antiguan mother, and the shame that is identified at the end of the novel. In the introduction, I identify the passage that frames the novel around shame. I then identify my thesis, which centers around Lucy’s shame and her inability and refusal to situate herself with neither Mariah nor her mother’s expectations. The second section of the thesis revolves around Mariah and the form of feminism that skews her perception and expectations of …
Unsettling Femininity In Ottessa Moshfegh’S My Year Of Rest And Relaxation,
2025
Clemson University
Unsettling Femininity In Ottessa Moshfegh’S My Year Of Rest And Relaxation, Audrianna Witcher
All Theses
This thesis covers how Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation critiques traditional understandings of femininity and the inadequacy of neoliberal feminism to address the systemic issues that women face. Using Lauren Berlant’s concept of femininity as a genre, this thesis traces how Moshfegh implements disgust and abjection to reject mandates of cleanliness and emotional labor that are central to traditional femininity. Moshfegh also utilizes disgust and the narrator’s attempt at a year-long sleep to resist the ideals of productivity and self-care that are central to neoliberal feminism. In employing these affects, Moshfegh resists the social structures that exploit …
Double, Double, Toils And Troubles: Analyzing The “Magical” Relationships Between University Leaders’ Personality Traits And Their Self-Efficacy In Leadership Situations,
2025
University of New Orleans
Double, Double, Toils And Troubles: Analyzing The “Magical” Relationships Between University Leaders’ Personality Traits And Their Self-Efficacy In Leadership Situations, Fay Ludvine Boudreaux
LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
This present study investigated the relationship between higher education leaders’ personality traits and their self-efficacy in leadership situations. A total of 151 leaders employed across the nine institutions within the University of Louisiana System completed a survey that prompted them to identify their personal values, traits, and skill sets, as derived from the online Pottermore quiz, the official Harry Potter Hogwarts House sorting instrument. This niche personality metric was chosen to cater to higher education’s evolving landscape, as it welcomes an influx of Millennials into leadership positions. Participants’ responses were eventually recoded to “sort” them into their respective Houses: Gryffindor, …
The Castle Is Still Here, And Yes, It's Still Scary: Reconstructing The Gothic Through Contemporary Short Story,
2025
Bellarmine University
The Castle Is Still Here, And Yes, It's Still Scary: Reconstructing The Gothic Through Contemporary Short Story, Alyssa Kilroy
Undergraduate Theses
Since Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto published in 1764, the literary Gothic has grown and spread to include a multitude of subgenres in a variety of formats. Gothic literature has served as both a product and a showcase of its contextual influences, providing a deeper look at humanity's deepest flaws, fears, and passions that shape our societies. While the Gothic's historically fluid identity allows Frankenstein to exist in a literary realm alongside Wuthering Heights, something consistent in its core continues to appeal to modern audiences and remains relevant in contemporary literature and other media. This project offers a …
On Death And Disease: How Physicians’ Perspectives Compare Across Specialties Through Written Work,
2025
Nothern Illinois University
On Death And Disease: How Physicians’ Perspectives Compare Across Specialties Through Written Work, Stephanie Anne C. Alkonga
Honors Capstones
Narrative medicine is a tool that the medical field is increasingly utilizing to cultivate patient-centered and culturally competent doctors and to reflect on lived experiences through texts that focus on psychosocial best practices. This study aims to examine the language used in physician-written works that address how physicians in different medical specialties treat the aging and the terminally ill, and how they view the deceased. Qualitative data guided by thematic questions will primarily be used in the analysis and comparison of these texts’ tone, rhetoric, diction, and similar literary devices to uncover if certain patterns arise across such specialties. Findings …
The Masc Of Masculinity: Multimodal Analysis Of Contemporary Punk Music,
2025
California State University - San Bernardino
The Masc Of Masculinity: Multimodal Analysis Of Contemporary Punk Music, James L. Stanfield Iii
Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations
This thesis establishes a multi-genre framework of various theories from different academic fields that is then used to view the multimodal elements of punk and hardcore music performances. The analyses are tailored towards the dissection of traditional masculinity with the goal of constructing masculine avatars that are prosocial and moral. Reworking traditional masculinity is a portion of the larger fight for social reform that is taken up within the field of the humanities. Existing critical approaches to masculinity often establish the need for a rewriting of normative masculinity in society but often do not provide methods for such a rewriting. …
Love Y Ganas; A Revolutionay Revelation,
2025
University of Texas at El Paso
Love Y Ganas; A Revolutionay Revelation, Thomas J. Salas
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
My thesis does not have an abstract.
Efecto De Soles,
2025
University of Texas at El Paso
Efecto De Soles, Natalia Soriano Moreno
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
En este texto quiero exponer cómo fue el proceso de creación de Efecto de soles, el cual se desarrolló entre los años 2022 y 2025. El libro presenta la cotidianidad de un barrio que un día se ve afectado por distintos cambios en la naturaleza cuando aparece un fenómeno particular: los soles de algunas casas se vuelven cuadrados y aumentan su nivel de alumbramiento. Esto hace que el entorno natural del barrio comience a cambiar: aparecen gusanos fosforescentes, las flores pierden su olor, la lluvia se vuelve negra, las mariposas se van y a los árboles les salen hojas de …
James Baldwin's Classroom And What He Can Teach Educators About Queer Representation,
2025
Murray State University
James Baldwin's Classroom And What He Can Teach Educators About Queer Representation, Matthew Callahan
Honors College Theses
This is an extended analysis of James Baldwin's "A Talk to Teachers" about how to bring representation into the classroom. I use Baldwin's other essays and fiction along with educational research to look into the way Baldwin understands education and the importance of bringing healthy queer representation into the classroom. I provide both theoretical observations along with practical implications of what this means for educators in the classroom and what they can do to help all their students feel seen, represented, and welcome in the classroom.
The Specter Of Body Horror Haunting Joyce Carol Oates’S “The Chair Of Tranquility” And Charlotte Perkins Gilman’S “The Yellow Wall-Paper”,
2025
Aix Marseille Université
The Specter Of Body Horror Haunting Joyce Carol Oates’S “The Chair Of Tranquility” And Charlotte Perkins Gilman’S “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, Tanya L. Tromble
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
Joyce Carol Oates is the editor of a 2023 collection entitled A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers. Her own story in the collection, “The Chair of Tranquility (from the Diary of Mrs. Thomas Peele, Trenton, New Jersey, 1853),” takes on a fuller meaning when considered in a dialogic relationship to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 story “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” By first outlining how Gilman’s and Oates’s stories can be seen as sister stories, then analyzing some essential differences operated in Oates’s story, the author is finally able to discuss the dialogic effect of …
Beyond “Do Not Disturb”: Alternatives And Possibilities Of Feminism In Joyce Carol Oates's Babysitter,
2025
University of Picardy Jules Verne, Amiens
Beyond “Do Not Disturb”: Alternatives And Possibilities Of Feminism In Joyce Carol Oates's Babysitter, Emilie Heude
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
“Sympathize/don’t rage” was Joyce Carol Oates’s call as she concluded a tweet on the rights of people who are transitioning (20 February 2023). This statement could well be considered a prism through which we might see her work. Indeed, the author depicts a variety of characters handling situations very differently – and readers are left dealing with their own sympathy with them. Babysitter (2022) is a case in point in this regard: Hannah, the main female character, appears as a submissive figure replete with gender and class prejudice and lacking agency. As Oyinkan Braithwaite wrote in a review for The …
The Blinding Lights Of (Post)Feminist Empowerment In Joyce Carol Oates’S "Night, Neon”,
2025
Independent scholar
The Blinding Lights Of (Post)Feminist Empowerment In Joyce Carol Oates’S "Night, Neon”, Stéphanie Maerten
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
Juliana, the protagonist of Joyce Carol Oates’s 2018 novella “Night, Neon,” is portrayed as a confident, empowered young woman who appears to embody the postfeminist ideal of “having it all”—autonomy, agency, and adherence to traditional feminine norms like marriage and motherhood. However, as the story unfolds, it becomes evident that Juliana’s sense of empowerment is largely performative, concealing deep-seated vulnerabilities and unresolved traumas. Through a series of flashbacks revealing Juliana’s troubled past, Oates critiques the postfeminist tendency to reinterpret traumatic experiences as tools for self-empowerment and resilience, suggesting that such a framework may obscure the systemic and pervasive nature of …
The Mudwoman In The Academia: The Spectral Presence Of Jane Eyre And Antoinette Cosway In Joyce Carol Oates's Mudwoman,
2025
Université Bordeaux Montaigne
The Mudwoman In The Academia: The Spectral Presence Of Jane Eyre And Antoinette Cosway In Joyce Carol Oates's Mudwoman, Stéphanie Durrans
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
While Jane Eyre has been lauded as a feminist novel, its modernist prequel Wide Sargasso Sea clearly aims at recovering the lost voice of the much-maligned Bertha Rochester from an altogether different feminist perspective. In her 1985 essay on these two novels, Joyce Carol Oates highlights their dual relationship in terms of romance and anti-romance, regarding Rhys’s novel as “a reverse mirror image of Jane Eyre’s and Rochester’s England.” Commenting upon the brief encounter between Jane and Rochester’s first wife as depicted by Jean Rhys, Oates also points out that, “[i]nhabiting contrary worlds, one woman is a savage to the …
The 11-Year Itch: Exploitation As Sublimation In Blonde (Joyce Carol Oates, 2000; Andrew Dominik, 2022),
2025
université de Perpignan, France
The 11-Year Itch: Exploitation As Sublimation In Blonde (Joyce Carol Oates, 2000; Andrew Dominik, 2022), Jocelyn R. Dupont
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
The goal of this article is to discuss Andrew Dominik’s much-criticized adaptation of Oates’ novel Blonde (2000), released on the Netflix streaming platform in September 2022. It aims at re-assessing the movie in the light of its literary hypotext, which appears to have been rather unfairly left out of much of the debate surrounding the release and critical reception of the film. In a first part, this article briefly addresses the stakes of Dominik’s adaptation, which are more complex than they might seem, notably on account of the extreme iconicity of its subject, even more so than its subject matter. …
Is Love A “Pathological Condition Of The Soul”? Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts And Rape: A Love Story,
2025
University of Aix-Marseille
Is Love A “Pathological Condition Of The Soul”? Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts And Rape: A Love Story, Nicolas P. Boileau
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
This paper seeks to address the question of Oates’s relation to feminist and gender theories by looking at two novellas published consecutively, Beasts and Rape: A Love Story in the beginning of the 2000s. The short texts share a common storyline based on rape, which is far from uncommon in Oates’s fiction. However, I argue that there is something very specific in these two novellas in the way Oates chooses to handle the testimony of the rape, both overtly and covertly, both in graphic details and in repressed forms of expression, giving way to a reflection on women’s vulnerable position …
Joyce Carol Oates And Feminism: Facts Found And Foundered,
2025
Bath Spa University
Joyce Carol Oates And Feminism: Facts Found And Foundered, Gavin J. Cologne-Brookes
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
This essay explores the nuanced relationship between Joyce Carol Oates and feminism, distinguishing between Oates as an individual and “JCO” as the authorial process. Through analysis of novels like Babysitter, the essay argues that Oates’s fiction resists fixed labels, instead foregrounding ambiguity, interpretation, and the limitations of categorization. Drawing on philosophical and literary contexts, it contends that while Oates’s work invites feminist readings, her narrative style deliberately undermines definitive conclusions. Ultimately, the essay suggests that JCO’s writing stimulates inquiry and self-reflection, positioning art as a process of response rather than a vehicle for asserting categorical truths—including those of feminism.
Exploring Specters Of Feminism In The Work Of Joyce Carol Oates,
2025
University of Aix-Marseille
Exploring Specters Of Feminism In The Work Of Joyce Carol Oates, Nicolas P. Boileau, Tanya L. Tromble
Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies
This collection originates from the international conference “Specters of Feminism in the Work of Joyce Carol Oates,” held at Aix-Marseille Université in March 2024 as part of the broader project “Women and the F-Word: Thinking about Women’s Resistance to Feminism.” The introduction situates Oates’s vast and varied oeuvre within evolving feminist discourses, highlighting her ambivalent personal stance toward feminism and the critical consensus that her work engages deeply with feminist themes, especially sexual violence, trauma, and the complexities of gendered power. The essays gathered here explore how Oates’s stylistic experimentation, intertextuality, and representations of female agency and victimhood simultaneously reflect, …
Human Dignity And Prostitution,
2025
Harding University
Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle
Harding Undergraduate Research Conference
In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …
Book Culture And Narrative In Martin’S A Song Of Fire And Ice,
2025
University of Copenhagen
Book Culture And Narrative In Martin’S A Song Of Fire And Ice, Maria Damkjær
Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature
What do books represent in G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire? This article examines their role as objects and their limitations within a narrative obsessed with loss of knowledge. Books, which are handled, lost, found, read, or destroyed, are both a shorthand for a fantasy world’s material culture, but also a metafictional nod to the reality of the reader. Contemporary fantasy authors, I posit, are both fascinated by texts, and also troubled by their limited chance of survival over the very long periods that the genre tends to sketch. Deep time is hostile to book knowledge, and …
