Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Renaissance Woman: The Works And Critical Reception Of Dorothy West, Tamara Jenelle Williamson

Masters Theses

Dorothy West’s literary career spanned seven decades, beginning with the publication of "The Typewriter" in 1926. West published her second novel,

The Wedding, in 1995. The following year, the author published a collection of short stories and non-fiction, entitled The Richer, the Poorer. However, in discussions of American modernism and African-American women’s literature, Dorothy West is excluded.

The focus of this project will be to explore the themes in West’s two novels,

The Living Is Easy and The Wedding. I also analyze several of her short stories and a non-fiction piece. In the last chapter of this …

The Crisis Of The Marital Institution In Henry James: An Analysis Of James's Experiments In Marriage In The Bostonians, The Portrait Of A Lady, And The Golden Bowl, Amy Sloan

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine Henry James’s novels The Bostonians, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Golden Bowl in an effort to create a wider picture of the threats that James perceived were closing in on the institution of marriage at the end of the nineteenth century. The paper begins by attempting to place James’s narrative style in a suitable context by comparing it to that of other American realists and to the popular genre of domestic fiction. Then it translates the more generic discussion of his narrative stylings into a more honed focus …

Mobius Strip, Tory Killian Niemann

Masters Theses

This collection of short stories explores the moments of change in a variety of human experiences. Change is embodied in the stories not only in the literal action of the characters and through the expressions of prose, but also in the uses of certain formal devices, such as point of view, narrative control, and genre. Through unexpected redirection of these formal devices, the impact of change is given a different significance in order to better reach the reading audience. Each of the seven stories looks at the different experiences of change, for good and for ill, in human life, showing …

Glass-Blue Days: A Collection Of Poetry, Steven Paul Sparks

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Their Old Kentucky Home: The Phenomenon Of The Kentucky Burden In The Writing Of James Still, Jesse Stuart, Allen Tate, And Robert Penn Warren, Christian Leigh Faught

Masters Theses

The focus of this project is to investigate the phenomenon of the Kentucky burden, and to explore the impact of that burden on four Vanderbilt-educated Kentucky authors of the early twentieth century. The works of James Still, Jesse Stuart, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren reveal not only characteristics common to Southern regionalism in general but also traits radically particular to Kentucky. Through an exploration of the poetry and prose of these prominent Kentucky writers, we can gain a better understanding of the significance of their identities as Kentuckians and recognize the many obstacles and challenges the Kentucky burden posed …

Angel On The Mountain: Homestead Heroism In Appalachian Fiction, Nicole Marie Drewitz-Crockett

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to offer homestead heroism as a model for analysis in Appalachian fiction. Homestead heroism provides specific criteria for evaluating images of women in Appalachian fiction. In contrast to long-standing stereotypes of mountain women, homestead heroes achieve economic equality, and thereby autonomy, through labor production. In order to offer homestead heroism as a viable means of critical study, I have traced its presence in Appalachian fiction from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century.

Poetic Performances: Tracing Castiglione's Theory Of Courtliness In The Poetry Of John Donne And John Wilmot, The Earl Of Rochester, Lauren Holt Matthews

Masters Theses

In The Book of the Courtier, Baldesar Castiglione outlines the three criteria that courtiers and would-be courtiers must implement to fashion a successful performance, one that helps them maintain or strengthen their social status: grazia, sprezzatura, and dissimulazione. Each of these elements enables and supports the others; the success of the performative act relies on the courtier’s mastery and manipulation of these three characteristics. Their poetry indicates that John Donne and John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester both attained that high level courtly skill – Donne through his novel use of the metaphysical conceit and Rochester through his representations …

The Position Of The Intellectual In The 1950s: Case Studies Of J. D. Salinger And Ayn Rand, Stephen J. Bain

Masters Theses

The purpose ofthis study was to examine the historical and social factors that influenced American intellectual life in the 1950s, and to apply these broader, cultural influences to case studies on two American writers working in the 1950s: J. D. Salinger and Ayn Rand. Research involved diverse readings in biography and literary criticism concerning the two authors as well as interpretation ofthe authors' works themselves. Despite having opposing philosophical, aesthetic, and intellectual ideals, J. D. Salinger and Ayn Rand typify the position ofthe intellectual in the 1950s because they share the conflicting needs ofacceptance and superiority. While the two authors …

Incivilities In The College Classroom: The Effects Of Teaching Style And Teacher Gender, Misty Renee Bailey

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher gender, teaching style, and classroom incivilities in composition and business writing courses at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Incivility frequencies were collected from approximately 581 students and twenty-four teachers using surveys.

While it cannot be stated that teacher gender combined with teaching style causes more incivilities, this study revealed a correlation between the frequency of incivilities and teacher gender controlled for teaching style. Students of female teachers who use student-centered pedagogical methods report more incivility occurrences than students of male teachers who use student-centered pedagogical methods.

Findings also …

Potpourri, Louis A. Willis

Masters Theses

The American Heritage Dictionary defines potpourri as “a combination of various incongruous elements; a miscellaneous anthology or collection.” This collection of nine essays and a short story includes seven autobiographical essays in which through memory, I try to make sense of the potpourri of some of my life experiences. Of the last two essays, one is my thoughts on the stylistic technique two 20^th century writers used to give the former slaves a voice. The last essay is my search for a technique for telling stories. The short story is an attempt to put into practice the storytelling technique …

Our General Mother:’ Eve’S Mythic Power And The Poetry Of Aemilia Lanyer, John Milton, Elizabeth Barrett, And Christina Rossetti, Sarah C. Mccollum

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze Ameilia Lanyer, John Milton, Elizabeth Barrett, and Christina Rossetti’s versions of Eve. In my first chapter, I pair Lanyer and Milton’s work and focus on the demands and expectations they place on the reader. Both authors desire that their readers be intellectually and spiritually astute enough to accept their arguments about Eve, but also be willing to see themselves as Eve. In my second chapter, I discuss Milton’s influence on Barrett, and center my treatment of Barrett on the way Barrett’s ambivalence toward male authority manifests itself in her depictions of Eve. …

Unremembered Politics: A Discursive Analysis Of Lyrical Ballads And American Revolutionary Politics, Graham Buckner Stowe

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to define Wordsworth’s political stance in his 1798 Lyrical Ballads. Up to this point, his work’s politics have been defined negatively, that is, he has been described by what he is not. Instead, I suggest that reading his poems through the lens of an American Revolutionary discourse offers us definitive view of his political position. To these ends, my first chapter establishes this discourse, outlining the three elements of the discourse on which I focus. Most important of these is the elevation of common humanity present in Wordsworth and the discourse outlined. Also present are an anti-urban …

The Rebel Collection, Erika Leigh Andra

Masters Theses

This collection of creative writing incorporates an introduction, three short stories, and a creative non-fiction piece, all of which represent my emotional exploration of both intense subject matters and an autobiographical impulse (blending the lines between fiction and non-fiction).

The introduction to “The Rebel Collection” pointedly scrutinizes my writing aesthetics and includes lists of authors and works which have profoundly influenced me. The creative non-fiction piece, “My Writer’s Eye,” relates my adventures from a mission trip to Mexico, during which I examined religion, writing, and class structures. The first short story, “Shells,” delves into the mind of a woman in …

Milk Glass Moon, Rebecca K. Brooks

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to tell the mostly untold story of the 900 or so families that left the Oak Ridge valley in 1942-42 in order for the federal government to build the Manhattan Project, the secret project that built the atomic bomb.

The story is fiction but based loosely on the experience of the Sam and Mary Kesterson family. While the story covers the experiences of most of the family, it is told primarily through Lydia Mae Johnson’s point of view, a young teen who must confront adult issues early: a strange man comes into the community, …

Sunsphere, Andrew Everett Farkas

Masters Theses

This is a short story collection centered around the Sunsphere (the structure in Knoxville that was built for the 1982 World’s Fair), utilizing various concepts of energy as its central metaphors. Containing seven short stories, Sunsphere is in the tradition of such writers as Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, John Barth, and Jorge Luis Borges (among others). The concepts of energy covered herein are “work,” in “Do Kids in California Dream of North Carolina?,” “potential energy,” in “Chekhov’s Shotgun,” “kinetic energy,” in “No Tomorrow” and “The Physics of the Bottomless Pit,” “internal energy,” in “Everything Under the Sunsphere” and “Wordsworth’s Volcano,” …

Envisioning Identity: Theatrical And Political Innovations In Caryl Churchill's Plays, Jina Yi

Masters Theses

Caryl Churchill, a contemporary British playwright and declared socialist feminist, combines theatrical inventiveness with social critique in her plays. Churchill consistently relates to political ideas in theatrical terms. This study offers a close reading of Churchill’s most representative works, Cloud Nine (1979) and Top Girls (1982), detailing the development of her dramatic craft. In Cloud Nine and Top Girls, Churchill examines political structures through a conscious evaluation of traditional theatre structure. In particular, Churchill finds Brechtian epic theatre’s politics invaluable to her socialist feminist dramaturgy. Detailed analysis of the two works enables us to determine the extent to which …

Html And Pdf Documents: A Study In Terms Of Genre Theory, Meghan Mccarty

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to determine, in light of current genre theory, if Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) documents and Portable Document Format (PDF) documents are representative of separate and distinct genres. I chose a set of NASA documents, some published in HTML only, some published in PDF only, and one published in both HTML and PDF, as the focus of this study.

Using current genre theory and layout and design recommendations for print and HTML documents, I determined that HTML and PDF documents are not examples of distinct genres based on the NASA documents.

'The Third Sex': Interpellation Of The Woman Physician In Nineteenth-Century Literature, Margaret Jay Jessee

Masters Theses

As American women entered the medical profession for the first time, the literature of the late nineteenth century America reflects the debates surrounding women professionals. I will focus on three novels written during this controversial and interesting time. William Dean Howells's Dr. Breen 's Practice (1881) and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Dr. Zay (1882) deal with similar subjects, both novels portraying a female doctor and her struggle to decide between marriage and a career. Published in 1884, Sarah Orne Jewett' s A Country Doctor was the third novel seen in three years with a female doctor as the main character.

The …

Blood Kin: Poems, Sara Ann Baker

Masters Theses

This manuscript contains poems written and revised during my two years in the M.A. program in English. Themes include family, divorce, love, madness, religion, and nature. I wanted to develop a manuscript that truly reflected the past two years in terms of my life and in terms of my writing. The introduction details my journey to this point, explaining why certain I have been influenced by poets such as Sylvia Plath and Sappho. Overall, I see this manuscript as a reflection of life coming full circle, acting out part of the cycle of life. The journey from the first poem, …

Orchids On A Windowsill, Julie Ann Predny

Masters Theses

“Orchids on a Windowsill” is a collection of poems presented for partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in English, with Concentration in Writing. An introduction is provided to name major influences on the poems and a general philosophy on writing.

Down In Old Mexico: Five Stories, Lewis Moyse

Masters Theses

This is a collection of short stories unified by the themes of love or revenge, sometimes the one, sometimes the one and the other. It is preceded by a personal essay that outlines in broad strokes some of the poets, philosophers and novelists who have influenced how I write and what I write about.

Plagiarism And Voice In The Age Of Information, Brian Thomas

Masters Theses

The purpose of this work is to explore the issue of plagiarism in various contexts relevant to the teaching of English composition. Since definitions of plagiarism vary by culture and by history, an account of its expression at various points in Western history has been offered. Preliminary findings linked the use of technology for the expression of ideas to cultural and legal definitions of plagiarism. In addition, our own time further complicates any desire to arrive at definitive notions of intellectual property because of information technology facilitating cross-cultural exchange of ideas. In this “Information Age,” as it has been called, …

Floating Away Or Staying Put: Finding Meaning In The Poetry Of William Wordsworth And Robert Frost, Mary Mcmillan

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine and articulate in philosophical terms the inherent differences in the poetics of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost. This work differs from many other critical works that have considered the two poets’ similarities and differences in that it considers these concepts from a philosophical standpoint. The study looks at the specific philosophical backgrounds of the two poets and utilizes vocabulary and concepts from these to describe the poets’ different poetical movements in describing similar subjects.

John Locke’s concepts of modes and substance ideas are used to describe the other things that appear in …

The Artist’S Loving Hand: The Travel Letters Of Emily Eden, Isabella Bird, And Mothercatherine Mcauley Written To Their Sisters In 19th Century Britain And Ireland, Holly Elizabeth Ratcliff

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to observe the qualities of and techniques enlisted by British and Irish women travel writers corresponding with their sisters who remained at home. Some of the most vivid and telling works regarding the travels of extraordinary women are contained in the letters that they wrote to their families. These letters often involved brief factual commentaries; detailed descriptions of friends, other family members, or strangers encountered on a journey; advice and encouragement for life continuing on as normal back at home; and pictures or paintings that could serve as postcards to capture visions of people …

Richardson, Property, And The Virtuous Female, Audrey Evelyn Tinkham

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the literary, legal, economic, and cultural mechanisms at work in the eighteenth century formulation of feminine gender ideology as it pertains to the negotiation of settlements for married women's separate property. Within a feminist-historicist critical framework, fictional narratives of the eighteenth-century reveal a tension between economically-motivated self-interest and an ideology of sentiment, a tension that is related to the modern reluctance to discuss prenuptial agreements. The marriage contract itself as interpreted by eighteenth-century social theorists allows and encourages the creation of gendered spheres of activity and distinctly gendered behavioral models. The eighteenth century's distinctive configuration of these …

"I Cannot Read This Story Without Rewriting It": Haraway, Cyborg Writing, And Burkean Form, Clancy Ratliff

Masters Theses

In this study, my overarching principle is that readers’ ideologies are likely to influence the way they read texts, and that texts, in turn, often influence readers’ preconceived ideologies. This thesis is an attempt to understand how to use the theories of Kenneth Burke, Donna Haraway, and rhetoric of technology scholars toward the goal of social change in favor of Haraway’s cyborg political model, which stresses the need for unity within feminism, socialism, and other politically left groups. Burke argues that form in texts is the creation and fulfillment of desires in the audience. I examine several of Burke’s texts …

Toward A More Complete Ethic In Technical Communication: An Examination, Evaluation, And Integration Of Some Foundational And Nonfoundational Ethical Theories, Shauna Bryant

Masters Theses

In this study, I examine several theories of ethics in technical communication. In doing so, I rely primarily on research in technical, professional, and business communication. In particular, I follow the lead of Mike Markel by separating ethical theories into two categories: foundational and nonfoundational.

I examine three popular manifestations of foundational ethical theories in technical communication: universal values (such as honesty), utilitarianism, and Kantian ethics. I show how technical communication appropriates each theory but also how these theories can be problematic if communicators rely too heavily and exclusively upon them.

Next, I explore two important nonfoundational theories in technical …

The Garden Of Eden And The Garden Of Eden: Edenic Imagery In Ernest Hemingway's The Garden Of Eden, Kelly Fisher Lowe

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to prove that there is a definite link between Ernest Hemingway's last novel The Garden of Eden and the biblical Eden narrative of Genesis 2-3. Through the use of both the novel and the Bible, and many secondary pieces of scholarship, both critical and biographical, the thesis demonstrates a substantial connection between Hemingway's work and the larger issue of religion.

The thesis is arranged in three parts. The study starts with the very general and grows more specific as it progresses.

Chapter 1 is a study of Hemingway's religious history. Through the use of available biographical information, …

The Essential Unity Of Whitman's Leaves Of Grass, 1855: The Personality Projected, Jan Bryan Lawson

Masters Theses

The thesis of this paper is that the essential unity of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855 derives from the personality projected.

Up to the present, critics have failed to agree on any single principle of unity in the first poem of Leaves of Grass, 1855, or in the book as a whole. Yet Whitman himself indicated on various occasions over a long span of years that the projection of a personality was his intent. Further, he indicated that this personality could then be utilized for various purposes, most notably he could exploit it to "promulge" his philosophy.

The …

Motifs Of Time And Nature In The Poetry Of E.E. Cummings, Karl Douglass Harris

Masters Theses

E. E. Cummings' poetry has for many years been noted for its typographical gymnastics, which, admittedly, are noteworthy. But technical innovation alone does not make poetry. A poetry must be judged by its words, as well as by the way they are typed and arranged. This thesis is a study of selected words, the motifs of time and nature, in Cummings' poetry. The primary source comprises the published volumes of his poetry. Poems 1923-1954, 95 Poems, and 73 Poems, and the prose i: six nonlectures, which contains important statements of his poetics. Since time and nature are the basic aspects …