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Living In (Im) Material Worlds: Modes Of Production And Consumption In Utopian Literature, Pauline Spangler

All Theses

My thesis examines and defines 'conditions of production' and 'conditions of consumption' as they apply to both Marxist economic theory and to the more culturally-oriented production and consumption of literary texts according to Pierre Bourdieu. I will establish the relationship between these conditions as cause and effect, complementary, and, finally, mutually necessary depending upon their context and manifestation. Alterations in the conditions of production and consumption affect our treatment of their corresponding, associative dichotomies in the literary tradition - the transcendent and the material, the spiritual and the corporal, the well-wrought art object and the commodity fetish, and, finally, male …

“Out Of Many, One People” : A Comparative Analysis Of Short Fiction By Michelle Cliff, Jennifer Nicole Laster

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis is a comparative analysis of six of Michelle Cliffs short stories where I discuss the aspects of class, race, and self-alienation present in her work. In formulating and gathering the appropriate research for this project, I discovered that like most short fiction, Cliffs has not received criticism equal in comparison to her full-length novels. Therefore, the aim of this project is to present an in-depth critique of Cliffs short fiction using black feminist, post-colonial, and queer theory approaches to produce close readings her work to reaffirm her importance as a contemporary Caribbean author.

Chapter One juxtaposes the theme …

Reinterpreting The Comedy Of Errors: Exploring "Madness" And The Need To Belong, William K. Smith

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Since The Comedy of Errors' rescue from the literary bargain bin where it was tossed by nineteenth and early twentieth-century critics, many modern scholars have provided insightful cultural, linguistic, and theatrical commentaries on a play that is clearly more complex than it first seems. One area these recent discussions frequently address is the play's portrayal of madness in early modern society. However, what many of these discussions fail to remember is that ultimately Errors is a comedy "performed for the Delight of the Beholders" and that no one in the play is actually mad. Therefore, this essay argues that The …

Grounding To Place And Past: Motherhood In The Novels Of Native American Writers Louise Erdrich And Linda Hogan, Elise Doney

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The interconnectedness in both form and content ofNative American literature originates from the complex relationship between cultural and personal identity as inextricably intertwined with spiritual and natural realms. In Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Linda Hogan's Solar Storms and Power motherhoodliesatthecenter ofthisinterconnectedweb ofrelationships among identity, community, tradition, and landscape. Each novel centers on a protagonist who is, in some form, distanced from her primary mother/daughter relationship, consequently literally and figuratively displaced. The disrupted maternal relationship results in the child's displacement, functioning as a metaphor for the community's severance from tradition and the land. However, surrogate mother/daughter relationships develop in each novel …

The Effect Of A Narrative Intervention On Preschoolers' Story Retelling And Personal Story Generation Skills, Trina D. Spencer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Narration, or storytelling, is an important aspect of language. Narrative skills have practical and social importance; for example, children who tell good stories receive attention and approval from their peers. When children accurately recount events surrounding an injury or dispute, vital information is passed to parents and teachers. Additionally, early childhood narrative skills are moderately correlated with reading comprehension in primary grades. Because narration is socially and academically valued, language interventionists often address it. The research literature on narrative intervention has most often included school-aged participants and those with language or learning difficulties. Only a small number of studies have …

Touching The Truth: Applying Literary Realist Theory To Jose Rizal's “Noli Me Tangere” (Touch Me Not), Francesca T. Falqueza

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

When criticized for exaggerating events written in Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), Jose Rizal claimed that he was "ready to match every incident in his novel with one from life" (Guerrero 10). This thesis attempts to prove the validity of this statement using literary realist theory. Moreover, the novel's factual aspect proves to be not as important as its faithful depiction of Filipino life during Spanish rule. A close reading of the text examines specific incidents within the novel which reveal Rizal's intent for the novel as well as the message he desired to convey to his people. Further, …

Chicana Identity: Recognizing The Hybrid Self In Demetria Martínez's “Mother Tongue”, Cathy Ann Cortina

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study argues that although borders divide and fragment identity, there can be an embracement of a hybrid identity. Mártinez's novel, Mother Tongue, uses the representation of a Mexican-American female who has recognized and endeavored to cross a border to better understand the complexities of her hybrid identity. This journey is represented through Mary, a young woman who resides on a physical border between the United States and Mexico and lives on a cultural border between New Mexico and El Salvador. Martínez presents the cultural, historical, linguistic, and psychological aspects of living on a border between the United States …

English Department Faculty Development Forum, Beth Bradburn

Academic Leadership Academy

This project consisted of the first ever English department retreat, where different disciplines in the field (Linguistics, Rhetoric and Writing, Literature, English Education, and Creative Writing) came together and shared their insights to the English language. This forum was called “What is a Difficult Text?”, and was followed by another forum, called “Authority.”

Tolkien And Dogs, Just Dogs: In Metaphor And Simile, Emma Hawkins

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Examines dogs in Tolkien’s fiction; not just the actual dogs that appear in a wide range of his works, but also the use of dog-imagery in simile, metaphor, and character description, particularly the complex pattern of references and allusions Tolkien uses in the depictions of Sam, Gollum, and Wormtongue.

"A Far Green Country": Tolkien, Paradise, And The End Of All Things In Medieval Literature, A. Keith Kelly, Michael Livingston

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Attempts to explain exactly what Frodo goes to when he sails from the Grey Havens. By looking at paradise, purgatory, and earthly Edens in medieval literature and theology, we gain a better understanding of the spiritual purpose of Tolkien’s “far green country” beyond the bent paths of the world. References “Pearl,” “Sir Orfeo,” mystery play cycles, and Sir John Mandeville’s Travels, among other sources.

Reviews, David Bratman, Joe R. Christopher, Edith L. Crowe, Jason Fisher, Glen Goodknight, William Gray, Darrell Schweitzer, Amy H. Sturgis, Donald T. Williams

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Lilith in a New Light: Essays on the George Macdonald Fantasy Novel. Ed. Lucas H. Harriman. Reviewed by William Gray.

Black & White Ogre Country: The Lost Tales of Hilary Tolkien. Edited by Angela Gardner. Illustrated by Jef Murray. Reviewed by Glen GoodKnight.

C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion. John Beversluis. Reviewed by Donald T. Williams.

Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon. K.. Dale Koontz. Reviewed by Amy H. Sturgis.

Fritz Leiber, Critical Essays. Ed. Benjamin Szumskyj. Reviewed by Darrell Schweitzer.

Myth and Magic: Art according to the Inklings. Eduardo Segura and Thomas Honegger. Reviewed …

Footnotes, Issue 3, Spring 2009, Department Of English

Footnotes: Department of English Newsletter (2008-2012)

No abstract provided.

Resisting Altruism: How Systematic Power And Privilege Become Personal In One-On-One Community Tutoring, Beth Godbee

English Faculty Research and Publications

In this qualitative case study of one tutoring relationship, I present new data on the extracurriculum; investigate tutoring as it occurs in community spaces; and argue that individuals can connect across systematic inequalities through personal conversations around picture books, photographs, and other visual and textual materials. Rather than ignore individual positioning within institutionalized power and privilege, tutors and writers can strengthen relationships and make tutoring more effective by evaluating how the systematic becomes personal and intimately known in one-on-one conferencing.

2009 Literary Review (No. 22), Sigma Tau Delta

The Greenleaf Review

No abstract provided.

The Cat's Meow: Ulysses, Animals, And The Veterinary Gaze, David P. Rando

English Faculty Research

This essay argues that Joyce's representational techniques seek to intervene in the rationalized mode of apprehending animal bodies—here called the veterinary gaze—in order to deconstruct its authority and the barriers it maintains between humans and animals. Joyce's intervention, however, is necessarily a modest one. This is because the extraordinary language acts by which Ulysses would redefine the representation of humans and animals simultaneously reinforce the linguistic basis that maintains the barriers. At the same time, Ulysses evokes a sadness that to some extent redraws the human/animal divide, but this sadness is less an effect of language than it is of …

Theatrical Ideology: Toward A Rhetoric Theatricality, Jacob L. Robertson

Theses and Dissertations

When used in common vernacular, the terminology of the medium of theatre—"theatricality," "drama," "performance," "acting," "scene," etc."”form a vocabulary of "ideographs" as defined by Michael Calvin McGee. My analysis reveals that common usage of theatrical terms is more than merely metaphorical; the "theatre," rather, is a fundamental orienting concept for defining lived experience—it is ideology. By viewing the use of theatrical language as ideological, and analyzing how such terms define situations rhetorically, we begin to reveal the underlying ideology upon which the medium of theatre operates, and which it unconsciously conveys. I demonstrate this claim by analyzing the argument made …

Reinventing Virtue: Sensibility And Sentiment In The Works Of Maria Edgeworth, Octavia Cathryn Sawyer

Theses and Dissertations

While literary scholars have written extensively about sensibility in the past two decades, most of the studies have treated either the history of sensibility itself or how it interacted with a particular aspect of English culture and literature, such as sexuality or politics. My project instead examines how a single author, Maria Edgeworth, used sensibility in her writing over the course of her career. I analyze the use of sensibility in three of her novels: Belinda (1801), her first full-length novel; The Absentee (1812), her influential Irish national tale, written at the height of her popularity in the middle years …

Exchange Of The Changing Women In Merchant Of Venice, As You Like It, And Twelfth Night, Samantha Jo Richardson

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Eng 2901-002-003: The Structure Of English, Buck

Spring 2009

No abstract provided.

Eng 2850-001: Post-Colonial Literatures In English, Michael Loudon

Spring 2009

No abstract provided.

Eng 5502-001: Mentored Teaching, Christopher Wixson

Spring 2009

No abstract provided.

Eng 3901-001: Language And Linguistics, Buck

Spring 2009

No abstract provided.

The Present Giver And Other Stories On Human Connections, Erin B. Waggoner

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The Present Giver and Other Stories on Human Connections is a collection of seven short stories dealing with individuals that struggle to connect to another person. However, the stories also explore that these characters still feel the need to connect, stories very indicative of my own struggles with apathy and relationships. The critical analysis takes on a creative non-fiction approach as a way to show my development as a writer and how these stories relate to what I've learned through the years from my love of reading.

Language And Semogenesis In Philosophy: Realizational Patternings Of Ideology In Lexico-Grammar, Joe Fincham

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis hypothesizes that the semogenetic properties of language belonging to the stratum of social context known in Systemic Functional Linguistics as ‘ideology’ are realized (at least partly) in the lexico-grammatical features of a text relating to non-categorical and grammatically metaphorical use of modality and non-categorical uses of polarity. To test this hypothesis, a section of a text by philosopher A.J. Ayer was selected. It was selected because it presents an argument in favor of a differing philosophical sense-making framework from that commonly held in society, thus making it a text more conducive to study of semogenetic properties of language …

Satire's Club: Reality, Reason, And Knowledge In Joseph Andrews, Heather Anne Law Davis

Theses Digitization Project

Satire has been credited with possessing the power to deconstruct the distinctions we make between opposing concepts and thus lead us to reevaluate established views. Structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure claimed that language relies on sets of opposites, or binary pairs, to create meaning. Building on this idea, deconstructionist Jacques Derrida explored the hierarchies he believed were inherent in all binary pairs, arguing that on concept in each pair occupies a superior position in our consciousness.

Ballads As "Poetic" Rhetoric In The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Norma Jeanne Peterson

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis explores the rhetorical effect ballads have had as a medium of argument for those who were "free of literary influences and fairly homogeneous in character." The ballad, speaks to us poetically and by tradition reveals human interests emerging from distress and frustration. Three men (John Lomax, Alan Lomax and Harry Smith) were instrumental in collecting and recording early ballads before they were lost; this effect has lingered from an early period in time to the 1960s, and beyond when the value of ballads was rediscovered.

Cccc Statement Of Second Language Writing And Writers, S. Miller-Cochran, C. Hooper-Ortmeier, M. Cox, A. Dadak, K. E. Depew, Deborah J. Crusan, H. Hoang, J. Jordan, P. K. Matsudu, J. Moore, G. Scott, S. Simpson

English Language and Literatures Faculty Publications

The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) recognizes the presence of a growing number of second language writers in institutions of higher education across North America, including technical colleges, two-year colleges, four-year institutions, and graduate programs. As colleges and universities have actively sought to increase the diversity of their student populations through recruitment of international students, and as domestic second language populations have grown, second language writers have become an integral part of writing courses and programs.

Luciano Bianciardi’S Aprire Il Fuoco: On The Function Of Literature In Society, Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This is the first article to assess the importance of Luciano Bianciardi’s last novel, Aprire il fuoco [Open Fire!](1969), a work often overlooked, that offers crucial insights into Bianciardi’s commitments to social causes. A so-called “irregular” of 20th-century Italian literary panorama, Luciano Bianciardi (1922-1971) in his Aprire il fuoco discusses his idea of literature as an activity that must aim at assuming the role of ethical guide in societies. In my article, I gloss the often obscure historical and literary references of the novel, and provide a critical assessment of its impact.

One Of Us: Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes And A Personal Record, Torgeir Ehler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This present work explores the relationship of Joseph Conrad's status as a Polish exile to his creative and biographical work. Its main focus is on the tandem publications of the novel Under Western Eyes and his autobiographical volume A Personal Record, both published within a year of each other and written contemporaneously. The first chapter is a short biographical survey of Conrad's life and addresses some later biographical works by his wife, among others. An overview of critical works that deal with Under Western Eyes is presented in the second chapter. An investigation into narrative structure and its use in …

Who Owns This Text?: Plagiarism, Authorship, And Disciplinary Cultures, Carol Petersen Haviland, Joan A. Mullin

All USU Press Publications

Carol Haviland, Joan Mullin, and their collaborators report on a three-year interdisciplinary interview project on the subject of plagiarism, authorship, and "property," and how these are conceived across different fields. The study investigated seven different academic fields to discover disciplinary conceptions of what types of scholarly production count as "owned." Less a research report than a conversation, the book offers a wide range of ideas, and the chapters here will provoke discussion on scholarly practice relating to intellectual property, plagiarism, and authorship---and to how these matters are conveyed to students. Although these authors find a good deal of consensus in …