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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Big Nothing: A Story About Bicycles And The Girls Who Ride Them In The Heart Of West Texas, Keziah Staska Dec 2020

Big Nothing: A Story About Bicycles And The Girls Who Ride Them In The Heart Of West Texas, Keziah Staska

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Their one-way road trip had started the day before when they left their home in San Bernardino for the final time. Paisley was afraid of moving away from the city she grew up in, but not for the same reasons many children her age would be. . So, her social life wasn’t her primary concern when it came time to abandon her home. Instead, she was afraid to leave San Bernardino because she had memorized all the perfect bike routes within a thirty-mile radius. On the other, the fear that their new home would have insufficient routes and roads compared …


African American Literary Traditions In Justina Ireland’S Young Adult Novels Dread Nation And Deathless Divide, Gabrielle Sleeper Dec 2020

African American Literary Traditions In Justina Ireland’S Young Adult Novels Dread Nation And Deathless Divide, Gabrielle Sleeper

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Justina Ireland’s young adult novels Dread Nation (2017) and Deathless Divide (2020) tell the story of a Black girl by the name of Jane living in the aftermath of the Civil War, around 1880.


Triumph & Turmoil: The Duality Of Sylvia Plath, Matthew Edgar Dec 2020

Triumph & Turmoil: The Duality Of Sylvia Plath, Matthew Edgar

Honors Program Theses and Projects

During this study, we will attempt to showcase how a 20th century misogynistic society created one of their own greatest adversaries in the form of Sylvia Plath.


The Role Of Principles And Personal Relationships In Greek Tragedy And Epic, Ellen Pariser Dec 2020

The Role Of Principles And Personal Relationships In Greek Tragedy And Epic, Ellen Pariser

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Understanding motivations are vital for understanding any characters, especially ones so far removed from contemporary society. Through this paper I will attempt to explore the tug between principles and close personal relationships that is often central to ancient texts and manifests so prevalently in the genres of tragedy and epic.


Reframing The Audience In Shakespeare Studies, Ethan Child Dec 2020

Reframing The Audience In Shakespeare Studies, Ethan Child

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Playwrights write their plays to be performed as theatrical events. These temporally-bound events, in which drama reaches its full potential, introduce factors that do not exist in textual forms of literature.


Violet Is One Letter Off From Violent, Audrey E. Spina Dec 2020

Violet Is One Letter Off From Violent, Audrey E. Spina

Master’s Theses and Projects

The poems in this creative collection, Violet is one letter off from violent, aim to add to the critical conversation in contemporary poetry about violence, women’s anger, patriarchal oppression, and physical and sexual assault, specifically drawing on analyses from the poetry of Rachel McKibbens, Tarfia Faizullah, Emily Skaja, Erika L. Sánchez, Tracy K. Smith, Safiya Sinclair, and Paisley Rekdal. My myriad speakers, who take both first and third person points of narrative view, reclaim and reproduce their own stories in ways that are complex, vulnerable, and angry as a result of living under and through traumatic experiences in domestic and …


Cold Snap, Skylar Beauregard Dec 2020

Cold Snap, Skylar Beauregard

Master’s Theses and Projects

For my Master’s Thesis project, I will be writing an original piece of realistic fiction inspired by the “dirty realism” literary movement of the 20th century. This piece of fiction, at the end of these two semesters, will resemble a novella in length and style while focusing on execution and maintenance of profluence as an element of narrative craft. My first semester will be spent conducting topical research on female urban youth and modern sex work in the form of short interviews and field research, closely reading some relevant contemporary “dirty realism” pieces of fiction, and using craft-based handbooks to …


African American Vernacular English: A Language Necessarily Adorned, Christelle Lauture May 2020

African American Vernacular English: A Language Necessarily Adorned, Christelle Lauture

Honors Program Theses and Projects

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has been spoken by African Americans for centuries but has only recently been acknowledged as a distinct dialect. It is often used in tandem with Standard English, through a concept referred to as code-switching. Although linguists have done substantial work to validate AAVE, there is an incomplete understanding of why the dialect developed, and, in particular, what functions the dialect serves for its speakers. In order to begin the work of discovering why AAVE developed the specific features it manifests, I synthesized other linguists’ observations into a taxonomy of five categories that account for most …


Se Dice Pelo Bueno: Black Affirmations In Contemporary Puerto Rican Literature, Amaryllis Lopez May 2020

Se Dice Pelo Bueno: Black Affirmations In Contemporary Puerto Rican Literature, Amaryllis Lopez

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In recent years, the natural hair movement has demanded social, political, and cultural acceptance of Black hair on a global scale. Particularly in the Hispanophone Caribbean, the natural hair movement has been a tool to not only promote the acceptance of curly, kinky hair but to combat Latin America’s anti-Blackness. I have found that although Black hair in the Hispanophone Caribbean is constantly compared to textures found in nature such as wool and pajón, it has also been regarded as unnatural. My work has been largely inspired by the essay “Beyond blanqueamiento: black affirmation in contemporary Puerto Rico,” in which …


Amatonormativity, Aromanticism, And What Defines A Relationship, Rilee Granger May 2020

Amatonormativity, Aromanticism, And What Defines A Relationship, Rilee Granger

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Romance is seen in many aspects of western culture, from movies and tv, to songs and language, but beliefs about romance go beyond what is portrayed in the media. Portrayals of romance with the marriage plot in movies show the underlying belief that romance is a goal everyone is striving towards. This belief that all people are striving towards an exclusive, romantic coupling is called amatonormativity. Professor Elizabeth Brake coined the term amatonormativity and defines it as “the assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such …


All In The Family: A Collection Of Essays On Family And Mental Health, Kiana Govoni May 2020

All In The Family: A Collection Of Essays On Family And Mental Health, Kiana Govoni

Honors Program Theses and Projects

I was inspired to write this honors thesis because I wanted to share my experiences dealing with mental health issues and nontraditional family dynamics. I struggled, at the beginning of the project, to find nonfiction books that closely resembled my life and experiences. I am a black woman, but I grew up in a white family. Finding memoirs on adoption and nontraditional families that were similar to my experiences was difficult because many narratives on adoption focus on the adoptee’s search for their biological family. Such memoirs also have themes of cultural loss and struggles with identity. I never felt …


W. H. Auden’S Proto-Queer Theology Of 1939-1941, Aaron Bisson May 2020

W. H. Auden’S Proto-Queer Theology Of 1939-1941, Aaron Bisson

Honors Program Theses and Projects

With the advent of queer theory in the early 1990s, critics have increasingly sought to “queer” texts; that is, seeking out demonstrations of identity that do not fit conventional norms of sex, gender, and sexuality. Given the historic persecution of homosexuals and other “deviants” in the twentieth century, W. H. Auden is an interesting case when viewed through this lens because his expansive career brims with homoerotic (and equally homosexual) undertones.


“Pen Is Envy”: Education, Feminine Sexuality, And Fruitfulness In Christina Rossetti’S “Goblin Market” And “An Apple Gathering” And Margaret Atwood’S The Handmaid’S Tale And The Testaments, Hannah White May 2020

“Pen Is Envy”: Education, Feminine Sexuality, And Fruitfulness In Christina Rossetti’S “Goblin Market” And “An Apple Gathering” And Margaret Atwood’S The Handmaid’S Tale And The Testaments, Hannah White

Honors Program Theses and Projects

The Victorian era was a time in which people were very much interested in morality and sinning, especially when it came to women’s sexuality. It was also time in which conversations about women and education often linked women to their bodies—even medical doctors during this era spoke of the dangerous consequences education might have on a woman’s reproductive capabilities. While men’s sexual transgressions were often viewed as a natural result of their being in the public sphere, women were expected to be the pure and domestic moral compass there to guide men that could not help but sin because of …


Chapters 1-8 Of Ralph & Lilly’S Orchard, Chloe Chartier May 2020

Chapters 1-8 Of Ralph & Lilly’S Orchard, Chloe Chartier

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Chapters 1-8 of Ralph & Lilly’s Orchard


More Than Just Wicked: The Tales Of Female Criminals In 17th- Century London, Savannah Resendes May 2020

More Than Just Wicked: The Tales Of Female Criminals In 17th- Century London, Savannah Resendes

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In 17th-century London, where women were bound to strict social rules and regulations, those who break free from these strict rules are often viewed with suspicion. Some may even call these women wicked as they stray away from what is expected of them. There was also surge of women committing crimes in this time period, which inspired literature to follow the same trend. Female criminals were often represented as sinful and wicked monsters of the time, showing people exactly what not to do if they want to fit in. However, in several specific literary texts set in 17th-century England these …


Flipgrid And Second Language Acquisition Using Flipgrid To Promote Speaking Skills For English Language Learners, Annelise Difilippantonio-Pen May 2020

Flipgrid And Second Language Acquisition Using Flipgrid To Promote Speaking Skills For English Language Learners, Annelise Difilippantonio-Pen

Master’s Theses and Projects

Integrating twenty-first century skills within the classroom has become a global driving force within the educational field. While schools have adopted models of one-to-one technology or digital formats for native English speakers, addressing the twenty-first century skills for English language learners have been absent. Given that the present global society is driven on bilingualism and multilingualism, English language learners need to be given the equitable digital opportunity to build their twenty-first century skills. The purpose of this mixed methods research study is to explore the influence and use of the digital application, Flipgrid, on the oral, English development for foundational, …


Sense, Sensibility, Sympathy, Social Class Upheaval In Jane Austen’S Novels, Megan M. Libby May 2020

Sense, Sensibility, Sympathy, Social Class Upheaval In Jane Austen’S Novels, Megan M. Libby

Master’s Theses and Projects

This thesis will explore Jane Austen’s social commentary on class structure and boundaries as they evolved from her writing of Sense and Sensibility to Persuasion. By identifying and researching the philosophical concepts of sense, sensibility, and sympathy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I examine how Austen shifted her beliefs to reflect the changes in social class occurring in England during her lifetime. I will be conducting close readings of the two novels, along with various historical texts, diary entries, and letters from the time period in question in order to recognize how historical events influenced the social structure in …


“Well, I’Ve Whispered ‘Racism’ In A Post-Racial World”: Satire And The Absurdity Of “Post-Racial” America, Joseph Gorman May 2020

“Well, I’Ve Whispered ‘Racism’ In A Post-Racial World”: Satire And The Absurdity Of “Post-Racial” America, Joseph Gorman

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of this thesis project is to look at the works of contemporary African American satirists as they confront post-racial ideology. In looking at the works of Jordan Peele, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, and Boots Riley, thematic threads emerge to form a portrait of dire unrest amongst those non-white identities living in an allegedly post-racial world. Before analyzing the works, I first contextualize the thesis with a brief discussion of satire as a literary genre and African American satire as a literary subgenre, as well as address the emergence of post-racial ideology during the tenure of Barack Obama as …


Where The Heart Is A Collection Of Nonfiction Essays On The Meaning Of Home In The Age Of Movement, Alyssa Raymond Apr 2020

Where The Heart Is A Collection Of Nonfiction Essays On The Meaning Of Home In The Age Of Movement, Alyssa Raymond

Honors Program Theses and Projects

When I first decided to do this thesis project, I wanted to focus on travel, telling stories of my time living and traveling abroad. I wanted to write real accounts of my travels to show how ugly and difficult it could be sometimes, in hopes of showing a less romanticized and more realistic account of traveling. However, after I began writing I discovered another theme present. I found different meanings of home that I’ve held whilst traveling become a big part of the project. As I’ve learned traveling affects my own definition of home, I found it important to include …


Quiet Moments Jan 2020

Quiet Moments

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.


Enclosure And Escape, Or Escape Into Enclosure?: Heterotopias And Jane Eyre Jan 2020

Enclosure And Escape, Or Escape Into Enclosure?: Heterotopias And Jane Eyre

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.


Gramsci In The Digital Age: Youtubers As New Organic Intellectuals Jan 2020

Gramsci In The Digital Age: Youtubers As New Organic Intellectuals

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.


Vignettes Of America Jan 2020

Vignettes Of America

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.


“Directed Into A Bed Of Trenches”: The Shift In The Language Of Elegy Demonstrated By The War Poetry Of Wilfred Owen Jan 2020

“Directed Into A Bed Of Trenches”: The Shift In The Language Of Elegy Demonstrated By The War Poetry Of Wilfred Owen

The Graduate Review

No abstract provided.