Bald Eagle, Blackbirds,
2018
Bryant University
Bald Eagle, Blackbirds, Matthew Spireng
Bryant Literary Review
A dead blackbird on the driveway, eagle
swooping down to avoid the plague of blackbirds
If This Man,
2018
Bryant University
If This Man, Matthew Spireng
Bryant Literary Review
If this man with hairy ears, ears
sprouting--not like an old man,
Rising To The Call,
2018
Bryant University
Rising To The Call, Christa Albrecht-Vegas
Bryant Literary Review
Julie heard them calling: the high, shrill pinging of a thousand points of--not light, but tinnitus.
As If It Mattered (Gambling Sounds),
2018
Bryant University
As If It Mattered (Gambling Sounds), Fredda S. Pearlson
Bryant Literary Review
if today moves
through its hours
with no lost rings
Chez Moi,
2018
Bryant University
Victor As A Victim Of Precipitation,
2018
Bryant University
Victor As A Victim Of Precipitation, Jonathan Greenhause
Bryant Literary Review
Victor's car was stolen, but he chose to drive it anyway.
Every Few Years,
2018
Bryant University
Every Few Years, Jack Cooper
Bryant Literary Review
Every few years
I look back and think
what a fool I was before
Prayer Of The Bell,
2018
Bryant University
Prayer Of The Bell, Laura Bonazzoli
Bryant Literary Review
I guess you probably want to know how I got to be in a mess like this.
The Womb Of The Unknown Soldier,
2018
Bryant University
The Womb Of The Unknown Soldier, Tom Chandler
Bryant Literary Review
Is unoccupied at the moment
could be most anywhere
Flawed To Start : The Inconsequence Of Action In The Novels Of Brian O’Nolan,
2018
Montclair State University
Flawed To Start : The Inconsequence Of Action In The Novels Of Brian O’Nolan, Christopher M. Mitchell
Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects
Brian O’Nolan’s novels At Swim-Two-Birds, The Poor Mouth, and The Third Policeman present worlds where character actions are largely inconsequential. This discussion will focus on reflexive metanarrative elements, criticism of the Irish revivalist movements and authorship and creation as a means to survive these worlds. O’Nolan’s novels will be shown to be largely optimistic in their confrontation of nihilistic concerns. Much of his writing is comedic and playful even when dealing with serious topics. Repetition through both language and story structure are key components of the futility O’Nolan constructs for his characters and readers. This thesis examines the interplay between …
“The Unwelcome Truth” : Arthur Miller’S The Crucible As Satirical Political Allegory,
2018
Montclair State University
“The Unwelcome Truth” : Arthur Miller’S The Crucible As Satirical Political Allegory, Deanna Marie Mattia
Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects
The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that while Arthur Miller’s 1952 play The Crucible is often cited as a political allegory of the McCarthy era, analyzing various instances of irony and how language itself becomes almost criminal shows the play can also be interpreted as satire. This thesis begins with a detailed analysis of Puritan life and religion to show how Spectral Evidence and an inherent fear of the Devil become the driving forces of the Salem Trials. From there, an examination of the political climate that inspires Miller to do a close-reading of human behavior shows how …
“‘Bold Words Vouched With A Deed So Bold’ : Latent Orientalism And Narrative In John Milton’S Paradise Lost”,
2018
Montclair State University
“‘Bold Words Vouched With A Deed So Bold’ : Latent Orientalism And Narrative In John Milton’S Paradise Lost”, Carolyn Noury
Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects
This essay explores, in sequence, the event of Eve’s dream, Raphael’s visit to Eden, and Satan’s temptation as presented in Milton’s Paradise Lost. To aid an interpretation of Raphael’s visit to Eden, in terms other than failure, is Edward Said’s seminal work, Orientalism. Said’s theoretical cruxes of “latent orientalism” and “narrative” propel an analytical reconfiguration of the events stated above. As Said’s claims work to question analyses of Raphael’s visit, present in scholarly discourse, Milton’s text works to reveal the analytical possibilities of Said’s work in ways that are otherwise absent from the discourse. By examining these moments in Milton’s …
Trajectories Of The Postcolony In The Color Purple,
2018
Montclair State University
Trajectories Of The Postcolony In The Color Purple, Kim Silva-Martinez
Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects
Achille Mbembe’s theory from On the Postcolony uses structuralism to define Africa in terms of its differences: that is, what the continent lacks, or what is absent when compared to Europe. Mbembe, however, introduces a new definition of Africa to refute Western culture’s dependence on social constructs of race that enforce Eurocentric power to marginalize individuals as “other.” An analysis of stereotypes in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple pairs well with Mbembe’s theories, because Walker’s character portrayals in the sections devoted to Africa serve to complicate these constructs of race, and introduce fetishism, objectification, and postcolonialism as well. Instead of …
Finding Nemo, Findng Dory, Finding Ourselves: How And Why We Teach Our Children To Think About Disability,
2018
University at Albany, State University of New York
Finding Nemo, Findng Dory, Finding Ourselves: How And Why We Teach Our Children To Think About Disability, Stacie Klinowski
English
My project, a critical thesis titled “Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Finding Ourselves: How and Why We Teach Our Children to Think About Disability,” investigates how representations of disability within children’s media transcend these texts and contribute to our society’s construction of disabled subjects. By first looking at historical traits of children’s literature in Grimm's Fairy Tales and The Trumpet of the Swan, I establish that the didactic function of this genre reproduces the values of the cultures in which they are written while it also attempts to instill social ideals that will guarantee 'progress.' Representations of disability in these texts …
“We'll Make A Man Out Of You”: Steven Universe, The Bildungsroman, And The Redefinition Of The Male Hero.,
2018
University at Albany, State University of New York
“We'll Make A Man Out Of You”: Steven Universe, The Bildungsroman, And The Redefinition Of The Male Hero., Ryan Badalamenti
English
This paper explores how the various gendered characteristics of the Bildungsroman, the novel of formation, interact with the formation of the titular character in the cartoon Steven Universe, the coming of age tale of a boy’s work to defend the Earth from magical threats. Traditional cartoon studies identify distinct gender identities between male and female characters. Similarly, Bildungsroman studies tend to analyze male heroes, with contemporary studies coining the term “female Bildungsroman” to talk about the formation of female protagonists. This paper argues that Steven, the protagonist of Steven Universe, incorporates aspects of both the Bildungsroman and the female Bildungsroman …
A House Divided,
2018
University at Albany, State University of New York
A House Divided, Christian Burgos
English
Abraham Lincoln coined the phrase, "A house divided cannot stand." So how he would feel about the current administration's stances against individuals in minority groups, whose identities are already heavily politicized? This collection of short stories I’ve written delves into the lives of those individuals as they have been targeted and continue to be affected by the rhetoric and policy threats of this administration. Each story follows an individual who deals with the effects of this rhetoric, both directly and indirectly. The experiences of the individuals in these stories are not universal; these experiences illustrate the potential circumstances and consequences …
The Social Life Of Black Thought In The Long Eighteenth Century,
2018
CUNY Graduate Center
The Social Life Of Black Thought In The Long Eighteenth Century, Kristina Huang
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The Social Life of Black Thought in the Long Eighteenth Century moves from the framework of social death to the foundations of social life in the study of early black Anglophone writings. By exploring the diverse textual and visual forms through which black life appeared in the Anglo-Atlantic world of the long eighteenth century, my project argues for situating early black writings within the social spheres of the city, the plantation, slaves’ provision grounds and independent markets, and churches. In this regard, I depart from the popular model of social death in literary criticism as a mode of reading early …
Tangible Things: The Matter Of Susan Howe,
2018
CUNY Graduate Center
Tangible Things: The Matter Of Susan Howe, Thomas Lewek
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
“Tangible Things: The Matter of Susan Howe” examines materiality in two books, That This (2010) and Debths (2017), by the contemporary American experimental poet Susan Howe. More specifically, this examination finds a double movement in both collections between foregrounding the materiality of writing and of the text and meditating on the vibrant nature of matter itself. To frame the first part of this double movement, the thesis draws on recent digital humanities scholarship from Matthew Kirschenbaum and Johanna Drucker that highlights the technologically and materially mediated nature of writing processes and the texts they produce. Then, to frame the second …
Insurgent Knowledge: The Poetics And Pedagogy Of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, And Adrienne Rich In The Era Of Open Admissions,
2018
CUNY Graduate Center
Insurgent Knowledge: The Poetics And Pedagogy Of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, And Adrienne Rich In The Era Of Open Admissions, Danica B. Savonick
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Insurgent Knowledge analyzes the reciprocal relations between teaching and literature in the work of Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Cade Bambara, and Adrienne Rich, all of whom taught in the Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) educational opportunity program at the City University of New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing on archival research and analysis of their published work, I show how feminist aesthetics have shaped U.S. education (especially student-centered pedagogical practices) and how classroom encounters with students had a lasting impact on our postwar literary landscape and theories of difference. My project demonstrates how, …
Sickly Sentimentalism: Sympathy And Pathology In American Women's Literature, 1866-1900,
2018
CUNY Graduate Center
Sickly Sentimentalism: Sympathy And Pathology In American Women's Literature, 1866-1900, Nicole Zeftel
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Sickly Sentimentalism: Pathology and Sympathy in American Women’s Literature, 1866-1900 examines the work of four American women novelists writing between 1866 and 1900 as responses to a dominant medical discourse that pathologized women’s emotions. The popular fiction of Metta Fuller Victor, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Sarah Orne Jewett, and E.D.E.N. Southworth mobilized sentimental style and sympathetic affect to challenge the medical trend of treating female sentiment as a sickness. At the level of narrative, this challenge took the form of deviating from the domestic and marriage plots prevalent in women’s popular fiction of their period. Through forms of sentimental writing my …
