American Studies Commons^™

Appalachia In The Anthropocene: An Approach To Understanding Neo Appalachian Narratives As An Affective Ecology, Rachel Michel Bates

English Theses & Dissertations

Appalachia is all too often a commodified and mythologized place in the American consciousness. Yet the lived experience of Appalachia is one complicated by widescale ecological devastation, high poverty rates, and most recently, a devastating opioid crisis. Though much of Appalachian literature continues to dwell in an old vision of Appalachia, an endeavor Zackary Vernon terms post-Appalachian, I argue that a subset of texts published around the turn of the millennium, a time when many of the labor-dependent, exploitative industries such as logging, hydro damming, and coal mining were no longer at work in the region, reveal a shift in …

Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link To Black Women's (Mis)Treatment In Real Life And On The Page, Madisty R. Thomas

English Theses & Dissertations

As a work in progress, this thesis explores the interplay between historical and contemporary devaluation of and violence against Black women, materially and discursively, including visual mediums and written text. Specifically, I focus on the gothic novel to illuminate the impact race-based inventions such as chattel slavery and human exhibitions, as well as the generic tropes of the Gothic, have had on Black women’s representation and lived experience via a wide-ranging introduction and close examination of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. Additionally, the conclusion attempts to suggest how Black women and girls might survive in this antiblack world, thus escape …

Seeking Sabbath In Annie Dillard's Holy The Firm, Olivia Grace Dycus

English Theses & Dissertations

Annie Dillard’s third-ever publication, Holy the Firm, asks why an omniscient God allows natural evil to occur. In this deeply poetic and mystical series of essays, Dillard explores the relationship between time, artistry, and God in the face of devastating chaos. This thesis argues that Dillard’s emphasis on the importance of time reflects a Jewish notion of Sabbath as defined by Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel. Dillard offers time and creation as medium through which to commune with God just as Heschel does in his book, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man. Heschel defines Sabbath as the coming …

Book Review: How To Be An Antiracist By Ibram X. Kendi, Shuntay Tarver

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Terrorists, Zombies, And Robots: The Political Unconscious, Thematics, And Affectual Structures Of The Post-9/11 American Fear Narrative, Nathanael J. Cloyd

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the post-9/11 American fear narrative across media and genre. First, it proposes the concepts of the fear narrative, the primary fear theme, and the secondary fear theme. Second, it proposes that the fear narrative has a long tradition in American culture, in which its themes have adapted and evolved in historically sedimented layers of development. Third, it proposes that American fear themes change depending on its historical context of production, its cultural regime, its genre, and the form of media in which it is expressed. To help uncover the political unconsciousness of the American fear narrative, it …

Park Blues Langston Hughes, Racial Exclusion, And The Park Ballad, Margaret Konkol

English Faculty Publications

This chapter draws attention to the lack of parks and nature recreation amenities during the 1920s and 1930s in predominantly African American city neighborhoods through Langston Hughes’s political poetry, specifically his blues-inflected ballad “Park Bench,” as well as “Chicago’s Black Belt” “Restrictive Covenants,” and “One Way Ticket.” Through the figure of the tramp/vagrant/bum, “Park Bench” voices a protest against inequality mapped into city space. Asserting that access to nature should be a fundamental condition of a democratic society, the poem situates the park bench as a charged site for public dialogue. The chapter argues that this poem and other Hughes …

Of Sonnets And Archives: Robert Graves, Laura Riding, And The Erasure Of Modern Poetry, Margaret Konkol

English Faculty Publications

In the nearly eighty years since Laura Riding and Robert Graves ceased their collaborative endeavors there has been much speculation as to the nature and extent of their literary partnership. Graves retold the past to his biographers, constructing Laura Riding as a queen yogi figure wielding an almost sinister influence. In response to these accusations Riding returned fire with volley after volley of “corrective” letters which she sent to Graves’s biographers as well as any magazine or student that she found to be sympathizing with Grave’s account of the creative partnership. At the time of her death in 1991, Riding …

Nobody Here Does Anything For Nothing: Reciprocity And Gender In The Wings Of The Dove, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The article discusses the work of author Henry James in his novel "The Wings of the Dove." It discusses the comment of aristocrat Lord Mark on heroine of the novel Milly Theale who summarizes the central themes of the story, social exchange. It informs that social exchange is a perspective that motivates people that maximize benefits and minimize costs in their relationships with others.

Woman At The Top: Rhetoric, Politics, And Feminism In The Texts And Life Of Annie Smith Peck, Hannah Scialdone-Kimberly

English Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this focuses on the autobiographical rhetoric and public identity of Annie Smith Peck, a scholar, mountain climber and woman rhetor from the turn of the century. My qualitative case study of Peck examines how she worked as a woman rhetor to create a popular identity for herself in both mountain climbing and scholarship. I also focus on how Peck worked to identify herself with her audience; here, I use Burke's concept of "identification," as a way of adding to (rather than substituting for) traditional rhetoric. My project brings new findings in that I examine data on Peck …

The Golems Take New York: The Resurgence Of The Golem In The Work Of Cynthia Ozick And Thane Rosenbaum, Peter Schulman

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have seen a resurgence of the golem in several major American novels. What factors might lead to such a re-imagining of the golem in American fiction? Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers (1997) and Thane Rosenbaum's The Golems of Gotham (2002) re-invent golems no longer anchored in vengeance but in healing, as vehicles for the kabbalistic notion of Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world"). Ozick creates the first female golem to help the lonely protagonist become a reformist mayor; in The Golems of Gotham, the golem is transformed into a team of literary …

Choosing My Best Thing: Black Motherhood And Academia, Kaavonia Hinton-Johnson

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Scholars argue that White feminist theoretical undertakings concerning mothering are not appropriate for studying Black mothers because they rarely take race and culture into consideration (Collins, 1991; Joseph, 1991). Collins (1994) argues that the experiences of Black mothers are paramount to any inclusive discussion about mother/child relationships. Scholars who have turned their attention to the Black mother often do so via literary works and/or criticism (see, for example, Crews, 1996; Morrison, 1987; Wade-Gayles, 1984; Washington, 1990; Williams, 1986) or in reality (Collins, 1991, 1994; Roberts, 1997a). However, a computerized search for studies on the Black mother produces literature …

Waiting To Exhale, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The Story: Savannah Jackson’s sister Sheila tells Savannah about a business owner named Lionel, and Lionel invites Savannah to attend a New Year’s Eve party. As Savannah gets ready to ring in 1990, she reflects on her annoyance with Sheila and their mother, who have suggested that Savannah is miserable because she does not have a husband and does not live closer to her family. She realizes she does not need a man to validate her but admits that, as she broke up with Kenneth Dawkins four years ago, she wants to be in love again

How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The Story: Stella Payne is an ambitious African American woman who holds masters degrees in fine arts and in business administration. A successful analyst for a large investment firm, she makes more than $200,000 per year and has an impressive portfolio. Despite her accomplishments, she no longer finds her career satisfying and feels her life is simply boring and predictable. Anxious to get a respite from single motherhood, she watches her eleven-year-old son, Quincy, board a plane to Colorado, where he will spend a few weeks with his father

Genre, Database, And The Anatomy Of The Digital Archive, Elizabeth J. Vincelette

English Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to define shared characteristics of literary digital archives, specifically to explore how conceptual and structural qualities of such archives express generic qualities. In order to describe digital media such as database or digital archives, scholars resort to metaphors, and this study offers the metaphor of anatomy as a generic inscription with historical and methodological implications. The definition of the anatomy genre draws from Northrop Frye's in Anatomy of Criticism, in which Frye describes how anatomies are characterized by proliferating lists, the mixing of prose and non-prose forms, and self-reflexivity--under the guise of knowledge …

Following Tradition: Young Adult Literature As Neo-Slave Narrative, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sati In Philadelphia: The Widow(S) Of Malabar, Jeffrey H. Richards

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña's "Tekno Poética" Web Verse, Lost And Found In A Webspora, Angélica Huízar

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

For an author who likes to cross borders Guillermo Gómez-Peña (1955) has certainly reached audiences in both the U.S. and Mexican artistic, literary, theoretical, and political arenas. Now, with the advent of more technological mediums such as the Internet, the borderless artist makes use of the global fetish that, in theory, reaches a global community. As a prelude to his performances, workshops, conferences and lectures, Gómez-Peña’s collaborative webiste engages his readers in video-poetic selections, and hypertext poetic medley with topics that are sure to catch their interest with poems such as "Apocalypse," "Sexo," "Militias," and the video-poems "Apocalypse" and "Califas." …

De La Mujer Invisible Al Feminismo Ineludible: Política Y Antropología En La Historiografía De La Mujer, Robert H. Holden

History Faculty Publications

La historiografía de la mujer, desde el comienzo de su etapa contemporánea en los años setenta del siglo pasado, es analizada en dos vertientes relacionadas: Una, su politización al servicio del movimiento social que aboga por la extensión de los derechos de la mujer y que dió luz a dicha historiografía; dos, el papel central que ha jugado la pregunta antropológica, ‘¿Qué es la mujer’?, y la variedad de respuestas que esta pregunta ha generado. El autor sostiene que tanto la intensa politización como el desarrollo de una antropología cada vez más materialista, como tendencias interdependientes, han llegado a caracterizar …

Holy Fools, Secular Saints, And Illiterate Saviors In American Literature And Popular Culture, Dana Heller

English Faculty Publications

In her article, "Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviors in American Literature and Popular Culture," Dana Heller identifies and analyzes characteristics of the holy fool figure in American literature and culture. Heller defines the holy fool, or divine idiot, as a figure central to U.S. myths of nation. One encounters such figures in American literature as well as in American folklore, popular culture, and mass media. In American culture, the Divine Idiot is a hybrid form which grows out of the crossings of numerous literary and historical currents, both secular and non-secular. This unwieldy hybridity -- the fact that …

Why Are Those Women So Angry? (Alienating People Of Good Will), Janet Bing

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Until quite recently, I dismissed criticisms of "angry feminists" as a sexist stereotype. I was tired of hearing people say, "I believe in equal pay for equal work, but I dislike those bra-burning feminists!" Perhaps I'm too young, but almost all of my friends are feminists, and I have yet to meet anyone who has burned her bra, so this comment always strikes me as bizarre. However, recently I have begun to think seriously about the power of stereotypes and the ability of people to disregard messages they do not want to hear. I now realize that feminists …

Gender Roles Presented In Children's Literature: A Random Selection And Analysis Of Non-Award Winning Books, Renae M. Poarch

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the gender role stereotyping that occurs in children's non-award winning literature. This vast selection of non-award winning books has been neglected by researchers when selecting a sample to study. Past research has concentrated on the Caldecott and Newbery Award Winning books, which are not the majority of those owned by public libraries, hence not the majority being read by young readers. The purpose of this study was not to provide a list of appropriate reading material for parents and educators to select from, but rather provide an awareness of the issues so …

Eldorado: The Poes In Norfolk, Myreen Moore Nicholson

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the best known Americans in the world, as a great poet, literary critic and essayist, and innovator of the analytic detective story. Yet he basically remains his own best mystery. Major cities have monuments to him. This creative work's object is to show that Norfolk, Virginia, was central in his life and art. In fact, the theatre company with which his actress mother, Eliza Arnold Poe (and her friends, the Sullys), was longest affiliated, was headquartered there. Edgar's sister Rosalie was born in a house on Brewer Street. Times and the circumstances of Poe …

Annie Wood: A Portrait, Jo Ann Mervis Hofheimer

Institute for the Humanities Theses

In 1871, Anna Cogswell Wood and Irene Kirke Leache founded a school for girls in Norfolk, Virginia which had a profound influence on the community. The Leache-Wood Seminary became Norfolk's center for cultural pursuits. After the death of Irene Leache in 1900, Annie Wood established a memorial to perpetuate her friend's interest in literature, music, art, drama, and spiritual studies. Wood began a number of cultural programs which grew to shape the cultural life of the town in remarkable ways, leading directly to the Virginia Symphony, the Norfolk Little Theater, the Irene Leache Memorial, the Norfolk Society of Arts, and …

The Inner Voice, Janis Ruth Bagnall Cochrane

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The scope of this project is two-fold. The key purpose is to demonstrate the relationship between the voice of Lee Smith, a Southern writer from Appalachia and the voice of the author, another Southern writer from the Outer Banks. The foremost conclusion that has been drawn is that a writer's voice comes from deep inside the writer's unconscious. It is a product of generations of experiences that have embedded themselves in the writer's psyche. Some of the assumptions and prejudices surrounding southern women are discussed to some degree.

The second purpose is for this writer to show her work. This …

A Literary Evaluation Of Black Female Interaction In Toni Morrison's "Beloved", "Sula," "Jazz", Carol Ann Davenport

English Theses & Dissertations

This Master's thesis consists of three chapters that examine the roles, circumstances and effects of racism and sexism on the black female characters in three of Toni Morrison's novels, Beloved, Sula and Jazz. I propose that the elements of racism and sexism have left the female characters, Sethe, Denver, Ella, etc. in Beloved with few choices in life. Further, I suggest that the theme of "choice versus no choice" perpetuates hatred and self-hatred among black women and results in "metaphoric scarring." I explore in the characters, Sula, Eva, Hannah, Nel, and the black Bottom women, the damage inflicted on black …

The Parties Quarrae, Michael E. Malone

Institute for the Humanities Theses

During Thomas Jefferson's educational days in Williamsburg, Virginia, he was fortunate to have the association with three learned men, William Small, George Wythe, and Lt. Governor Francis Fauquier. The men met often at the governor's palace during the years 1760-64. Jefferson referred to their association as the "parties quarrae."

Most historians agree that the time spent with Small, Wythe, and Fauquier had profound influence on the establishment of Jefferson's "enlightenment" philosophy. Little, however, is known about the details of the regular meetings in the palace.

The focus of this creative project is the fictional discovery of Jefferson's "lost" Autobiography, finished …

Marge Piercy's Small Changes: Welcome To The Sexual Revolution, Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

Marge Piercy's novel Small Changes is encyclopedic in its incredibly detailed, all-encompassing feminist analysis of female and male behavior in the late 60's and early 70's. The behavior of the younger generation is compared and contrasted with that of their parents. The overall impression given by the novel is that, despite the very different life-styles of the two generations, very little change has, in fact, occurred. At the end of the novel, sexism prevails and no significant threat to male control of the power structure has developed. From examination of the title, Piercy seems to place her emphasis not upon …