Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"This People Which I Made": The Character Of King Arthur As A Mechanism Of Unification In Medieval Arthuriana And The Idylls Of The King, Hallie Schaeffer

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

"One Never Knew": David Foster Wallace And The Aesthetics Of Consumption, Jesse Ortiz

Honors Projects

Increasingly, David Foster Wallace is becoming a cult figure among literary enthusiasts. His novels, essays, and short stories are all known for their poignant critiques of modern culture. Since his 2008 suicide, Wallace’s name has come to represent a way of thinking that rejects – and perhaps transcends – the hegemonic power of late capitalism.

Wallace had a problem with pleasure. His writing often seemed to deflate or deconstruct what many people enjoy. For him, so much was “supposedly fun.” To understand Wallace’s relationship with pleasure, we must see how pleasure incorporates aesthetics and consumption.

Wallace takes issue with the …

Political Polupragmones: Busybody Athenians, Meddlesome Citizenship, And Epistemic Democracy In Classical Athens, Harry D. Rube

Honors Projects

The figure of the πολυπράγμων, the overactive, over-engaged, or meddlesome democratic citizen, is a literary trope that emerges in Classical Athenian literature in the 5^th and 4^th centuries B.C. This project seeks to use the πολυπράγμων as an entry point into understanding Athenian attitudes toward citizenship and socially acceptable political behaviors in Athens’ democratic era.

I explore the history and usage of the term πολυπράγμων, and the associated characteristic of πολυπραγμοσύνη (meddlesomeness), and its synonyms and antecedents. I demonstrate that to be labeled πολυπράγμων is a term of social restraint—one is named a πολυπράγμων if they do not …