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An Application Of Soren Kierkegaard's Three Stages Of Life To The Marginalised Transgender Persons In India, Ramakrishnan G

Theses and Dissertations

According to Soren Kierkegaard, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced”. Human beings are completely free to make choices in their life and live in accordance to those. However, they have to be responsible as well as committed to their choices for an authentic existence. Transgender persons are also human beings though they identify themselves different from the gender binary.

This research has proposed to explore the existential struggles and faith of transgender persons in the modern society with reference to the application of three stages of life of Soren Kierkegaard to the …

Creating Sensory Poetry: An Accessible Exhibit And Workshops, Basil Payne

Student Research Symposium

This is an 2023-2024 URCO project that originally began as a 2023 summer Peak Fellowship project. In summer 2023, I researched 19th-century Utah herbaria specimens to create my own botanically-influenced poetry and art. In fall, I received an URCO grant with the Impact Initiative to create a sensory-friendly art exhibit that would be accessible to people with sensory sensitivities. In addition, I planned to offer two workshops to members of the community with disabilities. From February 12-16, 2024, I displayed my sensory-friendly poetry and art in USU’s Projects Gallery and hosted two accessible workshops for people of all abilities.

Reflections On Select Works Of Professional Writing And Rhetoric, Joy Tersigni

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

The following portfolio includes final pieces from three courses in the Master of Arts in the field of English with a specialization in Professional Writing and Rhetoric program. The first two pieces deal with the analysis, evaluation, and creation of an effective instructional user guide. In the first piece, the current version of an instructional guide for an online pedagogical platform is evaluated for strengths and areas for improvement using a framework for analyzing on-screen text. After analyzing the original instructional guide, I develop version 2.0 of the instructional user guide as the second piece. The second piece is a …

Human Rights In The News, Joseph Thorpe

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This honors thesis contains thirteen hard news stories that focus on human rights issues in the United States. The United Nations defines Human rights as including, but not limited to, “the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more.” Human rights, the U.N. continues, “are essential for making life worth living and are the basis for a just and fair society.”

The Sacred And The Supernatural: Christianity And Teutonic Folklore In The Grimms’ Briar Rose, Amelia Stefanescu

Honors Theses

During the nineteenth century, the Brothers Grimm undertook the task of preserving German folklore during a time of cultural upheaval and struggle for national identity. One such tale, Briar Rose, emerges as a site of ideological interplay between Christian themes and Teutonic traditions. By analyzing the Grimms’ 1812 (first) and 1857 (last) editions, this thesis investigates how the text reflects and synthesizes these distinct belief systems into a coherent narrative.

The research explores how Christian and pagan elements co-exist within Briar Rose and what these interactions reveal about the cultural and religious dynamics within the folktale. The study argues that …

Does Ai Ask Good Questions? A Discussion Activity, Katherine Tilghman

Generative AI Teaching Activities

Students will prompt ChatGPT to generate discussion questions about a course text or artistic work, then evaluate the questions and modify them to make them more engaging and thought-provoking.

James Baldwin's Classroom And What He Can Teach Us About Queer Representation, Matthew Callahan

Scholars Week

James Baldwin writes about the importance of the representation of race in school classrooms in his essay A Talk to Teachers. Baldwin's discourse surrounding the representation of race in schools can be extended to the queer community and the importance of representation in the classroom of these marginalized communities. Combining Baldwin's essays and fiction with educational research, I plan on highlighting the importance of representation of marginalized communities in the classroom and the role that educators play in ensuring that all students feel seen in the classroom.

Ideas Of Judaism In The Jew Of Malta And The Merchant Of Venice, Matthew Wilson

Development of Western Civilization Student Scholarship

The colloquium marks the culminating semester of the DWC experience. Over four semesters, students have achieved a grounding in major texts of the western tradition, engaged in deep reading and reflection, improved their communication skills, and are ready to make connections with their majors and careers. The colloquium allows them to utilize these skills and make the transition to their future academic work. In light of this, the Development of Western Civilization Program Committee has selected 5 DWC colloquium culminating projects that demonstrate excellence in communication and critical thinking skills. We are grateful to these students for their hard work …

Oer Presentation To Kcc English Department, Rachel Ihara

Publications and Research

This was for a short presentation to the KCC English Department intended as an overview of the various open access resources in use currently.

Bugsy The Bee's Big Adventure, Jonah L., Zachery Irvin, Jake Wildstrom, Zachariah Robinson, Hilaria Cruz

LING 590/Internet Language

Bugsy the bee goes on a quest for pollen.

“Don’T Stop Believin’”: Dante’S And Christian’S Journey To Heaven, Austin Cochrane

English Senior Capstone

Dante's "Divine Comedy" and John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" both encounter a protagonist who is journeying with the goal of reaching heaven in mind. During this journey, they are each met with and guided by various characters. In my paper, I focus on Virgil and Beatrice in "The Divine Comedy", and Evangelist and Hopeful in "The Pilgrim's Progress." Along with these guides, the geography that Dante and Christian each encounter is symbolic of a maturation of faith, as well as many Catholic and Protestant themes that Dante and Bunyan practiced.

Skyler's Lunch, Noah Sherman, Autumn Boone, Hilaria Cruz

LING 590/Internet Language

Our class was studying the use of emojis across different platforms and wanted to explore how stories using emojis could impact young readers. Here, we try to translate the story of Skyler into emoji, providing translations along the way. We replace words completely with emoji, represent phrases with a few emoji, and use additional emoji to make sense of the content, including punctuation. In this book, we explore the character of Skyler, who is a picky eater. But they learn to eat the nutritious food that is good for them. In the end, they even get a reward!

Irotas 2024, Xander Auman, Kat Beekman, Elizabeth Benfield, Jessica Grafe, Jed Nelson, Kate Nissen, Drake Onyx, Alex Peachey, Benjamin Rayburn, Mandie Schmidt, Kelly Stelzer, Kylie White, Jayde Yeates, Larissa Lopez, Alayna Majkrzak, Ashleigh Campbell, Alysen Endres, Lucy Severson, Kiera Norman, Samantha Bird, Keaton Riebel, Jaden Fleshner, Jaydon Wilson, Ian Mckinzie, Rachel Marzahn, Riker Weiler, Mushfiq Kabir, Taya Peterson, Mawatta Dukuly, Mal Bowman, Grace Guertin, Samantha Dischinger, Kieran Lombard, Ian Mckinzie, Grace Westphel

Irotas

Irotas is an annual student journal of the arts created and published by Winona State University students. Irotas is a sibling journal to the Satori Student Literary Magazine. This is the inaugural issue of Irotas (2024).

Student Editors: Xander Auman, Kat Beekman, Elizabeth Benfield, Jessica Grafe, Jed Nelson, Kate Nissen, Drake Onyx, Alex Peachey, Benjamin Rayburn, Mandie Schmidt, Kelly Stelzer, Kylie White, and Jayde Yeates.

Faculty advisor: Dr. Liberty Kohn

Satori 2024, Draconian Onyx, Xander Auman, Elizabeth Benfield, Samantha Bird, Elysia Beynon, Ashleigh Campbell, Lydia Domaille, Mawatta Dukuly, Alysen Endres, Jessica Grafe, Grace Guertin, Mushfiq Kabir, Nathan Kronbeck, Alayna Majkrzak, Rachel Marzahn, Noelle Mckinney, Ian Douglas Mckinzie, Dorothy Moore, Jack Mulvaney, Kaylee Nickisch, Kiera Norman, Alex Peachy, Sophia Porter, Sydney Porter, Keaton Riebel, Sophia Sailer, Lucy Severson, Kelly Steltzer, Celia Stern, Willow Swinbank, Jackie Velishek, Allen Wedekind, Riker Weiler, Jaydon Wilson

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.

The Satori 2024 editors are:

Design and Technical Editor: Draconian Onyx;
Fiction Editors: Elizabeth Benfield, Jed, Nelson, Kate Nissen, Mandie Schmidt, Kylie White, Jayde Yeates;
Poetry Editors: Xander Auman, Kat Beekman, Alex Peachey, Kelly Stelzer;
Art Editors: Jessica Grafe, Draconian Onyx Benjamin Rayburn.
The Satori 2024 faculty advisor is Dr. Liberty Kohn, Professor of English.

Unraveling The Threads: Memory And Narrative In Ian Mcewan's Atonement, Emily Rooksby

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper, written for Dr. Haffey’s English 449U course on 21st Century Fiction, explores the intricate narrative structure and metafictional elements in Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. The novel is a commentary on the power and responsibilities of storytelling, particularly how narratives shape our understanding of memory and truth. Through the lens of its protagonist, Briony Tallis, McEwan demonstrates the complexities of memory and the subjectivity of truth. Briony’s narrative, marked by guilt and a quest for forgiveness, becomes a vehicle for examining how biases and emotions influence perception. The paper delves into the novel’s use of multiple narrative perspectives and …

An Antidote To The Necropolitical Path Of Logic: Ice Pick Lodge's Pathologic Classic Hd, Rose Branton

Senior Theses

Much of the existing scholarly literature on video games analyzed with Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics (2019) focuses on games that replicate the destructive, dehumanizing logic that Mbembe discusses. These are typically games involving the zombie genre or war and conquest that do not challenge Amanda Phillips’s idea of mechropolitics, a further development of Mbembe’s idea that implicates video games specifically. Nor do they challenge the dehumanization and warrant limitless destruction of zombies in the zombie genre of video games. This thesis focuses on Pathologic Classic HD (2015) as an example of a video game that presents a challenge to the logic …

What's The Deal With Conspiracy Theories?, Blake Ross

Transformations: Research Papers

The usage of the word Conspiracy Theory isn't anything new. In fact it is a word used widely in today's society. But what is a conspiracy theory, how are conspiracy theorists and believers viewed in the public eye, and what about conspiracy theories do people find so alluring?
The common notion of conspiracy theories are that they are inherently wronged, that history just happens. That people are wrong for trying to connect dots that aren’t there and are a result of un-informed, ill-educated people lacking skeptical and critical thinking skills. In testing this notion I examined two conspiracy theories, one …

Evermore And Evermore: A Discussion Of Spiritual Fulfillment As Found In Stoppard And Kerouac, Duncan Soughan

English Senior Capstone

Mankind has often struggled with the question of who am I? What am I if the institutions speaking into my life cease to adequately represent me? Nietzsche tackled this question and came to the conclusion that man should turn to his desire to fulfill that lack of direction. Tom Stoppard in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as well as Jack Kerouac in his novel, On the Road, interact with Nietzsche’s proposals in fascinating ways with Stoppard’s work essentially proving Nietzsche’s point, and Kerouac clarifying that yes, outside the self should not be the sole input for direction but it …

The Light And The Nothing: Escapism In Ready Player One And Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater, Katherine Bodkin

English Senior Capstone

In their novels Ready Player One and Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Ernest Cline and Thomas De Quincey shed light on the individual and societal desire to escape pain and suffering. The drastically different time periods of these two stories show that addiction and avoidance have been plaguing humans for centuries. These characters’ unhealthy use of escapism serves as a warning to readers about the dangers of identifying oneself within a false reality. Ultimately, both characters exemplify that placing one’s agency within a false reality renders one completely powerless. When one accepts their inability to change their undesirable pasts …

To Do Or Not To Do: Anne Elliot And Edith Hope’S Evolving Perceptions Of Marriage In Persuasion And Hotel Du Lac, Jillian Cook

English Senior Capstone

While Anita Brookner might deny a connection between her characters and those of Jane Austen, placing Brookner’s Hotel du Lac and Austen’s Persuasion in conversation with one another reveals how similarly their protagonists are shaped. Edith Hope and Anne Elliot are both characters who make choices based on a high opinion of love that has been cultivated through the various interactions they have with the single, married, and widowed people in their lives. This paper seeks to investigate these relationships to understand why the two women respond so differently to the marriage proposals they receive at the end of their …

Reputation And Reality: Revelations Of Monstrosity In Frankenstein And Six Of Crows, Jordyn Fortuna

English Senior Capstone

The main characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows reveal the potential within everyone for Monstrosity. This disregard for humanity can stem from many things, but it can also be prevented through community and sympathy. Monstrosity is often misconstrued due to a false perception guided by a sighted bias. In reality, however, characters’ humanity can be shown to the reader through a greater insight into their traumas and intentions. This paper highlights the idea that reputation cannot be trusted, but instead but be further examined to reveal the Monster within.

The Holding On, Lydia Price

English Senior Capstone

“The Holding On” is a work of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry that explores the tension that lies at the heart of growing up and departing the world as you have previously known it. Through the lens of reflections on home life and family, this project seeks to honor the unique blend of celebration and mourning that we meet with during the transitions of life. Joy does not undo sorrow, but neither does sorrow undo joy, and the ultimate purpose of these stories is to transport you to that threshold moment— the moment before leaving.

"Big Medicine, Strong Magic": Sacrament And Sacrilege In Till We Have Faces And The Wind In The Willows, Kayla Kovacs

English Senior Capstone

Magic abounds as the fantastical and ordinary collide in C.S. Lewis’s final work of fiction, Till We Have Faces, and Kenneth Grahame’s children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows. As these authors weave worlds of profound, yet wonderfully simple beauty, they tell stories that point towards the deep intersectionality between seen reality and myth. This paper aims to show the permeability of the veil separating these realms through the concept of sacrament. While sacrament is seen as a kind of gate through which characters may pass to taste and see with new senses, it is contrasted throughout with …

Bibliography For "Pubcrawl: Stacy Russo Display", Arianna Tillman, Isabella Piechota, Kalea Brown

Library Displays and Bibliographies

A bibliography created to accompany a display about Stacy Russo during April 2024 at the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University, to support the annual Literary Pub(lishing) Crawl event hosted each year by the Department of English and the Leatherby Libraries.

Phantasma, Grace Wright

ALL - Honors Theses

This project, titled Phantasma, can be described as a queer retelling of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, in which Brutus is the central focus. It will interrogate the question of what draws readers back to that fateful day at the Roman Senate time and time again. It will also question what drew Shakespeare and his audience to it, as well as deconstruct the nuances of his recreation. The narrative will be greatly influenced by the structure of Shakespeare’s play, but will take on new forms as scenes are added in places where Brutus would ordinarily be “offstage”. Using queer theory as well …

Asexuality In Science Fiction: A Study Of Non-Sexual Queer Intimacy In Short Stories By Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel Delany, And Theodore Sturgeon, Mik Dressler

Honors College Theses

The study of asexuality is still a relatively new concept in queer studies, and the rarity of asexual literature poses questions about how media can help further develop this study. This question takes unique shape in the genre of science fiction, one deeply and intrinsically tied to queer storytelling but very often hypersexualized. This essay evaluates the asexual themes of four sci-fi short stories which predate modern vocabularies and frameworks of asexuality: “The Widget, The Wadget, and Boff” by Theodore Sturgeon, “Unchosen Love” and “Mountain Ways” by Ursula K. Le Guin, and “Aye, and Gomorrah” by Samuel Delany. Referencing queer …

Prose By Any Other Name: Analyzing Changes To Translated Book Titles In Japanese And English, Angela Griffin

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

This research analyzed the ways in which book titles are changed in translation from English to Japanese and Japanese to English. The titles of one hundred books, fifty in Japanese and fifty in English, were sorted into three main categories of translation based on Tsukawaki’s research on translated sci-fi movie titles (2009): those using the Japanese katakana script, literal, and semantic. For Japanese to English titles, literal translations accounted for 68% of the data and semantic translations for 20%, while Japanese to English titles were literally translated only 48% of the time but semantically 34%. The changes made to translated …

Between Pages And Politics: An Interdisciplinary Exploration Of Book Bans, Hannah Morrison

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Across the United States, school boards are being inundated with requests to ban books. While these conversations are often localized, what the rise in censorship across the country suggests is that there is a fierce movement behind censoring young adult literature. What is frequently erased in these campaigns are stories of people of color and queer communities, alongside topics such as sexuality, drugs, or violence. The presiding conclusion within childhood studies on how we have reached a point where censorship is abundantly common in American schools is that public discourse views children as less than or not fully formed, thus …

Plath Fostered It, Women Are Nurturing It: Cycles Of Existential And Confessional Women's Writing In The Mid-20th Century And Beyond, Sophie Elisabeth Conrad

Senior Theses

During the mid-20th century, a wide-ranging yet topically focused genre of women’s writing began to emerge in earnest, currently categorized as existential and confessional. Works like Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) offer explanations of why an ineffable feeling of malaise permeated the lives of 20th-century women and led them to adopt these methods of writing and thinking. However, existential feelings akin to that of the 20th-century female malaise have returned to stake their claim on the minds of 21st-century women, evidenced in popular contemporary works such as Otessa Moshfegh’s My Year …

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 32, No. 2, The Sinclair Lewis Society

Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter

“Taking a Chance on Love: A Review of the Play Free Air,” by Deborah Brown

“Lewis on Stage: In the Audience for Free Air and Babbitt,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University

“Quiet Desperation: Matthew Broderick’s George Babbitt Conforms to Stage,” by Cassandra Csencsitz

“Nothing in Particular: A Review of Joe DiPietro’s Play at the La Jolla Playhouse,” by Ralph Goldstein

“Lewis and Rome”

“Move of Arrowsmith Restored”

“Danny Klecko and Sinclair Lewis”

“It Can’t Happen Here in Smithsonian Magazine”

In Memoriam: Carol Dahlquist