Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Did French Women Love Their Children? The Contentious Image Of Exotic Maternity In Early Modern French Travel Narratives, Anna Young

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Throughout the period of early French colonization in the New World, travel writers commented extensively on Native American childrearing practices. Early modern French colonialists were particularly fascinated by the fact that native women almost always nursed their own children, unlike their French counterparts, who typically outsourced the labor of reproduction to wet nurses. French writers consistently pointed to the tendency of Native American women to nurse their own children as evidence of a superior sense of maternal duty, vehemently criticizing the custom of wet-nursing in France and the moral deficiencies of European women who participated in it.

Travel writers participated …

Reviving The Surrealist Revolt: A Retracing Of Surrealism’S History And A Reimagining Of Its Future In Translation, Kyle Young

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Although Surrealist writing has literary merit, Surrealist texts were written as revolutionary tracts meant to undermine the social order. Yet the politically radical aspects of the movement are no longer taken very seriously. At least one contributing factor to the current impotence of Surrealism is the approach taken in the translation of Surrealist texts. Many translators have presented Surrealist texts as they would traditionally present any literary document. However, Walter Benjamin’s writings on translation, in particular his essay “The Task of the Translator,” provide a novel conception of translation, one which can produce linguistically radical texts. I will argue that …

Acquisition And Solidifcation Of Grammar And Vocabulary In Elementary French Classrooms Through Skit Performance, Jill Owen

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In this study, groups of elementary French students in two classes at Western Kentucky University utilized two different methods of skit performance to demonstrate the importance of communicative activities in the foreign language classroom. The effectiveness of each method was assessed to determine which method helped the students acquire grammar and vocabulary concepts more readily. One method was to have students write their own skits using a chapter in their textbook. The other method was to give students an outline that they filled in and memorized. Surveys and quizzes were used to gather data. The results of which method proved …