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Towards a deconstructive ethics : an economic sacrifice and the logic of the gift
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
This thesis argues that deconstruction as a practice has been, from its inception, inherently ethical, focusing in particular on Derrida's reading of the gift. Deconstruction, insofar as it remains committed to interrogating ...
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 ...
Valuable drops of gold : exploring economics in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a five years expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
Though John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam is not completely unfamiliar to literary scholars studying eighteenth-century depictions of African chattel slavery, ...
A banished Adam : Mark Twain and the father of the human race
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
While Mark Twain has long been viewed as irreligious, scholarship in recent years has underscored the fact that Christianity, the God of the Bible, and the Presbyterianism of his youth play an integral part in his work. ...
Sleeping toward Christianity : the form and function of the Seven sleepers legend in medieval British oral tradition
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
The legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is a fascinating part of medieval oral tradition, and eminently worthy of further consideration. The legend was obviously popular and widespread during the medieval period, yet ...
The crisis autobiography : Augustine, Rousseau, and Wordsworth
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
This project, which on the broadest level can be defined as a comparative study of Augustine's Confessions, Rousseau's Confessions, and Wordsworth's Prelude, is an attempt to bridge a notable gap in the critical literature. ...
Deaf identity, motherhood and transforming normalcy : an ethnographic challenge to disability studies' treatment of personal experience narratives
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This thesis is a fieldwork-based examination of personal experience narratives told by Deaf and hearing mothers of Deaf children. Using participant ...
Tools of a trade : guilt as a rhetorical device in conduct literature
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
Guilt as a rhetorical device is an aspect of the study of rhetoric that is largely ignored by the academic community. It has been used effectively, as in the case of conduct literature, for a number of years and continues ...
Laughter and other lies
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation contains a collection of twelve short stories as well as a critical essay on the short stories of Ann Beattie. The critical essay ...
Famous last words
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation consists of a book-length collection of poems entitled Famous Last Words and a critical essay examining the development of an "American ...
"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 ...
Adding to the fragment : happiness & conversation in three eighteenth-century comedic novels
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Recently, Happiness Studies has become an important field of inquiry. This paper brings some of the insights of Happiness Studies to bear on three ...
"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, ...
Merchants and the medieval mirror
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] My dissertation examines the representation of merchants in late medieval poems inspired by mirrors for princes. The mirror was a genre that had an ...
The American dream and the margins in twentieth century fiction
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
While the American Dream is an oft trod, even clich'ed, terrain in literary criticism, discourse around the topic tends to rely on a dichotomized discourse of celebration or critique. This tendency is a result of understanding ...
Roth and war : two cases
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
Although Philip Roth's style has gone through dramatic self-reinventions over the years, war has remained one of his major themes. After providing an introduction to Roth's career, this thesis examines how he represents ...
Representations of the violently displaced black female self in contemporary African literature: African and African Diaspora Studies scholarly dissertation, & House on a jade sea : creative writing, fiction, dissertation
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Representations of the violently displaced black female self in contemporary African literature is a study of my broad interests in the peculiar ...
Still life with rooms people live in
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The following is a collection of poems about the transience of the human world, poems which combine an elegiac embracing of our own insignificance and ...
The eight leaves
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The creative dissertation The Eight Leaves is a deconstructed memoir, composed in a series of inter-connected lyric essays structured in a ring ...
Fundamentalist rhetorics of self-determination : a feminist conundrum
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
This thesis analyzes the circulation of fundamentalist women's mediated rhetoric in the wake of Texas Child Protective Services' removal of more than 400 children from the polygamist YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, in April ...