American Studies Commons^™

Heroism And Indeterminacy In Oliver Stone's Jfk And Don Delillo's Libra, Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

“That New Africa Is Ready To Fight Its Own Battles": Kwame Nkrumah, The United States, And The Quest For A Modern Ghana, 1957-1966, Godwin Gyimah

Masters Theses

This project examines the United States-Ghana relationship and how the relationship transformed Ghana, 1957-1966. African leaders such as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had declared: "That new Africa is ready to fight its own battles and show that after all, the black man is capable of managing his affairs." Despite the non-alignment philosophy, Ghana was not neutral regarding the West and East blocs rivalry. The thesis argues that it was through the United States' government and private firms' contributions that Ghana was able to achieve the mark of a modern nation through industrialization, universal education, and the expansion of international trade economy. …

"There Is Nothing Else Like It": The Innovative Personality Of Lowney Turner Handy, Nathan Crews

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Josef Benson's Review Of White Male Nostalgia

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

A review by Joseph Benson in Modern Fiction Studies of Tim Engles' book White Male Nostalgia in Contemporary North American Literature.

One Way: Miles To Go, Jamie Lynn Golladay

Masters Theses

This creative thesis is a memoir dedicated to a close examination of a childhood taking place in a meth ridden midwestern town, under the supervision of meth addicted parents. Using both prose and poetry to explore small excerpts of memory in a sequential vignette form, this memoir follows the author through early adolescents to middle school, tackling issues such as addiction in the home, prostitution, homelessness, and incarceration as well as more domestic points of interest like sibling bonds, childhood roleplay, and parent/child relationships.

At its core, this narrative looks at the home and the family from the perspective of …

Workers, Athletes And Artists: The Historical Continuity Of White Control Of Black America, Courtney Walton

Masters Theses

From the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century, black Americans have been subject to different forms of control. This subjection of blacks to societal demands arose in part because black people are viewed as inferior to white people. Because of this misconstrued perception, black people are forced to present an acceptable level of blackness to prevent punishment. Richard Wright's "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch" (1938), Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928), and Langston Hughes's "The Negro Artist and Racial Mountain" (1926) detail their lives at the tum of the …

The Anorexic's Anorexia: Depictions Of Anorexia In Popular Culture, Samantha L. Tomson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Introducing The Hero Of Stasis: An Examination Of Heroism In David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest And The Pale King, Gregory Robert Peterson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Long Strange Trip Through The Evolution Of Fan Production, Fan-Branding, And Historical Representation In The Grateful Dead Online Archive, Anna Richardson

Masters Theses

This study explores how a digital music archive tells the story and contributes to the public memory of cult bands. Utilizing the Grateful Dead Archive Online (GDAO) as the primary data source, the researcher obtained a population of 26,835 items and categorized them by the production method of fan or band, item type, era, and logo. Content analysis illustrated themes within the archive in relation to the fannish production and activity within the fandom of the Grateful Dead. The span of this specific fandom spreads across five decades and sheds light onto the ways in which the fandom surrounding cult …

Deceiving, Fraudulent, And Seductive: The Discourses Of Money In Us Novels Of The Early Republic, Fabian Rempfer

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the importance of money and the representations of its various physical manifestations (such as coin, paper money) in American fiction of the 1790s. My project traces the transition from the colonies' financial dependency on Britain to their independency, relating to the monetary union created after the passage of the constitution. I argue that this shift from financial dependency to independency influences books such as Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson, Kelroy by Rebecca Rush, Ormond or the Secret Witness and Arthur Mervyn by Charles Brockden Brown. My project highlights, on the one hand, the importance of such …

Female Anti-Heroes In Contemporary Literature, Film, And Television, Sara A. Amato

Masters Theses

The anti-hero character has steadily become more popular in contemporary literature, film, and television. Part of this popularity is due to the character's appeal to the audience. This character type often commits acts that challenge the regulations of society. These acts, however, can become wish fulfillment for some audience members, making the acts of the character a vicarious experience as well as making the character more relatable because of the character's flawed nature.

This study will trace some of the evolution of the female anti-hero by discussing an ancestral character of the female anti-hero—Hester Prynne the protagonist of Nathanial Hawthorne's …

Cartoon Politics, Ellen Corrigan

Faculty & Staff Research & Creative Activity

Supporting exhibit for Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War, Booth Library, September 4-October 16, 2015. Draft version with thumbnail images.

Yeah You Write: Authenticity And Authority In Katrina Literature, Terri Coleman

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Shadow Of The Hyperobject In Thomas Pynchon's V. And Gravity's Rainbow, Trevor Martinson

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Lyric And The Lathe: Dreams Of Perfect Poetic Efficiency, 1800-1917, Steven A. Nathaniel

Masters Theses

This study examines patterns of efficiency in the poetry and theory of William Wordsworth, Hilda Doolittle, and other figures from the Modernist and Romantic periods. I begin by defining perfect efficiency as occurring when energy transforms, without loss, inside a closed energy system, and I offer perpetual motion machines as hypothetical examples of this impossible state. I then demonstrate the process of efficiency in William Wordsworth's poetry, which begins with circumlocutory poetic cycles but contracts into terse repetitions. Since technical efficiency is calculated by the formula output/input, poetry's subjectivity makes poetic efficiency difficult to measure. However, I suggest that repetitions …

Mental Illness In Early American Fiction: Charles Brockden Brown And The Sentimental Novelists, Katie E. Walk

Masters Theses

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the development of the United States of America as a new nation. This development brought with it new ideologies and social and political change; included in these changes was the way that sexual conduct outside of marriage was dealt with. Because the emerging legal system became less concerned with matters of morality, some people became frightened that sexual promiscuity would become rampant. The sentimental novel or seduction tale became a means of attempting to control sexual behavior when the law was not able to step in.

The way that madness, a term …

Where Have All The Good Men Gone? A Psychoanalytic Reading Of The Absent Fathers & Bad Dads On Abc's Lost, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Fictional fathers in narratives are often allegorical in nature and contemporary television is not immune from this. ABC’s groundbreaking television drama, Lost, offers a multitude of father figures that suggests not only a crisis concerning the role of the father in the 21st century but also the crisis of national security experienced by Americans after the attacks. In particular, the program showcases three specific types of troubled father/child relationships: those in which the father is absent and/or dead, those where the father is portrayed as abusive and/or evil, and those where the father and child are estranged and/or their relationship …

Where Have All The Good Men Gone? A Psychoanalytic Reading Of The Absent Fathers & Bad Dads On Abc's Lost, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Fictional fathers in narratives are often allegorical in nature and contemporary television is not immune from this. ABC’s groundbreaking television drama, Lost, offers a multitude of father figures that suggests not only a crisis concerning the role of the father in the 21st century but also the crisis of national security experienced by Americans after the attacks. In particular, the program showcases three specific types of troubled father/child relationships: those in which the father is absent and/or dead, those where the father is portrayed as abusive and/or evil, and those where the father and child are estranged and/or their relationship …

Bodies Of Debt: Interrogating The Costs Of Technological Progress, Scientific Advancement, And Social Conquests Through Dystopian Literature, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

This essay discusses the successes and challenges of teaching a particular cross-curricular course that focused on controversial issues appearing in scientific research and dystopian literature. The course studied narratives that wrestle with ethical concerns surrounding “progress” (societal achievements, technological advancement, scientific discoveries, and so forth). Contemporary debates and specific issues addressed throughout this course included cloning, stem cell research, black market organ transplants, human trafficking, surveillance technology, euthanasia, and capital punishment. In alignment with research concerning best practices in teaching social responsibility topics, this course was centered on a set of inquiry questions that stretched across all units, texts, and …

Wallpaper Mania, Ellen Corrigan

Faculty & Staff Research & Creative Activity

Text panels from "Wallpaper Mania," a local exhibit in support of the Booth Library installation of the National Library of Medicine traveling exhibition The Literature of Prescription: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Yellow Wall-Paper," on display September 23-November 2, 2013.

Speaking Silence Fluently: Encouraging Student Understanding Of Counterhegemonic Strategies In African American Literature, Kathleen S. Decker

Masters Theses

This thesis suggests that while mainstream multicultural education claims to promote both diversity and equality, it fails to adequately address, let alone improve, the living conditions of minority students. It further suggests that when teachers help students read through the lenses of critical multiculturalism and critical whiteness studies, students can better see that both canonical and non-canonical African American authors deliberately employ nuanced strategies to resist white supremacy. Specifically through the use of purposeful and discreet silences, these authors serve to promote new and actively counterhegemonic ways of thinking in the classroom.

Each chapter pairs two texts--one canonical and one …

Imprisonment, Punishment, And Progress In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Ashley Breanne Waggoner

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Narcissistic Intertextuality In The Works Of Bret Easton Ellis, Jennifer Grindstaff

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the works of Bret Easton Ellis, specifically his three latest novels: Glamorama, Lunar Park, and Imperial Bedrooms, and identifies the metafictional and intertextual elements in these texts. For my purposes, I am defining metafiction as fiction that draws attention to itself and makes the reader aware that he or she is reading fiction. Intertextual will be defined as elements in the novels that appear in other works of fiction. In the case of Ellis, he is drawing upon and reusing elements from his own fiction. These elements include characters that reappear in novels other than the text …

Time In Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality In 21st Century Programming, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

This collection analyzes twenty-first-century American television programs that rely upon temporal and narrative experimentation. These shows play with time, slowing it down to unfold the narrative through time retardation and compression. They disrupt the chronological flow of time itself, using flashbacks and insisting that viewers be able to situate themselves in both the present and the past narrative threads. Although temporal play has existed on the small screen prior to the new millennium, never before has narrative time been so freely adapted in mainstream television. The essayists offer explanations for not only the frequency of time play in contemporary programming, …

Athenaïse, Calixta, And Creole Constraints: An In Depth Look At Chopin's Portrayal Of Women, Nicole Reichert

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Infinite Intrusions: Solipsism And David Foster Wallace's Authorial Objectivity, Jacob Daniel Smith

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Gatsby And Jazz: One Coin, Two Sides, Sally Van Der Graaff

2011 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Toni Morrison's JAZZ both tell the story of the American 1920s, but from opposite points of view. Fitzgerald and Morrison offer two compelling narratives of the societal shift that took place in post-World War 1-era America, but although the accounts share the same general topic and historical era, it is otherwise difficult to reconcile the two American portraits that have been painted. It is as though the two authors are giving a description of the same coin, but one describes the front and the other describes the back. To the white population this …

Misogyny And The Money, Leah Stevenson

2011 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

View Ms. Stevenson's Painting.

In the late 90's hip-hop started as a form of encouragement and empowerment for black people who struggled when growing up. Hip Hop gave black people a voice, where their opinions and challenges could be heard throughout the world. Today the genre of Hip-hop music has developed into a negative image that degrades women and negatively influences the younger black community. Think about some of the hip-hop music at the top of the charts; the songs that disrespect woman, and contains far too much explicit content that it has society desensitized. The pervasiveness of today' …

When Predator Becomes Prey: The Gendered Jargon Of Popular Culture, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century the vernacular of popular culture has been bombarded by sexualized terminology. Although these terms are often formed with humorous intent, their staying power and use as cultural descriptive categories is both intriguing and disturbing. Also troubling is the fact that the majority of these new terms, such as puma (a thirty-something female “dating” a younger male), cougar (a forty-plus female “dating” a younger male), and MILF (“mother I’d like to fuck”), are restricted to the female gender alone. This article analyzes the etymology of these terms, their use in popular culture (ranging …