Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
English Language and Literature Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Institution
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Road Trippin': Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives From On The Road To The Road, Scott M. Obernesser
Road Trippin': Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives From On The Road To The Road, Scott M. Obernesser
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
"Road Trippin:’ Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives and Petrocultures from On The Road to The Road" examines late-twentieth century U.S. road narratives in an effort to trace the development of American petrocultures geographically and culturally in the decades after World War II. The highway stories that gain popularity throughout the era trace not simply how Americans utilize oil, but how the postwar American oil ethos in literature, film, and music acts upon and shapes human interiority and vice versa. Roads and highways frame my critique because they are at once networks of commerce transportation and producers of a unique, romantic …
Environmental Deterioration In Contemporary Appalachian Literature: A Biblical Ecocritical Analysis Of Serena And Strange As This Weather Has Been, Alexandria C. Craft
Environmental Deterioration In Contemporary Appalachian Literature: A Biblical Ecocritical Analysis Of Serena And Strange As This Weather Has Been, Alexandria C. Craft
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Ron Rash’s Serena and Ann Pancake’s Strange as This Weather Has Been are two contemporary Appalachian novels that have yet to be analyzed from a biblical ecocritical perspective. While some literary scholars acknowledge the environmental aspects of the novels, little of their research goes beyond examining the land and its resources as commodities or metaphorical extensions for the characters. In this thesis, I elaborate on those interpretations by scrutinizing the natural descriptions in both novels and comparing those findings to some of the landscapes and environmental verses located within the Bible. Unlike the pastoral ideal found in a portion of …
Strangers Among Us: Invasive Plants In British Literature, 1669-1800., Thomas Lance Bullington
Strangers Among Us: Invasive Plants In British Literature, 1669-1800., Thomas Lance Bullington
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Exotic flora in the long eighteenth century (1666-1800) embodied a point of contact between the natural and imaginary worlds, bearing witness to the ways that ideology relocates living things according to human desire. Most accounts view these exotics through the lens of ecological imperialism and “invasive” species. Both of these terms are twenty-first century metaphors that materialize the role of imperialism in circulating exotics, applying the narrative of invading British empire to the behavior of foreign plants. However, such accounts do not fully acknowledge the cultural work that images of foreign plants do. I opt instead for an ecocritical reappraisal …
Genetic Engineering As Literary Praxis: A Study In Contemporary Literature, Taylor Evans
Genetic Engineering As Literary Praxis: A Study In Contemporary Literature, Taylor Evans
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis considers the understudied issue of genetic engineering as it has been deployed in the literature of the late 20th century. With reference to the concept of the enlightened gender hybridity of Cyborg theory and an eye to ecocritical implications, I read four texts: Joan Slonczewski's 1986 science fiction novel A Door Into Ocean, Octavia Butler's science fiction trilogy Lilith's Brood – originally released between 1987 and 1989 as Xenogenesis – Simon Mawer's 1997 literary novel Mendel's Dwarf, and the first two books in Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction MaddAddam series: 2003's Oryx and Crake and 2009's The Year Of …