Literature in English, North America Commons^™

Levels Of Selection In A Polymorphic Species, Marisa L. Korody

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Subverting A Mythology: Examining Joseph Campbell's Monomyth In The Fiction Of H. P. Lovecraft, Wesley Vandenbos

Masters Theses

American horror author H. P. Lovecraft's tales of monsters and madness, collectively known as the Cthulhu Mythos, have exploded in popularity in the last few decades and attracted both critical and casual interest. Inspired by his childhood mythological readings, Lovecraft created these chilling stories as a more modern version of ancient myths, drawing upon yet subtly altering the sources that influenced him. The author of this thesis draws attention to the differences between classic myths and the Cthulhu Mythos, using the monomyth of Joseph Campbell as a framework through which to view both ancient mythologies and Lovecraft's tales. This thesis …

Female Resurrection In Poe's Tales, Laura Hardt (Class Of 2014)

English Undergraduate Publications

The female characters that populate the stories of Edgar Allan Poe are often ethereal creatures of great beauty, ghost-like figures that exist on the fringes of the narrative, very rarely taking part in the action of the plot. This, for the most part, is the case with regard to the female characters featured in Poe’s “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Both the eponymous Ligeia and Madeline Usher exist as virtual non-presences for the vast majority of these stories – at least until the point of their mysterious deaths. After these women pass away due to strange, …

Validity Of Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization For Detecting Myofascial Adhesions Through Secondary Diagnostic Ultrasound Analysis, Kaitlyn Silbaugh

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Life Inside The Spectacle: David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, And Storytelling In The Age Of Entertainment, John Hawkins

Masters Theses

This project explores George Saunders's In Persuasion Nation and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest as interventionary literature. The thesis asserts that the two works confront the problems of isolation and dehumanization created by entertainment-based consumerism; they do so by depicting satirically exaggerated consumer societies and placing well-developed, sympathetic characters in those settings. The thesis includes a consideration of Jameson and deBord's theories of spectacle and Wallace's stated concerns with postmodern irony as an ineffective form of critique.

Mossy Bottom Golf And Hunt Club, Andrew Joseph Albertson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is the story of Greg Goforth and Rick Hale, the owner and director of golf, respectively, of the Mossy Bottom Golf and Hunt Club. Greg and Rick work together through many comic mishaps in attempt to bring the 2015 U.S. Open to Mossy Bottom, Mississippi.

Women As Victims In Tennessee Williams' First Three Major Plays, Ruth Foley

Masters Theses

Although Tennessee Williams does not openly champion the rights of women in his plays, he presents strong cases against their social alienation in a harsh and brutal world governed by men. Williams' emotional leanings, sensitivity, and intuition enable him to see life through women's eyes. In The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Summer and Smoke, Williams astutely sounds the battle cry for women to fight against male oppression. He shows how Amanda Wingfield, Laura Wingfield, Blanche Dubois, Stella Kowalski, and Alma Winemiller are held hostage to the rules governing patriarchal society and become unhappy marginalized victims. The self-contained …

How Many Headless Telamons, Torin Jensen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The poems in How Many Headless Telamons initially seek the impossible: origin.

This attempt begins with an examination of the metaphor and, by extension, the image.

In Works on Paper, Eliot Weinberger writes, “Metaphor: to transfer from one place to another. In Greece, the moving vans are labeled METAPHORA” (9). While granting the utility of metaphors in poetic language and thought, How Many Headless Telamons attempts to explore the dilemma of movement itself; that something is to be moved not only pluralizes location, but means that that which needs to move is not where it needs or desires …

"The Country Of Nine-Fingered People": The Southern Mountain Tradition And The Gothic In Faulkner's Intruder In The Dust And Dickey's Deliverance, Kathleen Peterson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the role of the Southern mountain tradition and the Gothic mode in William Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust and James Dickey’s Deliverance. Using Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject, it argues that Faulkner and Dickey appropriated already Gothic elements of Appalachian history in order to create the Gothic characters and settings that would allow them to explore major cultural anxieties of their time. Chapter One gives a brief overview of Appalachian history from the Revolutionary War through 1970. It examines both factual material and fictional portrayals, including the miners’ union strikes of the early 1900s, Mary …

Symbolic Capital And The Performativity Of Authorship: The Construction And Commodification Of The Nineteenth-Century Authorial Celebrity, Whitney Helms

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Victorian and Antebellum writers were the first literary figures to construct and perform their authorship within the sphere of celebrity. Unlike their Romantic predecessors who endured fame as an unexpected consequence of their popularity, the Victorians and their contemporaries understood celebrity as a condition of authorship. This dissertation takes as its subject the origins and development of symbolic power for authors as it was expressed in the trappings of celebrity and mass culture and argues that authorship became no longer strictly a profession of writing, but rather a performative endeavor that could be presented through diverse commercial markets. Investigating the …

Fishing For A Hero, Simona Stancov '15

2013 Spring Semester

On national holidays like Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, people all over the United States honor heroes who have protected their country and its residents. While some people receive public recognition for their deeds, others serve as heroes for just a few people. Regardless of their popularity, all heroes possess certain qualities that make them esteemed and respected. The coinage of the term “Hemingway code hero” supports this idea. The expression represents a character in one of Ernest Hemingway’s works that personifies values like bravery, honor, and perseverance and maintains poise in the face of overwhelming …

The Mask Of The 'American Dream', Saraswathi Nookala '15

2013 Spring Semester

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology are heralded as some of the greatest insights into human nature in American literature. Both authors ask the reader to scrutinize the actions and emotions of the characters in their books to understand the true meaning behind their double-sided statements. From analyzing the characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Lambert Hutchins, the reader can conclude that although they have the inordinate amount of wealth everybody in America works toward, they are dissatisfied, and use their money and aristocratic position to project the exterior of contentment. Fitzgerald …

The Marriage Of Science And Religion, Saurabh Kumar '14

2013 Spring Semester

At the end of A Canticle for Leibowitz, written by Walter M. Miller, Jr., the dropping of Lucifer and the resulting repetition of past destruction displays that there is an inherent flaw in the book’s futuristic society. The technological and scientific revival of a world that once repudiated knowledge is remarkable. However, the divergence of science and religion has caused humanity to use the power that comes with knowledge as irresponsibly as it did in the Flame Deluge. Mendelsohn states that, in speculative fiction, “religion is repeatedly depicted as dangerous, diverging humans from the path of reason and …

Censorship And Fahrenheit 451, Natalie S. Grinnell, Michelle Stinson, Susan Miles

Arthur Vining Davis High Impact Fellows Projects

The goal of this project was to apply the censorship found in Fahrenheit 451 to other situations present in different areas of “the real world”. The students, after doing so, would then create a video of images and their voice, discussing themes of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451and how it’s used in other areas outside of the book. The purpose is to have students use analysis in literature and applying it in different areas as well as to do so in a different way other than through writing. By using the video software, they are changing the way that traditional …

“Digital James Dickey” Developing An App For The Ipad Based On A Poem By James Dickey (Grade Level 11 & 12), Deno P. Trakas, Ed Epps, Caroline Odell, John E. Lane, David A. Sykes

Arthur Vining Davis High Impact Fellows Projects

The purpose of our project was to create an app for the ipad based on a nature poem by James Dickey that could be used by a high school teacher in a classroom. The app includes a poem, video readings by the poet, perspectives (comment and literary criticisms) by a number of experts, biography, a gallery of photos, and a resources page. In fall of 2013 we will test the app in the high school classroom

Word~River Literary Review (2013), Ross Talarico, Anne Stark, Susan Evans, Gary Pullman, Andrew Madigan, Christin Taylor, Jerome Melancon, Jennie Evenson, Judith Mansour, Mary Didomenico, Annie Lampman, Maureen Foster, M. V. Montgomery, Rowan Johnson, James Hanley, Michael K. Brantley, Brooks P. Rexroat, Deborah Stark, Rachel Rinehart Johnson, Joan Crooks, Jefferson Navicky, Ed Higgins, Mike Bezemek, Leatha Fields-Carey, Maria Winfield

word~river Literary Journal

wordriver is a literary journal dedicated to the poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction of adjunct, part-time and fulltime instructors teaching under a semester or yearly contract in our universities, colleges, and community colleges worldwide. Graduate student teachers who have used up their teaching assistant time and are teaching with adjunct contracts for the remainder of their graduate program are also eligible.

We’re looking for work that demonstrates the creativity and craft of adjunct/part-time instructors in English and other disciplines. We reserve first publication rights and onetime anthology publication rights for all work published. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

Bibliography For Work In Digital Humanities And (Inter)Mediality Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Mammal Skull: A Digital Poem, Brian Pals

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

A poem.

Deterring A Critical Catharsis: An Inquiry Into The Rhetoric And Ethics Of Punishment In Wieland; Or The Transformation, Mike Haen

Maria Dittman Library Research Competition: Student Award Winners

From Hammurabi’s Code to modern-day penitentiaries, a society’s chosen punishment models contribute to that society’s ethics. In Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; or the Transformation (1798), characters interact with one another in an isolated community. These interactions center on Wieland’s murder of his family, and how his mind was influenced toward murder by Carwin, an ex-convict. Here, a reader is faced with deciding who to blame. However, solely focusing on criminal culpability ignores a rhetorical problem left unexamined by past scholars—that of criminal punishment in the novel. This problem involves two issues—first, the factors that motivate a society to choose …

There Is No Normal, Meghan Donohoe

Common Reading Essay Contest Winners

Honorable Mention

Gender Performance And The Reclamation Of Masculinity In Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, John William Salyers Jr.

MA in English Theses

Salyers analyzes Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as both a product of and a commentary upon the American 1980s. The text focuses on analysis of key characters and their performance of socially assigned or accepted gender roles. Chief among these are James Gordon, seen as a nostalgic clinging to an antiquated masculinity, and Ellen Yindel, a woman who feels pressured by society to abandon her own gender identity in favor of a more socially acceptable one. The text posits that, against these two, Miller's work seeks to recognize a more modern, empowered, feminism in the character of Robin, …

Visualizing Hate: Maus As Holocaust Literature, Geoffrey Daniel Curran

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus affected traditional classifications of Holocaust writings, specifically literary memoir. Genre studies use Holocaust writings especially those classified as "literary memoirs", to define a narrow group to exclusion of texts like Maus. If Maus was not 'allowed' to be defined as memoir then was it solely cast as fiction? To view it as fictional would have denied that Maus was a graphic novel which interlaces both received testimonial 'truth' and receptive 'truth'.

Review Of Clabough's "Inhabiting Contemporary Southern And Appalachian Literature", Bill Jolliff

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

"Always Something Of It Remains": Sexual Trauma In Ernest Hemingway’S For Whom The Bell Tolls, Natalie Carter

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Following his completion of Tender is the Night in 1934, F. Scott Fitzgerald sent a copy of the manuscript to his friend, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway replied with a long, thoughtful letter detailing the reasons he both “liked it and didn’t like it” (SL 407). He instructed Fitzgerald: “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it” (408). The often-troubled friendship between these two masters of modernism has been the subject of …

The Road To The American Dream - Analysis Of Its Distortions Through The Grapes Of Wrath And Little Miss Sunshine, Autumn Murphy

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

While most book-to-movie adaptations are transparent, this project explores the nuanced adaptation of the novel The Grapes of Wrath into the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Little Miss Sunshine promulgates a unique approach to adaptation; additionally, the analysis of these two works provides conclusions for matters beyond literature. The project addresses the “American Dream” and differing perspectives on “winning” and “losing.” The initial step was a close reading of The Grapes of Wrath and a critical viewing of Little Miss Sunshine. From there, a research plan was developed, focusing on distortions of “The American Dream.” The research materials included …

Observing Art Through The Lens Of Oscar Wilde, Brian Hancock

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

Oscar Wilde was a fascinating literary figure who took center stage in England near the end of the nineteenth century. He not only created popular art, but discussed and defined art in original and inventive ways as well. An observance of five of Wilde’s more popular works, including four essays and his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, was performed with the intention of deciphering his complex views on the subject of art. While Wilde arguably arrogantly attempts to alienate art from society, it can ultimately be discerned that he believed the purpose of art was to inform …

Impossible Storyworlds And The (Unnatural) Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym, Mitchell C. Lilly

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The following thesis defends reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as an early example of an “unnatural narrative” in American literature. Adapting unnatural narrative theory, a recent area of study in narratology developed to analyze the existence of unnatural storyworlds, minds, and acts of narration prevalent in postmodern fiction, this thesis analyzes the unnatural dynamics at play in Pym’s storyworld and storytelling that do not comply with what the reader knows is otherwise physically, logically, or humanly impossible in the physical world. Legitimating Poe’s novel as a work of unnatural narrative coincides with arguing how the …

Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, And Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives Of Teenage Girls In The 1940s, Carly Anger

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study establishes a more nuanced look at fictional teenage girls of the 1940s. With the beginning of World War II many teenage girls took on jobs that were left vacant by men. With these new jobs came the opportunity to gain financial independence. However, teenage girls, along with their mothers, were expected to leave their jobs once soldiers returned from war. Thus, there was a gap between the actual experiences of teenage girls and what they were expected to be--Rosie the Riveters who were willing to become housewives at the end of the war.

This gap between actual experiences …

Gender, Nature, And The Fairytale Structure In Robin Mckinley's Works, Molly Rogers

Honors Theses

Robin McKinley is an American fantasy author who uses fairytale structure to explore themes of gender and nature. Her first book, Beauty, a retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” was published in 1978. She continues to write fairytales and other fantastic fiction, utilizing the fairytale form and structure. She has won a few awards, including the Newbery Award in 1985 for her novel The Hero and the Crown. Her latest book, Pegasus, was published in 2010. Jack Zipes describes McKinley’s heroines as "self-confident, courageous young women who take the initiative in a world which they help to define with men…it …

Southern Fiction: Southern Small-Town Culture And Its Landmarks, Candice W.N. Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

Southern small-town culture is marked by a close-knit community's strict societal expectations and hierarchy, the undeniable familiarity of all the residents and their business in a particular small town such as Bloomingdale, Georgia; and a resistance or inability to be affected by time. The second element—familiarity—functions not always as a means of nosiness but as a direct result of the unavoidable interconnectivity that is formed by generations of neighbors and relatives growing up together and never leaving their hometown. A final characteristic of the small-town culture is the significance of landmarks—both in a geographical and manmade sense. These elements and …