English Language and Literature Commons^™

From The Illuminating Moon To The Radiating Sun: The Philosophical Writings Of Emerson And Nichiren, Sharon Mitsue Blythe

Theses & Honors Papers

Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophical writings possess deep correlations to the writings of Nichiren, a 13th century Japanese Buddhist philosopher. Both Emerson and Nichiren conceive the inherent and unlimited potential of human beings, and stress the inseparability of life from its psychological, spiritual, and physical environment. Both Emerson and Nichiren address the cyclical and universal nature of all phenomena, an understanding that derives from the oneness of all facets of existence. The greatest variation between these two writers occurs in the implementation and practice of their philosophies.

The Preface provides a synopsis of Buddhism and introduces Nichiren. It also discusses the …

A Seal Of Living Reality: The Role Of Personal Expression In Latter-Day Saint Discourse, C. Julianne Smith

Theses and Dissertations

A personal mode of discourse is central to Latter-day Saint culture. This mode is both pervasive throughout the culture and significant within it. Two specific genres-the personal experience narrative and the personal testimony-illustrate the importance of this discourse mode in LDS culture. Understanding the LDS personal mode of discourse is essential to properly understanding Mormonism. The personal orientation in LDS discourse mirrors a tendency towards personal expression which has become common throughout Western culture. This tendency has important roots in the Protestant religious movement. In particular, Puritanism represents a significant point of origin for American personal expression. Such expression has …

Finding Love Among Extreme Opposition In Toni Morrison's Jazz And Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter, John David Clark

English Theses

In Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter, extreme opposition is prevalent as the authors describe the makeup of each character, as well as the setting and plot in these novels. What are they accomplishing by portraying such opposition? By using Jacque Derrida’s deconstructive theory and Julia Kristeva’s definition of abjection as theoretical guides to navigate these novels, examples of how both authors use extreme opposition in each element of their works are cited and explored. Through this process, the realization that opposing extremes can harmoniously lie side by side and have as many similarities as differences is …

A World Of Our Own: William Blake And Abolition, Lisa Karee Parker

English Theses

This thesis examines the influence of the abolition debates on two of William Blake’s early writings, “The Little Black Boy” and The Visions of the Daughters of Albion. It also considers Blake’s engravings for John Gabriel Stedman’s Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam as proof of his abolitionist interest. Chapter one provides an overview of current Romantic criticism which situates Blake and other Romantic writers within a historical context. Chapter two summarizes the abolition movement in the late eighteenth century. Chapters three, four and five specifically discuss Blake’s work as abolitionist in intent.

Two Laureates And A Whore Debate Decorum And Delight: Dryden, Shadwell, And Behn In A Decade Of Comedy A-La-Mode, Patricia Ann Chapman

English Theses

The comedies of John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, and Aphra Behn were equally well-received by Restoration audiences, yet each dramatist professes divergent dramatic theories and poetic goals. In prefatory material to their plays, Shadwell insists a dramatist’s duty is to depict virtue rewarded and vice punished, Behn rejects the idea that comic drama might influence morals or manners, and Dryden maintains that his only goal is to please the audience, despite his dull conversation and lack of wit. A comparison between the playwrights’ dramatic theory and their most popular comedies of the 1668-77 decade indicates that none of them represent with …

Melville's Quest For Certainty: Questing And Spiritual Stability In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Damien Brian Schlarb

English Theses

This paper investigates Herman Melville’s quest for spiritual stability and certainty in his novel Moby-Dick. The analysis establishes a philosophical tradition of doubt towards the Bible, outlining the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, Benedict de Spinoza, David Hume, Thomas Paine and John Henry Newman. This historical survey of spiritual uncertainty establishes the issue of uncertainty that Melville writes about in the nineteenth century. Having assessed the issue of doubt, I then analyze Melville’s use of metaphorical charts, which his characters use to resolve this issue. Finally, I present Melville’s philosophical findings as he expresses them through the metaphor of whaling. Here, …

Not So Immaculately Conceived: Imagining The Protestant Madonna 1850-1910, Deborah Ann Scaperoth

Doctoral Dissertations

Pius IX in the 1854 Bull Ineffabilis Deus defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception as the belief that Mary; mother of Jesus, was from the moment of her conception free from the "stain of original sin." This idea was a part of ecclesiastical tradition, but prior to this time, the church had not officially defined Mary's sinless nature in writing. The publication of this definition, along with published accounts of Marian sightings, contributed to an already heightened awareness of her in a literate, culturally aware public. As a result, Protestant writers who sought to invoke her image interpreted a …

Democracy And Capitalism In The American Western, Michelle C. Greenwald

Doctoral Dissertations

In “Democracy and Capitalism in the American Western,” I argue that the Western consistently dramatizes the tensions between democracy and capitalism while revealing the cultural structure of feeling at the time of its production. Since the first modern Western, Wister’s The Virginian (1902), the genre has expressed a concern that the balance between democracy and capitalism has been upset and that this imbalance has engendered or exacerbated other social problems. The genre generally worked to promote consensus about progress until the breakdown of the liberal consensus in the 1960s, when Americans’ belief in progress was shaken, resulting, in turn, in …

Boffin's Books And Darwin's Finches: Victorian Cultures Of Collecting, Michael W. Hancock '89

Doctoral Dissertations

Although wealthy continental virtuosos had passionately and selectively accumulated a variety of natural and artificial objects from the Renaissance onwards, not until the nineteenth century did collecting become a conspicuous national pastime among all classes in Britain. As industry and empire made available many new and exotic goods for acquisition and display, the collection as a cultural form offered the Victorians a popular strategy of self-fashioning that was often represented in the literature of the age as a source of prestige and social legitimation. Through interdisciplinary readings of Victorian fiction, narrative nonfiction, and poetry, my study examines how textual representations …

The Rhetoric Of Crisis: How We Talk About The Vulnerability Of Youth, Casey Cramer

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The classical definition of rhetoric is generally understood to be the art of persuasion. Originating in ancient Greece, rhetoric was one of the three original liberal arts. It focused on effective use of language, most often in the arena of politics and public discourse (Brummett, 35). By mastering persuasive language, politicians were able to shape and sway public opinion in their favor. Conversely, by understanding the mechanics of rhetoric, citizens were able to recognize and interpret speech that was purposefully constructed. The prevalence of rhetoric in political speech made it an integral part of a democratic society - politicians needed …

Maintaining An Immigrant Heritage Language Other Than Spanish Or English In The Bilingual Culture Of The Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, Sonia A. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A 2005 study in the bilingual Spanish/English Rio Grande Valley of South Texas investigates the language strategies used by immigrant families from China, Greece, Hungary, Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and the Ukraine to preserve their heritage languages and pass them on to their children. Personal interviews determine that all the parents are well-educated and from an above average socio-economic level. This investigation categorizes the various strategies used by the parents. All the immigrant parents emphasize that the main reason they want to preserve the heritage language with their children is to insure that the children can continue to communicate …

Highway 11, Devon Koren Asdell

Masters Theses

Created in 1926, US Route 11 runs from the Canadian border at Rouses Point, New York, to just shy of New Orleans at an intersection with US-90. In Bristol, Virginia, the highway splits in two -- 11-E and 11-W -- and then reunites in Knoxville, Tennessee. This highway serves as the main thoroughfare for many small towns and cities, and it is known by many names -- Lee Highway, Andrew Johnson Highway, and Kingston Pike, to name a few. As many of the residents of these small towns might attest, it is easy to take a highway for granted when …

The Importance Of Continuity In First Language Education For Learning A Second Language, Stephen M. Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Scores from the Texas Reading Proficiency Tests in English (RPTE) for ninety-four Newcomer ESL students were analyzed to understand the differences between students who had attended school continuously and those who had discontinuity in their first language (LI) education in their home country. This research was performed in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a few miles from the border with Mexico. The hypothesis is that students who have gaps in their L1 education will not learn to read as quickly in English as those who had none since the former are lacking cognitive skills which the latter already …

"Green In The Mulberry Bush": Quentin, Lancelot, And The Long Shadow Of The Lost Cause, Amy Renee Covington

Masters Theses

The purpose of this project is to examine the immensely popular post-Civil War "Myth of the Lost Cause" which developed in the Southern states after the Confederate defeat. Its primary tenet was the belief in a chivalric antebellum Southern society, complete with genteel plantation owners, faithful slaves, and an Edenic landscape. The myth also exalted the bravery of the Confederate soldier and the quiet heroism of the belles left behind. This carefully crafted fantasy was the product of an organized, sophisticated public relations campaign which originated in the former Confederacy and was quickly adopted by other parts of the country. …

Man Down South, Joseph B. Plicka

Theses and Dissertations

In this novella the main character, David Crumm, is getting older and decides not to wait around and die on his frozen ranch, but to retire to warmer climates. He leaves everything with his daughter, gets in his truck and drives south with his dog. In Florida, he accidentally hits and kills a migrant woman on her bicycle. The woman has a young son who survives the accident and, through a number of converging factors, David is compelled to personally take the boy back to his relatives in Nicaragua. The book then deals with David's experiences as he heads farther …

Aspects Of King Maclain In Eudora Welty's The Golden Apples, James Hammond Shimkus

English Theses

ASPECTS OF KING MACLAIN IN EUDORA WELTY’S THE GOLDEN APPLES by James Shimkus Under the Direction of Pearl A. McHaney ABSTRACT Much of the scholarship on Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples focuses on Welty’s use of folklore and myth, particularly as presented in several of W. B. Yeats’s poems. The character King MacLain is most often associated with Zeus, Perseus, and Aengus. A close examination of King MacLain’s development during Welty’s composition and revision of The Golden Apples reveals associations between King and other figures from myth and folklore, including Odin, Loki, Finn MacCool, Brer Rabbit, the King of the …

Versions Of America: Reading American Literature For Identity And Difference, Raj G. Chetty

Theses and Dissertations

My paper examines how American authors of the South Asian Diaspora (Indian-American or South Asian American) can be read 1) as simply American and 2) without regard to ethnicity. I develop this argument using American authors Jhumpa Lahiri, a first generation American of Bengali-Indian descent, and Bharati Mukherjee, an American of Bengali-Indian origin. I borrow from Deepika Bahri's materialist aesthetics in postcolonialism (in turn borrowed from members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory) and include theoretical insights from Rey Chow, Graham Huggan, and R. Radhakrishnan regarding multiculturalism, identity politics, and diaspora studies. Huggan and Radhakrishnan's insights are especially useful …

Embodying History: Women, Representation, And Resistance In Twentieth-Century Southern African And Caribbean Literature, April Conley Kilinski

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation illustrates how twentieth-century Southern African and Caribbean authors of English fictions recuperate the metaphorical and material female body from the male-centered project of British colonization by employing the female body as a site of resistance through representations of illness, eating disorders, and racial and gender performance. I include works by men and women as well as white and minority authors to illustrate how the female body becomes a point of convergence for narratives of resistance in these postcolonial works. Since each narrative is informed by hybridity--through syncretism, miscegenation, and contact with the metropolis through immigration--I argue that each …

From The Voice To The Violent Act: Language And Violence In Contemporary Drama, Richard A. Bryan

Doctoral Dissertations

Aleks Sierz coined the phrase "In-Yer-Face Theatre" to categorize a new generation of plays written by a group of upstart playwrights in Britain and America. In addressing these plays, I draw upon recent contributions within the social sciences in order to understand better the interstices of language and violence in this drama. This interdisciplinary approach underscores the social considerations at the heart of these plays. Although frequently criticized for a perceived lack of social consciousness and a seemingly gratuitous use of profanity, prurient sexuality, and graphic violence, these writers in fact continue, and contribute to, a tradition of theater that …

Remember The Ordinary, If You Can’: Metaphor, Memory And Meaning Of 9/11 In The Leading Articles Of The Times Of London, Anne Snellen

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is developed in conjunction with the Center for Applied Phenomenological Research at the University of Tennessee and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, to examine how the editorial pages of The Times of London sought to provide a collective understanding of the events of 9/11 during the first year after the attacks. Leaning on the methods of historiography, phenomenology, and rhetorical analysis, this study offers an interdisciplinary approach to discovering meaning translated through the interrelated processes of conjuring historical memory, inventing novel, figurative terminology, and building narrative structures to frame our understanding of events. This study considers how …

Chaucer's Questioning Impulse: Reading The Dream Visions And Troilus And Criseyde, Anita K. Bergeson

Doctoral Dissertations

Models of medieval reading often describe a process that divorces emotion from intellect or that sees the reader in a position of dominance over the text. This project examines rēden, with its overlapping meanings of interpretation, counsel, advice, and control, and reading scenes in Chaucer’s early dream visions and Troilus and Criseyde. In these poems. Chaucer uses rēden to question and reassess acts of reading as an interactive process between text and reader. In the Book of the Duchess, reading is emotive interpretation that consoles neither the narrator nor the Black Knight. The House of Fame explores reading …

Social Student Bodies In The Im World: Digital Vernaculars And Self-Reflexive Rhetoric, Stacey Lynn Pigg

Masters Theses

Recent rhetoric, composition, and literacy scholarship has refocused attention on the body’s role in reading and writing, arguing against abstracting literacy practices and texts from material situations, contexts, and the physical bodies who create them. This scholarship challenges descriptions and accounts of emerging media and digital writing situations as “disembodying.” This thesis argues that in the “IM world” in which incoming college students learn to write by participating in online communities, their digital writing can be considered “embodied” as real-world, socially-situated practice. By actively participating in online communities, many incoming college students learn distinct online language practices outside of school; …

The Politics Of Abstraction: Race, Gender, And Slavery In The Poetry Of William Blake, Edgar Cuthbert Gentle

Masters Theses

This study examines the relationship between the poetry of William Blake and the abolitionist movement gaining force in England from 1789-1793. The poems The Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793) and "The Little Black Boy" (1789) express sympathy with this movement, depicting racial prejudice and oppression in unsparing ways. However, other aspects of the poems threaten to undercut this message, such as the equation of corruption with black imagery and purity with white imagery. This is a sign of Blake's limited scientific and theological understanding of race, which leads to an inadequate portrayal of enslaved Africans. Because his interests …

Politics Of Representations: Snow Man And Bait By David Albahari, Damjana Mraovic

Masters Theses

The thesis analyzes stereotypes about the Balkans in two novels, Snow Man (1995) and Bait (1996), by contemporary Serbian writer David Albahari (b. 1948), and how these assumptions, mostly imposed by the West and its tradition of reading the East/the Balkans, are internalized or problematized in these works. This thesis also includes a new, original interview with Albahari conducted by the thesis author. The thesis addresses a change in Albahari’s poetics from metafiction typical for the 1970s and 1980s, to epic forms, which encapsulate the totality of historical experience, in the 1990s. Ultimately, the thesis points out a paradox in …

Liberalism, Communitarianism, And The Search For Utopia, Jennifer Marie Vanden Heuval

Masters Theses

This thesis traces the development of utopian literature through the lens of the liberal-communitarian debate. As Jürgen Habermas asserts, utopian thought plays a vital role in the positive development of society. Habermas also observes that utopian energies are failing in modern society and that this limits our ability to achieve an affirmative community. I agree with Habermas’s assessment and therefore here I examine literary representations of utopia with the hope that utopian energies can be revived. As I argue here, literary utopias can inspire and guide us towards positive societal change. In chapter one, I examine the utopias of the …

Mary Shelley And The Early Goddess, Anne Schreuder

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

For my thesis, I intend to focus on elements of Greek idealism in Mary Shelley’s Valperga, Frankenstein, and The Last Man. I will define “classicism” and seek to understand the ideals of the ancients that are concerned with the assertion of a masculine identity and fear the interference of the female voice in the quest for that assertion. I will show how Mary Shelley’s revisionist history undermines the classical ideals of masculinity in the search for the lost feminine. I will use Shelley’s two plays, Proserpine and Midas to support my claim that Shelley is interested in revisionist history of …

Making The Margins Legitimate: Travel, Family, And National Identity In Eighteenth-Century British Fiction, Teresa R. Moore

Masters Theses

This study examines the first novels of Frances Burney and Tobias Smollett in order to analyze the effects of inner, familial forces and outer, worldly forces on the narrators’ national identity. Written thirty years apart, the novels follow a remarkably similar plot structure to arrive at different configurations of national identity. I argue that success creating a fictional character who fully enters British society is ultimately dependent upon the author’s own sense of marginalization. Indeed, Burney and Smollett configure their sense of Britishness around their own social positions as a woman and Scot respectively. Finally, these findings maintain that the …

Active Submission: The Subversion Of Gendered Binary Oppositions In Three Post-War Novels Authored By International Women, Rebecca Annette Napier

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore a controversial dimension of feminist literature: that dimension concerning female masochism. My study centers on international novels written by women after World War II. The novels are The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark, Gordon by Edith Templeton, and The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek. This thesis examines three highly individualized tales of control and power that posit female masochism as means for “active submission.” I claim that while the feminist politics of these texts is ambiguous, protagonists of these novels redefine masochism as “active submission,” and as a result, they challenge the …

Dismantling The Master’S Schoolhouse: The Rhetoric Of Education In African American Autobiography And Fiction, Miya G. Abbot

Masters Theses

This thesis examines rhetorical understandings of education for African Americans in literature of three important time periods of American history. From the post-Reconstruction South, to Northern cities in the 1950s, and finally to 1990s Los Angeles, this is an examination of how African American authors of fiction and autobiography have presented the relationship between literacy acquisition and identity. Underlying the historical and rhetorical examination is the argument that, for African American students, the virtue of the educational space is dubious. It is at once the gateway to the "American dream" of prosperity, and the venue for the reinforcement of systemic …

Liminal Bodies, Leslye Stewart Ford

Masters Theses

This collection of thirty-three mostly free-verse poems explores the liminal, or threshold, modes of being encountered by bodies, especially in conjunction with other bodies, with places, and with the spirit or the divine. The sections of the manuscript progress from exploring the interstices and large gaps between women and girls, mothers and daughters, to the merging and colliding of lovers, friends, even rapists, to place and its ability to root the body to shadows of the past and present, to the merging of the divine with the human. As a collection, each section seeks to explore the body as a …