English Language and Literature Commons^™

What We Need: A Poetic Study In Struggle And Self-Healing, Grace Anne Calabria

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

In many ways, this thesis examines the eternal, repetitive inevitabilities of life. In a collection of poems, these inevitabilities are examined through the eyes of an observant and omniscient narrator: a girl, long in love with a boy, facing the struggles and rewards of learning to be alone in various ways after the 2020 pandemic. Because this thesis provides an examination of struggles and self-healing alongside its creative centerpiece of the collection, the poems are accompanied by a compilation of memoiristic reflections. This thesis contributes to conversations of mental health, love, growth, and finding legitimacy and value in creative work, …

Delving Into The Forbidden: Banned And Challenged Literature Syllabus, Grace Burns

Senior Honors Projects

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them,” (Ray Bradbury).

Literature is a mirror which unites even the most unlikely characters, invites us to reflect on our lives, promotes critical thinking and discussion as well as explores the themes of humanity over time. As the world around us changes, then, it is only natural that literature changes along with it. Exposure to literature of many kinds can only aid in the development of a richer appreciation for the world around us and the many lives within it.

Further, the consistent evolution …

Resisting Dominican Motherhood Across Julia Alvarez’S How The García Girls Lost Their Accents And Junot Díaz’S The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Ana Hilario

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper endeavors to explore the distinct ways in which the Dominican motherhood ideology promoted by Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina’s regime is resisted by women of different social classes and race through a close reading of the characters Laura and Beli in Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, respectively. Using Adrienne Rich’s concept of motherhood ideology as a theoretical framework and engaging in discussion of how these ideologies were constructed, engendered, and enforced by the Trujillo regime, I found that these texts depict voluntary and involuntary resistance …

Caliban The Savage : Shakespeare’S Critique Of Colonialist Misappropriation Of Indigenous Identities, Leonard Aquil Hughes

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis engages with Shakespeare’s The Tempest, analyzing the character Caliban as a critique of British colonialism. I argue that Caliban is not intended simply as a begrudged antagonist, but as a figure intended to represent New World natives. Shakespeare’s “savage” also acts as an on-stage embodiment of Africans and other victims of British imperial exploits that suffered subjugation and hegemony. With this character, Shakespeare provides a demonstration of the relationship between Europeans and the colonized, while challenging the very institution of colonialism. Such a work provides valuable post-Shakespearean insights as well. Caliban contributes directly to the dialogue surrounding the …

"Neither Here Nor There" : Migrant Women And The Cycle Of Cultural Masculine Superiority, Fiorella Medina

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines the way migrant fiction evolves the use of women's stories. By examining this evolution, I argue that many migrant women writers explore misogyny within their representations of their home and adopted cultures. Using The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1983), The Affairs of the Falcons by Melissa Rivero (2019), and The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston (1976), I explain the techniques these writers use to establish the mistreatment and marginalization their protagonists face. I clarify these works by presenting examples of women gaining agency despite the struggles they …

Literary Machiavellianism, The Vice Figure, And The Jewish Character : Anti-Semitic Perceptions In The Jew Of Malta And The Merchant Venice, Allison Schaechter

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis focuses on Anti-Semitism in Renaissance drama through the lens of attempting to weave an older literary idea into a newer one. By the Renaissance, the Vice figure, a literary tool to draw one-dimensional evil characters, began to raise questions about the rationale behind their villainy. Machiavellianism served to reclassify characters that were originally meant to be perceived by audiences as inherently evil, allowing them potentially to sympathize with them in the plight that led them to such deplorable acts.

Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare created Jewish characters who seek to remain in control of their families and wealth, …

“The Delta Is Filled Up With Death” : Death As Avoidance And The Construction Of White Identity In Lewis Nordan’S Music Of The Swamp, Sarah Sturm

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Lewis Nordan’s Music of the Swamp has not been fully explored with an emphasis on Nordan’s personal history in relation to racism in the South. In Nordan’s autobiography, Boy With the Loaded Gun (2000), Nordan describes growing up in Itta Benna, Mississippi — just one town over from where Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 (Nordan 80). I argue Nordan’s depiction of death in the Music of the Swamp can be read as the early stages of him grappling with Till’s death through writing, along with the broader historical context of Southern racism. Nordan’s ambivalent relationship to this history informs …

Queer Outings In Imaginary Spaces, Nicole Cosentino

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Picture this: Marcel Proust, Roland Barthes, and Djuna Barnes walk into a book. And stay there.

Poetry And Thought's Revealing, Evan Reardon

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Thinking has long been a topic of interest in both philosophy and poetry but the experience of it, the phenomenological reality of thinking, has remained understudied. Utilizing Martin Heidegger’s writings on thinking and poetry, as well as various literary scholars, this thesis argues that poetry may be read as revealing the phenomenality of thought, the what-is-it-like of thinking. Through an application of Heidegger’s concept of a thinker’s “fundamental experience” and close readings of the poetry and prose writings of George Oppen, Wallace Stevens, and John Ashbery, I argue that each poet uses different lenses in his work to reveal different …

Women's Timeless Fascination With True Crime And Horror, Sarah Victoria Di Carluccio

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis examines society’s interest in gothic literature, horror, and true crime. Beginning with the first gothic works, and ending with modern true crime media, a focus of this exploratory piece will be on women because women have always been, and remain, the primary consumers of the gothic, and of true crime. The question is: Why? To examine the possible reasons, I will be examining the success of original gothic writers, namely, Ann Radcliffe. Other authors who influenced the development of the Gothic genre will influence our modern understanding of these origins. I will examine Poe’s “The Mystery of Marie …

Female Superheroes, Rhetorical Reading, And Feminist Imagination : A Study Of College-Aged Readers And Comic Book Reading Practices Using Eye Tracking And Cued Retrospective Interviews, Aimee Vincent

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation uses feminist analysis and rhetorical genre studies to analyze the strategies used by college-aged students to read female superhero comic books. The dissertation responds to the growing trend of literature and writing instructors assigning comic books and graphic novels under the untested assumption that these texts are readily accessible to college students. This assumption contradicts what we have learned from studies of rhetorical reading strategies that found that readers analyze texts most effectively when readers are familiar with the text’s genre. In addition, the assumption ignores the specific rhetorical contexts of comics, including a problematic but powerful narrative …

Body, Mind, And Locale : Understanding The American Reality Through Blended Environs In William Carlos Williams' Poetry, Kelly D'Souza

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Williams Carlos Williams is a significant figure in modernist poetry. Since his poetryreflects his interest in the mind, as well as the nature of America, examining it enables readers to understand significant concepts of thought and American existence, and the shifting realities of American life during this time. For Williams, understanding these American ideals is best navigated through a largely physical and visual experience. For Williams, locale is not primarily defined through geography, but instead through the understanding and expression of the perceptions and experiences “common man” at a particular site. Man's surroundings are inherently connected to his thoughts, thus …

Personhood And Objecthood: Examining The Speaker’S Interiority And Double Consciousness In Citizen: An American Lyric, Winnie Chak

English (MA) Theses

The interpersonal use of the “you” (the second person) in Citizen: An American Lyric commands the reader to not look away and bear witness to the interiority Black Americans’ consciousness. The essay examines the transformation of Rankine’s works that expands how double consciousness, found in Citizen, influences the creative writing space (the racial imaginary) and exposes the ongoing discrimination against Black Americans due to white privilege. Rankine’s other works Just US: An American Conversation and The Racial Imaginary compile viewpoints of both Black and white communities that remember moments that either they witnessed racist discrimination or experienced it in …

Speaking Up For Generic Asians In Charles Yu’S Interior Chinatown, Orel Shilon

English (MA) Theses

In this project, I will explore the ways in which the critical race theory works in conjunction with film and literature to showcase the depths of the racial issues faced by Asian Americans. I will use Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown as a framework to express the major issues faced by the Asian American community and the concern brought up by implications made within the novel. Scholars such as Kent A. Ono and Vincent N. Pham and their book, Asian Americans and the Media, will be used as a primary source to introduce the problematic ways of the Hollywood establishment. Through …

Beheaded: An Alternate Look Into The Life Of England's Most Notorious Queen, Marion Renee Burgess

Honors Theses

Beheaded: an alternate look into the life of England's most notorious queen is a craft paper and accompanying novel chapters. The craft paper focuses on dialogue and its use in historical fiction to build both character and setting. The novel Beheaded is a historical fiction that focuses on Anne Boleyn, queen of England and second wife of Henry VIII. Anne served as queen from 1533 until her execution on May 19, 1536. She is one of the most notorious royal women in history, and she was never formally charged, witchcraft is one of the many claims laid against her during …

The Madwoman In The Refrigerator And A Song Of Ice And Fire., Alex Herm

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

There is an existing trope in the fantasy genre I call the madwoman in the refrigerator—in which a female character is killed, maimed, raped, depowered, and/or made to go mad or insane when she is no longer able to uphold the conventional genre expectations of her role in the narrative, such as the angel, monster, or angelic monster. It is a combination of the theory from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that women are demure angels when they are fulfilling stereotypical feminine roles in a narrative and when desire or agency is found, the woman is a monster, portrayed as …

Biting Time: Stories Reflecting A Changing Horror Genre, Landon Mckay

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

The horror genre is one of the most versatile forms of literature. Over the last two and a half centuries, horror writers have altered tropes to appeal to certain audiences, utilize different themes, and adhere to current writing trends. “Biting Time: Stories Reflecting a Changing Horror Genre” consists of four short stories that reflect horror tropes of different time periods. From the psychological horror of Edgar Allen Poe to Lovecraftian fear of the cosmos to comedic relief seen in horror cinema, these stories draw attention to the multifaceted nature of the horror genre.

The Criterion (2022)

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The Great Resignation: A Content Analysis Of News Sources' Portrayals Of The Covid-19 Labor Shortage., Mackenzie Williams

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

When workers left the labor market in large numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, proclamations of a labor shortage emerged extensively throughout the news. In this study, I analyze the coverage of the worker shortage among three news sources with different political orientations. Several themes emerged from analyzing a total of 75 articles. The findings showed that the perspective shown in the article, the cause of the labor shortage, restaurant worker portrayal, support of solutions, and opinion of the labor shortage all differed based on the political identity of the news source. This research supports previous findings that show there is …

Textual Persuasion: Trauma Representation In Mark Z. Danielewski's House Of Leaves, Elizabeth A. Wall

English Theses

Textualization is the act of putting words on a page. Typography is the style and way in which the textualization of the text appears to the reader. Together, textualization and typography have the ability to coerce the reader into a specific reading pattern. Mark Z. Danielewski has combined textualization and typography in his complex novel House of Leaves as a unique attempt to represent trauma in the space between language and written language. Typical textual play becomes textual persuasion as the reader is guided through the labyrinth of text by typographical coercion. In this novel, these elements of play essentially …

La Tela, Un Fluir, Hugo Javier Moreno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tesis para Escritura Creativa. Un libro de poesía. No se requiere abstracto.

Attention, Reflection, And Contemplation: Approaching The Divine Through Romantic Poiesis, Katelynn Tyner

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

Often the techniques of the said and the unsaid work together. This paper will explore ways in which poets embrace iconophilic or iconoclastic postures toward divine poiesis. One objective will be to focus on the arrangement of an abundance of images into itineraries and poetic landscapes. Another objective will be to demonstrate how these patterns of cultivation can be related to a divine poiesis. Through poetry, there are ways of attending to, reflecting on, and contemplating divine images that can return us to forms of participation with the sacred. First examining poetic attention, I identify poets who demonstrate …

#Metoo: The Literary And Social Impact Of Sexual Violence Narratives, Aura Comer

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

To fully understand the severity of sexual violence and its pervasiveness in America, I will present statistics of rape and sexual assault, as well as available legal court statistics of justice and punishment for offenders (or a lack thereof). However, there must be an acknowledgment of the disparity in information and representation pertaining to indigenous, LGBT+, immigrant, and minor communities. Note that these statistics do not speak to the complete pervasiveness of rape and sexual assault in the United States, given the negligent protection and lack of belief in victims, which results in victim silencing and a lack of reporting.

Memory Hunger: A Geocritical Study Of Nostalgia And The Glorification Of Paris In Works Written By Lost Generation Writers During The Interwar Period., Gabrielle Vatthanatham

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

The literary representations of Paris in the works of the Lost Generation communicate a nostalgia, longing for, and glorification of an irrecoverable past. The romanticization and abstraction of the setting of Paris in the works of the Lost Generation elucidates the emotional situations of their characters as they contemplate the nature of their existence. The abstraction of Paris liberates the city from its physical locale and demonstrates the repressional mechanisms of anchoring and sublimation outlined by existential philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe in his essay “The Last Messiah.” In the connection of Paris with Zapffe’s existential theory, Paris becomes, for certain …

“Hysteria Abated”: Forster’S Treatment Of Women’S Mental Health In Howards End, Rosemary Pauley

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In Howards End, Forster’s female characters are written off multiple times as having ‘hysteria’ or simply being foolish, sensitive women, which was a common attitude towards mental illness in Edwardian society. This essay investigates the concept of hysteria and Forster’s use of mental health with his female characters, using these factors to enhance the understanding of the characters, particularly the struggles or judgments that the three leading ladies, Helen, Margaret, and Ruth, face. The initial inspiration was drawn from Margaret’s jumping out of the carriage, as well as the neglect of Ruth’s dying wish; both women are deemed hysterical. While …

The Unarticulated Unseen: Britt Bennett’S “The Vanishing Half” And Her Intent On Revealing The Unseen In The Tradition Of Racial Passing, Caroline Maas Rue

All Theses

Throughout the trajectory of passing literature, there have been varying projections of racial identity as it is intertwined with choice and power. Despite the many commonalities between the archetypal passing novel, the differences in the way that passing is demarcated in various novels is indicative of the racial climate out of which it came. This paper considers Britt Bennett’s 2020 novel, The Vanishing Half, as a socio-political artifact of an allegedly post-racial era. In considering Bennett’s novel as a reflection of post-raciality, a comparative study incorporating Nella Larsen’s Passing, Douglas Sirk’s Adaptation of Imitation of Life, and Danzy …

An Analysis Of And Guide To Tamora Pierce’S Protector Of The Small Quartet As Compared To The Established Young Adult Fantasy Canon, Emma Marie Gilbert

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tamora Pierce’s work has been cited by many Young Adult fantasy authors as a major influence in recent years. Despite this, her work remains relatively obscure among librarians and readers of Young Adult literature. This paper examined one of Pierce’s Young Adult fantasy series, Protector of the Small, by comparing the series to existing works of Young Adult fantasy literature commonly accepted as classic or canonical literature. Among the comparative works were titles authored by C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, and Philip Pullman. Comparison was character-focused, with emphasis on the representation of parents, other sympathetic adults, peers, and …

Enchanting Music: How English Playwrights Use Music In Renaissance Witchcraft Plays, Alyssa Anders

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Music is an integral aspect of the Early Modern theater, but because most of this music is lost, scholars and students typically only analyze these works using literary theories. This approach does not allow for a full understanding these plays, which is especially true of witchcraft plays because witches typically utilize music for their spells. In this thesis, I am exploring the interdisciplinary connection of music and literature in the Jacobean witchcraft plays The Witch (c. 1616) by Thomas Middleton and The Tragedy of Sophonisba or The Wonder of Women (1604-1606). From my analysis of the existing music from The …

Gender, Sexuality, And Class In Selected Works Of Kesey, Cunningham, And Woolf, Harper Savage

English and Creative Writing | Senior Theses

At its best, literature illuminates the issues facing society. In the works of Ken Kesey, Virginia Woolf, and Michael Cunningham, these authors hold a mirror up to the issues of class, sexuality, and gender. While it is apparent that the times in which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Mrs, Dalloway, and The Hours were written heavily inform the individual character’s choices and their destinies, the themes presented are timeless. This essay explores how even today, years after these novels were written, society continues to struggle with these issues, and argues that, perhaps, through literature, a pathway to understanding can …

Ghosts And Ethics In The Early Works Of James Joyce, Michael Menase

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the last 20 years, critics have contributed new insights into the character development, overall messages, themes, and other literary aspects of James Joyce’s works by focusing on their ethical implications. By following an intertextual method and by performing close readings of Joyce’s texts, I try to fill a gap in the scholarly literature by adding a related focus on ghosts to the conversation about Joyce’s ethics and those of his characters. Focusing on Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I hope to show that the ghosts in Joyce’s corpus motivate characters and readers to …