Literature in English, North America Commons^™

When Critics Are Artists: Ekphrasis In Erotic Art Criticism, Joanna A. Ligon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag argues for an erotics of art in art criticism in place of hermeneutics. In this thesis, I examine erotics of art, a focus on form and experiencing art instead of exclusively on content, in practice. Drawing on other essays by Sontag, specifically the essay “Godard” in comparison with the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s own filmic criticism in Breathless, criticism according to an erotics of art becomes a new artwork itself. Subsequently, I present a definition of erotic through Anne Carson and Roland Barthes and juxtapose the term with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The comparison ultimately undoes …

Time Ripens On The Counter: A Literary History Of The Americas, Judah Rubin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The tumultuous years of the 1970s and 1980s are generally seen as marking the ends of the New Left in the United States and the Americas at large. With shifts afoot in US policy that would see the drawdown and close of the Vietnam War, increased subversion and infiltration of Left-wing movements, these decades are often remembered as a holding pattern and, later, nadir in progressive, not to mention revolutionary, gains. The same was true, if not amplified, across the Americas where, tens of thousands were murdered, imprisoned and disappeared across the Southern Cone and into the Andes, and where …

The Redemption Of History: Poetics And Politics In The Modern Epic, Giacomo R. Bianchino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, “The Redemption of History: Poetics and Politics in the Modern Epic.” provides a materialist theory of the modern epic, focusing on the way that the poets deployed this form towards political ends. Building on theories of the epic going back to the German Romantics, it argues that the modern form is predicated on the idea that it has departed from the conditions that made the ancient form possible. It examines the way that writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century developed the idea that the immediacy of the social “totality” expressed by the ancient epopee was …

Ekphrasis: An Exploration Of Poetry Inspired By Art, Caitlin Cacciatore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Ekphrasis: An Exploration of Poetry Inspired by Art” is an Open Educational Resource (OER) that occupies the underdeveloped niche of freely available teaching and learning materials about the interdisciplinary poetic medium of ekphrasis. Ekphrastic poetry is a form dating back to Book XVIII of the Iliad, experiencing a revitalization in the latter half of the 18^th century, when demand for written descriptions of paintings was in high demand, and again taking on a new, modern meaning in the early 19^th century, with poems like John Keats’ 1819 “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Ekphrasis is …

Literary Lepidopterology: Nabokov And The Book That Was A Butterfly, Dave Patterson

Anthós

In this paper I examine Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, arguing that contrary to many interpretations, the book does not assert a moral lesson, and is instead a work of art for art’s sake. I examine its formal structures to demonstrate this claim. First I look at a Doppelgänger motif between the characters of Humbert Humbert and Clare Quilty. Since this motif is independent of Humbert’s character arc, it is narratively insignificant and becomes merely one of many themes related to doubles, twins, and mirror images. I also explain how Nabokov was a lifelong scientist studying butterflies and moths, and saw …

“I Don’T Want To Be Human”: The Neurodivergent Reader Response To Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries Series, Rachel S. Anderson

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article explores how readers have responded to the Martha Wells series The Murderbot Diaries by identifying the titular character as neurodivergent and the recent ways in which the author has responded to questions about the character—and herself—as potentially autistic. While initially resisting this reader-supplied diagnosis, Wells has more recently acknowledged a neurodivergent identity. By examining Murderbot’s sense of self and relationship with the humans around it, this article will explore our current society’s relationship with human/machine intelligences and how we define such concepts as “neurotypical” and “human.” Specifically, this article will examine how the concept of a “governor module” …

Marvelous Ordinariness: Re-Engaging With Realism’S Social Function, Miranda Ochoa Natera

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

Against Romanticism, European literary realism of the 19th century aimed to provide an objective representation of reality through mimesis that could capture the truth in an objective way. Yet, its positivist approach severely narrowed down the complexity of truth, reality, and the mundane by wrongfully drawing the universal from the particular. A new way of engaging with realist literature from any time period, called Marvelous Ordinariness, rearranges this triad in ways that expand our understanding of our own and other realities portrayed. Using Alejo Carpentier’s description of “lo real maravilloso,” Marvelous Ordinariness unfolds in three layers that resemble Carl Jung’s …

Eng 155: Introduction To Literary Studies, Joseph Donica

Open Educational Resources

An OER syllabus covering the ways humans have read and continue to read literature from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. An emphasis is placed on the application of critical thought to writing expository essays and responding to readings.

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Generational Awareness Of Folk Figures In The American Midwest, Addison L. Jensen

Honors Thesis

The popular folklore of a region can clearly reflect how its citizens understand themselves and their nation. The goal of this study was to determine the number of individuals who can be considered “well-versed” in traditional folklore and to speculate on the possible reasons for the differences in recognition that arise. Five figures (Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Annie Oakley, and Rip Van Winkle) were selected to serve as a representative sample of folk characters that have been historically significant to the country. An online survey of 279 Midwesterners and interviews with various age groups in South Dakota, found …

Dredging The Wetlands, Tilling The Field: Ecotonal Poetics Of The Anthropocene, Stacey Balkun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the use of poetic fragmentation as a tool of ecological representation and coins the term “ecotonal poetics.” Ecotonal poesis, this dissertation explains, is the stretching of lyric across the field of the page, using space, sound, language, and parataxis in its attempt to not only represent but create ecotonal ecologies through text, sound, and visual cues. This dissertation puts forth four case studies of contemporary American women poets turning the space of the page into an ecotone where text, white space, author, reader, body, and environment meet. The poets studied here rely heavily on textual experimentation, suggesting …

Final Master's Portfolio, Savannah Packman

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio uses Marxist and feminist film theory to analyze various forms of visual media. It analyzes Mark Mylod's film The Menu (2022), Julie Taymor's film Across the Universe (2007), the historic V-J Day Kiss photograph, and popular TikTok videos. This portfolio focuses on the impact of capitalism in the political and economic sphere. It also analyzes images of women throughout history and critiques how these images have been used to formulate the American body politic.

Catfish Dinner & Other Malicious Morsels, Bonnie Klein

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Catfish Dinner & Other Malicious Morsels is a collection of short stories utilizing the combined elements of Fantasy, Southern, and Gothic Literature. The collection demonstrates the feasibility of combining the three different literary genres, each with its own strong identity and literary history, in a work that appeals to readers reaching the age of young adulthood. Named for the titular story, the collection features seven short stories of varying lengths depicting the cultural influence of food, community morals, storytelling, and nature in East Texas communities. Each story is told through third-person point of view of a different character. The stories …

Reparative Justice As Literary Methodology: Confronting Criminality In Contemporary American Fiction, Diane Paulson

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis presents an approach to literary analysis centered on dismantling one’s conscious or unconscious biases by engaging in reparative justice practices with fictional characters. It stems from the belief that America’s criminal justice system is a white patriarchal system that serves to support and uplift systems of white power. I argue that we must advocate for its abolition with a wide lens. Doing so requires a recognition of one’s biases and a radical shift in empathy to those who have directly and indirectly survived and continue to survive oppression by the criminal justice system. I argue conducting reparative readings …

“No One To Show Us The Way:” Assessing The Contemporary Relevance Of The Gay Male Bildungsroman, Matthew Lemas

English (MA) Theses

The gay male bildungsroman can trace its origins to E.M. Forster’s posthumously published Maurice (1971) and Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story (1982), among other examples. While nested under the umbrella category of the queer bildungsroman (and, more broadly, the bildungsroman), the gay male iteration particularly explores integrational challenges related to the extant tensions between hegemonic masculinity and the male protagonist’s sexuality and gender identity. The subgenre—often conflated with the “coming out novel”—has faced a range of criticism in its roughly half-century existence. Scholars have accused it of banality, often relying on a limited range of well-trodden tropes; lacking diversity, …

Religious Extremism And Female Autonomy: How Dystopian Literature Reflects Contemporary Issues, Jessica Briscoe

Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes two texts: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and When She Woke by Hillary Jordan. These two texts examine dystopian worlds in which the lines are blurred, or completely eradicated, between church and state. Christian fundamentalism and/or evangelicalism becomes intertwined with Christian extremism which results in a detrimental society for many minority groups. The purpose of this thesis is to specifically explore the ways women are mistreated in these societies.

Moreover, this thesis explains how America’s puritanical Christian roots have led to modern-day ideals of America as a “New Jerusalem”. America, like the dystopian societies, has intertwined …

Standing On The Front Porch Of To Kill A Mockingbird, Anna Mclain

Honors Theses

This thesis is an examination of the front porch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. After providing background on the practical functions of the front porch in the South, I argue that this space serves as a synthesis between perception and reality in Lee’s novel. My thesis is divided into three sections that each explore different characters on the front porch: Boo Radley, Southern women, and Scout. Analyzing specific scenes with these characters on the front porch, I consider how the space exposes various tensions in the novel and highlights Lee’s larger themes.

Fantastical Fate: Contemporary Works Depicting Enlil, Daylen Motamed, Marissa Becher

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

It is known that the creation of Gods is prevalent, and almost essential to worldbuilding in fantasy novels. Some examples are the dwarves' Durin in Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings and Djel of the Fjerdans in Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse novels. However, there is one popular god present in many modern fantasy series; the God of fate. In Ancient Mesopotamia, a God of fate was named Enlil. Enlil is known as the king of all Gods, as well as the God of wind and air. He decrees the fates and his word cannot be changed, as Enlil guards the tablets …

Book Review: Afternoons With Harper Lee, Lindsay G. Wong

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Gentleman Death In Silk And Lace: Death And The Maiden In Vampire Literature And Film, Emily Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains an examination in the psychosocial significance of Hans Baldung Grien’s “Death and the Maiden” art motif, created during the Renaissance period following the Black Death, and its resurgence in the vampire fiction genre of both literature and film. I investigate the motif in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1976) as well as their film adaptations by Francis Ford Coppola (1992) and Neil Jordan (1994), respectively. By examining the presence of the motif in art, literature, and film, I found that the common threads across all investigated works were the dominant social …

Jane Austen And A Biographical Study Of The Historical Narrative Process, Serena Young

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Jane Austen, beloved national literary icon of Great Britain, is world-renowned for her fiction. Biographers have attempted to authentically piece together her life and often, try to connect her narrative to when and how her fiction was written, as well as point out circumstances within her personal life and speculate their influence on her work. Literary analysts and critics that have examined the historical narrative process, Hayden White and Kevin Gilvary, have found that the way in which a historical account is presented plays a significant role in how history is understood and perpetuated. When examining Jane Austen’s life, many …

Cloaked Trannies On The Silver Screen: "Evolutionary Derangement" And Cronenberg's Approach To Shaping A Critical Mindset Towards Trans Bodies, John David Hunter

All Theses

This thesis engages David Cronenberg’s 2022 film, Crimes of the Future, analyzing the text through the lens of Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensten) as a transgender allegory. Through this, the project investigates the way in which Cronenberg’s text visually creates a Deleuzian language of the body, which is the body of becoming. This queer analysis of the film does so by utilizing the perspective of the trans body, through the character of Tenser, which more clearly illustrates the human body as one which is in a continual process of evolution. Following in the footsteps of scholars such as Susan …

The Neoliberal Noirs Of Gary Indiana, Carson Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is concerned with the two AIDS-era novels of Gary Indiana, a long-neglected yet essential literary figure who, as the critic Christian Lorentzen has argued, “connects the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in ways readers and critics are only beginning to apprehend” (xii). Beginning chronologically with a study of Indiana’s first two novels, Horse Crazy (1989) and Gone Tomorrow (1993), this thesis attempts to realize Lorentzen’s call to action, attending particularly to the ways in which Indiana’s novels write the neoliberal subject. More than exploring life under the AIDS crisis and embodying a radical queer approach to narrative, I contend, …

With Great Power: Using Comics To Facilitate Discussion Of Systemic Oppression In Higher Education Literature Classes, Keri Crist-Wagner

All Dissertations

Undergraduate student participation in general education classes constitutes a point of struggle for many educators, especially when it comes to lessons centered around systems of oppression like racism, sexism, or heterosexism. Using both constructivism and counter storytelling as theoretical frameworks, this multi-method phenomenological case study explored the experiences of undergraduate honors students in a semester long general education literature class. The purpose of this study was to 1) explore how comics can be used as a pedagogical tool in higher education classrooms to facilitate discussion of systems of oppression, 2) assess the ways in which students interacted with comics, and …

Homemade Language, Conservative Fro-Yo, And Sci-Fi Sloths: How Speculative Migration Fiction Confronts The Ends Of Worlds By Challenging The Nation-State, Zoe R. Scheuerman

English Honors Projects

This English literature thesis project explores an emerging, genre-defying body of fiction which I call “speculative migration fiction.” Speculative migration fiction imagines how ongoing global developments like climate change, technological development, and war may shape future migrations. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s conception of national culture, Wendy Brown’s theory of the border, and Caroline Levine’s understanding of literary form, as well as close readings from Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, and 2 A.M. in Little America by Ken Kalfus, I argue that transnational migrations move toward becoming postnational migrations as migrants evade border …

The Queer Gazes Back: A Dowry Of Blood As A Queer Mirror To Cisheterosexual Gothic Fears, Robin Bozik

English

This paper examines the connection between the contemporary Gothic A Dowry of Blood and its literary predecessors, Dracula, Frankenstein, and Carmilla. Through a focus on queer bodies, this work demonstrates the evolution of queer lineage-making and responses to cisheterosexual threats. Using literature as a “mirror” to gaze back on the visceral fears held by those who fall outside the norms of gender and sexuality in their respective time periods, this work also examines social tensions in the 21^st century surrounding reproduction and gender-affirming care.

In addition to literary analysis of the primary texts, this paper is …

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Written In Blood: The Cultural Work Of Family, Sexuality, And Race In Adaptations Of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, Ariana Alvarado

Undergraduate Theses

Anne Rice’s gothic novel “Interview with the Vampire” (1976) has not only stood the test of time as a cult classic, but has continued to be told and retold through a film adaptation (1994) and recent AMC television production (2022). Looking through the lens of adaptation theory and the ideas of Nina Auerbach in Our Vampires, Ourselves, this presentation highlights how both the original novel and subsequent adaptations use the figure of the vampire to represent the social changes of the era of its creation, particularly in regards to queerness and sexuality.

“Young In Deed”: Feminine Affect And Agency In Young Adult Shakespeare Adaptations, Juliana Hall

English

Approaching the cultural behemoth that is Shakespeare can be daunting, especially for young audiences; the language is antiquated and can be difficult to understand, and, due in part to the age of these works, the content is often rooted in bigoted ideologies. Young adult (YA) novel adaptations have begun reintroducing readers to Shakespeare, not only significantly enhancing the narratives, but encouraging readers to play with Shakespeare’s language in new, accessible, and exciting ways. By looking at two twenty-first century YA novel adaptations of Shakespeare’s original plays alongside the accompanying source material, I analyze how female protagonists engage with their emotions …

Censorship Of Lgbtq+ Books: Causes And Consequences, Merrick Glass

Honors Projects

Censorship in the United States of America has accelerated over the past four years. LGBTQ+ books are specifically being targeted and banned within high school classrooms. Banned books are nothing new--court cases today are influenced by Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) plurality decision on censorship. Students and professionals alike have power in their rights and voices. In the framework of bell hooks, the classroom can be perceived as a site of resistance in order to take power back into students' hands. Without a diversity of books, students will lack cognitive development and community.