<p> During the English Revolution of the seventeenth century, writers like William Walwyn produced documents contesting the restriction of their liberties. This thesis is a critical edition of Walwyn&rsquo;s <i>Demurre to the Bill for Preventing the Growth and Spreading of Heresie,</i> unedited since its original publication in 1646. In this text Walwyn advocates for man&rsquo;s right to question religious orthodoxy in his search for Truth and urges Parliament not to pass a proposed <i>Bill</i> for the harsh punishment of religious sectarians. </p><p> Prior to a transcription of the text is an introduction to Walwyn and an attempt to situate the reader in the context of his time. Following that is a style and rhetorical analysis, which concludes that despite his rejection of rhetorical practices, Walwyn&rsquo;s own use of them is effective. Perhaps this skill is one of the reasons that Parliament passed a milder, non-punitive version of the <i>Bill</i> Walwyn argued against.</p><p>

<p> This thesis examines Sherlock Holmes texts (1886&ndash;1927) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and their recreations in the television series <i>Sherlock </i> (2010) and <i>Elementary</i> (2012) through a postcolonial lens. Through an in-depth textual analysis of Doyle&rsquo;s mysteries, my thesis will show that his stories were intended to be propaganda discouraging the British Empire from becoming tainted, ill, and dirty through immersing themselves in the &ldquo;Orient&rdquo; or the East. The ideal Imperial body, gender roles, and national landscape are feminized, covered in darkness, and infected when in contact for too long with the &ldquo;Other&rdquo; people of the East and their cultures. Sherlock Holmes cleanses society of the darkness, becoming a hero for the Empire and an example of the perfect British man created out of logic and British law. And yet, Sherlock Holmes&rsquo; very identity relies on the existence of the Other and the mystery he or she creates. The detective&rsquo;s obsession with solving mysteries, drug addiction, depression, and the art of deduction demonstrate that, without the Other, Holmes has no identity. As the body politic, Holmes craves more mystery to unravel, examine, and know. Without it, he feels useless and dissatisfied with life. The satisfaction with pinpointing every detail, in order to solve a mystery continues today in all media versions. Bringing Sherlock Holmes to life for television and updating him to appeal to today's culture only make sense. Though society has the insight offered by postcolonial theory, evidence of an imperial mindset is still present in the most popular reproductions of Sherlock Holmes <i> Sherlock</i> and <i>Elementary</i>.</p><p>

<p> Literary study has long been concerned with the construction of meaning and identity through language. In the realm of postcolonialism, for instance, it is necessary to consider the ways that racism and sexism are hegemonic constructs that are transmitted and solidified through language. Furthermore, literary texts such as <i>Heart of Darkness</i> by Joseph Conrad and <i>Season of Migration to the North</i> by Tayeb Salih engage themselves with revealing the ways that racism, sexism, and colonial discourse function through determinacy or certainty. Moreover, Conrad and Salih are engaged in undermining these enterprises of authoritative discourse by revealing the underlying indeterminacy of language and meaning-making. In other words, they show that meaning exists as humanity constructs it. Thus, it is necessary to consider the ways that they question racism, sexism, and colonialism as movements of thought, discourse, and action that have no rational foundations; and it is necessary to consider the ways that they seek to frame the resistance of these forces in their characters.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation advances Gothic studies by 1) arguing that Gothic is an imperial discourse and tracing back its origins to imperial activity, 2) by establishing a Hinterland Gothics discourse framework within the Gothic Imagination, 3) and by defining three particular discourses of Hinterland Gothics: the Gotach (Irish), G&oacute;tico (Mexican-American Mestizx), and the Ethnogothix (African Diaspora), and subsequently, revealing how these Hinterland Gothics undermine, expose, and thwart imperial poltergeists. The primary texts that I analyze and reference were published in the past thirty years and are either of the Young Adult or New Adult persuasion, highlighting imperative moments of identity construction in bildungsroman plots and focusing on the more neglected yet more dynamic hyper-contemporary era of Gothic scholarship, namely: Siobhan Dowd&rsquo;s <i>Bog Child </i> (2008), Celine Kiernan&rsquo;s <i>Into the Grey</i> (2011), Marina Carr&rsquo;s <i>Woman and Scarecrow</i> (2006), Emma P&eacute;rez&rsquo;s <i> Forgetting the Alamo</i> (2009), Virginia Grise&rsquo;s <i>blu</i> (2011), Emil Ferris&rsquo;s graphic novel <i>My Favorite Thing is Monsters </i> (2017), Gloria Naylor&rsquo;s <i>Mama Day</i> (1988), Helen Oyeyemi&rsquo;s <i>White is for Witching</i> (2009), Nnedi Okorafor&rsquo;s <i>Binti</i> (2015) and <i>Binti: Home</i> (2017), and Nicki Minaj&rsquo;s 54^th Annual Grammy Awards performance of &ldquo;Roman Holiday&rdquo; (2012). The cold spots in the white Eurocentric canon where Other presences have been ghosted will be filled, specters will be given flesh, and the repressed will return, indict, and haunt, demanding recognition and justice.</p><p>

<p> In recent years, having evolved beyond solely play-based interactions, it is now possible to analyze video games alongside other narrative forms, such as novels and films. Video games now involve rich stories that require input and interaction on behalf of the player. This level of agency likens video games to a kind of modern hypertext, networking and weaving various narrative threads together, something which traditional modes of media lack. When examined from the lens of reader-response criticism, this interaction deepens even further, acknowledging the player&rsquo;s experience as a valid interpretation of a video game&rsquo;s plot. The wide freedom of choice available to players, in terms of both play and story, in 2007&rsquo;s <i>Mass Effect,</i> along with its critical reception, represents a turning point in the study of video games as literature, exemplifying the necessity for player input in undergoing a narrative-filled journey. Active participation and non-linear storytelling, typified through gaming, are major steps in the next the evolution of narrative techniques, which requires the broadening of literary criticism to incorporate this new development.</p><p>

<p> In this thesis, I expand considerations of diaspora as not only a migration of people and cultures but a migration of thought. Specifically, I demonstrate that literary representations of diaspora produce what I consider to be an epistemological migration, challenging the idea that race and culture are stable and impermeable and offering instead racial and cultural fluidity. I assert that this causal relationship is best exemplified by narratives of racial passing written by diasporic writers. Using Homi Bhabha&rsquo;s concepts of mimicry, hybridity, and ambivalence, I analyze Helen Oyeyemi&rsquo;s <i> Boy, Snow, Bird</i> and Zo&euml; Wicomb&rsquo;s <i>Playing in the Light</i>, arguing that <i>Boy, Snow, Bird</i>&rsquo;s narrative form is a form of mimicry that repeats European and African literary traditions and subverts Eurocentrism, while <i>Playing in the Light</i> is a &ldquo;Third Space&rdquo; in which to accept notions of the non-categorical fluidity of race. Through this analysis, I draw particular attention to Oyeyemi&rsquo;s and Wicomb&rsquo;s unique abilities to refract notions of race, rather than presumably reflect a system of strict categories, and, ultimately, I argue that these novels transcend the realm of literature, existing as empowering calls for society&rsquo;s modifications of its racial perceptions.</p><p>

<p>LeJeune, Jeff. Bachelor of Science, McNeese State University, 2001; Master of Arts, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2017. Major: English Title of Thesis: ?The Violent Take It by Force?: Heathcliff and the Vitalizing Power of Mayhem in Wuthering Heights Thesis Chair: Dr. Christine DeVine Pages in Thesis: 92; Words in Abstract: 284 ABSTRACT In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte employs the character Heathcliff as both a real and mythic being in order to challenge class conventions in Victorian society. She shares this societal contention with other Victorian novelists, but where her contemporaries are typically realistic in their works, Bronte creates a concurrent mythic realm alongside the real in order to allow Heathcliff the space and license to be a Revenant, a symbol used in the folk tradition of the Scots, which I contend was a likely influence on Bronte?s work. Heathcliff?s real nature clashes with this symbolic one, especially when reality will not allow him to be with Catherine, the woman he loves. Her rejection of him serves two central purposes: 1) for the author to spotlight the arbitrary nature of the class system and the decisions individuals make inside it; and 2) for the author to provide a pivot point in the story at which she transforms Heathcliff from a real character to a mythic one. Heathcliff spends the latter half of the novel exacting redemptive punishment on all who have wronged him (and the marginalized he represents), including Catherine herself, a reality he struggles with because he still loves her despite her class-motivated marriage to the hated Edgar Linton. In the end, Heathcliff transgresses his symbolic purpose by going too far in punishing the innocent Hareton, at which point Bronte has him die as unceremoniously as she did Catherine earlier in the novel. Young Hareton and Cathy?s relationship is the fruit of the Revenant Heathcliff?s redeeming work, an ending that, for Bronte, seems to merge more than just the two houses; it seems to also reconcile divergent and conflicting ways of thinking inside the class system.

<p> This thesis takes a look at three major texts: Mark Z. Danielewski&rsquo;s <i> House of Leaves</i> (2000), Charlotte Bront&euml;&rsquo;s <i>Jane Eyre</i> (1847), and Edgar Allan Poe&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Fall of the House of Usher (1839). These texts are certainly linked by the gothic motif, past trauma (and thus memory), and also desire. However, I see these texts as a set for several reasons. These texts are representations of how the gothic motif can be used to supply the narrative, not supplement it. This means, for me, that the narratives of these texts are not just staples of &ldquo;the gothic,&rdquo; but their very <i>architecture</i> is founded upon the gothic tradition. Each text takes place within a house, in a sort of labyrinthine creation, haunting in nature with supernatural manifestations, and, on top of that, a theme of misery within the family. Although these three texts are connected by their treatment and reliance on the gothic motif, I&rsquo;m drawn to them as a set because of 1) the characters&rsquo; transmutability of the spaces they inhabit and 2) the physicality of the publication themselves. I am concerned with the transformations that occur within and without these texts. By that, I mean I am a concerned with transformations within the minds of the characters (development) and the spaces they occupy, as well how these texts call readers to action. Above all, I am concerned with agency, that of the characters within these texts and of the texts themselves. I argue that these spaces within these texts as well as the texts themselves are posthuman. Though, where does regarding these texts as posthuman leave us as scholars? </p><p>

<p> This thesis utilizes concepts of the ecocritical theory of deep ecology to elucidate non-anthropocentricism and nature&rsquo;s agency as depicted by three apocalyptic eco-narratives written in the long nineteenth century: Mary Shelley&rsquo;s <i>The Last Man</i> (1826), Richard Jefferies&rsquo; <i> After London</i> (1885), and M. P. Shiel&rsquo;s <i>The Purple Cloud </i> (1901). I offer readings of these texts as &ldquo;Anthropocenic&rdquo; science fiction novels, building upon Paul J. Crutzen&rsquo;s work on the Anthropocene, our current geological epoch. Utilizing literary, historic, and scientific rationale, I make an argument for the reframing of literary periods according to geological transformations due to human interaction with the environment and collectively term apocalyptic eco-narratives written at the time of the Industrial Revolution through today as &ldquo;Anthropocenic.&rdquo; In my analysis, I demonstrate how Shelley&rsquo;s, Jefferies&rsquo;, and Shiel&rsquo;s science fiction works exaggerate environmental concerns contemporary to their respective historical moments, and I offer deep ecological interpretations of their perceptions of industrialism and pollution, specifically in and around London. I also expound upon the way in which all three novels depict nature as an active, nonhuman character with agency and intention, either inducing an ecological apocalypse to protect itself or, as in Shiel&rsquo;s novel, to punish humanity for ecological crimes. My &ldquo;deepist&rdquo; approach attempts non-anthropocentricism whenever possible and allows a progressive, nontraditional critique of these texts primarily from nature&rsquo;s perspective&mdash;not humanity&rsquo;s. Particularly, this thesis is interested in how nature retakes and re-greens spaces that are polluted by human activity or abused in the interest of human consumption. Demonstrating the way in which perceptions of nature&rsquo;s agency evolved through the long nineteenth century and providing historical context for Great Britain&rsquo;s ecological condition, I position that these three Anthropocenic texts ultimately blame London&rsquo;s industrialism for ecological devastation in and around the city and conflate natural phenomena, like volcanoes, with industrialist pollution in fictional explorations of nature&rsquo;s agency and potential ability to retaliate against humanity for irresponsible environmental practices. In the last chapter, I analyze the way in which Biblical allusion is used in <i>The Purple Cloud</i> to both sensationalize and rationalize punishment for anthropogenic climate change as an ecological sin according to the Book of Genesis.</p><p>

<p> Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a genre of transmedia experiences, are a recent phenomenon, with the first recognized ARG being <i>The Beast </i> (2001), a promotion for the film <i>A.I.: Artificial Intelligence </i> (2001). This dissertation seeks to more clearly define and investigate contexts of transmedia narratives and games, specifically ARGs. ARGs differ from more popular and well-known contemporary forms of gaming in several ways, perhaps most importantly by intensive use of multiple media. Whereas a player may experience most or all of a conventional video game through a single medium, participants in ARGs must navigate multiple media and technical platforms&mdash; networks of websites, digital graphics, audio recordings, videos, text and graphics in print, physical objects, etc.&mdash; in order to participate in the experience of the ARG. After establishing a history of ARGs, the author defines both transmedia and ARGs and begins to build typologies to help distinguish individual examples of the genres. Then, after building the above framework for analyzing transmedia and ARGs, the author explores the relevance of the ARG genre within three specific contexts. These contexts serve as tools to excavate potential motivators from creative and participatory standpoints. The author refers to these motivations as three logics of ARGs: industrial, cultural, and educational. The industrial logic examines the advantages of transmedia and ARG production from the entertainment industry standpoint, in terms of an alternative to franchising and as a way to extend intellectual property (IP), as well as offering interactive possibilities to an engaged audience. The cultural logic examines the relationship between the emergence of digital media, transmedia, and ARGs and the aesthetic appeal of the form and genre as paranoia, puzzle-solving, and collective meaning making within a shifting representation of reality through networked embodiment and challenging long-held assumptions of ontological and phenomenological experiences. Finally, the educational logic of ARGs analyzes the potential and use of the genre as an immersive, constructivist learning space that fosters self-motivated individual and collaborative analysis, interpretation, and problem-solving. </p><p>