Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Frank And Gala, Heather M. Mcgrail

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through the gossip and rumors in a small town in Minnesota, the townspeople discuss and react to the Levison family's claimed perfection.

Wisteria And Other Stories, Michael Clayton

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

We are forever shaped by the worlds we live in. The following stories are musings on the importance of time and place and on the conflicts that arise for characters who are born into and who live with or rail against those forces. The stories are set in and around Laurel County, Georgia over a period of decades. They look at the people who are made there and the lessons they learn or fail to learn as they work to make their way there.

The Restinga, Valerie Harbolovic

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Restinga explores dysfunctional sexual relationships in the familiar context of a love triangle, but it is set in the exotic African landscape of pre-war colonial Angola in 1960, where the author spent her childhood. The Restinga evolved from a short story presented at a graduate fiction workshop led by Joseph and Amanda Boyden at the University of New Orleans’ Madrid campus in the summer of 2007.

Research for this project included:

• Many interviews with the author’s parents
• Compilation and review of family home movies made at the time
• Interview with Richard J. Houk, author of the article: “The Hotel …

Lines Of Communication: Uncovering War’S Reality Through Fictional Styles, Kelly Hoarty

English Student Scholarship

In looking at war literature, Word War I was a pivotal event in how many authors view the war and communicate its effects on society to their audiences. Erich Maria Remarque and Ernest Hemingway are two novelists in the twentieth century, who wrote to portray the physical and psychological damage soldiers suffered in battle and upon returning home. All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque and The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway utilize different writing styles, but both effectively work within fiction to bridge the gap of understanding between the soldiers’ experiences and the civilians on the home front, …

Moral Performances: Melodrama And Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Jeffrey Taylor Pusch

Dissertations

Despite a high number of ticket sales, theater reviews, and innumerable letters and diary entries detailing trips to the theater, the stereotype that theater in nineteenth-century America was almost culturally invisible continued well into the twentieth century. Indeed, a scan of anthologies of American literature fails to yield any examples of nineteenth-century drama, even though figures like Henry James were also theater critics and playwrights. Just as it did in American life, theater exhibits a strong presence in the literature of the time. Considering theater’s pervasiveness, this dissertation seeks to restore it to its proper place in our study of …

“A Moral Wilderness”: Nathaniel Hawthorne’S The Scarlet Letter, Lehtie Chalise Thomson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter portrays his understanding of Puritan doctrines and culture. He addresses sin and redemption through his primary characters Hester Prynne and the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, whose adultery has resulted in the birth of Pearl and Hester’s scarlet A. He demonstrates Hester’s refusal to publically accept her sin as such. He also outlines the physical demise and spiritual indecision of the minister as Dimmesdale struggles to live two opposing lives. I call attention to how Hawthorne takes his knowledge of the New England Puritans and alters the historical context to emphasize his Romantic views of sin …

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 …

The Watchmaker Series, Christopher Michael Seelie

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Watchmaker Series celebrates and inquires into time as a biproduct of consciousness and practices the application of this notion in poetry. The series begins with the numeral poems, all of which relate directly to the theoretical and polemical aspects. Along the way, other poems with individual titles are interspersed to reflect or redirect the abstract considerations to more concrete subjects. Gradually, as the series progresses, the interacting and recurring associations meld theory and practice into a compositional whole.

The central notion that contemporary poetry is not a machine made of words but rather, like the watch that gives itself …

Strike Out Across The Shoreless Ocean, Julia Claire Paajanen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

What happens between a reader and a poem is none of my business. The world has always been yours; find your own way.

(1) Every choice is correct.

(2) Everything is true.

(3) What is anything, unless so far as it is enjoyed?

All you have to do is see the course, and when you see it, go.

Fairy Tale Stylization Project, Dan Gleason

Modern World Fiction

The Fairy Tale project is a group project that captures the key distinctions in literary style that we analyze in our Modern World Fiction class. In that class, we look at fiction through the lens of different stylistic flavors: maximalism, minimalism, ludic (playful) style, surrealism, and magical realism. The fairy tale project helps students look back on all these different styles, reflect on them, and note their key features and differences more clearly. In this project, groups of students will rewrite a fairy tale in all (five) literary styles. Each member of the group will rewrite the tale in one …

Experiencing Literary Self-Consciousness In The Classroom, Dan Gleason

Modern World Fiction

This activity is a fun and even bizarre response to John Barth’s highly self-referential story “Lost in the Funhouse.” In that story, Barth comments extensively on the writing as it happens (as he makes it happen), alerting the reader to the conventions of fiction as he deploys them. The following activity brings such jarring commentary into the classroom by leading students to call out the conventions of the classroom as they happen; the activity makes students live the experience of interruptive meta-commentary and can thus lead to vibrant discussion on the commentary in the story, too.

Kurt Vonnegut's Early Novels: Searching For Meaning In A Meaningless World, Matthew Praxmarer

All Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates three novels by Kurt Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and the philosophical stance which informs these works. The Sirens of Titan represents Vonnegut’s cosmology as well as his first attempts to propose one purpose for human life not based on any absolute knowledge. Cat’s Cradle proposes a provisional, ever-changing belief system in the religion of Bokonon, a religion which also speaks to Vonnegut’s humanism. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater satirizes the discourses of the free enterprise system through protagonist Eliot as he struggles to use his wealth …

Party Line: Allen Ginsberg And Political Expression In Death & Fame, Todd Ide

The Hilltop Review

Mention the name Allen Ginsberg and it is hard to resist the urge to drift back into the psychedelic-colored world of the 1960s where free love, drugs and the Beat Poets influenced the literary landscape. Ginsberg came into his own as part of the Beat generation. It was during this time that he helped give voice to the “youthful, dissatisfied, rebellious” energy “that would soon coalesce into the” political “culture and practices of the New Left” (Lee 365). The publication of Howl, not only expressed the feelings of a generation but also became, according to literary critics, one of the …

Reading 9/11 Through The Holocaust In Philip Roth’S The Plot Against America And Art Spiegelman’S In The Shadow Of No Towers, Stella Setka

Re-visioning Terrorism

This essay argues that Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America and Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of New Towers open up new spaces for reading the trauma of 9/11 not simply as the tragic story of a single day in 2001, but as a traumatic event that shares referents with other catastrophes in history, most notably the Holocaust. Further, the author demonstrates that these works are more concerned with the politicization of 9/11 than they are with the terrorist attacks themselves.

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.

The Singularity Of Puppies, Michael Furlong

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The Singularity of Puppies is an unsettling short story set in 1978 in DeLand, Florida. The story concerns the relationship between eight-year-old Joey Brown and his puppy, Fredrick Brown. The story was originally published in The Fantastique Unfettered #3. The Singularity of Puppies is speculative fiction, and a tribute to Fredric Brown (1906-1972), a science fiction and mystery author.

Exploring Prejudice, Miscegenation, And Slavery's Consequences In Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, Steven Watson

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

This research paper analyzes Mark Twain's use of racist speech and racial stereotypes in his novel Pudd'nhead Wilson. Twain has often been criticized for his seemingly inflammatory language. However, a close reading of the text, supplemented by research in several anthologies of critical essays, reveals that Twain was actually interested in social justice. This is evident in his portrayal of Roxana as a sympathetic character who is victimized by white racist society in Dawson's Landing, Mississippi during the time of slavery. In the final analysis, Twain's writing was a product of the time period during which he wrote. This …

Racial Identity And Religiousness: Role Of Religion And Racial Identity On Substance Use In African American College Students, Chaz D. Mailey

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study sought to explore the relationships between Black racial identity, religiosity, and substance use in African American college students. Religiosity has commonly been identified as a protective factor against substance use for many ethnic groups, and historically religion has played a significant role in the lives of African Americans. Surprisingly, some research suggests that while important, religiosity may not be as strong of a protective factor against abuse or excessive consumption of substances for African Americans as it is for other ethnicities (Amey, Albrect, & Miller, 1996). It has been suggested that for African Americans, a strong ethnic …

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, …

Adoptive Parents’ Perceptions Of Their Open Versus Closed Adoptions, Begum Nebol

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The author presents a research study on adoptive parents’ perceptions of their own open versus closed adoptions. The main research interest behind this study was to identify similarities and differences between open versus closed adoption methods. Thus, this paper offers description and exploratory analysis of the adoption literature as well as discussion of the findings of this research study

Snowball, Robert Weaver

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Dendroclimatic Reconstruction From Bald Cypress In Southwestern Indiana, Robin Lyn Van De Veer

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) is generally recognized as an important component of the forested wetlands found in the Southwestern Coastal Plain and the Mississippi River Valley (which extends to the southern Midwest). The lifespan of this deciduous species is important not only commercially, but also in an ecological capacity. This study focuses mainly upon the role the tree plays in its environment and how it can be used as an indicator of climate through drought/flood signals in the rings. Bald cypress is a long-lived tree that can be over 1000 years old and is sensitive to …

The Black Plumb Line: Re-Evaluating Race And Africanist Images In Non-Black Authored American Texts, Lashondra Vanessa Robinson

Dissertations

This study evaluates Africanisms (representations of racialized or ethnicized blackness) within three contemporary non-black authors’ texts: Jewish American Saul Bellow’s novel Henderson the Rain King, white southerner Melinda Haynes’ novel Mother of Pearl, and Nyurican poet Victor Hernández Cruz’s works “Mesa Blanca” and “White Table.” Though not entirely unproblematic, each selection somehow redefines black identity and agency to challenge denigrated representations of Africanist people and culture. In the process, each author subverts faulty components of American myths of racial purity, particularly stratifying black-white dualisms that promote whiteness, racial supremacy, and resulting undue privilege. This study also traces how Bellow, Haynes …

To Receive My Services You Must Be Dying And Alone, Kathryn Kruse

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Following is a collection of short fiction. The work comes out of the tradition of realism with influences from surrealism and the gothic grotesque.

While most of the work of creation centered around character and voice, several themes emerge in the final product. Death and its perception in American society play central roles in many pieces. Also, the collection explores the experience of intimacy in many types of interpersonal relationships. Several of the pieces focus on the effects environment and location have on individuals and how change of location impacts a character. In conjunction with these many themes, obsession as …

Melville And Women In Specific Relation To "Bartleby, The Scrivener", Kaitlin Eckert

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Although there are no female characters in Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener," there is a clear sense of femininity that breaks through the barriers Melville has created showing that there is no such thing as a man's world. Within the thesis background on the author is revealed that may lend insight in to reasoning behind the lack of women, as well as specific cases where femininity is present.

The Irish Odyssey Of James Mccarroll, Michael Peterman

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

"Keep The Inmost Me Behind Its Veil:" Nathaniel Hawthorne's Manipulation Of Boundaries As Lessons In Craft, Molly Mary Mclaughlin

Graduate Masters Theses

In a letter written after her husband's death, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne spoke of a veil Nathaniel Hawthorne had drawn around himself during his life. This complicated metaphor is an echo from Hawthorne's work and life, where the construction of boundaries that are solid but not opaque, allow the writer to conceal and draw attention to the cart of concealment without revealing what, if anything, is hidden. That Hawthorne carefully considered what he would and would not reveal is clear in many of his works, and in pieces like "The Minister's Black Veil," where the act of concealment draws rather than …

From Monsters To Victims: Vampires And Their Cultural Evolution From The Nineteenth To The Twenty-First Century, Caitlyn Orlomoski

Honors Scholar Theses

Vampires are the latest fad to appear on pop-culture’s radar, dominating literature, film, and television, but this is not the first time they have latched onto the public consciousness. These bloodsuckers have been a constant presence in literature and film since the 1897 publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, arguably the most influential vampire text of all time. Even before Dracula, vampires permeated Eastern European folklore, supposedly terrorizing small rustic communities in the dark of the night and acting as scapegoats for almost anything the locals could neither change nor understand. Since that time, vampires have represented society’s fears …

Fulfillment Of Woman And Poet In Elizabeth Barrett Brown's Aurora Leigh, Beth Leonardo

English Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bitter-Sweet Home: The Pastoral Ideal In African-American Literature, From Douglass To Wright, Robyn Merideth Preston-Mcgee

Dissertations

Discussions of the pastoral mode in American literary history frequently omit the complicated relationship between African Americans and the natural world, particularly as it relates to the South. The pastoral, as a sensibility, has long been an important part of the southern identity, for the mythos of the South long depended upon its association with a new “Garden of the World” image, a paradise dependent upon slave labor and a racial hierarchy to sustain it. For African Americans, the rural South has been both a home and a place of violence and oppression, particularly during the period of slavery through …