This thesis is a study of the ways in which Michel Foucault's theoretical assumptions about power relations are manifested in the New Journalism of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July. Chapter one begins by delineating the many power relations operating within In Cold Blood. Capote's groundbreaking nonfiction novel illustrates the complexity of the power struggle between Capote and his reader; Capote, Perry Smith, and Dick Hickock; and American culture and Perry, Dick, and the Clutters. This chapter includes a close reading of Foucault's "The Subject and Power." Chapter one finds instances where panopticism affects power relations. Chapter two contends that power and the creation of discourses of power are vital to the health of any group or society. A reading of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test reveals that power is ubiquitous — even in anti-authoritarian, antiestablishment groups like Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Wolfe's text contends that the discourse of power can be healthy for a group or a society, so far as the source of truth is not someone like Ken Kesey. Throughout the text, Wolfe criticizes Kesey, the Pranksters, and the psychedelic drug movement. Chapter two finds that Wolfe's book is essentially an exercise in meta-discourse: Wolfe promotes his own idea of truth while critiquing another. The final chapter in this study explores resistance in Ron Kovic's memoir, Born on the Fourth of July. Where Kovic may lack the journalist credentials of Capote and Wolfe, he makes up for in passion and raw talent. His memoir delivers a personal, historical, and sociological account of one of the darkest aspects of American life during the 1960s and early 70s. Writing about his struggle to adjust to his new life as a paralyzed war veteran, Kovic chronicles his resistance against not only the Vietnam War, but also against established conventions of "normality." Kovic is paradoxically trapped and then freed by his paralysis. He represents Foucault's notion of a subject's ethical possibility. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2008. / December 7, 2007. / Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, Kovic, Born on the Fourth of July, counterculture group psychology, panopticon, 60s, Freud, Didion, Wolfe, In Cold Blood, Capote, Foucault / Includes bibliographical references. / Ned Stuckey-French, Professor Directing Thesis; Leigh Edwards, Committee Member; Barry Faulk, Committee Member.

This study is a two-part examination into the various ways that English and American cultures reclaim particular stories or images for the sake of social, political, or economic commentary. I explore the manner in which maturing societies create transitional rhetorics by reforming earlier myths and how specific stories, images, or icons function as "carriers" of cultural themes, crucial values, memories, ideals, and anxieties. The first section, entitled "The Genesis Complex," examines three specific myths from Genesis that modern authors purposefully refigured to shape issues in the current cultural context. I introduce each textual theme by examining its reception history and the manner in which interpretations have accumulated meaning from each myth. My primary discussions are Charlotte Bronte's /Jane Eyre/ and the myth of the fallen woman; Willa Cather's /O Pioneers!/ and the myth of American Eden; and John Steinbeck's /East of Eden/ and Arthur Miller's /Death of a Salesman/ paired with the myth of Cain and Abel as economic competitors. The second section of Ready-Made Stories, entitled "Adaptations and Negotiations," examines two lore cycles – that is, iconographic elements or gestures that emerge and re-emerge in certain contexts. The first is that of Cain, as we see bits of his character connected with medieval monsters and the eventual invention of Shakespeare's monster-man Caliban, as well as Trans-Atlantic blackface performances in the nineteenth century. The second lore cycle we examine is that of Jack Sheppard as he progresses from a proletariat hero to a popular character of novel, stage, and modern music. Ready-Made Stories thus scrutinizes the specifics of cultural adaptation and textual evolution. These ready-made stories stand not as testaments to the archetypal memory of culture, but as reminders of the inherent contradiction and backwards glances of cultural production. In essence, we see both how and why very much of the old consciously and purposely sustains the new. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.. / Spring Semester, 2007. / March 19, 2007. / myth, lore cycle, American literature, theatre, Jack Sheppard, T.D. Rice, textual change, textual evolution / Includes bibliographical references. / W. T. Lhamon, Professor Directing Dissertation; Nicole Kelley, Outside Committee Member; John Fenstermaker, Committee Member; Nancy Warren, Committee Member.

This project extends Ellen Barton's 1997 historical study of the first twenty CCCC Chairs' Addresses where she examines what she calls "a tradition of […] 'evocative gestures'—the articulation of broad concerns in the field" (235). In her analysis, Barton demonstrates two themes: (1) accordant gestures about the complexity of teaching composition and the service this teaching provides to students and the community and (2) conflicting gestures about how best to represent the field through research and where the field should be housed within the academy. Since her study, there have been eleven new Addresses and thus an exigence for additional research. This project responds to that exigence by analyzing the past eleven CCCC Chairs' Addresses, starting with Cynthia Selfe's in 1998 and concluding with Cheryl Glenn's in 2008. The results from this research show the emergence of three new themes in gestures different from the two Barton identifies: recurring gestures about (1) literacy, (2) our stake in writing, and (3) diversity. This project makes two significant contributions to our understanding of our own history: (1) using a coherent set of texts, it maps the important topics in our field over the last eleven years, and (2) using Barton's themes as an historical context, it illustrates how the focus in our field has changed since the inception of the CCCC Chair's Address in 1977. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2009. / June 17, 2009. / Chairs' Addresses, Conference on College Composition and Communicat, Rhetoric and Composition, Diversity, Stake in Writing, Gestures, Literacy, Discourse Analysis / Includes bibliographical references. / Kathleen Yancey, Professor Directing Thesis; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member; Michael Neal, Committee Member.

Dr. Carol Tratchy once theorized that eventually we would need to reevaluate our nomenclatures regarding our most recent artistic eras. For instance, the "Modern Era" came into use nearly one hundred years ago; it is hardly an accurate description any longer. Dr. Tratchy thought that the term "Age of Anxiety" would be a better term for the time period from after WWI to present. I like it—it is descriptive, timeless, and conveniently works to my ends! The Language of Vultures is a collection of poems broken into three parts. The subject matter for this collection primarily deals with the anxieties of our age. Although some are more serious than others, I try to take small problems in my life and let them explode into major anxiety attacks (such as auto insurance or flying). I often use humor as a means of making the mundane entertaining and, I hope, poetic. The characters who roam about this collection are taken from life, but are exaggerated and modified to work in a world where vultures might have something to say. I hope the reader will find these as entertaining to read as I did to write them. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2008. / April 11, 2008. / Poetry, Narrative, Sonnet, Free Verse, Humor / Includes bibliographical references. / David Kirby, Professor Directing Dissertation; Juan Carlos Galeano, Outside Committee Member; James Kimbrell, Committee Member; Nancy Warren, Committee Member.

This creative thesis is a collection of stories that deal with issues surrounding the controlling question: "Who is the modern woman?" There is no singular, all-encompassing answer; however, these stories attempt to uncover possible answers. They also explore questions of gender, culture, and identity, examining them through a disruption of existing stereotypes. Questions such as: Why do we, in fact, struggle under this burden of stereotypes? How significant are aspects of heritage / culture? To what degree does upbringing influence our lives today? What role does sexual orientation play into all of the above? It is not so much that these questions are answered here, but I want my writing to raise them – in order to create a new awareness. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2005. / June 8, 2005. / Short Fiction, New Jersey, Sexuality, Judaism / Includes bibliographical references. / Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, Professor Directing Thesis; Julianna Baggott, Committee Member; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member.

This manuscript is a novella entitled, After the Sun Fell, which traces the early lives of its two main characters, Shin Moon-Cha, a young Korean girl who meets, falls in love, and marries an American Soldier, Robert Asher, and moves with him to rural southeastern Kentucky in the late 1960s. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2005. / June 13, 2005. / Fiction, Korea, Kentucky / Includes bibliographical references. / Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Professor Directing Thesis; David Kirby, Committee Member; Ned Stuckey-French, Committee Member; Mark Winegardner, Committee Member.

I wrote this collection of poems from a fascination with both the Cosmos and the mythology that illustrates its elusiveness and integrity, its ability to accommodate the entirety of the Unknown as well as the already beloved. These poems – when considered holistically – may be understood as a model that mimics my own experience at consciousness and dreaming, as a map of the author's nervous system. Taking as a vehicle the character L. M. Fish, the series seeks to explore and re-imagine the mythos of the contemporary West. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2005. / November 3, 2005. / Poetry, Narrative, Wandering Jew, L.M. Fish, Lm Fish, L. M. Fish, Narrative Poetry / Includes bibliographical references. / James Kimbrell, Professor Directing Thesis; David Kirby, Committee Member; Erin Belieu, Committee Member.

Children's literature emerged as a new genre in the eighteenth century. In order to break away from the unrealistic and non-educational fiction available and attractive to children, writers began to create rational tales. John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) and, later, Jean Jacques Rousseau's Emile (1762) both heavily influenced the rational tale trend. Writers composed rational stories of children learning moral lessons without the imaginative elements associated with the potentially detrimental genre of fairy tales. The children's book market was popular with the middle class who had money and a desire to acquire status symbols, even for their children. Antoine Galland's publication of Les Mille et Une Nuits in 1704 introduced Europe to the Arabian Nights. English versions of the Nights circulated immediately, primarily in chapbook form; however, self-proclaimed translations appeared later in the century, such as Richard Johnson's The Oriental Moralist (1790). Alan Richardson in his book, Literature, Education, and Romanticism: Reading as Social Practice, 1780-1832, outlines the methods used by rational tale writers to incorporate fantastic elements into their stories. Writers exploited the appeal of imaginative literature by utilizing the plot structures, settings, and themes to enhance their moral fiction. As the rational tale trend took control of the book market, the Nights became a text to use for didactic means. Writers revised and rewrote elements of the Nights tales to be appropriate for a young audience. The rational tales produced in the eighteenth century reflect the consumer presence of the middle class. The Nights tales, tales of merchants and traders, offered an ideal foundation for middle class ideals, such as industry, virtue, and social mobility. In this thesis, I demonstrate the presence of the Arabian Nights in the children's literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In addition, I examine the link between middle class values and the Nights in my selected readings. My primary sources for information on children's literature of the eighteenth century include Alan Richardson, M.O. Grenby's article "Tame Fairies Make Good Teachers: The Popularity of Early British Fairy Tales," and Geoffrey Summerfield's book Fantasy and Reason: Children's Literature in the Eighteenth Century. The children's texts I discuss in this thesis include "Princess Hebe" (1749) from Sarah Fielding's The Governess; The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor (1805); a self-proclaimed translation by Richard Johnson, The Oriental Moralist (1790); "Traveller's Wonders" and "The Travelled Ant" (1794-8) from John Aikin and Anna Laetitia Barbauld's Evenings at Home; "Murad the Unlucky" (1804) from Maria Edgeworth's Popular Tales; The History of Abou Casem (1825); "The Sea-Voyage" and "The Young Mahometan" (1809) from Charles and Mary Lamb's Mrs. Leicester's School. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2006. / April 26, 2006. / Children's Literature, Arabian Nights / Includes bibliographical references. / Eric Walker, Professor Directing Thesis; Dennis Moore, Committee Member; James O’Rourke, Committee Member.

The poems in my dissertation are influenced by various populist schools of poetry. Among my influences are the Romantic peasant-poet John Clare, populist modernists like Don Marquis, modernist writers with working class roots such as Kenneth Patchen and D.H. Lawrence, and some of the more effusive Beat and New York School poets including Allen Ginsberg and Kenneth Koch. I believe that poetry can be intelligent without being condescending; I believe that it can nourish and heal without going down like medicine. Like Vachel Lindsay, who wrote and performed in a Whitman-inspired spirit of inclusiveness, I aim to write poetry that people can enjoy without a lot of training. Three contemporary movements have strongly impacted my work. Performance poetry, especially as exemplified by the poets in Charles H. Webb's Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology, has given me a model for poetry that is instantly accessible without lacking depth, humorous without being light, and emotive without crossing the line into sentimentality. Expansive poetry, as practiced by poets such as Annie Finch, Mark Jarman, Kelly Cherry, and Dana Gioia, has shown me how poets might employ narrative coupled with skillful handling of traditional and nonce forms as a means to widen their cultural impact. People respond to rhythm and rhyme, the theory goes, as evidenced by the popularity of rock and roll and rap music. People also respond to narrative: witness the relative popularity of novels, short stories, and memoirs. Expansive poetry fuses formalism with narrative in order to reach a larger segment of poetry's potential audience. This collection also contains traces of absurdest and surrealist imagery. The touches of surrealism in The Tongue derive largely from my reading of the peculiarly-American brand of surrealism found in poets and prose poets like James Tate, Charles Simic, and Russell Edson. In their use of contemporary, distinctly American diction and subject matter, these poets have moved past much surrealist and deep image poetry written under the spell French and Spanish language poets, poetry that sounded like it had been translated from these other languages even when it was written in English. The Tongue breaks down into three sections: "Delicate Creatures," "The Hard Sciences," and "Some Green Place." The title of the first section comes from James Wright's poem "Milkweed," and the great, epiphanic ending of that poem, typical of Wright's endings, functions as the epigraph for the first section: "The air fills with delicate creatures/From the other world." I tried to let both parts of that quote guide me as I wrote and selected poems for the first section; the poems are full of delicate creatures that are also other-worldly. The second section, by far the shortest of the three, consists of a sequence of poems set predominately in high school and college science classrooms. The title, "The Hard Sciences," refers to the various disciplines, to the speaker's difficulties as a bungling science student, and to the hard life lessons the speaker inadvertently learns. The final section, "Some Green Place," takes its epigraph from Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver's recent collection of essays: "In my darkest times I have to walk, sometimes alone, in some green place." For this section, I have chosen to show speakers struggling to move out of chaos and confusion into green places, figuratively speaking. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2003. / June 19, 2003. / Poetry, Performance Poetry, Expansive PoetryExpanded Anthology / Includes bibliographical references.

Janet Fitch's _White Oleander_ is a complex novel that on the surface appears to be about Astrid's journey from one foster home to the next. The complexity of the novel, however, lies within the relationships between Astrid and the women in her world and how these relationships are actually framed by the men in the novel. The tensions among the women in "White Oleander" are especially, though not exclusively, a consequence of their relationships with men. The first chapter examines the role that patriarchy plays in the novel and the effect it has on the women. The second chapter analyzes the notion of double oppression. Double oppression occurs in "White Oleander" insofar as the male characters oppress the female characters, and in return the female characters displace their oppression onto Astrid. In the third chapter, I discuss the notion of fantasy mother and how Fitch depicts the fantasy mother in "White Oleander". In the last chapter, I examine the reconciliation process between Astrid and Ingrid. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2004. / November 9, 2004. / Double Oppression, Matriarchy, Foster Care, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Fantasy Mother / Includes bibliographical references. / R. Bruce Bickley, Professor Directing Thesis; John J. Fenstermaker, Committee Member; Anne E. Rowe, Committee Member.