Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-79).

The aim of this thesis is to explore the theme of alienation in selected fiction by Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, taking into consideration the geographic as well as ideological positions from which the two authors write, contextualizing their work in its portrayal as well as critique of the South. Firstly, the insular nature of the South is examined vis-à-vis ethnic and racial othering. The exclusionary social politics of Southern communities are satirized and subverted, as the two authors pit the xenophobic and racist tendencies of their provincial characters against a cultural landscape that fails to accommodate their narrow- minded world view. The gap between the Southern ideology and its contemporaneous reality can be partially accounted for due to the rise of consumer culture, which is discussed in its impact on race relations and social mobility as well as religion. The following chapter, entitled "Commodity Culture and the Americanization of the South," explores the conflation of religious and consumerist ideologies, negotiating the proclaimed adherence to Protestantism in the South with the rise of consumer behaviour as supplanting spirituality. The impact of a ritualistic adherence to capitalist structures is analyzed as promoting a culture of hyper-individualism, narcissism and alienation,...

Eudora Welty's brief photographic career offers valuable insight into the development of her literary voice. She discovers many of the distinguishing characters of her fiction during the 1930s while traveling through Mississippi writing articles for the Works Progress Administration and taking pictures of the people and places she encountered. Analyzing the connections between her first collection of photographs, One Time, One Place: Mississippi during the Depression: A Snapshot Album, and her first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, and Other Stories, reveals the writer's sympathetic attitude towards her characters, the prominence of place in her fiction, and her use of time in the telling of a story.

As pointed out by reviewers and introducers, the first published collection of short stories by Eudora Welty, A Curtain of Green, by Charles East, Where the Music Was, and by Reynolds Price, The Names and Faces of Heroes, all reveal characteristics of the Southern literary tradition. An analysis of their stories does reveal the writers' adherence to traditional elements of Southern literature that includes the treatment of place, characters, blacks, and themes. Although their works fit squarely into the Southern tradition, only Eudora Welty has made an impact on this tradition with her slice-of-life stories written in a fresh, concrete language. Price and East, writing twenty years after Welty, only imitate her style and have not set a new direction for the Southern literary tradition.

"The Theme of Isolation in Selected Short Fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty" examines certain prototypical natures of isolation as recurrent and underlying themes in selected short fiction of Chopin, Porter, and Welty. Despite the differing backgrounds of the three Southern women writers, and despite the variety of issues they treat, the theme of isolation permeates most of their short fiction. I categorize and analyze their short stories by the nature and the treatment of the varieties of isolation. The analysis and comparison of their short stories from this particular perspective enables readers to link the three writers and to acknowledge their artistic talent and grasp of human psychology and situations.

This thesis examines the relationship between Southern literature and socio-cultural realities of the Southern region of the United States of America. Analyzing works of five distinguished Southern writers, this thesis examines the reflection of specific Southern culture features in literature of the region in the period from the end of the American Civil War to the second half of the 20th century. The thesis oppose the opinion that the primary goal of Southern literature was to promote Southern identity and its cultural superiority above the North. The central hypothesis, that is being verified by this thesis, is that despite the indisputable contribution of highly recognized Southern writers to building of Southern identity, these authors expressed in their works also often sharp critiques of the social conditions in the South.

E-mail is an important tool for faculty and staff at the university, college, department, and instructor levels. E-mail is a useful medium in the academic setting for corresponding at all levels. Instructors e-mail students about assignments, lectures, and urgent information: for example, postponed classes and changes in the schedule. In addition e-mail is used to let potential students know about job opportunities. Other routine uses for e-mail include group communications within academic committees and groups of students collaborating on projects. Most users of e-mail who send messages to multiple recipients enter each recipients e-mail address into the TO: field individually or enter the name and e-mail address into a distribution list individually. Both methods are time consuming. This thesis describes a tool for facilitating the use of e-mail for classroom management. This tool, List Maker converts class roll listings to e-mail distribution lists for five common e-mail clients: Pegasus Mail, Eudora Lite, Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Microsoft Outlook 97/98. List Maker also converts address books and distribution lists from one e-mail client to another. The List Maker program has been adopted for use in selected departments within ETSU. A survey of the programÆs users indicates that List Maker made it easier for users to create distribution list from class rolls. Efforts to distribute List Maker to other Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) colleges, unfortunately, have not yet succeeded due to a lack of uniform computing platforms and e-mail policies in the TBR.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, English Dept., 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

In Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter, extreme opposition is prevalent as the authors describe the makeup of each character, as well as the setting and plot in these novels. What are they accomplishing by portraying such opposition? By using Jacque Derrida’s deconstructive theory and Julia Kristeva’s definition of abjection as theoretical guides to navigate these novels, examples of how both authors use extreme opposition in each element of their works are cited and explored. Through this process, the realization that opposing extremes can harmoniously lie side by side and have as many similarities as differences is discovered. By the conclusion, the unifying quality that love plays in both novels, as well as the authors’ intents to change their readers traditional concept of love, is evident.