Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Deronda And The Tigress: Judaism, Buddhism, And Universal Compassion In George Eliot’S Daniel Deronda, Joshua Frank Moats

Masters Theses

Many scholars have discussed Judaism and the ethics of George Eliot in Daniel Deronda, but few have explored the impact of Buddhism upon the novel. This thesis is the first study to demonstrate the influence of Buddhism upon George Eliot's fiction. By tracing Eliot's interest in the emerging field of comparative religion, I argue that Buddhism offered Eliot a unique religion that was compatible with her secular humanism. Although Buddhism appears explicitly in Deronda in only a few instances, I contend that Eliot uses the tradition of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalism as the predominant theology in Deronda because …

Evoking Unity: Toward A Communal Phenomenology In Virginia Woolf And William Faulkner, Phillip Douglas Bandy

Masters Theses

Contemporary readings of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf typically situate these canonical authors within their historical contexts as exponents of the material conditions of modernity or as the literary precursors of postmodernism, as writers of indeterminacy and linguistic play. In this thesis, I argue for a mode of reading Woolf and Faulkner grounded not in history or language, but in consciousness as the irreducible basis of human experience. That is, by invoking the philosophical tradition of phenomenology, I claim that both authors attempted to engage more fully with not simply a historical moment called “modernity,” but a human reality characterized …

“Can The Circle Be Unbroken” : An Ensemble Of Memory And Performance In Selected Novels Of Lee Smith, Jessica Frances Hoover

Masters Theses

This project combines performance studies and memory studies to the analysis of three of Lee Smith’s southern Appalachian novels in order to open the texts to broader understandings of Smith’s use of oral performance forms, such as ballads, music, and storytelling, in her characters’ transmissions of tradition. The approach draws on performance work by Joseph Roach and collective memory theory by Maurice Halbwachs to create a lens through which to add to existing Smith scholarship centering on feminist readings and women’s authorship. This blended approach allows room to analyze the oral performance forms so central to Smith’s work and their …

Faith In Place: Theologies Of Implacement In Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, Lee Smith's Saving Grace, And Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow, Laura Ruth Hicks

Masters Theses

Appalachian author and critic Jim Wayne Miller has cited the literature of Appalachia as being, above all, earthly. While often referencing ties to a "spiritual" world, this world is strictly separate from the earthly. This causes Appalachian literature, in Miller's estimation, to be "rooted" in the world. However, by looking at three novelists in and around the Appalachian region--Charles Frazier, Lee Smith, and Wendell Berry--we can see where Miller's assertions fall short in relation to contemporary fiction. While the works of these novelists might fit Miller's description of "rootedness," it is their rootedness which causes these novels and the characters …

A Comparison Of H. D. And Marianne Moore’S Poetry In The 1910s And 1920s, Yoko Ueno

Masters Theses

Although both H. D. and Marianne Moore created distinctive voices, we cannot ignore their close relationship with poetic modernism. These two poets had common characteristics which were fit for the ideas of modernism, such as exact descriptions, clear images, concision, objectivity, and repression of personal emotions. H. D.’s poems were regarded as an ideal model of Imagism, and Moore generally tried to follow the style although her poems contained her own unique features. Their choice of the modernistic hard style caused them to face complicated situations because of their gender. Both poets had affinities with Romantic aesthetics such as excessive …

No Place Like Home: Fiction Of Scandinavian Women And The American Prairie, Rebecca Frances Crockett

Masters Theses

This thesis examines various fictional depictions of Scandinavian pioneer women and their struggle to adapt to the American prairie. It looks specifically at three novels: Johan Bojer’s The Emigrants, O.E. Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth, and Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!. All three novels depict Scandinavian immigrant groups who settle in the Great Plains area during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The thesis looks in detail at the numerous ways in which each author’s female characters adapt or fail to adapt to the landscape, exploring the possible reasons for these successes and failures. It argues that …

Paradox Of The Abject: Postcolonial Subjectivity In Jamaica Kincaid’S The Autobiography Of My Mother And Cristina García’S Dreaming In Cuban, Allison Nicole Harris

Masters Theses

In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva defines abjection as the seductive and destructive remainder of the process of entering the symbolic space of the father and leaving the pre-symbolic space of the mother, resulting in a desire to return to the jouissance of the pre-symbolic space. In this project, I read Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother as an attempt to link Xuela’s psychic abjection with the postcolonial identity. Xuela exists on the boundaries of the colonial dichotomy, embracing the space of the abject because she is haunted by her dead mother. She cannot return to her mother, …

Bridging The Cultural Gap: Using Commonwealth Young Adult Literature In American Secondary Schools, Jennifer Hrejsa-Hudson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Five People Like This: How Writers Perceive And Interact With Their Facebook Audience, Luke E. Kingery

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Genre Awareness: Effectively Teaching Composition Through Genre Awareness At A Community College, Ashley D. Klinginsmith

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

"Through The Keyhole Of His Eye": The Restoration Of Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend, Gina Marie Lobianco

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Nonprofit Visual Identity: Evaluating The Needs And Wants, Whitney R. Noland

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Anglicization Of Ælfric's "Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis Et Martyris", Benjamin W. Potmesil

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Sickness And Health, Anthony Smith

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Book Production In The Medieval West Midlands: The Case For Organized Bookmaking, Rashelle Spear

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Framing Jane: Film Adaptation And Jane Eyre, 1934-2006, Joy Wohlman Boyce

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Project In Grant Proposal Writing, Betsy Wells

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study In Micro Discourse Community Learning: The Subject-Driven Micro Discourse Community Session Model, Philip Brandon Gallagher

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

"I Am Not Minor": Characters' Apparent Autonomy In J.M. Coetzee's Fiction, Brigid Erin O'Malley

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Sketching As An Ally In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Kenneth P. Webb

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.