Department of English

An interdisciplinary study of the life and work of Jim Harrison. Through the lens of cultural and intellectual history, this dissertation places Harrison within the canon of American literature, from Emerson and Thoreau through Hemingway and Kerouac, and argues that the fundamental thread connecting these writers is their response to industrialization, suburbanization, and consumerism that undermine Americans’ connection to nature and limits an authentic experience with the world. In his novels, novellas, and essays Jim Harrison explores the meaning of the well-lived life, reflecting on the importance of cultivating both a life of the hands and of the mind, of action and contemplation, of nature and literature.

This thesis examines the völur, arguing that these mythic figures actually encompass a broader range of Nordic women than are typically considered. They are magically empowered, usually through their association with and proximity to prophecy and divinity, and are thus tasked with ensuring cultural memory is preserved in much the same way the speaker of “The Seeress’s Prophecy” does. The examination follows an analysis of various Giantesses from the second era of the God of War video games series, an adaptation of Angrboda from The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec, and Freydís Eiríksdóttir from Vikings: Valhalla. Each of these women prove to be a völva figure in their own unique ways, and thus carry with them the cultural memory as a form of preservation in the face of apocalypses.

It is the purpose of this thesis to analyze the fresh relevance of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedy Macbeth, as manifested in three contemporary films: Macbeth, directed by Rupert Goold, starring Patrick Stewart (2010); Macbeth, directed by Justin Kurzel, starring Michael Fassbender (2015); and The Tragedy of Macbeth, directed by Joel Coen, starring Denzel Washington (2021). The thesis examines the unique thematic ideas in each adaptation. The directors have distinct visions. Goold imagines Macbeth as a Stalinesque authoritarian. Kurzel’s Macbeth battles post-traumatic stress disorder. Coen’s older Macbeth is desperate to attain the status he is adamant he has earned, obsessed with the awareness that his time is limited to act. In these adaptations, underlying themes exploring the danger of the authoritarian personality, the heartbreaking futility of misplaced trust, the ravaging effects war may visit on the warrior’s psyche, and the dark places one may be led in the pursuit of ambition are presented to the audience for contemplation.
The analysis draws from contemporary film criticism found in newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals. It is further supported by interviews with the directors and key actors, as well as autobiographical testimony. The elements used in the artistic craft of cinematography are explored. Recognizable references taken from earlier productions used by Joel Coen in his experimentation with Macbeth as a film noir are identified. Research which supports the relevance of the comparison of Macbeth to the historical Stalin is offered. Physicians’ clarification of the condition of PTSD enlightens the understanding of Kurzel’s interpretation.

In identifying ways to create inclusive spaces in the classroom, instructors should not be limited by singular modes of discourse to engage students. Particularly when teaching first-year students who seek to invent the university and claim their intellectual space within it, these considerations must be deeply integrated into the course curriculum and not seen as an extended project to be optional or added at the end of a semester. Rather, instructors must find ways to integrate multimodal discourses in the first-year composition course as a foundation of learning.
One way to do this is to engage students in multimodal practices of rhetorical appeals. This dissertation examines the theories and practices of emotional appeal, namely pathos, to construct meaning-making opportunities that transcend gatekeeping endeavors of singular modes of persuasion.
Through the transmission of affect, students can be given the opportunity to affectively respond through various modes of discourse in applying emotional appeal to practices of persuasion.

I examine Donna Barba Higuera’s The Last Cuentista to not only continue discourse on Latinx SF, but also extend it to Latinx Children’s SF. Barba Higuera highlights themes of colonialism and cultural erasure found within SF novels before disrupting them with a Latinx protagonist. She blends Anglo-Western tropes and themes with Latinx folklore and technology, creating a new canon that sees and treats both as important. Her work also allows for a story centered on providing hope in the face of trauma and erasure. I argue Barba Higuera disrupts the themes of racism and erasure in science-fiction and dystopian CYA and instead incorporates Latinx traditions of oral storytelling and Trickster figures with more common tropes found in CYA literature to ground readers in a potential world that is as culturally diverse as our present one.

A collection of stories exploring the intersection of queerness, latinidad, spirituality, and the generational impact of storytelling. This collection aims to examine the relationships between religion, tradition, politics, and the concept of culture as it crosses borders through a fictional mythos. Many of these stories reflect the hopes, desires, and anxieties of young Latinx individuals across the Americas while expanding and evolving the definition of Latin American literature.

Animalization is a creative nonfiction manuscript comprised of essays which are able to stand on their own, yet gain complexity as they inform one another. Each essay epitomizes the narrator’s attempt to reconcile with emotional instability, self-destructive behaviors, dangerous relationships, the ethics of who has to suffer, and a masochistic brain disorder. This manuscript follows its narrator’s young life as she attempts to understand herself through lived experience, as well as the lives of some extroadinary family members. The narrator’s lifelong fascination with animals supports her desire to understand pain as an applied ethical consideration and an enactment.

This thesis seeks to explore the misconception that arises when viewing Christianity as the source of enslavement or White supremacy. Focusing specifically on the nineteenth-century Antebellum era, This Thesis investigates the primary texts of Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Fredrick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself—two prominent Christians of their time—to juxtapose the teachings and practices of their captors with the actual Biblical text. This thesis seeks to explore and complicate the common narrative that has falsely implicated Christianity as a tool of oppression.

This project examines some of the ethical consequences of posthumous publication of authors' unfinished works, private correspondence, and other materials, with the central example being the extensive catalogue of J.R.R. Tolkien published in the decades after this death by his son Christopher Tolkien. It builds a moral and philosophical framework for understanding the "posthumous harm" that can impact the deceased, for example when the desires they expressed in life are frustrated, or their reputations suffer damage when draft or private materials become public, especially for a wide audience. In the case of J.R.R. Tolkien, his Beowulf translation shows how an author's intentions for a work may actually be to not publish, as doing so contradicts their beliefs and values. Both literary executors and the consumer public that creates a market for such "new works" should more carefully evaluate the posthumous harm that posthumous publication can bring.

Blood Drive and Other Stories is a collection of fictional works. It includes stories that take place in South Florida or are inspired by the landscape of it. The themes within each vary from the limits one is willing to go to enact small-town justice, the need to conserve consciousness, adapting to age, living with medication, and the desire to burn everything down.