The Prescribing Of Gender, A Scope On The Societal Ideologies Showcased Within Le Roman De Silence, Derrian Fernandez

Master's Theses

Culture is constantly evolving, its ideologies cementing themselves within our minds, shaping how we as a society guide ourselves through living in such. Social class, religion, gender, all are forms of identity that have a place, and a certain understanding and standing within our culture and society. Through this understanding of ourselves, we are defined, creating multiple forms of distinct expression to help differentiate our place further. A pope is expected to wear a certain attire just as a bride is expected to. The same ideology trickles down, creating demarcations of attire that subsequently ingrain themselves into our culture and …

Transgressive Fiction And The Problem Of Negative Affect: A Case Study Of Samuel Delany’S Hogg, Brian Thornton

Master's Theses

Samuel Delany began drafting Hogg in March of 1969 and worked on it intermittently before completing the novel in October of 1973.1 Yet Hogg remained unpublished until 1995 before finally seeing the light of day “during the ‘transgressive turn’ in American literature” (Mitchell 1). As such, the novel is historically situated along what Jonathan Mitchell calls a “dual temporality,” which “allows the novel to be located as an intervention in two key moments in America’s LGBT+ history: first, the developments in identity politics coming out of the socio-political cultural shifts of the 1960s; and, second, the post-AIDS awareness 1990s”.

Feral And Free: The Queering Of Motherhood In Rachel Yoder’S Nightbitch, Cassandra Haskell

Master's Theses

This thesis explores motherhood from a perspective that seeks to inform and challenge the patriarchal definitions of motherhood in order to simultaneously confront its restrictions and create new meanings from its institutionalized definition. The main text that this thesis analyzes is the 2021 novel Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, as well as the 2024 film of the same name, critiquing how it successfully queers motherhood by questioning, challenging, and defying the impractical expectations placed upon mothers by society. Some secondary scholars whose works that I utilize to support my argument are authors such as Audre Lorde, Jessica Calarco, Adrienne Rich and …

Famílias Indigenas Entre Mundos: Standing In Pachakuti, Living In Chi’Xi Within The Constellation Of Their Comunidad De Saberes, Ymasumac Marañón Davis

Dissertations

To be Indigenous is to be la luz del mundo, to stand in your light and spread your sunrays, no matter winds or clouds of colonization that strive to dim you. This qualitative study explored ways Indigenous Latine families negotiate a sense of place within onto-epistemological realities and their home culture of learning and Western education. This research is desire-based (Eve Tuck, 2009), creating our own project of modernity, grounded in one Indigenous family’s experience within their Andean community. Drawing from Critical Latine Indigeneities Framework (Blackwell et al., 2017) and Chicana Feminist Epistemologies (Bernal, 1998), using an Entre Mundos methodology, …

Trapped In Polygamy: European Women Converting To Mormonism And Living In Polygamous Marriages In 1850s Utah Featuring She Who Left Zion: A Wife, A Witness, A Woman Unsealed, Rebecca Sanchez

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This Honors Capstone project explores the lived experiences of European women who converted to Mormonism and entered polygamous marriages in 1850s Utah. Through rigorous historical research and creative writing, it culminates in a novel-in-progress titled She Who Left Zion: A Wife, A Witness, A Woman Unsealed. The story follows Phoebe Carter, a fictional English convert who immigrates to Zion after being promised eternal family unity—only to confront the brutal reality of polygamy, spiritual coercion, and patriarchal control.

Grounded in primary and secondary sources—including autobiographies, diaries, and letters from women like Ann-Eliza Young, Fanny Stenhouse, and contributors to The Women …

Demon In The Dark: A Collection Of Short Stories., Giovanna Claudia Burkett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This creative thesis is a collection of short stories revolving around themes of grief, isolation, and survivor’s guilt. Each story is standalone even though they share overlapping motifs, as well as having a few references within the same universe. These protagonists often appear to be unreliable narrators, though the amount of reliability they depict should be determined by the reader. The protagonists encounter situations that cause them to question their own sanity and make them relive their greatest fears and confront traumatic memories, which may serve as a connection to the supernatural elements within the stories. Settings within each story …

A Slight Pinch, Carling Mcquinn

English Honors Projects

This project is a short story collection featuring four independent stories that each explore what it means to embrace the chaotic independence of adulthood and to confront, often for the first time, an inescapable sense of self-awareness. The first story, “Ghost Town,” follows a 19-year-old ghost confined to the Airbnb where she died, forced to face the self-destructive behavior that led to her death. Next, “Camilla” depicts the volatile friendship of college student Lexi and her best friend Camilla as it forms, shifts, and inevitably implodes as the years pass. The third piece, “A Slight Pinch,” explores the complexities of …

Grief Is Isolating. The Elegy Is Not: An Exploration Of Loss And Grief In Poems, Jennifer Terry

All Theses

Grief is a messy, complicated process, one that can be all-consuming and isolating after a loss. Victoria Chang’s poetry in Obit and Ada Limón’s Bright Dead Things both explore loss and grief by using forms and free verse to characterize the stakes that come with a loved one’s decline and the aftermath of death. Michelle Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart does similar work through the use of poetic elements in the memoir form. In my collection, Elegies of Home, I encounter the same struggles like the loss of identity, loss of a parent, and use the elegy as …

“More Than What [They] Made Us To Be”: From Passing To Perception In Victorian And Modern Vampire Media, Lauren Sieberg

English (MA) Theses

Throughout Victorian Gothic horror fiction, vampires function as deviant figures, maneuvering within social confines of passing until their status quo-threatening identity is exposed. Of the popular vampires from this period, most gradually fail to maintain status as social insiders—as demonstrated with Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula or Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, who possess the temporary capacity to pass until their hidden monstrosity is revealed over time. Even if Gothic monsters are confined to a limited space and time far from society, this is still not enough; in accordance with the Victorian culture of morality policing by dominant groups, the vampiric Other …

I Write For Them And Sundays, Audrey Ickes

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

Audrey Ickes is a Senior English-Writing major and History and Communications double minor. Flip to page 31 to see the rest of her credentials or page 23 to find out why she writes whether she likes to or not.

Untethered And Unraveled: Isolated Motherhood In The Liminal Stage, Ashton K. Wronikowski

All Theses

In examining Kate Chopin’s The Awakening alongside anthropologic theories of liminality, this paper examines the becoming women traverse as they transition between various social roles: girl, woman, mother. Edna is a maternal character attempting to unweave herself from her roles as mother and wife, and she finds this desire to go backwards to the freedom she experienced as a girl is proven to be impossible. The unmooring of her psyche and her subsequent suicide is indicative of a failure, not of her own accord, but in the social preparation and support she receives within her new identity. Social anthropologists further …

V.1 Spring 2025, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Spring 2025 issue has the theme "Take It as a Sign" and features pieces on baby fever, spreadsheets and recording information, aura and technology, a trip to Horseshoe Bend, the new Art and Computation department at RISD, home and belonging, Illustration student projects related to sensitive experiences, red brick architecture in Providence, and technology and the English language, along with interviews of students in their studios, poetry, and other creative writing.

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, …

Maria Sabina And The Wise Ones, Robin Bruce

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Maria Sabina was born Maria Sabina Magdalena Garcia in 1894, in the principality of Huautla, located in Oaxaca, Mexico. She’s known as a healer and poet, though she would most likely refer to herself as a woman doctor, whose language becomes beautiful with the help of the psylocibin mushroom, which she affectionately refers to as little saints or holy children. In 1953, American banker, R. Gordon Wasson and his wife, pediatrician Valentina Pavlovna, were the first non-Indigenous people to witness one of Sabina’s ceremonies. Novice ethnomycologists and anthropologists, the couple traveled to Southern Mexico to witness a ceremony in which …

Chasqui, Nicole Lachat

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Chasqui is a creative dissertation comprised of a thirteen-page critical introduction and a series of poems which consider varying forms of migration, including that of border crossings. The internalization of displacement through longing and alienation is examined in these poems. The author considers questions of inheritance through an exploration of personal, familial and sociopolitical bonds. Varying forms of violence, including colonial and gendered violence are reflected upon in the work.

Advisor: Kwame Dawes

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 …

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International, Sahit Liyanage

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

Sahit Liyanage is a Freshman at DePauw University. He is yet to declare a major, but it will be either English Writing or a double major in English Writing and Biology. He enjoys wildlife photography, boxing and badminton.

Sidewindings, Jeff Marvel

Graduate Thesis Collection

A memoir cataloguing the impacts of my late-onset Type 1 diabetes diagnosis at the age of 26, in which I attempt to realize the ways in which my sense of self, and sense of the world around me, has been altered or disfigured by this hardly-visible disease.

Excerpt Scenes From Twin Lilies Of Tirg, Sal Tindell

Honors Theses

Excerpts of Twin Lilies of Tirg: is a craft paper and three novel scenes. The craft paper focuses on the elements and structure of dialogue and how it is present in three scenes that follow the three elements in a novel: the ground situation, the conflict, and complication. The novel Twin Lilies of Tirg is a fantasy fiction that focuses on King Sebestian as he navigates running his kingdom while being blackmailed by another King.

Boxed In: Prose Poetry And Transgender Poetics, Lee Hooker

Honors Theses

Though lived experience is essential to every poet's work, transgender poetry especially must be filtered through the poet's "diet." The manifestation of this experience often results in cross-genre works, such as the prose poem. This thesis consists of a craft essay, in which contemporary queer poets and their genre-bending works are examined, and a creative portion, which emphasizes transgender experience and the prose poem.

Wide Screen With Critical Essay "Translating A Poetry Of Cinema"., James L. Richie Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation combines the creative task of translating Víctor Cabrera’s poetry collection WIDE SCREEN (2009) from Spanish into English with a critical study that analyzes the volume to highlight the uniqueness of his writing, the importance of translating such a work for an Anglophone audience, and the challenges that occur in translating this complex collection. Moreover, Cabrera’s writing engages with a variety of cultural works in ways that challenge preconceived notions of language, culture, and medium. The poetry in WIDE SCREEN draws inspiration from the films of American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, while frequently putting these films into dialogue with works …

Anna On The Go, Emma Burgess

Honors Theses

28-year-old Anna McCarthy, better known by her Instagram alias @Annaonthego, appears to have it all: the perfect man, flawless style, the job of her dreams, and a spot at the top of New York City’s cutthroat social ladder. With so much to flaunt, one would expect Anna to pounce at the opportunity to attend her ten year high school class reunion. Instead, the event’s invitation forces her to confront the fact that she may not be able to bury her dark past from her multitude of followers, and herself, forever.

Please note: This thesis is permanently restricted and not available.

Cue The Meet Cute, Sarah B. Cocks

Graduate Thesis Collection

Margery has always loved three things: romantic comedies, predictability, and the legacy of her family's video rental store. But when her beloved, yet struggling, small-town movie rental shop is threatened by her parents' impending divorce, her carefully curated life starts to unravel. Determined not to let her dream job fade into nostalgia, she launches a summer-long community dating event to save it. There’s just one problem: she’s never been on a date before.

To her dismay, her coworker-slash-cinema-nemesis, Henry, considers himself a dating expert—and he’s all too eager to lend a hand.

Layered with pivotal early-2000s cinematic references, sharp banter, …

Box Of Criminals, Jenna Reynolds

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

Jenna Reynolds is a Senior English Writing major. She has written for AMWR in the past and has also written for the DePauw stage (Romeo and Juliet at Bridgerton).

Unclaimed, Morgan Tharp

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

Morgan is a Junior English Writing and Political Science double major. In her free time, she enjoys running for DePauw’s cross country and track teams, reading, and playing ping pong.

Amwr Spring 2025 Full, _ _

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

No abstract provided.

Simply Difficult, Jenna Reynolds

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

Jenna Reynolds is a Senior English Writing major. She has written for AMWR in the past and has also written for the DePauw stage (Romeo and Juliet at Bridgerton).

The Ate's Arrivial, Eliana Jolanda Alzate

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

Eliana Alzate is a Junior English Writing and Computer Science major at DePauw University. Her works explore the intersections of diasporic identity, political chaos, and artistic discovery. When she isn’t writing stories and poems, you can find Eliana filming vlogs and singing karaoke.

Angel Infestation, Gabby Beury

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

Gabby Beury is a Senior English Writing major with minors in Film and Italian Cultural Studies at DePauw University. She enjoys reading and writing comedic and absurdist works.

Top 6 Reasons You Should Kill Bears, Anne Gregg

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

Anne Gregg is a Senior English Writing major, Honor Scholar, and Media Fellow at DePauw. She is also the Editor-In-Chief of A Midwestern Review. If you go looking for Anne Gregg, you will not find her. She has learned how to become incorporeal and spends her time singing in the breeze.