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This thesis examines occurrences of hypermasculinity in examples from the genre of comic book fiction, utilizing textual evidence to suggest the current collection has re-iterated the more negative hypermasculine components of their source material: comic books. In doing so, the thesis compares the present novels with the creative element of the PhD submission – This Is It – a novel which serves as a critique of the prevalence of hypermasculinity in heroic figures within comic book fiction. By analyzing the sociological reasons behind hypermasculinity, and its subsequent effects, this thesis aims to make apparent the danger inherent with the continued association of hypermasculinity and hero figures in a new medium such as comic book fiction. It will also argue that the development of such a form divergent from comic books allows scope for a deconstruction of the hypermasculine comic book hero.

This is the beginning of a historical novel set in 1960’s Little Rock, Arkansas. The main character, Elsie Robinson, is forced to come home from her life in New York because of the sudden death of her father. She stays to look after her mother. She then meets Freddie, a white man, who somehow feels completely comfortable in her black community. In a time when everything seems to be falling apart, Freddie is a beam of light. If only their relationship weren’t illegal.

A contemporary novel spanning thirteen years in the lives of an Indiana family. A boy enters abusive relationships with men in the belief he does not deserve love, a woman abandons her only son because of her alcoholism, a gay father learns to navigate the line between his personal life and that of being a parent. A story in which a family learns to grow, to mature, to forgive their past mistakes and exorcise the demons that haunt them.

Friction, binding and notching are the factors that contribute to resistance to sliding during orthodontic tooth movement. However, most attempts at reducing resistance aim only to reduce the archwire/ligature friction. In this study, a novel bracket with a unique design aimed to reduce all three components of resistance to sliding. Four types of brackets (passive and active self-ligating, traditionally ligated and the novel bracket, (n=5, each) were tested at 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8ᵒ of tip on a 0.019 x 0.025”archwire. The resistance to sliding values were recorded. At 0ᵒ, the passive self-ligating and novel bracket showed reduced resistance when compared to the traditionally ligated bracket (P< 0.05). At the other angles of tip, no differences were observed among the brackets. These data suggest that the novel bracket could potentially decrease the resistance to sliding during orthodontic treatment and further studies are indicated to test the improved bracket design.

Paenibacillus velaei, sp. nov. is a soil bacterium capable of producing an unusually large amount of exopolysaccharide (EPS). The EPS contains glucose, mannose, galactose and fucose in a molar ratio of 4:2:1:1. The molecular weight of the EPS is higher than 2x106. The viscosity of 1% EPS is 1300 cP when measured at a shear rate of 1 sec-1. Physiological parameters for optimal production of the EPS were studied and it was found that 1.4 g dry weight per 1 l of medium was produced when the bacteria were grown at 30EC and the pH adjusted at 7± 0.2 in a medium containing glucose as the carbon source. Growing the bacteria on different carbon sources did not alter the quantity or the composition of the EPS produced. No toxicity effects were observed in mice or rats when EPS was administered in amounts ranging from 20 to 200 mg per kg body weight. The data obtained from physical, chemical and biological properties suggest that the EPS may be employed in several industrial and environmental applications. It is an excellent emulsifier, it holds 100 times its own weight in water, it is not toxic, and it can be used to remove mercury, cadmium and lead from aqueous solutions.

This thesis aims to introduce the Italian writer Grazia Deledda and analyze her three Sardinian novels: La via del male (The way of evil), Elias Portolu (Elias Portolu) and Canne al vento (Reeds in the Wind). At the beginning, I briefly summarize the sociographic situation of the island of Sardinia in the middle of the 19th century as it had considerable influence on the author and her writings. I also include the bio-bibliographical section, which chronologically portrays Deledda's personal life and her literary works. The central themes of her works are passion, sin and their subsequent atonement. The protagonists suffer especially in the depths of their hearts and dialogue and struggle with their conscience. Lyrical descriptions of the land are also a distinguishing feature of Deledda's writing, together with portrayal of local traditions and customs with the occasional inserted text with Sardinian words, specifically the writer's Nuoro dialect. Finally, I try to compare all three works and attempt to locate their constant and variable features and gain insight into the female characters within Sardinian communities. In the appendix, I review the reception of Deledda in the Czech speaking lands and include a brief history of the island and Deledda's personal photos.

This study explores how subjectivity has been represented in a selection of Sorani Kurdish novels from Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan that were published in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Due to the statelessness and suffering of the Kurds caused by the political and cultural oppression, the first Sorani Kurdish novel emerged as late as 1961 and yet only established itself towards the end of the century. Within such an acute context, the novel became a tool in the hands of Kurdish authors which they utilised to preserve and promote Kurdish identity, culture and language. With the establishment of cultural centres and publishing houses in diaspora during the 1980s, the establishment of a quasi-independent Kurdish region in Iraq in 1991, and the Iranian government’s easing of publication in Kurdish by the mid-1980, the Sorani Kurdish novelists seized the opportunity to redefine the relationship between political commitment and aesthetics and to consider the possibilities for an analysis of different forms of subjectivity. All the twenty-first century Sorani Kurdish novels examined in this research have discarded, to one degree or another, the realist mode of writing which dominated the Sorani Kurdish novel until the early 1990s. That is, experimentation with new modes of writing and narrative techniques are the common feature of the novels examined here. By carrying out a close reading within a contextual framework and by drawing on Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s theory of the novel, narratology, and theories of subjectivity, this study intends to illustrate the newly emergent modes of wriring and discourses in selected twenty-first century Sorani novels and their implications for the representation of reality and subjectivity. This study demonstrates that the Kurdish novelists from both Iraq and Iran all focus their attention on recent events, relevant to each region, and how they changed the ways subjectivity could be imagined and depicted. The more modernist and postmodernist in form and narration the selected novels are, the more fragmented and passive subjectivity is; and the society that is represented in these novels appears to have separated from its high values and ideals.

Master of Arts / Department of English / Daniel A. Hoyt / This project is the opening chapters of a novel in which two brothers, Txanton and Riddley, are split from each other in post-apocalyptic Kansas. The Commune of Eternal Light has been their family’s peaceful home for more than a hundred years but is crushed by a fascist army that considers killing the only way to survive in civilization’s aftermath. In this destruction, Txanton sees his father’s murder, while Riddley watches his mother’s death. After the separation, Txanton, along with several other boys from the Commune, becomes part of the very army that destroyed his family, and he is visited by the ghost of his great-great grandfather who begins telling his personal story along with the tale of the downfall of the world. Riddley, meanwhile, wanders a picaresque path in which he sees cannibals, zombies, witches, a cowboy, and other ghosts. Both boys struggle with the brutality of the wasteland they are thrust into and try to cope with the memories of their peaceful home and the deaths of their family and friends. Told in chapters that jump back-and-forth between the two brothers, the novel parallels their challenges in a close third-person narrative.

Master of Arts / Department of English / Daniel A. Hoyt / This project is the first three chapters of a young adult novel, The Muses. Lily Bellows is singled out in infancy to become one of the Muses, humans given supernatural powers through enchanted golden masks. The six Muses (Faith, Wisdom, Pride, Obedience, Courage, and Desire) are telepathically linked to Illyria’s king so that he is better able to manage his emotions and thus rule more efficiently. Lily is destined to be the Muse of Faith, but her parents fake her death and keep her abilities secret until she heals her village of a deadly plague and the Muses consequently return for her. As Lily struggles to master fighting arts, healing skills, and the ability to manipulate emotions, she must also befriend the moody Prince Connor who will one day share her consciousness, and she must untangle the complicated feelings she has for Connor’s illegitimate brother, Ronan. While Lily’s fellow Muse initiates have been training since infancy, Lily joins them as a teenager, and she finds it nearly impossible to give up her family, her dreams and her individuality so she can make Prince Connor into a better king. When she has the chance to break the oath she swore to serve her country as its Muse of Faith, she must choose between power and individuality and determine whether she must submit to her destiny or create her own.