Digital Commons Network^™

Material Matters, Thomas George Holmes

Dissertations

Material Matters is a collection of original poems written by Thomas G. Holmes, while a doctoral student at The University of Southern Mississippi. The poems explore the materiality of writing.

A Marriage Sewn Together, Marie E. Curran

All NMU Master's Theses

A Marriage Sewn Together is a creative writing thesis in three parts. Forming the thesis is a collection of very short essays, A Startling Passage, a short story, “Perigee,” and a novella, This Is Not Our Revolution. The latter pieces are fictional and take place in rural settings. All three pieces include explorations of questions concerning birth, beginnings, “original sin,” land, and the tension of balancing personal relationships with political or community ideals. The works are rooted in realism, and sometimes tend toward the lyric. As indicated in the introduction, the three works in A Marriage Sewn Together …

Kingdom Come: Stories Of Modern Appalachia, A. Paige Frazier

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis is collection of stories about several diverse residents of modern Appalachia, more specifically the rural mountains of Eastern Kentucky and Southern West Virginia.

The Trash Birder's Guide, Ashely Adams

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of essays details the author’s experience with birds and the bird watching sub-culture. The author grapples with obsession, exploration, and human-animal relationships. Essays include the search for peregrine falcons and ‘u’aus, navigating “The Biggest Week in American Birding,” and tending to owls and geese at a bird sanctuary. In addition, the essays seek to use the langue and images of birding to create an interconnected narrative that not only illuminates the birding sub-culture, but also the world of a transient young birder.

Check The Box Marked Other: Exploring Gender In Family Life, Serenity E. Dougherty

All NMU Master's Theses

The concept of a traditional family structure has been fading over the last 50 years and with this decline the notion of responsibilities being determined by gender is also losing ground, though it still has a long way to go. This short story collection works to continue to normalize the increasing variety of family structures, especially variety that has its roots in new notions of gender challenging old conventions. The stories are all set in Nebraska, an ideal landscape for exploring tradition versus modernity. Though there are major cities in NE, most of the state is composed of smaller rural …

The Fire In The Firefly: The Unspoken (Speaks), Ania S. Payne

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of nonfiction essays explores life and the way that we, as animals—humans, mammals, insects—engage the world that we all share together, both from a personal perspective and from a distant, 3^rd person perspective. Some of these essays dabble in memoir, wherein I closely examine the intricacies of the relationships between my family members, neighbors, and friends. Other essays are driven by research and my relentless curiosity about the world around me—what goes on in the mind of the earthworm or chigger, the science of fear and the inevitability of death that surrounds us all. This collective narrative …

El Chupacabra, Cory Hall

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Smoked Blood And Lavender, Diana L. Elizondo

Theses and Dissertations

My project is a demonstration of how the Gothic genre can still have an influence in contemporary poetry as well as how the traditional forms can still be effective when developing diction and originality. This project is a collection of poems that addresses a range of issues in society and politics, as well as the deconstruction of the notions of romance in everyday life. In the introduction to my thesis, my poems are analyzed stylistically, as well as the themes they represent and the sources that influenced them. Furthermore, my poems are divided in five sections and each focuses on …

Heaven On Their Minds, Rebecca Kate Robison

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Heaven on Their Minds is a novel written from the first-person perspective of teenage

protagonist Melody O’Malley. The plot details Melody’s attempt, along with two close friends, to undermine their conservative Christian theater camp’s summer production of Godspell via the edgier songs and theology of Jesus Christ Superstar. Though ostensibly a satire of the Evangelical Christian community, Melody’s insecurities are the true heart of the novel--her fraught relationship with her best friends, her concerns about her post-high school future, and her ill-advised crush on the most prominent RFC (Robot for Christ) in the camp, a crush that has terrible consequences …

Future Flowers, Eszter Takacs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a book-length poem presented in three untitled parts.

Dendron, A Collection Of Poems, Peter W. Rosenberger

Celebration

“Dendron” is the Greek word for “tree.” “Dendrochronology” is the study of a tree’s rings. “Dendrites” are the neural projections that grow like a tree’s branches in our brains so we can learn and respond to stimuli. This collection of poems, Dendron, is a poetic exploration of my growth. The collection—twenty-one poems, one for each year of my life—is a living, poetic memoir. Presented in chronological order, each of the poems is meant to capture a specific year of my life. The poems—of varying styles and sentiments—are not without quick moments of fiction, but for the most part, they coalesce …

The Consequences Of Failing: A Memoir, Olivia M. Zajac

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Failing is part of our human nature. I have never met a person who has never failed at something. Sometimes when I look back at my failures I feel like crying, and other times I laugh at the mistakes that I have made. But no matter the type of failure I have suffered, I have learned one thing. Failures, along with successes, have shaped me into the person I am today. When I fail, I often fall. But each fall is a chance for me to get back up. I don’t plan to stop failing any time soon.

Just like …

Volume 81, Issue 1: Full Issue, Manuscripts Staff

Manuscripts

No abstract provided.

Contributors, Manuscripts Staff

Manuscripts

No abstract provided.

Paideia, Carey Ford Compton

Manuscripts

Prose by Carey Ford Compton.

Purples, Sarah Bahr

Manuscripts

Poetry by Sarah Bahr.

Interview With Laila Lalami, Cassandra Christopher

Manuscripts

In an interview with National Public Radio, Laila Lalami mentioned that she believed the “closest we come to truth is in the form of fiction.”

Truth: the supernatural powers that be do not spare anyone based on race or religion. In shared adversity we all become equal.

Truth: humans are complex creatures, equally capable of cruelty, kindness, and unimaginable darkness in desperation. No one is purely hero or villain.

Truth: Mustafa, the titular character of Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account tells us what he knows as fact, but we must infer our own truth, so that each reader discovers his …

Phobias, Michelé Strachota

Manuscripts

Prose by Michelé Strachota. Finalist in the 2016 Manuscripts Prose Contest with Benjamin Percy.

Mowin' Day, Carey Ford Compton

Manuscripts

Prose by Carey Ford Compton.

Transcending Academic Borders: A Defense Of Collaboration Between Art And Science, Laura Borkenhagen

Honors Capstone Projects

The aim of this project in its entirety was to explore different ideas about what the intersection of art and science might look like. These ideas, including my own, are presented in the following essay. In addition to the essay portion of this project, I’ve explored creative writing through poetry in attempts to immerse myself in both sides of this debate, as my academic history leans more towards the scientific realm. In the poems I’ve also tried to include bits of science through metaphorical language. The four works I have chosen to include follow the essay.

Can A Student Write A Novel In A Month?, Julia Tanner

Honors Theses

Drew knew that if he had the power to pick the soundtrack of his heaven he would choose the drop of the beat as his Cessna’s tires touching down on a landing. Faye did not put much stock in heaven, but she liked the idea of spending eternity bathed in colors, ones she could fathom now and new ones her mortal eyes couldn’t see. For Louis all he wanted was the feeling of a warm hand in his leading him to the afterlife. Drew, Faye, nor Louis planned on dying any time soon but for varying reasons they knew death …

Dry Drowning, Sara Campanelli

The Anthology

A prose story

Awkward Questions And The Dichotomy Of Spoken Language And Written Word, Lindsey Monroe

The Anthology

A poem

The Tide Is Coming In, Rachel Burns

The Anthology

A poem

Full Issue, The Anthology

The Anthology

This is the entirety of the 2016 Winthrop Anthology issue.

Reaper In The Rain: An Animated E-Book, Kurt Stilwell

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Reaper in the Rain is a short story approaching Novella length in the young adult fantasy genre. The story follows two protagonists, Rebecca Reed, a freshman college student, and Eric Manning, a teenage boy who harnesses the powers of the Grim Reaper to destroy the Temuti mafia and avenge his mother’s death. This thesis explores the melding of genre; the fantasy of the Grim Reaper, the realistic grounding of Chicago, and the visual novel with the addition of animations.

"In The Land Of Tomorrow": Representations Of The New Woman In The Pre-Suffrage Era, Natalie B. O'Neal

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This digital anthology explores feminism in selected short fiction by women writers from the 1911 run of the popular women’s magazines Woman’s Home Companion, Ladies’ Home Journal, and The Farmer’s Wife. This fiction furthered the women’s rights movement by allowing women to imagine a world similar to their own with a heroine who voiced their desires and enacted change. Rather than the more experimental, inaccessible literature of avant garde high modernist writers consumed by the upper class, popular fiction reached a wider, middle class audience and was more effective at producing a progressive zeitgeist following the stilted Victorian …

2nd Place: "Tattered Fiction", Murphy Studebaker

John and Margaret Class Student Book Collection Contest

This is Murphy Studebaker's submission essay, annotated bibliography, and annotated wishlist for the 206 John and Margaret Class Student Book Collection Contest, which won second place.

Murphy is a freshman at Chapman University, majoring in Film Production.

The Importance Of C.S. Lewis To Faith-Based Theatre As Seen In The Silver Chair, Andrew J. Wilkinson

Senior Honors Theses

The paper contains an adaptation of the book The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis and details the purpose for why this particular story is important for the faith-based theatre community. There are a number of Christian themes that are evident in the story that are examined as well as the elements of the story that make it apt for adapting to a play format.

Threshold, Sarah Luke

The Echo

No abstract provided.