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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Beyond All Worlds: George Macdonald, The Pre-Tolkienians, And The Forgotten Possibilities Of Fantasy, Ethan Patrick Stevens Dec 2022

Beyond All Worlds: George Macdonald, The Pre-Tolkienians, And The Forgotten Possibilities Of Fantasy, Ethan Patrick Stevens

Masters Theses

The history of modern fantasy has been powerfully shaped by the worldbuilding paradigm so successfully executed in J.R.R. Tolkien's 1954-55 trilogy The Lord of the Rings. However, there were nearly a hundred and fifty years of creative work between the birth of fantasy as a genre and Tolkien’s publication of The Lord of the Rings. By examining the pre-Tolkienian fantasists, we find that Tolkien's way of exhaustive consistency was not, and is not, the only way to write fantasy. Phantastes (1858), the first novel by the influential Victorian fantasist George MacDonald, defies contemporary worldbuilding standards almost constantly in …


“The Ugly Truth”: Examining War Trauma And Therapeutic Storytelling Through The Works Of Tim O’Brien, Meredith Ivy Fedewa Dec 2022

“The Ugly Truth”: Examining War Trauma And Therapeutic Storytelling Through The Works Of Tim O’Brien, Meredith Ivy Fedewa

Masters Theses

Within this work, a close study on the relationship between trauma and storytelling is examined through three of Tim O’Brien’s works: The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato, and In the Lake of the Woods. Through the application of psychoanalysis, specifically the work of Jacques Lacan, and modern trauma theory, the relationship between individual identity and the traumatizing encounter of the Real is examined through O’Brien’s concepts of Story Truth versus Happening Truth, as well as how those concepts work together to navigate one’s trauma story. Through weaving the aforementioned theory with each text, O’Brien is seen …


Bearing Witness To Human Value: Race Relations Under The Apartheid Regime In Select Works Of Athol Fugard, Cameron Alex Yngsdal Nov 2022

Bearing Witness To Human Value: Race Relations Under The Apartheid Regime In Select Works Of Athol Fugard, Cameron Alex Yngsdal

Masters Theses

South African white playwright Athol Fugard utilized his theatrical expertise to articulate a socially conscious voice of protest against the oppressive systems implemented by the South African Apartheid government. Because of his writing taking place in the particularized Apartheid-specific setting, where he, as a member of the white minority, he was afforded the freedoms and opportunities which were not offered to members of non-white races. Thus, although Fugard’s race offered him opportunities to protest Apartheid, it brought the possibility of incorrectly portraying non-white South Africans. This incorrect portrayal, known as the “white savior complex,” wherein a white figure rescues the …


The Deep End: A Journey Of Faith, Janet M. Henderson Oct 2022

The Deep End: A Journey Of Faith, Janet M. Henderson

Masters Theses

This paper is an expansion of papers written in my MFA program’s creative non-fiction writing class and workshop. In English 600: Editing, Layout, and Publishing, the class wrote a paper to document our faith journey and our approach to understanding ourselves and our worldview based on our religious indoctrination. This paper was 10-15 pages long and had a title page, a table of contents, an acknowledgment page, and a dedication page. After writing this paper, I began to consider the possibility of writing a longer work that would dig deeper into the real essence of my faith walk. It would …


Developing Biblical, Community-Based Resources For Military Wives Entering The Empty Nest And Midlife Transition Period, Cynthia Louise Stumme Oct 2022

Developing Biblical, Community-Based Resources For Military Wives Entering The Empty Nest And Midlife Transition Period, Cynthia Louise Stumme

Masters Theses

Military wives approaching the onset of middle age and the empty nest should have access to resources that help them navigate the challenges of midlife within the context of the military lifestyle. The US military provides resources supporting successful family relationships for almost every other demographic except for military wives at the midlife and empty nest stage of life. While midlife is understudied as a life stage, the existing research does identify specific objectives for personal development and growth during middle age which lead to thriving in that stage and in old age. Using these objectives as a guide, this …


Hagenheim Series By Melanie Dickerson: Creating Active Fairy Tale Heroines With The Christian Feminist Voice, Skylar R. Blankenship Aug 2022

Hagenheim Series By Melanie Dickerson: Creating Active Fairy Tale Heroines With The Christian Feminist Voice, Skylar R. Blankenship

Masters Theses

Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm; these four men are the great authors and compilers of western canon fairy tales. They may have created the canon, but others have expanded it through multiple means, including adaptations. One current author is Melanie Dickerson with the Hagenheim Series. Her adaptations alter the setting, characters, and a few other elements, but the most critical part of her work is the addition of the Christian-feminist voice. In the original fairy tales, the female protagonists were passive and uninspiring, but in Hagenheim, they are active heroines because Christianity and feminist ideas …


There Can Be But The One Ezra Pound: Rearticulating Hugh Selwyn Mauberley As Modernist Autobiography, Joshua H. Moore Aug 2022

There Can Be But The One Ezra Pound: Rearticulating Hugh Selwyn Mauberley As Modernist Autobiography, Joshua H. Moore

Masters Theses

Ezra Pound took Eliot’s theory of Literary Impersonality seriously and rejected biographical readings of his poetry. Yet, his poem Hugh Sewlyn Mauberley contains explicitly autobiographical material, which is directly related to the poem’s meaning and has been referenced repeatedly in historical criticism of the poem. This creates a paradox of interpretation, in which the poem’s interpretive meaning stands in contrast with the author’s preferred style of interpretation. The intent of this Thesis is to work within this paradox by applying new criticism on literary autobiography to the poem; specifically the work of Max Saunders, Kevin Wong, and Hannah Sullivan. As …


Mini Memoirs: Poetry As A Medium For Memories, Liesl Anna Counterman Jul 2022

Mini Memoirs: Poetry As A Medium For Memories, Liesl Anna Counterman

Masters Theses

For the critical paper, I explore the use of poetry as a form of memoir. Over the years, I have journaled by writing poetry, and for the purpose of this paper, I have studied the marriage of poetry and memoir. My critical paper research has directed me towards how memoirists (including autobiographers and biographers of the past) have used poetry in their writings and how the truth about the past is verified and enhanced by poetic works. Poetry seems to be a vehicle of preserving truth, thus proving the veracity of the emotions and experiences within a historical context. Since …


Discovering “God Almighty”: An Exploration Of Kurt Vonnegut’S Mythmaking In Sirens Of Titan, Cat’S Cradle, And Slaughterhouse-Five, Megan Joy Kehoe Jun 2022

Discovering “God Almighty”: An Exploration Of Kurt Vonnegut’S Mythmaking In Sirens Of Titan, Cat’S Cradle, And Slaughterhouse-Five, Megan Joy Kehoe

Masters Theses

In an interview with Charlie Reilly interview, Kurt Vonnegut argues, “The Christ story is marvelous, but it’s not really about people like us” (“Two Conversations” 20). Vonnegut makes clear his appreciation for Christ, though he critiques the gospel’s relevance to humankind. In his own novels, Vonnegut takes from popular religion and creates his own stories, mythologies that are carefully catered to the human experience. In this evaluation of three of Vonnegut’s, I offer a new reading of the author which highlights his use of mythology, his parodies of God Almighty, and his hope for the direction of mankind. I begin …


Revolting Delight: Posthuman Subversion In The Work Of Leonora Carrington, Jacob Breeding May 2022

Revolting Delight: Posthuman Subversion In The Work Of Leonora Carrington, Jacob Breeding

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the posthuman implications of Leonora Carrington’s writing, painting, and other works. Carrington’s is a remedial project, one that points to a healthier potential future beyond the conceptual limits of humanism. Her body of work disorders the projected/created order of human society (with its arrogant philosophies and systems of knowledge) and supplies a sublimely recombined “order” of its own—one that, in its very grotesquerie, defies human hubris and solipsism and celebrates everything else besides. In spite of the undermining inherent in her work, Carrington provides a positive alternative to some of the “-isms” that spring from humanism and …


Negative Realism: Reading The Novels Of John Williams, William Wells May 2022

Negative Realism: Reading The Novels Of John Williams, William Wells

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to posit a dynamic theory of literary realism that accounts not only for the commonly understood “historical” realisms of the 18th and 19th centuries, but for the more fluid realisms that arise in the modern and postmodern eras. Realisms of this sort are still understood to be expressions of particular, sociohistorical eras, but these expressions must be understood to be subject to material change in society. This paper breaks, then, with traditional Marxist conceptions of realism as the direct response to enlightenment thought and early capitalism, and instead argues for traceable eruptions of realism throughout …


David Lindsay's A Voyage To Arcturus: An Anti-Fantasy, Bryan Wysopal Jan 2022

David Lindsay's A Voyage To Arcturus: An Anti-Fantasy, Bryan Wysopal

Masters Theses

This is a study of David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) in which I argue that the novel is an anti-fantasy, that is, a fantasy that negates certain tropes common to the genre as part of the author’s wider intentions for writing. I contextualize Lindsay by comparing him to several authors of his time who also worked in the mode of fantasy, then explain how the generic traits of the novel are handled unconventionally to promote Lindsay’s personal philosophy. I explore Lindsay’s treatment of the basic generic traits of the hero and his quest, the imaginary world, and …


"Comic"Ally Calling For Cultural Competency: Using Graphic Narratives To Teach Social Justice In The Writing Classroom, Travis Moody Jan 2022

"Comic"Ally Calling For Cultural Competency: Using Graphic Narratives To Teach Social Justice In The Writing Classroom, Travis Moody

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.