Search
Now showing items 1-20 of 21
Talking turkey : visual media and the unraveling of Thanksgiving
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
Standing at the core of American culture, Thanksgiving is an invented tradition celebrated by millions of Americans. This dissertation examines contemporary representations of Thanksgiving in "the media of everyday life" -- including television...
Disruptive soldiers : literary responses to the standing army controversy (1688-1846)
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
until the start of the Mexican-American War (1688 -1846). More specifically, I examine a selection of prominent literary examples from the period and situate them within the context of historical and political circumstances in order to chart a trend...
Fundamentalist rhetorics of self-determination : a feminist conundrum
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
did these mothers deploy liberal rhetoric, which assume a free, rational agent, to defend a religious identity based on submission (17)? Furthermore, why was their rhetoric uncritically accepted by many U.S. Americans, and to what ends...
Policing the boundaries of whiteness : monsters made in the USA
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation explores institutionalized racism in American culture that signifies through the Reconstruction era Klansman, the folklore of the Night Doctor, and what I...
Into the forest: reading trees in nineteenth-century American literature
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Nineteenth-century American nature writing considers nature from the multiple perspectives of the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction landscapes. The use of nature...
Thinking locally : provincialism and cosmopolitanism in American literature since the Great Depression
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
Thinking Locally produces an account of twentieth-century literary history that counters the literary-historical over-reliance on wars as framing events. Eschewing the standard break between pre-World War II and post-World ...
On poetry : the emergence and function of meaning
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
these differences, poetry seems to universally function as a tool for developing complex thoughts and for communicating those thoughts to others. Section II examines the rise of modern American poetry as a case study for how poetry as a genre perpetuates itself...
Beginning's ends : new senses of ending and the eighteenth-century novel
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation argues that an examination of innovative endings in both canonized and forgotten eighteenth-century prose fiction contributes to our ...
Science frictions : science, folklore, and "the future"
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Folklore and science, along with the subject of the future which has slowly over time worked its way into the discourses of both, have a long, complicated ...
The creation of The four million : O. Henry's influences and working methods
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
Though O. Henry's The Four Million was intended as an attack on Ward McAllister's idea of the Four Hundred, each man is mentioned only in passing in studies of the other. One chapter therefore contrasts the two men by ...
Black skin matters : the significance of color in early modern England
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
This book explores the impact of stereotypical concepts associated with black skin color in representations of black people during the English Renaissance, namely Shakespeare's Othello (Othello), Aaron (Titus Andronicus), ...
"The great fairy science" : the marriage of natural history and fantasy in Victorian children's literature
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
This dissertation explores the merging of two unlikely literary - natural history writing and fantasy - as a subgenre of mid - to late nineteenth century British children's literature. Tailoring natural history for children, ...
As many roast bones as you need
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI--COLUMBIA AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] As Many Roast Bones As You Need is a creative dissertation that combines the examination of grief and our connection to animals found in ...
Interrogating transnational media representations of "harmful" bodylore
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The category of "harmful" cultural practices' has become a central and defining concept in global health and development policy. A key target of ...
"This sweet touch" : alienation and physical connection in the works of Michael Ondaatje, Shyam Selvadurai, and Salman Rushdie
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
This dissertation argues that Michael Ondaatje, Shyam Selvadurai, and Rushdie in their fiction present experiencing moments of mutual recognition instigated by physical connection as a possible means of ameliorating the ...
On marvellous things seen and heard
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Derived formally from Aristotle's Minor Work of the same title, my variation of "On Marvellous Things [Seen and] Heard" explores a range of literary ...
The wise avenue
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2022)
My dissertation's creative portion is a short story cycle constructed around two organizing principles: a place and a protagonist group. The cycle's setting is Dundalk, Maryland, a predominately white, working-class suburb. ...
Rites of leaving
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2022)
The school of Stoic philosophy traces its roots back to 300 B.C.E and thrived until the 4th century C.E, when it fell into decline and was ultimately assimilated into other systems of philosophy. It experienced a limited ...
"The back-and-forth form" : epistolarity in late medieval literature
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
The project explores medieval epistolarity as a medium and genre. I examine the body of rhetorical theory that described the purpose and form of the letter, the ars dictaminis. I apply contemporary media theory to medieval ...
Ruin nation : antiquarian objects and political narratives in the long eighteenth century
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] "Ruin Nation: Antiquarian Objects and Political Narratives in the Long Eighteenth Century" examines representations of architectural ruins and ...