Other English Language and Literature Commons^™

The Sauce To Meat Is Ceremony: Cannibalism And Hospitality Serve As Horror And Culture Tropes In Hannibal And Macbeth, Shay Williams

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

When examining Macbeth (1623) as a case study within Shakespeare’s canon, we see all the obvious horror tropes - murder, witches, a ghost, bodies, blood and gore. What is less pronounced is the horror that lies within eating, drinking, feasting, and the ceremony of banquets. On the other side of the spectrum, and unlike the character of Macbeth, we have a figure that epitomizes all things horror, and has been read about in novels, watched on film, and as of late (2013-2015) has been the subject of a Television show, aptly named: Hannibal. In both works, we encounter men/monsters/killers …

Creative Writing Pedagogy: Building Curriculum For High School Students, Elizabeth Lengel

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis serves as a rationale for the creative writing pedagogy I use and how it serves my high school creative writing class. As my school district made the decision to overhaul our English curriculum, the English department decided to add Creative Writing as an English class elective.

The work for planning these new classes was spread around the English Department, and I was assigned to design the curriculum for the new Creative Writing class. Designing an entire class from scratch leaves a lot of room for creativity and innovation. However, as excited for this new course as I was, …

Booktok's Potentials And Possibilities In Composition Studies: An Interactive Digital Collection, Hanna Varilek

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following thesis, “BookTok’s Potentials and Possibilities in Composition Studies: An Interactive Digital Collection,” explores the phenomenon of BookTok, a vibrant out-of-school literacy program on the social media platform TikTok centered around books, reading, and literary discussions. As digital platforms continue to shape contemporary cultural landscapes, BookTok emerges as a unique space where users engage with literature and participate in discussions that influence their reading habits and preferences. This thesis explores the possibilities of BookTok in reimagining the current landscape of first-year writing and composition classrooms by introducing an interactive digital collection of BookTok content and educational resources titled, The …

Dancing And Poetry: A Study Of The Whirling Dervish Dance Through Rumi’S Poetry, Tasneem Huq

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This exploration investigates the influence of Rumi’s book of poetry, Mathnawi, upon the Sufi practice of the Whirling Dervish dances. It argues that Rumi’s Mathnawi underlies the choreography of the Whirling Dervish dances. Each step of the dance expresses, manifests or embodies themes found in Rumi’s poetry: separation from Unity, ascension, annihilation, and a return to Unity. The thesis introduces this argument, and then discusses historical, theological, and linguistic themes related to Rumi, Sufism, and the Whirling Dervish dances. Following this, the thesis provides a framework that begins with the Neoplatonic theory of emanation grounding Rumi’s poetic thought, followed by …

Position: A Fiction Collection, Joelle Byars

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The creative thesis “Position: A Fiction Collection” is composed of sixteen short and flash fiction stories. The critical introduction to this thesis looks at my journey as a writer that led to its genesis. I analyze the methods used in my writing process, consider the ways in which instruction and passive reading influences what drives me to write, as well as delving into how the personal informs the creative. I discuss the themes of my stories, gender, sexuality, socio-economic class, toxic relationships, and mental illness, and how they emerged in this collection. A creative sample that touches on all of …

Setting The Stage: The Phantom Of The Opera And Gothic Space, Zitaanne Reno

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

First published from 1909 to 1910, Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera tells the story of Erik, the titular deformed composer, and his dark love for a beautiful soprano. Similar to Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, another French story involving a deformed man in love with a beautiful woman, the setting is a crucial aspect of the novel. Examining the Palais Garnier, a labyrinthine building composed of staircases, passageways, trapdoors, and a subterranean lake, in conjunction with Notre Dame, a cathedral utilizing traditionally gothic architecture, reveals how the opera house functions as a gothic space. Rather …

Englishness Within: Navigating The Colonial And Patriarchal Motives In Prospero's Daughter And Wide Sargasso Sea, Zainab A. Saleh

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

With the arrival of postcolonial theory and studies surrounding culture and identity, the increased awareness of English cultural identity found itself rooted in the attempts to set the narrative of how identity is a mere checklist of qualifications that presumably leads one to be deemed as one of the “English.” Fixating on the spaces formerly colonized by the British, Englishness has come around to define and establish a discourse of Otherness. From language and dress to food and environment, Englishness finds itself present in postcolonial retellings of colonial texts that set the tone for what is presumably and hegemonically filled …

Adventuring In The Winds: An Exploration Of Water Accessibility, Keystone Species, Environmental Justice, And Forest Fires In The Wind River Range, Rhianna Giron

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis is a braided narrative that incorporates personal experience, ecological research, and poetry to explain some of the impacts of human interaction in wild spaces and of climate change. The specific areas of study in this essay are the Wind River Range, Wyoming and Nebraska. The purpose of this paper is to discuss topics related to water availability and quality, forest fires, keystone species, and social injustices related to people and environments in the Wind River Range. It is important to learn about other places than the ones we are already familiar with as it helps to instill a …

“Thanks To ‘X’ For Beta-Ing!”: Fan Fiction Beta Readers In The Writing Center, Regan Levitte

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this thesis, I pose the question: what can we learn from fan fiction beta reading practices that can be applied to the writing center? Through interviews of writing center consultants who have had beta reading experiences, I consider what collaborative practices they have transferred into their writing center consultant skill sets. This project records how their affinity groups supported their literacy habits, and which dynamics of power and embodiment meant the most to them in these two discourse communities.

Combining historic texts on what ideal writing center pedagogy looks like, I explore how writers could interact with acknowledgement of …

Visitor Parking Only, Jeremy Caldwell

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

VISITOR PARKING ONLY is a thesis comprised of 40 poems and a fifteen-page introduction that travels simultaneously through the climatic seasons and familial generations, creating a cyclical effect of inevitable loss and regrowth. The poems start in late spring, early summer and dive into adolescent wonder, vulnerable, and loss of innocence. Gradually as the seasons change so does the speaker, diving into young adulthood and parenting and the sense of responsibility, guilt, and confusion that has played such a large role in developing me as a person. The poems transition into the winter months where older generations, such as my …

Review Of John James Audubon: The Nature Of The American Woodsman, By Gregory Nobles, Matthew Guzman

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

When we think about American ornithology, John James Audubon is often the first name that comes to mind. As evidence to Audubon’s lasting ability to enrapture readers, it bears repeating that an original Double Elephant Folio of Birds of America sold for an astounding $11.5 million in 2010 (2). Yet, for a man who produced such stunning and memorable visual and literary work on the avifauna of North America, some of the important details of his life and origins have remained highly contested. Even though Gregory Nobles’s new biography is not explicitly tied to the study of the Great Plains, …

Uncollected Essays, D. W. Robertson Jr., Paul A. Olson

Zea E-Books Collection

Foreword by Paul A. Olson • Buzones, an Alternative Etymology • The Manuel des Péchés and an English Episcopal Decree • Correspondence – The Manuel des Péchés • A Note on the Classical Origin of ‘Circumstances’ in the Medieval Confessional • A Study of Certain Aspects of the Cultural Tradition of ‘Handlyng Synne’ • The Cultural Tradition of Handlyng Synne • Marie de France, Lais, Prologue, 13-16 • Cumhthach Labhras an Lonsa • Chaucerian Tragedy • St. Foy among the Thorns • Amors de terra lonhdana • The Subject of the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus • …

Beyond Constructing And Capturing: An Aesthetic Analysis Of 1968 Film, Chandler Warren

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study revisits conversations surrounding the global moment of 1968 and the forms of radical filmmaking that occurred during that time. Focusing on the Newsreel collective and the Dziga Vertov Group from the United States and France respectively—groups that utilized very distinct filmmaking methodologies and produced disparate aesthetics—the study argues that traditional leftist film critique must be rethought by acknowledging the revolutionary opportunities afforded to filmmakers through aesthetic elements like voiceovers or intentionally manipulated relationships between image and sound of specific shots. Instead of judging radical films within a spectrum of revolutionary efficacy, the reflexivity afforded to the filmmaker by …

‘I Am Not Your Justification For Existence:’ Mourning, Fascism, Feminism And The Amputation Of Mothers And Daughters In Atwood, Ziervogel, And Ozick, Mitchell C. Hobza

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines the complexities of mother-daughter relationships in twentieth-century women’s literature that includes themes about fascism and totalitarianism. Of central concern is how mothers and daughters are separated, both physically and psychically, in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Meike Ziervogel’s Magda and Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl. Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born provides the theoretical framework for considering maternity and the institution of motherhood. These separations occur through two modes: physical separation by political force; and psychical separation through ideological difference and what Rich terms as “Matrophobia.” The physical separation is analyzed through a synthesis of Rich’s theory …

Urban Place-Conscious Education: Pride In The Inner City, Tamara A. Zwick

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Many educators are turning to place-conscious education as a means of making students’ education relevant and meaningful, as well as encouraging them to contribute to their local communities in positive ways. While many scholars focus their research on place-conscious education on rural areas, a growing body of scholarship examines how place-conscious principles can be applied in inner city schools. Differences in emphasis and approach exist between the rural and urban scholarship, however. This work analyzes some key differences as well as examining why they might exist. Urban students’ relationship with place is complicated by societal messages which make fostering a …

"Good English": Literacy And Institutional Systems At A Community Literacy Organization, Charise G. Alexander

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the impact of institutions and the systems and communities of which they are a part on literacy instruction, practices, and rhetoric at a community literacy organization in Lincoln, Nebraska. A majority of students served by this organization are adult English Language Learners, many of whom receive instruction from volunteer tutors. In this unique context, a number of factors affect literacy learning, particularly the perpetuation of conservative, hegemonic discourses about literacy by the organizations which fund literacy education programming at this site.

The power dynamics at work in these granting organizations and in larger systems that control and …