English Language and Literature Commons^™

Oceans Of Literature - The Little Mermaid, Makena Metz

English (MA) Theses

Mermaid stories have existed for millennia, stemming back to the ancient cultures of the world. Influenced by the mythos established in books like The Iliad, sirens and mermaids were a part of European culture for centuries. The mermaid as chimera monster that represented the duality of danger and seduction was subverted in 1837, when Hans Christian Andersen wrote the seminal fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.” In our present day, we can find that this short story has created a canon of “mermaid” literature, especially in the fantasy canon, and has majorly impacted our pop culture and digital spheres. By tracing …

Humanization Of The Refugee As The Modern Subject In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West, Ani Gazazyan

English (MA) Theses

This thesis discusses the central concern of the global refugee crisis through the fictional novel Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. The novel tells the story of two protagonists who are portrayed as the modern subject that Hamid comes to humanize, which reflects on current society’s representation of the refugee as dehumanized or “the Other.” Hamid takes his readers on a journey that represents his characters as normal everyday humans that are forced into the process of refugeehood and displacement. Throughout this thesis, I discuss what makes the novel so unique in representing the modern-day refugee. In the first section titled …

Tate, James, Collection, 1943-2004, Special Collections, Leonard H. Axe Library

Finding Aids

James Tate was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and an English and literature professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He was an alumnus of the Kansas State College of Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University). Tate’s poems were published in numerous books, magazines, pamphlets, and as broadsides during his career. The materials of the James Tate Collection were collected by Gene DeGruson, from the early 1960s to 1997, and Randy Roberts, from 1998 to the mid-2000s. Additional materials were donated by Charles Cagle. The contents of this collection consists of biographical and autobiographical material, correspondence, bibliographical information (compiled by Gene DeGruson),Tate’s poetry, …

Educating The Whole Person: Materials From Our Mini Course, Michelle Hayford, Megan Donelson

Pilot Course: Educating the Whole Person

In this document, the instructors provide their own reflections on the course as well as teaching activities and student reflections.

“A Disputant Of The Landscape:” Redefining The English Landscape In “To Autumn”, John Sager

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The (Ir)Reverent Social Roles Of Religion In The Work Of James And Wharton, Jannette Kazlauskas

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Bawdy Works: Vulgar Humor And Bodily Autonomy In Austen's "Mansfield Park" And Fielding's "The History Of Tom Jones", Sloane Larsen

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Enigmatic Nashe And The Subversion Of Romance, Louie Alexandris

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The Exile Enigma And The Cycle Of Haunting, Caroline Boardman

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Ownership Is Power, Madeleine Moino

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Awareness In Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush", Caroline Coffey

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Christian Humanism In Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood", Grant Ward

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

What Is The Right Feeling? Keat's Poetic Representations Of Agentive Femininity, Brendan Bonner

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The Criterion (2023)

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Heurodis's Body: Reading "Sir Orfeo" With Three Significant Losses, Grace J. Bromage

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Fated By A Fallen World, Danielle Dentremont

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …

The Gendered Shackles Of Clarissa Dalloway And Septimus Warren Smith, Abigail Coburn

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Tension In The Eye: Milton And Surveillance, Joseph Abrams

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The South In Young Adult Literature: Behind Southern Stereotypes, Margaret Martin

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

The United States South has a long, complicated history, and some of its stories have not had the opportunity to be shared. Because of the ways in which the region has been represented stereotypically, many Americans have a misinformed perspective on what it means to live as a Southerner. Due in part to a lack of diversity in the publishing industry, a common phenomenon has been the retelling of the white man and his experiences within the region, as “89% of authors that were published in 2018 were white” (So & Wezerek). Yet because of editorial changes within the last …

Confessional Poetry And The Human Experience: When Art Imitates Life, Caroline Winnenberg

Honors College Theses

The year is 1959. America sits in silent fear at the constant threat of nuclear warfare. The Red Scare had hit its peak just five years earlier with Joe McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt. Neighbors no longer trusted neighbors and marginalized groups have had enough. The LGBTQ+ community begins to unify, people of color march for civil rights, and women march for equal rights. The people are using their voices, but the fight for social justice is draining. The constant feelings of anger and depression are boiling over, searching for an outlet. Enter the author Robert Lowell and his volume Life …

Humanizing History: Applying Media Storytelling To Lived Experiences, Benjamin Goeser

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This creative project explores the tendency of individuals to avoid or alter deemed unfavorable, unflattering, or simply humiliating traits or actions in their written and spoken personal stories. Such choices come from fear and pressure to present oneself in a more perfected state for others to “like” rather than a human state for audiences to relate to and learn from. Through a series of written personal accounts to air on UNO’s college radio station and website MavRadio.FM, the project brings attention to habits of human nature more likely to remain unspoken. The goal is to encourage the sharing of …

Orientalism In Arthur Golden’S Memoirs Of A Geisha, Britany Castilaw

Honors Theses

Memoirs of a Geisha is a 1997 historical fiction novel by Arthur Golden. It is told as the fictional memoirs of the late Sayuri Nitta, a famous former geisha who worked in Gion in the 1930s as one of the most successful geisha in history. Since its publication, Memoirs has been criticized for an Orientalist and historically inaccurate depiction of geisha—particularly by Mineko Iwasaki, a real former geisha whom Golden interviewed when writing the novel. The first chapter of this thesis is dedicated to an explanation of Orientalism as the problematic, stereotype-driven depictions of the East made by the West, …

Demigod And Delinquent: Percy Jackson And The American Teenager, Katie Weber

Honors Theses

Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief, the first novel in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, has achieved tremendous success with adolescent audiences nationwide since its original publication in 2005. Despite the widespread success of the books, the critical conversation about the novel and subsequent series remains fairly sparse. The existing critical literature on the series addresses its mythological aspects and adolescents’ reactions to the novel but does not analyze Percy’s status as an adolescent or what the novel suggests about adolescents as a whole through its portrayal of Percy. This thesis first provides an overview of the history of …

Anti-Racist Resource Guide, Bank Street College Of Education

The Center for Children's Literature

An annotated list of anti-racist children's literature that meets the criteria of having a BIPOC protagonist, the experience of self discovery, self-advocacy, and realizations on the part of the main character and/or a joy or celebration of one's cultural or ethnic identity.

For further information and updates, see the Library Research Guide

Exploring Multiliteracies And Other Approaches To Second Language Teaching, Saralee Dunster

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

This teaching portfolio offers a selection from the author’s graduate coursework, teaching experience, and research undertaken while enrolled in the Utah State University Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program. The documents included are a reflection of her pedagogical approach and teaching practice, developed through varying contexts of professional experiences, including teaching English and French as a second language. This portfolio includes: reflections on the author’s teaching environment, a teaching philosophy statement, a professional development peer observation, a reflection paper that demonstrates the author’s experiences teaching with stories within the context of the multiliteracies framework, specifically multimodal fairy tales with …

Becoming “Living Matter”: Alive Things In Octavia Butler’S Xenogenesis Series, Zackary Gregory

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

This project seeks to explore the ways Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy complicates humans' understandings of subjectivity and human exceptionalism by challenging the concept of Otherness. Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series focuses on adaptability and acceptance of the nonhuman Other by depicting a forced encounter between humans and an alien species called the Oankali. Characters within the series grapple with a dynamic understanding of themselves, having to renegotiate the concept of the Other as they deal with intelligent nonhuman Beings and animate objects. Further, characters in the series are coerced into accepting the transformation of humanity into something other than human as …

Fairy Tales In Relation To Monster Theory: Stories Defining The Transformation Of Culture, Elsie Pak

Student Research

Fairy tales are stories that are defined and shaped by the cultures they are told within, lending them naturally fluid forms as the societal boundaries of each generation and change and expand. This research paper explores certain fairy tales under the lens of Monster Theory and the Seven Theses proposed by Jeffery Jerome Cohen from his introductory essay “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” Through careful analysis and dissection, this paper offers a deeper look into the nature and construction of monsters and reveals the purpose monstrosity serves in society other than just to frighten. By delving into the insights proposed by …

Queer Representation: Revitilizing F. Scott Fitzgerald’S Place In The American Literary Canon, Olivia Wallace

Honors Theses

F. Scott Fitzgerald is colloquially known as one of the great American writers. His acclaim is most commonly attributed to his depiction of heterosexual romances set during the Jazz Age. However, under the surface, many of the male characters that he represents display queer behaviors that subvert this idea. The texts analyzed here include “The Rich Boy” (1926), Tender is the Night (1934), and The Great Gatsby (1925). These men commonly avoid perpetuating heteronormative culture, projecting a general air of cynicism towards the institution of marriage, and a subtle inclination towards feminine characteristics and queer love. Overall, the inclusion of …

“Inheritor” And “Originator”: Jane Austen’S Feminist Voice As Bridge Between Mary Wollstonecraft And Virginia Woolf, Stephanie Hyta '23

Honor Scholar Theses

This thesis explores the feminism of Jane Austen’s six novels: Sense and Sensibility (published in 1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, the last two published posthumously in December 1817. Austen’s feminism serves as a bridge between the 18th and 20th centuries: her novels include a critique of the patriarchal system that Mary Wollstonecraft analyzed so judiciously in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); they also anticipate ideas in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929), a six-part essay that originated as lectures that Woolf gave in October 1928 at …