Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lessons In Humanity: A Memoir, Chelsi Joy Sutton-Linderman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the opening pages of his work, Dog Years; A Memoir, Mark Doty explains: Love for a wordless creature, once it takes hold, is an enchantment, and the enchanted speak, famously, in private mutterings, cryptic riddles, or gibberish. This is why I shouldn't be writing anything about the two dogs that have been such presences for sixteen years of my life. How on earth could I stand at the requisite distance to say anything that might matter? (1)

In this thesis I argue that Doty, among other respected contemporary writers, is saying something that matters when he writes of …

A Transnational Study: Young Adult Literature Exchanged Between The Us And Germany, Kristana Miskin

Theses and Dissertations

Both young adult literature and transnational literature occupy transitional spaces and defy simple classifications. Their commonalities naturally suit the two sets of literature for concurrent study. However, the field is underdeveloped, particularly in the United States. With a concentration on the exchanges taking place between the U.S. and Germany, this thesis addresses the need to assemble primary materials and pertinent critical commentary into a single place available to educators, scholars, and researchers to acquire background on transnational YAL themes. The thesis delineates methods used in conducting and compiling research on U.S.-German YAL exchange and highlights the translation and publication concerns …

Into The Imagined Forest: A 2000-Year Retrospective Of The German Woods, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

In a "House of Learning" lecture in the Harold B. Lee Library in October, 2008, Richard Hacken gave this presentation, a combination of text and images. Coming from the history of ideas, this retrospective of the German woods looked at historical, linguistic, artistic, philosophical, political, literary, cultural, and of course botanical aspects of the German forest. In summary, five major forest themes arise from Germans imagining their own German woods: (1) taming the external and internal wilderness; (2) establishing social justice; (3) advocating national unity; (4) maintaining a sense of the sacred; and (5) encouraging ecological awareness.

Vol. Xlv, No. 4: Scientists And Searchers: The Fiction Of Sylvia Engdahl, Nicholas Birns

The Hollins Critic

No abstract provided.

Script To Screen: "Wicked Like The Chaff", Robert J. Deignan

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

No abstract provided.

Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005 [Review], David P. Rando

English Faculty Research

Like Stranger Shores (2000), Inner Workings collects J. M. Coetzee’s recent literary essays, many of which first appeared in The New York Review of Books or as introductions. Bound together, they accrue a taste and texture that readers might not have suspected if they encountered these essays in their original publications. Coetzee engages a compelling cluster of twentieth-century writers, including, among others, Italo Svevo, Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan, W. G. Sebald, Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Nadine Gordimer, Gabriel García Márquez, V. S. Naipaul, and, likely of special interest to this journal’s readers, Philip Roth. Walt Whitman is the lonely denizen …

A Bridge To The Eifel: Clara Viebig And Her Literary Style, Nathan Bates

Student Works

Clara Viebig was a woman author in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, transitioning into the twentieth century. Viebig was born in Trier at the southern end of a region in western Germany known as the Eifel. Her works often utilized the landscape and countryside of this area, which has given them a unique dynamic. Although Viebig's technique has been examined in light of various literary styles, including naturalism (Krauss-Theim), neo-romanticism (Fleisscher), and Heimatkunst (Ecker), it has never been examined for its own unique merit. I believe that landscape plays a particularly profound role in shaping and influencing …

Nineteenth-Century Theatrical Adaptations Of Nineteenth-Century Literature, Kathryn Hartvigsen

Theses and Dissertations

The theatre in the nineteenth century was a source of entertainment similar in popularity to today's film culture, but critics, of both that age and today, often look down on nineteenth-century theatre as lacking in aesthetic merit. Just as many of the films now being produced in Hollywood are adapted from popular or classic literature, many theatrical productions in the early 1800s were based on popular literary works, and it is in that practice of adaptation that value in nineteenth-century theatre can be discerned. The abundance of theatrical adaptations during the nineteenth century expanded the arena in which the public …

A True War Story: Reality And Simulation In The American Literature And Film Of The Vietnam War, Alexis Turley Middleton

Theses and Dissertations

The Vietnam War has become an important symbol and signifier in contemporary American culture and politics. The word "Vietnam" contains many meanings and narratives, including both the real events of the American War in Vietnam and the fictional representations of that war. Because we live in a reality that is composed of both lived experience and simulacra, defined by Baudrillard as a hyperreality, fiction and simulation are capable of representing particular realities. Vietnam was shaped by simulacra of Vietnam itself as well as simulacra of previous American conflicts, especially World War II; however, the hyperreality of Vietnam differed largely from …

Vol. Xlv, No. 3: The Life Of A Poet: John Engels, For Example, David Huddle

The Hollins Critic

No abstract provided.

World Voice: Invisible Lines & Mindfulness And Peaceful Living, Joseph A. Santiago

Senior Honors Projects

All my life I have always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. As I come to the last stretch of my bachelor’s degree I can look back on all the moments in school and in the workplace where my path was elusive and I longed for expression. In creating these two books I have shaped a platform where people across the globe can come together and share their voice. There are times when we all feel that no one is listening to us, and no one understands us. Over the last few months I have talked with people …

The Act Of Writing A Children's Book, Alexandra Mancini

Senior Honors Projects

Literacy is one of the most important aspects of teaching and education for young children and old in the US and across the world. There have been numerous studies indicating the profound impact that reading has, not only in academia but also in the workforce later on in life. The earlier children are exposed to literacy topics, the better success they demonstrate in the future. It is for these reasons that I selected a topic concerning literacy. The purpose of my project was multifaceted. I had purposes for young children ages 3-5. The essence of my project was to write …

Midnight Dawning: A Reconciliation, Astrid Drew

Senior Honors Projects

Within the past several years, best-seller lists have witnessed a growth in popularity of memoirs or creative non-fiction writing. Being an avid bookstore wanderer, I noticed this influx and wondered about the reasons behind it. What is so appealing about this genre to readers, and why do people write these kinds of books? What sort of mental processes within the author’s mind are expressed on the page, and how do those processes reflect or interact with the reader? Is it all merely cathartic writing/reading? Or is it a mode of solidifying one’s identity and place in the world, both for …

Diagnosing David Foster Wallace, Amanda Redinger

Senior Honors Projects

David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest is usually touted by its fans as being a postpostmodern opus of unparalleled genius; this reaction is inconvenient for me insomuch as I don’t actually agree. More specifically, I have difficulty with the way Infinite Jest’s thematic content is framed by the techniques used to express it, despite the fact that Wallace’s verbal acrobatics are the stuff of legend. This paper argues that the style in which Infinite Jest is written consistently undermines the thematic considerations being simultaneously addressed, creating a dissonance that interferes with the reader’s ability to engage the novel on the …

Poetry And Ritual: The Physical Expression Of Homoerotic Imagery In Sama, Zachary Holladay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sufi poetry of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258 CE/132-655 AH) exhibited a particular penchant for highlighting the relationship between humankind and God with homoerotic language. While the homoerotic nature of Sufi poetry has received considerable scholarly attention, the ritual expression of such literature has not. The ritual of sama was a practice that occurred in the Sufi institutions and incorporated various elements of the poetry examined. By listening to the poetry, in the form of song and often with accompanying instrumentation, the mystics would experience transient moments of altered state experiences, usually interpreted as moments of union with God.

This thesis …

Using Stanley Cavell, Michael Fischer

English Faculty Research

Stanley Cavell often speaks of inheriting and carrying on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other writers. These writers help him move on in his own thinking, turning him around when he feels lost, provoking him when he gets discouraged or stuck. His indebtedness to J. L. Austin in the acknowledgements to Must We Mean What We Say? (1969) captures one way he benefits from all the writers who have influenced him: “To the late J. L. Austin I owe, beyond what I hope is plain in my work, whatever is owed the teacher …

Vol. Xlv, No. 2: "That Was Czgowchwz, Her Story, History:" The Fictions Of James Mccourt, David Rollow

The Hollins Critic

No abstract provided.

Joyce's Kaleidoscope: An Invitation To "Finnegans Wake" [Review], David P. Rando

English Faculty Research

Books about Finnegans Wake announce their forms with unusual regularity: skeleton keys, plot summaries, reader’s guides, first-draft versions, lexicons, gazetteers, censuses, genetic guides, annotations, and more. Every form offers a particular route through the Wake, and we hope our collective efforts add up to a cartography of possibilities. But until now we have never been issued an “invitation” to the Wake. Many readers of this journal will realize that they must have invited themselves uncouthly to the Wake long ago, and some will imagine that it is too late for invitations when one has already been at the party …

The Female Body In Margaret Atwood’S The Edible Woman And Lady Oracle, Sofia Sanchez-Grant

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay examines scholarly discourses about embodiment, and their increasing scholarly currency, in relation to two novels by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Like many of Atwood’s other works, The Edible Woman (1969) and Lady Oracle (1976) are explicitly concerned with the complexities of body image. More specifically, however, these novels usefully exemplify her attempt to demystify the female form. In the following pages, I investigate Atwood’s treatment of the mind/body dualism and analyse the ways in which she responds to, and resists, its destructive effects. Using contemporary theory, moreover, I show how Atwood deals with the concept of female …

‘The Darkness Is The Closet In Which Your Lover Roosts Her Heart’: Lesbians, Desire And The Gothic Genre, Sarah Parker

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper discusses the use of the Gothic genre in two ‘lesbian’ novels: Nightwood by Djuna Barnes (1936) and Affinity by Sarah Waters (1999). The Gothic, I argue, is employed and manipulated in order to counter the repressive effects of ‘lesbian panic’, evident in much women’s fiction (an idea posited by Patricia Smith in Lesbian Panic, 1997).

I begin by constructing a framework for my argument from the disparate yet related scholarship of several theorists, including Terry Castle, Eve Sedgwick, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Gayle Rubin. My argument hinges on the claim that lesbianism threatens cultural order – based upon …

Vol. Xlv, No. 1: Milton Kessler: To Sing Was The Only Way Through, Liz Rosenberg

The Hollins Critic

No abstract provided.

Elizabeth Bishop And Her Women:Countering Loss, Love, And Language Through Bishop's Homosocial Continuum, Donna Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Elizabeth Bishop's seemingly understated and yet nuanced poetry with a specific focus on loss, love, and language through domesticity to create a poetic home. In this sense, home offers security for a displaced orphan and lesbian, moving from filial to amorous love, as well as the literary home for a poet who struggled for critical recognition. Further, juxtaposing the familiar with the strange, Bishop situates her speaker in a construction of artificial and natural boundaries that break down across her topography and represent loss through the multiple female figures that permeate her poems to convey the uncertainty …

Words & Images 2008, University Of Southern Maine

Words and Images

Words & Images is an annual arts and literature publication distributed by the University of Southern Maine.

Publishing Director: Ryan Gato

Assistant Publishing Director: Grace Mueller

Managing Editor: Benjamin Rybeck

Parnassus 2008

Parnassus

The 2008 edition of the student literary journal, Parnassus, published by Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.

Literary Retrospection In The Harlem Renaissance, Claudia Stokes

English Faculty Research

In 1925, book collector and Harlem Renaissance patron Arthur A. Schomburg began the essay "The Negro Digs Up His Past," published in Alain Locke's landmark anthology The New Negro (1925), by proclaiming that the "American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future. ... So among the rising democratic millions we find the Negro thinking more collectively, more retrospectively than the rest, and opt out of the very pressure of the present to become the most enthusiastic antiquarian of them all" (231). These words might be surprising to the beginning student of the Harlem Renaissance, seduced by …

B 7th, Ken Autrey

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 6

Scene In Dan Xue, Taiwan, 1981, Allen Jih

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 23

The Cardboard Shirt, Elisabeth Murawski

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 31

Teeth, Carolyn Elkins

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 11

To Have You Back, Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 24