English Language and Literature Commons^™

Creating Female Space: The Feminine Sublime In The Awakening And The House Of Mirth, Emily F. Faison

Selected Honors Theses

This thesis examines the Edna Pontellier and Lily Bart, the respective protagonists of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, integrating the theoretical concept of the sublime, particularly engaging Barbara Freemans’s idea of a feminine sublime, as discussed in her book, The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women’s Fiction. In three chapters, the thesis provides an overview and brief history of the theory of the sublime, contextualizing Freeman’s argument, and measures the success of both Edna’s and Lily’s attempts to engage the sublime as they each struggle to find their place as women …

Occupying The Pedestal: Gender Issues In Ellen Gilchrist, Karon Reese

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ellen Gilchrist's works shows the struggles of women living in a postmodern South. This dissertation explores Gilchrist's representations of southern women as they transition from the old South to modernity. Gilchrist's work depicts women who attempt to break off the pedestal of white Southern womanhood, but never quite do, often simultaneously disrupting and confirming traditional notions of a "good Southern lady." Gilchrist shows how women occupy the pedestal as a form of refuge and also as a form of protest. These are women who, as they navigate the transition to a new South, are reluctant to surrender the privilege of …

Performative Gender And Pop Fiction Females: "Emancipating" Byronic Heroines Through A Feminist Education, Joy Smith

Masters Theses

"I can be a regular bitch. Just try me." With this phrase emblazoned across her t-shirt, Lisbeth Salander, pierced, tattooed, and bedecked in leather, waltzes from the pages of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This woman who subverts authority, maliciously tattoos and sodomizes a man, and intentionally distances herself from close relationships of any kind has somehow managed to capture both the attention and admiration of the American audience. This disheartening phenomenon stems from a renewed interest in the Byronic heroine, a female possessing those traits traditionally assigned to Byronic heroes and men, and the rise of …

What Jane Saw, Kate Singer

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

Review of Professor Janine Barchas' "What Jane Saw?" a website that reconstructs Joshua Reynolds's 1813 retrospective art exhibit, which Jane Austen attended, with particular attention to the Regency social and cultural history depicted in Austen's novels.

Frances Burney’S Cecilia: A Publishing History, By Catherine M. Parisian, Lee Kahan

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Matters Of Fact In Jane Austen: History, Location, And Celebrity, By Janine Barchas, Laura E. Thomason

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Crossing Borders: An Interdisciplinary Course In The "Enlightenment", Carol White, Kathryn P. Russell

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

In this essay, we present a twofold version of the first team-taught course on the eighteenth century designed by faculty at Clayton State University who plan to develop and teach this course again in the near future. We hope that our explanation of the original course and our projected future version of the course will be useful to scholars who teach in the eighteenth century, as well as to specialists in other historical periods who wish to plan revisions of courses to make them more reflective of current scholarship in gender studies. Authors taught in this course include Benjamin Franklin, …

Bosom Friends And The Sapphic Breasts Of Belinda, Ula E. Klein

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This article examines Maria Edgeworth’s 1801 novel Belinda in order to argue that the breast at the center of Lady Delacour’s narrative signifies not maternal failure but Sapphic feelings and connections. While previous studies of the novel have discussed the wounded breast of Lady Delacour as a punishment for her transgressions or as an emblem of her patriarchal oppression, this article claims that the wounded breast is both a sign of and a means to female same-sex desire and relationships. This article contrasts the wounded, festering breast with the tableau that ends the novel. The tableau, a constructed vision of …

A Common Man Trapped Inside The Queen’S Body, Alexandra Sofia Palacios

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis proposes a feminist-queer reading of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in response to Julian Wolfreys’ “The ‘Endlesse Worke’ of Transgression”.

I examine the challenges to male authority that the low-born poet, Spenser, faced when he presented his manual for the formation of new English subjects to his sovereign queen, Elizabeth I. The Prefatory Letter to Raleigh and passages from the 1590 version of the epic provide evidence to support the view that traditional hierarchical male/female binaries may have been destabilized by the presence of an unmarried queen. My thesis also supplements Wolfreys’ essay with historical information regarding Mary …

Distancing The Past: New Forms Of Discomfort With Aids In The U.S, John C. Hawley

English

In his Introduction to this collection, Gustavo Subero makes reference to the AIDS Quilt, a reference made especially significant since the year 2012 marked its 25th anniversary. The whole quilt had been last displayed in 1996; in the summer of 2012, 8.000 panels were rotated each day in the National Mall in Washington, DC. The quilt, composed of thousands of 3’ x 6’ panels (intentionally the size of a human grave), currently consists of over 48.000 panels honoring more than 94.000 individuals who have died of AIDS. In the early days of the quilt, in the 1980s and 1990s, the …

"Barbara Hofland As A Romantic-Era Provincial Poet", Stephen C. Behrendt

Stephen C Behrendt

The Politics Media Equation:Exposing Two Faces Of Old Nexus Through Study Of General Elections,Wikileaks And Radia Tapes, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The important identity of a responsible media is playing an unbiased role in reporting a matter without giving unnecessary hype to attract the attention of the gullible public with the object of making money and money only.After reporting properly the media can educate the public to form their own opinion in the matters of public interest. Throughout the centuries, the world has never existed without information and communication, hence the inexhaustible essence of mass media. The government has the power to either make or reject whatever that will exist within its environment. It also determines how free the mass media …

Framing Eve: Contemporary Retellings Of Biblical Women For Young People, Elizabeth Gillhouse

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the ideological implications of re-visioning Bible stories for young readers in order to negotiate changing cultural attitudes regarding gender. I begin by exploring three theories of retelling traditional narratives including John Stephens and Robyn McCallum's discussion of "reversion," Adrienne Rich's concept of "re-vision," and the Jewish tradition of biblical Midrash. Stephens and McCallum's term "reversion" emphasizes the inevitable cultural influence that occurs during the process of retelling an existing narrative. Rich's discussion of "re-vision" advocates an active attempt on the part of feminists to re-see traditional narratives that have historically been used to oppress women. The Jewish …

“A Southern Expendable”: Cultural Patriarchy, Maternal Abandonment, And Narrativization In Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out Of Carolina, Natalie Carter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Bastard Out of Carolina is a remarkable text for many reasons: Allison’s unsentimental portrayal of profound poverty in the Old South; her unflinching depiction of incest; and the conclusion—devastating for character and reader alike—all contribute to the “flawless” nature of this novel. Perhaps most remarkable, though, is Allison’s ability to seamlessly weave a particularly Southern tradition of masculinity and violence into this heartbreaking tale of a daughter’s trauma and a mother’s abandonment. In this article, I will investigate Allison’s multifaceted portrayals of trauma in Bastard Out of Carolina, which—when combined with an analysis of social and economic traditions in …

Shieldmaiden, Allison A. Taylor

Student Publications

"Shieldmaiden" is a poem that examines J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series from a feminist perspective, focusing on the character of Éowyn and her influence on female readers of Tolkien's novels.

An Uncommon Splice: Seeking Mutations In The Life-Writing And Short Fiction Of Mary Butts And Djuna Barnes, Susan George

Theses and Dissertations

Immersed in a web of short stories, poetry, and supporting biographical and life-writing sources, I investigate the narrative significance beneath and beyond two British and American modernist women authors. I evaluate sisterly connectedness between their literary production, publishing histories and life writings present in a specific cultural-temporal moment and genre: the short story. By looking on these unique, forgotten fictions through a new materialist lens, I argue for their short fiction's greater inclusion in the canon of women's modernism. Chapter I tests correlations between two authors undergoing the same stresses, alienations, joys and desires by taking up tenants of material …

Talking Nonsense: Spiritual Mediums And Female Subjectivity In Victorian And Edwardian Canada, Claudie Massicotte

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study traces the development of mediumship in Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Especially popular among women, this practice offered them an important space of expression. Concealing their own identities under spiritual possession, mediums ubiquitously invoked well-known historical figures in séances to transmit their opinions on current issues. As such, they were able to promote new ideas to interested audiences without claiming responsibility for their potentially controversial words.

While many studies have been conducted in the United States, Britain, and France regarding the significant role of mediumship in the emergence of women on the political scene, …

4th Neera Desai Memorial Lecture By Prof. Nabneeta Deb Sen On 23-9-2013, Professor Vibhuti Patel

Professor Vibhuti Patel

Dear friends, We invite you for the 4th Neera Desai Memorial Lecture by Prof. Nabneeta Deb Sen on "Ladies Sing the Blues: Women Retelling the Rama Stories" on 23-9-2013, 3 p.m.- 5 p.m. at Mini Auditorium, SNDT Women's University, Juhu Campus, Santacruz(W), Mumbai-400049 Welcome Address: Prof. Veena Poonacha Remembering Neeraben: Ms. Sonal Shukla, Director, VACHA Presidential Address: Prof. Vasudha Kamath, Hon. Vice Chancellor Prof. Veena Poonacha Prof. Vibhuti Patel Director, Head, Research Centre for Women's Studies Dept. of Economics SNDT Women's University, Mumbai

Decoding Literary Aids: A Study On Issues Of The Body, Masculinity, And Self Identity In U.S. Aids Literature From 1984-2011, Alexander Shimon Abrams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rather than waiting decades to respond, novelists of nearly every literary genre began conceptualizing the AIDS epidemic shortly after the first documented case of the virus in the United States in 1981. Writers, feeling a sense of urgency, wasted little time constructing didactic texts that differ from much historical fiction in that they were written as the tragedy they are commenting on occurred. However, AIDS literature has changed as the disease has spread well beyond the gay communities of San Francisco and New York, causing people to reexamine their longstanding beliefs on masculinity, sexuality, and body politics.

My Master's thesis …

Power, Politics, And Domestic Desire In Octavia Butler’S Lilith’S Brood, Aparajita Nanda

English

Octavia Butler’s works, from her short stories and novellas to her science fiction novels, focus on themes of power, control, bondage, and a desired freedom from servitude. Power structures inevitably center on the master/slave or the captor/captive trope. Her handling of this issue takes on complex manifestations in her works, where enslavement and genetic evolution often form the core of the narrative. Within this framework, hostile and repressive regimes enforce a controlled society. Butler brings race, gender, and sexuality to the foreground of speculative fiction as she deals with complex social and political issues in all their ambiguity. Her handling …

Reconceiving Self-Abnegation: Female Vulnerability As Embodied (Un)Sovereignty, Renee Lee Gardner

Dissertations

Liberal feminism views vulnerability as weakness and dominance as strength. This binary parallels nationalistic assertions of sovereignty. Within militaristic responses such as the U.S. retaliation to 9/11, however, we see the cost of refusing to acknowledge our vulnerability. In my analysis of eleven novels arising from eight distinct nation-states and representing historical moments from the final decades of slavery through the early post- 9/11 years, I use alternative (queer, postcolonial, Islamic) feminisms to read power in vulnerability. I explore female characters who deliberately self-abnegate – sacrificing their lives, bodies, voices, and children – but whose actions can be read as …

The Perception Of Literary Quality Differing As A Function Of Authorial Gender And Emotionality, Sarah Dean

Honors Theses

Previous research suggests that gender acknowledgment yields significant consequences on subsequent judgments. In the current research, we examined whether gender of authorial names affected the perception of literary quality. Participants read a short story excerpt designated as male‐authored or female‐authored that contained either exaggerated emotional content or minimal emotional content. Following presentation of the passage, participants reported perceived quality and emotionality and then completed the 10-item short form of the Need for Affect Questionnaire (NAQ-S; cf. Maio & Esses, 2001) followed by the 18‐item Need for Cognition Scale (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao 1984). Results indicated that participants rated female authors …

Redefining The "Reality Picture" By Reassessing Feminist Themes In The Early Cyberpunk Works Of William Gibson And Philip K. Dick, Samuel J. Williams

Honors Theses

As a literary genre, Cyberpunk permits the existence of characters, plots, settings, and styles that challenge heteronormative perceptions of gender. The representations of women in Neuromancer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and A Scanner Darkly highlight a progression towards feminist ideals. Despite this progression, critics have classified these early manifestations of the Cyberpunk genre as non-feminist works that perpetuate misogynistic themes. These critics assert that the female characters in each work are Othered and heteronormative. The previous analyses of these works fail to consider the fictional context of the female characters. In this thesis, I closely analyze the major …

Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, Pamela Benson

Pamela J Benson

Cavallo's provocative title suggests the essence of her argument: the Orlando Innamoratois a didactic poem in which the poet "presents a coherent moral vision of love as well as a program for a humanist use of literature" (10).

Intimacy In Isolation And The Amplitude Of Reality: Virginia Woolf’S Tense Intimacies, Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze

Rebecca Thorndike-Breeze

Virginia Woolf identifies four “dimensions” of human life: “I mean: I: & the not I: & the outer & the inner” (Diary 4: 353). The permeability of these dimensions is at the core of Woolf’s experiments in “re-form[ing]” the novel (Diary 1: 356). Woolf’s novels represent the simultaneously unavoidable isolation and permeability of self, other, internality, and externality; Lacan would later characterize this permeability with the figure of the Mobius strip and his concept of “extimacy,” the simultaneous position of the Other external to, yet at the core of the self. Through analyses of affectively intense representations of consciousness and …

Donne’S 'Elegy 19': To His Mistress Transcending The Bed, Femininity, And Gender Distinction, Christopher Sarachilli

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

No abstract provided.

Family And Social Roles In Queer Children's Literature, Nicolas Toscana Brouhard

Student Research Symposium

This research investigates family and social roles in queer children's literature. It provides a thematic analysis of popular titles published during the last decade. It argues that heteronormative and queer-identified protagonists in these stories have identical values concerning family and society. The analysis includes "In Our Mother's House" by Patricia Polacco, "And Tango Makes Three" by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, "King & King" by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, and "Donovan’s Big Day" by Leslea Newman. The analysis focuses on how characters relationships and their commitments to each other such as weddings. It also explores how they take …

Revolutionary Imaginings In The 1790s: Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Elizabeth Inchbald By Amy Garnai, Jennifer Golightly

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Collecting Women: Poetry And Lives, 1700-1780 By Chantel M. Lavoie, Holly Faith Nelson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

'Lactilla Tends Her Fav'rite Cow': Ecocritical Readings Of Animals And Women In Eighteenth-Century British Labouring-Class Women's Poetry By Anne Milne, Dometa Wiegand

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.