Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Constructing An Early Modern Queen: Posturing, Mimicry, And The Rhetoric Of Authority, Megan K. Mize

English Theses & Dissertations

As the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, a woman executed for treason, Elizabeth Tudor stood at the center of discourses that often sought to contain or even destroy her. Early on, Elizabeth understood that constant re-invention, performance, and mimicry were key strategies for survival. When she finally ascended the throne in 1558, Elizabeth continued to use these rhetorical methods to retain her autonomy, as far as possible, garnering public support and the loyalty of her court. Although Elizabeth has long been acknowledged as a historical icon and has received considerable scholarly attention, particularly from feminist and feminist-leaning …

Your Favorite Place, Christina Marable

English Theses & Dissertations

This is a composite novel based on travelers.

An Examination Of The Key Features Of Salman Rushdie’S Historiographic Metafiction: A Possible Worlds Theory Approach, George Shamshayooadeh

English Theses & Dissertations

This investigative study is informed by Ursula Kluwick’s contention that Salman Rushdie’s novels – Midnight’s Children and Shame – written within the postcolonial context, need to be approached and conceptualized differently from the magical realist fiction produced by Latin American novelists such as Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Laura Esquivel due to the fact that the relations between the realistic and magical/supernatural codes in Rushdie’s texts are not harmonious and are, for the most part, antithetical in ways that manifest and highlight the friction between the twin codes, which render them ‘contingent’ and ‘provisional,’ but beyond that destabilize the narrative …

A Right-Hand Man: A Novel, Christopher Giofreda

English Theses & Dissertations

This is the first half of a Catholic novel about a mailman with a hook hand. It is about the power of friendship and invites us to think about the posthuman.

Permanent Resident, Joshua Mcgarry

English Theses & Dissertations

This thesis emerges out of the author’s own experiences as a permanent resident of the USA in a time of increasing tension towards immigrants. As the poems progress they deal not only with the immediate political concerns, but also with the familial issues of living on another continent as the poems address the way distance adds an extra layer of strain the death of the author’s grandfather in early 2016.

The thesis attempts to find a counterpoint to the increased sense of nationalism and distance through the use of music as a plane of aesthetic engagement that goes beyond nation. …

We Are The Bobcats, Jacquelyn Mohan

English Theses & Dissertations

We are the Bobcats is a novella that follows a group of high school seniors as they undergo the loss of two of their peers. Its central themes include grief, guilt, loss, and the complications between the three in the aftermath of tragedy. The story also concerns ideas of group identity, individualism, and the disparity between external presentation and internal struggles.

Safe Passage To The End Of Earth, Gregory Martin Chandler

English Theses & Dissertations

Safe Passage to the End of Earth is representative of my work as a poet and my ideas about the world. It’s broken down into four sections that approach the world from different perspectives. Each section reflects my interests mostly independent of one another, though they connect thematically. The order of the sections, and the order of the poems within the sections, reflects what I felt was the strongest sense of motion from one idea to the next, beginning with a poem that touches on many of the themes in a single page and moving through politics, history, religion, and …

Are We All #Nastywomen? The Rhetoric Of Feminist Hashtags And Respectability Politics, Kimberly Lynette Goode

English Theses & Dissertations

In a time where misogynistic phrases from political figures such as Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are being reclaimed by feminists on Twitter, it is crucial for feminist rhetorical scholars to pay close attention to the rhetorical dynamics of such reclamation efforts. In particular, the reclamation of the phrase nasty woman via #NastyWoman, #NastyWomen, #IamANastyWomanBecause, #IamANastyWoman, etc. is a fruitful site for analysis. In this thesis, the reclamation efforts of Twitter feminists will be analyzed to gauge the underlying discourse at work in the hashtag. Based on the origins of the hashtag and the way the tweeters have come to …

Sugar Acts, Amanda Raquel Gomez

English Theses & Dissertations

Sugar Acts is a poetry collection which seeks to incorporate themes such as women, gender trauma, the body and its position toward and against society, identity, heritage, and colonization, topics which can be considered abstractions but have very visceral and real physical manifestations. These themes wreak havoc on the body, namely the female colonized body, and as a Puerto-Rican American woman, I am asking the question of what it means to make sense of 21st century colonialism. This thesis, then, attempts to discover the ways in which trauma resides in the body and continues to be passed on to each …

The Backwoods Stories: A Saga Of Fear And Wonder, James Mcclendon Adams

English Theses & Dissertations

The Backwoods Stories are a collection of short stories all set in and around the same fictional small town in Southern, Central Florida. The stories are all of the supernatural vein, tales of witches, ghosts, and goblins. Backwoods, as the town is known, is a hotbed for all manner of supernatural activity, and the residents and visitors are constantly discovering more and more dangerous and yet amazing secrets of the town.

The Backwoods stories are tales of desperation, confusion, fear, and discovery. A common theme is the horror of facing something that breaks the characters’ established understanding of reality. Yet, …

Museum Of Unforeseen Circumstances, Ethan Forrest Ross

English Theses & Dissertations

On the day of his mother’s death, Charlie Agate abandons his current life and returns to his childhood home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For months, this new residency enables his thirst for isolation and comfort, but at last Charlie ventures back into the public world where he forms an unlikely bond with an elderly woman, Virginia Day. Virginia is strange and impoverished, broken and yet hopeful as she maintains an assertion so outlandish Charlie can’t help but pursue the truth of this mystery alongside her. This novella is about faith and mystery, guilt that leads to opportunity, and the persistence of …

The Last Cherokee Of Blue Ridge, Dexter Benjamin Gore

English Theses & Dissertations

This work is an exploration into the life of a young queer man in the United States Army charged with aiding in the removal of the Cherokee Native Americans during the 1830s Indian Removal. It is my hope that my characters and setting bring attention to the politics of queerness and nativism in a way that has not been allowed by mainstream fiction.

Sub/Mission, Abigail Naomi Brunt

English Theses & Dissertations

The poems included in this manuscript look at the ways in which women have been silenced and forced to submit, with emphasis on, though not limited to, a patriarchal fundamentalist Christian subculture called Quiverfull. Part autobiography, part documentary and part myth, the manuscript explores the various ways such damage becomes interwoven into women’s identities and stories, but also the ways in which women find resilience and strength.

The Quality Of Mercy, Kerry Mcnamara

English Theses & Dissertations

The Quality of Mercy is a hybrid of memoir and reportage, the story of a daughter’s love and her father’s journey through his vocation to the Catholic Church, his entry in the priesthood and his years of missionary work. Not many people discover in their teenage years that their father had been a celibate Catholic priest. Not many have the opportunity to trace their father’s story through diaries, interviews, and recollections. The Quality of Mercy is both a window into the world and a mirror into the soul, a daughter’s attempt to tell her father’s unique tale.