Browsing Dissertations & Theses by Title
Now showing items 90-109 of 175
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The Magical Sublime: A New-old Lens On Magical Realism
(English, 2007-08-23)While magical realist critics often refer to magical realism's generic heritage of primitive cultures and indigenous mythology, Franz Roh's magischer realismus, and Surrealism, I will point to the sublime as a less recognized ... -
Make it plain, preacha': African American rhetorical license, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and a modern rendering of epideictic rhetoric
(2014-09-17)In this project, I contend that African American rhetoric, namely African American sermonic rhetoric, constitutes a distinct, culturally specialized variety of rhetoric generated out of the distinctive circumstances of the ... -
Making Selves as We Make Scholars: The Many Uses of Life Writing in College English
(2022-05-16)This dissertation addresses the perennial question, for both new and more seasoned English professors, “What should we teach in English?” In composition, “What types of writing should we teach?” And in literature, “what ... -
Mapping Men: Toward A Theory Of Material Masculinity
(English, 2013-07-22)This project interrogates the possibilities of material gender theory as an interdisciplinary bridge between critical theory—like gender studies and eco–criticism—and soft–scientific men's studies. The primary theoretical ... -
Marriage Or Career? Domestic Ideology In George Gissing's The Odd Women
(English, 2007-08-23)Although George Gissing is acclaimed for his progressive thoughts on liberating women from patriarchy by establishing financial independence, some critics challenge such praise for Gissing by arguing that he is still ... -
Masculinity and Chivalry: The Tenuous Relationship of the Sacred and Secular in Medieval Arthurian Literature
(2018-08-13)Concepts of masculinity and chivalry in the medieval period were socially constructed, within both the sacred and the secular realms. The different meanings of these concepts were not always easily compatible, causing ... -
Material Intimacy: Bearing Witness, Listening, and Wandering The Ruins
(2019-08-07)In this dissertation, I consider the rhetorical ecology of architectural ruins, specifically those of natural disaster, as actors in a system of human and nonhuman intra-action that has rhetorical potential for material ... -
Maternal Bodies, Ojibwe Histories And Materiality In The Novels And Memoirs Of Louise Erdrich
(English, 2009-09-16)This thesis examines uterine metaphors and birthing scenes in the novels and memoirs of Louise Erdrich. Specifically, it examines convergences between these images and material feminisms, as well as Ojibwe spirituality and ... -
Media And Literary Representations Of Latinos In Baseball And Baseball Fiction
The first chapter of this project looks at media representations of two Mexican-born baseball players – Fernando Valenzuela and Teodoro “Teddy” Higuera – pitchers who made their big league debuts in the 1980s and garnered ... -
Meming and Enthymeming: Persuasion in the Age of Social Media
(2018-12-06)While rhetoric as a field of study has existed for several millennia, social media can prove to be a difficult medium to analyze rhetorically. This thesis examines some traditional elements of rhetoric, including the ... -
Misreading Justice: The Rhetoric Of Revenge In Feminist Texts About Domestic Violence
(English, 2008-08-08)Feminist legal theories of battering homicides pose a challenge to feminist critics of American literature. Legal theorists argue that many women who are tried for killing their abusive partners should be acquitted on the ... -
"More Than Just A Piece In Their Games": Agency And The Docile Body In The Hunger Games And Reality Television
(English, 2014-12)In recent years, with the rise of social media and normalized forms of surveillance there has been an increase in the visibility of how female bodies are policed within Western society. As the fight for women's rights ... -
Moving Beyond This Moment: Employing Deleuze And Guattari's Rhizome In Postcolonialism
(English, 2011-10-11)The aim of this project is two-fold: to discuss the limits of Frantz Fanon's postcolonial theories, and to then present a possible model for turning "the `thing' colonized [into] a new man" (Wretched 2) by liberating "him" ... -
A Multi-functional Essay Prompt For State Mandated Assessments
(English, 2009-09-16)A State-mandated assessment of high school English composition skills can be a trying experience for sophomore basic writers. Because students must construct a text-supported argument around the State's choice of theme, ... -
Murder In The Digital Age: Rethinking Crime Fiction Theory through the Medium of Videogames
(English, 2012-07-25)Videogames are a multibillion-dollar industry. Their high definition graphics and sophisticated gameplay cater to a continuously growing crowd of enthusiastic players. But what is their standing in the academic community? ... -
The Mutual Influences Of Law, Medicine, And Fictional Literature Regarding The Disposition Of A Somnambulist In Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Literature
(English, 2014-07-14)Somnambulism derives from the Latin words somnus- sleep and ambulare- to walk around, meaning a person appears to conduct waking actions, but is actually asleep. Classified as a disease, somnambulism raises questions of ... -
My Child And My Life: Sacrificial Obligation And Chaucer
(English, 2011-07-14)Medieval literature demonstrates that Christians of that era took their Bible seriously, particularly the Old Testament account of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. For them, the story was both fascinating and perplexing. Not ... -
Native Spaces Of Continuation, Preservation, And Belonging: Louise Erdrich's Concepts Of Home
(English, 2008-08-08)In light of continual Native migration, relocation, and hybridization, it is my intention to examine the evolution and diversification of home in a spectrum of Louise Erdrich's writing. My examination of the texts focuses ... -
Navigating Women's Cultural Representation Through Video Games in the Obama Era
(2016-12-20)While the representations of women in video games have remained disappointingly negative since the 1980s, America’s political shift from the presidencies of George W. Bush to Barack Obama in 2007 had important cultural ... -
Negotiated Authorship: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Professional Writer Job Postings
(English, 2009-09-16)This qualitative study (a rhetorical/discourse analysis) explores the genre of job postings, particularly postings for writing-related jobs in the financial services sector, to determine how words like "author" and "writer" ...