Literature in English, North America Commons^™

“The Revolution Begins At Home”: Ambivalent Sexism In The Color Purple And The Help, Berit P. Gibson

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Ambivalent sexism theory, proposed by Glick and Fiske in 1996, argues that sexism is comprised of both negative and “positive” images of women. The theory has become a staple in research on sexism as it theorizes the Madonna/whore dichotomy as sexist on both sides of the binary, and how attitudes switch from “positive” to negative. But, so far, literature scholars have not used the theory to read literature. As the theory is based in ideals of white womanhood, how do we do so in an intersectional way?

In order to work through this question, I bring in The Color Purple …

Bergsonian Blend: Subjective Temporality Within Modernist Aesthetics Of Mental Illness, Lydia Victoria Gervais

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Henri Bergson was a modernist French philosopher who wrote extensively on the topic of the lived experience of time, which he called durée, or duration. His contemporary, Sigmund Freud, was developing psychoanalytic theory in a growing field of psychological study, which serves as a prominent ancestor to modern psychiatry and current psychoanalytical literary studies. Fiction writers of the 1900s absorbed the zeitgeist of melded chronology and consciousness, interweaving themes of time and trauma in their works. Utilizing Henri Bergson’s durée as a philosophical framework, I examine the moralization of time-consciousness in connection with mental illness and investigate representations of …

On The Sunny Side Of The Street: An Original Novel, Alyssa Caneira

English Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Pecan Grove Review Volume 23, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

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

Sharp Knives, Dark Hearts: Class, Colonialism, And Rebellion On Anthony Bourdain's Bookshelf, Carl Cactus Warmuth

American Studies ETDs

Though often characterized as a celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain achieved stardom from his lively writing rather than skills in the kitchen. As such, the sociopolitical importance of his life and work is greatly illuminated by his compulsive literary references. Through George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, Émile Zola’s The Belly of Paris, Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and the personas of William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson, the tensions central to Bourdain’s legacy are unveiled. This thesis offers a portrait of Bourdain as a complicated figure of …

Pecan Grove Review Volume 22, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

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

Cosmopolitanism Now: Fragmented Belonging, Adriana Fischetti

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract

This thesis reconceptualizes cosmopolitanism for the contemporary moment as fragmented belonging, critiquing and moving beyond traditional cosmopolitan frameworks grounded in universal reason, seamless integration, or coherent identity. Through close readings of Teju Cole’s Open City and Tremor, and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West, this study argues that cosmopolitanism today emerges explicitly from rupture, contradiction, and ethical struggle, shaped fundamentally by conditions of displacement, empire, surveillance, and global capitalism. Engaging critical theorists such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, Pheng Cheah, and Roland Barthes, the thesis identifies fragmented belonging as an ethically charged response to …

William Gibson, Neuromancer And The Making Of A Reluctant Cyberpunk, Billy J. Stratton

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

While Neuromancer cemented Gibson’s place as a commanding presence in SF, he has consistently sought to position his work beyond the parameters of limiting genre categories.

The Vision Of The Inklings: Mythopoeia And Modern Christian Literature, Emmalene Sotomayor

Senior Honors Theses

The Inklings wrote with the intention to convey truth through myth. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and their friends developed stories to point readers to something greater—very often God. Christian creators now can look to their example while writing their own works of art. Currently, Christian fiction is in a sad state, known for mediocre romance novels that hardly portray faith in a moving or truthful manner. Believers can use the wisdom of Tolkien and Lewis to develop their own excellent works. Lewis and Tolkien’s beliefs in myth pointing to God, hope against adversity, and good resisting …

Science Fiction, Eng 2420, Syllabus And Course Outline, Jason W. Ellis

Open Educational Resources

This Science Fiction, ENG2420 syllabus and course outline was written for an online, asynchronous class taught in the Department of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. It was designed to compliment the OER Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook (YASFT) and have a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) approach with readings and viewings found primarily through the Internet Archive. The course follows a historical approach to the science fiction genre covering the Origins of Science Fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Proto-SF, Pulp SF, SF Film Serials, Golden Age SF, SF Film Through the 1950s, New Wave …

Estranged Temporality: How Time Tells Stories In Science Fiction, Phillip H. Howells

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

According to Darko Suvin in his influential critical treatise, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, estrangement in Science Fiction (SF) gives authors the ability to build worlds related to but distant from our own using specific metaphors. This dissertation takes up this term and applies it to the fulcrum of time in SF as a method of creating possible futures and imaginative pasts in order to illuminate the realities of the present. The realities of the present are congruent with the material circumstances of the past, and this can be seen in the kinds of SF worlds built by members of …

Picturesque Portraiture: The Composition Of Reality In Hawthorne, Melville, And James, Angela Michael Gattuso Densmore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the nineteenth century, American artists were tangled in debates regarding the representation of reality. The Hudson River School of picturesque landscape painters tackled this dilemma with a compromise formula which used the real objects of nature to create ideal scenes. This dissertation applies the same picturesque formula to select examples of literary portraiture, studied under the concept of “picturesque portraiture.” Whereas the Hudson River compromise resulted in an ideal perception of reality, however, the picturesque portraits composed by nineteenth-century authors Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James attempt to invoke a non-idealized “actual” reality of the portrait subject’s person …

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 …

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.

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

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

Trauma Is A Wound: Demonstrating The Use Of Character Analysis To Practice Clinical Analysis, Madisyn Beare

Honors Projects

Evidence-based treatments of trauma require clinicians to base their treatments on the client’s specific and individual needs, experiences, cognitions, and place in recovery. Essentially, each new client is a new and unique case, and the practice of understanding how trauma may affect an individual only comes from clinical exposure.Literature provides the public with somewhat of an aid in these circumstances: fictional characters are not real people, and therefore can undergo limitless character analyses. Analyzing a fictional character allows clinicians the ability to practice their exploration of various behavioral indicators of mental health concerns while honoring the ethical code of non-maleficence, …

“I Know What Nothing Means”: Nostalgia, Hope, And The Postmodern Search For The Sublime, Kathryn L. Donati

Theses and Dissertations

Amid simultaneous crises of self, nation, digital citizenship, global health, climate change, and socio-political polarization, to name but a few of the catastrophes that seem to define life in the global West in the twenty-first century, where do we find hope? Do we find it at all? Is there any hope to be found? These are the questions that serve as the genesis for this undertaking in which I locate the origin of these crises far before the events of the 2016 and 2020 elections, far before even the panic of Y2K. I begin my examination of hope in contemporary …

Miscellaneous Literary Works By Alabama Authors: Finding Aid, Bethany Latham

Finding Aids

This collection contains miscellaneous literary works by Alabama authors and biographical information about them. For the purposes of this collection, “Alabama author” can include those born in other states who published works while living in Alabama. Types of works include poetry, short stories, essays, articles, song lyrics, etc. In some cases brief biographies have been compiled or newspaper clippings are included with the works; with some only a bibliography and brief biographical information is provided. Some of this biographical information appears to have been compiled by Thomas J. Freeman, a Library department head, in his capacity as chairman of the …

“She Didn’T Know I Was In The Room”: The Effects Of Hatfield’S Illustrations On Readers’ Interpretations Of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Mason Repas

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

When Charlotte Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," was first published in New England Magazine in 1892, staff illustrator Joseph Hatfield created three realistic-style images to accompany the text. Research suggests that Gilman had no control or influence over these images, which altered readers' perception of her story about the dangers of the rest cure for female hysteria. While Hatfield faced artistic limitations and his intentions are not discoverable today, the choices and details in his illustrations support interpretations of the short story as a piece of horror fiction in which his cohesive series of images is a more reliable …

Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …

Pecan Grove Review Volume 21, St. Mary's University

Pecan Grove Review

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

Sherwood Anderson And The Industrial Corruption Of Midwestern Individualism, Hudson Rice

Senior Honors Theses

Sherwood Anderson’s literary Midwest reflects many of the idealistic characteristics resulting from the region’s frontier, agrarian origin. The most prominent of these characteristics is the region’s emphasis on and appreciation of human particularity. His novels Winesburg, Ohio and Poor White document the region’s unique relationship with individual particularity and how this particularity clashed with a new industrial lifestyle. The two novels reflect the Midwest’s unique understanding of individuality and offer an explanation for why the region’s response to an industrial cultural overhaul was so damaging for the Midwest’s identity, as the traditional identity was supplanted by an industrial one.

Samozvanets (The Pretender), Matthew Garrell, Alikzandr Malakov

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

he Russian word Samozvanets most directly translates to Imposter in English. However, for this thesis, I have selected the alternative interpretation of Pretender. Imposter implies the taking or assuming of another’s position. Pretender, more personally, carries the meaning of presenting self as something one is not. It is through the lens of the Pretender that I examine the idea of what it means to be a member of a particular ethnicity, and to engage with one’s cultural heritage. I do this through a collection of fictional stories, investigating various lives within the Russian diaspora following the dissolution of the Soviet …

A Black Prometheus Among The Gods: Illuminating African American Literary Tradition In Sam Greenlee's The Spook Who Sat By The Door, Kenneth L. Rainey Iii

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In his hard-hitting novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door Sam Greenlee aims to help his target African American audience to succeed and thrive as their true selves with the novel functioning as a guide to resisting the ever-present physical and spiritual threat faced daily. On the one hand the novel functions as a manual for civil uprising, but underneath that surface, Greenlee argues that true African American resistance comes through nurturing self-determination, self-love, and self-esteem. This project also argues that Spook ought to be located closer to the center of the African American literary canon and provides comparisons …

Fascism In Sci-Fi: "Mobilizing Passions" In Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Alton C. Ayers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis responds to criticism of Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) as a “fascist” novel by further investigating the claim through a close reading of the novel that applies political theory scholarship on fascism. Chapters I and II introduce the novel along with its general reception and controversy. These chapters consider the accusations of “fascism” given to the novel while at the same time understanding that a clear, exact definition of “fascism” has long been grappled with by scholars since the rise of the regimes in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Chapters III and IV apply political theory to …

Gender, Sexuality, And Class In Selected Works Of Kesey, Cunningham, And Woolf, Harper Savage

English and Creative Writing | Senior Theses

At its best, literature illuminates the issues facing society. In the works of Ken Kesey, Virginia Woolf, and Michael Cunningham, these authors hold a mirror up to the issues of class, sexuality, and gender. While it is apparent that the times in which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Mrs, Dalloway, and The Hours were written heavily inform the individual character’s choices and their destinies, the themes presented are timeless. This essay explores how even today, years after these novels were written, society continues to struggle with these issues, and argues that, perhaps, through literature, a pathway to understanding can …

Eudora Welty’S “Clytie”, The Mirror Stage, And The Grotesque, Samantha Miller

Global Tides

At first glance, Eudora Welty’s short stories seem to exist in paradox with the writer’s own intentions. Welty is well known for co-opting the “plots, settings, characters, image patterns, and vocabulary” of Gothic literature, yet upon being asked if she was a Gothic writer, she responded vehemently: “They better not call me that!”. What is a reader then to make of Welty’s short story “Clytie” which is saturated with homages to the imagery of the Gothic— the display of psychological breakdown of an isolated family trapped in a crumbling, memory-haunted mansion, centering on a trapped, unmarried woman who slowly realizes …