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Loca, Alejandro Heredia

Theses and Dissertations

Loca is a queer transnational novel highlighting the potential of friendship as home when nations, family, and identity groups fail us.

Writer-Librarian Viewpoint: Ai’S Foreseeable Impact On Literature, Zhe Benedict Yeo

Research Collection Library

In 1982, Roald Dahl wrote a short story about a supercomputer which solves the world's big factual questions in seconds. Next, they used it generate stories and changed the literature scene forever.
Is ChatGPT the cusp of this change?

Benedict, as both a fiction writer and librarian, discusses AI's foreseeable impact on authorship and literature, its applications for writing, and possible implication on classification, credits, and collection with regard to literature, especially fiction.
This presentation features insights from interviews with four writers, talks about the strike by the Writers Guild of America, and about the citing and crediting of AI-generated …

The Domestic Worker In Latinx Fiction: The Discursive Formation Of Latinidad, Constance Von Igel De Mello

English (MA) Theses

The figure of the domestic worker in Latinx and Latin American fiction is a prominent character, permeating multiple genres and geographic locations. Post-colonial and feminist engagement with literature begs us to engage with the racialized and gendered constraints of this character in order to understand the borders of latinidad as based on the exclusion of certain bodies, predominantly black ones. Using the domestic worker characters from Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) and Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones (1998), and underscoring their historical and socio-political background of Hispaniola, we can understand the embodied context of …

Humanization Of The Refugee As The Modern Subject In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West, Ani Gazazyan

English (MA) Theses

This thesis discusses the central concern of the global refugee crisis through the fictional novel Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. The novel tells the story of two protagonists who are portrayed as the modern subject that Hamid comes to humanize, which reflects on current society’s representation of the refugee as dehumanized or “the Other.” Hamid takes his readers on a journey that represents his characters as normal everyday humans that are forced into the process of refugeehood and displacement. Throughout this thesis, I discuss what makes the novel so unique in representing the modern-day refugee. In the first section titled …

Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …

The Bard And The Myth Of Universality: Decentering Shakespeare In Asian American Appropriations, Sarah Pita

English Honors Theses

Asian American appropriations of Shakespeare challenge the myth-like status of the Bard, utilizing the plays to tell stories unique to Asian American experiences. Shakespeare and race studies has interrogated the relationship between Shakespeare, the reception of his works, and the problematic nature of his works’ role in western notions of whiteness and colonialism. This thesis continues this interrogation, extending the theory to understand the unique ways that Asian American playwrights appropriate Shakespeare. This thesis offers a case study of two plays: Do it for Umma by Seayoung Yim (an appropriation of Hamlet) and Peerless by Jiehae Park (an appropriation of …

The Hidden History Of Chicanx Literature And The Importance Of Incorporating Chicanx Literature In The Curriculum, Lucia Gonzalez-Gonzalez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This essay will analyze and look into the issue in K-12 education where there is little representation of Chicanx students and a little talk about their culture, history, and novels to which they can relate. This essay will examine why Chicanx writers and books do not remain in the K-12 curriculum and how we can fix this. To answer the following questions and find a solution, I will examine the history of Chicanx students' treatment in the educational system. I will also create a lesson plan catered to middle school/high school Chicanx students in which they will be able to …

A Systematic Review Identifying Adverse Health Outcomes And Mortality Rates Associated With Telehealth, Fidelia Cascini, Ana Pantovic, Yazan A. Al-Ajlouni, Omar Al Ta'ani, Giovanna Failla, Andriy Melnyk, Paul Barach, Walter Ricciardi

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

Background: The literature supporting telehealth management is growing accelerated by the COVID-pandemic. We hypothesize that there are risks of adverse events associated with telehealth interventions.

Methods: A review of PubMed (including MEDLINE), Embase, ISI (Web of Science), VHL/GHL, Scopus, Science Direct, and PsycINFO was conducted for all adverse events associated with telehealth from January 1, 1960 to March 1, 2021. This systematic review and meta-analyses were conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.

Results: Of 5,144 citations 78 published studies met criteria for quality evaluation and underwent full text abstraction including the qualitative …

Veiled Victorian Vampires: What Literary Antagonists Reveal About Societal Fears Of 19th Century England, Jenna Harford

Honors Theses

In my thesis paper I look at three primary texts, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray to analyze their main antagonists through a vampiric lens. I explain how the characters of Bertha Mason, Miss Havisham, and Dorian Gray are all written with veiled vampiric traits that revolve around themes of sexuality, secrecy and seclusion, and unbridled physical and emotional violence. Although none of these texts is obviously a “vampire novel”, the authors lean into vampire tropes including eerie physical description, doubled relationships, and other vampire lore that can be best …

The Enigmatic Self: An Ongoing Exploration Of Literary Selfhood From The American Renaissance To Contemporary Young Adult Literature, Helene Leichter

Honors Theses

Assuming the near impossible task of sorting through and delineating various conceptions of the self in and throughout literary and civil history, literary critic Irving Howe adopts a highly perceptive and profoundly analytical approach to the enigmatic individual. In the article quoted above, "The Self in Literature," Howe consolidates what he believes to be the most promising attempts at coding and decoding abstractions of the self across numerous literary, philosophical, and sociological texts. The success of Howe’s analysis lies in his ability to simultaneously embrace and scrutinize seemingly incompatible notions of bodily and spiritual discourse. With the knowledge that such …

Philological Botany: The Poetics Of Plant Classification In Early China And Japan, Loren Waller

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Flowering plants are a primary topic in Chinese and Japanese poetry, often used figuratively to express human emotions. Over time, as poets alluded to earlier works, these plants developed conventional metaphorical meanings. It is natural that such meanings would shift over time, but what is also striking is that historical understandings of the plants themselves, as well as the names used for the plants, also changed over time. An examination of three case studies will show how the identities of these plants changed over time as they were collected within literary texts and commentaries. Chapter 1 on the hibiscus (Ch. …

Psychological Criticism And Shakespearean Allusions In J.M. Barrie’S Dear Brutus: A Neverland For Adults, Kathryn Alley

Senior Honors Theses

In Peter Pan, Sir James Barrie welcomes readers into Neverland, the realm of eternal youth. Barrie’s lesser-known play, Dear Brutus, ushers audiences into a supernatural garden free of responsibility, reality, and permanence. Referring to Cassius’ words in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the 1917 tragedy explores the consequences of romantic escapism and the seductive power of second chances. Through the lens of Freud’s and Lacan’s psychological criticism, and Barrie’s connection to his might-have-been daughter, Margaret, Dear Brutus unveils the plight of eight mysterious strangers by illustrating that all adults are lost children. Dear Brutus feels in many ways like …

"Real Women Have Bodies": A Study In Adaptation, Madison Ephlin

Honors Projects

The art of adaptation is a difficult process, and is often hard to please general audiences that have a connection to the source material. As a student who studies both English Literature and Film Production, the question asked through this study is what does it take to write a “successful” adaptation? What qualifies as “successful”? How does an adaptation balance the themes, characterization, and plot of a piece of literature with the continuous momentum and visual complexity that the medium of film requires, all in 120 pages or less? This study engages with these questions by actively practicing adaptation, adapting …

Bad Blood: Octavia E. Butler Takes A Bite Out Of Gender And Racial Stereotypes In Fledgling, Abigail Cole

Senior Theses

For contemporary audiences the word “vampire” typically conjures two figures: a Damon Salvatore-esque[1] man with devil may care eyes, dark hair and an equally dark past. Dripping with sex and charm, he struggles with an internal dilemma, his animalistic urge to kill constantly at war with his human morality. On the other hand, we have the sexy, scantily clad white female vampire who uses her feminine wiles and socially “perfect” body to prey upon poor, unsuspecting men, until she is eventually corralled into domestic submission, or killed. While this description fits the broader scale of what the vampiric figure …

Pecan Grove Review Volume 21, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

Creative writings by students, faculty, and staff of the St. Mary's University community.

Sherwood Anderson And The Industrial Corruption Of Midwestern Individualism, Hudson Rice

Senior Honors Theses

Sherwood Anderson’s literary Midwest reflects many of the idealistic characteristics resulting from the region’s frontier, agrarian origin. The most prominent of these characteristics is the region’s emphasis on and appreciation of human particularity. His novels Winesburg, Ohio and Poor White document the region’s unique relationship with individual particularity and how this particularity clashed with a new industrial lifestyle. The two novels reflect the Midwest’s unique understanding of individuality and offer an explanation for why the region’s response to an industrial cultural overhaul was so damaging for the Midwest’s identity, as the traditional identity was supplanted by an industrial one.

Oxford Conference For The Book Returns March 29-31, Rebecca Lauck Cleary

Blog Posts

Among literature enthusiasts, it's no secret that Oxford has long been a magnet for writers. On March 29-31, their numbers will multiply as more than 30 of the nation's leading and emerging authors, poets, scholars and artists gather for the annual Oxford Conference for the Book.

The Unconscious Never Lies, Judah Brass

Student Research

My paper examines the novel "The Picture of Dorian Grey" by Oscar Wilde from a psychoanalysis lens, exploring the complexity of human emotions and the riveting effects of trauma, repression and human interaction. There is an emphasis on different ways expression of the unconscious or processes of emotions can be benefited through an appropriate mode of processing. This research purpose is to educate on applying a criticism to literature, advocate for mental health awareness, and emphasize the importance of processing emotions in a productive and safe way.

Dorian Grey’s past trauma (lack of father figure) seen through his progressive behavior …

Responding To The Challenges Of A Contemplative Curriculum, Charles Burack

Journal of Contemplative Inquiry

The undergraduate Psychology program at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, is one of a small number of undergraduate programs that offer a holistic, transformative, and integrative approach to psychology. One important dimension of the program’s educational approach is the use of contemplative practices in the classroom. Drawing on the teaching experiences of four experienced faculty members, the author discusses the multiple educational purposes that contemplative pedagogies serve as well as the various strategies used to introduce and integrate these transformational pedagogies into the classroom. The author also discusses ways to maintain students’ psychological safety, ensure instructors’ contemplative …

Fever City: Memory, Truama, And Storytelling Via Hybrid Writing Methods: A Creative Dissertation, Samantha Moe

Theses and Dissertations

Fever City: Memory, Truama, and Storytelling via Hybrid Writing Methods: A Creative Dissertation is a hybrid novel examining Latinx and Chicanx hybrid writing methods, ghost stories, gastro-poetry, and images exploring Ecuadorian cuisine, trauma, memory, mental health, queerness, domestic violence, and love in the backdrop of a sixth New York City borough called Fever City. The dissertation includes a critical preface that theorizes how silent workshop models can and should be abolished and (re)created with trauma-engaged workshop methods supporting discussion groups and literate activity tracing in student assignments. The dissertation also includes a pedagogical chapter that explores hybrid writing in the …

El Vínculo Entre La Literatura Y La Buena Publicidad En Varios Anuncios Del Mundo Hispanohablante (2017 - 2022), Carter Kane

World Languages and Cultures Student Papers and Posters

El anunciante más conocido en todo el país de España, cuyo nombre es Luis Bassat, es el fundador de la agencia más prestigiosa Ogilvy España. Bassat escribió el Libro Rojo de la Publicidad, una guía de la disciplina publicitaria que resume todo de lo que Bassat ha aprendido a través de su carrera distinguida de más de 47 años. Asimismo de muchos otros temas, este libro denota 10 consejos a los anunciantes del día actual para mantener la buena publicidad. Este ensayo va a utilizar esos consejos como una rúbrica para examinar el uso de la literatura en la creación …

Bergson On Poetics: Philosophy, Literature And Science, Michel Dalissier

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this paper, I analyze Henri Bergson’s insightful and contrasted vision of poetry. First, I show in what sense Bergson sympathizes with the idea that the poet must be credited to surpass the novelist in offering to us an unparalleled emotional apprehension of the world. Second, I nonetheless underline how Bergson grants the product of the poet, i.e., the poem itself, a problematic linguistic status, inasmuch as the focus of his analysis shifts from an intersubjective poetical apprehension of feelings to their individual poetic appreciation, or from the spiritual dimension of poetry to its material dimension. Third, I further suggest …

Language, Science And Literature, Hitoshi Oshima

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The creativity of language Chomsky puts so much importance on must be questioned because the same creativity has produced lethal weapons such as atomic bombs. Modern science developed by the power of language has certainly produced many beneficial things, but we should not overlook its destructive side. Besides, language capable of inventing a new reality leads us to believe in it blindly. Let us remember philosophers such as Wittgenstein or Nagarjuna who warned us not to believe in the construct called “reality” made up by language power.Now, is it better and safer then to use a metaphorical language that composes …

Winonan, Winona State University

The Winonan - 2020s

This issue of the Winonan was published on February 8, 2023.

The Use And Development Of Mathematics Within Creative Literature, Toby S C Peres

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This paper presents a study on the extent to which creative literature been used as a vessel to carry forward the development of mathematical thought. The role of mathematics as a driving force for literature is highlighted, and while many examples exist that clearly show an attempt to disperse mathematical ideas, with Lewis Carroll, OuLiPo and ancient poetry considered, the argument that the sole purpose of the writings was for the sake of mathematical development is not clear-cut.

A Conversation With Stephen Graham Jones: Horror, Weird Fiction And The Way Of Slashers, With Sopapillas For Dessert, Billy J. Stratton

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

An interview/conversation between Stephen Graham Jones and Billy J. Stratton, which took place in Denver on October 24, 2022.

On The Fictions Of Stephen Graham Jones And The Stories That Made Him, And Well, Us Too, Billy J. Stratton

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

Introduction to the issue.

Since being honored in 2017 with a Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in Mapping the Interior—his 17th novel—by the Horror Writer’s Association, the work of Stephen Graham Jones has exploded onto the national scene as so many of his readers have long anticipated.

New Resource On Ancient Maya Writing Released

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

A new volume published under the Institute’s Research Press imprint is A Thematic Bibliography of Ancient Maya Writing, by Stephen D. Houston and Zachary Nelson. “Many people don’t know about the quantity of research on ancient Maya writing,” says Houston, a BYU professor of anthropology who is an authority on Maya writing. “In fact, the literature is overwhelmingly large. This bibliography provides a roadmap through that literature.”

Eubanks Honored In Governor's Arts Awards, Rebecca Lauck Cleary

Blog Posts

A University of Mississippi professor and a professor emerita will be honored for their literary and community work next month when they receive the Mississippi Arts Commission's 35th annual Governor's Arts Awards.

Speculative Immigration Policy, Matthew Boaz

Scholarly Articles

This Article considers how speculative fiction was wielded by the Trump administration to implement destructive U.S. immigration policy. It analyzes the thematic elements from a particular apocalyptic novel, traces those themes through actual policy implemented by the president, and considers the harm effected by such policies. This Article proposes that the harmful outcomes are not due to the use of speculative fiction, but rather the failure to consider the speculative voices of those who have been historically marginalized within the United States. This Article argues that alternative speculative visions could serve as a platform for radical imagination about future U.S. …