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Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Hannah & Nana: A Personal Memoir On Appalachian Intergenerational Trauma, Womanhood, & Family, Hannah Dunn
Hannah & Nana: A Personal Memoir On Appalachian Intergenerational Trauma, Womanhood, & Family, Hannah Dunn
Honors Projects
I was deeply affected by the death of my beloved nana in 2018. After her death, my family asked me to be the storyteller for us. Thus, for my Honors Project at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), I decided to write a personal memoir on my family. This memoir explores how we fit into notions of womanhood and family in Appalachia, as well as studying the effects of intergenerational trauma on us. Qualitative research, in the form of the autoethnography, serves as the methodology for this project. In writing a creative memoir, I have transformed my personal to the academic.
Autobiographical Narratives Of Sexual Violation: Trauma, Genre, And The Politics Of Telling, Sarah M. Hildebrand
Autobiographical Narratives Of Sexual Violation: Trauma, Genre, And The Politics Of Telling, Sarah M. Hildebrand
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation engages with literary trauma theory and rape studies by investigating how scholars through the 1990s theorized the relationship among trauma, narration, and silence, and how the #MeToo movement causes us to rethink these views. Attending to the specific silence generated in the wake of sexual violation reveals how power structures influence the act of telling, challenging the idea that trauma is untellable. I argue that literary trauma theory needs to push beyond its foundation in biomedical models of trauma—in which the (in)ability to recall or articulate traumatic events is rooted in neurology—to examine the ways traumatic narratives are …
"I Want To Melt Into Her Body": Sexual Empowerment And A Feminist Recentering Of The Female Characters In Dracula By Bram Stoker, Carmilla By J. Sheridan Lefanu, And Villette By Charlotte Bronte, Carson Leigh Pender
Graduate Theses
Simone de Beauvoir argues in The Second Sex, “The normal sexual act [of intercourse] effectively makes woman dependent on the male and the species. It is he–as for most animals– who has the aggressive role and she who submits to his embrace. . . coitus cannot take place without male consent, and male satisfaction is its natural end result” (385). Essentially, de Beauvoir argues that the act of sex cannot exist without the presence of man, but particularly for heterosexual women, the act of sex is dependent on the presence of, responsibility of, and response of men. However, despite the …
The Sea Calls: A Selkie's Liminal Existence, Frances Avery
The Sea Calls: A Selkie's Liminal Existence, Frances Avery
All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023
Traditionally, the selkies (or seal people) of Scottish-Irish lore exist between spaces: the land and the sea, human and animal, childbearing and childless. Their existence at sea is voluntary but their existence on land is forced. Once the selkie has left behind its sealskin and both the literal and metaphorical sealskin has been stolen, the selkie becomes subject to human will. The lenses of body, reclamation, violation, and abuse prove that the reason why selkies have faded from popularity is because the lessons are too mature for a young audience. A feminist and queer reading and interpretation of this traditional …
“I’Ll Make A Captain Among Ye, And Do Somewhat To Be Talk Of Forever After”: Female Civic Agency In Sir Thomas More’S Staged Insurrection, Heather Miller
“I’Ll Make A Captain Among Ye, And Do Somewhat To Be Talk Of Forever After”: Female Civic Agency In Sir Thomas More’S Staged Insurrection, Heather Miller
Master's Theses
Sir Thomas More is an English chronicle play that has received far less critical attention than generically similar histories written by Shakespeare. Doll Williamson, the play’s strongest female character, assumes a leadership position in initiating, as well as ultimately quelling, the Evil May Day riots, which provide the play’s initial dramatic impetus. Despite the critical tendency to overlook or diminish the seriousness of her dramatic role in the play, including in the staged insurrection scene, I argue in this thesis that we should take the concerns that Doll articulates and embodies seriously from a feminist perspective. Furthermore, I place Doll’s …
“It Could Have Happened To Any Of You”: Post-Wounded Women In Three Contemporary Feminist Dystopian Novels, Abby N. Lewis
“It Could Have Happened To Any Of You”: Post-Wounded Women In Three Contemporary Feminist Dystopian Novels, Abby N. Lewis
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
My goal for this thesis is to investigate the concept of (mis)labeling female protagonists in contemporary British fiction as mentally ill—historically labeled as madness—when subjected to traumatic events. The female protagonists in two novels by Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure (2018) and Blue Ticket (2020), and Jenni Fagan’s 2012 novel The Panopticon, are raised in environments steeped in trauma and strict, hegemonic structures that actively work to control and mold their identities. In The Panopticon, this system is called “the experiment”; in The Water Cure, it is personified by the character King and those who follow him; …
"What Camelot Means": Women And Lgbtq+ Authors Paving The Way For A More Inclusive Arthuriana Through Young Adult Literature, Jeddie Mae Bristow
"What Camelot Means": Women And Lgbtq+ Authors Paving The Way For A More Inclusive Arthuriana Through Young Adult Literature, Jeddie Mae Bristow
MSU Graduate Theses
Arthurian literature has long been regarded as the domain of “dead white men,” dominated by Thomas Malory and Lord Alfred Tennyson. However, since medieval times, women have also been producing Arthurian literature that not only treats the women characters of the story more equitably, but makes social commentary on how the marginalized of their societies are treated. More recently, women and LGBTQ+ authors (basically, authors who are not cisgender white men) have answered the call for more diverse Young Adult literature with an Arthuriana that has a place for all, both creating a more diverse and equitable Camelot and giving …
Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu
Madwomen And Mad Women: An Analysis Of The Use Of Female Insanity And Anger In Narrative Fiction, From Vilification To Validation., Lindsay Haralu
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This project examines the use of female insanity and anger in narrative fiction, as demonstrated by the character of the madwoman. Madness is a concept that has long been gendered female throughout Western history, in medicine, language, religion, and culture. Socially and culturally constructed madness can be used to determine the boundaries of society, the norms and values from which “madness” deviates, while the character of the madwoman can be used to demonstrate how women have challenged these boundaries and how the roles of women and definitions of femininity have changed over time. This study analyzes the madwoman trope from …
Þorn: A Novel Excerpt Exploring Giantesses, Their Relation To Women's Bodily Expectations, And Patriarchal Control In The Literature Of Early Modern Britain And Contemporary America., Brady P Alexander
College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses
This thesis will analyze examples of women of size in the literature of the British Isles throughout history, focusing predominantly upon the Early Modern Period, and will create a fiction piece in response to such attitudes. I argue that one of the most clear ways to dissect contemporary cultural attitudes about powerful women and women who occupy more space than men is to examine giantesses and other examples of women of size within this period of literature. From this, a novel excerpt will be written from the perspective of a time-traveling woman of size who engages with these texts and …
Resonating Otherness: Rethinking The Body Through Octavia Butler's Dawn., Tristan Dewitt Carr
Resonating Otherness: Rethinking The Body Through Octavia Butler's Dawn., Tristan Dewitt Carr
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis focuses on the intersection between sound and bodies as a way of re-envision the concept of human, using Octavia Butler’s Dawn as a case study. Specifically, this study contends that Butler’s re-envisioning is sonic, imagining the concept of self as it is understood by Jean-Luc Nancy’s idea of the “resonant subject,” in that sound embroils us within our environment. This sonic, resonant body is revealed in Dawn through Butler’s adaption of Roland Barthes’ concept of “grain,” which is not merely embodied sound, but the result of artifice – a carefully crafted “slip” that allows for a way of …
Why Myth Matters: The Value Of The Female Voice In Greek Mythology, Kylie Rogers
Why Myth Matters: The Value Of The Female Voice In Greek Mythology, Kylie Rogers
Honors Theses
In this thesis I will primarily examine how the retellings of Greek myths from the female perspective provide insight into the importance of myth and why these stories are still relevant today. Specifically, I will examine three major figures: Circe in Madeline Miller’s Circe, Penelope in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, and Medusa in Marjorie Garber’s The Medusa Reader, along with a few other minor characters featured in Nina MacLaughlin’s Wake, Siren. By studying the fresh perspectives provided by the narration and journeys of these characters and connecting them to plights and experiences that are currently affecting women as evidenced by …
Amanda Baldwin's Master's Portfolio, Amanda Baldwin
Amanda Baldwin's Master's Portfolio, Amanda Baldwin
Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects
This is the final portfolio for my Master's of Arts in the field of English. It includes an analytical narrative along with four projects that I feel best illustrate my knowledge, skills, and growth. These four pieces are entitled "Putting a Feminist Twist on Classic Literature," "Teaching Antigone in the Modern Classroom," “Feminism and Racial Studies in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees,” and “Literacy Narrative Analysis.”
An Exploration Of Voice, Kristyn Montgomery
An Exploration Of Voice, Kristyn Montgomery
Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects
This combination of four pieces reflects an overarching theme of researching the ways that our foundations and experiences shape us, either by our own hands or by the hands of others. This is a final portfolio that was submitted to the English Department of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the field of English.
“Power And The Orientations Of Resistance In Twentieth-Century American Literature”, Victoria Eleanor Chandler
“Power And The Orientations Of Resistance In Twentieth-Century American Literature”, Victoria Eleanor Chandler
Theses and Dissertations
"Power and the Orientations of Resistance in Twentieth-Century American Literature” analyzes the intersections of space, power, and the possibility for alternatives to power structures. I argue that social power circumscribes the spatial possibilities of normative and non-normative subjectivities. In particular, power curtails the ability of marginalized subjects (such as women, queer people, and people of color) to forge alternatives to the current social order. In dialogue with recent scholars of race studies, feminism, and queer theory, this project reveals how dominated subjects employ their quotidian spaces as sites of resistance and survival. The literature I examine in this dissertation identifies …
Material Witnesses: Deconstructing Networks Of Credibility And Objectivity In Medical Narratives From Mary Toft To The Contraceptive Pill, Krista Elizabeth Roberts
Material Witnesses: Deconstructing Networks Of Credibility And Objectivity In Medical Narratives From Mary Toft To The Contraceptive Pill, Krista Elizabeth Roberts
Theses and Dissertations
In this dissertation, I argue that to better understand the tangled, embedded human and nonhuman subjects and how their testimonies function in western medical history, we need to first understand their erasure. By using relationality as a reading method, I break apart who and with whom individuals make medical decisions by considering what constitutes evidence. In the Mary Toft case, expert witnessing informs the ways in which a reader trusts what the narrator claims. The medicolegal conventions of courtroom testimony shape the ways in which medical men wrote their pamphlets. These men shore up their credibility through descriptions of nonhuman …
“I Have Gone Beyond My Sphere”: Network Analysis And Rhetorical Feminism In Women’S Writing 1650-1750, Donna P. Downing
“I Have Gone Beyond My Sphere”: Network Analysis And Rhetorical Feminism In Women’S Writing 1650-1750, Donna P. Downing
Theses and Dissertations
The concept of a contrasting public sphere and private sphere is both enduring and contested. The model of the eighteenth century public sphere offered by Jürgen Habermas offers a rational-critical approach to public discourse, while bracketing difference. Interlocutors of Habermas see such exclusion as problematic, particularly from a feminist standpoint. In contrast to Habermas’ static model, this project offers a networked, motile vision of public and private spheres that allows for interconnections and relationships, and which not only incorporates conceptual differences, but in fact relies on them. In this flexible model, rhetorical feminism, where the ideology of feminism is brought …
The Memory Of Mythmaking: Transgenerational Trauma And Disability As A Collective Experience In Afrofuturist Storytelling, Jessica Tapley
The Memory Of Mythmaking: Transgenerational Trauma And Disability As A Collective Experience In Afrofuturist Storytelling, Jessica Tapley
Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations
This project closely examines the relationship between transgenerational trauma, disability, and myth, particularly within Black speculative fiction, Afrofuturism, and Africanfuturism. Through the lenses of critical race theory, trauma theory, disability studies, and feminist theory, I will closely analyze how myth functions across five Black speculative fiction novels. I argue that disability appears as a common thread throughout each of these novels as a unique part of Black history and experience. Disability culture specifically offers community interdependence, a rejection of body and mind binaries, and a rejection of hierarchies in the pursuit of accessibility. I further demonstrate how myth centers racial …
Feminism By Proxy: Jane Austen’S Critique Of Patriarchal Society In Pride And Prejudice And Emma, Alexis Miller
Feminism By Proxy: Jane Austen’S Critique Of Patriarchal Society In Pride And Prejudice And Emma, Alexis Miller
Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations
Reading Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma from a feminist perspective reveals Austen’s desire for progressive marriages built on equality and love. Comparing the characteristics and eventual marriages of Austen’s heroines, Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, to other women and relationships in her novels highlights their uniqueness as women of agency who desire more than the society of Regency England offered women. Through such comparisons, Austen brilliantly displays her critique of the patriarchal society and the limitations that it set on women. Her critique is further established in the two novels through her emphasis on breaking down the false patriarchal …