Current Search: american literature (x)
View All Items
- Title
- "TRULY AN AWESOME SPECTACLE": GENDER PERFORMATIVITY AND THE ALIENATION EFFECT IN ANGELS IN AMERICA.
- Creator
-
Gorney, Allen, Campbell, James, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Tony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America uses stereotypical depictions of gay men to deconstruct traditional gender dichotomies. In this thesis, I argue that Kushner has created a continuum of gender performativity to deconstruct these traditional gender dichotomies, thereby empowering the effeminate and disempowering the masculine. I closely examine Kushner's use of Brechtian and Aristotelian tenets in the first Broadway production of the play to demonstrate that Kushner sought to...
Show moreTony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America uses stereotypical depictions of gay men to deconstruct traditional gender dichotomies. In this thesis, I argue that Kushner has created a continuum of gender performativity to deconstruct these traditional gender dichotomies, thereby empowering the effeminate and disempowering the masculine. I closely examine Kushner's use of Brechtian and Aristotelian tenets in the first Broadway production of the play to demonstrate that Kushner sought to induce social awareness of gay male oppression, contingent on the audience's perception of Kushner's deconstruction of the traditional gender dichotomy. I also scrutinize the role of the closet and its implications in the play, primarily analyzed with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theoretical framework, suggesting Kushner's partiality to openly gay men who can actively participate in the cessation of gay male oppression.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- CFE0000901, ucf:46731
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000901
- Title
- "A Laudable Ambition Fired Her Soul": Conduct Fiction Helps Define Republican Womanhood, Community, and Education in the Works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Rowson.
- Creator
-
Workman, Jessica, Logan, Lisa, Kamrath, Mark, Oliver, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This study examines the major works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Haswell Rowson, three major writers of the 1790s whose writing responds to the ideologies of the early American Republic. I suggest that Murray, Foster, and Rowson write conduct fiction which responds to the changing attitudes toward women and education after the American Revolution. Using fiction, these authors comment on the republican woman, the need for women's education, and the necessity for...
Show moreThis study examines the major works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Haswell Rowson, three major writers of the 1790s whose writing responds to the ideologies of the early American Republic. I suggest that Murray, Foster, and Rowson write conduct fiction which responds to the changing attitudes toward women and education after the American Revolution. Using fiction, these authors comment on the republican woman, the need for women's education, and the necessity for women to gather in communities for support. Despite the prevailing notion that reading too many novels would corrupt young women, Judith Sargent Murray's novella, The Story of Margaretta (1786), Hannah Webster Foster's novels, The Coquette (1797) and The Boarding School (1798), and Susanna Rowson's novels, Charlotte Temple (1794) and Reuben and Rachel; or, Tales of Old Times (1798), were some of the most popular books in the late eighteenth century. If these novels were not meant to be read by young women, who were the authors' primary audience, why were they so popular? This project situates these questions in the political environment the authors were writing in to show that a relationship exists between what women were reading and how authors of conduct fiction helped facilitate the changing roles of women in the early Republic.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0004180, ucf:49039
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004180
- Title
- AN INTERSECTIONAL COMPARISON OF FEMALE AGENCY IN TONI MORRISON'S SULA AND WANG ANYI'S SONG OF EVERLASTING SORROW.
- Creator
-
Lynton, Jordan, Bell, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The opportunities created by the end of the Mao Era and legislature promoting the rights of African Americans and women in the mid-twentieth century allowed women of both cultures to break further into the literary scene and negotiate their own sense of agency through their work. Although Western feminism also grew rapidly throughout this period, its ethnocentric centering of gender prevented it from being a reliable lens with which to analyze the work of Chinese and African American women...
Show moreThe opportunities created by the end of the Mao Era and legislature promoting the rights of African Americans and women in the mid-twentieth century allowed women of both cultures to break further into the literary scene and negotiate their own sense of agency through their work. Although Western feminism also grew rapidly throughout this period, its ethnocentric centering of gender prevented it from being a reliable lens with which to analyze the work of Chinese and African American women who experienced issues of race, class, and gender simultaneously. This caused Western feminists to evaluate the work of Chinese and African American women from a perspective of privilege and misrepresented the cultural, social, and political influences that impacted their agency. Thus, this paper seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the intersectional paradigm as a comparative lens with which to analyze the construction of female characters in mid-twentieth century Chinese and African American fiction in place of a Western feminist lens. To this effect, it will apply the intersectional lens to Toni Morrison's Sula (1973) and Wang Anyi's Song of Everlasting Sorrow (2008) specifically, to determine how this research paradigm can be used to reveal the identities the female protagonists construct and their opportunities for agency. This paper hopes to increase discourse on the applications of intersectionality in literature as a tool for better understanding the literature of women of color.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFH0004436, ucf:45124
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004436
- Title
- ESTHER REED'S POLITICAL SENTIMENTS AND RHETORIC DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
- Creator
-
Harkins, Kennedy, Kamrath, Mark, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In 1780, during the final leg of the American Revolutionary War, Esther Reed penned the broadside "Sentiments of an American Woman." It circulated in Philadelphia, persuading citizens to turn over their last dollars to the cause. Reed's broadside called to action the women of Philadelphia; they knocked on doors, campaigned with words, and stepped firmly into the "man's world" of politics and revolution. Reed's words were so effective that women in cities across the colonies took to raising...
Show moreIn 1780, during the final leg of the American Revolutionary War, Esther Reed penned the broadside "Sentiments of an American Woman." It circulated in Philadelphia, persuading citizens to turn over their last dollars to the cause. Reed's broadside called to action the women of Philadelphia; they knocked on doors, campaigned with words, and stepped firmly into the "man's world" of politics and revolution. Reed's words were so effective that women in cities across the colonies took to raising money as well. Using New Historicist and feminist reading strategies, this study compares and contrasts Reed's rhetoric to Thomas Paine's Common Sense, another revolutionary propaganda piece of the era. I argue that the two pieces differ in key aspects due to Paine's existence in the public sphere and Reed's in the private. From her position in the private sphere, Reed was able to produce a provocative piece of rhetoric that stands out against other female literature at the time.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFH2000323, ucf:45712
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000323
- Title
- REVIEW OF INSTRUMENTS TO MEASURE BREASTFEEDING BELIEFS AND INTENT AMONG NULLIPAROUS BLACK COLLEGE WOMEN.
- Creator
-
Eunice, Jaime, Waldrop, Julee, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
United States breastfeeding rates are below Healthy People 2020 national goals, with African American women at the lowest rates. According to the theory of planned behavior, intention is a strong determinant of actual behavior. The purpose of this review is to uncover how researchers can best measure attributes that influence the intention to breast feed in the African American college aged population of nulliparous women. Tools to measure breastfeeding knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, cultural...
Show moreUnited States breastfeeding rates are below Healthy People 2020 national goals, with African American women at the lowest rates. According to the theory of planned behavior, intention is a strong determinant of actual behavior. The purpose of this review is to uncover how researchers can best measure attributes that influence the intention to breast feed in the African American college aged population of nulliparous women. Tools to measure breastfeeding knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, cultural and social norms will be identified. Searches of health databases and Google Scholar located peer-reviewed journals using keywords such as Black, African American, instrument, female and student. The literature was searched and this review found that there are no published sources that specifically study the Black female college student population. However, numerous tools that have been used in research with other modern, Western university students groups may also be used with this population. Factors determined to be important to intention included exposure, knowledge, individual attitudes toward breastfeeding, with a focus on psychosocial embarrassment and social norms. The findingssupport researchers by suggesting future interventions, and development of tools that can be used to measure effectiveness.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFH0004074, ucf:44800
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004074
- Title
- A Systematic Review of Research on Successful African American Students in Mathematics: Implications for Seminole High School.
- Creator
-
Vong, Trung, Boote, David, Vitale, Thomas, Robinson, Edward, Hayes, Grant, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The purpose of this study was to synthesize the counter-narratives of mathematically successful African American students. The gap in educational achievement between African American and White students is well documented in the United States, especially in mathematics education. Although Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores have increased for both groups at Seminole High School, the gap has remained over 30% for nearly a decade. Most research on this topic has focused on the reasons...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to synthesize the counter-narratives of mathematically successful African American students. The gap in educational achievement between African American and White students is well documented in the United States, especially in mathematics education. Although Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores have increased for both groups at Seminole High School, the gap has remained over 30% for nearly a decade. Most research on this topic has focused on the reasons why African American students fail to achieve. Various individual, social, and organizational factors have been suggested. However, a growing body of research has highlighted the stories of mathematically successful African American students.Using best evidence review methods, an exhaustive review of the literature identified 22 research articles published between 2004 and 2013. All studies collected interview data with mathematically successful African American middle school, high school, and higher education students in the United States. Meta-synthesis was used to synthesize findings across studies. Among the 151 participants across 22 studies, six common experiences were identified as contributing to students' mathematical success: supportive teachers, supportive family, supportive peers, a strong mathematics identity, ability to deal with racial stereotype, and supportive organizations. Most importantly, this meta-synthesis highlights the tendency of prior research to focus on de-contextualized factors rather than understanding students holistically within their broader social and community environment. Insights from this study lead to several recommendations for improving mathematics education for African American students at Seminole High School and for suggested future research on this topic.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005438, ucf:50387
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005438
- Title
- Harvesting the Seeds of Early American Human and Nonhuman Animal Relationships in William Bartram's Travels, The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist, and Sarah Trimmer's Fabulous Histories.
- Creator
-
Vives, Leslie, Logan, Lisa, Murphy, Patrick, Kamrath, Mark, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis uses ecofeminist and human-animal studies lenses to explore human animal and nonhuman animal relations in early America. Most ecocritical studies of American literature begin with nineteenth-century writers. This project, however, suggests that drawing on ecofeminist theories with a human-animal studies approach sheds light on eighteenth-century texts as well. Early American naturalist travel writing offers a site replete with human and nonhuman encounters. Specifically,...
Show moreThis thesis uses ecofeminist and human-animal studies lenses to explore human animal and nonhuman animal relations in early America. Most ecocritical studies of American literature begin with nineteenth-century writers. This project, however, suggests that drawing on ecofeminist theories with a human-animal studies approach sheds light on eighteenth-century texts as well. Early American naturalist travel writing offers a site replete with human and nonhuman encounters. Specifically, naturalist William Bartram's travel journal features interactions with animals in the southern colonial American frontier. Amateur naturalist Elizabeth House Trist's travel diary includes interactions with frontier and domestic animals. Sarah Trimmer's Fabulous Histories, a conduct manual that taught children acceptable behavior towards animals, provides insight about the social regulation of human and nonhuman relationships during the late eighteenth century, when Bartram and Trist wrote their texts. This thesis identifies and analyzes textual sites that blur the human subject/and animal object distinction and raise questions about the representation of animals as objects. This project focuses on the subtle discursive subversions of early Euroamerican naturalist science present in Bartram's Travels (1791) and the blurring of human/animal boundaries in Trist's Travel Diary (1783-84); Trimmer's Fabulous Histories (1794) further complicates the Euroamerican discourse of animals as curiosities. These texts form part of a larger but overlooked discourse in early British America that anticipated more well-known and nonhuman-centric texts in the burgeoning early nineteenth-century American animal rights movement. ?
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFE0004451, ucf:49329
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004451
- Title
- Bluegrass, Blueprints, and Bildung: The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come as an Appalachian Bildungsroman.
- Creator
-
Shoemaker, Leona, Meehan, Kevin, Campbell, James, Jones, Donald, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come takes as its backdrop the American Civil War, as the author, John Fox, Jr., champions Kentucky's social development during the Progressive Era. Although often criticized for capitalizing on his propagation of regional stereotypes, I argue that the structure of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come is much more problematic than that. Recognizing the Bildungsroman as a vehicle for cultural and social critique in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century...
Show moreThe Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come takes as its backdrop the American Civil War, as the author, John Fox, Jr., champions Kentucky's social development during the Progressive Era. Although often criticized for capitalizing on his propagation of regional stereotypes, I argue that the structure of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come is much more problematic than that. Recognizing the Bildungsroman as a vehicle for cultural and social critique in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century writing, this project offers an in-depth literary analysis of John Fox, Jr.'s novel, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, in which I contend the story itself is, in fact, an impassioned account of human progress that juxtaposes civilized Bluegrass society and the degraded culture of the southern mountaineer. Indicative of the Progressive Era scientific attitude toward social and cultural evolution, Fox creates a narrative that advances his theory of southern evolution in which southern mountaineers are directed away from their own culturally inferior notions of development and towards a sense of duty to adapt to the civility of Bluegrass culture.This study focuses briefly on defining the Bildungsroman as a genre, from its eighteenth-century German origins to its influence on the American literary tradition. Beginning with Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, the Bildungsroman, in its most traditional form, narrates the development of the protagonist's mind and character from childhood to adulthood. Focus will be placed on how the Bildungsroman engages with literature's ability to facilitate the relationship between an individual and social development, as well as how easily the Bildungsroman lends itself to being appropriated and reconfigured. This study will then demonstrate how The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, Fox's local-color narrative, in its focus on the growth of the protagonist, Chad, as an allegory of the development of an Appalachian identity during the Progressive Era, might usefully be understood as an Appalachian Bildungsroman. While Chad, ultimately acquires the polished savoir faire of a skilled Bluegrass gentleman, the tensions between the southern mountaineers and the Bluegrass bourgeois makes his socialization into any one culture impossible, a situation illustrative of the disparity between Appalachia and the rest of America during the Progressive Era. By adapting the Bildungsroman to represent this historical situation, Fox's novel demonstrates the kind of conflict that furthered Appalachian difference as point of contention for the problematic ideals of social and cultural evolution, thus, indicating the need for reconciling Appalachia's marginal position.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0006002, ucf:51021
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006002
- Title
- The war and slavery, and their relations to each other : a discourse, delivered in the Old South Church, Reading, Mass., December 28, 1862.
- Creator
-
Barrows, W. (William)
- Description
- This pamphlet is a discourse delivered by Reverend William Barrows about the relations between the War and Slavery. The pamphlet is a second edition and, as noted on the title page, was "published by request."
- Date Created
- 1863
- Identifier
- DP0010862, E449.B276 1863
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/DP0010862
- Title
- CUBAN JAM SESSIONS IN MINIATURE: A NOVEL IN TRACKS.
- Creator
-
Rincon, Diego, Rushin, Pat, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This is the collection of a novel, Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature: A Novel in Tracks, and an embedded short story, "Shred Me Like the Cheese You Use to Make Buñuelos." The novel tells the story of Palomino Mondragón, a Colombian mercenary who has arrived in New York after losing his leg to a mortar in Korea. Reclusive, obsessive and passionate, Palomino has reinvented himself as a mambo musician and has fallen in love with Etiwanda, a dancer at the nightclub in which he plays-...
Show moreThis is the collection of a novel, Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature: A Novel in Tracks, and an embedded short story, "Shred Me Like the Cheese You Use to Make Buñuelos." The novel tells the story of Palomino Mondragón, a Colombian mercenary who has arrived in New York after losing his leg to a mortar in Korea. Reclusive, obsessive and passionate, Palomino has reinvented himself as a mambo musician and has fallen in love with Etiwanda, a dancer at the nightclub in which he plays--but he cannot bring himself to declare his love to her. His life changes when he is deported from the United States at the height of the Cuban Missile crisis without having declared his love. Through the thirty years chronicled in the novel, Palomino does all possible in his quest to return to the United States to find Etiwanda despite the fact that he knows she has grown to be a fantasy, an obsession of his imagination. Palomino's quest takes him to the United States and back three times, as he becomes more and more desperate, as he becomes involved with drug traffickers and for-hire murderers like Polo Norte, as he loses track of what it means to feel alive. Palomino is trapped in a tug-of-war between his rational desire for a normal existence and his irrational but inescapable longing for Etiwanda. In the end, his desperation to get to Etiwanda brings the underworld of Polo Norte to her doorstep. "Shred Me Like the Cheese You Use to Make Buñuelos" tells the story of Polo Norte, Palomino's antagonist, on his last day on earth, as he is followed by a writer who has agreed to watch him commit suicide. Together, the stories explore the history and nature of the Colombian Diaspora in the United States, and the violent circumstances surrounding the relationship between both countries and the migrants stuck in the middle of it.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002627, ucf:48202
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002627
- Title
- The Natural Exile: A Study Of Twenty-First Century Cuban-American Narratives Focusing On The Elderly's Plight.
- Creator
-
Parson, Jasmine, Milanes, Cecilia, Nwakanma, Obi, Logan, Lisa, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Developed from the similarity between exile theory and age studies, the term (")exile(") is expanded to a natural form of exile because of the shocking temporal shift that reconstructs social interaction, familial dynamics, and the aging body. Using Heidegger's theoretical work Being in Time, Simon de Beauvoir's The Coming of Age, and Jean Am(&)#233;ry's On Aging as insight, this literary analysis captures how the elderly protagonists Goyo from Cristina Garc(&)#237;a's King of Cuba, M(&)#225...
Show moreDeveloped from the similarity between exile theory and age studies, the term (")exile(") is expanded to a natural form of exile because of the shocking temporal shift that reconstructs social interaction, familial dynamics, and the aging body. Using Heidegger's theoretical work Being in Time, Simon de Beauvoir's The Coming of Age, and Jean Am(&)#233;ry's On Aging as insight, this literary analysis captures how the elderly protagonists Goyo from Cristina Garc(&)#237;a's King of Cuba, M(&)#225;ximo from Ana Men(&)#233;ndez's (")In Cuba I was a German Shepherd,(") and Soledad from Cecilia Rodr(&)#237;guez Milan(&)#233;s's (")Abuela Marielita(") experience a natural exile among society, their family and within their own body. These areas express how the elderly's sense of displacement equates that of a political/geographical exile.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007701, ucf:52432
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007701
- Title
- Uncle Ander's Floridy tales.
- Creator
-
Hall, Edna Garland, PALMM (Project)
- Abstract / Description
-
Humorous short stories written in dialect covering aspects of Florida life in the early 20th century.
- Date Issued
- 1930
- Identifier
- AAC3710QF00001/23/200703/12/200712482BnamI D0QF, FHP C CF 2007-01-23, FCLA url 20070306xOCLC, 85834644, CF00001731, 2700865, ucf:20148
- Format
- E-book
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/tc/fhp/CF00001731.jpg
- Title
- BITE ME: SADOMASOCHISTIC GENDER RELATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY VAMPIRE LITERATURE.
- Creator
-
Nathanson, Shelby, Oliver, Kathleen, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
While the term sadomasochism might conjure cursory images of whips, chains, and leather-clad fetishists, this thesis delves deeper into sadomasochistic theory to analyze dynamics of power and powerlessness represented by a chosen sample of literary relationships. Using two contemporary works of vampire literature�Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series�I examine how power is structured by and between male and female characters (and vampires and...
Show moreWhile the term sadomasochism might conjure cursory images of whips, chains, and leather-clad fetishists, this thesis delves deeper into sadomasochistic theory to analyze dynamics of power and powerlessness represented by a chosen sample of literary relationships. Using two contemporary works of vampire literature�Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series�I examine how power is structured by and between male and female characters (and vampires and humans), and particularly emphasize the patriarchal messages these works' regressive sexual politics engender. Psychoanalysis and feminist theory are employed to support my overarching argument following the gendered dynamics of male sadism and female masochism (and vampire sadism and human masochism), as this dyad reflects men's and women's "normalized" roles of power and powerlessness, respectively, in today's society. Sadomasochistic relationships as depicted in this literature are created through mutual contracts or, what I refer to as, sociocultural sadomasochism to reflect the gendered power imbalances inherent in patriarchy. By concluding with readers' responses to these franchises, this thesis further attempts to determine why such unequal and oppressive relationships are desirable. Since vampires as Gothic figures embody what specific cultures dread yet desire, this literature possesses frightening implications�gender roles are conservative and masculinity is privileged in fiction and, by extension, in twenty-first-century American culture.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFH0004548, ucf:45204
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004548