English Language and Literature Commons^™

Dramatizing Trauma In Resistance To Post-Colonial Hegemonic Culture : A Magic(Al) Realist Reading Of Toni Morrison's Beloved, Love And Frida Kahlo's Selected Paintings., Feng Yi,

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this cross-disciplinary dissertation is to explore how magic(al) realist techniques are applied in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Love and Frida Kahlo’s selected paintings to dramatize the traumas experienced in post-colonial period, and how the artists resist the cultural hegemony through their art works. From the magic(al) realist and Gramscian point of view, the dissertation focuses on 1) the similar situations and cultural hegemony of African Americans and Frida Kahlo had experienced; 2) why and how Toni Morrison and Frida Kahlo chose and used magic(al) realist techniques in their art works to dramatize the traumas; and 3) how …

The Being Of Art And The Art Of Being : Hermeneutic Ontology In Gadamer And Woolf., Adam Noland,

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Overall, the point of this project is to plumb the affinities between Gadamer’s notion of hermeneutic ontology and Virginia Woolf’s novels—how these affinities illuminate and contribute to an improved understanding of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and Woolf’s novels. For their part, Gadamer and Woolf belong to a similar cultural and historical milieu, each, in one way or another, a participant in the intellectual and artistic movement known as Modernism. This movement arose in response to the encroaching impersonality of scientific objectivity: both Woolf and Gadamer recognized the pitfalls of this objectivity, as it necessarily discounts the interpretive opportunity and responsibility of …

Male Feminists: Oxymoron Or The Next Step? An Exploration Of Attitudes Associated With Male Feminists, Abigail K. Slowik

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although many studies have examined attitudes toward feminism and feminists, very few have been devoted to the study of attitudes toward male feminists. The existing body of literature has shown mixed results; with feminist men being rated more positively in some regards, and more negative in others. In the current study, Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 2004) is used as a framework for understanding factors associated with attitudes towards male feminists, male feminist identification, and gender-self-esteem. Attitudes associated with male feminists were examined in a sample of 466 male and female undergraduate students from Indiana State University. Participants were …

Mad Hero In A Box: Christianity, Secular Humanism, And The Monomyth In Doctor Who, Sabrina Hardy

Masters Theses

Doctor Who is a long-running, incredibly popular work of television science-fiction, with a devoted fanbase across the Western world. Like all science fiction, it deals with the weighty questions posed by the culture around it, particularly in regards to ethics, politics, faith/belief, and the idea of the soul. These concepts are dealt with through the lens of the Secular Humanist ideology held by the showrunners and by many of the people who watch the show; however, in many areas, elements of the Christian worldview seep through. The conflict between these two worldviews has serious ramifications for the show itself, as …

Politics And Prophecy : Melville's America In Moby-Dick And Benito Cereno, Michelle T. Fernandes

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The goal of this thesis is to explore and identify Herman Melville’s position on a government that participated in slavery in the 1850’s. By examining the stories of Moby- Dick and Benito Cereno Melville’s distrust in government is exposed. The period in which he wrote was filled with political and social reforms during which he took influence from other vocal authors and slaves involved in revolt. I use two research strategies: (1) a look at literary and social events during Melville’s writing and (2) his personal correspondences. In the first part of the exploration is Melville’s attack on a government …

A Classroom Stuck In Time : The Theoretical Ambitions Of Curriculum And The Reality Of Classroom Practice, Rebecca Mcgrath

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This master’s thesis explores the diversity of full-length texts taught in the American literature courses at one New Jersey high school. Chapter one begins with an overview of American literature anthologies and covers the integration of more diverse texts throughout the 1960s and beyond.

Chapter two offers summary and analysis of the case study conducted for this paper. The case study includes interviews and surveys of teachers as well as student surveys and analysis of documents, such as the course curriculum and the state standards.

Analysis of the data reveals that while the curriculum advocates for diversity in race and …

Performativity And Jazz In The Fiction Of James Baldwin And Ralph Ellison, Drako P. Wells

Honors Theses

Since slavery in the seventeenth century, African Americans have been politically and economically oppressed in the United States. Even in recent times, it seems as if simply being black is enough to have a person criticized by society, convicted of crimes, or even killed. However, the frustration that oppression causes has, in many ways, catalyzed the evolution of African American culture and the African American identity. In this study, I examine how two postwar African American authors, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, portray the African American struggle with racial injustice and the means of overcoming its negative effects. In this …

Return And Recovery: The Influence Of Place On Blues Murder Ballads And Laguna Ceremony Cycles, Tyler J. Dettloff

All NMU Master's Theses

The relationships between place, narrative, memory, and identity are integral in many oral traditions. This project considers place as actively shaping Sterling’s identity in Laguna author Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Almanac of the Dead and R.L. Burnside’s rendition of the popular murder ballad “Stack O’Lee and Billy Lyons.” Ethical and personal views of land and place offers a method for individual and cultural survivance. Comparing these two separate “return and recovery” narratives offer a clear illustration of how land impacts identity.

Sterling’s home in Laguna Pueblo falls victim to the extraction industry and bares a scar that results in Sterling’s …

Tracing Appalachian Musical History Through Fiction: Representations Of Appalachian Music In Selected Works By Mildred Haun And Lee Smith, John C. Goad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research seeks to compare and contrast fictional Appalachian writings by Lee Smith and Mildred Haun to contemporary historical sources in an attempt to trace the development of Appalachian music between the mid-nineteenth century and the late twentieth century. The thesis examines two novels by Lee Smith (The Devil’s Dream and Oral History) and the collection The Hawk’s Done Gone by Mildred Haun, which includes a short novel and several short stories. Contemporary primary sources and scholarly secondary sources were used to compare the fictional works’ depictions of Appalachian music to their historical counterparts. Also included within the …

Lost, Beat, Blank: The Punk Unconscious In Subversive And Transgressive Cultural Productions, Joel R. West

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Although punk was not used as a signifying term for a subculture or its cultural production until the 1970s, the punk spirit can be identified within cultural texts that precede the term. A punk aesthetics includes rejection of societal norms, class-consciousness, and spontaneity, or a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach that is antagonistic toward the modes of production. In this thesis, I claim and develop a concept I call the punk unconscious; in the texts I examine, punk aesthetics can be found just below the surface through the employment of specific theoretical frameworks, namely Fredric Jameson’s political unconscious and Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogic …

Adolescent Street Literacy: The Art Of The Hustle, Regina L. Welch

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis is an ethnographic analysis of street youths, runaways and foster children. It focuses on the rhetorical and literacy practices that serve as a foundation for an underground community. Very little research, within the English field or from a literacy perspective, has been done on this demographic. This study includes data from interviews conducted with eight individuals who were “homeless” between the ages of 12 and 18 years old. Homeless is being defined as any duration spent absent of a stable living situation, including, but not limited to, foster homes, sleeping on the streets or in temporary settings, with …

Metafiction, Fairy Tale, And Female Desire In A.S. Byatt‘S Possession: A Romance, Susan Marie Kieda

Masters Theses

Analysis of the novel Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt, in which Byatt contributes to a metamorphosis of the fairy tale genre through a reappropriation of individual tales and characters, such as the Grimm Brothers‘ Little Snow White and The Glass Coffin; Hans Christian Andersen‘s The Snow Queen; and the French fairy story Melusine. Analysis of the metafictional devices Byatt uses to achieve this reappropriation such as the writing and reading of letters, journals, and works of fiction within the novel, as well as an intertextuality created by repeating fairy tale allusions. Analysis of Byatt‘s character development …

The Sketcher: Reverend John Eagles, His Poetical Shelter From The World And The 1812 Collection, Ashley C. Schalk

Graduate Thesis Collection

...Since identifying Eagles as at least one of the artists of the 1812 Collection, I have discovered that his specific tour of the Lakes, the route he followed and the scenery conveyed in his images, deviated from the conventional tours in that Eagles was in search of what he regarded as a poetical landscape rather than a traditionally picturesque one. In other words, Eagles sought to capture more than an aesthetically pleasing scene as a picturesque image would, he endeavored to capture the soul of the scene and the 1812 Collection is evidence that Eagles practiced the artistic principles he …

Gower And The Peasants’ Revolt, Ian Cornelius

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay examines the moral and political thought of John Gower's poem on the English Rising of 1381, situating it within three contrastive fields: Gower’s moral project, his Virgilian intertext, and the practices of moral community employed by the rebels of 1381.

"Equal Partners In Crime": Narration In The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Rebecca Mae Holder

Master's Theses

This reading of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao argues that narrator Yunior’s failure to capture the authentic speech of Beli illuminates the failure of narrative generally to speak authentically for the subaltern. The writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, Gayatri Spivak, and Scott McCloud work together to uncover the political and ethical implications of Yunior’s willful erasure of Beli’s voice. In the sections detailing her early life, Yunior draws attention to the gaps in the information he gives readers and thus reminds them that all narrative excludes and distorts details to fulfill an objective. This reading argues that …

The Use Of Eportfolios To Support First Year Student's Metacognitive Thinking, Katie Sabourin, Barbara Lowe, James Bowman

DePeters Family Center for Innovation and Teaching Excellence Publications

Select freshman writing courses at St. John Fisher College are piloting the use of eportfolios in place of the traditional portfolios. The College has created templates that are designed so direct links between course work, goals, and student reflections are explicit. The intent of our study is to evaluate the differences in student’s reflective writing from a variety of freshman level writing courses, including both those using eportfolios and those using traditional paper portfolios. Using a rubric that evaluates student reflections on their understanding of purpose, significance, and relevancy, as well as the student’s overall performance, we will share the …

It-Clefts And Their Processing, Elisabeth S. Johnson

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Elisabeth S. Johnson on July 21, 2015.

Crafty Sailors, Unruly Seas: Margaret Cohen’S Oceanic History Of The Novel, Colin D. Dewey

Criticism

The Novel and the Sea by Margaret Cohen. Translation/Transnation, edited by Emily Apter. Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press, 2010. Pp. xiii + 306, 30 illustrations. $39.50 cloth.

Habits Of Modernism, Kate J. Stanley

Criticism

Pragmatic Modernism by Lisi Schoenbach. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 224. $45.00 cloth.

Gardens, A Collection Of Stories, Jacob Wilbers

Canterbury Scholars

The inspiration for this collection comes from my mother's family. My mother grew up with three siblings - two sisters and a brother - in urban Chicago after her parents migrated from Mexico in the 1960s. The interrelated stories here are loosely based on real-life events that occurred to this family as my mother and her siblings grew up.