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Marvelous Transformations: An Anthology Of Fairy Tales And Contemporary Critical Perspectives (Review), Veronica L. Schanoes

Publications and Research

Reviews the book Marvelous Transformations: An Anthology of Fairy Tales and Contemporary Critical Perspectives, Edited by Christine A. Jones and Jennifer Schacker. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2013.

Liberalism And The Dilemma Of Cultures, Ali Rezaie

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this project, through a closer examination of the controversies over Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003), Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (2003) and Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), I seek to identify the elements of a defensible postcolonial vision. While postcolonialism is afflicted with many problematic assumptions, the exclusively liberal perspective which these authors seek to reaffirm in its place has its own plethora of defects. Ali, Hosseini and Nafisi merit a closer attention not only for their exposing some of the flawed views underlying postcolonialism but also for their demonstrating why an unqualified reversion to liberalism may …

Precarious Positions: Toward A Theory And Analysis Of Rhetorical Vulnerability, David Riche

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this project, I develop a framework for treating rhetoric as a system for managing vulnerabilities to and through discourse. I contend that, through rhetoric, we are all put into a fundamentally precarious position, an unavoidable state of exposure to material, social, institutional, and rhetorical forces that work to condition us as both agents and audiences. Rhetoric is not simply something we use; it is also something that we respond to, something to which we are continuously exposed, whether we like it or not. There is, in other words, a necessary concern for vulnerability at the heart of rhetorical theory …

Toni Morrison’S Depiction Of Beauty Standards In Relation To Class, Politics Of Respectability, And Consumerism In Song Of Solomon, Karen Jensen

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In Song of Solomon, published during a transitional moment in the history of U.S. feminism, Toni Morrison portrays the destructive forces of hegemonic female beauty standards, materialism, and consumerism in a Midwestern African-American community from the 1930s to the 1960s. She reveals a hierarchy in which men define standards of beauty and respectability that enforce white bourgeois ideals. Focusing on five female characters, this thesis examines this hierarchy; the agents who maintain it; and the ways in which it affects female characters who accept and/or reject it. While one of the characters, Hagar, perishes in her attempt to live …

Learning To "Teacher Think": Using English Education As A Model For Writing Teacher Preparation In The Composition Practicum, Angela Celestine Lankford

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the impact of "teacher thinking" exercises in the Composition Practicum as a means of instilling a clearer sense of professional development in graduate instructors. Teacher thinking is a teacher training method that asks the novice instructor to see from the perspective of learners within their writing classrooms. Scholarship on writing teacher preparation programs suggests that English educators regularly employ teacher thinking exercises in the training of secondary school teachers. Teacher thinking has allowed many English education majors to conceptualize and obtain teaching identities by helping them to envision the intricate layers of teaching earlier in their careers. …

Grammar In The Composition Classroom: Rewriting The Tradition, Debra Lynn Reece

Theses and Dissertations

In the last 50 years, the trend in the field of composition pedagogy has turned away from traditional grammar instruction, condemning pedagogical practices that focus on preventing and remediating error. In the early 1960s, Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer invoked the death sentence on traditional grammar instruction: "The teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (37-38). Having been enlightened by this scholarship, the field refocused instruction to emphasize elements like writing process, collaboration, modeling, and prewriting, pushing …

Fantasy Versus Fairy Tale: How Modern Fairy Tale Variants Measure Up To One Of The Greatest Literary Traditions Of All Time., Cheryl Lee

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will examine both the history of the fairy tale and the modern adaptations of these popular stories in order to illustrate how fairy tales have evolved into their modern counterparts. The implications and circumstances of several recent variants are questioned and compared to a concise definition of the fairy tale. It is determined that, although the modern versions resemble classic fairy tales, they are not a detriment to the tradition of the tales, and may, in fact, begin their own literary tradition.

A Study Of Women Through 18th-Century Literature: As Reflected By The Works Of Jane Austen, Or, A Re-Visioning, Nicole Miller

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

A "Time-Conscious" Christmas Carol, Jack Lundquist

Theses and Dissertations

Shortly after Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was released in 1843, a tradition of adaptation began which has continued seemingly unabated to the present day. Consequently, the tale has become so widely known that one is arguably as likely to have first encountered the iconic miser Scrooge through any number of audio-visual adaptations as through the original work itself. Significant critical attention has been paid to the nature of Scrooge's drastic change from miser to philanthropist. Many would argue that the change, happening both literally and figuratively overnight, is not representative of a genuine psychological transformation. On Christmas day, 2010, …

Material Geography, Mountains, And A-Nationalism In Thurman's The Blacker The Berry, Stephanie Jean Burns

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars over the last two decades or so have become increasingly interested in methods of interpreting history, society, and literature that do not rely on nationalistic paradigms. One vein of the transnational analytic trend is interested not only in the multiplicity of cultural geographies but also in the materiality of geography. Such critical work is extremely helpful in challenging myopic nationalist readings; yet the materiality of geography used as a theoretical lens has even greater potential. Using geographical formations as a basis for literary analysis can yield a theoretical base that has nothing to do with the borders of nations …

Biracial Identity In Texts Read By Secondary Education Students, Jared Madden

Honors Theses

This thesis sought to examine how biracial identity is portrayed in the literature read by students in secondary education. Unfortunately, the findings indicated that biracialism is not being adequately portrayed in this literature. Students rarely encounter biracial characters, when they do these characters are usually peripheral, and sometimes the biracialism of these characters is presented as an obstacle to be overcome. Furthermore, teachers (at least in this researcher’s local area) seem to be extremely apathetic towards even discussing this issue. The impact which all of this can have on secondary students with a biracial background is discussed. However, there are …

Blind Advocacy: Blind Readers, Disability Theory, And Accessing John Gower, Jonathan Hsy

Accessus

Toward the end of his life, medieval poet John Gower (d. 1408) composed Latin poetry about his own progressive blindness, and later nineteenth-century Blind readers appropriated Gower’s work as part of a platform to advocate for changed perceptions and opportunities for the blind and other people with disabilities. In this essay, I approach nineteenth-century narrative compilations of blind lives (which include Gower’s) as transformative acts of literary historiography. These compilers not only appropriate the medieval blind poet to advance their own social and political ends, but they also create a new disability-centered approach to the entire Western artistic tradition. I …

Introduction, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

This Introduction by co-editors Georgiana Donavin and Eve Salisbury celebrates the publication of the first issue of Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media, a biannual publication of The Gower Project. The Introduction provides a short history of The Gower Project and explains the scope of Accessus: an e-journal dedicated to articles composed in electronic formats on Western European literature written before 1660. This first issue is dedicated to scholarship on the fourteenth-century English poet John Gower, who inspired the Project and this journal. For a decade The Gower Project has supported exciting new interpretations of …

Difference Does Not Mean Deficient: The Cultural And Higher Education Experiences Of Appalachian Women, Andrea D. Welch

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Processing Fluency On Restorative Environments, Andrea Ahles

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Role Of El Cid In Medieval Spanish Culture And Epic Literature, Emily Chaney

Honors Theses

This research looks at the medieval Spanish epic poem, the Poema de Mio Cid, and how it reflects the world of Spanish culture and literature, its place in the landscape of epic poetry on the European continent, and the noble virtues of the hero, el Cid. The Poema is an anonymous cantar de gesta, or "song of heroic deeds," likely composed around the early thirteenth century by a person (or persons) very familiar with Castilian noble society and law in effect during the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, as well as the area of northern Spain around …

The Ethical Philosophy Of Emmanuel Levinas: A Phenomenological Approach To Cormac Mccarthy’S The Road, Ashley Elisabeth Murphy

Master’s Theses and Projects

Contents:

• Chapter 1: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
• Chapter 2: Proximity, Justice, and Memory: Elements to Rebuild an Ethical Society
• Chapter 3: Violence in The Road: The Face, Killing, and Freedom
• Chapter 4: Investigating God and the Other in McCarthy’s The Road
• Chapter 5: Engaging the Other: Exploring Language in The Road

Analysis Of Stakeholder Expectations Of Effective Indiana High Schools, Doug Miller

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Updike, Morrison, And Roth: The Politics Of American Identity, Christopher Steven Love

Dissertations

My dissertation analyzes American identity in the works of John Updike, Toni Morrison, and Philip Roth. Specifically, I examine American identity in Updike’s Rabbit tetralogy (1960-1990); Morrison’s trilogy of novels Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1998); and Roth’s trilogy comprising the novels American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000). The studied texts of these three novelists, I argue, attack national myths and undermine exclusive narratives that are incongruent with the nation’s ideal identity as a pluralistic and democratic nation.

Ncaa Compliance: An Examination Of Ncaa Division I Compliance Officers’ Perceptions On The Educative Process, Tonya L. Gimbert

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Performative Gender And Pop Fiction Females: "Emancipating" Byronic Heroines Through A Feminist Education, Joy Smith

Masters Theses

"I can be a regular bitch. Just try me." With this phrase emblazoned across her t-shirt, Lisbeth Salander, pierced, tattooed, and bedecked in leather, waltzes from the pages of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This woman who subverts authority, maliciously tattoos and sodomizes a man, and intentionally distances herself from close relationships of any kind has somehow managed to capture both the attention and admiration of the American audience. This disheartening phenomenon stems from a renewed interest in the Byronic heroine, a female possessing those traits traditionally assigned to Byronic heroes and men, and the rise of …

Understanding Urban Education, Emily Watkins

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Old English Ecologies: Environmental Readings Of Anglo-Saxon Texts And Culture, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Dissertations

Conventionally, scholars have viewed representations of the natural world in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature as peripheral, static, or largely symbolic: a “backdrop” before which the events of human and divine history unfold. In “Old English Ecologies,” I apply the relatively new critical perspectives of ecocriticism and placebased study to the Anglo-Saxon canon to reveal the depth and changeability in these literary landscapes. Overall, this interdisciplinary study of Anglo-Saxon texts brings together literary and environmental sources and modes of inquiry to explore the place of humans (and non-humans) within the natural environments of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as the ways in …

Fake News, Real Hip: Rhetorical Dimensions Of Ironic Communication In Mass Media, Paige L. Broussard

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This paper explores the growing genre of fake news, a blend of information, entertainment, and satire, in main stream mass media, specifically examining the work of Stephen Colbert. First, this work examines classic definitions of satire and contemporary definitions and usages of irony in an effort to understand how they function in the fake news genre. Using a theory of postmodern knowledge, this work aims to illustrate how satiric news functions epistemologically using both logical and narrative paradigms. Specific artifacts are examined from Colbert’s speech in an effort to understand how rhetorical strategies function during his performances.

Frances Burney’S Cecilia: A Publishing History, By Catherine M. Parisian, Lee Kahan

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.

"Dae Scotsmen Dream O 'Lectric Leids?" Robert Crawford's Cyborg Scotland, Alexander Burke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies a Cybernetic interpretation to a selection of poetry by the Scottish Informationist poet Robert Crawford, drawn mostly from two collections: A Scottish Assembly (1990) and Sharawaggi: Poems in Scots (1990). Crawford is contextualized by observing the poetic influences of Robert Burns, John Davidson, and Hugh MacDiarmid, as well as the philosophical influence of George Elder Davie’s The Democratic Intellect. This paper argues that, in response to the Two Cultures hypothesis put forth by C. P. Snow and the widely-held belief that Scotland is irrevocably fractured, the shifting boundaries of the many disparate Scottish cultures are mediated by …

An Awareness Of What Is Missing: Four Views On The Consequences Of Secularism, Rachel E. Hunt Steenblik, Heidi Zameni, Debbie Ostorga, Nathan Greeley

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

While the issues regarding widespread secularization in contemporary Western culture are difficult to properly assess, it can be argued that certain prerequisites are necessary for the well-being of any society and, furthermore, that certain of these necessary conditions are only provided by a given civilization's major religious tradition. All societies need to perpetually engage in collective action and decision making, and as any given community faces the challenges of the future, its governing religious worldview is an indispensable source of guidance and time-honored wisdom. With this in mind, it will be argued that Western civilization is dependent upon a Judeo-Christian …

Who Do You Play For? : Naming, Difference And The Creation Of Scandal In Literature, Tristan Lipe

Theses and Dissertations

An exploration of how the creation of groups and interactions between groups impact people in the world. Beginning with an introduction that explores, specifically, how the creation of groups can function in the literary world when they are used as scandals. The introduction focuses on the rise of Poet, Kenneth Goldsmith and his use of Conceptualism to promote his brand. Following the introduction is a poetic exploration of groups and group conflict. It draws on social psychology, sociology as well as instances of violence partially resulting from rivalry between groups.

Zuzu's Petals, Jeffrey James Jarot

Theses and Dissertations

Zuzu's Petals relates the travails of Jules and Julie, a couple whose marriage is in the process of breaking apart. Jules has a "fanboyish" obsession with the 1946 Frank Capra film "It's a Wonderful Life." Furthermore, he is fixated on his own past, and his eccentric behavior has caused his disenchanted wife to seek romantic and emotional solace in David, an old flame from high school. Their child, Zuzu, who was named at Jules' insistence after a key character in the Capra film, has herself sensed that something is amiss in her parents' dealings with each other. The story's narrative …

Session Ii, Cory Chamberlain, Jeannie Coutant, Brian Dugan, Lindsay Head, Nan Kavanaugh, Renee Mercer, April Michael, Nicolas Michaud, Adam Mitchell, Sarah Musil, Michelle Rudden, Karen Riley

English Graduate Organization Conference

Session 2: Poster Session 7:00-8:00pm: Enjoy some coffee and refreshments with the students of ENC 6942 Empirical Research in Composition as they present their empirical research design posters: