THE HEART IS A SLOW LEARNER AND OTHER STORIES explores love's vagaries in settings that range from the Deep South to Alaska. The stories depict relationships between lovers, friends, and family members--especially mothers and daughters. The stories fall into three sections: Living, Loving, and Leaving. Living shows men and women struggling to find happiness and make sense of their lives. A mother of an autistic child in "Texas Facts of Life" must fend off a deadbeat ex-husband as she searches for a way to communicate with her son. "Millennium" presents a woman so overwhelmed with life that she can't get out of bed. "Hammer Toes" explores family rivalries in today's New South. Loving, the collection's middle section, further examines love's vicissitudes. In "Truckin'," Roy wrangles with a seductress named Lila and a truckload of minks before realizing his wife is the one he loves. The collection's title story, "The Heart Is a Slow Learner," is set in Alaska. In it, Fred recounts his struck-by-lightning affair with Honey, the woman who got away—on a sled. Another story features a woman who tells her best girlfriend the details of her affair only to learn that the girlfriend has used the information to seduce the man herself. Loving ends on a lighter note with "Loving Alexander," the story of a woman's affair with a 6'2" cat. Leaving, the final section, opens with "The Night of the Leonid Showers," the story of a woman mired in a loveless marriage, who discovers a way to loop through her own future and past. In "Falling, or Eden Revisited," a woman witnesses the dissolution of her neighbors' marriage. Set in New Mexico, "Guitar Lessons" interweaves the stories of two affairs, one between Chloe and Peter and one between her mother and his father. In "Where Luck Lies," the hapless and romantic protagonist, Josh, escapes his destructive affair with a femme fatale and finds a truer lady love. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2006. / May 19, 2006. / Relationships, Identity, Infidelity, Southern, Women, Family / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Olen Butler, Professor Directing Dissertation; David F. Johnson, Outside Committee Member; R. Bruce Bickley, Committee Member; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member.

"The Age of Strongmen" is the opening excerpt of a novel in progress. The excerpt covers the opening four chapters and follows the parallel stories of two characters: Jules, the child of a poor woman and a delinquent father; and Sunra, the Turkish refugee turned circus strongman, in Atlanta and the American South at the turn of the twentieth century. The novel follows Jules as he runs away from home. Similarly, it also follows Sunra's escape from certain poverty in Istanbul after a short career as a street performer propels him into joining a troupe of travelling strongmen, an enterprise that first leads him to fame and prestige in Europe, through demise of the troupe after arriving in America, to his final rebirth as a great circus performer, the greatness of which is ultimately illuminated by the profound relationship he develops with Jules, the burgeoning understudy who together with Sunra experiences his first truly paternal relationship. Jules has a grand capacity for imagination, and the boy's fantastical imagination colors his narrative with fantastical realities that may or may not exist in the magical story book world of a young boy's imagination where dreams and realities melt together. In this lens, the world becomes the circus in which the narrative finally lands and in which both characters live and flourish. The text that will comprise this thesis will be made up of the opening four chapters of this story. These chapters will tell the following tales: Jules's first encounter with Sunra during a childhood outing with his estranged father; Jules's brief relationship with a neighborhood friend which ends abruptly after a racial incident in Atlanta, and after which Jules runs away from home; The boyhood of Sunra in Istanbul, the tale of his street performing and his running off with the troupe of strongmen; and the travels of Jules through the wilderness and as a stowaway on trains in pursuit of the circus. This builds the first section of the novel which takes Jules from his first experience with Sunra until the point that they actually meet. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2005. / April 24, 2005. / Freak Show, Atlanta, Circus, Stronman, Side Show / Includes bibliographical references. / Virgil Suarez, Professor Directing Thesis; David Kirby, Committee Member; Ned Stuckey-French, Committee Member.

Ranging from the elegiac to sarcastic, humorous to furious, distant, alienated, amused, and intimate, the poems in Hot Stare America aim to balance social critique with praise, protest poems with odes, the blues with jokes, nostalgia, love, and a sense of hope for those people and places that have helped to shape their speaker's life and origins. From dramatic situations set in bars, rock clubs, restaurants, coin-op laundromats, classrooms, and adult bookstores, this musically formal manuscript traces the poetic legacies of the English language, versions of democracy we have inherited and will pass down, as well as the bizarre ironies, juxtapositions, and paradoxes that define American culture. The Clash once dubbed themselves "The Only Band that Matters." In a similar vein, this collection of poems ultimately settles on good love, drink, laughter, and music in all its forms as the only sources of redemption or escape that truly matter to its speaker, this protest singer. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2009. / April 9, 2009. / poetry, music / Includes bibliographical references. / David Kirby, Professor Directing Dissertation; Martin Kavka, Outside Committee Member; James Kimbrell, Committee Member; Erin Belieu, Committee Member.

The nobility of the Renaissance era enjoyed an elaborate form of hunting, called par force, which involved many horses, dogs, and huntsmen and offered many opportunities for social display. Par force hunting came with a set of ritualized actions and its own unique vocabulary. English monarchs, especially James I, instituted regulations on who could participate based on social status. As the higher social echelons became more permeable, and hunting remained the recreation of choice for those of elevated status, this turned the sport into a skill necessary for those new to the court. This study looks at early modern English hunting manuals to examine how they functioned as courtesy literature for those newly admitted to higher levels of society, examining the rhetorical and instructional techniques employed in early modern English hunting treatises to ascertain similarities between to two types of books. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2007. / August 24, 2006. / Courtesy Books, Instruction Manuals, Conduct Manuals, Hunting Manuals, Hunting, Early Modern / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce T. Boehrer, Professor Directing Thesis; Daniel Vitkus, Committee Member; Nancy Bradley Warren, Committee Member.

This article explores the history of Superman to offer commentary on the changing nature of Burkean identification across distinct historical periods. Beginning with the creation of Superman in 1938, I explore Superman's Golden, Marvel, and Contemporary Age revisions addressing his construction of ethos as a means to establish grounds for identification. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2008. / March 31, 2008. / Superman, Identification, Ethos / Includes bibliographical references. / Michael Neal, Professor Directing Thesis; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member; Kathleen Yancey, Committee Member.

For my project, I have taken Queen Elizabeth I's last speech to Parliament in November 1601, the Golden Speech, and looked at every time it was printed under King James I, King Charles I, the Interregnum, and King Charles II. The first chapter explores the rhetorical techniques Elizabeth employed. The second chapter examines the historical context surrounding each time the speech was reprinted in 1628, 1642, 1647, 1659, and 1679. The final chapter compares the paratexts of each edition with the printing trends and technologies available at that particular time. My research is beneficial to two areas of study. First, to early modern scholarship: with new technology, we are able to learn more and more about this period. The Renaissance owns many brilliant writers and thinkers. Projects like mine let us rediscover genius in a new fashion: through a printer's brain, or through a later generation's reception. For example, how do Elizabeth's strong words of leadership help us better understand the leadership in the century following her death? Printers have the power to change interpretations. Secondly, in the plight for women's recognition: in many ways, we have tokenized Elizabeth, exploring her rhetoric as maternal or virginal, lauding her ability to use her gender as a means of power. When all is said and done, she was a good leader, woman or not. If we can study her and her legacy and influence outside of her gender, we might do more for feminism than to constantly recognize her gender along with her power. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer semester, 2009. / March 24, 2009. / Parliamentary rhetoric / Includes bibliographical references. / A. E. B. Coldiron, Professor Directing Thesis; Elizabeth Spiller, Committee Member; Meegan Kennedy Hanson, Committee Member.

Swamp Gravy, an oral history/community performance project in Colquitt, Georgia, has been named Georgia's "Official Folk Life Play," received critical acclaim, earned grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Georgia Arts Council, the Woodruff Foundation, among others. This dissertation, Jo Carson's Contribution to the Swamp Gravy Recipe, introduces the project, examines the elements found in its plays, and discusses the writing of Jo Carson as an important component. She shapes disparate stories into unified scripts, using folk life details and a feminist perspective. Her writing results in folk life plays and southern drama, accommodates large amateur casts and insures the success of the community performance project. The first chapter looks at Carson's writing before Swamp Gravy to identify characteristic elements of her work. Her poetry, children's books, short stories, and plays share oral history and folk life elements, which lend verisimilitude. Her first published work, a volume of poems, resonates with the stories and speech of ordinary people while Carson fills her children's books and short story collection with colloquialisms of southern speech and folk life details to create a sense of place. In her earlier plays, she adds strains of southern drama and liberal feminism and establishes structural, thematic origins for the Swamp Gravy plays. The next four chapters discuss how oral history, folk life, southern drama, and liberal feminism elements from earlier works inform the Swamp Gravy plays. Chapter Six presents Dr. Richard Owen Geer's community performance model and the restrictions it places on Carson's writing. The conclusion looks at the continuation of the Swamp Gravy phenomenon in Colquitt, evaluates its impact on other communities, and tracks Carson's work after Swamp Gravy. This dissertation hopes to promote an academic awareness of Jo Carson as a playwright and to establish Swamp Gravy as an influential community performance project. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2006. / April 26, 2006. / Community Performance, Swamp Gravy, Jo Carson, Folklife Play / Includes bibliographical references. / Karen Laughlin, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stuart Baker, Outside Committee Member; Hunt Hawkins, Committee Member; Linda Saladin-Adams, Committee Member; Jerrilyn McGregory, Committee Member.

Sentimental novels were the juggernaut of the publishing industry in America in the nineteenth century. Also known as novels of domesticity and, more recently, as women's fiction, these novels were written largely by and for women. The story was one of survival, of girls cast out to make their way in the world. However, they were to hold fast to the dictates of Victorian decorum and embrace the four tenets of the so-called "Cult of True Womanhood": piety, sexual purity, submission, and domesticity. This study examines how the sentimental novel influenced four later novels by African American women writers. With harsh punishments against literacy, it was primarily only until after emancipation that African American women began writing novels. This study, then, explores how the authors of four novels both appropriated and reconfigured the template of precursory novels written by white women. Critics have more recently begun to re-evaluate the genre of the sentimental novel, a genre dismissed as unimportant for most of the twentieth century. What needs further study is the influence of these astoundingly popular texts on the novels of a previously repressed group of authors, black women. By examining this connection, this study contributes to an understanding of the intertextuality of women's fiction, an intertextuality both deliberate and inadvertent as well as often consciously oppositional. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2008. / October 22, 2008. / Plum Bun, Iola Leroy, African American Women, Sentimental Novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Linden Hills / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lauren Weingarden, Outside Committee Member; Bruce Bickley, Committee Member; Maxine L. Montgomery, Committee Member.

The stories in this collection depicts the lives of young men coming of their age as they struggle to find contentment within themselves. They are unlikely journeys of self discovery that help them find this contentment. The central figures in these pieces find themselves weighing their lives against the vast array of eccentric characters that they encounter. Satisfaction and happiness with their place in life is what the people yearn for, but ultimately what I think these men discover is that sometimes no matter how far you travel you often simply find yourself only in a different place. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art. / Fall Semester, 2005. / September 26, 2005. / Stories / Includes bibliographical references. / Julianna Baggott, Professor Directing Thesis; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member; Mark Winegardner, Committee Member.

This collection of short stories contains my work about my homeland, Taiwan, as well as my American experience. Back in Taiwan, I often questioned my identity as a woman in a male dominant society. "Women are worthless" is a poison that passes on from mothers to daughters, generation after generation. When I came to America, I was determined to break the cycle. As I gradually grew accustomed to American ways, I found my feelings towards both lands become even more confused. Living in America for all these years has created a gap between my homeland and me that can never be bridged. On the other hand, adopting American ways helps me survive in this country, but doesn't help me fit into the community. I wonder where I actually belong?. As I continued to search for my identity, I began to discover more conflict among human beings. I extended my questioning towards not just my homeland or Chinese culture, but also towards America and its culture. My disappointment towards Taiwanese men was extended towards not just men of any culture, but human beings in general. Looking back, this realization helps me create characters that are more human and stories that are more realistic. The experience has made me become a better writer as well as a better person. I have never regretted the choice I made: coming to America. Neither have I regretted the choice I did not make: born to be a woman. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2003. / October 23, 2002. / Discrimination, Tradition, Political Oppression, Gender Issues / Includes bibliographical references. / Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, Professor Directing Dissertation; Leona LeBlanc, Outside Committee Member; Feng Lan, Committee Member; Anne Rowe, Committee Member; Virgil Suarez, Committee Member.