English Language and Literature Commons^™

Representation And Imagination Of The Holocaust In Young Adult Literature, Amelia Mackarey

HIM 1990-2015

The intent of this thesis is to examine and interpret the representation of the Holocaust in young adult literature. The tone, style, and emotion used to convey the Holocaust experience, both in fiction and nonfiction stories, in eyewitness and indirect accounts, affects its representation to a young adult audience. I will study the effects of sentimentality, realism, and fun and their impact on our understanding and remembrance of the Holocaust. I will analyze several texts, including Island on Bird Street, The Book Thief, and Night. The paradox of finding an appropriate balance between presenting a realistic portrayal of the Holocaust …

Creating Her Own Power: "Morte Darthur's" Morgan Le Fay, Cynthia A. Scott

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Morgan le Fay is one of the most recognizable female characters in Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur as she persistently creates conflict for King Arthur and his knights. While many scholars have focused on the idea of a subjugated female presence in Malory’s text, this paper addresses the power that Morgan displays and how it suggests underlying masculine anxieties existing in a patriarchy. Three specific components of Morgan’s power are discussed: her ability to reject and manipulate prescribed gender codes, her power of enchantment, and her disruption of homosocial bonds. The strategic combination of these three components allows Morgan to exhibit …

Herman Melville And Richard Wright: Camaraderie And Revolt, Linda Braune

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In 1940, Black leftist writer Richard Wright, in his classic Native Son, sought out a great figure in the American Black canon, W. E. B. Du Bois, to understand and delineate double consciousness of Blacks. But it is surprising, perhaps, that Wright also drew from a major figure in the white canon, Herman Melville, in order to explore the overcoming of double consciousness and its effects. Although another tradition might interpret Melville’s Captain Ahab as “predicting” Wright’s story of Bigger Thomas, I suggest that it is the Pequod crew of Moby-Dick, not the driven and driving Captain, which compels Wright’s …

Del Norte: A Collection Of Short Stories Y El Corrido De Dani, Jesus Alfredo Reyna

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Del Norte is the title name given to this first series of vignettes and short stories. The narratives are divided into four parts including a one act play that attempt to bridge the gap between the idea of a homeland as well as the Mexican American identity through the eyes of a migrant family and its major narrator. Unlike derivative associations with the term Del Norte in other academic disciplines, my interpretation of being from “Del Norte” is manifested into stories about a homeland omnipresent in the familial relationships described in my stories. The narratives exist within this paradigm. The …

Servants Of My People First : An Examination Of The Political Literacies Of The Black Liberation Front International (Blfi), 1969-1973., Joilynn Karega-Mason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a multifaceted project. First, it is a historical work of subversion and revision designed to do two things: (1) apply pressure to trends in rhetoric and composition historiography that have left under-challenged a politics of representation that historically and systematically marked Black college students of the late sixties and early seventies as under-prepared, lacking in linguistic and rhetorical resources and agency, and politically militant yet academically apathetic; and (2) construct a more nuanced portrait of the writer agency of the Black college students of the late sixties and early seventies by examining the political writings of members …

Midwife, Young Maiden, And Physician: Image And Authority In Karen Cushman's Female Healers, Angela C. Turnbow

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study focuses on the characterization of Cushman’s healers in her three medieval novels The Midwife’s Apprentice; Catherine, Called Birdy; and Matilda Bone. I specifically look at the physical descriptions, medical practices, and the healer’s role within the community as an accepted medical authority. Cushman’s portrayals illuminate the different locations and situations in which women practiced medicine during the Middle Ages, thus she presents more historically accurate portrayals of female healers.

The significance of this project is that Cushman challenges the stereotype of the isolated and disfigured old crone that has been, perhaps inadvertently, perpetuated by authors and …

Measuring The Effects Of An American Physiological Society’S Phun Week Activity On 2nd Grade Students, James Edelman

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the last few years the United States has been on the decline in the fields of science and technology. The American Physiological Society (APS) has developed a program to engage young minds with scientists. Physiology Understanding Week (PhUn) is the APS initiative to use interactive experiments to engage school-age children with science and physiology. Even though PhUn Week has been going on since 2005, systematic assessment of the activities effects is rare. Here, we sought to assess if an APS PhUn Week activity enhances physiology understanding and interest in science in second grade children form a rural area. The …

Knowledge Of Athletic Trainers Regarding Airway Adjuncts, Jessica Edler

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Context: Research shows that knowledge gaps occur among various professions and practitioners, which may harm patients. Little research has been done in Athletic Training to determine if knowledge gaps exist. Objective: To determine the relationship between perceived and actual knowledge of airway adjunct use and determine the difference in perceived knowledge. Design: Knowledge assessment Setting: Web-based survey Participants: 2000 Certified Athletic Trainers received the survey via email, 152 responded. Our response rate was 7.6%. Interventions: The perceived knowledge questionnaire was modified from Flynn and Goldsmith 5-item subject knowledge assessment. Flynn and Goldsmith examined the assessment tool to ensure validity and …

‘Longest Way Round Is The Shortest Way Home:’ Escapism In The Fictions Of James Joyce And Wyndham Lewis, Justin R. Noble

Honors Theses

In the early 20th century many ideas existed about the figure of the artist, and what the artist should do. There arose the idea that the artist should be removed from society so that he may more effectively critique and effect it in his art—that the artist should be an escapist figure. The development of the idea of escapism can be seen in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, and Wyndham Lewis’s Enemy of the Stars. These texts show the development of the artist as escapism, the limits of escapism as an artist, …

The Irish Protestant Imaginary: The Cultural Contexts For The Gothic Chapbooks Published By Bennett Dugdale, 1800-1805, Diane Hoeveler

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Madwoman In The Living Room, Amber Christine Bowden Whitlock

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

As a young child, Tara Elgin Holley knew little of her mother’s actual character. Raised by her grandparents and then by her aunt, she desperately wanted to understand the mother who was institutionalized shortly after her birth. In her aunt’s attic she found an unexpected treasure trove: her mother’s preserved musical recordings and show dresses. At first the clothing was just a way for Holley to be near her mother, but once the costume was on, Holley’s sense of self fell away. She writes in her memoir, “I would clamber into the beautiful red dress, the long skirt pooling around …

The Construction And Performance Of Masculinity Through The Voice Of Mexican American Male Authors: Arturo Islas' "The Rain God" And Rigoberto González's "Men Without Bliss", Edna Elizabeth Camacho

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The thesis closely analyzes Arturo Islas’ novel The Rain God (1984) and Rigoberto Gonzalez’s collection of short stories Men Without Bliss (2008) as representations of Mexican American literature that attempt to construct and define masculinity through the actions of male characters. The Rain God, explores the performance of masculinity through the image of the body, similarly to the performance of an actor on a stage. Islas introduces four men who hide, and deny a space for expunging their emotions. Men Without Bliss, showcases the emotions that men suppress and exemplifies their vulnerability as their strength rather than a debilitating characteristic …

Through The Eyes Of The Present: Screening The Male Homoerotics Of Shakespearean Drama In Anglophone Cinema, 1936-2011, Anthony Guy Patricia

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This is an analysis of representations of male homoeroticism in Anglophone Shakespeare film. Using the strategies made available by close reading, gay and lesbian studies, queer theory, and presentism, critical attention is directed to a corpus of fourteen movies, ranging from Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle's 1936 production ofA Midsummer Night's DreamPrivate Romeo, Alan Brown's 2011 homoerotic appropriation ofRomeo and Juliet. The overall purpose of the project is both to map and to interpret how Anglophone filmmakers have dealt with - or not dealt with, as the case may be - the male homoerotic elements Shakespeare wove into the textual …

The Ethos Of Conspiracy Argument : "Character" As Persuader In Conspiracy Rhetoric., Michael James Sobiech

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conspiracy theory has, as Timothy Melley states in Empire of Conspiracy (2000), “animated our political culture from the early Republican period to the present, at times powerfully swaying popular opinion” (vii). Though it has attracted attention from a wide range of disciplines, conspiracy theory has not received significant notice within rhetoric and composition. My dissertation adds to the interdisciplinary body of scholarship concerning conspiracy theory by examining it as rhetoric, focusing on how the construction of a conspiracy proponent’s ethos/character affects the persuasiveness of a conspiracy theory. I argue that ethos construction plays a much more significant role in conspiracy …

The Language Politics Of Doctoral Studies In Rhetoric And Composition : Toward A Translingual Revision Of Graduate Education In The Field., Carrie Byars Kilfoil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation critiques graduate education in rhetoric and composition in relationship to recent calls for a “translingual” approach to the teaching of writing and a transnational, cross-cultural approach to writing research (Horner, Lu, Royster, Trimbur; Canagarajah; Donahue). Building on this scholarship, I attend to the (re)production of disciplinary dispositions toward language difference in rhetoric and composition doctoral studies. Through textual analysis of the Rhetoric Review surveys of doctoral programs in the field (1987, 1995, 2000, 2007, and the current wiki), archival materials from various programs (including three focal schools), and a survey of doctoral students currently enrolled in the University …

Corn Cantos., John E. Burgett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This creative thesis is a long poem based on experiences working in corn fields. It examines how migrant worker relationships have evolved over the recent decades, and offers a forecast of the future of migrant relationships with seed companies such as Pioneer and Dekalb. The poem's format draws from Ezra Pound's Cantos. The style shows some similarities to the works Charles Olson and Walt Whitman. The thesis is divided into nine smaller poems that can be considered chapters in a narrative. The style is non-lyrical, attempting to capture the idiomatic expressions and base language of the characters.

Mobilizing Modernist Magazines : Peter Sloterdijk And The Transatlantic Review., Daniel Lee Conrad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many early examinations of “little magazines,” or avant-garde modernist publications, tend to focus on the biographical narratives of their editors or center their discussion on early versions of canonical works in order to develop a greater understanding of the body of work itself. Works like Bernard Poli’s Ford Madox Ford and the Transatlantic Review follow this biographical model, and while well researched and informative, Poli's study strictly focuses on the role Ford played in the publication; in doing so, it limits what can be said about the review’s project to the local editorial level. This thesis, by contrast, seeks to …

Free Schools And Self-Efficacy Beliefs : Research For An Alternative, Vanessa Phillips

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this study, I interviewed 3 graduates from Kino School, a small, private, alternative school, about their experiences with writing before, during, and after graduation in order to determine how alternative education impacted their writing self-efficacy beliefs. Kino School embraces many of the tenets of free school philosophy, which is centered on democratic learning, self-sufficiency, and student choice. This study explores how free school philosophy impacted these graduates' writing and attitudes toward writing. All three graduates described an overall experience at Kino that left them confident in their writing, expressing high writing self-efficacy beliefs. Kino School's use of creative writing, …

'Tis Murder's Best Face When A Vizard's On, Lauren Vezina

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Theater as an art form demands disguise for many reasons. It allows a character to act in uncharacteristic ways against society’s customs and expectations. It frees the user from society’s rules as well as his own sense of morality; nonetheless, it also restricts the wearer to certain behaviors and actions. This dichotomy is reflected in how the masked character is free to act outside of the law but is still its subject in the end. Disguise allows a character freedom from social obligations but he is still responsible and punished for his actions by the end of the play. Although …

The Struggle To Utopia : Social Reform, Accumulation, And Transformation In Howards End, Danielle Marie Rettino

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End explores transitions within early twentieth century London society’s morals, values, and class divisions. I track the progression from excess and affluence to rural, pastoral simplification within the characters’ lives and lifestyles. The first chapter examines class relations and social expectations, including a focus on consumerism, accumulation, and inheritance. Character and critics discussions in reference to class, poverty, and accumulation are reviewed. The second chapter connects Howards End to utopian communes, the dystopian society in Forster s The Machine Stops,” and examines Howards End as a site for a potential utopia. Howards End as a …

More Than A Jester : Dorothy Parker's Use Of The Popular Magazine Market For Social Criticism, Megan Dempsey

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The re-evaluation of texts written by women from newer critical perspectives has allowed for more nuanced critical analyses of Dorothy Parker’s writing compared to the earliest commentaries which often conflated her biography with her literature or focused on her humor without acknowledging the underlying social criticism. This thesis is one such analysis, examining how Parker used the popular magazine market as a venue for publishing short stories that criticized class inequity, racism, and gender norms in the middle and upper classes during the first decades of the twentieth century. The content within popular magazines created an image of the ideal …

Visions Of Terror : Reconstructing Literature Through 9/11 Texts, Jennifer Michelle Agens

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The shift in communication since the turn of the century necessitates an understanding of visual rhetoric. Critics claim that verbal communication is more effective than using images to communicate ideas. However, visual rhetoricians argue that images appeal to the reader’s emotions, thus making an immediate, truthful, and powerful impact. The purpose of my research is to examine the functionality of visual rhetoric and to determine how this field enhances 21 st century communication. In consideration of how visual rhetoric has shaped literature since the turn of the century, I have concluded that the September 11th terrorist attacks have made an …

In Our Defense : Sheridan's The Camp, The Glorious First Of June, Pizarro And The Fate Of The British Nation In Late Eighteenth-Century England, Patricia Mari Valatka

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this thesis, I examine Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays The Camp (1778), and The Glorious First o f June (1794), and Pizarro (1799), and how they dealt with the British invasion crisis of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I investigate how Sheridan’s theatrical works confronted and presented British fears of national/racial annihilation and in turn how society used these plays to understand them. In particular, I want to consider the ways Sheridan’s works attempted to influence the audience members’ feelings about participating in the military to defend the British nation. Although Sheridan’s play Pizarro is often examined in …

Optical Misperception And Shakespearean Drama, Lisa Marie Castelluber

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Shakespeare’s appropriation of the scientific advancements of his contemporaries illuminates the interconnectivity of Renaissance science and literature. Heightened cultural interest in sensory deceptions, in particular deception of the sense of sight, frequently occurs in Shakespearean drama. The influence of optical inventions created a new perspective on an audience’s sensory limitations. The limits of human sight as accurate access to the truth were stretched with anamorphic art. Optics as a scientific field dates back to the ancient Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, but when the Renaissance spread across southern Europe, humanism revisited this theory. This thesis will show the trajectory of this …

On The Instability Of Disciplinary Style: Common And Conflicting Metaphors And Practices In Text, Talk, And Gesture, Andrea R. Olinger

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This article explores how three writers in ecology understand and enact a disciplinary writing style. To accomplish this, it draws on theoretical approaches to style from sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, as well as analyses of drafts of coauthored texts and video-recorded literacy history and discourse-based interviews. This study finds that metaphor and embodied actions such as gestures are valuable sites for comparing writers’ stylistic understandings and practices. The three writers expressed broad agreement when describing the qualities of good scientific writing, using similar verbal and gestural metaphors, such as Communication as Journey and entailments of the Conduit Metaphor. Yet in …

The One Man Crew: The Creating And Sustaining Of A Master Folk Artist, Heidi Jean Williams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Folk art is the art of everyday life. Framing homes can be artistic when done with a degree of exemplary expertise. Jerry Saville is a master folk artist because of his special skills and techniques exhibited in his trade of carpentry. This research provides a glimpse into a carpenter’s life to discover what creates and sustains a master carpenter. Through desire, drive, dedication (time/practice), life experience/opportunity (apprenticeship), purpose, and a community of support, Jerry Saville became a master folk artist.

We’Ve Got The Blues, Deno P. Trakas, Sue Shuping, Kameron Union

Arthur Vining Davis High Impact Fellows Projects

At the Byrnes Freshman Academy, English 2 Honors students are the top students. They attend English class for one semester, 90 minutes a day, and enjoy in-depth understanding of different cultures. They have the ability to analyze and evaluate new material and use it to further expand their knowledge and create original and unique projects.

“We’ve Got the Blues” provides a unit of study for English 2 Honors that encourages students to develop an understanding of the blues and how it applies to literature. The unit enables students to gain an appreciation of the blues while understanding its historical significance. …

The Diathesis-Stress Model Of Corruption By The Ruling Ring: Nature, Power, And Exposure In J. R. R. Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings, Faith R. Holley

Student Scholarship

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring seems to exert power over some characters more than others. Though these differences could seem like an oversight or a lack of continuity, they also offer the opportunity to examine the effects of the differential power of the Ring. If the Ring is addictive, as Tom Shippey claims in The Road to Middle Earth, then it is possible to examine the etiology of addiction to the Ring (126). In this thesis, I present a psychological reading of Tolkien that relies on a modern psychological theory, namely the …

A Neglected Source For The Mortdant And Amavia Episode In The Faerie Queene, David Lee Miller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Jocelyn Swigger, Associate Professor Of Music, Musselman Library, Jocelyn Swigger

Next Page

In this new Next Page column, Jocelyn Swigger, Associate Professor of Music, shares with us which authors and books are her “comfort foods,” how she has introduced meditation to her daily practice as a musician, and one of the few things she likes about Twitter.