Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Fleshcrawl, Shanita Jackson

Theses and Dissertations--English

I am fascinated with the spiritual, physical, and psychological experiences that occur when one’s flesh crawls. The experiences, akin to inverted goosebumps, result from provocations of the senses or of the mind. James Blake’s latest album, for example, triggers my flesh to crawl. The art on the album cover depicts a decaying body turned into a canyon-like labyrinth. In undergrad, attempts to conceptualize slave-deck diagrams disturbed my flesh to crawl. I am intrigued by how anxiety, epigenetics, and superstition all factor into the subjective intensities of this collective experience. As it seems, circumstance heightens the severity and frequency of the …

Warriors, Mothers, And Queens: Weighty Women Of Myths And Legends, Betsy Packard

Theses and Dissertations--English

Because traditional stories, myths, and legends have a patriarchal orientation, often portraying women as negative or weak characters, post-modern literary criticism calls for a feminist response. These poems are written in the genre of feminist revisionist mythology. Through the medium of poetry, women in these stories are provided with voices outside of the previously accepted patriarchal framework and challenge the exclusionary theories of Joseph Campbell. The stories are told through a perspective informed by feminist theory.

Short Story Collection, Kevin Bond

Theses and Dissertations--English

This thesis consists of four pieces of short fiction workshopped as part of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the University of Kentucky. Themes and topics explored include familial dynamics, depictions of childhood and coming of age, solitude, adverse psychological effects of toxic masculinity, natural sphere as sanctuary and source of spiritual renewal, and sense of place.

Inventing Sin, George Ella Lyon

Journal of Natural Resources & Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

Hold Fire, Tejaswini Sudhakar

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

No abstract provided.

Poems On The Effects Of 21St Century Populism, Jason David Peterson

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Three poems exploring the toxic effects that today's populism is having on families, society, and the environment. The selection includes “How We Got Here,” “Beyond the Ticket Booth,” and “The End of Conversation.”

A Legacy Through Carnations, Tara Pulaski

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

The short story, "A Legacy Through Carnations," details the unique experiences of two very different women, Martha Carrier and Lillian Carrier. Martha is subjected to the religious prosecution of seventeen-century Salem, whereas Lillian is abused by her twenty-first century boyfriend. Despite the gap between their stories, the women are connected through time and space by the injustices they face at the hands of men. Thus, the short story aims to show that modern women still face many abuses and hardships, even if they don't seem quite as apparent as those of the past.

Feminist Friendship As An Affective Engagement Through The Arts: A Decolonial And Posthuman Becoming-With Rebeca Lane's Alma Mestiza, Miguel Ángel Blanco Martínez, Paola Mendoza Téllez-Girón

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

This paper considers friendship as an affective terrain of feminist alliance among subjects that belong to territories with a colonial record responding to the colonial/modern gender system (Lugones 2007) through the arts. Friendship is here conceptualized as an engagement of feminist solidarity unfolding within theoretical and practical models of change and resistance against the logics of cultural imperialism (Lugones and Spelman 1983). Turning friendship into a polyphonic feminist reaction, this work is conducted by acknowledging the need to foster dialogues where different authorial voices and feminist positionalities meet, reflect, and speak. The paper settles the encounter between its authors in …

I Hide My Skin For Society's Purpose, Alexis Hogsten

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

The poem "I Hide My Skin For Society's Purpose" was inspired by the UK Police emails regarding the sexual assaults on campus and the amount of policies that encroach on women's freedom to speak on sexual violence. In addition, this poem addresses the fear women may carry in response to a victim blaming society.

All That You Say Is Beautiful: Stories, Omaria Sanchez Pratt

Theses and Dissertations--English

From the city of High Point to New York City, this collection portrays a certain black experience. Through a sociological lens, the stories in All That You Say is Beautiful study intersections of class, race, family, and sexuality by bending forms, expectations, and seeks to understand what it means to be human when your experience is not that of mainstream American culture.

Library, Jessy Randall, Briget Heidmous

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

“Library” is a visual poem from Mapping Project, a collaborative effort of Jessy Randall and Briget Heidmous. Jessy writes words and Briget draws.

http://www.briget-heidmous.com/mapping-project/

Gonna Die (Poem), Wes Grooms

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

The Meadow And The Archive, Kris Bronstad

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

“The Meadow and the Archive” is a short fictional story about a government archives branch operating in a totalitarian empire in which components of the natural world have been eradicated. Archivists observe and assist a woman whom manages to liberate an important element from a particular collection. It is hoped that this element will contain the beginnings of a wilderness that the empire has systematically worked to destroy. The transaction also offers hope for other subversive modes of archival use.

Three Poems, Wendy Burk, Julie Swarstad Johnson, Sarah Kortemeier

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

These three works of visual art and poetry emerged from our professional experience as librarians and poets at The University of Arizona Poetry Center, a special collection of contemporary poetry housed in a public university. Frequently described as a “living archive,” the Poetry Center’s library houses both open stacks designed for browsing and closed stacks containing archival collections related to contemporary poetry. Our collections, building, and everyday work, as seen through the alternate lens of our identities as writers and artists, comprise the subjects of our collaborative assemblages. We began by generating a list of questions that became the titles …

Creative Writing In Digital Spaces: Digital Story Book, Christian Tipton

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

Christian Tipton has been working with Dr. DaMaris Hill for multiple semesters now, and a majority of their projects emphasize making literature accessible for the digital generation. The Digital Storybook is a personal favorite of the two of them. This project combines the visual techniques of a traditional comic book with the contextual elements of free verse poetry. The aim for this particular project was to present poetry in a way that would capture non-traditional poetry readers and present the comic book genre in a way that would capture non-traditional comic readers.

Some Poems, Haley Drake

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This poetic anthology represents a collection of works which examine the duality of nature and industrialism, and how they coexist in modern society. It also communicates the idea that we -- as a collective human race -- should listen to the metaphorical “voices” of the natural world and pay regard to the needs of the Earth we inhabit. The anthology borrows stylistically and thematically from works of Japanese modernists Sagawa Chika and Hirato Renkichi, who particularly identify with and inspire the message of this anthology in that, while the Western tradition often suggests that nature and the urban are diametrically …

女诫 Lessons For Women, Bridget E. Nicholas

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This work plays with cultural and conceptual juxtaposition through examining personal experiences in China and Taiwan as they relate to gender and sexuality. The poems are arranged to correspond to the sections of Ban Zhao’s Lessons for Women, a Han dynasty Chinese work that articulated conduct for women in relation to their husbands, with the addition of a new “lesson” of my own creation. This structure aims to enhance the tension between the feminine virtues expressed in the headings—values deemed important to women within a Confucian society by an ancient Chinese female thinker—and the values reflected in the experiences …

New Year, Old Blues, Joy Bowman

Theses and Dissertations--English

This collection aims through the use of folktale and familial history to investigate the bounds of gender and memory against a rural Appalachian landscape. The work utilizes superstition, myth, and the commonplace to search the shadows for the forbidden and unspoken, in an attempt to redefine and reconcile personal dissonance through an observational and at times, voyeuristic lens.

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Women Of The Apocalypse: Afrospeculative Feminist Novelists, Bianca L. Spriggs

Theses and Dissertations--English

“Women of the Apocalypse: Feminist Afrospeculative Writers,” seeks to address the problematic ‘Exodus narrative,’ a convention that has helped shape Black American liberation politics dating back to the writings of Phyllis Wheatley. Novels by Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, and Alice Walker undermine and complicate this narrative by challenging the trope of a single charismatic male leader who leads an entire race to a utopic promised land. For these writers, the Exodus narrative is unsustainable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because there is no room for women to operate outside of the role of …

Retracing John Muir's Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf, Chadwick N. Gilpin

Theses and Dissertations--English

In 1867, the budding naturalist and future father of our national parks, John Muir, embarked on his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf from Jeffersonville, Indiana, to Cedar Key, Florida. Almost 150 years later I undertook the same journey, retracing the wilderness advocate’s footsteps through the South to catalog all that has changed in a century and a half of progress, to try and better understand the inception of his environmental ethics, and to learn to see the world as he did, harmonious, interconnected, rejuvenating and imbued with a pervasive spirituality. The chapters of this thesis retell selected legs of that …

Northside, Jesse L. Houk

Theses and Dissertations--English

The Northside of Lexington, Kentucky is an area with its own culture, community and art. While living in this community I was able to learn, grow and develop alongside this newly renovated area. The people and their lives intersect in such a way that creates a tension at times. However, many social awareness advocates vie for the success of this neighborhood for many years to come. The objective of studying such an area as the Northside in Lexington is to focus on the similarites rather than the differences in culture, community and artistic endeavor. With a collection of essays and …

What Slides From The Pain Chamber, Megan D. Henson

Theses and Dissertations--English

A collection of short stories and one novella featuring women’s issues, fairy tales, a coming-of-age story, and a pregnancy that turns out differently than expected upon delivery.

Slow Emergencies, Jordyn N. Rhorer

Theses and Dissertations--English

Like the ever-circling lines in the skin of trees, sometimes the whole of a person is peeled back, layer by layer, until only seeds remain. Names, faces, stories, and relationships are unmade and molded into new shapes. Without warning, those left at the base, at the roots, can’t recognize this maple’s form. They hold a pile of leaves, a bottle of glue, and the hope that something familiar will take sprout again. The tree becomes new, and its tangled branches reach out. These poems explore the lives of those living with and caring for those with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. …

Para-Expertise, Tacit Knowledge, And Writing Problems, Jenny Rice

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

My office is on the thirteenth floor of an eighteen-story concrete tower that sits in the heart of campus. The building is so massively disproportionate to other buildings that it looms over the entire campus. Inside, the hallways are long and narrow, with no windows or natural light. A bank of six large elevators takes up the center space of each floor. Perhaps it is not surprising that this office tower has become the source of campus lore and legends among students and faculty. During my first semester on campus, a student asked if I knew the history of my …

A Letter Would Have Been Fine, Melanie Fee

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Migration Of The Butterfly, Todd Keisling

Kaleidoscope

This is an excerpt from a novella.

Drink From The Jar, Erik Tuttle

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Angry Banshee, Melanie Mcconathy

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.

Introduction To My Poems: Understanding The Soul In Tieck, Leibniz, Shelley, And Kleist, Tasha Pedigo

Kaleidoscope

No abstract provided.