Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Returning To The Beginning Place: Le Guin’S Forgotten Anti-Fantasy Four Decades On, Timothy S. Miller

UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies

Ursula K. Le Guin's 1980 portal fantasy The Beginning Place has received a fraction of the critical attention that most of her other novels have attracted over the years. This short book's many enigmas, often structured by self-consciously Jungian symbolism, are best understood as operating in service not to a strict Jungian framework, but rather to a broader metafictional evaluation of fantasy and an articulation of Le Guin's own preferred approach to the reading and interpretation of fantasy. At times, The Beginning Place moves beyond meta-fantasy to become an anti-fantasy that does not shy from critiquing some dimensions of both …

Rural Girl Comedy Hour, Riley Mccall

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

Censorship: Through An Iowan’S Eyes, Erin Mcrae

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This is a collection of creative work prefaced by an introduction, which gives an overview of the development of these pieces. The pieces contained in this thesis are comprised of various genres, including creative nonfiction, poetry, and short fiction.

Material Sins: A Novel Excerpt, Patrick Markovich

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This excerpt from Material Sins includes the first six chapters of the novel. The book is a supernatural crime thriller focused on the life of a young butcher’s apprentice, Charles, as he attempts to uncover his father’s criminal past. When Charles encounters his father’s childhood friend, Salo, he realizes his father had been involved in the mafia in his youth. As Charles learns the extent of his father’s sins, he fights to maintain his sanity and keep the demonic entity attached to him at bay. With the help of his best friend Sofia, Charles struggles to dispel the demon who …

Unreliable Narrators; Origins And Impact, Lauren Fetzer

Honors Program Theses

Unreliable narrators can be found in every source of information. They mediate the text for the reader and raise our perceptions of stories, news articles, and forms of receiving facts. While they can be seen in a variety of different genres and forms of literature over the span of many decades, the understanding and acceptance of unreliable narrators have shifted over time. During the late nineteenth century, many authors utilized neutral narrators, intended to be without opinions or bias, when discussing social issues. In Stephen Crane’s 1893 novella Maggie: a Girl of the Streets the narrator is not the main …

Little Miss Sure Shot: Essays On A Young Woman Journalist's Search For Fulfillment, Mallory Schmitz

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

"Variety": A Look At Several Genres, Ryan Dean Carlin

Honors Program Theses

This thesis was made to both explore the impact on a writer’s mind and thoughts that writing different genres could cause, as well as stretch the limits of creativity that any one writer can bring about. The following stories are the result of a single writer’s efforts. Following them will be the writer’s own observations about his approach as he wrote each, as well as any ways that the restrictions of the genre stumped his attempts at writing. Each work is no fewer than ten pages, and each story attempts to stretch the boundaries of writing and imagination through unique …

Sinking Into My Skin: An Exploration Of The Mind And Body Through Multigenre Creative Writing, Ana Elizabeth Eagan

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

From Art To Propaganda: The Shift In The Concept Of The “Most Dead” In True Crime Literature, Hannah Mcconkey

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis studies the shift of the true crime genre from art to inescapable propaganda. This change is due, in part, to the politization of the genre by modern society. This includes the concept of the “most dead” seen within the true crime genre over the past several decades. The idea of the most dead is the belief that some victims of crimes are more or less dead depending on how marketable their demographic is. For instance, a blonde, Caucasian child would be considered the most dead while a woman of color in the sex work industry would be the …

The Pandemic-Uncanny: Self-Estrangement And Environment In Out There And Bliss Montage, Kersten Khaley

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020. The COVID-19 Public Health Emergency lasted from January 30, 2020, to May 11, 2023. During this time, abundant literature across disciplines began appearing, assessing the pandemic experience and aftermath. However, there needs to be more investigation and application of the term uncanny in the pandemic experience and literature.

Two short story collections, Out There by Kate Folk and Bliss Montage by Ling Ma, both published in 2022, are works of pandemic literature demonstrating the pandemic's inherent uncanniness and the human experience. The term pandemic-uncanny represents an inherent attachment …

How Do We Use Creative And Personal Memories For Creative Communication?, Tyler Robert Montgomery

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Inspired by the author’s memories, KeyBoard Memories and You have the Right to Forget are two short stage plays exploring topics of identity, time, and justice. This thesis uses personal and creative memories to develop stories in the form of scripts. The thesis begins with an example of creative writing inspired by the author’s personal and creative memories and describes the purpose of the project before moving into a review of literature that explains what memories are, how they work, and the different types of memories. Then the method section describes the methods of journaling and scripting writing, and then …

My Year With Digital Supremacists, Nick Baur

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

Trouble Brewing: An Exploration In Parasocial Relationships With Fictional Characters, Isabelle Zeimetz

Honors Program Theses

In the 1940s and 1950s, television and radio had taken over as the dominant form of media (Understanding Media and Culture: an Introduction to Mass Communication). Anthropologist Donald Horton and sociologist R. Wohl noted a strange new relationship developing between the audiences and the hosts under this new dominant media. These relationships ranged from close friendships with radio hosts like Dave Garroway to people wanting to marry fictional characters such as the gal from the radio broadcast, Lonesome Gal. Horton and Wohl realized that these new relationships were not quite the same as interpersonal relationships as they could never be …

Midwest Memoir: Cole Carolan, Cole James Carolan

Honors Program Theses

A memoir

Hi God: An Autoethnography Of Loneliness In Graduate School, Grace Elisabeth Mertz

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

I may have started college too early. My fifteen-year-old homeschooled mind could not have predicted the identity shift that higher education would demand of me. I did not expect academia to be filled with people who shared my background and beliefs, but I was, in many ways, unprepared for the way my Christianity would be challenged in the classroom and in my professors’ offices. After seven years of education within the structures of academia, I certainly have not lost my faith, but the way I think about, talk about, and practice it has tangibly changed. The questions I ask of …

Wandersoul Of The South: Situating 20th Century Alabama Poet Clement Wood In A Literary Tradition, Skye Rozario

Honors Program Theses

The following is a literary study on 20th century Alabama poet Clement Wood. As a writer, Wood lived and worked mainly in Alabama and New York, and was greatly involved and connected to the literary movements Modernism, the Southern Renaissance, and American Romanticism. He published many poems, short stories, and criticism in a variety of literary magazines, wrote his own columns, and edited journals as well. Though Wood was heavily involved in this community, his work is under-researched on the whole. Wood’s poetry attests to his mastery of rhyme and form and mainly focuses on the value of nature in …

It Starts With "F": A Collection Of Short Stories, Arielle Irvine

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

It Starts with “F”: A Collection of Short Fiction consists of five short stories that share a family-centered theme while tackling tough topics such as death, separation, adoption, and personal fulfillment.

Waiting For The Mail: A Collection Of Short Stories, James Matthew Keane

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This collection of six pieces of original short fiction is, in general, a reflection upon my on-going questions concerning identity. In particular, these stories delve into the nature of masculinity through an exploration of male relationships—fathers, sons, husbands, and brothers.

Beauty Outside Our Doors: Conservation Stories Of Black Hawk County, University Of Northern Iowa. Environmental Literature (Spring 2017).

Environmental Literature Project

Beauty Outside Our Doors collects stories, poems, essays, and interviews with people of Black Hawk County, Iowa, giving voice to their relationship to the land, in their own words. From beekeeping to family farms to kayaking down the Cedar River and nature therapy, this work serves as a witness to the beauty to be found here—and the challenges we still face as citizens and lovers of the natural world.

Published as a collaboration between the Soil and Water Conservation District and students in the Spring 2017 Environmental Literature class at the University of Northern Iowa, this unique anthology invites you …

Huckleberry Finn And The Picaresque As Lens Against Debt Peonage, Cory Dahlstrom

Annual Graduate Student Symposium

The literary genre of picaresque originated in Sixteenth Century Spain, but has become a prominent staple in American culture–especially post-Civil War. This project specifically discusses the role Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn played in analyzing the failures of reconstruction’s provision toward African American freedom and equality.

The Cultural And Rhetorical Elements Of American Picaresque, Cory James Dahlstrom

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The picaresque is a literary genre with a long and rich history. Although protean in nature, it is essentially the fictional autobiography of a likeable delinquent or rogue, who survives a series of adventures and a life of hardships by his or her wits and affinity for trickery. Stemming from a long line of tropes dating back to Greek mythology, the picaresque comes into its own fruition towards the end of the Spanish Golden Age with the anonymous publication of Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). Since then, the antihero of the picaresque, the picaro, has become a literary figure across a …

Mammal Skull: A Digital Poem, Brian Pals

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

A poem.

Clogging The System, Harrison Postler

Honors Program Theses

This thesis manifested itself in the form of a one-act play, which I wrote and directed at the University of Northern Iowa's Interpreters Theatre. The play is entitled "Clogging the System" and is a comedy with seven characters and one toilet, none of which were played by me. I endeavored to examine how shame functions within our society and how it is indoctrinated at a very young age by using toilets as a vehicle to explore shame based around bodily waste. Additionally, I have incorporated the burgeoning field of literature concerning how humans negotiate the taboo placed upon doing two …

Timeline Of Creating The Original Performance Work, A Scotch Verdict, Cynthia Goatley, Rebecca Burkhardt

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

We first conceived the idea of writing a hybrid piece containing elements of opera and musical theatre in 1998. The musical, as we now call it, is based on Lillian Faderman’s Scotch Verdict, which revolves around the true story of Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods who ran a boarding school for girls in 1810 Edinburgh, Scotland. The accusation of one of their students, Jane Cumming, illegitimate grandchild of wealthy and powerful Dame Cumming Gordon, brought ruin upon the school and the schoolmistresses. Jane Cumming had accused the schoolmistresses of committing “unnatural acts” together. This tale told to Dame Gordon …

The Stuff That Affects You: Fiction, Poetry, And Doggerel, Lisa D. Brodersen

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Inevitably writers write about the stuff that affects them. Maybe the stuff that affects them is life-altering, or in some way profound or sublime, like untimely death, divorce, or being in love. Or maybe it's the mundane stuff, like marbles, cats, crows, weeds, wind, rain, or riding a bike. This thesis includes fiction, poetry, and light verse (which I prefer to call doggerel) triggered by all of that stuff, but I've twisted and embellished it beyond the literal or whole truth, until what remains is nothing but the truth.

The Portrayal Of Attention Deficit Disorder In Children's And Young Adult Literature, Ambri Refer

Graduate Research Papers

The purpose of this study was to determine if characters with attention deficit disorder in children's and young adult literature possess the same traits as patients diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. This research examined books that contained at least one character with attention deficit disorder.

A content analysis methodology was used, and a book analysis form was completed for each book examined. The form was used to record the gender of the character with attention deficit disorder and characteristics associated with the disorder including inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. The researcher predicted that the majority of the books would have male …

Crossing The Timeline: Michael Crichton's Bestseller As Social Criticism And History, Linda Bingham

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Michael Crichton's best-selling suspense novel Timeline combines futuristic science with medieval history, resulting in a remarkably successful and thrilling page-turner. By authoritatively blending academic arcana with fabricated scientific innovation, Crichton also convinces the average reader that the science in the novel is based on current scientific knowledge and that the medieval portions of the novel are based on solid historical research, which, for the most part, they are. Given the fantastic premise of the supposedly present-day science of quantum transportation between universes, one would expect the history-based sections of the book to have the stronger underpinnings. But, surprisingly, the plot …

Seasonal Allergies: An Intertextual Explanation, Nathaniel Abel Nieman

Honors Program Theses

A collection of short stories.

Creating A Textual Performance Piece, Karen Pitcher

Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

When posed with the challenge of creating a senior thesis project, I was boggled as to what to do. As an English major, I knew my options were very open, and I was determined to make this project one that I would enjoy throughout my senior year. In order to do so, I had to broaden my scope to include not only an element of my major, but also components of my communications minor and my first major, theatre. In order to do this, I turned to oral interpretation, an activity that involves dramatic interpretation of texts written by others. …

Women Characters In The Plays By Tennessee Williams, Marina V. Zakharova

Graduate Research Papers

Tennessee Williams is one of the most important figures in American dramaturgy of the twentieth century. His drama expresses the main points of American contemporary culture. The complex dramatic world created by Williams consists of many levels and components. One of the fundamental themes on which Williams' theater is based is a theme of the dying "noble" tradition of the Southern life style and its conflict with the rigid and pragmatic modern world.

This conflict is presented from the point of view of action and characters as a conflict between reality and illusion, the collision of sensitive and brutal and …