Browsing by Author "Marvin, Thomas F."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    At the center of American modernism: Lola Ridge's politics, poetics, and publishing
    (2008-09-23T18:18:47Z) Wheeler, Belinda; Kovacik, Karen, 1959-; Schultz, Jane E.; Marvin, Thomas F.
    Although many of Lola Ridge's poems champion the causes of minorities and the disenfranchised, it is too easy to state that politics were the sole reason for her neglect. A simple look at well-known female poets who often wrote about social or political issues during Ridge's lifetime, such as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Muriel Rukeyser, weakens such a claim. Furthermore, Ridge's five books of poetry illustrate that many of her poems focused on themes beyond the political or social. The decisions by critics to focus on selections of Ridge's poems that do not display her ability to employ multiple aesthetics in her poetry have caused them to present her work one-dimensionally. Likewise, politically motivated critics often overlook aesthetic experiments that poets like Ridge employ in their poetry. Few poets during Ridge's time made use of such drastically varied styles, and because her work resists easy categorization (as either traditional or avant-garde), her poetry has largely gone unnoticed by modern scholars. Chapter two of my thesis focuses on a selection Ridge's social and political poems and highlights how Ridge's social poetry coupled with the multiple aesthetics she employed has played a part in her critical neglect. My findings will open up the discussion of Ridge's poetry and situate her work both politically and aesthetically, something no critic has yet attempted. Chapter three examines Ridge’s role as editor of Modern School, Others and Broom. Ridge's work for these magazines, particularly Others and Broom, places her at the center of American modernism. My examination of Ridge's social poetry and her role as editor for two leading literary magazines, in conjunction with her use of multiple aesthetics, will build a strong case for why her work deserves to be recovered.
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    Navigating through "a nightmare of meaninglessness without end": a semi-structural reading of Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan
    (2009-06-23T13:54:49Z) Cook, Joshua; Marvin, Thomas F.; Rudy, John; Eller, Jonathan R., 1952-
    In Vonnegut's second novel, the author sets up distinct character-based binaries that represent methods of looking for meaning in the universe. This paper attempts to show that outward-focused searches for purpose, i.e. those that are directed toward a "higher power," bring only division and harm into the world. As the novel's characters operate within their assigned binaries, most of them are able to abandon their nocuous philosophies in favor of an inward-focused search for meaning, which allows them to embrace a radically humbled humanistic perspective that places equal importance upon all creatures.
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    Starting from Scratch Building Community Support for Labor Organizing in Indianapolis
    (Sage, 2014-12) Marvin, Thomas F.; Department of English, School of Liberal Arts
    This study compares how two union organizing campaigns have attempted to mobilize community support by examining the opportunity structure for organizing in Indianapolis, comparing the community outreach efforts of the two campaigns, and assessing their effectiveness in matching their strategies to local conditions. Although some suggest that the “L.A. model” of creating powerful labor-community coalitions is replicable in other cities, important differences in the local opportunity structure force organizers to “start from scratch” and improvise innovative strategies in cities like Indianapolis that lack a strong social justice infrastructure.
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    Time skips and tralfamadorians: cultural schizophrenia and science fiction in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five and The Sirens of Titan
    (2012-11-16) Gallagher, Gina Marie; Marvin, Thomas F.; Rebein, Robert, 1964-; Johnson, Karen Ramsay
    In his novels Slaughterhouse-five and The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut explores issues of cultural identity in technologically-advanced societies post-World War II. With the rise of globalization and rapid technological advancements that occurred postwar, humans worldwide were mitigating the effects of information overload and instability in cultural identity. The influx of cultural influences that accompany a global society draws attention to the fluidity and inevitability of cultural change. A heightened awareness of cultural influences—past and present—creates anxiety for the generation living postwar and before the dawn of the Information Age. This generation suffers from “cultural schizophrenia”: a fracturing of the psyche characterized by anxiety over unstable cultural identities and agency. With the characters of Billy Pilgrim and Winston Niles Rumfoord, Vonnegut explores the different reactions to and consequences of cultural schizophrenia. His unique writing style is an effective hybrid of science fiction conventions and the complexities of human culture and society. Ultimately, Vonnegut explores the dangers of detachment and the complicated nature of agency with novels that are both innovative and accessible.