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In her MFA thesis “My Body Is a Question Mark Lit from Within,” Lisa Marie Schrad explores through poetry the body and its different appetites—hunger for justice, for healing, for God, for home, for wonder. Along the way, the poems also make clear that the path toward fullness and satisfaction must inevitably pass through a deep, brave commitment to knowing the full truth about ourselves. When a light shines out from inside the body, what shortcomings are exposed? What goodness is revealed? And how do we live in the world responsibly, kindly, from the space in-between our questions and their answers? In addition to these themes, Schrad offers an introduction on her understanding of poetics and reflects on what drew her to poetry even as a child.

<p>This dissertation is a critical examination of the fictional works of G.S. Lewis, focussing upon the concepts of reality, truth and perspective as they are expressed in the fiction. The discussion follows the narrative of each work in turn, thus orienting the reader by means of the works themselves, rather than by means of rubrics concerning their subjects or themes. The intent is to follow Lewis's precept, that the good reader should attend to any work of literature as something made as well as something said. The introduction surveys the development of Lewis's thought on the nature of reality and truth, and of the role of the imagination and the reason in apprehending these things. Evidence from Lewis's letters (including unpublished letters), essays, apologetics, addresses and autobiography is considered. A survey of the major criticism of Lewis's fiction is included in the introduction. A chapter of analytical discussion is then devoted to each of the books of the Ransom trilogy, to the Chronicles of Narnia as a series, and to Till We Rave Faces. </p> <p> Lewis came to believe in the existence of an ultimate, central Reality in the person of God, ln whom all lesser realities focus, and from whom they depend. He believed also in man's ability to perceive truth -- valid asssrtions concerning these realities -through the exercise of the reason, and adherence to the moral law. Mythopoeic and symbolic literature had, in Lewis's estimation, the unique ability to convey reality whole into the mind of the receptive reader. The concentration of this kind of literature upon unusual and unexpected subjects, he believed, could serve to correct the reader's perspective upon reality, by furnishing the imagination with those materials which the implicit materialism and naturalism of much of modern "realistic" literature might have kept from the reader's consideration. Lewis's own fantasies -- a science-fiction trilogy, seven fairy-tales, and a novel based on the old myth of Cupid and Psyche -- are unified by their preoccupation with the importance of an undistorted perspective upon reality, the possibility of perceiving truth, and of distinguishing truth from error, of the dependence of all reality upon an ultimate, central Reality, and of the possibility of knowing that Reality by entering into a personal relationship with God. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This paper argues that polyphony is built on the transaction between voices and experiential truths, where voice and experience constitute each other. From this perspective voice is associated with the plural, transformational character of moment-to-moment experience. This view differs from the prevalent appropriation of polyphony where voice expresses a relatively stable identity (e.g. Hazen 1993) such that many voices (polyphony) may be reduced to many identities. The experiential understanding of polyphony is examined through close inspection of Bakhtin's contextualization of polyphony in carnival, a reading of his work that is largely missing from the organizational literature. This reading is further developed in the context of talk about teamwork in a large healthcare organization. Analysis of this talk reveals three different types of discursive truths that create different kinds of identities and different kinds of possibilities for organizational change: the public, teleological truths of epic discourse; the intimate truths of confession and irony; and the contested truths of the argument and what Bakhtin (1984) calls the microdialogue (or inner conversations with ourselves).

Almost every New England town with colonial roots has a manicured Main Street, or some thoroughfare that is meticulously cared for in attempt to preserve and display its history through its architecture. Buildings range in age from as old as the town to as new as yesterday. However, in most cases, Main Street is not a true reflection of the complete history of a town. After a certain point in time, it was no longer acceptable to build in a manner reflective of the current conditions. If a new building was to be erected, only eclectic adaptations of past styles were deemed suitable, to achieve scenographic coherence. Resultantly, any significant truth to Main Street's architecture ceased to develop. A true reflection of the actual societal institution as manifested through the architecture of the town was lost. It is this loss that I refer to as "truth". This thesis is about finding, and restoring, truth through the design of a new house on Main Street in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Glastonbury is a town full of colonial history, with more than 150 houses built before 1800, many of which exist on Main Street. The design for this house is not a direct condemnation of historic eclecticism; rather, it is an attempt to demonstrate how a house can be designed to reflect the true connection between time and place in the institution of "the house". The design acknowledges history through proportion, form, and scale, and it admits contemporary values through abstraction of details, use of materials, and organization of space. The product is a statement about how to design a house that comprehensively and truthfully reflects the spirit of its setting. / Master of Architecture

Much attention has been paid to the growing level of polarization at both the party level and within the American public, particularly since the late 1970's. Many scholars will either argue that elite polarization is representative of pre-existing, strongly felt political beliefs in the electorate, or that voters act on the basis of the elite cues they observe in politicians. Scholarship has been lacking, however, a microlevel analysis of the polarization of elite discourse, its motivations, and its effects on the American voter. This study quantifies the divergence in party discourse on particular issues through an analysis of published platforms and presidential candidate convention speeches. By employing Foucauldian theories of micropolitics and biopower, a qualitative case study, critical discourse analyses, and ANES polling data, this study finds that not only have the parties been deploying drastically diverging discourses on issues of biopolitical administration, but this also tends to engender political saliency on issues in which voters were not significantly concerned. There are certainly insidious implications for a representative system of government when parties utilize discourse to manufacture political opinions for their own self-interest. The data herein show that both parties have been guilty of such mobilization tactics within the last forty years. / Master of Arts / Even the most casual observer of the American political system will note the adversarial and polarized relationship between Republicans and Democrats. Rather than focusing on the general differences between the two parties, this project looks at how the language and dialogue of political elites affects the average American voter. What I found is that, as the two parties discussed certain issues more frequently and in distinct ways, these issues became increasingly important to the American electorate. In other words, politicians tell voters which issues are important to them through their choice of rhetoric. This is quite different than common assumptions of democratic societies where legislators merely represent the interests of their constituents, rather than manufacture them.

This study examines short stories from various Zimbabwe women writers and explores how these stories depict the socioeconomic and political status of women in postcolonial Zimbabwe. I argue that storytelling is truth-telling, as shown by the analysis of the stories. Through political consciousness and African feminism, the women writers use various shifting narrators as a strategy of presenting the ongoing struggles of corruption, domestic violence, mental health issues, HIV/ AIDS, rape, bad governance, and other ongoing struggles in Zimbabwe. Petina Gappah’s An Elegy of Easterly is a story collection that helps the reader to understand the social context in which women are oppressed and exploited in postcolonial Zimbabwe. Similarly, Irene Stauton’s Women Writing Zimbabwe, Tsitsi Nomsa Ngwenya’s The Fifty Rand Note and Other Short Stories, and Samantha Rumbidzai Vhazure’s Turquoise Dreams Anthology of Short Stories focus on fighting for women’s rights and human rights through writing. Political activists are silenced through persecutions and abductions, so to avoid such consequences, fiction is used for political activism. The sociocentric notion that women are only fighting against their oppression and exploitation is now outdated as 21st century women writers are also political analysts who are fighting bad governance and corruption, which means they are advocating for the society at large.