Nonfiction Commons^™

Missing Time: Remembrances Of History’S Return, Marissa Brostoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation chronicles a profound recent shift within the US political left from an essentially backward-looking orientation to one marked by an unfamiliar sense of timeliness. Presented chronologically, the essays included here approach the vertiginous American political landscape since 2016 through readings of cultural phenomena from Bernie Sanders’s short-lived career as an experimental writer to Caitlyn Jenner’s reality show. They make up a Trump-era diary haunted by the ghosts of twentieth-century social movements and an intellectual coming-of-age story about growing up at the end of the end of history.

Translator Of Soliloquies: Fugues In The Key Of Dissociation, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Chu, Seo-Young. “Translator of Soliloquies: Fugues in the Key of Dissociation” (chapbook). Black Warrior Review 46.2, Spring 2020.

Putting A Face To Cancer, Lenn Robbins

Capstones

About one month after I began my studies at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH). Three years and three relapses later, I have my MA, I defiant will to fight this disease and the hope that by chronicling my experience I might help others. If this project helps just one person, it's been worth the ride.

https://lennrobbins.wixsite.com/facetocancer

Poetic Representation Of Immigrant Bengali Women From Queens, New York: A Qualitative Exploration Of Narrative In Relation To Physical And Cultural Migration, Tabashshum J. Islam

Publications and Research

Poetic Representation of Immigrant Bengali Women from Queens, New York: A Qualitative Exploration of Narrative in Relation to Physical and Cultural Migration is a qualitative poetic inquiry and collaborative creative writing project. Five participants were interviewed and invited to engage in a collaborative writing process with the themes of immigration, cultural negotiation, and oral family history. All participants identified as college-educated Bengali women with a connection to Queens, New York, as well as being an immigrant or relative of an immigrant in the United States. From transcriptions of one-on-one interviews and personal notes, research-poetry was created to center on the …

Existentialmd.Com: Building Towards An Embodied Internet Aesthetic, Natasha Ochshorn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

ExistentialMD.com is a website that aims to treat the body as an emotional and social subject in an online space that is purposefully bodied and fleshy. The website contrasts original creative nonfiction essays with a formal structure that alludes to the medical website WebMD. Mimicking WebMD’s symptom checker, which asks users to locate their discomfort with increasing specificity before suggesting conditions they might be suffering from, ExistentialMD uses a similar structure to yield results that are more exploratory than diagnostic, and which envision the body as a site of experience and emotionality. Form and content combine to create an …

Writing For The Humanities And Arts, Yolande E. Brener, Julia Brown

Open Educational Resources

This Writing for the Humanities website includes the syllabus, schedule, assignments, and OER reading materials for the course. The syllabus covers a number of genres, and examines what it means to write for the humanities. This stretches beyond Art and Literature to cover History, Philosophy, Theater, Music, and Media Communications. The assignments are designed to help students in their future careers, especially if they aim to work in the Humanities, which include teaching, curating, counseling, technical writing and journalism. The assignments will teach students how to compose an effective resume and cover letter, how to create a focused report based …

"Free Indirect Suicide: An Unfinished Fugue In H Minor", Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In this lyric essay/work of creative nonfiction (listed among “Notable Essays & Literary Nonfiction” in Best American Essays 2020), Seo-Young Chu uses poetry, autotheory, and creative nonfiction to explore the generational trauma/postmemory han she inherited from her parents and the importance of destigmatizing mental illness through dialogue.

Lords From The Desert, Caroline Mercado

Capstones

Lords from the Desert

This work explores a reality that is little talked about: how the most prestigious pre-Columbian art exhibits in the United States hide a murky origin. From looting of temples to illicit art trafficking, to smuggling and collectors’ affairs, the pieces gain value in proportion to the social prestige of their owner. Along the way, the most important is lost: research that provides context and allows us to know history. The First World wins a seductive, but simplistic story. The Third World, from which all these cultures emerge, loses patrimony and possibilities of understanding themselves. A pair …

Private Rainbows, Mikey F. Estes

Theses and Dissertations

I make art that refers to how the self is mediated through structures, objects, and images — a kind of self-portraiture that circles around its subject, reflecting a state of simultaneous formation and disintegration. Over the past few years, I have used my iPhone as a tool to make images of everyday life. As the user of this device, I am defined by both my presence and absence. I am interested in the process of locating the self within the scattered yet ordered space of the screen.

Paper Memories: A Visual Memoir, Stephanie Trinidad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Adolescence can be considered one of the hardest times in any person's life. Growing up, we are confronted with two very different possibilities of how our lives will turn out. One is the flawless version that is continuously on display in television series and movies. The other is the real-world version where a person is questioned and ridiculed for everything they’ve done. News headlines about students who, under pressure from their peers, take their own lives are a common occurrence. The focus of many of these headlines is on the bullies and on whether prosecution is possible for the crime …

To Whom Occurs The Haunting: A Singular Exploration Of A Disturbed Femme Psyche, Meghan E. Addison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

By utilizing critical experimental writing, my capstone project will be an exploration of the haunting effects of transgenerational trauma and its lasting impact on the present-day psyche of one disturbed female subject - myself. Relying on multiple formats of writing, including but not limited to: memoir, autobiography, diaries, letters, poetry, and prose, as well the incorporation of multiple disciplines including the likes of: psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, and critical theory, I will make an attempt to utilize the micro in exploration of the macro: to explore my unconscious realm in order to understand a larger political context surrounding female madness and …

Everyday Violence And Women's Lives In Zambia: An Autoethnography, Amina Shikupilwa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gender inequality has been a prominent feature of human societies for the longest time. Zambia, like most countries in Africa, is very conservative and patriarchal in nature. In a typical Zambian household, the male is the head of the family. I am going to talk about my experiences as a female growing in a culture that was highly patriarchal and traditional, and how those experiences have shaped me into the person that I am today. Central to my experiences, is the issue of violence in our home which I experienced from a young age. Domestic Violence is prevalent in most …

The Way We Dream Now: History, Theory, And Lgbtq Memoir In America, Megan Paslawski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines American memoirs written after 2000 by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer authors with an eye to how the recent institutionalization of queer theory and the open production of LGBTQ histories affect these writers’ conceptions of their lives, aspirations, and cultures. I argue that these memoirs, sometimes consciously, find themselves struggling with what are also competing ideas within queer theory about the queerness of futurity even as they turn to the past of queer/trans literature and history to bolster their senses of possible identities and communities. This often has the effect of positioning contemporary LGBTQ writers as …

Still Life: Growing Up With Death - A Visual Memoir, Lindsey Roth-Rosen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone is a multidimensional visual narrative project that incorporates heuristic methodology to illustrate complicated grief that emerged from early childhood loss. The memoir’s intention is to exemplify grief as a complex and mutable composite response to the death of my mother. One objective of this capstone is to understand melancholy, commonly associated with mental illness or symptomatic of depression, as an aesthetic emotion as well as a conduit for philosophical reflection. I use non-verbal approaches to the genre of a memoir by incorporating my photography to epitomize art as a powerful means to comprehend the totality of loss: as …

Out Of Many: Multiplicity And Divisions In America Today, Camille Goodison, Racquel Goodison

Publications and Research

An anthology of new U.S. fiction and nonfiction, as well as transnational writing. A wide variety of fiction writers and essayists describe what it means to be American in a world of changing borders. A bright showcase of progressive literary style, personality and content. Contributors include Tope Folarin, Alia Yunis, Maurice Emerson Decaul, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Patricia Park, Sonny Singh, Aisha Sabatani Sloan, Zeeva Bukai, Courtney Zoffness, and others.

A Refuge For Jae-In Doe: Fugues In The Key Of English Major, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

"A Refuge for Jae-in Doe: Fugues in the Key of English Major"

Author(s):

Seo-Young Chu (see profile)

Date:

2017

Subject(s):

Feminism, Creative nonfiction, Asian American literature, Sonnets, Social justice, Trauma

Item Type:

Essay

Tag(s):

#MeToo, Stanford, women in academia, early american

Permanent URL:

http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/cp82-8f39

No More False Heavens: In The Wake Of Campus Sexual Violence, Destry Sibley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project [https://arcg.is/0zy0eb] explores the crisis of sexual assault on college campuses. The project draws on a collective "biography" of women students and their experiences, as well as creative writing and data visualization. It exists on the web and uses a mix of media -- data interactives, photographs, writing, audio, video, and annotated text are all possible mediums. (Only audio is collected from interviewees.)

Through this project I seek to consider issues of gender and inclusion within a college institution, with a particular focus on the built environment of the campus as metaphor. How does the architecture of …

Woman Energy: How Our Lesbian Past Informs Our Lesbian Future, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Sinister Wisdom Issue 3, published the year 1977 holds an essay by poet Adrienne Rich, titled, “It is the lesbian in us...”; The cover of the same issue has art by photographer Tee Corinne. Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal. This non-fiction creative essay written by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz reflects on the first year of Sinister Wisdom's publication as a celebration of 40 years through this special edition anniversary print for which only 1000 have been printed. The essay remarks on the shift in lesbian identity and community and the potential impact of the Sinister Wisdom journal …

A Girlhood Among Ghosts, An Experimental Project, Maple Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“If a woman is going to write a Book of Peace, it is given her to know devastation” – Maxine Hong Kingston, The Fifth Book of Peace.

I do not believe I know devastation. I think to be devastated means one has to experience extreme pain, and live in the aftermath of trauma. I think of this in terms of war, famine, and immigration. A little self-reflection shows that in the twenty-something years of my life, I have not encountered any of the three things listed.

What I do recall, however, is the first time I picked up Maxine …

Decidedly Uncertain, Sophia I. Varosy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My capstone project is meant to reflect the ideas I’ve been exposed to and the ways in which they have, as a consequence, influenced my life; the ways, I suppose, I can apply them. Over the course, or courses (literally), of my time spent at The CUNY Graduate Center, I felt (mostly) enthusiastic about the ideas and philosophies I was growing to at-least-marginally understand. However, as time passed I became increasingly more unsettled about my position as an “academic.” In other words, I found that I was moved and motivated to increase my understanding of things, but never did I …

American Milk: The Raw Deal, Dan Heching

Capstones

This report takes a look at the difficulty in procuring raw milk, an increasingly desired alternative to processed dairy, in New York City. It also tells the story of one woman's journey to tasting raw milk for the first time, despite reservations.

link: https://social.shorthand.com/MoodyHeching/uyYgLmuoNp6/american-milk-the-raw-deal

How A New York Native American Community Was Polluted For Decades, Tola Brennan

Capstones

General Motors came to the upstate New York's North Country a savior, the bringer of much needed jobs. But after decades of using PCBs, a chemical much later revealed to be highly toxic, it's become the story of one the largest Superfund sites in the country. And the the hardest hit have been the Saint Regis Mohawk whose small reservation is right next door to the now demolished plant. Today, after decades of cleanup, General Motors has capped its liability through a 2009 bankruptcy. With the cleanup set to be completed next year, many Mohawk feel justice was never served. …

Different Names For Bullying, Marco Poggio

Capstones

“There's all different forms of bullying,” says Steven Gray, a Lakota rancher and former law enforcement officer living in South Dakota. In this look into Gray’s life, we learn about two instances of bullying: the psychological and physical harassment that pushed his son, Tanner Thomas Gray, to commit suicide at age 12; And the controversial construction of an oil pipeline in an ancient tribal land that belongs to the Lakota people by rights of a treaty signed in 1851, which Gray sees as an institutional abuse infringing on the sovereignty of his people. Gray is involved in the movement that …

Grace Paley, Octavia E. Butler, And Wendy Wasserstein In The Cuny Graduate Center Bathroom, Marleen S. Barr

Publications and Research

This creative piece about book promotion describes how Grace Paley, Octavia E. Butler, Wendy Wasserstein, and the CUNY Graduate Center bathroom figure in Marleen S. Barr's efforts to draw attention to her novels OY PIONEER! and OY FEMINIST PLANETS: A FAKE MEMOIR.

Autobiographical Poetry To Plays: Taking Memoir To A Theatrical Level, Ryan P. Tofil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pulitzer prize winning playwright John Patrick Shanley wrote, “Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.” For my Capstone Project, I have compiled my autobiographical poetry, prose, and performance monologues into a theatrical manuscript to be used as the basis for a play. The final Capstone Project is a manuscript of an anticipated theatrical production based on the grieving process surrounding my brother's suicide, as well as an exploration of my sexuality and the relationships I developed during the years surrounding his death.

The Capstone Project’s theatrical manuscript is also accompanied by a …

"The Diaries Of The Backpacking Puppies: An Adventure Series", Estefania Di Bua

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

First Year Sober And A Lifelong Journey, Lisa Brown

Capstones

This is a non-fiction narrative story that shows the difficulty and process of the first year of sobriety from substance abuse, using in-depth journalism reporting. The piece follows two individuals from New York during the first weeks or months of their recovery as they maintain a sober lifestyle.

Please Read, Joseph W. Anthony-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This is a semi-fictional story told through a series of fake found documents. It describes my work and thoughts through metaphor. Machines have the potential to gain self-consciousness through accumulation of errors. Creativity can be confused with randomly generated variety. The acceptance of chaos and loss of control can provide a path to enlightenment.

¡Escriba! ¡Write! Volume 12, June 2014, Hostos Community College Library

¡Escriba!

Eric Stewart- "Same Love: Examining the Relationship Between David and Jonathan";

Santee Agrispin- "Music in my Life";

Jessica Anchundia- "Where I’m From";

Ahmed Caraballo- "A Life With Meaning";

Dina Esquivel- "How ‘McDonaldization’ Affects Our Society";

Jose Javier Castro- "Anonymously Yours";

Jose Javier Castro- "Homeland Uprootal";

Jose Javier Castro- "Gone but not Forgotten";

Earl Justice- "Dreamality";

Gisselle Belia- "Adios";

Eric Stewart- "After the Arrest: Exploring the Inner Workings of the New York State Criminal Justice System";

Karla Ferrera- "Poetry: The Awakening of a Creative Self";

Mario Leazard- "Sisters are Good Listeners";

Marlenny Toribio- "Finding Ways";

Angelica Rodriguez- "Antes de Morir";

Angelica …

Mercy, Stuart Ewen Ph.D.

Publications and Research

A dog named Finn makes heroic efforts to save the life of a fallen bird, while his human friend watches from a window.