The poems in my thesis manuscript "Still the Girl" operate in a solar system of candy, social media and the American South. I use preconceived notions of pop culture, kitsch and cute to cut to the quick--nothing is quite as disarming as a poem about cordial cherries, until you and the speaker discover that "Cordial cherries are injected with the same digestive enzyme that's in saliva./While the cherry waits for you, it softens." Later, in the same poem, "Pretty Girl," the speaker thinks of the cordial cherries in her stomach while her lover chokes her: "Chocolate shell melts in my warm belly,/I fill with lolling red eyeballs, glowing roe." In my manuscript, I repurpose the cliché and build new imagery, hoping the combination of the familiar and unexpected create empathy and compassion for both speaker and reader and where the exposure of vulnerability is seen as an act of empowerment. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Spring Semester, 2014. / April 11, 2014. / Creative Writing, English, Poetry / Includes bibliographical references. / Virgilio Suarez, Professor Directing Thesis; Erin Belieu, Committee Member; James Kimbrell, Committee Member.

This dissertation presents a thorough, line-by-line commentary of Ovid's Heroides 5, 16, and 17 (Oenone to Paris, Paris to Helen, and Helen to Paris) with an eye towards assisting the 3rd year high-school student or 3rd semester college student in translating and appreciating the grammatical, poetic, and allusory skill of Ovid, while still providing substantial textual discussion that will appeal to more advanced scholars. The introduction explains the theoretical and practical considerations which shaped the commentary, which takes an in-depth view of each couplet presenting the Latin lines of the subject poems along with ad loc. discussions on grammar, syntax, allusion, intertextuality, poetic structure, and character psychology. Additionally, literal translations, tables of mythological references and stylistic devices, as well as a brief discussion on the dating and sources of these poems are included. Through this multi-faceted approach to examining these poems, the reader is able to gain greater understanding of the complexity inherent in these elegiac epistles. The introductions to each poem and the introduction to the entire dissertation are meant to provide readers insight into the psychological profiles of the characters in question, particularly where they fit into the meta-literary traditions of epic and tragedy from which they are plucked. Special attention is paid to how these characters have been shaped by their past literary lives as well as by their new-found elegiac surroundings. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2013. / October 3, 2013. / Heroides, Ovid / Includes bibliographical references. / John Kelsay, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lauren Weingarden, University Representative; George Boggs, Committee Member; Timothy Stover, Committee Member; Francois Dupuigrenet Desroussilles, Committee Member.

ABSTRACT My dissertation explores the complicated role of "illegitimacy" in shaping the thoughts of three contemporary Chinese diasporic writers (Hong Ying, Ha Jin, and Ma Jian) and two diasporic intellectuals (Rey Chow and Shih Shu-mei). Similar to an illegitimate person who can hardly become a full member of a family or community, a diasporan can never quite belong to a host society. I thus use illegitimacy to highlight a keen sense of crisis of the diasporic subject who feels that his/her sociopolitical existence and its articulation are challenged as being inauthentic and ungrounded due to his/her displacement from the native land. Despite their different backgrounds and outlooks, the several writers in my study have shared the same experience of struggling with the anxiety that I term illegitimacy, whether literally, figuratively, or a combination of both, which is reflected in, as well as informs, their literary and critical works. However, they all strive to resolve the issue of illegitimacy through the act of writing. They raise new questions, change perspectives, challenge conventional moralities as their literary and philosophical visions evolve. The issue of illegitimacy, as a driving force, motivates as well as restrains these writers in constructing their literary and academic careers. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2014. / May 7, 2014. / Cultural Identity, Diaspora, Identity Crisis, Illegitimacy / Includes bibliographical references. / Feng Lan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kathleen Erndl, University Representative; William Cloonan, Committee Member; Yanning Wang, Committee Member.

This study investigates the presence of some anachronistic "forms of woe" in 20th and 21st-century Gothic narratives, their roots in the 19th century and particularly in the Victorian Celebration of Death, and their function as part of an evolving symbolic language in a branch of Gothic characterized by its approach to death through a dynamic tension between unease and humor. In particular, this last tension -- a psychological dance between the grim and the absurd, between a strong emotion and its release, between incorporation of an unbearable reality and deflection of it -- allows contemporary American audiences in what has been termed a "death-denying" culture to approach and normalize death. The study incorporates a comparison between the cultural space allotted to death and mourning in the Victoria era and in 20th-century America, discussion of the suitability of the Gothic genre for a modern approach to the subject of death, and analysis of the work of Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, and the Haunted Mansion ride as examples of a particular subgenre of Gothic. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2012. / January 17, 2012. / Death, Edward Gorey, Gothic, Haunted Mansion, Tim Burton, Walt Disney / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Dissertation; William Cloonan, University Representative; Lauren Weingarden, Committee Member; Eric Walker, Committee Member.

This dissertation examines twentieth century Western scholarly, artistic, and journalistic perspectives on the Middle East. The Middle East has been a constant topic of research in academia throughout the centuries, in which Orientalism is one of the leading enterprises, studying and presenting the region though theoretical frameworks and influential ideologies. As Edward W. Said noted in Orientalism (1978), the common trend in this discipline is to show the purported binary, dichotomizing of the Islamic East and the Christian West, which is discernable through visual art forms and various literatures projecting the Eastern world as often exotic and dangerous. With its Eurocentric perspective, Orientalism's influence is evident in several other fields, perhaps most notably in media practices seen through assorted biased reportings. The callous evaluations and assessments of the Middle East are perpetuated in the productions of many scholars, correspondents, and photographers since the early post-WWII, when the area studies began taking on a new direction, renewed while changing hands from Britain to the U.S., where ideology and decision making have met. This dissertation focuses on three expert communicators, and investigates how the modern Middle East is presented in their works--the academic treatments of Bernard Lewis, the photojournalism of David Douglas Duncan, and the journalism of Sandra Mackey. Their contributions have been critical and, in a very real sense, have created the Western view of the Middle East, making them worthy subjects of close scrutinization. Examination of their conceptualizations of the region and their perspectives on Islam delineates how Middle East has been perceived, to what extent their position in presenting the situation on the ground have contributed to the world shaping decisions of the policy makers, which have often rested more on myth and nostalgia than the facts, and how they have served to influence the shaping of knowledge about the East in the West, particularly in the U.S. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer, 2012. / April 24, 2012. / Bernard Lewis, David Douglas Duncan, media representation, Middle East, Orientalism, Sandra Mackey / Includes bibliographical references. / Eugene Crook, Professor Directing Dissertation; David Johnson, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Delia Poey, University Representative; Daniel Vitkus, Committee Member; Will Hanley, Committee Member; Reinier Leushuis, Committee Member.

Based on primary and secondary sources that include declassified documents and eyewitness accounts, and using a theoretical approach informed by the works of Slavoj iek and Hannah Arendt, this thesis represents a profound examination of how the U.S. fights alleged terror. I argue that U.S. anticommunism strategies have metamorphosed into practices that characterize the so-called "War on Terror." I delineate U.S. counterterrorism tactics and strategies developed in Algeria to the Americas, to Vietnam and ultimately to the post-9/11 era. The thesis traces the dark side of policies developed during President George G. Bush counterterrorism efforts to President Barack Obama's secret wars in distant lands, one set of strategies and tactics violently, but seamlessly exceeding the other. I argue that the U.S., acting as an unrestrained empire, conducts an endless "War on Terror" that not only incites hate and anger around the world but that also provides an effective disguise to a systematic erosion of domestic civil liberties. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2012. / October 5, 2012. / Counterinsurgency, Counterterror / Includes bibliographical references. / Robinson A. Herrera, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Uzendoski, Committee Member; Alexander Aviña, Committee Member; Janet Dilling, Committee Member.

A canonical story is present in Baby of the Family (1989), Ugly Ways (1993), The Hand I Fan With (1996), You Know Better (2002), and Taking After Mudear (2007)--the five novels of contemporary author Tina McElroy Ansa. That narrative involves the African-American woman's quest for belonging in an increasingly complex twentieth and twenty-first century South. Additionally, that quest tends to include a coalescence of the sacred and secular, an aspect of African spirituality. The central aim of this study is to argue the importance of Ansa's novels being included in the conversation on the relation between current African-American women's fiction and African spirituality and in the canon of African-American literature. The rationale for this argument is Ansa is one of a few African-American authors, and authors in general, who are able to claim possession of a canonical narrative throughout their body of works. Furthermore, this study will assert that many of Ansa's themes/depictions compare to those of the African-American women writers who are presently embraced in the discussion of the juxtaposition between the spirit and material worlds in African-American women's fiction. This study is in conversation with Cheryl Wall and other theorists and researchers who offer an embracement of African spirituality as a survival mechanism for African-American women in patriarchal society. This study also addresses W. E.B. Dubois' idea of double consciousness and Homi Bhabha's third space. Finally, this study aims to contribute to that conversation by finding that Ansa's texts demand a rethinking of black female identity and the public and private spaces in which black women find themselves. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2011. / October 31, 2011. / African-American, ancestral communion, Ansa / Includes bibliographical references. / Maxine Montgomery, Professor Directing Dissertation; Maxine Jones, University Representative; David Johnson, Committee Member; Dennis Moore, Committee Member.

The dissertation studies the Chinese film censorship after the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and its impacts on Chinese cinema. I propose a new definition for censorship by arguing that censorship, as an integral part of hegemony, rules art works not only by repressing, but also by producing its own discourse that influences the authors, artworks and the public opinions. Based on the new definition, I study the scope, efficacy, mechanism of censorship and its impact on the subject being censored. Then the dissertation reviews the changes in Chinese film censorship after the Cultural Revolution. I argue that the Chinese film censorship after 1976 undertakes a new task of defending the CCP's ideological governance and ensuring the development of Chinese film industry. The censorship's new objective determines the outlook of Chinese cinema. After that, the dissertation examines the impact of Chinese film censorship on Chinese cinema with three case studies, including films concerning politically sensitive topics, the state sponsored leitmotif film and the entertainment film exemplified by the Chinese wuxia, or the action film. In the concluding chapter, the dissertation predicts the future direction of Chinese film censorship by analyzing some of the latest changes in Chinese film industry. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / April 27, 2012. / censorship, china, hegemony, repression, the Cultural Revolution / Includes bibliographical references. / Feng Lan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Sumner Twiss, University Representative; William Cloonan, Committee Member; Linda Saladin-Adams, Committee Member.

Chick-Lit is a fairly young literary genre that is widely popular among female readers and holds an important place within the publishing industry. For this reason, I have chosen Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary, Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City (three culturally significant Chick franchises) to approach said genre from a critical perspective with the aim of exposing and challenging its primarily traditional, conservative content. The present work will examine the perpetuation of such oppressive ideologies as patriarchy and heteronormativity in the aforementioned Chick texts while also challenging their equation of femininity with commodity consumption, childbearing, and ditziness. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2011. / October 24, 2011. / Chick-Flick, Chick-Lit, Gender, Woman / Includes bibliographical references. / Celia Daileader, Professor Directing Dissertation; Delia Poey, University Representative; Leigh Edwards, Committee Member; Donna M. Nudd, Committee Member.

In this dissertation, I investigate the representations of Saladin in English textual representations from the medieval period to the present, beginning with the romance, King Richard in the fourteenth-century codex, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates 19.2.1, the Auchinleck Manuscript, and continuing to Kingdom of Heaven, a modern Hollywood film. Representations of Saladin are key to helping us understand how the Muslim is characterized in Western popular culture, and how, in contemporary times, those depictions might influence public policy. I argue that American views of Islam are a cultural legacy from Britain due, not only to common language, but also because of the United States' role as a former colony of Great Britain. The representations of Islam as a spiritual and economic threat--through one of its central figures--have a long history and continue to persist because, despite an increasingly global culture, the West has failed to resolve a relationship with Muslim countries that is not dependent upon a binary of superiority and inferiority, of power and opposition. The figure of Saladin has become cultural shorthand in both the East and West for a vision of a region unified by Islam and antagonistic towards the Christian Other. / A Dissertation submitted to the Interdisciplinary Program in the Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2011. / July 5, 2011. / Auchinleck, King Richard, Mark Twain, Piracy, Saladin, Walter Scott / Includes bibliographical references. / Elaine Treharne, Professor Directing Dissertation; Peter Garretson, University Representative; David Johnson, Committee Member; Daniel J. Vitkus, Committee Member.