English Language and Literature Commons^™

Noisy Transgressions: Gendered Noise, Female Voices, And Noisy Narration In Anne Bronte's The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Brianna Phillips

English MA Theses

This thesis re-evaluates Anne Brontë’s critically undervalued novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) through its noisy women. By joining the fields of narratology and noise studies, I argue for the subversive noisiness of a novel that has been overwhelmingly dismissed by critics as a text of female silence, subjugation, and subordination. However, by offering a soundscape of gendered noise and proliferating female voices, Brontë privileges the sounds of women’s voices in such a way that female noise “re-voices” the masculine origins of the novel (Gilbert Markham’s frame narrative). Contrary to traditional readings of Brontë’s heroine, Helen Huntingdon proves subversively …

21st Century Skills And The New Literacy: The Gender Gap, Faniya Ahmedshina

Mental Enlightenment Scientific-Methodological Journal

The rapid development of computer and information technology is changing the face of the modern world, making it more and more sensitive to innovation. Changing technologies are having an increasingly rapid impact on the development of digital skills and literacy skills. The transition to a new technological order changes the gender balance of personnel in all spheres of life. Analyzing the gender dimensions of digital literacy and skills is important both from the point of view of social justice (unequal distribution of men and women in the exact and natural sciences) and from the point of view of improving the …

Video Games Are Where The Detective Story Has Always Belonged: The Progression Of Detective Stories Into Video Games, Robert Palmour

English MA Theses

From its inception, the detective genre has always tried to challenge the reader with a mystery. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the various traditional mediums this is a challenge that is largely unmet as the mystery is revealed to the reader regardless of their ability to actually solve what was presented. With the more recent medium of video games however this challenge to a reader can finally be met. A detective story can now be presented to a player who must then solve it themselves in order to progress through the game. This thesis is divided up into multiple …

Wish In One Hand, Amber John

English Honors Theses

In confessional genre-blending poems, prose, and poetic essays, Wish in One Hand probes the reality of living in liminal spaces, and how that reality changes perceptions of identity and the home. Crossing three physical spaces that separate the works, the idea of home is shown to be fluid and multifaceted, frequently interweaving with ideas of childhood, memory, and the passage of time. From meditations on mice in the walls to visceral descriptions of swamp creatures, Wish in One Hand reflects the personal struggle to reconcile liminality with the concrete nature of our worldly experiences.

Fake Italian: An 83% True Autobiography With Pseudonyms And Some Tall Tales, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

In a city torn apart by racial tension, Damien Cavalieri is an adolescent without a tribe. His mother -who pines for the 1950s Brooklyn Italian community she grew up in- fears he lacks commitment to his heritage. Damien’s fellow Staten Islanders agree, dubbing him a “fake Italian” and bullying him for being artistic. Complicating matters, his efforts to make friends and date girls outside of the Italian community are thwarted time and again by circumstances beyond his control. When a tragic accident shakes Damien to his core, he begins a journey of self-discovery that will lead him to Italy, where …

Christophany In The Lord Of The Rings, Haley Weeder

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

Hunger, Capitalism, And Modern Gothic Literature, Becky Tynan

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In Ireland, the Great Famine of the 1840s caused not only hunger and starvation, but also diseases, emigration, and a rupture in the social framework. Many social critics of the time argued that a lack of food came from an imbalance in society between those who could afford to eat and those who could not. Hunger was described as a disease because British colonial society depended on feeding citizens from its economic and political menu. Irish people under British landlords lacked the ability to own land outright and this supported an inequality in land ownership that in turn affected government …

The Air That Moves Between Us, Maia Lynn Daschke

Honors Program Theses and Projects

When I enrolled in my first creative nonfiction workshop my junior year of college, I was immediately taken with the genre. I had always loved writing, but I had never written about myself. Growing up I wrote fiction, and as I got older my writing was entirely comprised of academic pieces only. As soon as the nonfiction workshop allowed me to write about myself, I began using writing as a form of therapy and self-help. I was able to work through my feelings on the page and turn my emotional trauma, my regrets, and my embarrassments into artwork, which has …

Teaching Philippine Literature And Illness: Finding Cure In Humanities, John Paolo Sarce

English Faculty Publications

Health and illness as themes are uncommonly being touched in literature classrooms. Other than the lack of interdisciplinary studies or specialists in this field in the Philippines; often teachers are also confronted with tons of materials that they are either overwhelmed to teach or find it difficult to deliver on their classes. This is the goal of this paper; help teachers gain confidence and basic knowledge of teaching literature that discusses health and illness especially at this time of history. Helping both teachers and students to understand and appreciate literature as a space for developing empathy while also honing their …

An Aesthetic Of Authenticity: The Use Of Turquoise In American (Counter)Culture, Madison Staples

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Turquoise is a distinctive part of the material culture of the Indigenous tribes of the American Southwest, including the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo peoples. The stone, particularly its color, is situated within complex systems of culture and meaning for each tribe, but the physical nature of material culture makes such pieces accessible for outsiders to borrow, buy, or steal. The aesthetic of the southwestern Indigenous tribe, traced in this paper through the use of turquoise, has been drawn upon by non-Native Westerners pursuing authenticity in their American lives. My findings suggest that true authenticity is marked by authentic engagement, …

Tolkien’S Heroic Philosophy: How Failure Creates True Heroes, Jacob Lesch

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

A Perfect Storm: Nonfiction On The Progression And Regression Of Anxiety, Amanda Guindon

Honors Program Theses and Projects

From the moment I decided to write a creative nonfiction collection of essays for my thesis, I knew that anxiety would be my focus. Mental health awareness is on the uprise as it’s estimated by the National Institute of Mental Health that 31.1% of all United States adults will experience any anxiety disorder in their lives. While I knew anxiety would be an important topic to discuss in order to bring awareness to causes and effects of anxiety, I had no concept of the challenges I would face in portraying my mental health to an audience who may know nothing …

Within The Shadow Of The Cowboy: Myths And Realities Of The Old American West, Katherine Lamb

Undergraduate Theses

It has been argued that the American cowboy is the most widely misunderstood and misinterpreted figure in American history. This mythic figure does not look like the real ranch hands who littered the American West throughout the nineteenth century, nor does he act like them. Instead, he is set apart, as a figurehead of masculinity and American ideals, determined to roam the frontier as a guardian of justice and stability. This version of the cowboy, however, is not bound within the pages of novels or within limitations of film. Instead, the cowboy’s ideals, persona, look, and code remain a vivid …

Satire In The Cold War Era: Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana And Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast Of Champions, Sara Eslami

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Both Graham Greene and Kurt Vonnegut use satire to interrogate the social uneasiness during the Cold War; however, each author uses satire in different ways. Greene’s novel Our Man in Havana demonstrates this unease, as almost every character is paranoid besides the vacuum salesman and inept “spy” Wormold, who uses fiction to fabricate the reports he sends to the Secret Intelligence Service. Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions also has a protagonist who is strongly impacted by fiction, as Dwayne Hoover is so affected by Kilgore Trout’s literature that it drives him insane. Both authors use different satiric techniques as a …

Unicorns Are Not Real And Neither Are You: Peter S. Beagle's Postmodern Fairy Tale, Athena Hayes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although considered by many readers to be a “cult classic,” Peter S. Beagle’s 1968 novel The Last Unicorn has been unrepresented in literary scholarship. Many fantasy critics in the past have dismissed the work as lacking a sense of reality through its mixing of modern language with a medieval, fantasy setting. However, the novel’s purposeful muddling of reality raises questions of ontology and the nature of storytelling/world-projection. The objective of this study is to not only to act as a sort of apologetic for The Last Unicorn, but also read the novel in the context of fairy tale/mythic studies …

The Anglo-Saxons--Stoddard And Lovecraft: Ideas Of Anglo-Saxon Supremacy And The New England Counter-Revolution, Benjamin M. Welton

Madison Historical Review

This paper attempts to explain the New England Counter-Revolution through two very different men--H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) and T. Lothrop Stoddard (1883-1950). While one was a respected and popular scholar, and the other was a little-known pulp writer, both men combined New England regionalism, a belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority, the primacy of modern science, and a belief in racial/eugenic differences to create a unique political paradigm little recognized at the time but influential today.

Celestial And Chthonic Imagery In The Hobbit And The Lord Of The Rings, Frederick T. Pyter

4610 English: Individual Authors: J.R.R. Tolkien

No abstract provided.

The Esoteric Quality Of Montaigne’S Essays: The Essay As A Philosophic Response To Extreme Forms Of Skepticism, Victoria Russo

Honors Program Theses and Projects

According to Judith Shklar (1990, 611) not only is Montaigne Emerson’s hero, but Emerson is the American thinker in whom one finds the greatest understanding and appreciation of Montaigne’s Essays (see also Shklar 1989). The kinship between Montaigne and Emerson extends beyond the latter’s appreciation of the former. Both essayists address the topics of skepticism and the relationship between skepticism and how one ought to live. In doing so, both Emerson and Montaigne speak to the philosophical importance of literature and how one should understand the relationship between literature and philosophy.

Presidential Rhetoric And Media's Contribution To The Subjective Nature Of Truth In American Democracy, Bianca Miccolis

English Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of media on the subjectivity of truth in presidential rhetoric and its ethical implications. In my three case studies, I find that there is some form of deception by each president in their chosen form of media. I analyze Roosevelt’s use of the radio, which he uses to hide his disability and gain more executive power to combat the Great Depression. I examine Reagan’s use of television and how he fabricates an intimate relationship with the American people to enact tax reform. Finally, I investigate Trump’s use of Twitter to deflect negative publicity as he …

Transfer And Transitions: Exploring First Year Writing At Holy Cross, Elizabeth Casavant

English Honors Theses

This study explores how first year students transition to college writing, especially in a pandemic with an online format, and how students use transfer, if at all. It focuses on the following research questions: How do students transition to college writing, college norms, and online classes in a pandemic, and how can Holy Cross first-year writing courses support students in this transition? The methods used to investigate these questions included the administration of two surveys sent to first-year students in a first-year writing course, as well as 10 interviews with students. After transcribing, collating, and coding the data, the following …

“Like Dying And Like Being Born”: The Portal, The Door, And The Closet In Mohsin Hamid’S Exit West, Lynn Nichols

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

This paper analyzes Exit West by Mohsin Hamid through the lens of queer theory and LGBT symbolism. Scholarship surrounding Exit West has focused on the novel's magical realism as a commentary on xenophobia and colonialism. By drawing on noted texts in queer theory including Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet, this paper draws further connections between Hamid's portal plot and the experience of coming out. This argument considers the intersectionality of migration and coming out to demonstrate that for characters like Nadia, these experiences must overlap.

The Intricacies Of Counting To Four In Old English Poetry, Ian Cornelius, Eric Weiskott

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The metrical theory devised by Eduard Sievers and refined by A. J. Bliss forms the basis for most current scholarship on Old English meter. A weakness of the Sievers–Bliss theory is that it occupies a middle ground between two levels of analytic description, distinguished by Roman Jakobson in an influential article as ‘verse instance’ and ‘verse design’. Metrists in the Sievers–Bliss tradition employ a concept of metrical position (a key component of verse design), yet the focus of attention usually remains on the contours of stress of individual verses. Important exceptions are the studies of Thomas Cable and Nicolay Yakovlev. …

Amazing Stories: Science Fiction’S Inception In Interwar Pulp Magazines, Zachary Doe

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the creation of the science fiction genre through the pulp magazines of the 1920s. Hugo Gernsback, the creator of Amazing Stories is the first to title the budding genre as science fiction. Through his editorials, one can see a desire to create a wide community heavily involved in genre creation. By exploring these initial stories and editorials we can better understand how science fiction began as well as evolved into what it is today.

The Pandemic In Pieces, Cam Hudson

Honors Theses

This thesis attempts to reconcile with the year of our lives that was blanketed by the heavy weight of a global pandemic. It is told in flash memoirs in the hopes that it will not be overwhelming to read or grapple with. It explores mental illness, lack of control, impermanence, and the suffocatingly cyclical nature of daily life during COVID. I hope this thesis finds you well.

Regional Domesticities: Recalling, Rewriting, And Redefining Gender And Domesticity In The Greater Southwest, A. Laurie Lowrance

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines how Native American and Mexican American women in the greater Southwest negotiated domestic expectations within their own cultures while navigating the demands of encroaching Anglo culture to produce something new: hybrid domesticities rooted in the region, which I call regional domesticities. Chapter 1 focuses on María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and connects her novels Who Would Have Thought It? and The Squatter and the Don to the rhetoric of the Overland Monthly. Chapter 2 explores bicultural collaborations between Native American and Anglo women and focuses on Sarah Winnemucca’s Life Among the Piutes and Helen Sekaqueptewa’s Me …

Final Master's Portfolio, Jonathan Correa

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Jonathan G. Correa's Master's Portfolio

Spirit Of The Mound: An Illustrated Story, Tom Montoya

Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of New Mexico and the Greater Southwest

This short story depicts the youthful trials and ambitions of rural dwellers and the daily celebratory aspects of life in northern New Mexico. The illustrations by Francisco LeFebre offer a visual panorama of the Wagon Mound, a unique natural formation, in Mora Country.

Voices Of The Wandering, Grace Manning

English Honors Theses

In Voices of the Wandering, Grace Manning explores the concept of belonging through the disconnect that exists when one’s home isn’t defined by structure or established in childhood, but rather a by constantly changing and evolving ideal. Manning’s speaker draws inspiration and comfort from others who are living between countries and continents, using their voices and emotions to try and understand her own. South and West African experiences investigate the confusion and suffering that is colonialism, from blame, to hurt, to lifelong guilt, she introduces the perspectives of those on either side of the racial wall built during Apartheid. Using …

High Tide: A Novella, Anna Davis

English Honors Theses

High Tide follows Dan and Sam, a married couple who go to an island off the coast of Maine where Sam grew up as a kid after a trauma as they try and reconcile their relationship. Dan finds out that Sam has been keeping big pieces of her past from him and Sam underestimates just how much going back to the island will affect her. She has been running away from her past for so long that she can’t distinguish between the stories she’s told herself and the reality. Sam and Dan will have to confront her past in order …

Sonder: A Poetry Journal 2021, English Dept., College Of The Holy Cross

Holy Cross Bookshelf

Susan Elisabeth Sweeney is the faculty advisor for this publication.

Sonder is a compilation of student poetry written for the course "Introduction to Creative Writing: Poetry" at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Students taking the course produced this journal as a final class project under the guidance of their instructor, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, Monsignor Edward G. Murray Professor of Arts and Humanities