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Engaging The Eighties: Ethics, Objects, Periods, Kevin L. Ferguson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines a recent decade in American history whose unique notion of self-periodization generated important questions of ethical engagement and withdrawal. Situated during a time of an increasingly complex relationship between literature and theory, thinkers in the 80s self-consciously shifted towards making claims about their present moment which were based on the logic of rupture, and which thus created an either-or logic of pessimism or optimism in response to this rupture. These kinds of self-periodizing notions generally are collected under the rubric "postmodernism" and the first chapter deals with a transatlantic movement between theorists such as Fredric Jameson and …

“Out From Gens Romulum Into The Weal-Kin”: Re-Locating Modernist Poetics In David Jones’ AnathéMata And Basil Bunting’S Briggflatts, Lucie Boukalova

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In the decades following its publication in 1922, T.S. Eliot's Waste Land has become an epitome of the modernist sensibility and situation. This thesis challenges the poem's dominance and dictate over the canon of modernist poetry persisting in the academic discourse and general cultural awareness. Focusing on two post-WWII sequences by Eliot's younger contemporaries, David Jones' s Anathemata (1952) and Basil Bunting's Briggflatts (1966), this study explores alternative models and inspirative sources of the modernist poetic sequence. Through the constant comparison and contrast with Eliot's earlier articulation of the modern historico-cultural circumstance, Jones' and Bunting's specific foci and methods emerge …

(Un)Gendered Sentiments: The Relationship Between Modernism And Gender In The Works Of Barnfield And Woolf, Brittany Kay Jungck

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

By examining the history of literature through the lens of a gender critic, a person is able to discern how society and history frame our understanding of certain concepts. In this study, I have examined the lives and works of Richard Barnfield, a famed poet from the English Renaissance, and Virginia Woolf, a noted twentieth-century British novelist. The analysis of various aspects of Barnfield's and Woolf's creations reveals a connection between gendered language and modernity.

"I Hear You, But I Don't Understand You": The Effects Of Peer Tutoring For Helping Secondary Esl Students Achieve Academic Success, Mary Pyron

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

When I began teaching 11th grade English in Houston, Texas, I quickly discovered that students who speak English as a second language are sometimes drastically under-prepared for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test, the state’s high stakes test required during the 11th grade year. The result of their inability to pass the test is that they do not graduate, which limits their future career and academic choices. In a semester-long research study at a typical high school in Houston, Texas, I explored the possibility of assisting ESL/LEP students transplanted to Houston as they struggled with English proficiency …

Assessing The Writing Of International Learners: A Discussion In Two Voices, Sue Norton, Marty Meinardi

Articles

No abstract provided.

Courtship, Loe, And Marriage In Othello: Shakespeare's Mockery Of Courtly Love, Leigh Copas

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Othello is the forgery of a comedic play turned tragedy, for the play begins where the ordinary comedy would end. While many critics prefer to discuss the racial and exotic aspects of William Shakespeare's tragedy, there are several critics who focus on the role of love and the marital relationships that are also important in terms of interpreting the actions of key characters. Carol Thomas Neely, Maurice Charney, and several other literary critics have focused primarily on the role of marriage and love in Othello. The topic of marriage is generally discussed in terms of the wooing scene (Act 1, …

Maintaining An Immigrant Heritage Language Other Than Spanish Or English In The Bilingual Culture Of The Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, Sonia A. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A 2005 study in the bilingual Spanish/English Rio Grande Valley of South Texas investigates the language strategies used by immigrant families from China, Greece, Hungary, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and the Ukraine to preserve their heritage languages and pass them on to their children. Personal interviews determine that all the parents are well-educated and from an above average socio-economic level. This investigation categorizes the various strategies used by the parents. All the immigrant parents emphasize that the main reason they want to preserve the heritage language with their children is to insure that the children can continue to communicate …

The Importance Of Continuity In First Language Education For Learning A Second Language, Stephen M. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Scores from the Texas Reading Proficiency Tests in English (RPTE) for ninety-four Newcomer ESL students were analyzed to understand the differences between students who had attended school continuously and those who had discontinuity in their first language (LI) education in their home country. This research was performed in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a few miles from the border with Mexico. The hypothesis is that students who have gaps in their L1 education will not learn to read as quickly in English as those who had none since the former are lacking cognitive skills which the latter already …

Dreaming Of Dragons: Tolkien's Impact On Heaney's Beowulf, Felicia Jean Steele

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

On the influence of Tolkien’s Beowulf essay, and his subtle shaping of our current cultural conception of dragons, on Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.

The Theory And Practice Of Alliterative Verse In The Work Of J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark F. Hall

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

Studies Tolkien’s use of alliterative meter in his poetry, both that embedded in The Lord of the Rings and that published separately elsewhere.

Myth Maker, Unicorn Maker: C.S. Lewis And The Reshaping Of Medieval Thought, Chad Wriglesworth

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

Deals with Lewis’s use of medieval legends and religious symbolism of the unicorn in two versions of a poem about the Ark and in The Last Battle and The Great Divorce.

Wise Warriors In Tolkien, Lewis, And Rowling, Ernelle Fife

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

Discusses the concept of the wise woman warrior, focusing primarily on Éowyn, Orual, and Hermione Granger but bringing in other characters from the works of Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling as well.

Review [Of Writing Across Borders], Beth Godbee, Kate Vieira

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

“Imagine This:” Disengendered Fiction Writers, Susan M. Rochette

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This article recites in brief a story the author wrote that caused conversation and reflection on behalf of herself, her teachers and her students over the years of her writing as a fictionist and fiction writing teacher. The point of the article is to both demonstrate by doing and to make comment on the issue of women writing in the masculine voice.

Mythcon 37 - The Map & The Territory: Maps And Landscapes In Fantasy, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon Programs

Held in Norman, OK (Aug 4-7, 2006), this conference focused on the maps and landscapes in fantasy. It includes a track on Native American Fantasy/Native Americans in Fantasy.

The Green World Of Dystopian Fiction, Martin Hensley

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Northrop Frye was the first theorist to develop the green world archetype; Frye used the term to refer to a recurring motif in Shakespearean comedy. In several of Shakespeare's comedies, the protagonists leave the civilized world and venture into the green world, or nature, to escape from the irrational law of society, which is the case in such comedies as As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Elements of the green world can also be found in Shakespearean tragedy, where the natural retreat serves as a temporary escape for the protagonists. Such a green world exists in three …

Concept Map Used In Reading English As A Foreign Language At The University Level, Li Han

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined traditional reading instruction and concept mapping reading instruction using reading and survey data collected from English as Foreign Language (EFL) students in China. Its purpose was to investigate whether there was any difference between these instructional types in three reading areas: main idea reading, subordinate idea reading and reading between the lines. Forty first-year students were randomly chosen from two universities in Southwestern China. They were equally divided into the two instructional methods. Ten sets ofreading materials were used for a six-week period of the study. Concept mapping students were taught with concept mapping techniques and assessed …

Interrogating History Or Making History? Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Delillo's Libra, And The Shaping Of Collective Memory, Mark Spencer Mills

Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the post-structuralist skepticism of language and language's ability to represent reality, the philosophy of history has likewise been questioned, since we gain our knowledge and understanding of the past primarily through language—through written and spoken testimony, and through subsequent historiography. Various post-structuralist critics have pointed out that history is never entirely recoverable, but accessible only indirectly through what is written and documented about it. What is written and documented is in turn determined by the contents and the nature of the archive. What we know about history is largely mediated and limited by the problems inherent …

The Familiar Foreign Country: Reading Mexico In Cormac Mccarthy, Jack Kerouac, And Katherine Anne Porter, Rachel Mae Ligairi

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis examines the discourse of Mexico in the works of three twentieth-century American authors-Cormac McCarthy, Jack Kerouac, and Katherine Anne Porter-in order to analyze representations of Otherness in modernism and postmodernism. I seek to destabilize the dividing line between these periods as well as to show how representation in postmodernity has become more problematic due in large part to the proliferation of consumer culture. Though the Mexico that McCarthy employs in Blood Meridian and the Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain) escapes many stereotypes, his Mexico is merely a staging ground that …

Modernist Anti-Philosophicalism And Virginia Woolf's Critique Of Philosophy, Michael Lackey

English Publications

Woolf was one of many modernists who led an assault on philosophy. Given her anti-philosophical orientation, those scholars who use philosophy to interpret Woolf, I argue, are implicitly at odds with her aesthetic. Crucial to my argument is Woolf's conception of what I refer to as the semiotic unconscious, which predetermines the conceptual systems we use to systematize our experiences of the world. Based on my findings, I suggest an alternative frame for understanding Woolf's treatment of philosophy and, more generally, modernist anti-philosophicalism. Instead of assuming that philosophy signifies intellectual depth, as many scholars do, I suggest approaching Woolf, as …

“A Highly Ambiguous Condition”: The Transgender Subject, Experimental Narrative And Trans-Reading Identity In The Fiction Of Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter, And Jeanette Winterson, Jennifer A. Smith

Dissertations

This dissertation examines how the constantly evolving gender identity o f a text’s transgender subject relates to the text’s narrative structure and shapes the orientation o f the reader to the text. Accordingly, this project examines how these transgender narratives deploy experimental stylistic techniques that enhance the reader’s experience of ceaseless transitioning by revealing gender as a constant process that never solidifies onto a body and by highlighting the text’s own status as process rather than finalized product. Further, this project examines how a transgender subject and his/her relationship to the body, culture, and narrative is involved in the re-vision …

Abroad At Home: Xenomania And Voluntary Exile In The Middle Passage, Salt, And Tide Running, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

This essay re-examines the causes and consequences of Caribbean alienation, with implications for understanding alienation in other postcolonial societies. The author argues that while externalization does follow colonial incursions or international travel by the colonized, exile and alienation also result from emotional or psychological migrations within the mind, a consequence of neocolonial mechanisms tied to globalization.

Introduction : Cross-Language Relations In Composition., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Realism, Fantasy And A Critique Of Nineteenth-Century Society In George Macdonald's At The Back Of The North Wind, Jean Webb

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

No abstract provided.

Signs And C.S. Lewis: The Meaning Of Meaning And The Value Of Film, Charlie W. Starr

Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016

No abstract provided.

From Caricature To Character: The Intellectually Disabled In Dickens's Novels (Part 2), Paul Marchbanks

English

No abstract provided.

Samuel Beckett's Late Aesthetics Of Subjectivation, Jianxi Lie

Lingnan Theses

No other writer has explored so metaphysically the problem of human existence as Samuel Beckett, the Irish writer who first gained world renown in 1953 with the formal radicalism and existential angst of Waiting for Godot. In the bleakest forms, Beckett has denied human experience the most fundamental of all certainties – subjectivity and self-consciousness – and exposed conventional realism’s inability to convey the ungovernable flux of the world and the individual’s unfixed, subjective response.

Taking Beckett’s manipulation of pronominal, spatial and temporal deixis as an entry point, this thesis captures the late works in its central dilemma of Beckettian …

Samuel Taylor Coleridge And Opium., Donald John Marotta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coleridge's usual use of opium was through laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. This thesis presents the history of and criticism regarding the poet's use of laudanum and the physical and emotional consequences the drug held for him and his writing career.

Oedipus' Wake: The (Neo-)Masculinization Of The Self In Late Twentieth-Century American Women's Memoir, Thomas Johnson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Without pretensions to exhaustiveness, this study briefly examines the mid- to late-twentieth-century flowering of western theory and criticism built around autobiographical writing and follows the feminist branch(es) of that theory and criticism through a reading of the following four memoirs: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, All the Lost Girls by Patricia Foster, Lying by Lauren Slater, and Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. Using both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory as they relate to literature, I argue that the selves these four women write in their memoirs are not selves built around the model historically set for women by …

Influence And Its Opposite: Presence And Absence In The Work Of Harold Bloom, Joshua Henderson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the years since he formulated and expanded on it in The Anxiety of Influence (1973), A Map of Misreading (1975), and Kaballah and Criticism (1975), Harold Bloom's theory of the "anxiety of influence" has engendered more ambivalence than serious investigation into his theory and its influences. In part, the ambivalence is due to Bloom's persona, which irritates the academic "left" and "right" alike. Surprisingly, it is not Bloom's defense of canonicity against post-structural Marxism, feminism, and New Historical criticism that generates the most resistance; instead, Bloom's dissenters more often come from the ranks of conservative traditionalists who might be …