American Literature Commons^™

The Description Of The Characters In Herman Melville's White-Jacket, Or The World In A Man-Of-War, Toru Nishiura

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Many characters who have various personalities app ear in Herman Melville’s White-Jacket . However, few critics have comprehensively examined the action and the characteristics of them in detail. In this thesis, I explore Melville’s depiction of the battleship world in this novel by clarifying the narrator ’s standard to judge ot her characters. In White-Jacket, the whole story is narrated by White-Jacket; therefore, the characteristics of his narrative clarify the theme of this novel. I start with an analysis of his narrative and examine whether he is a reliable narrator or not. Then, I explore the relationship between the battleship …

Canary In The Dark, Andrea Fekete

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

I began researching Appalachian culture in 1998. I wanted to tell a story about conflict and beauty while revealing my vision of who my people were/are. I strived to create a fiction not unlike poetry with realistic and minimalist features to give Appalachia the most accurate face possible as perceived by me through my own lens.

I wanted to explore the idea of beauty: Virginia’s (the main character) ideas about her beauty, her culture and other cultures. What is beauty? Who defines it? Can it be found everywhere? How? What does it look like when it is somewhere you wouldn’t …

Behind The Bestsellers: Building The Formula For Success In Children's Literature, Zenja R. Quarles

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

.

The Night Gwen Stacy Died:' The End Of Innocence And The Birth Of The Bronze Age, Arnold T. Blumberg

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The time was 1973, and superheroes had some growing up to do.

The signs were already there as the genre eased into its fifth decade as the dominant force in American comic books. 1968 had seen the introduction of Robert Crumb's Zap Comics [1], an underground comic more concerned with counterculture trends and bucking the establishment than chronicling the exploits of spandex-wearing conservatives. The medium was testing its boundaries, finding flexibility where once there had been rigidity, and soon superheroes began to look like a timelost collection of crusaders who spoke to a generation long since past.

Imperialism & Globalization: Lessons From Frank Herbert's Dune, Kevin Williams

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

These are the words of The Preacher (a character in Frank Herbert's Children of Dune who is simultaneously the metaphorical reincarnation of the fallen prophet, Muad'Dib, and the self-exiled Emperor, Paul Atreides) as he addresses the masses enslaved by their devotion to his messianic Empire. These words, culled from the pages of science fiction, are more than mere exposition from Herbert's narrative, they point toward several important conditions facing the political world today. These conditions concern certain failures of democracy and effects of globalization spawned, in part, by an intensification of imperialist expansion in the name of democracy.

Bern Porter International: Volume 7 Number 2 (February 2003), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "Why I Wrong" by Joel Dailey and "Barn Full of Air" by Daniel Russell.

Bern Porter International: Volume 7 Number 1 (January 2003), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring poems by Anna Carroll and David Stone.

Hit The Ground Running: A Novella And Other Stories, Lisa Robinson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This creative thesis contains a collection of short stories divided into two parts. The first half, a novella entitled Clothes on a Line, consists of a series of linked vignettes that depict the life of a young, unnamed Appalachian girl and her relationship with her promiscuous mother. Throughout the work, the narrator struggles to create and come to terms with her identity as she experiences the adversities of sexual abuse, death, alcoholism, and the looming “secret” of her unknown father. The second half, Consumed and Other Stories, features several short pieces that, while not inter-related like those in …

Review Of Nine Horses, By Billy Collins, Arthur Mcmaster

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 19 (August 31, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "Conspiracy Theory" by Natasha Bernstein.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 18 (August 24, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "Dictatorship at Your Doorstep" by James R. Elwood and Jarret B. Wollstein and poetry by David Spiering.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 16 (August 10, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring poems by Cyril A. Dostal and found art by Hugo Pontes.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 15 (August 3, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 17 (August 17, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring poetry by David Napolin and "Who Cares?" by Bern Porter.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 14 (July 15, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

The Bulletin of the Scholars of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring:

Zippy the Pinhead cover art by Bill Griffith
An Illustrated Introduction to Ray Johnson 1927-1995 by Mark Bloch

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 13 (July 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring art by Sheila Holtz and poetry by Nguyen Ducmanh.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 12 (June 15, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "How Many Times Can the System Repeat Itself Before the Metaphysical Takes Over" by Gregory Famum and mail art by CA Conrad.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 11 (June 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring mail art by Gerry M. and "Days in the Early Eighties" by Bern Porter.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 9 (May 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring art by Bern Porter and poetry by Sheila Holtz.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 10 (May 15, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring mail art by Maureen Neville and collage by Sheila Holtz.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 7 (April 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "Quantum Tantra" by Nick Herbert and "Do Art" by Nguyen Ducmanh.

Mechanical Angel: Carolyn Forché And The Material Projection Of Messianic History, Alan Clinton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The work of Carolyn Forché has always retained a political edge, with works such as the exploration of her Czech background in Gathering the Tribes (1976) and her account of visits to El Salvador in The Country Between Us (1981). Forché has been one of the leading poets who, in her own words, has combatted the self-censorship operative among American poets and writers that seemed to preclude writing about...historical events when those events were still unsafe (qtd. in Stein 147). Her third book of poems The Angel of History (published 13 years later), however, represents a new turn …

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 6 (March 15, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring poetry by George Gott and "The Document" by Blair Ewing.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 4 (February 15, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "Global Economy: The Mark of the Beast?" by Sheila Holtz.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 5 (March 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring poetry by Joelle Francis and a Scholars report by Daniel A. Russell.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 3 (February 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "It's In Our Nature." by Daniel A. Russell and "All Girl Band" by Utahna Faith.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 2 (Jaunary 15, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring "The Heart Bleeds" by Bern Porter and collage by Carolyn Chute.

Bern Porter International: Volume 6 Number 1 (January 1, 2002), Bern Porter, Sheila Holtz, Natasha Bernstein

Newsletters

A Literary Newsletter and Bulletin of the Institute of Advanced Thinking

Featuring mail art by Carolyn Chute and "whatever happened in new york" by Lee Clark Zumpe.

[Introduction To] From Within The Frame: Storytelling In African-American Studies, Bertram D. Ashe

Bookshelf

The book explores the written representation of African-American oral storytelling from Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison to James Alan McPherson, Toni Cade Bambara and John Edgar Wideman. At its core, the book compares the relationship of the "frame tale" - an inside-the-text storyteller telling a tale to an inside-the-text listener - with the relationship between the outside-the-text writer and reader. The progression is from Chesnutt's 1899 frame texts, in which the black spoken voice is contained by a white narrator/listener, to Bambara's sixties-era example of a "frameless" spoken voice text, to Wideman's neo-frame text of the late …

This Man's Heart: Masculinity In The Poetry Of E.E. Cummings, Willis John Whitesell Iii

Masters Theses

"This Man's Heart: Masculinity in the Poetry of E.E. Cummings" explores changing masculinity in the life and poetry of E.E. Cummings. The relationship between Cummings and his father, his first male role model, became strained when Cummings was a teenager finding his own male identity. As he rebelled against his father, a Unitarian minister, he began writing poetry in a modernist style under the direction of a new mentor, Ezra Pound.

Cummings' early modernist poems criticize conventional male roles and configurations of masculinity as outdated. As Cummings continued to grow as a man and writer, he confronted new realities which …