American Studies Commons^™

Witch Hazel Advent, The Story Of An Ozark Poet, Sarah Moore Chyrchel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this Master's thesis project was to document the life of my maternal step-grandfather, John Ross Rule, in a visually compelling manner. Using equipment provided by the Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas, I shot and edited a half hour long documentary film comprised of interviews and footage of John at his home near Winslow, Arkansas. John is a talented poet, and segments of his poetry are woven throughout the film.

The inspiration for this project is deeply rooted in place: the remote farmstead in the Boston Mountains of northwestern Arkansas that my grandparents called …

The Children Of Cain: Melville's Use Of The Abject Lineage From The Bible, Joseph Matthew Meyer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at how the abject lineage--consisting of Cain, Ishmael and Esau--has played an influential role in the works of Herman Melville. While many critics have exploredthe relationship between Melville and these characters in the past, my study proposes that the author was intimately aware of the differences between these characters and their relationship to God and used these differences to compose his works. Ultimately, Melville struggled with the need for an abject lineage, and this struggle manifests itself most prominently in the evolving silence of Christ from Mardi to "Bartleby."

Happily Ever After? Redefining Womanhood And Marriage In Nineteenth-Century Novels, Laura Elizabeth Cox

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, and Henry James challenged patriarchal conventions and assumptions by redefining womanhood and marriage in their novels, particularly by breaking from the traditional marriage ending. While Pride and Prejudice, North and South, and Jane Eyre end in marriage, these novels depict a freely chosen companionate marriage based on equality; Villette replaces the typical marriage ending with complete independence; and Washington Square and The Portrait of a Lady both portray the decisive rejection of the marriage ideal for a life of renunciation. This thesis analyzes the ways in which these novels challenge nineteenth-century society, as well …

Happily Ever After Take Two: Rewriting Femininity In Hybridization Fairy Tale Films, Megan Estelle Troutman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The tradition of fairy tales has evolved drastically over the past five hundred years. At the beginning of the 20th century, fairy tale cartoons became widely popular as an independent medium, as well as introductions to larger films. In 1937, Walt Disney started the tradition of fairy tale cinema with the release of Snow White. Since that time, Disney has released and re-released eleven princess fairy tale films. Critics and parents alike ridicule Disney for its depictions of women as submissive and subservient. Recent films have used fairy tale tropes, without referring to a specific classic tale, in order to …

Projecting The Passion: The Invention Of The 'Judeo-Christian Tradition' In The Roman/Biblical Genre Of Postwar American Film, Don Michael Burrows

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

This paper traces the changes in the American view of the relationship between Jews and Christians from the First World War to the present as reflected in motion pictures from the earliest of the biblical epics to Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ. It demonstrates that the "Judea-Christian tradition " as it has developed since the Second World War is a political theme that functioned first as anti-fascist propaganda and then as anticommunist propaganda that portrayed Jews and Christians as good and free in contrast to Nazis and communists; and it shows what an effective medium the movies were in …

Winter And Springtime: The Passing Of A Literary Generation In 1901, Kenneth R. Walker

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.