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A Perfect Storm: Nonfiction On The Progression And Regression Of Anxiety, Amanda Guindon

Honors Program Theses and Projects

From the moment I decided to write a creative nonfiction collection of essays for my thesis, I knew that anxiety would be my focus. Mental health awareness is on the uprise as it’s estimated by the National Institute of Mental Health that 31.1% of all United States adults will experience any anxiety disorder in their lives. While I knew anxiety would be an important topic to discuss in order to bring awareness to causes and effects of anxiety, I had no concept of the challenges I would face in portraying my mental health to an audience who may know nothing …

Within The Shadow Of The Cowboy: Myths And Realities Of The Old American West, Katherine Lamb

Undergraduate Theses

It has been argued that the American cowboy is the most widely misunderstood and misinterpreted figure in American history. This mythic figure does not look like the real ranch hands who littered the American West throughout the nineteenth century, nor does he act like them. Instead, he is set apart, as a figurehead of masculinity and American ideals, determined to roam the frontier as a guardian of justice and stability. This version of the cowboy, however, is not bound within the pages of novels or within limitations of film. Instead, the cowboy’s ideals, persona, look, and code remain a vivid …

Satire In The Cold War Era: Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana And Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast Of Champions, Sara Eslami

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Both Graham Greene and Kurt Vonnegut use satire to interrogate the social uneasiness during the Cold War; however, each author uses satire in different ways. Greene’s novel Our Man in Havana demonstrates this unease, as almost every character is paranoid besides the vacuum salesman and inept “spy” Wormold, who uses fiction to fabricate the reports he sends to the Secret Intelligence Service. Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions also has a protagonist who is strongly impacted by fiction, as Dwayne Hoover is so affected by Kilgore Trout’s literature that it drives him insane. Both authors use different satiric techniques as a …

Unicorns Are Not Real And Neither Are You: Peter S. Beagle's Postmodern Fairy Tale, Athena Hayes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although considered by many readers to be a “cult classic,” Peter S. Beagle’s 1968 novel The Last Unicorn has been unrepresented in literary scholarship. Many fantasy critics in the past have dismissed the work as lacking a sense of reality through its mixing of modern language with a medieval, fantasy setting. However, the novel’s purposeful muddling of reality raises questions of ontology and the nature of storytelling/world-projection. The objective of this study is to not only to act as a sort of apologetic for The Last Unicorn, but also read the novel in the context of fairy tale/mythic studies …

The Anglo-Saxons--Stoddard And Lovecraft: Ideas Of Anglo-Saxon Supremacy And The New England Counter-Revolution, Benjamin M. Welton

Madison Historical Review

This paper attempts to explain the New England Counter-Revolution through two very different men--H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) and T. Lothrop Stoddard (1883-1950). While one was a respected and popular scholar, and the other was a little-known pulp writer, both men combined New England regionalism, a belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority, the primacy of modern science, and a belief in racial/eugenic differences to create a unique political paradigm little recognized at the time but influential today.

Celestial And Chthonic Imagery In The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings, Frederick T. Pyter

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

The Esoteric Quality Of Montaigne’S Essays: The Essay As A Philosophic Response To Extreme Forms Of Skepticism, Victoria Russo

Honors Program Theses and Projects

According to Judith Shklar (1990, 611) not only is Montaigne Emerson’s hero, but Emerson is the American thinker in whom one finds the greatest understanding and appreciation of Montaigne’s Essays (see also Shklar 1989). The kinship between Montaigne and Emerson extends beyond the latter’s appreciation of the former. Both essayists address the topics of skepticism and the relationship between skepticism and how one ought to live. In doing so, both Emerson and Montaigne speak to the philosophical importance of literature and how one should understand the relationship between literature and philosophy.

Presidential Rhetoric And Media's Contribution To The Subjective Nature Of Truth In American Democracy, Bianca Miccolis

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of media on the subjectivity of truth in presidential rhetoric and its ethical implications. In my three case studies, I find that there is some form of deception by each president in their chosen form of media. I analyze Roosevelt’s use of the radio, which he uses to hide his disability and gain more executive power to combat the Great Depression. I examine Reagan’s use of television and how he fabricates an intimate relationship with the American people to enact tax reform. Finally, I investigate Trump’s use of Twitter to deflect negative publicity as he …

Transfer And Transitions: Exploring First Year Writing At Holy Cross, Elizabeth Casavant

English Honors Theses

This study explores how first year students transition to college writing, especially in a pandemic with an online format, and how students use transfer, if at all. It focuses on the following research questions: How do students transition to college writing, college norms, and online classes in a pandemic, and how can Holy Cross first-year writing courses support students in this transition? The methods used to investigate these questions included the administration of two surveys sent to first-year students in a first-year writing course, as well as 10 interviews with students. After transcribing, collating, and coding the data, the following …

“Like Dying And Like Being Born”: The Portal, The Door, And The Closet In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West, Lynn Nichols

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

This paper analyzes Exit West by Mohsin Hamid through the lens of queer theory and LGBT symbolism. Scholarship surrounding Exit West has focused on the novel's magical realism as a commentary on xenophobia and colonialism. By drawing on noted texts in queer theory including Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet, this paper draws further connections between Hamid's portal plot and the experience of coming out. This argument considers the intersectionality of migration and coming out to demonstrate that for characters like Nadia, these experiences must overlap.

The Intricacies Of Counting To Four In Old English Poetry, Ian Cornelius, Eric Weiskott

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The metrical theory devised by Eduard Sievers and refined by A. J. Bliss forms the basis for most current scholarship on Old English meter. A weakness of the Sievers–Bliss theory is that it occupies a middle ground between two levels of analytic description, distinguished by Roman Jakobson in an influential article as ‘verse instance’ and ‘verse design’. Metrists in the Sievers–Bliss tradition employ a concept of metrical position (a key component of verse design), yet the focus of attention usually remains on the contours of stress of individual verses. Important exceptions are the studies of Thomas Cable and Nicolay Yakovlev. …

Amazing Stories: Science Fiction’S Inception In Interwar Pulp Magazines, Zachary Doe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the creation of the science fiction genre through the pulp magazines of the 1920s. Hugo Gernsback, the creator of Amazing Stories is the first to title the budding genre as science fiction. Through his editorials, one can see a desire to create a wide community heavily involved in genre creation. By exploring these initial stories and editorials we can better understand how science fiction began as well as evolved into what it is today.

The Pandemic In Pieces, Cam Hudson

Honors Theses

This thesis attempts to reconcile with the year of our lives that was blanketed by the heavy weight of a global pandemic. It is told in flash memoirs in the hopes that it will not be overwhelming to read or grapple with. It explores mental illness, lack of control, impermanence, and the suffocatingly cyclical nature of daily life during COVID. I hope this thesis finds you well.

Regional Domesticities: Recalling, Rewriting, And Redefining Gender And Domesticity In The Greater Southwest, A. Laurie Lowrance

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines how Native American and Mexican American women in the greater Southwest negotiated domestic expectations within their own cultures while navigating the demands of encroaching Anglo culture to produce something new: hybrid domesticities rooted in the region, which I call regional domesticities. Chapter 1 focuses on María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and connects her novels Who Would Have Thought It? and The Squatter and the Don to the rhetoric of the Overland Monthly. Chapter 2 explores bicultural collaborations between Native American and Anglo women and focuses on Sarah Winnemucca’s Life Among the Piutes and Helen Sekaqueptewa’s Me …

Final Master's Portfolio, Jonathan Correa

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Jonathan G. Correa's Master's Portfolio

Spirit Of The Mound: An Illustrated Story, Tom Montoya

Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of New Mexico and the Greater Southwest

This short story depicts the youthful trials and ambitions of rural dwellers and the daily celebratory aspects of life in northern New Mexico. The illustrations by Francisco LeFebre offer a visual panorama of the Wagon Mound, a unique natural formation, in Mora Country.

Voices Of The Wandering, Grace Manning

English Honors Theses

In Voices of the Wandering, Grace Manning explores the concept of belonging through the disconnect that exists when one’s home isn’t defined by structure or established in childhood, but rather a by constantly changing and evolving ideal. Manning’s speaker draws inspiration and comfort from others who are living between countries and continents, using their voices and emotions to try and understand her own. South and West African experiences investigate the confusion and suffering that is colonialism, from blame, to hurt, to lifelong guilt, she introduces the perspectives of those on either side of the racial wall built during Apartheid. Using …

High Tide: A Novella, Anna Davis

English Honors Theses

High Tide follows Dan and Sam, a married couple who go to an island off the coast of Maine where Sam grew up as a kid after a trauma as they try and reconcile their relationship. Dan finds out that Sam has been keeping big pieces of her past from him and Sam underestimates just how much going back to the island will affect her. She has been running away from her past for so long that she can’t distinguish between the stories she’s told herself and the reality. Sam and Dan will have to confront her past in order …

Sonder: A Poetry Journal 2021, English Dept., College Of The Holy Cross

Holy Cross Bookshelf

Susan Elisabeth Sweeney is the faculty advisor for this publication.

Sonder is a compilation of student poetry written for the course "Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry" at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Students taking the course produced this journal as a final class project under the guidance of their instructor, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professor of Arts and Humanities

Similarities And Differences: The Evolution Of Ann Radcliffe, Maximillian D. Patton

English Department Theses

By looking at specific elements and the somewhat formulaic use of these elements within each of Radcliffe’s published works this paper looks at how Radcliffe evolved as an author and how this evolution within her works contributed to the evolution of the gothic genre in general during the time period in which she was writing and shortly thereafter. It focuses on how each of these elements, such as certain character archetypes, settings and themes, along with other more minor elements share certain characteristics from text to text within Radcliffe’s body of works but are still adapted to suit each individual …

Reinvestigating Masculinity In The Works Of Ernest Hemingway, Neidy D. Mchugh

English Department Theses

This thesis examines the conception and destruction of masculine identities in Ernest Hemingway’s fictive works as resultant of a male dependence on societal acceptance. Utilizing both protagonists that fully align with a machismo persona and protagonists that seem disparate from Hemingway’s oeuvre of hyper masculinity, this thesis examines the uniform concerns of Hemingway’s men—their perception in society, threats to their masculinity, and their code of ethics. Through a three-pronged approach, this thesis looks at the male place in society, concerns about masculine identities, and responses to threats against masculinity. First, the recurrent figures of the father, the hunter, the son, …

Light In The Darkness: A Chronotopic Analysis Of Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, Bingxian Wu

Kean Quest

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is regarded as one of the greatest novellas, which reveal the darkness of humanity in colonial activities. In this novella, the character Kurtz’s experiences shed light on the nature of colonialism—he is inspired by the ideology of enlightenment and goes to Congo, and soon he becomes crazy about the ivory trade. At the end of his life, his last words are “The horror! The horror!” that are usually explained as the symbol of the “heart of darkness” of the Belgian Congo in terms of imperialism that brings violence and brutality. However, if we look at …

Research Visualization On Teaching, Language, Learning Of English And Higher Education Institutions From 2011 To 2020: A Bibliometric Evidences, Dr. Muhammad Shoaib, Mr. Nusrat Ali, Dr. Behzad Anwar, Dr. Shamshad Rasool, Dr. Raza-E Mustafa, Mr. Shi Zici

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

No abstract provided.

Murder She Rewrote: Redefining The Female Presence In Crime Fiction, Claire E. Snider

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Brainstorming was first and foremost. Several ideas and possibilities for my final research paper came to me over a course of about a month before I finally settled on my topic. The next step was a brief outline that helped me visualize the setup for my final product. Formulating a list of unusual and powerful vocabulary was something that I sought out to do for this paper, so I ended up including a list at the end of my outline. My next step was to develop a research proposal, and this ended up being a condensed version of what ended …

Tootsie Pop: Memorable Childhood Candy Commercial, Emily Newcomer

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Before I began writing the first draft I watched the Classic Tootsie Pop commercial multiple times and determined how the commercial effectively allured to the audience of both parents and their children. While I wrote my first draft, I continued to play the commercial and reminded myself of the lasting impact of this 1970s commercial as my classmates in elementary school conducted this licking experiment. After my first draft, I received feedback from a classmate and my professor. I took some of their advice, edited my paper, and turned it in.

Cheating In The Digital Age Of Art, Madeline Haara

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This paper was named Best Persuasive Essay, which included a $100 award.

I wrote this piece for my research assignment in English 198. The course topic was cheating, and my paper delves into the morality behind the reuse of artistic ideas. I use five scholarly articles to support my argument that artistic reproductions should be encouraged and the current legal systems require a change. My writing process included multiple drafts, peer review, and a review with my professor.

The Moment In Which Time Took Over, Amariá C. Jones

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This submission was named the issue's Best Multi-Genre Work, which came with a $100 award.

While writing this paper, I felt that it was important for me to “let loose!” I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write about, but I knew that my abstract topic had to be time. There were so many stories that could’ve been shared, but I believe the appropriate ones made it into the final draft. The writing process concerning this assignment served to be challenging at times, but that was only due to the need of capturing time properly in order …

Reading: The Starting Line Of My Imagination, Daniel Sheldon

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

I asked my parents a few questions about how I learned to read. They started with my dad reading to me while my mom was still pregnant, so that is where I started. Between the questions my parents answered and my own memories, I was able to write about how reading was introduced into my life and what happened as a result.

Rotten In The State Of Aragon: Possible Intrigue Under James I, Timothy P. Roman

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

Editor's note: This work received the Barbara Farrelly Award for Best Writing of the Issue; it came with a $200 award.

After analyzing a graphic novel tackling the Barcelona Disputation, I made an outline of the opposing arguments presented concerning the identity and legitimacy of the Abrahamic savior. I followed this with a rough draft, which I revised after a short conference with my professor.

Modernity's Empty Symbols And Sequential Snobbery, Grace Pierucci

Line by Line: A Journal of Beginning Student Writing

We were assigned a paper in which we would reconstruct Orsi's argument of the presence and demonstrate its prevalence in one of three options we read earlier that semester. I read some of Orsi's work, focusing on breaking apart his arguments. I then made an outline for the paper, and Perpetua and Felicity's martyrdom fit the paper the best. I actually wrote the body first, adding an introduction and conclusion later in the process. I turned in one draft to Professor [William] Trollinger and met with the Core Write Place consultants twice before finishing the final draft.