Browsing by Subject "Literature"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    All the Pieces Matter: Fragmentation-as-Agency in the Novels of Edwidge Danticat, Michelle Cliff, and Shani Mootoo
    (2013-01-30) Morguson, Alisun; Springer, Jennifer Thorington; Fox, Stephen L.; Henry Anthony, Ronda C.
    The fragmented bodies and lives of postcolonial Caribbean women examined in Caribbean literature beget struggle and psychological ruin. The characters portrayed in novels by postcolonial Caribbean writers Edwidge Danticat, Michelle Cliff, and Shani Mootoo are marginalized as “Other” by a Western patriarchal discourse that works to silence them because of their gender, color, class, and sexuality. Marginalization participates in the act of fragmentation of these characters because it challenges their sense of identity. Fragmentation means fractured; in terms of these fictive characters, fragmentation results from multiple traumas, each trauma causing another break in their wholeness. Postcolonial scholars have identified the causes and effects of fragmentation on the postcolonial subject, and they argue one’s need to heal because of it. Danticat, Cliff, and Mootoo prove that wholeness is not possible for the postcolonial Caribbean woman, so rather than ruminate on that truth, they examine the journey of the postcolonial Caribbean woman as a way of making meaning of the pieces of her life. This project contends that fragmentation – and the fracture it produces – does not bind these women to negative existences; in fact, the female subjects of Danticat, Cliff, and Mootoo locate power in their fragmentation. The texts studied include Danticat’s "Breath, Eyes, Memory" (1994) and "The Farming of Bones" (1999), Cliff’s "Abeng" (1984) and "No Telephone to Heaven" (1987), and Mootoo’s "Cereus Blooms at Night" (1996) and "He Drown She in the Sea" (2005).
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    The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies: A Case Study in Sustaining a Single Author Archive
    (2020-12) Aukerman, Jason Michael; Eller, Jonathan R.; Calloway, Heather K.; Goff, Philip K.; Haberski, Raymond J., Jr.
    The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies (cited also as the “Bradbury Center” or the “Center”) is a single author archive, museum, and outreach center housed in the Institute for American Thought, located in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. This dissertation employs a case study methodology to explore the complex issue of single author archive management and sustainability as it applies to the Bradbury Center by extending the research process beyond working with primary sources and published materials. The applied research project unfolded in two phases. The first involved an intensive four-day on-site consultation in which five professional archivists and preservation experts from across the Midwest visited the Bradbury Center and examined its collections and policies. Following their visit, the consultants prepared recommendations concerning artifacts, manuscripts, correspondence, physical layout, access, operational procedures, processing priorities, and environmental/climate control for artifacts. The on-site consultation team also informed objectives, goals, and strategies for addressing the preservation needs of the Center’s vast and varied collections, aiding in systematically moving forward with curatorial initiatives, and planning for general organizational development. The second research phase involved site visits to five peer institutions to tour facilities, interview directors and archivists about best practices, and established a plan for adapting these practices to the Bradbury Center. Findings from both research phases inform the Bradbury Center’s immediate and long-term plans for center staff, fundraising, spatial expansion and renovation, and the Center’s strategy for identifying key constituencies as it endeavors to serve a broad spectrum of public and academic audiences through various outreach and programming initiatives. Upon completion of the case study field research, a formal report was prepared. That report serves as the cornerstone for this applied dissertation. Additional chapters cast a vision for the Bradbury Center and address potential opportunities to serve the Indianapolis region by tapping into tourism markets, conventions, and local cultural festivals and celebrations while also developing into an international research hub as the sole entity that preserves the material legacy of Ray Bradbury. The introductory chapter situates the Bradbury Center within the legacy of the central figure of the Center—Ray Bradbury.
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    Dance and Identity Politics in Caribbean Literature: Culture, Community, and Commemoration
    (2011-06-03) Tressler, Gretchen E.; Springer, Jennifer Thorington; Kubitschek, Missy Dehn; Shepherd, Susan Carol
    Dance appears often in Anglophone Caribbean literature, usually when a character chooses to celebrate and emphasize her/his freedom from the physical, emotional, and societal constraints that normally keep the body in check. This study examines how a character's political consciousness often emerges in chorus with aesthetic bodily movement and analyzes the symbolic force and political significance of Caribbean dance--both celebratory (as in Carnival) and defensive (as in warrior dances). Furthermore, this study observes how the weight of Western views on dance influences Caribbean transmutations and translations of cultural behavior, ritual acts, and spontaneous movement. The novels studied include Samuel Selvon's "The Lonely Londoners" (1956), Earl Lovelace's "The Dragon Can't Dance" (1979), Paule Marshall's "Praisesong for the Widow" (1983), and Marie-Elena John's "Unburnable" (2006).
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    La enseñanza de temas homosexuales en la literatura: El fomento de un multiculturalismo más completo en los estudios de la literatura española
    (2013-11-12) Cobb, Vaughn Aaron; Brant, Herbert J.; Ardemagni, Enrica J.; Torijano, J. Agustín, 1963-
    A variety of minority groups are present in the readings of Spanish and Latin American literature classes; however, there is a lack of representation of homosexual themes in the readings. This paper takes a look at what homosexual themes are present in the literature anthologies in current use, and then suggest a teaching unit and methodology for how one can implement these topics into a literature class. The paper provides a sound basis for teachers who are trying to introduce these issues into their classes. [Language - Spanish]
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    The World Series of the Apocalypse?
    (The Conversation US, Inc., 2016-10-27) Lamb, Chris; Journalism and Public Relations, School of Liberal Arts
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