Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons^™

Negrocity: An Interview With Greg Tate, Camille Goodison

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Trans-Spatiality As The Horizon Of The Coming Community: Ethico-Ontology And Aesthetics In Asian Immigrant Literature, Dae-Joong Kim

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study centers on the potential scope and significance of trans-spatiality as a new literary concept. I employ the concept of trans-spatiality as a means of understanding Asian immigrants’ transnational experiences as represented by Asian immigrant writers in the Anglophone world. Trans-spatiality is a grounding term and methodological orientation, and its scope is relational and appositional. Thus, previous studies such as postcolonialism, cosmopolitanism, transnationalism, diaspora studies, and globalization are related to trans-spatiality, but, in this dissertation, I strictly limit its use to an ethico-ontological and aesthetic understanding of Asian immigrant writers’ literary works. For this methodology, I explore and analyze …

Angel Island Poetry: Reading And Writing Cultures, Adam Kotlarczyk

Understanding Poetry

Object of a darker chapter in American history, the Angel Island Poems (as they have become known) are a recently discovered body of over 135 poems, written primarily in Chinese. These were literally carved into the walls at the Angel Island Immigration Station, where Chinese immigrants were detained, sometimes indefinitely, between approximately 1910-1940.

This lesson demonstrates how history and culture can be integral to our understanding of poetry, even poetry that is deeply reflective and personal in nature; by requiring students to model and produce their own poetry, it also makes evident that writing poetry is a creative instinct and …

Traumatic And Healing Memory In Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony And Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Ambata K. Kazi-Nance

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A comparative analysis of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, with a focus on individual as well as collective memory work in historically marginalized indigenous and African-American communities, respectively. This represents a critical study of how the novels invoke progressive and redemptive models of remembering, as well as foreground the role of spiritual guides in the transformative process from trauma towards healing.

The Sacred Role Of Animal Beings In Iroquois Lore, Melissa J. Martinelli

English Theses

The act of storytelling provides a connection between the spiritual and physical spheres, and the Haudenosaunee people (more commonly recognized as Iroquois) utilize the oral narrative to convey the most sacred truths of their culture. In focusing primarily upon animals and animal beings, one can recognize the deep reverence traditional tribal members feel toward animals as certain legends seek to unite individuals with the spirits, personalities, and bodies of such creatures in narrative form. Too often animals are overlooked as “lesser” beings, yet in legends of the Iroquois they possess potent orenda (great power) that can help one achieve success …

Paradigms Of Style: A Study Of Zulfikar Ghose's Novels, Abu Ul Wafa Mansoor Ahmed Abbasi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study deals with Zulfikar Ghose's--an expatriate English language writer of Pakistani origin living in the USA--novels. In this study, I focus on, among other things, the writer's negotiation with style and socio-politically provocative subject matter. I study Ghose's novels in a "good old fashioned way" in which I analyze his work by exploring his achievement as an artist, both in terms of style and socio-political subject matter. The focus is, precisely, to highlight the writer's correspondence between language and reality.

And Then, He Folds His Patterned Rug: Repressive Reality And The Eternal Soul In Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Cook

Masters Theses

While Vladimir Nabokov has deservedly earned fame as a stylist of the strange, most critics who study his novels approach his absurd and beautiful characters as little more than fractured victims of a wholly subjective reality. Compounding the misunderstanding is the tired debate over whether or not Lolita is literary, pornographic, or some cruel game of cat-and-mouse in which Nabokov seizes control of his readers' sense of morality. However, critics who read Nabokov as nothing more than a manipulative stylist neglect to realize that his characters suffer such absurd distortions of spirit and mind because their environment--the "average" reality of …

El Choteo En Cien Botellas En Una Pared Y Raining Backwards: El Gracioso Disfraz De Las Circunstancias Trágicas Durante La Revolución Cubana Y El Período Especial, Kristin Nicole Lisenby

World Languages and Cultures

This project attempts to explore the idea that the combination of tragedy and humor in Cuban and Cuban-American literature is a form of “choteo” or “no tomar nada en serio,” which demonstrates a coping strategy used by Cubans during hard times. In the case of Ena Lucía Portela's Cien botellas en una pared, and Roberto Fernandez's Raining Backwards, I believe that the two authors use his and her own personal insight into a Cuban's life during the Cuban Revolution of the 60's and the Special Period of the 90's, and that those personal experiences are reflected throughout the novels …

It’S My Body: The Biomedical Ethics Of Cell And Organ Harvest, Christina Perri

Common Reading Essay Contest Winners

First Place

Með Lögum Skal Land Vort Byggja: ‘With Law Shall The Land Be Built.’ Law-Speaking And Identity In The Medieval Norse Atlantic, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

Gwyn Jones famously posited the notion of a cogent Norse identity as manifested by common language, culture, and mythology; further, as he clarified in his landmark work A History of the Vikings, law and the practice of law in local and national assemblies was a fundamental component of such a unifying cultural characteristic: "…for the Scandinavian peoples in general, their respect for law, their insistence upon its public and democratic exercise at the Thing, and its validity for all free men, together with their evolution of a primitive and exportable jury system, is one of the distinctive features of their …

“To Say Nothing”: Variations On The Theme Of Silence In Selected Works By Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz, Sandra Cisneros, And María Luisa Bombal, Hannah M. Frantz

Student Publications

This paper explores the various ways in which Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s La Respuesta, Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek,” and María Luisa Bombal’s “The Tree” address the theme of silence. It interrogates how the female characters in each of these works are silenced as well as their responses to that oppression. Meaning is subjective, so writing is a safe outlet for the oppressed. These works each identify an oppressor, either a husband or the male dominated church, as well as an oppressed individual, who is the female lead. In La Respuesta, the Catholic church, and specifically …

Pecan Grove Review Volume 13, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

Creative writings by students, faculty, and staff of the St. Mary's University community.

Mediated Processes In Writing For Publication: Perspectives Of Chinese Science Postdoctoral Researchers In America, Mimi Li

English Faculty Research

Sociocultural theory provides an explanatory framework for understanding human activity in the community of practice. This paper aims to address science researchers’ scholarly writing for publication processes from a sociocultural perspective. The author conducts a study via in-depth reflective interviews with three Chinese science postdoctoral researchers in America in an attempt to find their specific mediated actions and dynamic processes in writing for publication. In light of Engeström’s (1987, 1999) activity system, this paper, drawing on the interview data, explores the four mediating factors: objects/goals, artifacts, community, and roles, which afford and constrain the goings-on in the researchers’ writing for …

Bibliography Of Central European Women's Holocaust Life Writing In English, Louise O. Vasvári

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Bibliography For The Study Of Text And Image In Modern European Culture, Natasha Grigorian

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Carribean Folk: Engendering The Color Politics Of Claude Mckay's Banana Botttom (1933), Charmaine Dacosta

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Invisible Other: White Trash In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! And The Hamlet, Bryant Edwards Trihey

Theses & Honors Papers

The idea of a “white soul” and the protection of its purity was prolific during William Faulkner’s adolescence in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which is why he feared the establishment of a hybrid mix of races, especially one that tarnished whiteness. This thesis exams whiteness in Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and The Hamlet. The findings on this thesis indicate that only white trash can fix the problem that is white trash, which means that white trash is not even safe from itself. Faulkner finished Absalom, Absalom! with further avowal of his fear of the tainting of the white …

Teachers’ Perceptions Toward Enhancing Learning Through Multiple Intelligences Theory In Elementary School: A Mixed Methods Study, Nouf I. Al-Wadi

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of multiple intelligences theory on elementary students’ academic achievement and to investigate teacher perceptions of multiple intelligences theory. The multiple intelligences school that was chosen for this study was Edwin Rhodes Elementary School. The study examined Edwin Rhodes Elementary School performance via the California Academic Performance Index. Edwin Rhodes School scores were compared with similar traditional school scores and with gifted and talented scores. The study found that the multiple intelligences school performance was between traditional and gifted and talented school performances. The study also explored teachers’ perceptions at Edwin …

Bat Species Diversity At An Urban-Rural Interface: Dominance By One Species In An Urban Area, Jason Philip Damm

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growth of urban areas is known to affect different species of wildlife in varying ways. Many organisms have exhibited declines in abundance due to habitat loss, while overall species diversity decreases. Bats can serve as reliable indicators of habitat quality and level of anthropogenic disturbance. To investigate urbanization impacts on a Midwestern bat community, I analyzed nine years of mist-net captures from a study area on the edge of Indianapolis, Indiana, where the percentage of urbanized ground cover ranged from zero to 26%, within 1.3-km of a net site. I used Pearson correlation statistics to examine the effect of …

Insect Abundance And Variability In An Urban-Rural Landscape And Comparison To Foraging Habitat Selection Of Bats, Nicole M. Oehler

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I conducted a study of the relationship between prey availability and foraging habitat selection of Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis), big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus), eastern red bats (Lasiurus borealis) and evening bats (Nycticeius humeralis) in an urban-rural landscape matrix of southwestern Indianapolis. Insects were collected from nine different habitat types found within the range of these species. Insect data were collected from 2006 to 2008 using sticky traps placed in each habitat type. Habitat types were ranked by importance to each bat species (based on previous studies) and then compared to the average number of prey insects captured per habitat …

Effects Of Ectoparasites And Reproductive Class On Roost-Switching And Foraging Behavior Of Indiana Bats (Myotis Sodalis), Nicholas S. Gikas

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ectoparasites of bats have been known to cause harm to their hosts and to affect roost-switching. Little research exists on effects ectoparasites may have on roosting and foraging behavior of the federally endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis). From 2008 through 2010, I collected ectoparasite data and documented roost-switching and foraging behavior of Indiana bats on habitat restoration lands owned by the Indianapolis International Airport (IND) in central Indiana. I tested for differences in roosting and foraging behavior between bats with varying ectoparasite loads, and for differences in ectoparasite load, roost-switching frequency, and foraging behavior between different reproductive classes of Indiana …

Effects Of Globalization On The Gas Engine Manufacturing And Parts Industry In Indiana As Experienced By Those Working In This Sector, Patricia Polastri

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Globalization has often been perceived as the culprit in the decline of employment in several manufacturing industries in the United States. The purpose of this research was to investigate how globalization affected the gas engine manufacturing and parts industry in Indiana during the period of 1998 – 2008, in order to assess the perception of industry professionals as to the characteristics that could, or have, led to globalization through offshoring and outsourcing. Additionally factors for the employment decline experienced in this industry were identified and assessed. For this study an anonymous online survey was conducted targeting individuals directly associated with …

Historicizing The Present In 9/11 Fiction, Todd Kuchta

Re-visioning Terrorism

Reconfiguring the debate on the historical efficacy of postmodern fiction, novels inspired by 9/11 seek to view the present itself as history. McEwan’s Saturday, DeLillo’s Falling Man, and Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist attempt to move beyond the view of history-as-text. Rather than evoking “the presence of the past,” they present characters trying to situate themselves in a new historical reality. Žižek’s account of Lacan illuminates DeLillo’s attempt to historicize the present, while McEwan gestures toward Foucault’s view of the present as exit. Only Hamid engages the historical potential of the present.

Nationalism, Alterity, And Cognitive Studies In Mohsin Hamid, Laila Halaby, And Jess Walte, Aaron Derosa

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay explores the metaphoric construction of the terrorist Other in 9/11 scholarship and literature. While academics demand an ethical engagement with Arab and Muslim Americans, they unwittingly reify a binary distinction of Other-Same that triangulates terrorist identity through ordinary Arabs and Muslims. Looking at Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land and Walter’s The Zero, I suggest an alternative metaphor for terrorism not as a regional or religious population, but as an internal impulse that dwells within us all. Doing so more ethically and productively aligns terrorism with the threat to global security in the post-9/11 era.

Oral Traditions: An Analysis Of Story Telling And Performance In Paule Marshall’S Praisesong For The Widow, Dhanashree Thorat

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Dorothy Noyes, in her essay "Tradition: Three Traditions," notes that the word "tradition" implies "handing over" or "delivery" (Noyes 233). Furthermore, tradition is identified as a communal belonging that involves "the transfer of responsibility for a valued practice or performance" from one generation to the next (233). This essay will apply the characteristics and role of "tradition," outlined by Noyes and others, to develop a critical understanding of two acts of oral tradition pivotal to the spiritual transformation of Avey Johnson, the protagonist of Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow. These two interconnected acts, the story of Ibo Landing and …

The Risk Factors Of Alcohol Abuse Among College Athletes, Jacob Jones

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-concept theory was used as a theoretical basis to investigate the utility of social norms alcohol prevention programs designed for college athletes. The predictive relationship among alcohol use and athletic identity, competitiveness, drinking game participation, and level of sport participation was investigated. It was discovered that drinking game participation is a significant predictor of total weekly alcohol use above and beyond the other predictors. In addition, drinking game participation and organized recreational sport participation were significant predictors of total binge drinking episodes. While controlling for drinking game participation and competitiveness, no significant differences were found in the amount of alcohol …

Perception Of Social Presence In Asynchronous And Synchronous Online Discussion From The Perspective Of Native And Non-Native Speaker, Abdullah A. Alruhaimi

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The technology innovation of telecommunication gave confidence to educational institutions to substitute some of their courses from traditional courses into virtual ones. This switch in education inspired globalization. The learners use either synchronous or asynchronous communication tools to interact with each other. Most previous studies in this field show that social presence is correlated with learner achievement satisfaction and interaction. So the researcher measured the level of social presence for both groups of learners, native and non-native speakers, across both types of online communication, synchronous and asynchronous communication. The researcher conducted a 2x2 split-plot ANOVA design with repeated measure for …

Teacher Self-Efficacy Beliefs Related To Chronic Disruptive Behavior, Kalinda R. Jones

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the current study, elementary teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs regarding working with students displaying chronic disruptive behavior (CDB) were explored. CDB was defined as persistent observable actions that have a negative impact on academic or social functioning. To address the infrequently researched construct of self-efficacy beliefs specific to teaching students exhibiting CDB, a modified version of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (short form) was used. Factor analysis results indicated the three self-efficacy factors of instructional strategies self-efficacy, classroom management self-efficacy, and student engagement self-efficacy. No significant relationships were found between each of the three types of teacher self-efficacy beliefs and …

African Americans Perceptions Of The “N-Word” In The Context Of Racial Identity Attitudes, Keya Wiggins

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The “N-word” has been a pop-culture topic of interest which has fueled many heated discussions within the African American community. Given the history of the word nigger in America, the use of the word nigga among some African Americans may cause confusion among those who do not understand the phenomenon of African Americans‟ perceptions of the “N-word.” The present research was conducted to explore the phenomenon of African Americans‟ perceptions of both the words nigger and nigga in the context of racial identity attitudes. A primarily qualitative embedded mixed method model was utilized to gather information about feelings of group …

Examining Variables Related To Help-Seeking And Victimization Differences After Coercive Intercourse, Ginger Faulkner

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The issue of sexual violence against women has been an area of interest to psychological researchers because of its importance and prevalence in America. A problem that has been attracting more attention recently is sexual coercion against women, especially on college campuses. Researchers have consistently found that over half of college women have been victim to coercive sexual encounters (Struckman-Johnson, Struckman-Johnson, & Anderson, 2003) making this a serious problem in need of greater understanding. Researchers have also found that sexual coercion can cause a variety of problems, yet victims typically do not seek help after these experiences (Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, …