Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Mentor Relationship In African American Adolescent Literature, Roynetta D. Douglas

Honors Theses

The mentor relationship in African-American adolescent literature underscores the idea that young people can benefit from the counsel of caring adults outside their immediate families. In this ethnic specific subgroup, families may often suffer from financial strain due to single parent households or lack of career options. For that reason, many African-American adolescents either seek or happen upon a non-familial adult who helps them navigate through adolescence. This type of relationship, with its success and its pain, is vividly apparent in many novels geared toward young African-American girls.

A Study On The Functions Of Minimalism In Three Contemporary Dramatic Texts, Nevine Shoukry

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Weaving Accessibility And Art In Marilou Awiakta's Selu: Seeking The Corn-Mother's Wisdom., James David Basinger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Selu: Seeking the Corn-MotherÆs Wisdom, Awiakta enlists the reader to participate on the path to knowing Selu, Corn-Mother to us all. In particular, the book provides a reader with a text that blends ancient Cherokee teachings of the oral tale of Selu with contemporary Western, Appalachian-American thought and experience. Awiakta adopts and adapts Selu in order to capture and express the essence of the tale within a contemporary American aesthetic.

Though Awiakta's approach is didactic, it rises above mere teaching to achieve an aesthetic characterized by accessibility, simultaneity, and liminality. She purposely combines stories, poems, teachings, histories, and cultural …

"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 …

The Benefits Of Supplementing The Eighth Grade American History Curriculum With Historical And Realistic Fiction Novels, Susan Shadle

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

As the textbook remains the driving force of instructional methodology in the secondary history curriculum, student enthusiasm and achievement in the discipline continue to decline. Textbooks, which fail to tell the complete story of the American experience, are not just shortchanging history, they are ill-suited to the developmental requirements of the adolescent learner. Through personal classroom experience, literature review, and a one-year site-based study, the evidence compiled in this study endorses the integration of social studies trade books, in particular historical and realistic fiction novels, as a prescription for diminishing, if not turning around, the discouraging trend in middle school …

Eliza Haywood's Feigning Femmes Fatale: Desirous And Deceptive Women In "Fantomina," Love In Excess, And The History Of Miss Betsy Thoughtless., Emily Kathryn Booth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the pages of Eliza Haywood's novels, masquerade is often used by female characters as a means by which to gain control or power. More specifically, Haywood's female characters often misrepresent themselves as a means by which to achieve sexual power and even to obtain sexual gratification.

Haywood also explores the theme of women's uses of deception and even disguise as methods by which to skirt the confines of a male dominated society and as modes devoted to escaping the boundaries they inflict upon themselves in trying to maintain their virtue.

Going To Nowhere : Narratives Of Patagonian Exploration, Mark W. Bell

Master's Theses

Since its discovery on Magellan's circumnavigation, Patagonia has been treated differently than any other region in the world. Effectively, Patagonia has been left empty or vacated by the North. But this emptiness and blankness have compulsively attracted curious travel writers who have filled the emptiness of Patagonia with self-reflexive projections. From Charles Darwin and W.H. Hudson to Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux, Northern commentators have found in Patagonia a landscape that accommodates their desire for self-reflexivity and self-consciousness. Thus, Patagonia has been simultaneously filled and evacuated by the Northern mind. As a result, Patagonia has become increasingly about the self …

God In The Darkness: Mysticism And Paradox In The Poetry Of George Herbert And Henry Vaughan., Elizabeth Anne Acker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While aspects of mysticism appear in the poetry of both George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, the general consensus among critics has acknowledged the mysticism of Vaughan while ignoring its roots in Herbert's writings. Among the leading authorities on the poetry of Herbert, there has been a general tendency to dismiss, ignore, or explain away mystical elements. A study of representative works by prominent critics to ascertain their positions on this issue reveals not only what can be known for certain about Herbert's theology, but also the interpretations that have been offered for his most famous poems. While these interpretations are …

Oscar Wilde: Constructing The Self, Elisabeth Erin Pankl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Oscar Wilde's construction of the self. Three major aspects of Wildean literary work serve as handles for this thesis examination. They are the Wildean interpretation of theoria, Wilde's literary technique and philosophical assertion of masks and poses and Wilde's favor of the social dandy.

In addition to these three aspects, this thesis utilizes four of Wilde's works as primary sources. These are The Pictureo f Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, "The Decay of Lying," and "The Critic as Artist."

Like most current critiques of Wilde, this thesis relies on many of the reading strategies of …

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 …

Mammy: From Pancakes To Grenades, Nichol Michelina Pagano

Theses & Honors Papers

From an image draped in calico and flipping pancakes to a figure wearing pearls and throwing hand grenades, Mammy exists as part of America's cultural heritage since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Mammy character evolved in American iconography from the subservient kitchen Aunt Jemima to a modem aggressive woman ready for military combat. Early depictions of Mammy show her as being very humble, plain in dress and appearance, and subservient to her white masters . In From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond, Sue Jewell states, "[Mammy] is portrayed as an obese African-American woman, of dark complexion, with …

Ben Jonson And The Mirror: Folly Knows No Gender, Sherry Broadwell Niewoonder

Dissertations

Ben Jonson, Renaissance poet and playwright, has been the subject of renewed evaluation in recent scholarship, particularly new historicism and cultural materialism. The consensus among some current scholars is that Jonson overtly practices and advocates misogyny in his dramas. Such theorists suggest that Jonson both embodies and promulgates the antiwoman rhetoric of his time, basing their position on contemporary cultural material, religious tracts, and the writings of King James I. However, the external evidence cited by late twentieth-century writers as to the nature of women's position in seventeenth-century England is contradictory and speculative. A more productive method of determining misogyny …

Autobiographical Fantasia: Kingston's The Woman Warrior And El Telmissany's Dunyazad, Marwa Mohammad Nur Eldin Ismail Elnaggar

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The thesis analyzes the use of imagination in two autobiographical works by two women authors, a Chinese-American and an Egyptian-Arab, respectively: Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, and May El Telmissany's Dunyazad. A definition of autobiography as a literary genre is explored through the critical debate between different scholars. In this debate, the fundamental nature of autobiography and its parameters are central issues. Several questions are posed-such as the degree of importance that truth has in determining how autobiographical a specific work is.

Both The Woman Warrior ( 1976) and Dunyazad ( 1997) are introduced

within the framework of this …

"How Should One Love?": Alternative Love Plots And Their Ethical Implications In The Victorian Novel, Jennifer J. Carpentier

Dissertations

In reading Victorian fiction through an ethical lens, I am attentive to questions of what constitutes the good, loving, w ell-lived life. It is my contention that Victorian writers turned to fiction - specifically, the rapidly emerging novel form - to explore the ethical implications of being in love, and the problem s occasioned by erotic love. The writers I examine modify the basic Aristotelian search for a specification of the good life for human beings: they used novels as testing grounds for the ethical question, "How should one love?"

My study of 19th-century British fiction reveals a strain of …

Literature Of Loss And Place: An Illustrated View, Polly Parkinson

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

Part One of this thesis, "Inseparably Connected to Place," analyzes Terry Tempest Williams's Refuge (1991) in terms of the effect the land has on the author, and analyzes the author-land relationship in terms of human attachment and loss theory.

Part Two, "A Glimpse into my Topophilia," is my own creative expression. The pieces of the collection mirror the pieces of my grief and the places that have informed my life. The collection reflects my studies regarding the interplay of illustration with the written word, the various stages of attachment and loss, and the primacy of place in the human experience.

Wonder Window Series: My Guardian Angel, My Fairy Godmother, My Magical Mermaid, Samara Anjelae

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English by Samara Anjelae on May 7, 2001

Existential Freedom And Bad Faith : Exploring The "Infinite Possibilities" In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man And Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness, Robert Aubrey Mawyer

Master's Theses

J. Saunders Redding comments that "Existentialism is no philosophy to accommodate the reality of Negro life" (209). However, Ralph Ellison's concern in Invisible Man to explore his protagonist's freedom and the ways in which he deceives himself about his freedom invites a comparison with the ontological premises of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, particularly his concept of "bad faith," in which individuals accept the identities that existing power structures force upon them. Both writers articulate the nature of selfhood in the modern world, and how easily one's true identity is lost when faced with absolute existential freedom. While Ellison …

A Comparative Analysis Of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle And Emile Zola's Germinal., Mouhamedoul Amine Niang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to demonstrate that Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was modeled upon Emile Zola's Germinal. A comparative analysis of their novels is the method by which the latter statement is substantiated. A close reading of these works unveils their overlappings in terms of characterization, theme and narrative. Following the introduction, the second chapter focuses on both authors' character constructions with the purpose of tracing the modeling process. The third chapter is a discussion of their similar thematic issues. The penultimate chapter deals with the identical formats of the writers' plots. Authorial differences are also considered in this work, but …

Historical Linguistic Analysis Of Traditional English Christmas Carols., Tami Lynn Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the process of historical linguistics it is possible to determine approximate dates of authorship and meaning that establish the conventions of a particular genre. To accomplish such a study, elements of phonology, morphology, and syntax are compared and the results create a field of descriptors representative of a style of writing of a period.

By using the method on eight well-known Christmas carols, four were determined to have been written prior to the dates previously speculated, possibly originating in the Middle Ages. The remaining four were written based on the conventions set by the earlier medieval carols.

"'Tis Hard To Dance With One Shoe": The Failure Of The Fathers In Walker's The Color Purple And Mccourt's Angela's Ashes., Gwendolyn Nicole Hale

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In his story, “The Commitments,” Roddy Doyle identifies the Irish as "the blacks of Europe" (148). This sentiment typifies the oppression of the two cultures. The overwhelmingly oppressive society of the two aforementioned groups creates an atmosphere of failure, particularly for the fathers, who, for the most part, are supposed to be the heads of their families. Through Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, the reader discovers the effects of these failures of the fathers due to tyrannical societies that impose dominance over such groups as the African-Americans and the Irish. The main characters, Celie and …

The Hero And The Polis In Greek Tragedy And Comedy: An Examination Of Their Relationship In Sophocles’ Oedipus At Colonus And Aristophanes’ The Acharnians, Mary Christine Barnes

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think Yiddish-- Adaptation Versus Assimilation., Susan L. Gardberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Critics use the words "vanished culture" to describe Isaac Bashevis Singer's work for Polish Jewry had been destroyed. However, Singer's characters survive the travails of anti-Semitism and resettle in America. This study explores Singer's Polish Jews to determine whether they assimilate into their new culture; or maintain their strong Jewish traditions and adapt to the freedoms of America.

Singer's life is analyzed, including the people and places that have influenced his work. Two of Singer's works are examined in this thesis. Chapters Three and Four explicate an allegorical short story, "The Little Shoemakers." Singer writes a fairytale view of a …

The "Jaded Traveller": John Jasper's Failed Psychic Quest In Charles Dickens's The Mystery Of Edwin Drood., Linda Poland Pridgen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a Jungian study of John Jasper, the central character in Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Jasper fails to achieve psychological wholeness because he suffers from what Carl G. Jung calls dissociation of consciousness, a malady that prevents Jasper from entering the process of individuation--a process of self-discovery. Jasper's boredom, self-alienation, hypocrisy, and secret double life impede his search for self.

Faced with projections of his anima and shadow self, Jasper has many opportunities for psychological and spiritual growth. But rather than integrate the aspects of his personality that each of the anima and shadow …

Lucius And Psyche, Daniele Stabellini

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Horace's 'Carpe Diem' In Modern Literature As An Application To Thornton Wilder's Plays, Our Town And The Matchmaker, Munira Essameddin Omar Wagdy

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Justice And The Problem Of Royal Absenteeism: Lope’S El Mejor Alcalde, El Rey And Shakespeare’S Measure For Measure, Jordan Mark Siverd

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Sense Of Nonsense: An Annotated Edition Of Ring W. Lardner’S Short Plays, Scott A. Topping

Dissertations

This edition presents twenty-one short plays by Ring W. Lardner (1885-1933), most of which have previously been accessible only on microfilm and in special collections. No edition exclusively dedicated to Lardner’s plays has ever been published. Though Lardner is known primarily for his short stories and sports writing, he considered himself to be a playwright and lyricist. Throughout his career he wrote several full-length plays (collaborating with George Cohan and George Kaufman, among others) and hundreds of short plays and sketches from which my collection is derived. Lardner’s sensitive ear for American dialects, praised by H. L. Mencken, Carl Van …

The Unbearable Lightness Of Oscar Wilde's "Fan", Lamya Fouad Ramadan

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Angel's Promise, Gerald Hilaire Touchette

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Castle Deuclet, the protagonist of this work of fiction, has a dream which may or maymot set off or b2 connected to a series of events that happen afte'wards. Castle is thrust into a world of the fantastic where beings calling themselves angels want to help him; where he encounters a unicorn, named Julia, that he knew as a child; where a scarecrow woman reveals herself in his dreams and tells him that she is a dooway he must go through but that first he has to find the key. Here, Castle must face and accept the dark parts of …

A Moment Of Transcendence: Encountering Each Other In And Beyond The Fiction Of Raymond Carver, Amy Lynn Leo

Honors Papers

This is an essay about reading Raymond Carver. It deals mostly with his work in general rather than with what individual stories mean or exemplify. My aim is to describe and understand the experience of Carver that I had upon my first reading. I will show how reading Raymond Carver can be a spiritual experience, and, in fact, was for me. The reading experience becomes spiritual when readers exchange meaning with the characters through identification and by doing so consider themselves in such a way that they fully embrace the patterns of their lives and manage to transcend them. Because …