Browsing by Author "Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member"

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Contemporary Communication: Discoure and Form in the Poetry of James Merrill and John Ashbery
(2004-04-13) McGowan, Catherine-Anne Calhoun; Dr. Nick Halpern, Committee Member; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member; Dr. Thomas Lisk, Committee Chair
Although James Merrill and John Ashbery approach poetry from very different stylistic angles, the themes that emerge from their work have numerous similarities. Each poet illustrates how classic form has evolved to fit into contemporary context in poems such as "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape" and "To a Pocket Calculator," as well as commenting on this evolution in works such as "Watching the Dance," "Litany" and "The Songs We Know Best." After laying the groundwork of formal change, Merrill and Ashbery discuss how this stylistic evolution is mirrored in the day to day life of our fast-paced contemporary society. In poems such as "Eight Bits" and "Self-Portrait in Tyvek™ Windbreaker," James Merrill expresses disgust and skepticism with the state of society today, while John Ashbery addresses the need for rebirth in an oppressive landscape in "It Was Raining in the Capital." Both poets reveal their own feelings of insecurity and self-doubt in "Business Personals" and "Family Week at Oracle Ranch," poems that are simultaneously nostalgic for the past and optimistic about the future. Exploring these themes sheds new light on postmodernism's blending of high and low culture. The examination of each poet's work from a formal and contextual perspective is essential in understanding the need for preservation of both artistic and emotional values of the past in order to have a successful future.
Fragments
(2006-07-05) Hollomon, James Arthur IV; Dr. John Kessel, Committee Chair; Dr. John Morillo, Committee Member; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member
Alex is a young man losing control of his life. Almost a year after his fiancée of three years abruptly ended their engagement, he finds himself still tormented by both his ignorance of what precipitated the dissolution and his inability to conceive of himself without her in his life. His self-image shattered, he descends into cycles of self-recrimination and destructive behavior that alienate his friends and family and leave his personal and scholastic lives in shambles. Desperate to save himself, he attempts to recall who he was before his break-up, but doing so only feeds the darkness growing inside him. Viridian is an arbiter, a cybernetic-augmented defender of "reality" in a futuristic city where "logic" and "truth" are upheld as sacred laws and enforced at gunpoint. But when he catches a glimpse of a horror that lies just beyond the fragile veil of his reality, he finds himself under trial by the same virtues he upheld. Branded as tainted by what he has seen, the only hope for his redemption lies in giving up his basic humanity to combat the growing tide of deviancy at its source. Kazin is the last in a long line of shamans for a good reason; the land he has sworn to protect is dying, withering away under the effects of a mysterious blight. Unless he can somehow find a way to replenish the source of the land's energy and sever the ties to the spirit that no longer supports it, his people will all perish. Yet doing so requires the aid of primal forces of destruction that his kind imprisoned long ago. In order to succeed, he must make a bargain with demons of a bygone age. And all three of these characters are the same person. Fragments is a story of loss, and the strange workings of the mind as it tries to rationalize and circumvent the pain of losing something precious. Through the mental escapades of a character's alternate selves, we see how the self fights for its identity, the heart struggles to survive, and how in every brain are many minds just waiting for the right catalyst to run wild.
In the Shadow of the Vamp: Representations of Female Violence and Aggression in Joyce Carol Oates's Fiction
(2005-07-27) Weissberg, Sarah Buker; Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair; Dr. Sheila Smith McKoy, Committee Member; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member
Recently, feminist scholars have become interested in demystifying female initiated aggression and violence and in examining how women experience, express, and understand their own aggression. This study considers how author Joyce Carol Oates has contributed to that particular line of inquiry by publishing four specific short stories: 'The Vampire,' 'Lover,' 'Gun Love,' and 'Secret, Silent.' Chapter 1 of this thesis defines the archetype of the Lethal Woman, an archetype which embodies negative cultural conceptions of female violence and aggression. This chapter identifies Lethal Women figures from folklore, fiction, and film throughout the ages and then examines 'The Vampire,' a story in which Oates exposes the sexism and androcentric motives behind the ongoing creation and reinforcement of the Lethal Woman archetype. Chapter 2 focuses on the stories 'Lover,' 'Gun Love,' and 'Secret, Silent' and discusses how in these works, Oates explores the psychological impulses behind female initiated violence, passive aggression, and other subversive methods utilized by women for handling their aggression. This second chapter also contrasts Oates's depictions of female violence/aggression against depictions of female violence/aggression in the contemporary popular media and concludes that Oates's stories offer a refreshingly realistic alternative to historical and contemporary Lethal Woman narratives.
The Lessons of Hunger: Food, Drink, and the Concept of Corrective Affliction in Three Puritan Captivity Narratives
(2007-06-11) Phillips, James Henry IV; Dr. Carmine Prioli, Committee Chair; Dr. Allen Stein, Committee Member; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member
While scholars have noted the relationship of food and drink imagery in the Puritan captivity narrative genre to corrective affliction, the focus of this study is to provide an extended evaluation of this relationship. By examining the role of hunger in the reconversion experience, discussing the various contexts of hunger in Puritan discourse, and tracing food and drink imagery through several texts, it is the intent of this thesis to show that hunger is the most significant and transformational mode of affliction within the genre. The narratives of Mary Rowlandson, Hannah Swarton, and John Williams will be examined to show how these authors incorporate images of food and drink into their accounts and how hunger figures prominently. Throughout, this thesis will show how hunger—as the central motif of the theme of affliction—is established, imitated, and manipulated.
The Minstrelization of Hip Hop and Spoken Word Authenticity: Expressions of Postmodern Blackness
(2005-07-26) Lynch, Krystal Andrea; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member; Dr. Lucinda MacKethan, Committee Member; Dr. Sheila Smith McKoy, Committee Chair
Because of the need to preserve hip hop culture in postmodern American, a question that should be asked is, how is hip-hop music relevant to postmodernism and how is postmodernism relevant to the African-American experience, specifically that of African-American youth culture? This current hip hop generation is chronologically and ideologically removed from the Civil Rights movement of its parents and grandparents and ambivalent to the history of African-American people in general. For a generation that has marginally benefited socially from the struggles of the past, postmodern blackness is a reality. Postmodern blackness is defined as intraracial solidarity, cultural authenticity, and social awareness with the purpose of rousing and empowering black culture through music. Postmodern blackness supplies the foundation for understanding hip hop culture and the people who thrive within the culture. Race plays a primary function as a mark of authenticity within the hip hop culture where white hip hop artists signify a demarcation of racial identity. This new racial identity enables white hip hop artists to comfortably put on blackness as a viable means of self-definition, thereby engaging in the blackface minstrel tradition. The analysis white appropriation of black cultural becomes a normative consumptiveness as the artist avidly upholds postmodern blackness. In a strong sense, white hip hop artists redefine hip hop culture with a multiracial movement that transcends color. This thesis also emphasizes the importance of realness and authenticity in hip hop culture by comparing and contrasting the spoken word movement with commercial hip hop. In light of hip hop's obsession with 'keeping it real,' what the spoken word poets constitute as real African American experience and how that experience fulfills the postmodern black paradigm will be analyzed. Each of these poets employ feminist social critique of commercial hip hop's (ab)use of women. By privileging the female voice in spoken word through the work three spoken word poets, postmodern blackness, as defined by commercial hip hop and its marginalizing effect on women, is challenged. Both white appropriation of hip hop and spoken word advance postmodern blackness by expanding the implications of the definitions of blackness and whiteness and utilizing hip hop culture as a medium for addressing gender concerns and racial identity. Postmodern blackness encompasses the spoken word artist's need for authenticity and authentication. Similarly, white hip hop artists also appropriate and assimilate to postmodern black identity, not only as a means of authenticating their music, but also as a means of racial transformation. The active manifestation of postmodern blackness becomes social awareness, because social awareness recognizes that a large collective voice produces ripples of reflection in a predominantly white society. Though today's hip hop music scene is largely commercialized, commodified, and homogenized, there remains a remnant of dedicated hip hop advocates who strive to preserve and revitalize the culture.
Reading Through Abjection
(2003-11-24) Howsam, Melissa Anne; Dr. Sharon Setzer, Committee Member; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member; Dr. Deborah Wyrick, Committee Chair
In this thesis, I read through Kristeva's theory of the abject as a way of interpreting Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban (1993) and interrogating common psychoanalytic readings of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1859) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). The purpose of each of these readings has been to gauge the usefulness of Kristeva's theory as a critical tool and to determine what it allows us to achieve as literary critics and, even, as readers. Although Kristeva is clear about her desire to see women liberate themselves from the confining roles ascribed to them by psychoanalytic theory and patriarchal norms, she is not clear about how her theory can be used. Therefore, I apply her theory, specifically that of the abject, to these three fundamentally different texts in order to both investigate its usefulness and to determine what is, if anything, the triumphant result of its application (in terms of feminism).