<p>Grant Morrison?s comics series The Invisibles invites the reader to explore the functioning of narrative gaps and the ways in which comics uniquely utilize them. The invisible territory of gaps within the narrative structure is, to the main characters in The Invisibles, the territory where text and image, where mere appearances, become a transgressive reality, a pushing of reality beyond itself. Such breaks are expressed as those within the structure of reality, but more fundamentally they reveal breaks in psychological structuration, in the system of symbols, in signs by which human reality is held together and manifested as such. This study seeks to show these gaps specifically as they function on conveying an experience to the reader through the involvement they bring. The psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan represent an instrumental framework to understanding both this psychological break Morrison expresses and the functioning of comics? invisible territory in involving the reader experientially, its ability to translate extreme psychological experiences directly to the reader. Here, what the text shows is not a reaching into a transcendental identity, nor an achievement of plentitude and resolution?there is no reconciliation to oneself as oneself given. Instead of providing a traditional view of balance and ?seeing things rightly,? there is the break, the uncharming intrusion, the trauma that needs to be faced, addressed, and assumed. This study, then, explores the act of constantly passing through and assuming the irreconcilable breaks the series shows in the reader?s reality

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<p> Simply stated, steampunk literature is a hybrid genre of allohistory in steam-based science fiction that analyzes the restrictions and marginalizations found in the social issues of the Victorian period. This dissertation argues the allohistoric reconstructions in young adult steampunk didactically suggest that the power to change the future is in the hands of the individual who is able to personally alter the restrictions placed upon him or her by the social ideals of the Victorian period. In other words, protagonists of young adult steampunk consciously act against the restrictions of their past in order to create a different future for themselves, and hopefully others. The dissertation is divided into two distinct sections: the first examines how history and allohistory are presented within all types of children's and young adult literature; the second presents the ways in which steampunk elements found in allohistory interact with the presentation of factual historical social concepts while interacting with the past, present, and future. Furthermore, this dissertation argues that steampunk illustrates the effects each part of history (the past, present, and future) has on itself, so that one cannot be separated from the other, as demonstrated in Scott Westerfeld's <i> Leviathan</i> trilogy (2009&ndash;2011), Philip Pullman's <i>His Dark Materials</i> (1995&ndash;2001), and Philip Reeve's <i>Predator Cities</i> quartet (2001&ndash;2006). Finally, this dissertation argues that steampunk maintains that history is not doomed to repeat itself if the present takes note of the restrictions of the past and applies them towards changing the future. In doing so, this dissertation helps to relieve an obvious gap in literary steampunk criticism while defining the ways steampunk fits within the children's and young adult literary landscape.</p>

abstract: That Would Only Be the Beginning of Eternity is a short novel spanning four days in the life of Dominic Adler: a sarcastic, cocaine-addled young man who lives in New York and sells advertising space. It explores the tension between past and present and the inevitability of miscommunication. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.F.A. Creative Writing 2014

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