Browsing by Author "Rebein, Robert"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    California Dreaming: Place and Persona in the Essays of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz
    (2019-12) Christoff, Claire Elizabeth; Rebein, Robert; Kovacik, Karen; Minor, Kyle
    Joan Didion, a native of Sacramento, California, is the author of many acclaimed collections of journalism and memoir, the first of which were Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979). Eve Babitz, a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, has produced two such volumes: Eve’s Hollywood (1974) and Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. (1977). While much critical ink has been spilled over Didion’s oeuvre, Babitz was, until the recent reprinting of the aforementioned titles, known best as an artist and muse. Perhaps due to this disparity in recognition and renown, no extant critical piece serves to compare the nonfiction of Didion and Babitz, despite their close geographic and social proximity. In viewing their early work side by side, the Golden West of the 1960s and ’70s emerges as the clearest point of comparison; however, the ways in which Didion and Babitz use place and time in their work often differ due to the marked contrasts in the identities they convey. In characterizing herself as a journalist and an observer, Didion offers a perspective that feels objective but is, at turns, wry and cool. Babitz, writing in a manner that was, at one time, considered autofiction, positions herself as the freewheeling focal point around which Hollywood’s dizzying cultural landscape unfolds. By manipulating the constructs of place and persona, these writers are better equipped to tell the story at hand and analyze their places within it, cementing their work in California’s literary canon.
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    Dragging Wyatt Earp
    (Swallow Press / Ohio University Press, 2013-03) Rebein, Robert
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    Emerson's Philosophy: A Process of Becoming through Personal and Public Tragedy
    (2019-08) Simonson, Amy L.; Schultz, Jane E.; Rebein, Robert; Graber, Samuel
    This thesis explores Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophical becoming throughout decades of reflection and experience, particularly regarding death and slavery. Emerson was a buoyant writer and speaker, but the death of his five-year-old son and protégé, Waldo, challenged the father’s belief in Nature’s goodness and the reality of maintaining a tenaciously optimistic outlook. As he was grieving in the mid-1840s, slavery was threatening the Union, and Emerson was compelled to turn his attention to the subject of human bondage. He began his career indifferent to the plight of slaves, but as legislation about the issue brought it closer to his personal sphere, he was gradually yet firmly gripped by the tragedy of human bondage. These simultaneously existing spheres of sorrow – Waldo’s death and slavery – joined in refining Emerson’s personal philosophy toward greater utilitarian and humanitarian conduct. His letters, journals, essays, and lectures reflect the inward changes caused by outward events, and the conclusions herein are supported by modern grief studies as well as numerous philosophers, literary specialists, and historians.
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    PACES: Promoting Advancement through a Culture of Encouragement and Support
    (Office of Academic Affairs, IUPUI, 2016-09-16) Ene, Estela; Goff, Phil; Rebein, Robert; Sheeler, Kristina Horn; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin); Wilson, Jeffrey S.
    This poster describes the progress and lessons learned as a result of newly implemented Faculty Mentoring Program in the School of Liberal Arts (IUPUI)
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    PACES: Promoting Advancement through a Culture of Encouragement and Support
    (Office of Academic Affairs, IUPUI, 2015-02-15) Goff, Phil; Rebein, Robert; Sheeler, Kristina Horn; Ene, Estela; Upton, Thomas A. (Thomas Albin)
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    The true war story: ontological reconfiguration in the war fiction of Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O'Brien
    (2017) Aukerman, Jason Michael; Marvin, Tom; Eller, Jonathan; Rebein, Robert
    This thesis applies the ontological turn to the war fiction of veteran authors, Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien. It argues that some veteran authors desire to communicate truth through fiction. Choosing to communicate truth through fiction hints at a new perspective on reality and existence that may not be readily accepted or understood by those who lack combat experience. The non-veteran understanding of war can be more informed by entertaining the idea that a multiplicity of realities exists. Affirming the combat veteran reality—the post-war ontology—and acknowledging the non-veteran reality—rooted in what I label “pre-war” or “civilian” ontology—helps enhance the reader’s understanding of what veteran authors attempt to communicate through fiction. This approach reframes the dialogic interaction between the reader and the perspectives presented in veteran author’s fiction through an emphasis on “radical alterity” to the point that telling and reading such stories represent distinct ontological journeys. Both Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien provide intriguing perspectives on reality through their fiction, particularly in the way their characters perceive and express morality, guilt, time, mortality, and even existence. Vonnegut and O’Brien’s war experiences inform these perspectives. This does not imply that the authors hold an identical perspective on the world or that combat experience yields an ontological understanding of the world common to every veteran. It simply asserts that applying the ontological turn to these writings, and the writings of other combat veterans, reveals that those who experience combat first-hand often walk away from those experiences with a changed ontological perspective.