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Articles 1 - 24 of 24
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Static, Yet Fluctuating: The Evolution Of Batman And His Audiences, Perry Dupre Dantzler
Static, Yet Fluctuating: The Evolution Of Batman And His Audiences, Perry Dupre Dantzler
English Theses
The Batman media franchise (comics, movies, novels, television, and cartoons) is unique because no other form of written or visual texts has as many artists, audiences, and forms of expression. Understanding the various artists and audiences and what Batman means to them is to understand changing trends and thinking in American culture. The character of Batman has developed into a symbol with relevant characteristics that develop and evolve with each new story and new author. The Batman canon has become so large and contains so many different audiences that it has become a franchise that can morph to fit any …
Heroes With A Hundred Names: Mythology And Folklore In Robert Penn Warren's Early Fiction, Leverett Belton Butts, Iv
Heroes With A Hundred Names: Mythology And Folklore In Robert Penn Warren's Early Fiction, Leverett Belton Butts, Iv
English Theses
This dissertation examines Robert Penn Warren‘s use of Arthurian legend, Judeo-Christian folklore, Norse mythology, and ancient vegetation rituals in his first four novels. It also illustrates how the use of these myths helps define Warren‘s Agrarian ideals while underscoring his subtle references to these ideals in his early fiction.
Literature As Prophecy: Toni Morrison As Prophetic Writer, Khalilah Tyri Watson
Literature As Prophecy: Toni Morrison As Prophetic Writer, Khalilah Tyri Watson
English Dissertations
From fourteenth century medieval literature to contemporary American and African American literature, researchers have singled out and analyzed writing from every genre that is prophetic in nature, predicting or warning about events, both revolutionary and dire, to come. One twentieth-century American whose work embodies the essence of warning and foretelling through history-laden literature is Toni Morrison. This modern-day literary prophet reinterprets eras gone by through what she calls “re-memory” in order to guide her readers, and her society, to a greater understanding of the consequences of slavery and racism in America and to prompt both races to escape the pernicious …
Ecocritical Theology Neo-Pastoral Themes In American Fiction From 1960 To The Present, Joan Anderson Ashford
Ecocritical Theology Neo-Pastoral Themes In American Fiction From 1960 To The Present, Joan Anderson Ashford
English Dissertations
Ecocritical theology relates to American fiction as it connects nature and spirituality. In my development of the term “neo-pastoral” I begin with Virgil’s Eclogues to serve as examples for spiritual and nature related themes. Virgil’s characters in “The Dispossessed” represent people’s alienation from the land. Meliboeus must leave his homeland because the Roman government has reassigned it to their war veterans. As he leaves Meliboeus wonders why fate has rendered this judgment on him and yet has granted his friend Tityrus a reprieve. Typically, pastoral literature represents people’s longing to leave the city and return to the spiritual respite of …
Toward A Rhetoric Of Scholar-Fandom, Tanya R. Cochran
Toward A Rhetoric Of Scholar-Fandom, Tanya R. Cochran
English Dissertations
Individuals who consider themselves both scholars and fans represent not only a subculture of fandom but also a subculture of academia. These liminal figures seem suspicious to many of their colleagues, yet they are particularly positioned not only to be conduits to engaged learning for students but also to transform the academy by chipping away at the stereotypes that support the symbolic walls of the Ivory Tower. Because they are growing in number and gaining influence in academia, the scholar-fans of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Buffy) and other texts by creator Joss Whedon are one focus of …
Exploring The Factory: Analyzing The Film Adaptations Of Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Richard B. Davis
Exploring The Factory: Analyzing The Film Adaptations Of Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Richard B. Davis
English Theses
Film adaptations are becoming more popular and past critics and scholars have discussed films based on dramas and novels. However, few have explored the children’s literature genre. In discussing such a topic, it takes more than just debating whether the novel or book is better. A discussion on what elements have been maintained, removed, or added in such an adaptation has to be made along with its success or failure. With this in mind, Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and its two film adaptations will be explored along with an analysis of film adaptation theory to …
Modernist Aesthetics Of "Home" In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway And Rebecca West's The Return Of The Soldier, James Harper Strom
Modernist Aesthetics Of "Home" In Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway And Rebecca West's The Return Of The Soldier, James Harper Strom
English Theses
The First World War wrought untold destruction on the physical and psychological landscape of Europe. For Britain, the immediate post-war period represented no less than a national “nostos,” or homecoming, and few social institutions were so fragmented by the conflict as the home. This thesis will explore the various conceptions of “home,” from the nation and the domestic sphere to post-war consciousness, through the lens of Virginia Woolf’s "Mrs. Dalloway" and Rebecca West’s "The Return of the Soldier." Though unique in style and scope, Woolf and West interrogate and revise pre-war notions of “home” and suggest a Modernist aesthetic of …
Protestants Reading Catholicism: Crashaw's Reformed Readership, Andrew Dean Davis
Protestants Reading Catholicism: Crashaw's Reformed Readership, Andrew Dean Davis
English Theses
This thesis seeks to realign Richard Crashaw’s aesthetic orientation with a broadly conceptualized genre of seventeenth-century devotional, or meditative, poetry. This realignment clarifies Crashaw’s worth as a poet within the Renaissance canon and helps to dismantle historicist and New Historicist readings that characterize him as a literary anomaly. The methodology consists of an expanded definition of meditative poetry, based primarily on Louis Martz’s original interpretation, followed by a series of close readings executed to show continuity between Crashaw and his contemporaries, not discordance. The thesis concludes by expanding the genre of seventeenth-century devotional poetry to include Edward Taylor, who despite …
Where I Am, There (Sh)It Will Be: Queer Presence In Post Modern Horror Films, Melanie Mcdougald
Where I Am, There (Sh)It Will Be: Queer Presence In Post Modern Horror Films, Melanie Mcdougald
English Theses
This paper will consider the function of queer space and presence in the post modern horror film genre. Beginning with George Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead and continuing through to contemporary examples of the genre, the paper posits the function of the queer monster or monstrous as integral to and representative of the genre as a whole. The paper analyzes both the current theory and scholarship of the genre and through Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and queer theory offers a theory of how these theories can add to existing theory and scholarship.
Taking Eudora Welty's Text Out Of The Closet: Delta Wedding's George Fairchild And The Queering Of Saint George, James R. Wallace
Taking Eudora Welty's Text Out Of The Closet: Delta Wedding's George Fairchild And The Queering Of Saint George, James R. Wallace
English Theses
Eudora Welty’s characterization of George Fairchild (Delta Wedding) queers the heroic masculine ideal, St George, whose legendary exploits have been popularized in narrative literature, Catholic iconography, and children’s fairy tale. Lauded by the Fairchild women for his “difference,” George’s sexuality offers him an identity apart from the suffocating Fairchild family myth. George Fairchild’s queer sexuality and homoeroticism augments our critical understanding of Delta Wedding, the character, as well as other characters. The author’s subtly politicized construction of the novel’s ostensible hero subverts literary tradition, the gender binary, and patriarchal myth.
"Ah Ain't Brought Home A Thing But Mahself": Cultural And Folk Heroism In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God And Ellen Douglas' Can't Quit You, Baby, Kimberly Giles Cochran
"Ah Ain't Brought Home A Thing But Mahself": Cultural And Folk Heroism In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God And Ellen Douglas' Can't Quit You, Baby, Kimberly Giles Cochran
English Theses
In scholarship discussing Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s self-realization is central to her identity, and many scholars view and discuss her as a cultural hero. But her success is conditional on circumstance rather than composition of character, a fact this essay explores through a careful comparison between Janie and Tweet, a character from Ellen Douglas’ Can’t Quit You, Baby; specifically, while Janie ultimately succeeds in her world—even while confronting gender oppression—she improbably avoids the additional, crippling subjugation of racial prejudice that Tweet endures. Through this and a discussion of definitions and Hurston’s work as a folklorist/writer, …
To Keep On Knowing More(?): Seminar Xvill, The Other Side Of Psychoanalysis, John Lowther
To Keep On Knowing More(?): Seminar Xvill, The Other Side Of Psychoanalysis, John Lowther
English Theses
This is an explication of Lacan’s Seminar XVII. The introduction situates the Seminar in its time and in relation to other theories of discourse. In part one I examine the changes which it brings to a variety of ideas already known in Lacan’s oeuvre such as Jouissance, Master Signifier(s) and Oedipus. Part two looks the four discourses in detail after considering the positions common to each. I provide accounts of each discourse as taking place internally to a subject and between subjects. The coda examines areas where further research is possible, reviews and critiques some scholarship on this seminar and …
Naming Experience And Revealing Sentiment: The Archetypal Journey In Edna St Vincent Millay's "Renascence", Jennifer Rose Forsthoefel
Naming Experience And Revealing Sentiment: The Archetypal Journey In Edna St Vincent Millay's "Renascence", Jennifer Rose Forsthoefel
English Theses
This thesis uses archetypal theory as explained by Carol Pearson in The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By to illustrate the heroic journey undertaken by the protagonist in Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Renascence." Feminist archetypal theory is a useful lens for gaining the reader access to the underlying paradigms of struggle experienced by the female literary character because it exposes the parallels that exist in separate female experiences. By applying Pearson's theory to Millay's work, readers are able to elucidate more clearly the methods used by the poet to create commonality and continuity with her female audience. Throughout …
Representations Of Labor In The Slave Narrative, Agnel Natasha Barron
Representations Of Labor In The Slave Narrative, Agnel Natasha Barron
English Theses
This study examines the slave narratives The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself and The Bondwoman’s Narrative to determine the way in which these texts depict the economics of labor in slave society. Taking into account the specific socio-historical contexts in which these narratives were written, this study analyzes the way in which the representations of labor in these narratives interrogate slavery and address issues relating to the social relations and power dynamics of their respective societies. Emphasis is given to the way in which the …
Mentor-Teaching In The English Classroom, Timothy R. Blue
Mentor-Teaching In The English Classroom, Timothy R. Blue
English Dissertations
This dissertation is a rhetorical analysis of the theories and practices surrounding student-centered mentor-teaching. I examine textual representations of the teacher/student relationship as well as theories and practices involved in the discursive formation of teacher/student relationships, examining the intersection (or lack thereof) between the ways we as researchers talk about teacher/student relationship formation and the way(s) such relationships form in the “real world” of the English classroom. This institutional critique of teacher/student relationships draws on the works of ancient rhetorical scholars like Quintillian and Socrates, and on the post-1980 scholarship of Robert Connors, Lad Tobin, bell hooks, Paulo Freire, Parker …
The Good Cut: The Barbershop In The African American Literary Tradition, Terry Sinclair Bozeman
The Good Cut: The Barbershop In The African American Literary Tradition, Terry Sinclair Bozeman
English Dissertations
Few African American males do not have at least one memory of a barbershop. The barbershop is a space that finds a home in virtually every community in which you find Black males. To some degree, virtually all genres and periods of African American literary expression have situated the barbershop as a mediating space in the formulation of a Black masculine identity. The barbershop as mediating space allows Black males the opportunity to view themselves and also critique the ways in which they are gazed upon by the literary imagination. African American authors, through the use of the barbershop, bring …
Absent Characters As Proximate Cause In Twentieth Century American Drama, Sarah Emily Morrow
Absent Characters As Proximate Cause In Twentieth Century American Drama, Sarah Emily Morrow
English Theses
This thesis explores the status of a specific subset of absent characters within twentieth century American drama. By borrowing the term “proximate cause” from tort law and illuminating its intricacies through David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, this thesis re-appropriates proximate cause for literary studies. Rather than focus on characters whose existence remains the subject of critical debate, this set of absent characters presumably exists but never appear onstage. Despite their non-appearance onstage, however, these absent characters nonetheless have a profound effect upon the action that occurs during their respective plays. Highlighting the various ways in which these characters …
The Importance Of Being Oscar: A Performance Studies Inquiry Of Wilde's Literary Women, Sydney Nicole Lanier
The Importance Of Being Oscar: A Performance Studies Inquiry Of Wilde's Literary Women, Sydney Nicole Lanier
English Theses
The plays of Oscar Wilde hold more than just sharp wit and likable characters; they also contain examinations of aspects of the playwright's own personality and explorations of possible life choices. Through the use of Performance Studies theory, this thesis seeks to shed light on how Wilde saw himself versus how he presented himself at different points in his life. The texts analyzed within are Wilde's 1891 dramatic religious retelling, Salomé, and his 1894 domestic comedy, The Importance of Being Ernest. Within each are clues to the interior desires of their author: Salomé offers an investigation of a strong female …
"Nam-Shub Versus The Big Other: Revising The Language That Binds Us In Philip K. Dick, Neal Stephenson, Samuel R. Delany, And Chuck Palahniuk", Jason Michael Embry
"Nam-Shub Versus The Big Other: Revising The Language That Binds Us In Philip K. Dick, Neal Stephenson, Samuel R. Delany, And Chuck Palahniuk", Jason Michael Embry
English Dissertations
Within the science fiction genre, utopian as well as dystopian experiments have found equal representation. This balanced treatment of two diametrically opposed social constructs results from a focus on the future for which this particular genre is well known. Philip K. Dick’s VALIS, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby, more aptly characterized as speculative fiction because of its use of magic against scientific social subjugation, each tackle dystopian qualities of contemporary society by analyzing the power that language possesses in the formation of the self and propagation of ideology. The utopian goals of these …
The Myths Of The Self-Made-Man: Cowboys, Salesmen And Pirates In Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie And Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman, Camille Gros
English Theses
Most books written about American drama concern definitions of masculinity, the American dream, and the family in a society that encourages people to surpass their competences and limits. American playwrights of the twentieth century reveal the anxiety and insecurity of men who do not rise up to the standards of the American dream. In concentrating on these themes, most critics have analyzed the main characters and plots but have left aside hints about other myths. This study aims to analyse the extended use of the cowboy, of salesman, and of pirate in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie and Arthur Miller’s …
A Critic In Her Own Right: Taking Virginia Woolf's Literary Criticism Seriously, Yvonne Nicole Richter
A Critic In Her Own Right: Taking Virginia Woolf's Literary Criticism Seriously, Yvonne Nicole Richter
English Theses
Considered mostly ancillary to her fiction, Virginia Woolf’s prolific career in literary criticism has rarely been studied in its entirety and in its own right. This study situates her in the common critical practices of her day and crystallizes basic tenets and a critical theory of sorts from her critical journalism published 1904–1928: the author argues that Woolf does not advocate a policing role for the critic, but rather that critics foster art in collaboration with readers and writers. Finally, this work discusses Woolf’s appeal to writers to invest all their energy in improving their skills in character portrayal to …
The Necessity Of Narrative: Personal Writing And Digital Spaces In The High School Composition Classroom, Catherine Coker Rumfelt
The Necessity Of Narrative: Personal Writing And Digital Spaces In The High School Composition Classroom, Catherine Coker Rumfelt
English Theses
In the late 1960s, personal narrative became popular in high school and college writing classrooms as the expressivist and process movements emerged. Since then, personal narrative has recently lost its significance and it is no longer in our writing curricula. In this paper, I discuss the necessity of teaching personal narrative in the secondary composition classroom as it serves an important role in argument. In addition, I will argue for the use of digital spaces to engage students in a critical conversation through narrative.
Feminist Online Writing Courses: Collaboration, Community Action, And Student Engagement, Letizia Guglielmo
Feminist Online Writing Courses: Collaboration, Community Action, And Student Engagement, Letizia Guglielmo
English Dissertations
As fully online course offerings continue to grow at colleges and universities around the country, we are faced with the challenge of preserving what we value in first-year writing while making the affordances of online environments work for our students. This dissertation explores how the online writing instructor, guided by feminist pedagogy and civic rhetoric, can begin to shift the center of power within the course, allowing students to become co-teachers and promoting the social construction of knowledge central to first-year writing. Facilitated by computer-mediated communication technologies, this approach relies on online activities that invite ongoing contributions from students, promote …
"Check With Yo' Man First; Check With Yo' Man": Perry Appropriates Drag As A Tool To Recirculate Patriarchal Ideology, Timothy Scott Lyle
"Check With Yo' Man First; Check With Yo' Man": Perry Appropriates Drag As A Tool To Recirculate Patriarchal Ideology, Timothy Scott Lyle
English Theses
In this thesis project, I investigate the drama of Perry and introduce his dramaturgy into the academic landscape. As the critical discourse is shifting towards the realm of popular culture, we must begin to locate several discourses at work in the drama of quite possibly the most popular, visible, and financially successful African American playwright of the twenty-first century, if not of all time. Drawing on gender and queer theory, I offer a theoretical discussion about subversive and non-subversive drag acts, and I question the degree to which Perry appropriates drag in a politically liberating or constraining manner. Moreover, I …