This is a book-length work of memoir/creative non-fiction focused around my father’s sudden death and the resulting effects, direct and indirect, on my family and myself. To borrow the disclaimer Maggie Nelson makes at the beginning of her book, The Red Parts: “This book is a memoir, which is to say that it relies on my memory and consists primarily of my personal interpretations of events and, where indicated, my imaginative recreation of them. Conversations and other events have been recreated to evoke the substance of what was said or what occurred, but are not intended to be perfect representations.”

“To the Creek” is a creative nonfiction work in which place and identity play integral roles. Following a series of family revelations, the narrator embarks on a rebuilding project both of herself and a 100-year-old corncrib, the only standing structure on a Kentucky farm she and her husband inherited a few years before. However, farm life isn’t a natural fit for a first generation Cuban American, so this work touches on identity as well. The corncrib’s new function as a retreat and writing space leads the writer to explore similar efforts by other writers to convert existing sheds into creative spaces, with particular emphasis on Virginia Woolf and Thomas Merton.

This is a collection of short stories derived from the author's experiences at the United States Naval Academy.

This dissertation analyzes concepts of the writing self in works about writing by professional creative writers (writers, poets, and essayists). Through a rhetorical analysis of these texts, I observe that writers view the writing self as a complex structure that is fully conscious as a rhetorical agent, an embodied self that interacts with the world and actively chooses linguistic representations of that experience, and maintains a concept of self that is subject to influences which the writers do not fully understand (such as inspiration and insight). The discourse used by writers to describe their writing processes challenges recent critiques of expressionism and the model of social construction that pervades contemporary composition scholarship. Chapter II examines Virginia Woolf's use of the central metaphor for invention in A Room of One's Own, a river, which sharply calls into question a unified view of the self which is central to critiques of expressivism by composition scholars. Woolf's concept of invention requires a negation of the self and harmony with nature (widely conceived as the entire world, including texts). Chapter III, an analysis of two writing memoirs by contemporary professional creative writers, Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and Donald Hall's Life Work, finds that Dillard and Hall use metaphors that establish freedom (rhetorical agency) and bodily presence as primary characteristics of their writing processes. Chapter IV, an analysis of two collections of essays about writing by professional creative writers, argues that the writers' use of metaphors of inspiration and instrumental metaphors creates a concept of the writing self that maintains a sense of writerly control (rhetorical agency) alternating with a sense of a diminished control; ultimately, the two concepts coexist in the minds of the writers. Chapter V proposes that the rhetorical situation of the contemporary composition classroom affects students' creativity adversely. The chapter also suggests further analyses of writing memoirs can provide new ways of understanding writing processes (as opposed to one writing process model) and therefore contribute substantially to composition scholarship and pedagogy.

This thesis consists of two parts: an autobiographical documentary film and a written exegesis. The film, My Lovers Both, is a record of two journeys back to my native South Africa wherein I confront aspects of my past. These two trips offer a means to explore a personal history around the experiences of immigration, displacement and exile. In the exegesis, I argue that autobiography is changing and rather than offering catalogues of public achievement, contemporary personal histories deal with sites of trauma and challenge dominant narratives of official memory. Likewise, the New Documentary is embracing fictional strategies and moving towards increased subjectivity and introspection. As a consequence, new forms are created that generate novel insights into causality and time. The exegesis goes on to examine the major influences on my work as a filmmaker and then articulates a reflective analysis of the creative process which produced My Lovers Both.

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS THE STRING OF 10,000 FIRECRACKERS by Jan Becker Florida International University, 2017 Miami, Florida Professor Les Standiford, Major Professor THE STRING OF 10,000 FIRECRACKERS is a collection of personal essays that examines the narrator’s upbringing as a Marine Corps brat, and her experience immigrating into civilian society in the United States after a childhood segregated behind barbed-wire on military bases. The collection begins with the title essay, when the narrator, at nine years-of-age, tosses an ignited string of 10,000 firecrackers at her stepfather, a decorated Vietnam veteran, triggering post-traumatic flashback, and a reflection on the author’s experience recovering traumatic amnesia. Intended to mimic the disjointed recall of trauma, the opening essay also serves to inform the subsequent essays in the collection, which take place between 1974 and 2014. Thematically, the collection explores: alienation from homeland and family, the diasporic nature of military life, the devastating effects of war, childhood sexual abuse, violence, death and grief, breaking the silence of long-held family secrets, and finding a place to call home.

abstract: This dissertation posits that a relationship between a feminist rhetorical pedagogical model and autobiographical theoretical tenets engage students in the personal writing process and introduce them to the ways that feminism can change the approach, analysis, and writing of autobiographical texts. Inadequate attention has been given to the ways that autobiographical theory and the use of non-fiction texts contribute to a feminist pedagogy in upper-level writing classrooms. This dissertation corrects that by focusing on food memoirs as vehicles in a feminist pedagogical writing course. Strands of both feminist and autobiographical theory prioritize performativity, positionality, and relationality (Smith and Watson 214) as dynamic components of identity construction and thus become frames through which this class was taught and studied. I theorize these “enabling concepts” (Smith and Watson 217) as identity pathways that lead to articulation of identity and experience in written work. This study posits that Royster and Kirsch’s four feminist rhetorical practices— Critical Imagination, Social Circulation, Strategic Contemplation, and Globalizing Point of View (19)—taken together offer a model for instruction geared to help learners chart identity pathways in the context of one semester of their undergraduate rhetorical education. This model is operationalized through a writing classroom that focused on feminist ideals, using a food memoir, The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber, as the vehicle of inquiry. This study offers a starting point for analysis of food memoirs in university writing classrooms by focusing specifically on the ways that students understood and applied the framework, model, and vehicle of the study. This dissertation prioritizes the composition and valuing of individual and communal lived experiences expressed through the articulation of identity pathways. Teachers and scholars can use the knowledge and takeaways gained in the study to better support and advocate for the inclusion of the students lived experiences in writing classrooms and pedagogy. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / The objective of this work is to know as the received formation of the Rural Normal School of Juazeiro - ENRJ contributed to the conquest of e mancipation spaces for former-students in your life paths, to identify educational and cultural practices used, that they can illuminate the process of education of the present generations contributing to the elaboration of public politics. For this end the period from 1934 to 1973 , was focused time during which the project of rural teachers' formation was executed. The research of qualitative nature was developed in the descriptive and explanatory levels as study of partner-anthropological and historical character, in an approach fenomenolÃgical in the perspective of the etnometodologia. The subject of the research were teachers formed by ENRJ. In the execution of the field work they were picked through interviews semi-structured five reports histories of former-students' life formed in the years of 1938, 1942, 1950 and 1959, narrating memoirs of your existences in the family, ranches, city, school and professional practices, the ones which, as results of the research they were analyzed in response to the central question that relates Formation and emancipation. Sources of other natures were used as : school registrations, speeches of authorities, teachers and students, and the source hemerogrÃfica. In the theoretical-methodological course the oralidade is detached as important research source. It is placed, for this middle, in the pulp of the from Cearà education nal history of middles of the Century XX, the woman, the educator, the teacher elementary school teacher, your formation ruralist in Juazeiro of the North and the subject of your emancipation for the education and for the work. / O objetivo principal deste trabalho à conhecer como a formaÃÃo recebida da Escola Normal Rural de Juazeiro - ENRJ contribuiu para a conquista de espaÃos de emancipaÃÃo por ex-alunas nas suas trajetÃrias de vida, para identificar prÃticas educativas e culturais usadas, que possam iluminar o processo de educaÃÃo das geraÃÃes presentes contribuindo para a elaboraÃÃo de polÃticas pÃblicas. Para este fim foi enfocado o perÃodo de 1934 a 1973, tempo durante o qual foi executado o projeto de formaÃÃo de professores rurais. A pesquisa de natureza qualitativa foi desenvolvida nos nÃveis descritivo e explicativo como estudo de carÃter sÃcio-antropolÃgico e histÃrico, numa abordagem fenomenolÃgica na perspectiva da etnometodologia. Os sujeitos da pesquisa foram professoras formadas pela ENRJ. Na execuÃÃo do trabalho de campo foram colhidas atravÃs de entrevistas semi-estruturadas quatro relatos histÃrias de vida de ex-alunas formadas nos anos de 1938, 1942, 1950 e 1959, e, cinco depoimentos de ex-alunas, gravados do arquivo da Sala de MemÃria AmÃlia Xavier de Oliveira, datada de 2009, narrando memÃrias de suas vivÃncias na famÃlia, escola, sÃtios, cidades, e prÃticas profissionais, os quais, como resultados da pesquisa foram analisados para resposta à pergunta central que relaciona formaÃÃo e emancipaÃÃo. Foram usadas fontes de outras naturezas como: registros escolares, discursos de autoridades, professores e alunos, e a fonte hemerogrÃfica. No percurso teÃrico-metodolÃgico a oralidade à destacada como importante fonte de pesquisa. Coloca-se, por este meio, no Ãmago da histÃria educacional cearense de meados do SÃculo XX, a mulher, a educadora, a professora normalista, sua formaÃÃo ruralista em Juazeiro do Norte e a questÃo da sua emancipaÃÃo pela educaÃÃo e pelo trabalho.

HUNGER: ESSAYS is a collection of lyric essays that present the coming-of-age story of a young woman growing up in a Panamanian family where identity is defined by patriarchal notions of femininity (e.g., physical appearances) and economically-oriented career aspirations. In an attempt to fit into this family rather than explore her difference, the narrator undergoes psychological trauma that results in anorexia during her young adulthood. As she works towards healing, the narrator grapples with Western dichotomies of body and mind in an effort to become a more integrated self.

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