Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Riverdirge, Frances Sharples

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Growing Up In Ana’S Shadow, Michaela Cahill, Gail Wronsky

Honors Thesis

In this collection, the poet explores how her personal struggles with mental health have shaped her development, relationships, experiences, and outlook on life. In poems that display a variety of stylistic forms and poetic techniques, the collection creatively sheds light on taboo topics including eating disorders, OCD, anxiety, and depression. Without making light of the sensitive subject matter, the poems reflect the author’s characteristic humor, self-satire, authenticity, and humility. Through metaphors, symbolism, and allegory, many draw subtle attention to the stigma around therapy, residential rehabilitation, and psychiatric prescriptions, in hopes of raising awareness for mental health treatment and removing the …

An Archaeology Of The Self: How Experience Shapes Poetry, Taylor Wells

Honors Theses

The blanket term “confessional poetry” is often used to describe verse that is widely personal and self-revealing in nature. Controversial even amongst its own founding poets, confessional poetry is an extension of lyricism that is associated with American figures who wrote personal poetry in the 1950s and 1960s. This group of poets consisted of Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and W. D. Snodgrass, among others. The creative portion of this thesis consists of a collection of original poetry inspired by confessional poetry. The introductory essay discusses the current state of poetry, the confessional movement, as well as the idea …

The Immortal Laugh Track: 20th Century Technology And Media Monoculture, Benjamin Sanford

Honors Theses

The movies, music, and TV shows of the late 20th century have far more staying power than the media that came before and after them. In the 21st century, we consume more media than ever, but we do not gather around the same small group of movies and TV shows in the way that people did decades ago. The M*A*S*H finale in 1983 was viewed by 121.6 million people, over half the population of the United States at that time; the finale of Game of Thrones, one of the most popular shows of the past decade, received around 15 million …

Identidem, And Other Lyric Essays, Jude Keef

Honors Theses

In Randon Billings Noble's introduction to A Harp in the Stars, she writes "Lyric essays require a kind of passion, a commitment to weirdness in the face of convention, a willingness to risk confusion, a comfort with outsider status. When I’m writing a lyric essay, I’m not worried about what it is or what to call it." I seek to play with this commitment, confusion, and comfort in my own work. This collection of lyric essays revolves around gender identity, the love and fear of labels, and how we, as queer people, can still feel nostalgic for our past.

A Tale From Esterad: An Examination Of The Political Power Of Fantasy, Koy Skinner

Honors Theses

The following is a short craft essay on the political nature of the fantasy genre followed by an original short story. The craft paper situates the reader in the discourse of fantasy being political or apolitical before shifting into a discussion of how Tolkien, Le Guin, and Sapkowski explore political ideas through their works. After, there is a brief section where the thought process going into the short story is explored before launching into the creative piece. The piece is five chapters long and explores a refugee crisis caused by a civil war in the fantasy world of Esterad.

The Red Deeps: A Retelling Of George Eliot's The Mill On The Floss., Emily Denton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The culminating project toward my Ph.D. in Humanities under the Public Arts and Letters track is a combination of creative and scholarly work composed of two parts: a retelling of George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss and a critical introduction outlining the creative concerns to the project. The novel, The Red Deeps, reimagines The Mill on the Floss in the recent past—during the late 1980s in the Copper Basin, the former copper mines in Eastern Tennessee. The critical preface draws broader categories of adaptation, ecocriticism, and climate fiction and incorporates theorists from new southern and Appalachian studies …

“The Urgent Necessity For More Original Creative Works By Transgender And Gender Expansive Artists" Is Not The Title Of My Thesis., Alicia Fireel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a mix of personal reflection, academic research, and an examination of The Girl Crazy Queer and Other Fairy Tales, a play I wrote and performed in October of 2023, co-produced by The University of Louisville’s Department of Theatre Arts and Pandora Productions, a Louisville-based theatre company dedicated to Queer theatre. This thesis and the play mirror each other; both contemplate Queer experiences, Queer histories, Queer trauma, and Queer stories. In the thesis I accomplish this through examining four subjects: myself, my play, the connection between modes of storytelling and aspects of transgender Queerness, and the perils that …

There Could Be Light Here, Audrey Bowers

Graduate Thesis Collection

Poems about healing and hurting. The journey begins with a 14-year-old who is struggling with suicidal thoughts and ends with a 25-year-old learning how to live with bipolar 1 disorder. The poems focus on finding light in the darkness, one poem at a time.

Abort Mission: An Audio Drama, Maribel Salome Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

The culmination of the audio drama and its critical introduction focuses on the current political climate regarding abortion rights, media manipulation, and governmental control as well as Latinx representation in art and media. The script follows two sisters on their mission to create an undetected, underground abortion service in a quickly evolving American dystopia.

Inspired by multiple works of both screenplays, audio dramas, and novels, my work is meant to inspire radical change to minorities in a world where hope is quickly fading.

The Siren Of San Francisco, Emily Gage

Whittier Scholars Program

The Siren of San Francisco is a story I have been interested in telling for the longest time focusing on the coming of age of the main character, Mia, and how she deals with change through gaining the power of shapeshifting. A lot of the graphic novel explores the relationships between Mia, her mom, and her close friends and how her relationships with them change during this transitional period.

The driving force behind this story was my enduring interest in relationships, identity, feminism, and how people can shape the people around them, including themselves. I approached this particular story from …

Sue, Heath Joseph Wooten

All NMU Master's Theses

Sue is a collection of poetry investigating the cyclical nature of grief through the lens of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s schemas of paranoid and reparative readings. The poems employ motifs such as hunting, disease, and human remains to capture the temporal disorientation experienced in the wake of loss. Via an extensive use of metaphor and recurring poem titles, Sue exploits the multivalence of language to conjure a dense field of meaning, meant to capture the undecidability of language noted by philosopher Jacques Derrida. This collection also employs several vectors of derivation, including erasure of text lifted from the 2002 strategy video …

Confessional Poetry And The Human Experience: When Art Imitates Life, Caroline Winnenberg

Honors College Theses

The year is 1959. America sits in silent fear at the constant threat of nuclear warfare. The Red Scare had hit its peak just five years earlier with Joe McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt. Neighbors no longer trusted neighbors and marginalized groups have had enough. The LGBTQ+ community begins to unify, people of color march for civil rights, and women march for equal rights. The people are using their voices, but the fight for social justice is draining. The constant feelings of anger and depression are boiling over, searching for an outlet. Enter the author Robert Lowell and his volume Life …

Derailed Fortunes: California's Forgotten Railroad, Alexis Depaolis

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

At a mahogany bar in Collins Saloon of San Francisco’s Montgomery Street, a successful businessman James G. Fair traced a trail of water droplets for his partner Alfred E. Davis to create the map of a visionary rail line soon to be known as the South Pacific Coast. Using historical records and photographs compiled by a selection of local authors and historians, this non-fiction retelling of Davis’ experience highlights the tribulations and triumphs of the most successful narrow gauge line in California history in order to share a largely forgotten but crucial aspect of local industrial archeology, as well as …

The Sun Burns Until…, Caelan (Ellie) Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Land Of The Free, Miyu Aoki

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

The Consumption Problem, Caelan (Ellie) Davis

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

The Death Of A Musician, Zoe Harris

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Itchy Brain, Mackenzie Campbell

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Vol. 35, Iss. 2 [Full Issue], _ _

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Strip Me Down, Trista Keeton

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Saint Brigid, Mary Of Ireland, Aubrey Bower

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Lists Inspired By Our Happenstance Existence Together, Oliver Spencer

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Time Devoted, Emma Gillam

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Session 31 - Mourning Edition, Nathaniel Swanson

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Boss Lady From Hell, Sydney Greene

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

The Dark South, Paul Zachos

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis contains a portion of my novel, The Dark South, as well as a craft essay titled “The Use of Plain Style in Modern Fiction Writing.” The craft essay examines how a plain style of writing can be used to great effect in fiction. I explore how simple writing can improve action, description, and exposition, and provide examples of writers who take advantage of these techniques. The Dark South, a Southern horror novel, tells the story of one man’s journey through a twisted version of the American South. Luke, a young man fresh out of college, finds himself stuck …

Something Holy, Madison Silva

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis contains two parts: a craft paper on interiority and seven chapters of a young adult social realism novel. The craft paper explores different strategies for “showing and telling” as a means of conveying interiority in faith-based characters, and it analyzes these strategies in two YA novels, Let’s Call it Doomsday by Katie Henry and Autoboyography by Christina Lauren, both of which center around queer, Mormon characters. The novel chapters in the thesis are from Something Holy, which follows Beck Taylor, an eighteen-year-old, mostly closeted bisexual boy who only has a few months until he leaves on a two-year …

Generational Gap: Tales From A Vaquero Fracasado, Shawn Michael Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

Mexican American culture holds a strong grasp in the roots of South Texas. The proud Latino heritage is at the forefront of The Valley’s metaphorical cover page. Naturally, with such strong cultural influence comes adaptions of antiqued ways of living and the morality of a dying generation which is slowly losing their stronghold on the throats of the youth. The elders are used to a specific, and sometimes socially problematic, lifestyle that includes machismo, patriarchal sovereignty, and gender based roles that are fitting to a specific generational expectation.

This collection of writing aims to highlight the differences between the old …

South Texas Elegy: Life During A Global Pandemic, Brianna Bullion

Theses and Dissertations

South Texas Elegy: Life During a Global Pandemic highlights the narrator’s experience with loss and grief during the coronavirus pandemic, which started in early 2020. This piece is written from the perspective of a narrator living in the Rio Grande Valley, which is in the southmost region of Texas.

This memoir contains thirteen chapters, which discuss deaths of close friends and family members, periods of waiting which occurred in between deaths and updates on the coronavirus, and the narrator’s reflection at the end of the piece. This memoir is a tribute to lost loved ones and an account of an …