English Language and Literature Commons^™

Entry Nr. 487 Kossola, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 134 Isaac Anderson, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Madness In The Mixtape: Gothic Literature And Pop Music, Nicholas Dertinger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In Gothic literature, madness has often been connected to the outliers of what is considered socially normal. This dissertation explores the enduring theme of madness, particularly the figure of the “madwoman,” in both women’s literature and in its “afterlife”—or continuing conversation with—contemporary pop music. Through a comparative analysis of songs including Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” (1978), Beyoncé’s “Hold Up” (2016), Lady Gaga’s “Plastic Doll” (2020), Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” (2021), Billie Eilish’ “What Was I Made For?” (2023), Paramore’s cover of “Burning Down the House” (2024), Taylor Swift’s “mad woman” (2020) and Florence + the Machine’s “Dream Girl Evil” …

Lucretius, Ovid, And Milton In Seventeenth-Century England: First Matter, Creation, And Food Of Angels, Conny M. Pfeifer

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Paradise Lost is a complex poem that not only contains John Milton’s rendition of the Genesis creation narrative and the Fall of humankind but also provides a voice for his unique theology. This dissertation argues that Milton’s creative use of the three disparate concepts of consuming and digesting knowledge, chaos, and the night sky allows him to respond to Lucretian atomism, to address questions regarding the mortality of the soul, and to navigate the scientific discoveries of the seventeenth century, especially the astronomical discoveries of Galileo Galilei. An examination of digestion, chaos, and night helps shed light on Milton’s unique …

On Death And Disease: How Physicians’ Perspectives Compare Across Specialties Through Written Work, Stephanie Anne C. Alkonga

Honors Capstones

Narrative medicine is a tool that the medical field is increasingly utilizing to cultivate patient-centered and culturally competent doctors and to reflect on lived experiences through texts that focus on psychosocial best practices. This study aims to examine the language used in physician-written works that address how physicians in different medical specialties treat the aging and the terminally ill, and how they view the deceased. Qualitative data guided by thematic questions will primarily be used in the analysis and comparison of these texts’ tone, rhetoric, diction, and similar literary devices to uncover if certain patterns arise across such specialties. Findings …

The Gentle Powers: The Importance Of Unmarried Women In The Middlebrow Novels Of Interwar Britain, Caitriona Terry

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation explores the rise of the women’s middlebrow novel in interwar Britain and the use of unmarried women as heroines. During a time of extreme gender imbalance, female middlebrow authors often took up spinsters, who were treated as pitiable and superfluous by both the literary establishment and the press, and turned them into everywomen who could speak directly to the changing and uncertain times their readers were struggling with.

Although the middlebrow was more of a loose grouping of authors than an intentional artistic or intellectual movement, by surveying books under this umbrella that focused on unmarried women and …

Will The Real J.G. Ballard Please Stand Up?, Scott Richard Stalcup

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the longer works of British colonial author James Graham Ballard. Specifically, it attempts to answer the long-deflected question posed over the decades to Ballard regarding the treatment of female characters in his fiction. Though espousing liberal feminist ideals at times, Ballard’s repeated use of the lamia/damsel archetype, often in the same female character, strongly suggests he believed otherwise. Using predominantly radical-cultural feminist criticism as a critical lens, specifically the works of Ballard’s long-time nemesis Andrea Dworkin, this study focuses predominantly on the thematic tetralogies of Ballard’s fiction: the ecological disasters of the 1960s, the “techno-barbarism” of the …

After The Collapse: Herman Melville’S And Friedrich Nietzsche's Existentialism, Ryan L. Smith

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation compares the works of Herman Melville and Friedrich Nietzsche. Melville and Nietzsche articulate similar arguments about the collapse of Christian metaphysics as a traditional philosophical system. Both authors recognize the moral, intellectual, and spiritual void this collapse revealed, and they craft similar texts that illustrate humanity’s emotional turmoil facing the abyss. In addition to these scenes of upheaval, Melville and Nietzsche promote the importance of the individual’s will to overcome the possible fall into psychological nihilism resulting from recognizing the emptiness of traditional religion’s teachings. Melville’s and Nietzsche’s striving against complete despair in the wake of this collapse …

Princes, Princesses, And Socialites: Feminism And Class Transgression In Hollywood Romantic Comedies, Justina Marie Clayburn

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explored how characters in romantic comedies negotiate and transgress class boundaries as the films conform to and challenge genre and social expectations, focusing primarily through a feminist lens. Specifically, it addresses the different ways the films negotiate ideas about American identity and economic systems, simultaneously trying to acknowledge problematic elements while upholding social and nationalistic ideals. Feminism has a complicated relationship with Hollywood romantic comedies. While the genre often focuses on issues of interest to women and forefronts female characters and their professional and personal experiences, the denouement generally reinforces heteronormative monogamous relationships above others and the traditional …

"Killers Who Preach": Horror And The "Victorian" Culture Text In The Modern American Musical, Amy Erickson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines American Broadway musicals adapted from Victorian horror and mystery novels, investigating the ways in which the musical adaptations represent and critique modern American social problems and traditional American values and ideology. Specifically, it analyzes Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a Musical Thriller, adapted from the anonymously published Victorian penny serial The String of Pearls; Rupert Holmes’s 1985 musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood, adapted from Charles Dickens’s unfinished 1870 novel of the same name; Frank Wildhorn’s 1997 musical Jekyll & Hyde, adapted from Robert Louis Stephenson’s 1886 novella The Strange …

Othello As A Political Commentary On "The Myth Of Venice", Alejandro Tamayo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The premise of this essay is that the ascension of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603 motivated Shakespeare to give Othello -- performed for the king in 1604-- a setting, topicality, and an embedded political commentary that suited the political ideas and personal interests of the new monarch. After an overview of the possible sources of the play, this essay also reviews some of James's political writings, where he expresses his absolutist philosophy. Although some commentators believe there is a pro-republican subtext in Othello, this essay argues the opposite. It posits that by adding the …

Entry Nr. 042 Un-Named Amina Merchant, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 072 Un-Named Moko Woman, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 093 Un-Named Carabali Man, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 335 William Henry Pratt, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 407 N Gonga, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 425 Otsétse, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 397 Nyámse, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 055 First Un-Named Sokko Or Asokko Man, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 036 Johannes, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 092 Un-Named Okwoi Man, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 064 First Un-Named Watje Man, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 081 Fourth Un-Named Kanga Man, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 105 Anna Margaretha, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 087 Second Un-Named Amina Merchant, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 109 First Un-Named African Man In Pennsylvania, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 254 Cawley, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 375 Isambakon, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 426 Otén, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.

Entry Nr. 067 Un-Named Atja Woman, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

500 African Voices

No abstract provided.