Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“No One To Show Us The Way:” Assessing The Contemporary Relevance Of The Gay Male Bildungsroman, Matthew Lemas

English (MA) Theses

The gay male bildungsroman can trace its origins to E.M. Forster’s posthumously published Maurice (1971) and Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story (1982), among other examples. While nested under the umbrella category of the queer bildungsroman (and, more broadly, the bildungsroman), the gay male iteration particularly explores integrational challenges related to the extant tensions between hegemonic masculinity and the male protagonist’s sexuality and gender identity. The subgenre—often conflated with the “coming out novel”—has faced a range of criticism in its roughly half-century existence. Scholars have accused it of banality, often relying on a limited range of well-trodden tropes; lacking diversity, …

The Beginning Of The End: The Cultivation Of Transchronological Perceptuality In Arcadia And “Story Of Your Life”, Sawyer Kelly

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores the spatio-temporal landscapes of Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life” and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Both authors engage with intersections between past, present, and future, challenging readers to reframe the conventions of linear chronology in favor of a fluid, palimpsestic approach to time and space that reflects the past and future’s ongoing influence in constructing our impression of the “now.” To illustrate this temporal blending, Chiang and Stoppard implement alternative language modes predicated upon visual and sensory rhetorics, centralizing the politics of human perception as dually illuminating and obfuscating reality. This project employs an interdisciplinary approach, adopting …

“No One Likes A Mad Woman:” A Modern Reclamation Of Solitude In The Domestic Space Through Women With Invisible Disabilities In A Post-Lockdown World, Marley Ashton Bickley

All Theses

This project weaves together critical and creative writing to highlight personal narratives from women with mental illnesses and invisible disabilities. Through a historical recognition of the "madwoman" who is framed as hysterical to be a scapegoat for patriarchal control, I examine societal attempts to immobilize women’s rights to free will and agency from the nineteenth century until today. My analysis of "madwomen" in domestic space takes up fiction writing such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre where women are forced into confinement against their will. In a flipped-script narrative, I reexamine how domestic space …

Cloaked Trannies On The Silver Screen: "Evolutionary Derangement" And Cronenberg's Approach To Shaping A Critical Mindset Towards Trans Bodies, John David Hunter

All Theses

This thesis engages David Cronenberg’s 2022 film, Crimes of the Future, analyzing the text through the lens of Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensten) as a transgender allegory. Through this, the project investigates the way in which Cronenberg’s text visually creates a Deleuzian language of the body, which is the body of becoming. This queer analysis of the film does so by utilizing the perspective of the trans body, through the character of Tenser, which more clearly illustrates the human body as one which is in a continual process of evolution. Following in the footsteps of scholars such as Susan …

The Calling Of Governess, Karissa Maust

All Theses

The governess is a widely discussed figure in literary criticism. However, the motivations that cause literary characters to engage in the profession of governess are not often talked about. This thesis discusses the three primary motivations that inspired women to become governesses—survival, duty, and calling. It begins with a historical discussion of the governess, then illustrates women’s reasons for engaging in this occupation, using literary figures from Emma, Villette, and Jane Eyre to do so. The thesis then ends with a discussion of the modern American teacher—how she differs from the governess but also shares the lack of …

By The Devil’S Grace: Zofloya’S Victoria And The Recontextualizing Of A Protagonist, Katherine Woods

All Theses

Focusing on Victoria, the protagonist of Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or The Moor, this paper seeks to reclaim and recontextualize her. I embrace the troubling nature of Victoria by focusing on how “evil”, as well as other negative labels, function in the text in reference to her. Resisting a morality centered reading, this paper then explores Victoria's evil expressed through her body in conversation with conventions of monstrousness. I then explore Victoria’s relationship with her mother as a complication to both her arc and the novel’s treatment of female characters overall. Victoria offers not only new ways of approaching similar Gothic …

The Cognitive Implications Of Literary Devices And Perspective-Taking On Reading Time, Amelia Ward

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study of literary devices in the context of published fiction is unusual in psychology; however, some research has suggested that reading time may be influenced by cognitive challenges that come with the extra work that may be necessary to understand the meaning behind an author’s usage of literary devices (Miall & Kuiken, 1994; Egen et al., 2019). Jumping off of this suggestion, this present study aimed to answer the question of whether reading time is influenced by factors such as narrative perspective, the usage of literary devices, a person’s print exposure, and a person’s need for cognition, as well …

Creative Writing Pedagogy: Building Curriculum For High School Students, Elizabeth Lengel

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis serves as a rationale for the creative writing pedagogy I use and how it serves my high school creative writing class. As my school district made the decision to overhaul our English curriculum, the English department decided to add Creative Writing as an English class elective.

The work for planning these new classes was spread around the English Department, and I was assigned to design the curriculum for the new Creative Writing class. Designing an entire class from scratch leaves a lot of room for creativity and innovation. However, as excited for this new course as I was, …

Sacrificial Lambs: The Perils Of Childhood In Shakespeare, Benjamin Sidney Reed

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

“Sacrificial Lambs: The Perils of Childhood in Shakespeare” utilizes childhood studies to read five Shakespearean plays and how they portray child characters in perilous situations such as kidnapping, banishment, and murder. It argues these dangers emulate real circumstances young people faced in the early modern period, including the boy actors playing these roles. The dissertation’s key research questions include how children in these plays exhibit agency in the face of danger, how they resist adult systems of power, and how audiences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may have responded to these portrayals of imperiled and rebellious youths. The Introduction …

Victim Or Villain: Female Resilience And Agency In The Face Of Trauma In Chimamanda Adichie’S, Purple Hibiscus (2003) And Tsitsi Dangarembga’S, Nervous Conditions (1988), Adaobi Juliet Chukwuma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As long as disparities persist in the way women are treated as compared to their male counterparts, the issue of gender will continue to call forth literary productions. For this reason, female writers are on a mission to dismantle the stereotypes that keep women confined to societal roles. Grounded in a feminist framework, this study focuses on the gender disparity theme in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The aim is to examine how these writers represent the trauma of women living in an African patriarchal system. The traumatic experiences of the female characters in both texts …

Playing Myself: The Gothic's Challenge To Audience Identity, Elena Durant

All Theses

This thesis presents close readings of the 2015 video game Bloodborne and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey in order to illuminate how the Gothic genre challenges identity. Both Bloodborne and Northanger Abbey respond to their genres and are preoccupied with the ways that their audiences might interact with them. Bloodborne’s gameplay directly incentivizes players to reflect on the way that they play the game. Northanger Abbey is a parody of the Gothic novel that reflects just as much on the idea of the reader as it does on the conventions of the genre it parodies. Both of these works are …

Obscured To Outspoken: Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, And Akwaeke Emezi As Case Studies In Nigerian Feminism, Ava Chuppe

Honors College Theses

Though about two decades separate their ascents to global renown, Buchi Emecheta and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie represent two figureheads of the women’s literary tradition in Nigeria. While Adichie has embraced the “feminist” label to describe her work, Emecheta has proven more reluctant, divulging issues with the Western variety of the movement—namely, its deconstruction of the family. Nevertheless, Emecheta and Adichie engage with issues such as maternity, familial turmoil, and political unrest in the contexts of colonial and postcolonial Nigeria, respectively. In doing so, both writers demonstrate the unique manifestations of patriarchy brought about by colonial rule. In Emecheta’s novel The …

Bedeviled Beauty: My Journey Through White American Theater Institutions, J'Aila C. Price

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Game console: Oculus Quest

World: American Theater Institutions

Player: Minority

Place: United States

Level: “Ain’t no way.”

This thesis explores the contrast between the Westernized philosophies ingrained in my education and my identity as a Black female artist. It sheds light on the difficulties of pursuing higher education in the arts and the gaps that arise from limited exposure to culturally diverse Black resources, revealing the systemic issues in Western performance education. The paper also discusses the insights gained from my journey as a Black female artist, focusing on my thesis performance of Blood at the Root, which is …

Radical Antiracism And Anti-Queerphobia In Politicised Education Environments Through Critical Race Theory And Queer Theory, Mina Aubrey Weeks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In 2023, the Utah legislature passed bills that alter how secondary education teachers can talk about “divisive topics,” usually referring to topics of race, LGBTQ, or other systemic topics like classism and nationalism. Many teachers committed to anti-racism and anti-queerphobia do not want to water down topics of race and LGBTQ, but they also do not want to lose their jobs for teaching race and LGBTQ in a way that the law restricts. Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory have typically been framed as anti-White, anti-cishet, or overall divisive by State critics due to their radical ideologies, but this comes …

Special Study: Vulnerability, Jacob Taylor

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Special Study: Vulnerability is a collection of creative nonfiction essays engaged in recovering the stories of homeless individuals living in Salt Lake City, Utah. The recovery project is focused on the years 2017-2023, with special attention to the events of Operation Rio Grande (2017-2020). The essays seek to, among other things, provide a critique of public policy, increase public awareness of the issues facing the homeless population, and elicit empathy from readers.

Variations On Leitmotif: Firebird Rises, Virginia Beikmann

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis begins with an introduction that discusses the various influences on the development of the creative novella portion. These influences include Russia literature and folklore, as well as the genres of alternative history and speculative fiction. The novella takes place in a re-imagining of Moscow, Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The novella portion is driven by a close focus on character, with emphasis on reactions to wartime pressures and interpersonal relationships forming the central conflict.

Place-Based Fiction: Tourist Town Stories, Keegan Waller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

I first conceived of the idea for this short story collection in my early 20's while working as a ski lift operator, bartender, construction worker, and window cleaner in Park City, Utah. At the same time, I was becoming interested in short fiction through the works of authors like Raymond Carver, Chuck Palahniuk, and Charles Bukowski, whose dirty realism has played a large role in the formulation of my thesis. I intend to write a story collection that moves their genre into a more modern setting. While this collection will not fit perfectly into the dirty realist box, the themes …

The Last Days Of Elder Mitchell, Jack Bylund

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The Last Days of Elder Mitchell is a novella following the eponymous Latter-Day Saint missionary as he narrates the miracles performed by his colleague, Elder Gibson, as well as his personal grappling with his queer identity as he serves a high-demand religion that condemns people like him. The narrative explores the intersection of queerness and faith, the form of the novella, and the healing nature of autobiographical fiction.

Dismantling Barriers To Publishing: Identifying Types Of Negative Review Experiences And Strategies For Mitigating Them, Hannah L. Stevens

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This dissertation research focuses on academic publishing, particularly the peer review process, investigating gaps between journal guidelines and guidelines of inclusive publishing policy and processes. This project investigates the potential for supplementation of policy documents to cultivate a positive publishing experience. Moreover, this research continues the work of cultivating connections among authors, reviewers, editors, etc., in the drive to increase the accessibility and inclusivity of the publication process.

Anti-Thesis: When Your Worst Moments Become Your Best Work, Abigail Williamson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

My honors capstone project expands the creative work of a major writing assignment in English 3170: Successful Freelance Magazine Writing, which was modeled after Susan Shapiro’s “Humiliation Essay.” Shapiro’s signature assignment encourages students to write about an embarrassing or upsetting moment with the aim to force sincerity and humility. She writes, “It encourages students to shed vanity and pretension and relive an embarrassing moment that makes them look silly, fearful, fragile or naked.” The humiliation essay, she claims, often leads to publication because the conflict of the assignment inspires writers, and the narrator’s self-insight that occurs during the process of …

Religious Extremism And Female Autonomy: How Dystopian Literature Reflects Contemporary Issues, Jessica Briscoe

Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes two texts: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and When She Woke by Hillary Jordan. These two texts examine dystopian worlds in which the lines are blurred, or completely eradicated, between church and state. Christian fundamentalism and/or evangelicalism becomes intertwined with Christian extremism which results in a detrimental society for many minority groups. The purpose of this thesis is to specifically explore the ways women are mistreated in these societies.

Moreover, this thesis explains how America’s puritanical Christian roots have led to modern-day ideals of America as a “New Jerusalem”. America, like the dystopian societies, has intertwined …

Disavowed: The Downfall Of England's Men, Marriages, And Sense Of Self In The Stories Of D. H. Lawrence, Emily Guido

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper aims to discuss the theme of displacement, specifically of men in early twentieth-century England experiencing the decline of the traditional masculinity model, in the short fiction of D. H. Lawrence. Displacement, fundamentally, it is removing that which belongs in a specific place or home to an unknown, unadapted environment. In the context of literature, displacement can take more abstract shapes, such as cultural, spiritual, and mental displacements that—as most great literature does—arouses our sympathies to the larger groups and concepts for which they stand. In these types of stories, physical displacement becomes the metaphor for these more abstract …

Ripperature: Crossing Gender And Genre, Gracie M. Bain

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The murders of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly in London in 1888 by the serial killer commonly known as “Jack the Ripper” were grotesque displays of violence against vulnerable women. As unsolved crimes, they have continuously been sensationalized and fictionalized since they occurred, beginning with dime novels like The Whitechapel Murders; Or, On the Track of a Fiend (1888) and continuing with novels like Stalking Jack the Ripper (2016). The sheer number of adaptations is staggering. This extensive adaptation process results in the mythologization of Jack the Ripper as a culture-text. This study …

The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2024 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee.

The Center for Children's Literature

Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2023. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.

Standing On The Front Porch Of To Kill A Mockingbird, Anna Mclain

Honors Theses

This thesis is an examination of the front porch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. After providing background on the practical functions of the front porch in the South, I argue that this space serves as a synthesis between perception and reality in Lee’s novel. My thesis is divided into three sections that each explore different characters on the front porch: Boo Radley, Southern women, and Scout. Analyzing specific scenes with these characters on the front porch, I consider how the space exposes various tensions in the novel and highlights Lee’s larger themes.

Sylvia Plath’S Fig Tree: Discourse Formation And The Production And Consumption Of Women’S Identity, Jane E. Dodge

Honors Theses

Investigating the formation of women's identities within Sylvia Plath's work, this paper seeks to understand the position of women within society during Plath's lifetime and in the wake of her death. Comparing genres of both public, private, and semi-public writing, I hinge my argument on Plath's famous fig tree passage to understand three distinct feminine identities and the inherent consumption and production that accompanies women's identity formation.

Eng101 Research Essay Using Oral History As A Primary Source, Jayashree Kamble

Open Educational Resources

This assignment was included as the research essay component in an introductory composition course. The topic was the impact of AI on their desired career or profession. Students were required to find four sources: a primary source with whom they conducted an oral history, and three secondary sources; one from social media, one from a reliable but not peer-reviewed source, and one peer-reviewed scholarly source. They had to submit the oral history transcript and incorporate data from it into the essay. At the end of the semester, they also had an option to do a dramatic reading of the oral …

Greta Gerwig And The Chick Flick Revival, Syndey Walker Neis

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The "chick-flick" is derived from decades of movies known as "woman's film". It's evolution is most obvious in the creation of female-centric movies that place a primary focus on platonic and familial relationships, such as the "Female-Friendship Film". This subgenre was wildly successful until it became co-opted by the Romantic Comedy during the late-90s and early-00s and ultimately transformed into the "Chick-Flick" we are most familiar with today. Gerwig's three films re-establish the "Chick-Flick" as a film that de-centers romantic relationships in favor of developing the female protagonists in terms of individuals and through their platonic and familial relationships. My …

Vidas Perdidas, German Barrera Toro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Vidas perdidas es una novela coral que, como muchas otras novelas del género, puede ser leída como un libro de cuentos. La idea central de este proyecto no es otra que desarrollar una tesis muy sencilla pero que, en sí misma, constituye una gran alegoría sobre la existencia humana: La mayoría de nosotros pasaremos por el mundo sin la menor trascendencia histórica —artística, científica, política, espiritual… entre muchos otros campos— y, sin embargo, dichas experiencias vitales no serán vidas perdidas si en esas ventanas de posibilidades que vivimos —Heidegger definía la vida por oposición a la muerte como la posibilidad …

The Function Of Humility In St. Teresa Of Avila's Autobiography: A Literature Review, Jennifer Sanchez

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In the Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Ávila’s (1515-1582) autobiography, The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself (1588), the author repeatedly asserts her unworthiness. Contemporary scholarship has explored the function of Teresa’s rhetoric of humility in this text. Scholars from the 1990s have largely argued that Teresa’s humility is a carefully crafted, defensive method to meet the demands of the patriarchal culture in which she wrote. Twenty-first-century scholars take a (slightly) different approach. To them, Teresa’s humility is not solely rhetorical; they suggest that Teresa’s humility is also a consequence and tool of her spiritual journey. In this …