Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Evolving Expressions Of Trauma In James Joyce, Jean Rhys, And Caryl Phillips, Sean M. Mccray

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Evolving Expressions of Trauma articulates ways that dynamic, changing theories of trauma can provide a language and conceptual space to examine innovative modes and means of expression in Modernist novels and in later, post-colonial and experimental novels. This dissertation asserts that as trauma theory has expanded to encompass and describe different types of traumata, including the mundane, the insidious, and empathetic, it has provided a scaffolding for studying difficult, even impenetrable works from the Modernist period and beyond. The works examined here are strategically selected to demonstrate scope and particularity in the growth of trauma theories and their potential applications …

A Cultural History Of Anti-Feminism In Marvel's Scarlet Witch, Madison M. Kooba

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Marvel Comics character Wanda Maximoff, otherwise known as the Scarlet Witch, has received significant attention in popular culture due to her recent appearances as the primary protagonist and antagonist in television show WandaVision (2021) and film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). These depictions foregrounding Wanda’s struggles with mental health have made her an admirable character to many who see her drawing power from her emotions as a celebration of aspects of womanhood that have long been shamed by society. Sourcing these contemporary adaptations, however, lies decades of blatantly anti-feminist and sexist comics that villainize and ridicule Wanda’s …

A Tool For Digital Bibliotherapy: Fostering Emotional Resiliency Through A Visual Novel, Joy Cooper

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Suicide rates among children have risen over the last three years. In Clark County specifically, the numbers doubled between 2019 and 2021. The research for this project sought to find the benefits of bibliotherapy and create a tool to be used for early intervention in children displaying signs of developmental emotional and behavioral concerns. Additionally, the research focused on determining the benefits of bibliotherapy across various mediums with a particular aim on the accessibility of digital formats. The research concluded that bibliotherapy in a digital format is not only beneficial but has a tendency to produce higher engagement among children. …

One Last Month, Or Clancy's Time-Box, Safiyya Bintali

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

One Last Month is a young adult (YA) novella of roughly forty-three thousand words aimed at readers in middle school and in early high school grades. Structurally, it is an “ensemble Bildungsroman”, wherein all the main characters—rather than just one—embark on journeys of emotional growth and are given significant plot focus. Through the characters, One Last Month focuses on the importance and influence of non-romantic love, specifically through homosocial relationships between the novella’s male characters. It also touches on the process of grief beyond the Kübler-Ross structure and, though more subtly, emotional expression in young men. Through one of the …

Dawn Of A Silver Millennium: Millenarianism, Futurity, And Utopia In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Matthew Dentice

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

The story of Sailor Moon, told and retold in countless forms in the thirty years since the original manga’s publication, is imbued with a cosmic sense of time. The modern-day protagonists’ personal journeys are tightly interwoven with the distant past of the Silver Millennium and the far future of thirtieth-century Crystal Tokyo. But only the manga is fully willing to grapple with what the future means for its own present moment. Written in the early 1990s during Japan's "Lost Decade," Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon dramatizes the angst that accompanies the imminent arrival of a new millennium. As the Sailor Guardians …

Into The Woods: Freedom And The Forest In The Hunger Games, Robert B. Hackey

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Forests are contested terrains in literature. The woods are a bucolic setting far removed from the hectic, bustling world of the city or the grueling challenges of industrial life. At the same time, however, the forest challenges us – in the woods, we must take stock of ourselves, overcome unfamiliar obstacles, and face our fears. The forested settings of the Hunger Games – both natural and manmade – force tributes to wrestle with the nature of human freedom. Drawing upon political theorists from Thomas Hobbes to Isaiah Berlin, my paper also explores how tributes face a choice between positive and …

Mojave Desert Children's Picture Book, Kaesee Bourne

Undergraduate Research Symposium Podium Presentations

Why the Mojave? Climate Change in the Mojave; Animals reaching thresholds; Current picture books available.

Focused And Autonomous Writing Through Objects, Yvonne Houy

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Objects—carefully curated—help focus discussions and knowledge explorations, and become the basis of student-centered scholarly writing when Object-based learning (OBL) is combined with structured research writing assignments using the Cornell Notes questions in a Google form.

Educators cannot eliminate distractions but can encourage focus and attention (Lang, Distracted, 2020, 1-24). I propose using curated objects to focus student attention: Such object-based learning (OBL) allows students to engage holistically with otherwise abstract facts, figures and frameworks (Chatterjee and Hannan, 2016). Combining OBL with structured active note taking, such as through the Cornell note taking method, “can lead to efficient study practices, better …

'Wait, Twilight Is A Thing Again?': Examining The Ways In Which Different Social Groups Navigate The Complex Cultural Issues In Twilight, Veronica Buchanan

Undergraduate Research Symposium Podium Presentations

The four books and five movies in the extremely popular Twilight series give readers and viewers a lot to unpack, in both good ways and bad, and have led to fierce debates over the place the series should have in our culture, especially in regard to gender politics. However, most of the discussions of these texts and their cultural impact have tended to lack a robust, intersectional feminist perspective, one that attends to issues not only of gender, but also race, class, and sexuality. This research draws on both fan studies and feminist media studies to examine the various ways …

She Lives: Bringing The Bride Of Frankenstein To Life In The Comics, Michael Torregrossa

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein recently celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary, and its story remains vibrant in popular culture, especially in the comics medium. I’ve done a number of conference papers in the past devoted to representations of the Creature and his creator, Victor Frankenstein, in comics and comic art, but I’ve only recently begun to look at how the character of the Bride of Frankenstein has been depicted. I’d like to use this opportunity to further that work and look more closely at continuations and recastings of her story. The Bride has no chance at life in Shelley’s novel, as she is …

Teaching Challenging Texts And Encouraging Inquiry Remotely, Aisha Ratanapool

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Creating a culture of inquiry in non-research based courses helps students enhance their skills in critical thinking, reading, writing, collaboration, and argumentation. In English 101, some students feel like not having all of the answers about a text after a first read is unacceptable. This practice is designed to help college students understand and confidently discuss complex texts in a remote course.

The Economy Of (Dis)Honor In The Americas: A Transnational Rupturing Of American Literature Through Faulkner, García Márquez, And Silko, Clayton Neil Cobb

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Honor is misunderstood within popular culture, but it is also misunderstood within academic contexts. This is due to a decoupling of the term from its long historical significance, a significance that must not be ignored. That is because honor in the Americas is a structure of the hemisphere’s colonial legacy, its manifestation in the cultural fabric a result of the invasion of the continents by European settlers and colonizers. In the case of history, philosophy, and social science, the study of honor is beginning to undergo appropriate theorization to recognize that legacy; however, within literary studies disciplines, critical understanding of …

Madres, Hijas, Y La Frontera: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Mexican Mothers And Mexican-American Daughters, Arianna Gabriela Razo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the role Mexican mothers play in raising their children and how the border affects their abilities as mothers, looking specifically into the Mother-Daughter relationship, broken down even further into the Mexican mother versus the Mexican-American daughter. To explore this concept, I examine Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo, looking at all the mothers, but specifically into the Reyes matriarchs, and Aaron Bobrow-Strain, The Life and Death of Aida Hernandez, to show how the border has influenced Mexican mothering styles, along with juxtaposing how Mexican immigrants were treated in the 20th century to how politicization of …

Thatcherism In The Contemporary British Novel, 1978-2012, David Mowatt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Thatcherism in the Contemporary British Novel, 1978-2012

This dissertation reveals a nuance to contemporary British texts that have thus far been almost homogenously categorized as contributing to a negative portrayal of the political, cultural, and social policies of the 1980s. A study of texts and criticism of the contemporary British novel highlights the disproportionate number of depictions that could be considered anti-1980s and, as a representation of that decade, in turn anti-Thatcherite. There is an apparent consensus in the damaging effects on almost all aspects of British society during the decade because of the many policies enacted by the Thatcher …

Beyond Maidens And Mothers: A Study Of Till We Have Faces, Tamar Peterson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines how C.S. Lewis’ final novel, Till We Have Faces, demonstrates a significant diversion from the author's typical writing habits, especially regarding his depictions of women. Progressing through the novel chronologically, this thesis studies sixteen notable scenes that demonstrate this diversion. It tracks the development and depiction of women characters who exemplify a more realistic, complex, egalitarian writing style—one that allows women to wield legitimate power, excel in military combat, operate as conduits to the Divine, and enjoy their sexuality in affirming ways.

This thesis begins with an introduction to Lewis' position as a lay theologian and popular …

Witness: The Modern Writer As Witness, Alex Berge, Andrew Bertaina, Andrew Collard, Miranda Dennis, Andrea Eberly, Emily Greenberg, Day Heisinger-Nixon, Sarah Helen, L.A. Johnson, Anne Liu Kellor, Mary Kuryla, Emmy Newman, Lara Palmqvist, Mary Lane Potter, David Lerner Schwartz, Michelle Sharpe, Nina Sudhakar, Kristina Ten, Eric Tran, Pamela Yenser

Witness Magazine

Editor's Note [Excerpt] Magic can mean many different things, especially for writers. Magic can be an illusion, a sleight of hand designed to trick onlookers into believing the impossible. Or magic can be a supernatural force in a world of harsh reality, a set of beliefs that sits just outside the realms of organized religion and advanced technology. Wizards and demons, Las Vegas entertainers and houngans --they all practice a kind of sorcery. For poets and prose writers, though, magic affords an opportunity for us to stretch the limitations of the physical world in search of new themes, settings, and …

Imagination And Environmental Political Thought: The Aftermath Of Thoreau, James Altman

English Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Witness: The Modern Writer As Witness, Amitai Ben-Abba, Bruce Bond, Dakota Canon, Laura Cesarco Eglin, Kate Finegan, Miriam Bird Greenberg, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Josef Krebs, Brandon Krieg, Cody Lee, Zining Mok, Aimee Noel, Martha Petersen, Anzhelina Polonskaya, Eman Quotah, Tim Raymond, Maxine Rosaler, F. Daniel Rzicznek, Fabian Severo, Sarah Mollie Silberman, Jean Thompson, Amber Weelerbacon, Amy A. Whitcomb, Caroline Wilkinson, Kristin Winet, Carolyne Wright

Witness Magazine

Editor's Note [Excerpt] The United States, as a society, is on the brink of profound and positive change. Demographically and culturally, things are improving, and the reason is obvious to people who study history: Conflict pushes us to be better, to strive for principled goals. Consider the inspired eco-advocacy of Greta Thunberg. Or the swearing in of most diverse class of lawmakers in history into the 116th Congress. Or billionaire Robert F. Smith’s pledge to pay off every Morehouse College (in Atlanta, Georgia) student’s debt. Indeed, there are many good people helping and great moments happening in spite of a …

Shakespeare's Hamlet As A Pilgrimage Of The Soul, Joyce Ahn

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study proposes a reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a pilgrimage of the soul. There has been a consistent strain in Shakespeare scholarship which seeks to understand Hamlet and its peculiarly universal appeal in terms of its evocation of the human condition. Some examples of such commentary: Hamlet abounds in the disease imagery and is suffused with a mysterious sense of doom; it is the only play in Shakespeare with an explicit reference to Christmas; it evokes the medieval cycle plays which enacted the entire salvation history from the Creation of the world to the Last Judgment; and the play …

An Analysis On English Comprehension, Samuel Black, Jerry Rylance, Matthew Sielaff, Aaron Gorman

Math 365 Class Projects

Books and Buddies is a program run by Spread the Word Nevada (StWN) designed to help students who struggle with reading. As part of the program, students are given pre and post tests which measure comprehension, accuracy, and words correct per minute (WCPM).

A data set was provided that included students' scores on the pre and post test, as well as some general demographic information. A Python program was created to perform linear regressions on subsets of the data, measured on the three attributes listed above. The data was also divided into various categories for the sake of the regressions. …

Everything Is Real, Brett Finlayson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The dissertation will consist of a book-length collection of short stories, dealing largely in universal themes of love and death as well as working class themes, such as race, class, sexuality, identity, labor, education, poverty, hierarchy, advantage and disadvantage, friendship, and crime. The stories will mainly be set in working class environs, in particular the real-life city of Bridgeport, CT and the fictional upstate New York town of Asphodel, which serves as a symbolic gateway to the underworld and takes its name from the Asphodel Meadows in ancient Greek Mythology (the place where ordinary souls were sent to live in …

Shakespeare's Dowry: Subjectivity And Resistance In The Taming Of The Shrew, Romeo And Juliet, And The Merchant Of Venice, Homer Lee Simms

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation analyzes dowry in three Shakespeare plays—The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice. The analysis aims to show that the dowry negotiations and agreements are the most important component of the patriarchal structure of marriage depicted in Shakespeare’s plays. Since dowry agreements signal the impending transition from feme sole to feme covert, they are appropriated by the women in the three plays under consideration as the first stage in a process to assure subjectivity after their marriages. To maintain subjectivity, Katharina, Bianca, Juliet, Portia, and Jessica seek to create and occupy a liminal …

"Bring Out Your Dead!": Cashing In On Shakespeare In The First Folio, John M. Bowers

Special Collections Events

William Shakespeare wrote his plays for box-office profits at the theater, not for a reading public. When his old colleagues John Hemings and Henry Condell published his plays seven years after his death, they too were looking for financial profit and "packaged" the dramas -- as well as the dramatist himself -- to boost income by appealing to a new market of readers, thus making Shakespeare the subject of literary studies ever since.

21st Century Shakespeare, Evelyn Gajowski

Special Collections Events

Why do Shakespeare's texts resonate so powerfully for us at the outset of the twenty-first century? Why is Shakespeare more popular today than ever before? What are the various ways in which we consume Shakespeare's texts 400 years after he produced them? Professor Gajowski aims to suggest answers to these questions by elucidating the current state of the art of analyzing Shakespeare

The Skinny House, Leo August Jilk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The title of my thesis is The Skinny House, a phrase which might indicate: 1) The body of a human or other animal, 2) A coffin or grave, and 3) A residence in Mamaroneck, New York built of recycled materials (e.g. railroad ties and a chicken coop) by an African-American carpenter named Nathan T. Seely in 1932. Seely and his brother ran a business that thrived for several years prior to the Great Depression, catering specifically to Southern blacks moving north. While only a few pages of my thesis are directly concerned with the Mamaroneck residence and its social implications, …

A Natural History Of Teasing: British Women Writers And The Shakespearean Courtship Narrative, 1677-~1818, Mary Vance

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation considers the complex roles that nascent Bardolatry, the rise of women

writers, and the persistence of satiric impulses played in engineering the teasing relationships of eighteenth-century courtship fiction. I argue that in a period reputedly dominated by sentiment, women’s comedy largely hinged on anti-sentiment, particularly in its appropriation of the antithetical wooing practices so pervasive in Shakespeare’s romantic comedies. Such a perspective endows female authors (and their protagonists) to assume control of the discursive field and resituates the love story into a love game. I begin by tracing the continued influence of the Elizabethan culture of jest, aligning …

Broken Hearths: Melville's Israel Potter And The Bunker Hill Monument, John Hay

English Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

Heaven On Their Minds, Rebecca Kate Robison

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Heaven on Their Minds is a novel written from the first-person perspective of teenage

protagonist Melody O’Malley. The plot details Melody’s attempt, along with two close friends, to undermine their conservative Christian theater camp’s summer production of Godspell via the edgier songs and theology of Jesus Christ Superstar. Though ostensibly a satire of the Evangelical Christian community, Melody’s insecurities are the true heart of the novel--her fraught relationship with her best friends, her concerns about her post-high school future, and her ill-advised crush on the most prominent RFC (Robot for Christ) in the camp, a crush that has terrible consequences …

Water, Prestige, And Christianity: An Ecocritical Look At Medieval Literature, Cortney Nicole Lechmann

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines four medieval works, Beowulf, Pearl, The History of the Kings of Britain, and Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart from an ecocritical perspective. Specifically, it looks at how water affects the human culture described within each work, how the characters and their culture affect the water in return, and how they position themselves in regard to nature. This examination includes any relevant influences which affect the characters’ perception of the various bodies of water, such as the religion, technological advances, and historical background of the time period during which the authors wrote each work. It discusses each …

"Mother, I Will": Female Subjectivity And Religious Vision In The Brontës Novels, Amanda Scott

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë have long attracted sustained critical attention, in

large part because of their strong female protagonists. These strong-willed women self-assuredly reject oppression and model new paradigms for the Victorian woman to empower her subjectivity. This subjectivity serves, in turn, not only as the ability to form and express views counter to outworn social prescriptions, but it also serves as the centralized interior focus that allows their protagonists to think of themselves as the foremost subjects of their lives, rather than see themselves as pawns to be moved about in the games of patriarchal hierarchy. This study …