Though the influence of penny fiction on the sensation novel was widely recognized by Victorians and is acknowledged by modern critics, there has been little examination of the relationship between these genres. My dissertation addresses this gap in scholarship, analyzing the similarities between the two genres in terms of their content, popularity, and the controversy they provoked. Through drawing clear parallels between the penny dreadful and the sensation novel, I illustrate that the penny dreadful is more complex and subversive than previous scholarship has acknowledged. I argue that the penny dreadful represents an important lens into mid-Victorian culture and working-class agency, particularly because lower-class tastes drove the mid-Victorian market forces. Not only did penny fiction outsell more 'legitimate' fiction, but the lower classes rejected and resented the free and 'good' literature that the middle classes tried to impose on them. The penny dreadful, then, operates as a site of resistance against industrial literacy; moreover, it reflects lower-class anxieties and encourages sympathy for the poor through emphasizing the societal criminalization of poverty. I use Mary Elizabeth Braddon as a case study because at the same time that she was composing her most famous sensation novels, she was also writing anonymous penny fiction. Moreover, though the Victorians were unaware that Braddon authored penny fiction, she was the focus of harsh criticism from contemporaries for violating class- and genre- boundaries by incorporating markers of lower-class fiction in her sensation novels. My dissertation aims to demonstrate the larger socio-historical importance of the two genres, which responded to very specific audience needs and thus generated very specific audience- and genre- related anxiety in mid-Victorian England. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / March 8, 2017. / Braddon, crime, genre, penny dreadful, sensation novel, violence / Includes bibliographical references. / Margaret Kennedy Hanson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles Upchurch, University Representative; Eric Walker, Committee Member; Helen Burke, Committee Member.

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In this dissertation I examine the gendering of cannibalistic consumption in early modern literature by analyzing literary moments in which a woman is a cannibal or victim of cannibalistic consumption in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger’s The Sea Voyage and Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s The Bloody Banquet. I show that colonial and medical discourse intersect in these moments that figure the female body as hungry cannibal or desirable flesh commodity. I argue that these texts respond to and critique what I term the “gendered hierarchies of consumption” that both the colonial and medical tradition relied on specifically through their use of the female body either as victim of cannibalistic consumption or as cannibalistic consumer. These texts are particularly interested in evoking the meanings associated with the female body as a product to be consumed for its healing properties, which was particularly relevant given the practice of corpse pharmacology, in which human flesh was ingested for medicinal purposes. As I show, men consumed the female body in this way even while women themselves also consumed the male body as participants in the corpse pharmacological market. Likewise, colonial discourse figured the land as female to justify male control and domination. Medical and colonial discourse figured the female body as target of male consumption, yet the female cannibal threatens those hierarchies of consumption to instead critique both colonial and ideology and practice. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2019. / February 13, 2019. / Fletcher, Medicine, Middleton, Post-Colonial, Spenser / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce Boehrer, Professor Directing Dissertation; Svetoslava Slaveva-Griffin, University Representative; Gary Taylor, Committee Member; Jamie Fumo, Committee Member.

The Emperor of Shoes follows a long tradition of 20th century Jewish-American writers--Bellow, Roth, Paley and Olsen, to name a few--addressing issues of work and commerce in America. My novel, however, carries this tradition into the 21st century to a shoe factory in Southern China. Soon after his father gives him ownership of the shoe factory, Alex Cohen is drawn into a web of Chinese people his own age trying to flex a freedom they don't quite have yet. There is an upheaval for the protagonist's identity as Alex attempts to locate his place in this world, either as the caretaker of his father's legacy and business or as a member of the nascent Chinese democratic movement. This reinvention of self is an essential feature of the fiction coming out of the Jewish diaspora. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 27, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Olen Butler, Professor Directing Dissertation; Martin Kavka, University Representative; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member; David Kirby, Committee Member.

The subject of my doctoral dissertation is the abduction and illegal adoptions of children of Republican parents during the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) and the continued struggle of thousands to acknowledge and resolve this violation by the current Spanish leadership. While my primary focus is the Franco regime, my research has the potential to impact and support the efforts of thousands of women across the globe who have been violated similarly in places like Ireland, Argentina, Serbia, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Thailand, South Africa and Australia. Tragically, the abuse inflicted to women and children has no boundaries. The goal of this project is to help shed light upon both the historical atrocities perpetrated during the Franco Regime and the official denial, indifference and inaction of the current government in Spain today towards these victims and their survivors. At a global level, it can embolden victims in other countries to share their stories without fear of denial or outright dismissal. Like all dictators, General Franco refused to tolerate any dissidence or opposition. He crushed any such dissent through executions and imprisonment. Many of those executed or imprisoned were mothers with small children or pregnant women. They were deemed to be “unfit” to raise children due to their real or perceived lack of support for Franco’s regime. His goal was to separate children from parents with different beliefs and to reeducate them. These children were then illegally put up for adoption and placed with “proper” Francoist supporters. Franco and his sycophants believed that this would allow the children to be reformed and indoctrinated to become adults with acceptable Nationalist-Catholic beliefs and ideology supportive of Franco. Many babies were taken directly from their mothers at birth, told the baby was dead and sold to politically preferred families. This deceitful, ruthless and illegal activity continued well into the 1990s during democracy. What started as a way of eliminating opposing ideologies and ensuring repression evolved into a very lucrative business, supported and encouraged by members of the church, doctors and judges who became personally wealthy as a result. As part of my research, I conducted interviews with the mothers whose babies were taken from them, and with the babies, now adults, who are desperately seeking answers about their true identity and biological family. This topic has only recently emerged into the mainstream consciousness and discourse. Since there is not a Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in Spain to make this information accessible to the public, my research, which consists in large part of on-site research and participative interviews, will help develop and share an accurate and more fully nuanced portrait of the current struggle for resolution by its victims in Spain and everywhere that women fight this same struggle for justice and truth. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2019. / April 8, 2019. / Includes bibliographical references. / Brenda Cappuccio, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Delia Poey, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Virgil Suárez, University Representative; Juan Carlos Galeano, Committee Member.

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