This thesis explores questions of national identity in American and British fiction in the 20th- and early 21st-century. To allow for a project focused on reading a vast array of texts, I implemented a non-traditional thesis format that focused on taking exams. My final product contains an introduction that details the parameters for the project and offers conclusions on my findings and corrections of my essays, the exam essays themselves including a revision, a detailed annotated bibliography of each primary and secondary work studied, as well as an appendix with the reading lists and the original request to try a non-traditional thesis.
My readings in the American Literature list point to an opening up of our definition of "American Literature" to include historically silenced voices and contemporary minority voices. At the intersections of culture that happen all over the country, literature dealing with identity and journeys into acceptance abound. My British Literature list leads to a similar yet historically more complicated solution. Writers have expressed the increasingly divided British society (in the United Kingdom and all over the globe) by employing new aesthetic modes that both respond to the past and point to the future.
By engaging both American and British perspectives, this project also serves as an example of transatlantic scholarship, not simply looking at one through the eyes of the other, but recognizing the interrelatedness historically and culturally of the two identities. The boundaries between the two identities, as well as shifting aesthetic and literary traditions, provide the context for this project.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-05042012-133316 |
| Date | 04 May 2012 |
| Creators | Clarke, Josiah |
| Contributors | Sarah Robbins, Karen Steele |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/msword |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-05042012-133316/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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