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Teenage Life In The Fat Lane, Kristi Shreffler

Graduate Research Papers

Young adult fiction may not portray obese characters accurately. Research questions used to explore this issue focused on how obese characters were portrayed in young adult fiction. One set of questions asked whether characters in the books in this study will suffer from ridicule and peer rejection. A second set of questions asked whether any the books in this study will suggest that losing weight will ensure personal happiness. A third set of questions asked whether any of young adult fiction books in this study will portray obesity in a negative manner. After compiling the information, the researcher found that …

The Many Masks Of Louisa May Alcott’S Gothic Heroines, Lisa Poggi

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Many of the female characters in the Gothic thrillers of Louisa May Alcott wear masks or are or portrayed as “actresses” who conceal their passion with the appearance of being the typical domestic woman. This idea is most clearly presented in “Behind a Mask” and “Pauline’s Passion and Punishment.” In these thrillers, hidden passion causes problems in each heroine’s life, either because her strong will is an unacceptable female characteristic and she will therefore be shunned in some way by society or by those dear to her; or, expressing her passion will result in disaster of some kind. This representation …

‘Slender Knowledge’: Sovereignty, Madness, And The Self In Shakespeare’S King Lear, A.G. Harmon

Scholarly Articles

In King Lear, the English law of madness, especially the aspects of testamentary devises, royal accession, waste, and plunder, is thematized in such a way that the conflict between civil order and savage nature is brought to the foreground. This dynamic overshadows, and to some extent disguises what truly lies at the heart of ancient Britain’s woes: a deficit of ontological self-inquiry on the part of the sovereign and his royal retainer, Gloucester, from which all of the other complications ensue.

Pound And Imagism In The Twenty-First Century, John Gery

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mis-Education And The Crisis In Male Subjectivity: William Godwin’S Middle Novels, 1799–1817, Lisa-Marie Lynn Butler

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the tumultuous period of the 1790s, the English anarchist philosopher William Godwin was a seminal figure whose 1793 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness stood as a touchstone for the reform movement in Britain. Godwin is primarily known today as the author of Political Justice and Things As They Are; Or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, a 1794 novel which many readers, past and present, have regarded as a fictionalized allegory of the philosophical claims outlined in Political Justice.

Although his fame as a novelist largely rests on this one popular novel, …

Buried : Unearthing The Secrets Of Oregon Truffles, Lucy Burningham

Dissertations and Theses

Heady, rich and mood-altering, truffles have inspired quixotic legends, bizarre crimes and gluttonous consumption for hundreds, even thousands of years. For as long as humans have known about the strange, bulbous fungi that grow underground, they have found truffles fascinating, mysterious and persuasive. Expert at the art of luring people and animals through scent alone, truffles beg to be found.

Heady, rich and mood-altering, truffles have inspired quixotic legends, bizarre crimes and gluttonous consumption for hundreds, even thousands of years. For as long as humans have known about the strange, bulbous fungi that grow underground, they have found truffles fascinating, …

Female Freedom Fighters: The Impact Of Kate Chopin's The Awakening And Edith Wharton's The House Of Mirth On The American Suicide Discourse From 1870-1900, Jenny Cortez

Masters Theses

Chapter one traces the discussion of suicide that was taking place in America between the years 1870-1900. Some psychologists attributed suicide to insanity and imitation, while others ascribed the act of suicide to those individuals with an intelligent disposition. Other theorists, however, saw the act itself as being in direct connection with social consciousness and the plight of women. Chapter two takes up Kate Chopin's The Awakening, published in 1899, as a response to this conversation over women who take their own lives, contending that a woman commits the act of suicide not because, as American society suggested between 1870 …

Textual Selves, Tasha Dunaway

Masters Theses

Through an examination of the texts of William Byrd II and Thomas Jefferson, I consider appetite as an instrument of self-construction in relation to two poles of male identity: the patriarch and the libertine. Byrd and Jefferson's public images as patriarchs are complicated by an examination of their private texts which reveal a decidedly libertine tendency. These two men compose texts (and personae) relative to socially accepted notions of appetite.

Chapter One discusses the composition of works written for introspective purposes, arguably private works--commonplace books, scrapbooks, diaries, and letters-in an effort to distinguish the ways in which appetite operates in …

The Grim Word: 'Home' In Fiction By Graham Greene, Geoff Cowgill

Masters Theses

Graham Greene's treatment of the subject of home in his writings is remarkably negative. Focusing on nine of his major novels (England Made Me, A Gun for Sale, Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, The Comedians, Travels with My Aunt, The Honorary Consul, and The Human Factor), this study explicates the ways in which home fails his characters. In this thesis, 'home' has been split into three facets: family, domicile and homeland. Each facet seems to promise benefits for the characters that don't materialize. The way in which Greene's writing promotes a betrayal of home reflects …

A Song And A Slogan: Regional Influences On Carl Sandburg And Edgar Lee Masters, Amanda Dunlavey

Masters Theses

The works of Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters have been largely overlooked by critics in spite of their initial popular success .• However, these authors dt serve further study, especially· in light of the growing popularity of regional writing. When studied in a biographical context, the works of Sandburg and Masters illustrate that thJ. most profound influence on their lives and works was that of their early lives in entral Illinois. It was there that they found their most fertile subject matter, developed their political beliefs, and established their connection to nature. Studying the 4 in tandem can form …

Hannah Dustan: A Seventeenth-Century Text Still In Progress, Janice Derr

Masters Theses

This thesis traces the path of Hannah Dustan's story of captivity from its first appearance in the seventeenth century through today and explores the cultural history and significance behind her story. Dustan's story of her capture and bloody escape from the Abenaki tribe was first told by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, in his 1697 sermon Humiliations Follow 'd with Deliverance. Incorporating captivity narratives into sermons was not atypical, but it may surprise modem readers to find a story with a protagonist who commits murder in a sermon about humiliation. By examining primary documents and exploring the history of the captivity …

Passage Through The Ocean: The Female Heroic Journey In The Novels Of Anita Desai, Jaime Pedigo Hendrix

Masters Theses

This study examines the female heroic journey in relation to the protagonists in three of Anita Desai's novels: Maya in Cry, the Peacock, Sita in Where Shall We Go This Summer, and Bim in Clear Light of Day. The elements of the heroic journey as described by Joseph Campbell in Hero with a Thousand Faces illuminate the journeys of Desai's characters, as certain of these elements appear in all three of the characters' journeys toward adulthood. The work of C. G. Jung is also central to this study, as his theories on psychological development are utilized to show the growth, …

Apocalypse South: Judgment, Cataclysm, And Resistance In The Regional Imaginary, Anthony Hoefer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project investigates manifestations of Apocalypse in selected works of southern fiction, each of which simultaneously draws upon the cosmology of southern evangelical Protestantism and disrupts that cosmology’s power to govern the discourses of race, class, and gender in the U.S. South. Apocalypse South proposes that invocations of the Apocalypse are signs of deferred meaning—of hidden histories of undifferentiation, hybridity, and contradiction which defy the prevailing discourses that configure social relationships in southern spaces and places. Southern religious culture maps Apocalypse onto the boundaries of race, class, and gender and imparts catastrophic consequences to their violations. However, the works investigated …

Hearing Adam: Gender Relationships In The Short Fiction Of Caroline Gordon., Linda Elaine Hipple

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Writer and critic Caroline Gordon has been a participant on the Southern literary scene since the early 1930s, yet her works have been neither studied nor appreciated as frequently as the works of her male contemporaries. Her novels and short fiction never received the critical acclaim that they merited due to the perpetuation of the erroneous idea that women have little to say. While at the time other female writers were exploring their emancipation, Gordon retreated to the consistent confines of male-dominated tradition and created fiction embodying her conservative philosophy. This thesis will examine five pieces of her short fiction, …

It's Alive! The Gothic (Dis)Embodiment Of The Logic Of Networks, Anna Katharine Bennion

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis draws connections between today's network society and the workings of gothic literature in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century. Just as our society is formed and affected by the flow of information, the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility was formed by the merging and flow of scientific "technology" (or new scientific discoveries) and societal norms and rules. Gothic literature was born out of this science-society network, and in many ways embodies the ruptures implicit in it. Although gothic literature is not a network in the same sense as informationalism and the culture of sensibility are, gothic literature works according …

The Effects Of Background Music On The Reading Performance Of Taiwanese Esl Students, Peter Chou

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to see what kinds of effects classical music and hip hop music have on the performance of a second language reading comprehension test in Taiwanese college students. According to Kahneman' s ( 1973) capacity model for attention, one may fail to perfonn an activity because the supply of attention needed for multiple tasks does not meet the demand needed to perfom1 each of the tasks. This explains why students perform better or worse on different cognitive tasks with certain types of background media. An experiment involving 123 participants from a medium size college in …

The Play's The Thing: Investigating The Potential Of Performance Pedagogy, Tamara Lynn Scoville

Theses and Dissertations

In the last ten years there has been a resurgence of interest in teaching Shakespeare through performance. However, most literature on the topic continues to focus on the pragmatic selling points of how performance makes Shakespeare fun and understandable while remaining surprisingly silent on issues of theory and ethics. By investigating the ethical implications of performance pedagogy as it affects our students' construction of identity, empathy, and pluralistic tolerance we can better understand and discuss the potential of performance pedagogy in relation to the ethical goals of the Humanities. Performance Pedagogy has particular ethical potential due to the structure of …

Poem No. 98, November 2007, Huntsville Literary Association (Huntsvile, Ala.)

POEM

The Huntsville Literary Association was founded in 1967 to provide a community for writers, readers, and artists through workshops, readings, and educational programs. One of their key contributions is the literary magazine titled POEM which showcases original writings from both established and emerging writers. This issue features poems from various writers.

Review Of "Teaching The Gothic," Edited By Anna Powell And Andrew Smith, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

In recent years there has been a considerable growth in scholarship on the Gothic and on supporting reference materials. There has also been a growth in single volume introductory guides to the form which have been crucial in supporting our pedagogic practices (at least in the early weeks of Gothic courses). However, this book, published as part of the MLA's Approaches to Teaching series, provides a much needed analysis of how we go about teaching the Gothic. The content is almost exhaustive and encompasses accounts of teaching the Gothic in fiction and in film and has chapters on a range …

"Good, Not Safe": Structure Vs. Chaos In Narnia And The Writing Workshop, Ethan Campbell, Robert Jackson

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

Considers Lewis as a member of a writing group, and its effect on his narrative techniques. Examines Lewis’s self-imposition of tight structure when writing for children, and the moments when his story escapes his own rules. Discusses using Lewis in the creative writing classroom.

Maldon And Moria: On Byrhtnoth, Gandalf, And Heroism In The Lord Of The Rings, Alexander M. Bruce

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

A close look at “The Battle of Maldon” and how Tolkien’s opinion of Bryhtnoth’s actions echoes through his Beowulf essay, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” and even into the character of Gandalf.

Pagan Beliefs In The Serpent's Tooth, Joe R. Christopher

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

An examination of the pagan belief structure in The Serpent’s Tooth, Diana Paxson’s retelling of King Lear. Discusses her use of source material in Shakespeare, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and early pagan religious beliefs.

Rewriting The Passing Novel: Danzy Senna's Caucasia, Kathryn Rummell

English

No abstract provided.

That ‘Awful Rowing Toward God’: Anxiety In The Early Poems Of Walt Mcdonald, Bill Jolliff

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

The Legacy Of Joan Vollmer: The Short Significant Life Of A Beat Woman, Christopher Carmona

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In this thesis, I have endeavored to flesh out the life of Joan Vollmer. Joan Vollmer was an essential figure in the Beat Generation of Writers even though she never published a word. Through researching the life of Joan Vollmer, the role that she played in the creation of the Beat Generation becomes clear. Joan Vollmer is mentioned in the major Beat texts, but there is no definitive look at her life and importance. Therefore, I set out to do what no one has done and write about Joan Vollmer' s life. I have collected as many letters that still …

Eng 4905-001: Studies In Children's Literature: Twentieth And Twenty-First Century Fantasy, John Moore

Fall 2007

No abstract provided.

Eng 3405-001: Children's Literature, John Moore

Fall 2007

No abstract provided.

Eng 1091g-096: Composition And Literature, Honors, John Kilgore

Fall 2007

No abstract provided.

Eng 2011g-004: Literature, The Self, And The World: Fiction "Constructions Of American Youth", Tim Engles

Fall 2007

No abstract provided.

Eng 3702-001: American Realism, John Allison

Fall 2007

No abstract provided.