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Care Of The Self And The Will To Freedom: Michel Foucault, Critique And Ethics, Stephanie M. Batters

Senior Honors Projects

Care of the Self and the Will to Freedom

Stephanie Batters

Faculty Sponsor:  Stephen Barber, English

What do subjectivity, power and ethics have in common?  For French philosopher Michel Foucault, each of these concepts inherently resides within the others.  His works, spanning from the mid-1950s to his death in 1984, offer a profound theoretical approach to the complex questions that obtain between the individual and society.  Foucault’s works present careful and intricate theories about the relationships of the past with the present, the individual with society, and power with truth.  Many of his writings explore how the individual is made …

The Muse Of Nigerian Poetry And The Coming Of Age Of Nigerian Literature, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

2011 Literary Review (No. 24), Sigma Tau Delta

The Greenleaf Review

No abstract provided.

Metaphasia: Shelley And The Language Of Remoter Worlds, Michael Andrew Howell

Master's Theses

The aim of this project was to trace the evolution of Percy Shelley's metaphasic narrative, or language of the dead, chronologically through the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Mont Blanc, and Prometheus Unbound. Proceeding from Earl Wasserman's detailed map of Shelley's mythopoeic structure, I charted this evolution while identifying a fifth discrete entity within the mythological hierarchy of what Harold Bloom has characterized as a "mythopoeic trilogy" (36). Concurrently, I examined the ongoing debate concerning Shelley's influences, as well as the early formation of his personality, as it pertains to the poems in question, and his fascination with worlds beyond the …

The Ripening Of Mangos, Katherine Hoerth

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This project is a collection of poems which draw influence from Romantic, confessional, and post-modern poetry movements, and can most accurately be described as Confessionalistic, though they are resistant to categorization. The poems function to dismantle archetypal definitions of feminine identity, and instead aim to depict identity to be fluid and multifaceted.

The Ripening of Mangos is divided into four sections. The first section deconstructs the 'angel' or 'virgin' archetype, while the second deconstructs the 'monster' or 'whore' archetype. Section three includes voices of procreation, and functions to complicate the image of 'the mother.' The last section, Transplanting, shows gendered …

Looking For Adam: An Analysis Of The Works Of Marilynne Robinson, Kristina Y. Zavala

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Many scholars have analyzed the works of Marilynne Robinson, focusing their work on analyzing her novels separately instead of as a whole according to her views of Calvinism and other faith-related themes. This thesis will take apart all of the essays in The Death of Adam, examining each of them for the most important views and opinions expressed by the author. These issues have served to evolve Robinson‘s opinions in such a way that to analyze her novels according to only her religious views would be an injustice. By examining the use of certain aspects of the novel form, this …

A Montage In Its Leaves, Andrew S. Nicholson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation consists of a series of lyric poems preceded by an introduction to those poems. The introduction gives a background to the method of composition and historical precedents to the poems, connecting the lyric poems to the writing and thoughts of William Blake, Martin Heidegger, and Robert Creeley. The poems are presented in three parts, and cover a variety of subjects, frequently favoring the presentation of subjective experience over an imagined objectivity.

The New Woman Persona In “Dracula” And The “Twilight” Series: An Elliptical Struggle Of Social Order, Silvia E. Herrera

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis will explore the existence of the New Woman persona found in the Gothic works, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. By exploring this persona, we can shed light on the internal struggle, comprised of Victorian gender roles and one’s desire to seek greater liberation, which results in the presence of an elliptical struggle that finds itself at a constant state of progression and digression. In order to have a greater understanding of the New Woman persona, we must explore both works’ themes of the uncanny figure, sexuality and female heroism. Through the exploration of these themes, …

Triangular Desire In Sandra Cisneros's “Never Marry A Mexican”, Laura V. Bazaldua

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis focuses on desire in Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” in her collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Cisneros alters the typical configuration of triangular desire in Western literature by focusing on two females and one male. This thesis analyzes the protagonist’s mimetic desire, applying the Girardian model of triangular desire, for her lover’s wife and how it illustrates her internalized racist views. This analysis examines the correlation between mimetic desire and the protagonist’s, an individual of color, investment in the illusion of whiteness.

Her desire is fundamentally a drive toward Megan, who represents the …

Early Modern Evil Genius: Hyperconformity And Objectivity In Sixteenth And Seventeenth-Century English Literature, Christine Hoffmann

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studies the response among early modern and postmodern audiences to the experience of information overload, and suggests that the most appealing response to living in a communications network that appears both systematic and random is to use a rhetoric of struggle that is ambiguous in the same way. >The reasons for this appeal are twofold: firstly, the rhetoric of struggle is a way to cope with the difficulty of situating oneself within a system of circulating information that operates according to its own arbitrary rules. Mimicking that arbitrariness is a way of finding aesthetic synchronicity between how one's …

Speaking Subjects: Beckett’S Not I, Rushdie’S The Satanic Verses, And Coetzee’S Foe, Jake Khoury

Theses and Dissertations

In repositioning Beckett’s Not I in relation to Rushdie and Coetzee, I show that The Satanic Verses and Foe suggest approaches to language similar to Beckett’s play, insofar as each text interrogates the ability of the marginalized speaking subject to maintain control of his or her voice, finding that the speaking subject’s voice is constantly infused with the voices of others. Additionally, I demonstrate Beckett’s relevance to the postcolonial environment and delineate convergences and divergences in how Rushdie and Coetzee formulate the voices, bodies, and identities of marginalized and postcolonial speaking subjects.

Using Textual Features To Predict Popular Content On Digg, Paul H. Miller

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Over the past few years, collaborative rating sites, such as Netflix, Digg and Stumble, have become increasingly prevalent sites for users to find trending content.  I used various data mining techniques to study Digg, a social news site, to examine the influence of content on popularity.  What influence does content have on popularity, and what influence does content have on users’ decisions?  Overwhelmingly, prior studies have consistently shown that predicting popularity based on content is difficult and maybe even inherently impossible.  The same submission can have multiple outcomes and content neither determines popularity, nor individual user decisions.  My results show …

Rethinking Success: A Person-Based Approach To Service Learning, Ryan Cales

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the nature of service learning projects that are structured to make interventions in rhetorical spheres and seek to achieve social change on a smaller scale rather striving for grander, or even systemic, change. In structuring community projects that include inherently limited interventions and equally limited goals, I argue that such projects should be open to immediate adjustments within themselves –to abandon any particular form or goal—to satisfy the immediate needs of the individuals served. I draw upon my work with a reintegration program for ex-offenders in Richmond, Virginia called Working with Conviction to help demonstrate that service …

Contained In Her: The Latent Volcano Within Emily Dickinson And H.D., Meghan Edwards

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

I Know I Haven’T Said A Thing, Layla Benitez-James

English Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Gesamtkunstwerk And Other Trifles: Poems, Derk A. Olthof

Theses and Dissertations

In all their various categories, the arts serve as the dominant subject matter of Gesamtkunstwerk and Other Trifles. The title itself begins with a German word-meld—gesamt (total) + kunstwerk (work of art). Thus a primary aim of these poems is to bring as many elements of art together as possible and to use their various forms (self-portraits, nocturnes, odes, etc.) as metaphorical frameworks that inform abstractions such as regret ("How to Draw Regret"), psychological disorders ("Insomnia Nocturnes") and confusion in how one should feel about living realities as opposed to inanimate objects ("Dead Starling"). Most of the poems …

Reviving The Latent Content Of Alchemy In William Shakespeare's Othello, Sarita Clara Rich

Theses and Dissertations

While many of Shakespeare's alchemical allusions are noted for their language of positive regeneration and healing, the playwright's departures from these conventional uses of alchemy deserve further attention. This essay presents an examination of inversions in the redemptive alchemical paradigm of Othello, a play whose connections to alchemy are not announced by obvious references to gold making, the philosopher's stone, or other key terms relating to the discourse of the opus that a modern audience is likely to recognize. I argue that in Othello, alchemical allusions are more subtly deployed in the language that describes Othello and Desdemona's …

The Un-Human Femme Bisclavret: Monstrous Misuses Of The Disunion Between Secular And Religious Culture In Marie De France’S 'Bisclavret', Santidad Bennett

Honors Student Works

While much of the recent scholarship on Bisclavret has focused on its unusual treatment of the werewolf motif, the more telling character of the story is actually the wife whose abuse of language subverts the major cultural constructs of which she is a part and recasts her as the true monster of the story. Freeman notices the significance of the wife but focuses primarily on the subversion of secular courtly culture. Meanwhile, Stypczynksi and Bruckner are more interested in the religious atmosphere and tone of the short lai. While each approach is useful in its own right, this paper puts …

Sara Suleri: A Study In The Idioms Of Dubiety And Migrancy In Boys Will Be Boys And Meatless Days, Rachel Tudor

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Romanticism, Language, And The Vox Popul: A Sociolinguistic Analysis Of Wordsworth And Whitman, Jeff Everhart

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis analyzes the works of Wordsworth and Whitman, focusing on the manifestations of the poets’ language within a socio-cultural construct. The thesis highlights the ways in which the authors’ interactions with socio-cultural events, such as industrialization, impact the ways in which their parole interacts and at times conflicts with the underlying system of poetic tradition. Additionally, the study examines the ways in which Wordsworth and Whitman interact with two binary oppositions central to Romantic philosophy, the living or dead and the pastoral or industrial. The study found evidence to support an epistolary relationship between Walt Whitman and William Wordsworth, …

Word~River Literary Review (2011), John Quinn, Gary Pullman, Susan Nyikos, Steven Kunert, Denise M. Rogers, Bruce Wyse, Victoria Large, Kate Sweeney, Jeremy Beatson, Blase Drexler, Thea Cervone, Victor Hawk, Andrew Madigan, Ross Talarico, Akin Taiwo, Dianna Calareso, Jeffrey Arnett, Gail Radley, Gene Washington, Laurie Duesing, Brian R. Young, Anne Stark, I.M. Chapman, Natalie Ivnik Mount, Rebecca Leah Păpucaru, Katy E. Whittingham, Judy Shearer, Alex M. Frankel, Nina Schneider, Rosann Kozlowski, Norah Bowman-Broz, Maggie Wheeler, Jade Hidle, Susan Howard, Eddie Malone

word~river Literary Journal

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction of adjuncts and part-time instructors teaching in our universities, colleges, and community colleges. Our premier issue was published in Spring 2009. We are always looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published.

We define adjunct instructors as anyone teaching part-time or full-time under a semester or yearly contract, nationwide and in any discipline. Graduate students teaching under part-time contracts during the summer or …

Poe's Mythologies: Transatlantic Nineteenth Century Hellenism As World Literature, David Greven

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Amitav Ghosh And The Aesthetic Turn In Postcolonial Studies, John Su

English Faculty Research and Publications

This essay explores the "aesthetic turn" in postcolonial studies in light of the literary works of Indo-Burmese author Amitav Ghosh. While a renewed interest in aesthetic theories is apparent throughout the humanities in the past decade, it is particularly striking in postcolonial studies, where it holds out the possibility of blending the materialist/historicist and culturalist/textualist strands of postcolonial scholarship. Recent studies by Deepika Bahri, Nicholas Brown, Ato Quayson and others have been enormously promising; this essay argues for bringing their Frankfurt School-influenced aesthetic theories into conversation with other theories of aesthetics. Particular attention in this essay is given to the …

Signifyin' Black Power: Soul On Ice And The Subversion Of Normative Whiteness, James David Fife

Theses and Dissertations

This study emphasizes the methodology of linguistic resistance in Eldridge Cleaver's best-known work, Soul on Ice. Through a process of signification, Cleaver works to redefine key words and concepts that form a web of racialist and racist thinking called normative whiteness. By emptying key terms, like those of "life," "liberty," and "property," Cleaver's text attempts to offer a new, less biased foundation on which a more inclusive and pluralistic American narrative can be written, a move that both makes his rhetoric significantly different from that of many contemporary resistance writers and positions him as an important link in a …

Paule Marshall's Critique Of Contemporary Neo-Imperialisms Through The Trope Of Travel, Michelle Miesen Felix

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study examines Marshall's use of the trope of travel within and between the United States and the Caribbean to critique ideologies of Development, tourism, and globalization as neo-imperial. This examination of travel in Marshall's To Da-Duh, In Memoriam; The Chosen Place, The Timeless People; Praisesong for the Widow; and Daughters exposes the asymmetrical structures of power that exist between the two regions. In so doing, my study locates Marshall's concern about the imposition of power in the post-colonial period rather than exclusively in the Caribbean's colonial past. My close reading of these texts draws upon the vexed tradition of …

Hermeneutics, Poetry, And Spenser: Augustinian Exegesis And The Renaissance Epic, Denna Iammarino-Falhamer

Dissertations (1934 -)

One of the major claims this study makes is that Spenser desires to teach and cultivate a poetic reader--a reader who will employ interpretation and contemplation to expand the possibilities and places of textual meaning according to the tutelage of Spenser's text. The basis for Spenser's exegetical schema derives in large part from the works of St. Augustine and Richard Hooker. In works such as On Christian Doctrine and the Confessions, Augustine erects a Scriptural interpretative model founded upon charity and faith--a model interested in the process of exegesis as much as the end products of the analysis. Similarly, in …

Tolkien Studies, Volume Vii, Edited By Douglas A. Anderson, Michael D.C. Drout, And Verlyn Flieger. Reviewed By Mike Foster., Mike Foster

Mythprint Book Reviews

Mythprint is the quarterly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to the study, discussion, and enjoyment of myth and fantasy literature, especially the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. To promote these interests, the Society publishes three magazines, maintains a World Wide Web site, and sponsors the annual Mythopoeic Conference and awards for fiction and scholarship, as well as local discussion groups.

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 19, No. 2, The Sinclair Lewis Society

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter

“Mark Nolan and Cass Timberlane,” by Susan K. O’Brien

“Arrowsmith: The People Behind the Characters,” by Jan Peter Verhave, Van Raalte Institute, Hope College

“Sinclair Lewis’s Early Newspaper Career,” by Gary H. Mayer, Stephen F. Austin State University

Second Chances,” rev. of The Second Life of John Wilkes Booth by Barnaby Conrad, by Gary H. Mayer, Stephen F. Austin State University

“Habeas Corpus,” by Sinclair Lewis, part 6

Language And Identity In Postcolonial African Literature: A Case Study Of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Abigail Guthrie

Masters Theses

Sociolinguists often research the development of language attitudes and the state of language within speech communities. Individual speakers reflect the status of their L1 language in both speaking and writing (Wa Thiong'o 1986, Showalter 2001), and the idea that writing can be used as a set of data that reflects an author's language attitude is the motivation for this research. Salikoko Mufwene (2001), one of the leading experts on creolization and the ecology of language, has argued that individual speakers of a language make daily choices that affect the future of their native tongue. Using the novel Things Fall Apart …

Oral Narrative And Disembodied Language In Othello And Hamlet, Michael Ferut

Gateway Prize for Excellent Writing

No abstract provided.