Digital Commons Network^™

Remasculating The Emasculated: Railroad As The Means Of Regaining Chinese Man's Masculinity In Frank Chin's "Railroad Standard Time" And "The Eat And Run Midnight People", Sabiha Sorgun

Short Story

No abstract provided.

No Reason Without Rhyme: Rhetorical Negotiation In Shakespeare, Cheryl Hogue Smith

Publications and Research

This article explores how Shakespeare uses slant rhyme and perfect rhyme as significant rhetorical plot devices in The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, and Romeo and Juliet.

Edward I And The Appropriation Of Arthurian Legend, Rachealle Marie Sanford

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In recent years, an increasing interest in the appropriation of folklore by political leaders has led scholars to investigate potential instances where this may have occurred in the past. This work follows that tradition, examining the life and actions of King Edward I of England to determine if there are instances where he is making deliberate use of folk narrative for his own political aims. An analysis of several events discussed by past historians indicates that the king was intentionally manipulating the Arthurian legend, which was highly popular in Europe during the thirteenth century, to justify his claims to authority …

Heroic Orual And The Tasks Of Psyche, Gwenyth Hood

English Faculty Research

C.S. Lewis's last novel, Till We have Faces: A Myth Retold, concerns transformations. After all, it deals with the myth of Psyche. In Greek, Psyche means not only soul but also butterfly.¹ This brings to mind the metamorphosis of a crawling caterpillar into a winged butterfly, analogous to the protagonist's transformation from mortal to goddess. In Lewis's retelling, not only does a mortal human becomes an immortal goddess,² but also, an ugly soul turns beautiful, a coarse, barbaric populace grows into a gracious civilization, and cruel divinities with a thirst for human blood become loving guardians of the …

Gender Performativity In H.D.'S Sea Garden, Angela Sanigar

Theses : Honours

Sea Garden was the first book of poetry written by H.D. in 1916. Read through the lens of Judith Butler's theory of performativity, the book can be interpreted as an investigation of gender and identity in ways that challenge the confines of heteronormativity. Ultimately, I will argue that the poems work in ways close to Judith Butler's sense of 'queer', although as will become clear, my 'queer' reading of H.D.'s Sea Garden differs from the dominant queer readings of her work that currently exist. To this end, I will then discuss how Sea Garden operates as a community of different …

Gothic Cordelias: The Afterlife Of "Lear" And The Construction Of Femininity, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

Addresses the gap for an analysis of Shakespeare's relation to the Gothic.

The Gothic novel transports you to a strange and fascinating world quite unlike your own, far away from the calm drawing rooms of Regency England. It is the ultimate escapist literature. It is this world, and its mutually beneficial relationship with Catholicism, that Dr Maria Purves so beautifully illuminates for the reader.

The Endangered Representation Of Sexual Violence In Sarah Kane's Blasted, Dina Zhurba

Master's Theses

In Blasted, Kane represents how incidents of rape highlight, exacerbate and solidify the unevenness of power distribution between men and women in the modern world and provides a new perspective at what we might call “rape in general” – a transhistorical phenomenon of rape as a practice of violence towards the female victim. Through a detailed analysis of the unique representational circumstances of the multiple scenes of rape, such as Cate’s meaningful absence in Ian’s scene of rape, the author of the essay comes to a conclusion that rape is and remains an engendered practice. However, along with reaffirming …

Teaching Creativity In Technical Communication Curricula, Curtis Robert Newbold

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis addresses the need to claim creativity as an essential component to our technical communication curricula as we prepare students for what their managers want. While many technical communication programs at universities across the country have recognized a need to teach skills beyond "writing technically," few, if any, have addressed or "claimed" a concept such as creativity that helps build these skills. I argue that creativity is what managers are looking for and what technical communication programs are already implementing. Claiming this concept will help us further define a discipline that is becoming much richer and help students develop …

A Time For The Humanities: Futurity And The Limits Of Autonomy, James J. Bono, Tim Dean, Ewa P. Ziarek

Education

This book brings together an international roster of renowned scholars from disciplines including philosophy, political theory, intellectual history, and literary studies to address the conceptual foundations of the humanities and the question of their future. What notions of the future, of the human, and of finitude underlie recurring anxieties about the humanities in our current geopolitical situation? How can we think about the unpredictable and unthought dimensions of praxis implicit in the very notion of futurity?

The essays here argue that the uncertainty of the future represents both an opportunity for critical engagement and a matrix for invention. Broadly conceived, …

Blank Power: The Social And Political Criticism Of Blank Fiction And Cinema, Ashley Minix Donnelly

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores a style of literature known as "blank" fiction that became popular in the United States in the mid-1980s, focusing on its stark, limited form, its minimal plots, its focus on commodification, and its scenes of graphic violence. The author presents the argument that filmmakers were producing pieces of cinema during the same time period that are similar in both form and content to the works of blank fiction. These films are a part of a style she labels "blank" cinema.

Blank fiction and cinema are politically charged and highly critical of the social and political situation in …

Playing For His Side: Kipling’S ‘Regulus,’ Corporal Punishment, And Classical Education, Emily A. Mcdermott

Classics & Religious Studies Faculty Publication Series

Rudyard Kipling’s short story, “Regulus,” revolves around the flogging of a student who has let loose a mouse in the drawing classroom of a turn-of-the-century British public school. The first part of the story is devoted to a fifth-form Latin class’s line-by-line explication of Horace’s fifth Roman ode, in which the story’s title character is presented as a paradigm of manly virtue; the remainder is given over to narration of the mouse-miscreant’s progress toward punishment, in thematic counterpoint to the Regulus exemplum. Within that idiosyncratic framework, the story tackles as ambitious a topic as the purposes of education, with particular …

Eng 5009-001: Liberal Dissent And The American Renaissance, Christopher Hanoln

Fall 2008

No abstract provided.

Propaganda And Poetry During The Great War., Norma Compton Leadingham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the Great War, poetry played a more significant role in the war effort than articles and pamphlets. A campaign of extraordinary language filled with abstract and spiritualized words and phrases concealed the realities of the War. Archaic language and lofty phrases hid the horrible truth of modern mechanical warfare. The majority and most recognized and admired poets, including those who served on the front and knew firsthand the horrors of trench warfare, not only supported the war effort, but also encouraged its continuation. For the majority of the poets, the rejection of the war was a postwar phenomenon. From …

Paradise Lost And The Medieval Tradition, Justin Lee Mathews

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is a comparative study of the Medieval influence on the creation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the purpose of this thesis is to establish Paradise Lost as a poem designed to correct what Milton saw as the errors of the Medieval theological worldview. A range of topics are discussed, from the loyal angels to the Garden of Eden to Hell and Satan, and particular attention is given to Dantean parallels in these areas of Milton’s poem. The thesis shows how Milton responded to such Medieval concepts as courtly love and salvation theory and demonstrates how Milton …

Exploring The New Front Of The Culture War: 1984, Oryx And Crake, And Cultural Hegemony, Terry Ryan Hall

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Dystopic fiction is defined by its depiction of oppressive societies with power structures that seek to exercise control on its citizens. Orwell’s classic 1984 depicts a society that is a reaction to World War II and totalitarian regimes. This society depicts elements of cultural hegemony that are altered during the move to postmodernism. Atwood’s Oryx and Crake evolved to reflect the political climate that grew out of the Cold War’s end, while retaining the cautionary messages regarding the state’s ability to control. Oryx and Crake can be seen as completely reversing the concern from centralized power to decentralized power (represented …

The Narrative “I” And Eye : Hawthorne’S Artist As Social Observer, Orah Dan Massarsky

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis considers the position of the artist in a polarized society experiencing radical extremist political tensions and which demands public allegiance and identification with the dominant ideology. Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose personal origins were grounded in the American past that formed his creative domain, was an astute social critic whose writings in the turbulent period of mid nineteenth-century America reflected an acute awareness of the fundamental crises in his time, such as slavery and the efforts towards its abolition, the perils of regional conflict that threatened national unity, the effects of increasing commercialization and urbanization of American culture and the …

Shpuch And Shtaj, Joe R. Christopher

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Boot Camp For The Psyche: Inoculative Nonfiction And Pre-Memory Structures As Preemptive Trauma Mediation In Fiction And Film, Jacob Michael Hodgen

Theses and Dissertations

While some theorists have hinted at various social functions served by the gothic genre—such as providing an outlet for grief, anxiety, and violence in their various forms—recent research within the last few decades into sociology, military science, and trauma studies supplies compelling new ways of rereading the horror genre. In addition to providing an outlet for grief, anxiety, and violence in their various forms, horror media can now be read as a preemptive measure in an effort to mediate the immediate and long-term effects of the trauma and horror faced by humanity. I argue that in much the same way …

Dialectic, Perspective, And Drama, Ethan Mckay Sproat

Theses and Dissertations

This project is by and large a project of elucidation: it may add something to studies of Kenneth Burke, but I doubt it adds much to Kenneth Burke's studies. This thesis begins and ends with analyses of Burke's famous motto Ad Bellum Purificandum (or Toward the Purification of War). The Introduction focuses on "war" while the Conclusion focuses on "purification." In short, purified war is a dialectical activity which actively and perpetually pits divergent perspectives against each other. Such an activity keeps the conflictual nature of divergent perspectives in verbal and symbolic arenas rather than physical ones. Burke owes this …

Listen Carefully : A Rhetorical Analysis Of Speeches Delivered By President George W. Bush, Jennifer R. Priore

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The current war in Iraq has been defined as both a war on terror as well as a war to free the people of Iraq. It is a fight against a member of the axis of evil and likewise an attempt to bring democracy to the Middle East. Prior to the start of the war, other countries were warned that they were either with us or against us while American citizens were told that a preemptive strike in Iraq was necessary to stop a country harboring weapons of mass destruction. These phrases were used to both frighten Americans as well …

Metoikos: Modernism's Resident Aliens, Justin Glen Williamson

Dissertations

This dissertation examines why D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce all conceived of themselves as cultural outsiders and how they used this ostensibly marginal social status to conceal a set of conservative core values they sensed were eroding. This otherwise disparate group shared a sense of cultural alienation, recognized the potentially powerful position of the exile, and demonstrated a keen willingness to exploit its possibilities. Although these writers have long been acknowledged and heralded for their experimentation, their technical and formal innovation, much of their work springs from essentially conservative impulses, beliefs, and values, aimed …

What The Spirit Knows: Charles Williams And Kenneth Burke, Grace L. Veach

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

Explores parallels between the philosophy of Kenneth Burke and the poetry of Charles Williams.

From Print To Projection: An Analysis Of Shakespearian Film Adaptation, Samantha L. Mudd

Student Research Conference Select Presentations

A close relationship between literature and film is nothing new. For over 100 years, turning mental pictures into visual images has captivated filmmakers and viewers alike, allowing for further expression, interpretation, and sometimes understanding of the original text. Even the theatrical works of William Shakespeare have been adapted onto film, relocating the action from stage to screen and bringing his art to larger audiences than ever before. With the technology of film, the conventions of Elizabethan theatre are challenged as filmmakers choose to modify or relocate the action of the plot. But is this acceptable?

Eng 5002-001: Studies In Shakespeare, William J. Searle

Spring 2008

No abstract provided.

Review Of While They Slept By Kathryn Harrison, Jennifer Sinor

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

At The Hands Of Becky Sharp: (In)Visible Manipulation And Vanity Fair, Peter J. Capuano

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Victorian sartorial convention allowed for the routine inspection of only two body parts: the head and the hands. While it is well-documented that the perceptual codes of phrenology and physiognomy shaped psychological, aesthetic and fictional conventions by the middle of the nineteenth century, the hand has attracted relatively little attention. One would be hard-pressed, for example, to identify a critic of Vanity Fair who does not comment on the relationship between Becky Sharp's facial expressions and the pervasiveness of her manipulative temperament. However, even within the heavily sifted topic of "manipulation" in Vanity Fair, critics have overlooked the extent …

Symbolic Aesthetics In Tim O'Brien's "The Man I Killed", Koki Nomura

Short Story

No abstract provided.

Giving The Devil His Due: The Emergence Of The Fallen Hero In English Literature, John K. Feldkamp

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In 1637, John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, which presented the story of Satan’s fall from heaven. From this text, a humanized Satan was born who, despite his evil vices, consisted of heroic traits which future authors loved. Milton’s Satan became the model for future Romantic Authors including Lord George Byron. By examining specific influences in the late 1700’s, one can understand how the Prince of Darkness evolved into a tragic hero.

Indians, Land, And Ideology : The Disruption Of Nationalism In The Works Of Lydia Maria Child And Henry David Thoreau, Lynn Marie Fedele

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis discusses presentations of American Indian culture and civilization in mid-nineteenth century American literature, especially as written by two northern Abolitionist writers, Henry David Thoreau and Lydia Maria Child. Tracing how these presentations are used to work both with and against developing American nationalism, most importantly in terms of the morality of U.S. expansionism, this paper explores the connections between Indians and land. As race is critical in nineteenth century nationalism, and land is necessary to industrial capitalism and U.S. expansionism, how these constructs are linked ideologically serves to either uphold or challenge the spread ot the U.S. westward …

Elements Of Mythmaking In Witness Accounts Of Colonial Piracy, Plamen Ivanov Arnaudov

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Focusing on historical accounts (1684-1734) by English, French, and Spanish witnesses, this dissertation establishes a continuity in fictionalized representations of anti-heroic pirates from the buccaneering period to the Golden Age of Piracy. Informed by history, literary, myth, and performance theory, the analysis identifies significant distortions in reports by observers and participants. The distortions that pertain to mythmaking patterns are classified and analyzed further. Conflicting and ambivalent representations of the pirate as an anti-hero are resolved through the positing of a literary scapegoat hypothesis drawing from René Girard and Joseph Roach. While demonstrating mythical archetypes at work in the construction of …