This thesis is arranged in three main chapters, each of which focuses on a particular type of Anaїs Nin text, and each of which is intended to enlarge Nin's complexities through distinct but overlapping perspectives. The idea connecting these three chapters is that Nin, who has been radically misrepresented by...
This thesis examines two cultural productions of the Harlem Renaissance: Aaron Douglas's mural series, Aspects of Negro Life, and Nella Larsen's novel Passing. I read these works together because, more than their shared time period, they showcase an attention to the visual. Both Larsen and Douglas's works are concerned with...
School is a hostile environment for many LGBTQ youth. Teachers participate, consciously or unconsciously, in perpetuating oppressive heteronormative expectations in the classroom both through the overt and covert curriculum. Yet, pre-service teachers are under-trained about questions related to gender and sexuality during their teacher preparation. This qualitative study explores the...
This dissertation draws on ethnographic data and political ecological theory to analyze the experience of residents living in the IBM-Endicott Superfund site in Endicott, New York. Combining in-depth narratives and quantitative measures from a household survey, it highlights residents' perceptions of 1) environmental health risk, 2) risk mitigation, 3) deindustrialization...
This thesis examines depictions of medievalism in three central texts: Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. Each of these texts provides an entry point for exploring the ways in which English and American writers have...
This thesis focuses on performances of masculinity by British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) airmen in the charged landscape of the First World War prisoner of war (POW) camp. I examine how captive airmen coped with imprisonment by reasserting the familiar homosocial communities of pre-capture squadron life, particularly through practices associated...
Being an Eastern Shawnee Tribal member I understand the importance of documenting oral histories of Tribal elders to ensure that our cultural history is passed on to future generations. Therefore, the focus of this project is the collection, of oral histories and folklore in order to document traditional knowledge and...