American Literature Commons^™

Narrating Literary Transnationalism In Zake Smith And Dave Eggers, Nelson Shake

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This work argues for a greater reception of transnationalism in literary studies. Though the steady rise of transnationalism has already been studied in many areas of academia, literary studies has only begun to pay attention to it, and scholars appear to remain largely rooted in postcolonial or nationalistic thought. Refusing to read current texts through the lens of transnationalism hinders the literary academy's relevancy since creative writers today are addressing changes to the national structure in their fictive works. This study suggests why a new theoretical construct is needed to understand those texts, and it uses two representative examples: Zadie …

Word~River Literary Review (2013), Ross Talarico, Anne Stark, Susan Evans, Gary Pullman, Andrew Madigan, Christin Taylor, Jerome Melancon, Jennie Evenson, Judith Mansour, Mary Didomenico, Annie Lampman, Maureen Foster, M. V. Montgomery, Rowan Johnson, James Hanley, Michael K. Brantley, Brooks P. Rexroat, Deborah Stark, Rachel Rinehart Johnson, Joan Crooks, Jefferson Navicky, Ed Higgins, Mike Bezemek, Leatha Fields-Carey, Maria Winfield

word~river Literary Journal

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction of adjunct, part-time and fulltime instructors teaching under a semester or yearly contract in our universities, colleges, and community colleges worldwide. Graduate student teachers who have used up their teaching assistant time and are teaching with adjunct contracts for the remainder of their graduate program are also eligible.

We’re looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

Manifest Content Without A Dreamer: A Freudian Analysis Of Percival Everett’S Erasure, Irene Rose De Lilly

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

This paper will provide a Freudian analysis of Erasure in order to prove that Everett is, in fact, the two main characters he has created, as well as attempt to challenge the stigma of interpreting through a psychoanalytical lens, rather than treating writing and literature as manifest content without a dreamer.

Godly Heretics: Essays On Alternative Christianity In Literature And Popular Culture, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

"When computers freeze, they are "rebooted" and soon working properly again. Similarly, legendary thinkers throughout history have argued that Christianity should start fresh by recapturing the humanitarian spirit of Jesus' original message. These include such disparate individuals as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, and the religious leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Surprisingly enough, even classic television shows and films meant to be entertaining--Lost, Battlestar Galactica, It's a Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Decalogue, and A Charlie Brown Christmas--are attempts to apply the basic principles of Christianity to modern times. …

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 …

Animals, Maria Alicia Gomez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Animals tells the stories of various characters and their lives within the neighborhood of Shadow and Anima Streets. The novel is structured in fragments that cycle through multiple characters from the local bar owner, to the homeless men roaming the alleys, a horse that befriends and old blind widow, a lion that roams the streets and a woman who slowly turns to stone. The novel treats themes of friendship, isolation, and community.

A New Way Of Living: Bioeconomic Models In Post-Apocalyptic Dystopias, Margaret A. Wells

Theses and Dissertations--English

The objective of this thesis is to explore the relationship between moralities and bioeconomies in post-apocalyptic dystopias from the Victorian era to contemporary Young Adult Fiction. In defining the terms bioeconomy and biopolitics, this works examines the ways in which literature uses food and energy systems to explore morality and immorality in social orders and systems, including capitalism and our modern techno-industrial landscapes. This work examines science fiction portrayals of apocalypses and dystopias, including After London: Or, Wild England and The Hunger Games, as well as their medieval and contextual influences. These works are analyzed in light of genre …

Shadows On The Wall, Daniel Bruce Greenhalgh

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Thom Roth has spent his entire life in the Refuge, a secure and fundamentally hierarchical facility which protects the remnants of human civilization. Under the tutelage of Minister Trask, Thom has risen to become a primary contender for an administrative appointment, as well as secured the affections of Dee McKay, Trask's granddaughter. However, when Thom's best friends, Geoff and Scott, discover a small, secret tunnel underneath the Refuge, the three friends' learn that the foundation of their home was decidedly messier than they had been taught. On the other side of the tunnel they find another, smaller Refuge, with fewer …

Synesthetes, Or: Lazaro And The Apocalyptic Millennials, Fabian Molina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Lazaro and Co. around El Paso town.

Seen, Not Heard: William Faulkner’S Narrative Style In The Creation Of African American Characters, Dixon Speaker

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Back Matter, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

Contents, Tom Mack, Ph.D.

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

The Oswald Review Undergraduate Research And Criticism In The Discipline Of English: Volume 15 Fall 2013

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

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 …

A Single Day: Isolation And Connection In Virginia Woolf’S Mrs. Dalloway And Christopher Isherwood’S A Single Man, Hannah Williams

The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English

No abstract provided.

“Bury Your Head Between My Knees And Seek Pardon”: Gender, Sexuality, And National Conflict In John Okada’S No-No Boy, Patricia A. Thomas

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In “‘Bury Your Head Between My Knees and Seek Pardon’: Gender, Sexuality, and National Conflict in John Okada’s 1957 novel, No-No Boy,” I analyze the ways in which the complexities of gendered sexuality expressed by protagonist Ichiro Yamada intersect with post-World War II and Internment-era national identifications for American nisei. I demonstrate that this apparent story of one man’s pursuit to resolve his conflict over national identity is, in reality, a tour de force of literary subversion that not only destabilizes the subterfuge that surrounded internment but also—in its deliberate failure to resolve questions of national conflict on the …

Mind The Gap: An Analysis Of The Function Of Love In The Works Of Tom Stoppard And C.S. Lewis., Jacqueline C. Lawler

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Writers C.S. Lewis and Tom Stoppard, though philosophically different, both write about love that embodies the natural law. The natural law can be defined as law that is inherent in man and can be discerned by reason rather than by revelation. Both writers use their observational style in order to reason their way to nearly identical laws of love. Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, Arcadia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Real Thing will be analyzed using the framework of C.S. Lewis’s book, The Four Loves.

Harvard Cowboys: The Role Of Silas Weir Mitchell's Creative Works In Defining Western-Style American Masculinity, Becky De Oliveira

The Hilltop Review

There were probably few men better placed in the latter part of the nineteenth century to help other men create a persona of strength and vigor--based quite firmly, too, in the tradition of literature and writing--than Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914), a physician who "achieved great success in popularizing the idea of a correlation between mental activity and nerve strain" (Will, 293).

America In Verse: The Laureate Project, Leah Kind, Dan Gleason, Erin Micklo, Margaret T. Cain

Understanding Poetry

The purpose of this project is to allow students to use their (developing) skills of poetic explication and close reading, combined with research and analysis, to discover and establish a solid case for a poet they will nominate as the next American Poet Laureate. Working in groups of 3-4, students will identify a published, living American poet who has not yet been designated a laureate. The project demands a wide array of skills as the students research bibliographic information on the poet: read and analyze the poet’s body of work and select one central poem to represent that poet; amass …

My Mark Twain: Old Man River, Amelia Tatum Grabowski

Student Publications

Flowing across his pages, the Mississippi River inextricably winds itself through Mark Twain’s canon. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that my image of Clemens, my Mark Twain, is as a personification of his beloved river. Twain draws his readers to the water’s edge, seduces readers to stare into his depths, and reflects the achievements and failings of humanity. Furthermore, like the Mississippi River, Twain embeds himself in the American psyche.

The Action Of Grace In Territory Held By The Devil: Flannery O’Connor And Cormac Mccarthy, Scott A. Singleton

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper compares the lives and work of Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy. The two authors share similarities in their backgrounds, careers, and work. The paper begins with an examination of biographical information of both authors to contextualize their work and note commonalities in their lives and careers. The central idea is that Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy both create grotesque characters to reveal the depraved condition of humanity in order to highlight the need for redemption and the possibility of divine grace. To prove this, examples are discussed from multiple pieces of work by O’Connor and McCarthy including The …

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 …

About A Yellow Ball, Shannon Alice Salter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

These are poems made from many things: color, eggs, oranges, many kinds of seeds, leaves, wind, California, the desert, birds. They are things alive in the world and alive in my heart. I cannot take them out of the world, but from my heart I can have whatever appears on its surface. The language of steam.

They are poems that like to be at home.

California is my home and so is the Mojave (and so is every desert). I live in a valley about four hundred miles from the Pacific Ocean, in the city of Las Vegas. What better …

James Jones's Codes Of Conduct, Matthew Samuel Ross

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Though his work was celebrated by his contemporaries and remains highly lauded by scholars of war fiction, James Jones's novels are already at risk of falling outside the mainstream canon of 20th Century American literature. My dissertation project proposes an intensive examination of James Jones' three volume war trilogy, From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle, collectively considered by eminent critic Paul Fussell to be the finest work to emerge from the Second World War. Jones' trilogy is a mainstay within the overall genre of war fiction, yet it has been afforded relatively little critical attention by …

Tiny Animals Made To Do Unnatural Things, Ashley Mary Siebels

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The stories in this collection revolve around a central theme which is expressed by my titleTiny Animals Made To Do Unnatural Things. All my characters feel guilt about decisions and experiences that haunt their past. In the present, they have come to a crossroads and are trying to decipher between what they were made to do as in vocation and evolution and what they are being made to do by the authorial pressures that loom over them (e.g. bosses, parents, loan officers, prison guards.)

In this way, my thesis pivots on the word made. Made (or to make) has many …

Word~River Literary Review (2012), Beth Mcdonald, John Hill, Micheline Mayor, Heather Duerre Humann, Ryan Leack, Anne Stark, John Baker, Lily I. Mackenzie, Judith Nichols, Meredith Devney, Marylouise Markle, Bill Bozzone, Tara Taylor, Tina Cabrera, Justin E. Kidd, Richard Foss, Kevin P. Keating, Justin P. Burnside, Matthew Swetnam, Sierra Jones-Yu, Kristen Conard, Star Goode, Andrew Madigan, K. W. Taylor, Allison S. Walker, Gary Pullman, Michael Zinkowski, Susan Nyikos

word~river Literary Journal

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction of adjunct, part-time and fulltime instructors teaching under a semester or yearly contract in our universities, colleges, and community colleges worldwide. Graduate student teachers who have used up their teaching assistant time and are teaching with adjunct contracts for the remainder of their graduate program are also eligible.

We’re looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

Redefining The Gothic: How The Works Of Carson Mccullers, Tennessee Williams & Flannery O'Connor Retained Gothic Roots And Shaped The Southern Gothic, Sarah N. Koehler

All Student Theses and Dissertations

My aim in this thesis is to explore the commonalities between Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams and Flannery O’Connor, particularly in terms of three main themes: isolation, the pervasion of American normalcy and gender roles. While each of these authors clearly inserts some autobiographical information into his or her characters, the real commonalities between the fictional characters can be found in their inability to fit into a traditional society; the characters in all three authors’ works are outcasts, pushed to the fringes of their communities or their families because of who they are. Sometimes these characters’ desire to be different is …

Rpw Birthplace: Where It All Began, Robert Penn Warren Studies

Robert Penn Warren Studies

No abstract provided.