English Language and Literature Commons^™

A Hierarchy Of Love: Myth In C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, Joseph Walls

Masters Theses

In C.S. Lewis's Perelandra, the transposed creature is drawn up into its "kindly stede" as a sacramental symbol of Christ through that fictional planet's unbroken relationship between meaning and form. Although Perelandra's "wheels-within-wheels" hierarchy may at first seem reminiscent of Catholicism's teachings on symbol, as a Protestant, Lewis believes that human beings cannot be truly sacramental symbols until the return of Christ. Lewis's optimistic depiction of a cosmic hierarchy is one of perfect love: superiors rule their subordinates with agape, and creatures who discover their submissive roles reciprocate with eros or adoring love. Every created being in Perelandra is part …

Orientalism And Three British Dames: De-Essentialization Of The Other In The Work Of Gertrude Bell, Freya Stark, And E.S. Drower, Lynn Sawyer

Masters Theses

Although postcolonial criticism has run its course for thirty years, a fresh look at Edward Said's Orientalism offers insight into how Orientalism functions in the writings of three British dames. Gertrude Bell in The Desert and the Sown, Freya Stark in The Southern Gates of Arabia, and E.S. Drower in The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, however, challenge Said's theory. Their writing raises questions about how gender alters the discourse about the Other, and whether Said essentializes the Occident. Bell, Stark, and Drower serve as case studies in which to analyze the politically and rhetorically complex interactions between the West …

You Sir Are A Fine Young Gentleman. Thank You, My Lady: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Eighteenth Century Conversations Regarding Gentility And Gender, Kati Overbey

Masters Theses

This study rhetorically analyzed the eighteenth century work of Richard Steele and Joseph Addison's The Spectator and Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator using Kathleen Turner's framework for rhetorical history as social criticism integrating text and context. Ten essays from The Spectator as well as ten essays from The Female Spectator were selected based on content and subject matter regarding manners and gentility. When Turner's framework for analysis was applied to the essays, defining characteristics of gentility were revealed. A presentation of the results of the textual and contextual analysis of these twenty selected essays is provided. An analysis of the …

The Significance Of Silence: The Muted Voices Of Count Fosco And Laura Fairlie In The Woman In White, Melanie Page

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the intricacies of voice using narrative theory and reader-response theory with Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Since Collins first wrote this epistolary novel serially, he wrote aware of his audience as he printed segments with different narrators. This novel allowed Collins the opportunity to reveal an internal set of narrators' responses to other characters' voices--responses that sometimes conflict with and modify one another. At the same time, Collins' contemporary audience's responses to the novel reveal the role of characters' voices in shaping reactions of members of the novel's reading public. Two opposing figures--Laura Fairlie and Count …

And Then, He Folds His Patterned Rug: Repressive Reality And The Eternal Soul In Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Cook

Masters Theses

While Vladimir Nabokov has deservedly earned fame as a stylist of the strange, most critics who study his novels approach his absurd and beautiful characters as little more than fractured victims of a wholly subjective reality. Compounding the misunderstanding is the tired debate over whether or not Lolita is literary, pornographic, or some cruel game of cat-and-mouse in which Nabokov seizes control of his readers' sense of morality. However, critics who read Nabokov as nothing more than a manipulative stylist neglect to realize that his characters suffer such absurd distortions of spirit and mind because their environment--the "average" reality of …

A Study In Micro Discourse Community Learning: The Subject-Driven Micro Discourse Community Session Model, Philip Brandon Gallagher

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the development and testing of a new collaborative learning model that uses new media informed practices to teach modem students who are familiar with today's digital learning environments. Often, modem students have difficulty learning from traditional classroom practices. The Subject-Driven Micro Discourse Community Session model is an answer to this problem for collaborative learning. The Micro Community Model, for short, engages participants in small, collaborative groups as experts that have valuable knowledge to contribute. By using organized role switching and knowledge recording techniques, the model draws on current new media attributes to appeal to student competencies and …

Genre Awareness: Effectively Teaching Composition Through Genre Awareness At A Community College, Ashley D. Klinginsmith

Masters Theses

This thesis outlines the history of rhetorical genre theory and how the evolving definition of genre has influenced current genre awareness pedagogies. The survey of literature examines implicit and explicit pedagogical approaches to teaching genre theory and closely examines genre awareness as an alternative approach. Through exploring genre awareness, the thesis highlights the specific scene of the community college writing classroom in comparison to the scene of the university ,:vriting classroom in order to detennine how to best instruct students. After a thorough examination of the scene, the study progresses into a useful guide for comm1mity college instmctors to gain …

Five People Like This: How Writers Perceive And Interact With Their Facebook Audience, Luke E. Kingery

Masters Theses

This study is a mixed methods approach to exploringa udience-awarenesso n Facebook.B y conductinga survey of l O l students enrolled in Composition II, observing the status updates posted by 21 Facebook users for one month, and conducting 5 individual case studies, it is evident that the level of audience awareness varies among users. This study found that some users are learning audience awareness through the feedback they are getting from, and they frame their messages in ways that imply audience awareness. Finally, more research needs to be conducted on Facebook writing and discusses and scholars should continue to explore …

Nonprofit Visual Identity: Evaluating The Needs And Wants, Whitney R. Noland

Masters Theses

Visual identity originates within the internal structures of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Establishing this visual identity is necessary for any organization, so it can gain mvareness in a community and even develop a relationship with its potential clients and donors. For many nonprofit organizations, the identity should be the central component of fundraising and marketing procedures; however, nonprofits, at times, disengage with their needs and instead focus on their wants, losing sight of the importance of standardizing their image. Through this client-based project, which focused on audience relationship, social responsibility, and ethical awareness, 1 partnered with a nonprofit organization …

Sketching As An Ally In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Kenneth P. Webb

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possible use of sketching as a pedagogical tool in the first-year composition classroom. The digital age has brought with it a wealth of new (and culturally significant) multimodal compositions, that is, compositions that use multiple modes of communication. In particular, visual modes of communication are growing increasingly important. Furthermore, new ways of sharing information has lead to an accelerating proliferation of new media that increasingly blends visual and verbal elements in the creation of compositions. College students, in the midst of grappling with these new challenges, and with the promise of unforeseen multimodal genres in the …

Framing Jane: Film Adaptation And Jane Eyre, 1934-2006, Joy Wohlman Boyce

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Anglicization Of Ælfric's "Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis Et Martyris", Benjamin W. Potmesil

Masters Theses

While depicting Christian saints is certainly not unique to Old English literature, the presence of a hagiographic tradition within its corpus offers a variety of possibilities for academic investigation by editors of Old English texts. Of particular interest is JElfric's "Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris." This hagiography, which focuses upon an Anglo-Saxon king of the ninth century, is acknowledged by JElfric to be a translation of Abbo of Fleury' s Latin account of Edmund's death. Fortunate! y, copies of both JElfric's Old English version and Abbo's Latin original have survived to the modern day. As a result, the modern …

"I Am Not Minor": Characters' Apparent Autonomy In J.M. Coetzee's Fiction, Brigid Erin O'Malley

Masters Theses

J.M. Coetzee's most recent works of fiction have become increasingly experimental with form (e.g., metafiction, diary, fictionalized memoir). These various forms illuminate the subject-object split present in Coetzee's recent work and its transcendence of race and gender. Indeed, the gender and racial tensions present in his novels seem to be mere representations of the subject-object split at work - the split that exists between those with power and those without. Thus, I believe Coetzee is attempting to make a more universal, even spiritual statement regarding the body and soul ( our corporeal selves representing the objective self and our soul …

Bridging The Cultural Gap: Using Commonwealth Young Adult Literature In American Secondary Schools, Jennifer Hrejsa-Hudson

Masters Theses

Commonwealth Young Adult Literature (CYAL), or Y AL written in English speaking countries other than America, can help American secondary students become more globally aware while fulfilling many of the Common Core Standards. CY AL offers a variety of literary and multicultural/intercultural opportunities not always available in Ameri-centric YA. In this thesis, prize winning examples of CY AL and intercultural CY AL are analyzed for what cultural knowledge students can gain from reading them. Also included is a discussion about what is lost when American publishers "translate" CYAL into American vernacular. Finally, specific examples are given of how American secondary …

Project In Grant Proposal Writing, Betsy Wells

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the process of grant proposal writing from beginning to end. It includes research and theory on preparing a feasibility report, searching for funding opportunities, using narrative in proposal writing, and repurposing text in the medical field and grant proposal writing. Documents included in this thesis are a feasibility report and two grant proposals written as a project for a small community hospital.

"Through The Keyhole Of His Eye": The Restoration Of Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend, Gina Marie Lobianco

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Sickness And Health, Anthony Smith

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Book Production In The Medieval West Midlands: The Case For Organized Bookmaking, Rashelle Spear

Masters Theses

My thesis project, Book Production in the West Midlands: The Case for Organized Bookmaking, takes into consideration the geographical factors of the medieval manuscripts of the West Midlands in England from the mid-fourteenth to the early fifteenth centuries. The medieval manuscript is an artifact: it is a piece of the past that, if examined carefully, will present a narrative about bookmen, bookmaking practices, and the reading public of a specific period and, in this case, a geographical area.

To discover a more coherent picture of bookmaking and the way books were prepared and received in the West Midlands, I closely …

Murder With A Penknife: Individual Identity Formation In Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond, Patrick Prominski

Masters Theses

Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Ormond (1799) is in many ways a typical Gothic novel. However, stripping away its Gothic trappings reveals a more complex tale than Brown’s European Gothic inspirations. Brown seems to have been keenly aware of the struggle to form a distinctly American identity in the wake of the Revolution. Reading Ormond as an attempt by Brown to outline a potential American identity reveals a complexity far beyond Ormond’s Gothic kin. Furthermore, examining Brown’s works Alcuin (1798) and “Walstein’s School of History” (1799) alongside Ormond exposes the basis for Brown’s position on women in the new Republic …

Language And Identity In Postcolonial African Literature: A Case Study Of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Abigail Guthrie

Masters Theses

Sociolinguists often research the development of language attitudes and the state of language within speech communities. Individual speakers reflect the status of their L1 language in both speaking and writing (Wa Thiong'o 1986, Showalter 2001), and the idea that writing can be used as a set of data that reflects an author's language attitude is the motivation for this research. Salikoko Mufwene (2001), one of the leading experts on creolization and the ecology of language, has argued that individual speakers of a language make daily choices that affect the future of their native tongue. Using the novel Things Fall Apart …

H(A)Unt, Daniel Paquin

Masters Theses

I awake and find myself still sleeping.

Chelmsford, Daniel Davis

Masters Theses

Literary Studies with Creative Writing Emphasis

Traditionally, the term deux ex machina refers to the intrusion of a God-like being into the events of a play: in order to bring about a desired conclusion, the playwright introduces a supernatural deity who restores order. Witness the statue of Hermione at the end of A Winter's Tale.

More modem texts call for a broader interpretation. The symbolic rain of frogs at the end of Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia, or the disappearance of Charles Lindbergh in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, qualify as dei ex machina. These are events created not …

Dear Generals And Used Up Men: War Discourse And Dissent In Antebellum America, Kimberly Hunter-Perkins

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Distorted Domesticities: Hawthorne And The Democratic Domestic Sphere, John Stromski

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Power Of Words: The Use Of Language In Ethan Frome, Heather Faye Spear

Masters Theses

Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, has been sharply criticized for its tragic ending, yet Wharton's compelling storytelling which depicts universal conditions of mankind accomplishes something powerful through its narrative: it defends language. The complicated relationship between the three main characters, Zeena, Ethan, and Mattie is rooted in their utilization of language. Using a combination of close reading for textual analysis and identifying a communicative style for each character, this thesis asserts that how the characters in this novel utilize language contests the meaninglessness and relativity supported by deconstructionists. Wharton clearly illustrates Zeena's linguistic power over both Ethan and Mattie, and …

The Meek Shall Inherit, Chris Houchens

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

John Savage, John Klyczek

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Violence, Christianity, And The Anglo-Saxon Charms, Laurajan G. Gallardo

Masters Theses

Concentration in Literary Studies

The thesis focuses on violence reinterpreted through the Anglo-Saxon charms that exhibit a fusion of Christian and pagan elements. In order to comprehend the impact of this fusion, I provide ecclesiastical and social histories of the Anglo-Saxons, stressing upon the interconnectedness of both-an essential concept in understanding the AngloSaxon view of the world. This interconnectedness is seen in the Anglo-Saxon perception of magic, which in their understanding was synonymous to science or religion. I provide a brief introduction on magical practices and beliefs that applied to the charms, shedding light on how they were expected to …

Sometimes Magic, Corey Taylor

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Twenty Essential Illinois Problems, Clint Walker

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.