The Ethics Of Mourning: The Role Of Material Culture And Public Politics In The 'Book Of The Duchess' And The 'Pearl' Poem, Tarren Andrews

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project is a socio-historic analysis of two late 14^th century dream visions: Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and the Pearl poem. Utilizing Robert Pogue Harrison’s concept of objectifying grief through ritualized communal mourning, this thesis examines the ways in which mourning literature functioned as consolatory device, and a form of public performance for the powerful patrons who commissioned the pieces. By engaging with pre-existing communities of grief, material culture, and courtly discourse these poems perform the work of mourning while simultaneously enacting modes of public performativity that stress the ethics of grieving, and suggest that, for royal patrons, …

The Erotics Of Race Suicide: The Making Of Whiteness And The Death Drive In The Progressive Era, 1880-1920, Madoka Kishi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

"The Erotics of Race Suicide" examines the frequent representation of suicide in Progressive Era American literature in light of a widely proclaimed socio-political concept of the time: “race suicide.” Coined by the sociologist Edward Ross, the term “race suicide” nominates a nativist fear over the racial enervation of indigenous white Americans. Ross and other commentators on race suicide, most notably Theodore Roosevelt, proclaimed that the diminution of the indigenous white Americans was caused by their unwillingness to breed, signaling the self-destructive, “suicidal” tendency of the race. Consequently, through such means as the enactment of immigration restrictions, the reinforcement of anti-miscegenation …

Pullinger's And Joseph's Inanimate Alice And Intercultural Engagement, Ana Abril

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Pullinger's and Joseph's Inanimate Alice and Intercultural Engagement" Ana Abril analyzes Kate Pullinger's and Chris Joseph's digital graphic novel and game. Inanimate Alice offers a model for online education environments and has been widely acclaimed. However, Abril's ana-lysis suggests possible ways for improving the empathic and educational potential of the novel/game for interpersonal and intercultural benefit. Abril bases her analysis on the theories of human interpersonal communication and then applies these findings to Inanimate Alice and suggests improvement so that participants would be able to decide if they want to play from the viewpoint of their own …

December 27, 2014: Brian Gogan Kicks Off Spring Season For Ellis Speakers Series, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Lisbeth Salander Lost In Translation - An Exploration Of The English Version Of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Kajsa Paludan

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This thesis sets out to explore the cultural differences between Sweden and the United States by examining the substantial changes made to Men Who Hate Women, including the change in the book’s title in English to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. My thesis focuses in particular on changes in the depiction of the female protagonist: Lisbeth Salander. Unfortunately we do not have access to translator Steven T. Murray’s original translation, though we know that the English publisher and rights holder Christopher MacLehose chose to enhance Larsson’s work in order to make the novel more interesting for English-speaking …

The Folly Of Erasmian Scepticism In Shakespeare’S A Midsummer Night’S Dream, James Cafferty

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Transferential Poetics, From Poe To Warhol, Adam Frank

Literature

Transferential Poetics presents a method for bringing theories of affect to the study of poetics. Informed by the thinking of Silvan Tomkins, Melanie Klein, and Wilfred Bion, it offers new interpretations of the poetics of four major American artists: Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, and Andy Warhol. The author emphasizes the close, reflexive attention each of these artists pays to the transfer of feeling between text and reader, or composition and audience— their transferential poetics. The book’s historical route from Poe to Warhol culminates in television, a technology and cultural form that makes affect distinctly available to perception. …

Living On The Moon: Women, Home Making, And The House After World War Ii In Shirley Jackson’S We Have Always Lived In The Castle, Leslie Dennis

Theses and Dissertations

In my thesis, I concentrate on Shirley Jackson, her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and women’s place in post-World War II American society. To start, I introduce Jackson and her role in literary history, the housewife writer in the 1950s and 60s, and magazine culture. Then I move to a historical perspective of the 1950s and propaganda during the atomic war era. I focus my attention on how government literature worked to contain women in the home and control sexuality and gender roles. Following my discussion of domesticity, I concentrate on the history of the Gothic novel …

December 11, 2014: Undergraduate English Majors Submit Papers To The Medieval And Renaissance Studies Colloquium 2015!, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

English Language Learning Through Visual Arts Practices: A Curriculum For Conflict-Affected Youth In Secondary Education, Jenny Lemper

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field project summarizes recent research in conflict and education, and presents an English language learner curriculum designed to address the current gap in quality education for conflict-affected youth. The curriculum contains six modules and develops English language literacy through student visual arts projects using text and images. The purpose of the curriculum is to familiarize students to the various confidence-building and coping mechanisms available in creative expression and to develop valuable visual and verbal language related life skills, therefore equipping students with tools to support successful futures.

Marcus Clarke: Confronting Spectacle With Spectacle In For The Term Of His Natural Life, Mary E. Perkins

English 502: Research Methods

While Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life is unquestionably a valuable contribution to Australian literature, his journalism career also deserves equal attention, particularly as an influential antecedent to the creation of his seminal text not only on a technical basis as John Conley details in “Marcus Clarke: The Romance of Reality”, but also as a social platform. In “Marcus Clarke and the Society of the Spectacle: Reflections on Writing and Commodity Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Melbourne,” Andrew McCann demonstrates how the “Peripatetic Philosopher”— one of Clarke’s more successful journalistic endeavors—and other selections reveal Clarke’s critique of the colonial …

December 7, 2014: Nagle Essay On Sade Published, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

One Man's Fakelore Is Another Man's Treasure: A Case Study Of Paul Bunyan And The Legend Of The Sleeping Bear, And The Value Of Fakelore In An Interconnected World., Kalani Bates

Honors Theses

The American academic study of folklore blossomed in the past hundred years. The tumultuous battle to define, collate and structure the new study of folklore raged in the academic world, especially in the 1950’s.[1] This obsession not only manifested itself in the academic study of it, but also in the popular culture of the 1900’s. The tradition of the tall tale and the legend exploded into the consumer world, becoming a commodity produced and consumed at will.[2] Richard Dorson classifies this explosion into two very separate studies of ‘folklore’ and ‘fakelore’. Folklore is the group of stories that …

December 2, 2014: Green Rose Prize, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

College Students’ Perceptions Of Barriers To Seeking Health Care, Harika Medavarapu

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Access to health care is important to obtain health equity and improve quality of life (Healthy People, 2012). Various factors such as religion, education, family income, geographic location, and travel constraints act as barriers to access health care (Celeya et al., 2010). On the other hand, the health behaviors of medical students vary from general population of same age (Clair, Wilson, & Clore, 2004). Consequently, the perceived barriers may also vary based on the majors of students. Therefore, the main purpose of this research was to identify the difference in perceived barriers between students with health-based majors and non-health based …

Libyan Graduate Students Encounter English-Writing Difficulties While Attending U.S. Universities, Abdelsalam A. Mustafa El Raggas

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the writing difficulties that Libyan graduate students encounter while attending universities in the United States. Libyan graduate students have difficulties in writing effective paragraphs and essays. Most of their academic writing tasks have numerous grammatical errors and their writing style appears elementary-like. The main purpose of this study was to diagnose writing issues such as grammar, unity, style, diction, and language interference that the students encounter and find solutions for existing problems. A mixed-methods approach was employed in this study. One hundred Libyan graduate students studying at U.S. universities were sought as participants. Data were collected by …

How High Achieving Elementary Schools Improve Struggling Readers, Kimberly C. Hartlage

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore educational elements that explain how high-achieving elementary schools improve struggling readers. The perceptions of the principals and teachers in three high achieving elementary schools were investigated in three areas of interest: (a) student achievement as it relates to literacy instruction, (b) early intervention leading to success, and (c) the role of school leaders who build a culture for success through change. All three schools that participated in the study were located in the state of Indiana. The topics of the related literature reviewed included a connection of reading instruction to student …

Finding The "T" In Lgbtq: Esl Educator Perceptions Of Transgender And Non-Binary Gender Topics In The Language Classroom, Teresa Lynn Witcher

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

While there is a “T” in the acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ), the focus in both academia and the real world often shifts solely to sexuality. Even though the real world discussion of sexuality (and perhaps academia’s as well) is also much lacking in both attention to all sexualities (not simply heterosexual and homosexual), there is also a distinct lack of awareness about subtleties all along both the sexuality and gender spectrums. Although sexuality can depend on gender to some extent, particularly where limiting prefixes related to the preference for a specific binary gender (such as …

Voys Lessons: Whirling Words In Chaucer’S “House Of Rumour", Nicola Blake

Publications and Research

“Voys Lessons: Whirling Words in Chaucer’s ‘House of Rumour’” examines the lability of sound and its use in the dissemination, transposition, and authorship of stories within The House of Fame, a text exemplifying the mobility and flexibility of misused or unhinged words, as expressed through sound as opposed to text. By engaging the use and interpretation of sound in contrast to words, this new reading concentrates on the idea of narrative as material artifact with limited stasis. Geffrey’s pseudo-authorship, through his voyeuristic stance, engages the textuality of sounds and shows the related subtlety, elasticity, and democratic sociohistorical aspect of …

Pedagogy : Reconsiderations And Reorientations., John Vance

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a critical intervention into the question of student agency. An interdisciplinary project that draws upon philosophy and linguistics, it reviews four major tendencies that have animated composition pedagogy over the last several decades— process theory, social-constructivism, procedural rhetoric, and trans-lingual pedagogies— and identifies some of the key tensions that both motivate and problematize these approaches. First, it examines the debate between Peter Elbow and David Bartholomae, and the interplay between teachers’ authority and student agency. Second, it explores the imbrications between representation and materiality in social constructivism. Third, it uses Alain Badiou’s Being and Event to analyze …

Bound By Words: Oath-Taking And Oath-Breaking In Medieval Lceland And Anglo-Saxon England, Gregory L. Laing

Dissertations

The legal and literary texts of early medieval England and Iceland share a common emphasis on truth and demonstrate its importance through the sheer volume of textual references. One of the most common applications of truth-seeking in these sources occurs in the swearing of oaths. Instances of oath-taking and oath-breaking, therefore, are critical textual loci wherein the language of swearing unites an individual’s socially constructed reputation and his personal guarantees under the careful supervision of the community. Traditionally, scholars looking at truth and attestation from the later medieval period tend to view early cases of swearing as procedural, artless, or …

America's Closet Door: An Investigation Of Television And Its Effects On Perceptions Of Homosexuality, Sara Moroni

Honors Theses

This study investigates the relationship between television and social perceptions. It uses the television shows Will&Grace, The L Word, Queer as Folk, and Modern Family for rhetorical analysis. Then, it uses the information gained from the analysis to hypothesize how and why these television shows both reflect and affect social perceptions of homosexuality.

The Effects Of Explicit Story Grammar Instruction On The Narrative Skills Of Preschool Children, Nichole Mulvey

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of large-group, explicit, story grammar vocabulary instruction during shared storybook reading on the narrative retell skills of preschoolers. Two preschool classrooms in rural, southeastern Illinois participated in the study. The study examined narrative retell ability via the Test of Narrative Retell-Preschool. Scores were compared for the experimental group, who received instruction from the investigator, to the control group, who received instruction from their regular classroom teacher. The study also explored instructional practices during shared storybook reading through observational checklists of recorded sessions. The results of the study indicated that students …

Blogs, Books, & Breadcrumbs: A Case Study Of Transmedial Fairy Tales, Kristy Gilbert Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding transmedial storytelling is particularly important to fairy-tale studies. Monomedial views have long been unable to account for all of fairy tale tradition. Although the form originated in oral culture, it has long been a liminal, hybrid form that retains aspects of orality even while its principal mode of transference for some time has been something other than face-to-face communication. Transformations and adaptations across different media and contexts has resulted in a system of fairy-tale tradition that is massively intertextual and transmedial. No one medium can claim primary control over the fairy-tale tradition. Throughout time, oral tellings have inspired literary …

A Lesson In Rhetoric: Finding God Through Language In “Batter My Heart”, Marc Daniel Giullian

Theses and Dissertations

A reexamination of John Donne's Holy Sonnet “Batter my heart,” especially one looking at the sonnet's relationship to Early Modern rhetoric, is long overdue. In this paper, I hope to show that a focus on Donne's relationship to Early Modern rhetoric yields several useful new insights. I argue specifically that Donne was probably exposed to Non-Ramist rhetorical methods and theory at many points in his education, from his childhood to his college years to his years at the Inns of Court. Furthermore, Non-Ramist rhetoric has moral implications, suggesting that aspects of an author's feelings, character, and desires can be analyzed …

The Best Bullies: A Critical Analysis Of Young Adult Anti-Bullying Novels, Nina Marie Bone

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Recently, bullying has become a critical area of research across disciplines exploring effective tools for dealing with this increasing problem. Emerging from this critical research is a new sub-genre of young adult (YA) anti-bullying literature that is becoming increasingly popular. This thesis offers a critical analysis of the contemporary YA anti-bullying literature and how it corresponds to The Bullying Circle, a highly effective bully prevention program tool. This work will incorporate scholarship about the educational interpretation of YAL and the potential impact it has on adolescents. Looking at The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier and Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli with …

The Urgency Of Ecocriticism And European Scholarship, Simon C. Estok

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Urgency of Ecocriticism and European Scholarship" Simon C. Estok argues that there continues to be unduly disproportionate attention within ecocriticism on US-based scholarship and proportionally less on ecocriticism from other parts of the world. Estok focuses on European ecocritical work written in English and published by Rodopi in recent years and argues that this work attests both to the urgency and resolve of European ecocritics. Estok looks at some of the primary contributions of twelve books published within the past ten years by Rodopi in order to show the importance of bending our ecocritical ears, to …

Developing The Modern Heroine Of Fantasy Literature: An Examination Of Lyra From "His Dark Materials" And Clary From "The Mortal Instruments", Diana Aileen Borghols Herrera

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This work looks at the figure of the heroine as present through the characters of Lyra Belacqua in His Dark Materials and Clary Fairchild in The Mortal Instruments. The characters will be analysed within the fantasy genre and the tradition of the heroic figure. By defining the hero and the heroine, two types of characters with different traits, I will show that the heroic archetype for the female is not entirely set. Lyra and Clary share some similarities but their relation to their respective role is perceived and fulfilled through varying degrees of commitment. The analysis will be contained to …

"We Can't Reclaim What We Don't Understand": Teachers' Perceptions Of Advocacy And Voice In A Rural Institute Of The National Writing Project, James Anthony Anderson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines teachers' perceptions of advocacy and voice in a summer institute of the National Writing Project. The Rural Advocacy Institute, a first-time initiative through the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project, offered three weeks of professional development centered on rural education and teaching English language arts in rural public schools. The study is a grounded theory study; grounded theory forces the researcher to stay "close to the data," compare data sets, and use reflective writing to identify conceptual categories in the data. Data collection in the study included semi-structured interviews with six K-12 teachers participating in the Institute and twenty-seven …

Culture In Crisis: The English Novel In The Late Twentieth Century, Michael F. Harper

Scripps Faculty Books

Culture in Crisis begins with political and social history at the moment of the election of Margaret Thatcher. Many saw in this event the dissolution of the ideal of the liberal State once believed to be shared by both the Left and the Right. Ranging widely over such writers as Anthony Powell, John LeCarre, Samuel Selvon, Salman Rushdie, and Margaret Drabble, Harper examines various responses to this “crisis” which he shows to have roots in a pernicious ideal of “Englishness” going back many generations. With considerable skill and a masterful grasp of books and ideas, he presents the novel as …