In the “Introduction,” I discuss how the works presented in this “creative” thesis draw upon traditions of both experimental fiction and realism. The novella makes up Volume I of a longer work. The episodes in the life of the protagonist are depicted in chronological order, but not as chapters in a seamless narrative. In constructing the novella in this way, I attempted to convey how an individual might, for reasons peculiar to himself, choose to view certain moments of his life as turning points. But I do not rely upon the first-person point of view. By using a third-person limited, a third-person omniscient and “second-person” narrative voice in several of the chapters, I hoped, in part, to give to the representation of the “the life of Donovan Jewell” the quality of the “case study.” Each of the “two stories” following the novella is meant to stand alone. Written in the present tense, they both offer intimations of a coming family crisis—or perhaps of a crisis that will be forever postponed.

In the “Introduction,” I discuss how the works presented in this “creative” thesis draw upon traditions of both experimental fiction and realism. The novella makes up Volume I of a longer work. The episodes in the life of the protagonist are depicted in chronological order, but not as chapters in a seamless narrative. In constructing the novella in this way, I attempted to convey how an individual might, for reasons peculiar to himself, choose to view certain moments of his life as turning points. But I do not rely upon the first-person point of view. By using a third-person limited, a third-person omniscient and “second-person” narrative voice in several of the chapters, I hoped, in part, to give to the representation of the “the life of Donovan Jewell” the quality of the “case study.” Each of the “two stories” following the novella is meant to stand alone. Written in the present tense, they both offer intimations of a coming family crisis—or perhaps of a crisis that will be forever postponed.

This dissertation advances a new theory of the editor. Editors are pervasively influential for shaping our evaluations of all kinds of work, from literature, to news, to scholarship, and beyond. I test my theory on editorial influence in little magazines, providing close readings, recovering historical contexts, and identifying a wide variety of rhetorical affordances available to little magazines’ editors. I draw on rhetorical narrative theory, most especially the “implied author” concept, which I build on in order to theorize an “implied editor.” I furthermore demonstrate that understanding the authored and edited texts as distinct is important for teasing apart the full breadth of editorial work. This dissertation also proposes a new model of editorship. My model captures (1) the role of the editor, which is a simultaneously author- and audience-oriented role; (2) the importance of poetics; and (3) the dual-streamed creative role of editors. As such, my model captures dynamics not noted elsewhere and enables us to address such questions as: (1) How does editorship differ from authorship? (2) How can we think of the relationship among author, editor, and audience? and (3) How does the ethics of editorship differ from that of authorship? This dissertation further tests my model in conversation with a contemporary little magazine, issue 23 of A Public Space. In so doing, I explore how APS’s editor uses editorial textual resources, some of which overlap with authorial textual resources and some of which diverge from them. I also test my theory against the editorial role in Harlem Renaissance little magazines to elucidate the distinctive ways in which editors manifest their respective magazines’ purposes, both implicitly and explicitly. In so doing, these editors reveal why we must view the magazines as distinct and holistic entities with potentially competing priorities rather than merely collections of (then) up-and-coming writers and their discrete works. My model of editorship highlights Fire!!’s complex editorial significance. My theory of editorship and its application to these little magazines demonstrates the significance of editorship, particularly in relation to the crafting of uniquely edited texts.

Les Bon Temps is a collection of nine essays written about New Orleans between 2005 and 2007. Though not specifically about the effects of hurricane Katrina on the city, this collection provides a personal glimpse of post-Katrina New Orleans though the eyes of the author. The essays address subjects such as race relations, public protest, tap water quality, post-traumatic depression, energy monopolies, lifestyle, culture, and evacuation.

A novel about a man injured while working on an oilrig in the Gulf of Mexico, set primarily in Louisiana, Nevada, and California. While recovering from his injury, the protagonist is contacted by his dead brother’s daughter—a person whom he did not know existed—and he journeys to San Francisco in search of her.

This play is a comedy which revolves around the importance of a French Chair (Louis Xiii) in the life of a family. A young newlywed woman discovers that her husband has a "secret" half sister born out of wedlock. Her mother-in-law has had an affair with a French man, but her husband always believed she had been abused. The young lady senses something is not clear and decides to look for her "half" sister-in-law. She does and manages to organize a get-together to bring everyone in the same place and finally understand what really happened. Eventually, her mother-in-law, now a widower, falls in love again with her ex-lover and they decide to marry. The French Chair was a reason of fights in the young couple and with the mother-in-law. But at the end we learn that young lady's half sister-in-law was conceived on this chair.

Silence in and around mixed-status families in the United States is an issue that is not an easy task to categorize or understand. In order to comprehend the various ways in which silence intersects with the lives of these communities, this study uses various accounts from mixed-status families as well as studies from various fields as a starting point.

This thesis assesses the viability of voluntary simplicity as part of the solution to the material culture that is pushing the planet beyond its carrying capacity without making us happier. Voluntary simplicity is a philosophy and way of life that emphasizes material simplicity, do-it-yourself projects, personal fulfillment, small-scale systems, and spending less time working. Described as “the quiet revolution” and “a life that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich,” voluntary simplicity is at once mainstream and countercultural. Voluntary simplifiers are mainly white, middle class, and well educated, and they come from all types of communities all over the US. Although many voluntary simplifiers hold environmental values, they are primarily motivated by personal concerns such as stress and discontent with the hectic cycle of work and spend. This thesis describes the strong tradition of simplicity in American culture and the philosophy and demographics of voluntary simplifiers. It analyzes voluntary simplicity within the context of the de-growth process society must undergo, and it discusses the class barriers that limit the movement’s wider accessibility.

Through extensive research which culminates in a choreographic component, this thesis explores the lack of diverse representation within artistic and entertainment industries in regards to race and gender. In pursuit of a concise argument, most of the focus is on race and the conditioned view of gender as binary. Looking specifically at dance and film, it considers and analyzes why this absence persists, along with ways to ensure progress. The analysis and exploration unfolds in five central chapters: Research, Conception of the Dance, One and the Same, and Try It On Make It Fit. By detailing all that goes into creating a space that consistently hinders representation of minorities, this project will provide a better understanding of how minority communities are affected as a result. With this knowledge, I hope to present solutions that are simple with an attempt to demonstrate the urgency for new methods that expand portraits of diverse and authentic representations outside of the “norm.” The significance of this project lies in the articulation of an issue that is too often ignored. Change will not happen until it becomes unacceptable for people to remain ignorant and complacent on the subject.

In Arabic inna wa-aḫawātu-hā ‘inna and its related sisters’ are traditionally considered as verb-like particles. They are specified as introducing equational sentences and change their constituents’ case to a different pattern from what verbs do. Therefore, they are called nawāsiḫ in Arabic, or words that cause a shift to the accusative case (Ryding 2005). The medieval grammarians’ treatment of inna and its sisters as verb-like particles and of the equational sentence in general is based on the theory of ‘amal, ‘government’ which Sībawayhi has described it in his book Al-kitab. The theory presumes a grammatical operation (‘amal) in which an operator (‘āmil) assigns to a unique operand (ma’mūl) a grammatical function (Carter, 1973, 151). However, in modern linguistics, government is realized as a syntactic relation that imposes case agreement between the syntactic elements in the sentential structure. And this structure has a deep representation and surface representation. The Medieval treatment for the equational sentence introduced by inna is problematic, because it attributes to inna a verbal power to resolve the issue of the case assignment to the equational sentence which lacks an overt syntactic operator. Modern approaches to equational sentence differ totally from the traditional account. Some modern approaches propose a copula for the equational sentence; this copula is either covert or deleted. Other modern approaches propose a tense projection in deep structure that determines an equational sentence’s surface form. Neither sort of approach gives a reasonable explanation for the case assignment pattern, for the general properties of equational sentences, or for the status of inna. In this study, I propose a new approach focusing on the role of semantics in the assignment of case in equational sentences in Arabic. My hypothesis is based on a new interpretation to Sībawayhi’s description of the ‘ibtida’ sentence; according to this new interpretation ibtida’ is not a syntactic operator but rather a semantic one. I also propose that a sentence’s syntactic properties are sensitive to its semantic MODE, a specification of whether it expresses a topic-based proposition; or an event-based proposition. My new hypothesis is intended to apply to all varieties of Arabic including Classical Arabic, and Modern Standard Arabic, as well as the regional dialects of Arabic.