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...
Haiti's political and economy history has led to a maternity care system that lies out of reach, geographically and financially, of most Haitians, resulting in excessively high maternal and infant mortality. The most common birth practitioners are homebirth midwives (matwòns), who attend roughly three-fourths of all births in Haiti (UNICEF),...
In her 2016 article “Beyond Rights as Recognition, Black Twitter and Posthuman Coalitional Possibilities,” Pritha Prasad argues that the hashtag, one of the decade’s most omnipresent features of digital communication, functions as “a performative composing medium that not only demands relationality” and “call[s] for the recognition of both the Black...
In the months preceding the 2016 presidential election and during the Trump presidency, rhetoric, composition, and communications scholars expressed an urgent concern about the threat that Trump and his political affiliates posed to the status of truth in political life (McComiskey; Rice; Harsin; Cloud). However, the conversations surrounding the discipline’s...
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 thesis examines the representation of consumer culture in Fight Club within the context of Frederic Jameson's theory of postmodernism. I propose that the film represents consumer culture as a totalizing system. This representation is evident in the setting of the film and in the Narrator's attempt to escape from...
Jellyfish benefit from many of the changes mankind is making to the ocean. Climate change, overfishing, nutrient runoff, the introduction of invasive species, and coastal development all promote these ancient, gelatinous creatures. Because of their familiarity to readers and affinity for degraded places in the ocean, jellyfish are used to...
This thesis examines the internet phenomenon of the “Sad Girl,” a name given to young women who identify and present themselves as inherently melancholic people online. I position the internet community of the Sad Girl, which spans across three social media platforms, Tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram, within a larger history...
This thesis traces the relationship between the First World War, constructions of masculinity, and the life and poetry of T.S. Eliot. Central to this relationship is a study of homoeroticism, which the author characterizes as different from homosexuality but not exclusive of it, in late 19th and early 20th century...
Research shows that women's lives are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. While the topic of women is largely absent from climate discourse overall, the representations of women that occur reveal underlying structures of power rooted in imperialism and colonial dominance. This thesis presents an analysis of the...