Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Traces, Paulette Guerin Apr 2006

Traces, Paulette Guerin

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.


Reinscribing The Revolution: Genre And The Problem Of National History In Early American Historical Novels, Joseph John Letter Jan 2006

Reinscribing The Revolution: Genre And The Problem Of National History In Early American Historical Novels, Joseph John Letter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines nine early historical novels of the Revolution that recover an important yet largely forgotten archive of American cultural history. In the years following the War of 1812 writers from the Revolution’s successor generation reinscribed the history of national origins through narratives of the Revolution that address issues left unresolved by the Revolutionary War and subsequent Constitutional debates; thus, the Revolution itself becomes an important and ubiquitous subject area for writers attempting to situate narratives of national history. These national allegories, consciously constructed as patriotic narratives, unconsciously “bring forth” figurations that represent the official nation’s Others, people excluded …


The Abc's Of Hiv: When "Just Say No" Is Not Enough-Queer Critique Of Aids Policy, Lisa Laura Ladwig Jan 2006

The Abc's Of Hiv: When "Just Say No" Is Not Enough-Queer Critique Of Aids Policy, Lisa Laura Ladwig

LSU Master's Theses

This paper will critique the United States' AIDS policy, both domestic and international. I demonstrate how queer theorists have used Jacques Lacan's concepts of "jouissance" and the "unconscious desire" to suggests ways in which the current policy has dangerous implications for real people, for public health, and human rights. I reveal how the problem of rising HIV infection is not due to the lack of availability of safer-sex information, but rather it is a problem of execution: the Religious Right's ideology inscribed in our public health policy. Finally, I wish to expose how people in this country and others are …


Viewing Novels, Reading Films: Stanley Kubrick And The Art Of Adaptation As Interpretation, Charles Bane Jan 2006

Viewing Novels, Reading Films: Stanley Kubrick And The Art Of Adaptation As Interpretation, Charles Bane

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Greg Jenkins has observed that adaptation "is a presence that is woven into the very fabric of film culture." Although this statement is true, no definitive theory of adaptation exists. Critics and scholars ponder adaptation, yet cannot seem to agree on what makes an adaptation a success or a failure. The problem of adaptation stems from many sources. What, if anything, does a film owe the novel on which it is based? How, if possible, does a film remain faithful to its source? Is a film a version of a story or its own autonomous work of art? Who is …


"To Live Outside The Law, You Must Be Honest" -- Words, Walls, And The Rhetorical Practices Of The Angolite, Scott Howard Whiddon Jan 2006

"To Live Outside The Law, You Must Be Honest" -- Words, Walls, And The Rhetorical Practices Of The Angolite, Scott Howard Whiddon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

“To Live Outside the Law, You Must Be Honest”: Words, Walls, and the Rhetorical Practices of The Angolite examines the 50 year history of The Angolite, a news magazine published and edited by inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary. While The Angolite and the efforts of former editor Wilbert Rideau have been discussed in the public media, especially here in Louisiana, my dissertation is the first extended scholarly account of this prison publication. Specifically, I examine how inmate writers held in one of the most historically violent penitentiaries in the United States choose to represent themselves, their multiple literacies, and their …


Considering Blackness In George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead: An Historical Exploration, Jennifer Whitney Dotson Jan 2006

Considering Blackness In George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead: An Historical Exploration, Jennifer Whitney Dotson

LSU Master's Theses

When George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released in 1968, the independent black and white zombie film stunned American moviegoers. Having assaulted the audience with a new level of violence-laden gore, Night of the Living Dead received much attention from both popular and critical audiences, with the former rushing to theaters to see the film over and over and the latter almost universally panning the film for its poor taste and gratuitous violence. Since its release, however, Night of the Living Dead has become one of the most written about horror films in American history, with critics …


The Manner Of Mystery: Free Indirect Discourse And Epiphany In The Stories Of Flannery O'Connor, Denise Hopkins Jan 2006

The Manner Of Mystery: Free Indirect Discourse And Epiphany In The Stories Of Flannery O'Connor, Denise Hopkins

LSU Master's Theses

This project addresses the narrative voice(s) in Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, particularly in relation to her conception of art. O’Connor critics often polarize the cultural and religious worth of her stories. As a Catholic, O’Connor was convinced that the “the ultimate reality is the Incarnation” (HB 92). As an artist, O’Connor believed that fiction should begin with a writer’s attention to the natural world as she comprehends it through the senses. It is no wonder, then, that her fiction lends itself well to critics interested in both her theology and her presentation of issues of race, class, and gender. My …


The Scent Of A New World Novel: Translating The Olfactory Language Of Faulkner And García Márquez, Terri Smith Ruckel Jan 2006

The Scent Of A New World Novel: Translating The Olfactory Language Of Faulkner And García Márquez, Terri Smith Ruckel

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Both William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez introduce the olfactory as a focal element in their writing, producing works that challenge the singular primacy of sight as the unrivaled means by which the New World might be understood. As they translate experiences of the New World into language, both writers record the power of olfactory perception to reflect memory and history, to shape identity, to mark unmistakably certain crisis moments of ethical action, and to delineate a form of knowledge crucial to their New World poetics of the novel. Observing and analyzing the olfactory language particular to the cultural spaces …


Interior Revolutions: Doing Domesticity, Advocating Feminism In Contemporary American Fiction, Kalene Westmoreland Jan 2006

Interior Revolutions: Doing Domesticity, Advocating Feminism In Contemporary American Fiction, Kalene Westmoreland

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Domesticity has endured as a facet of everyday life in the late twentieth century and beyond, despite cultural acceptance of feminist beliefs and ideals which encourage women’s movement away from the private sphere of the home. A tumultuous and remarkable cultural transformation has marked the four decades since the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a key text of early second-wave feminism. Equality and choice seem viable and attainable, yet many women today feel overwhelmed by responsibilities and the pressure to live up to the idealization of motherhood. Domesticity can be used as a tool of oppression, against which …


Using The Rod: Education, Punishment, And The New Woman In Fin De Siã¨Cle British Literature, Kristin C. Ross Jan 2006

Using The Rod: Education, Punishment, And The New Woman In Fin De Siã¨Cle British Literature, Kristin C. Ross

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between female education and punishment in the British novel of the fin de siécle. It considers the “New Woman” (the emancipated, intellectualized, and unmarried prototypical feminist appearing in late nineteenth-century culture) in light of how female education affects fictional characterizations of her. Female education in the “New Woman” and her fictional counterparts worked to destabilize class and gender hierarchies for Victorian Society, producing anxiety in its culture and texts. To defuse this anxiety, authors frequently demonstrated the consequences of espousing the feminism driving the “New Woman” and the education producing her. The education she desired/received …


Painful Discourses: Borders, Regions, And Representations Of Female Circumcision From Africa To America, Tameka Latrece Cage Jan 2006

Painful Discourses: Borders, Regions, And Representations Of Female Circumcision From Africa To America, Tameka Latrece Cage

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project considers issues of representation and how literature, personal testimony, popular culture, and African film script a narrative of change and/or participate in change in the female circumcision debate. Texts that currently shape the female circumcision debate are increasingly focused on viable methods of social change and couch issues of change in dynamics of discourse and representation, including Obioma Nnaemeka’s Female Circumcision and the Politics of Knowledge: African Women in Imperialist Discourses, Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf’s Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives, and Oyèrónké Oyewùmi’s African Women and Feminism: Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood, all of which I cite in the …


Roving 'Twixt Land And Sea: Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, And The Maritime World-System', James W. Long Jan 2006

Roving 'Twixt Land And Sea: Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, And The Maritime World-System', James W. Long

LSU Master's Theses

Although Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad are generally regarded as sea writers, both wrote numerous works concerned primarily with events on land. But critical approaches to both writers display a tendency to prioritize one set of environments. A result of such approaches is to overlook the manner in which Melville and Conrad explore the relationship between land and sea. This paper argues that one way to analyze how both writers examine that relationship is by locating it within the space of the modern world-system. Immanuel Wallerstein defines the modern world-system as the capitalist world-economy that qualifies as the only historical …


Separation Anxieties: Representations Of Separatist Communities In Late Twentieth Century Fiction And Film, Brett Alan Riley Jan 2006

Separation Anxieties: Representations Of Separatist Communities In Late Twentieth Century Fiction And Film, Brett Alan Riley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the late 20th century and beyond, American social movements advocating equality have increased national attention to issues of exclusion, inclusion, and multiculturalism within communities. As a result, studying the nature of communities—how the term "community" might be defined, who belongs to a given group or social structure, who does not belong, and why—has become increasingly important. American artists have responded by exploring these sites of social, political, and personal change in their works. Separation Anxieties: Representations of Separatist Communities in Late Twentieth Century Fiction and Film analyzes seven fictional works in which some group is philosophically and/or geographically isolated—sometimes …