UCO - Graduate Theses
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Established in 1954, the Jackson College of Graduate Studies provides access to graduate education for culturally-diverse students locally, nationally, and internationally, while supporting UCO’s mission of transformative learning through processes which maintain and enhance quality. Masters' theses are a culmination of these studies. Print copies of all masters' theses produced by UCO students are available in UCO's Archives and Special Collections.
Availability of Digitized Theses
Theses completed before December 2007 will gradually be made available in this collection. Chambers Library takes pride in its efforts to preserve the intellectual output of the university and has started a theses digitization project for any theses created before December 2007. UCO alumni interested in receiving a digital copy of their thesis created before 2008 may send an email to diwg@uco.edu. Please include the author name, year graduated, and degree information.
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Availability of Digitized Theses
Theses completed before December 2007 will gradually be made available in this collection. Chambers Library takes pride in its efforts to preserve the intellectual output of the university and has started a theses digitization project for any theses created before December 2007. UCO alumni interested in receiving a digital copy of their thesis created before 2008 may send an email to diwg@uco.edu. Please include the author name, year graduated, and degree information.
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Browsing UCO - Graduate Theses by Degree Discipline "M.A., English Literature"
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Item Open Access Feminine power through the performance of gender and identity : subverting patriarchal standards and the gender binary(2021) Gonzalez, Taylor; Macey, J. David; Quoss-Moore, Rebecca M.; Huber, KateThis thesis examines strategies for exercising feminine power within patriarchal settings; in particular, it addresses the ways in which female characters access varied forms of power through gendered performances that problematize or transgress the gender binary constructed and enforced within patriarchal societies. The thesis focuses on three literary works, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Fantomina by Eliza Haywood, and Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf, in which the central character, through performances that expand or subvert assigned gender roles, struggles to gain and use traditionally masculine forms of power within the context of patriarchal societies. These characters' efforts to maintain power highlight the fact that women are unable to access power except through gender-performative actions, whether by exaggerating their femininity or by emasculating themselves through their actions or ideals. This thesis applies a variety of critical techniques drawn from the fields of feminist and queer theory and cultural studies to account for the ways in which women obtain masculine power through gender-performative actions in a variety of time settings and in their varied relationships with male characters. In The Song of Achilles, Thetis is unable to obtain any lasting hold on power because she uses her son, Achilles, as a point of access. After Achilles' death, she loses her desire to obtain and wield power in a patriarchal and mortal society. Briseis, the minor female character who mirrors Thetis, loses her position of value within the male community when Patroclus dies, leaving her unprotected, and she chooses to immerse herself with Thetis, a sea nymph, in the primal embrace of Thalassa, the feminine aspect of the sea, rather than to remain in the perilous mortal community where she is valued only in terms of her transactional value among men. The original intention of Fantomina's protagonist in assuming different personae quickly morphs from innocent curiosity into a desire to excite and retain the attention and love of Beauplaisir. By setting a male-oriented goal, the character "Fantomina" commits herself to playing roles scripted by patriarchal values, and this sets her up for failure stemming from a form of internalized oppression. As Marilyn Frye observes about men, "In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity, or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service, and sex" (135). "Fantomina" narrows her opportunities by performing only in female roles, because the only people whom men truly respect are other men. She therefore loses Beauplaisir, she is unable to keep her daughter, and she has her freedom stripped from her by being exiled to a French convent. In juxtaposition to the dire ends of these female characters, Orlando opens new avenues through its protagonist, the gender-fluid Orlando (they, them, their). Beginning from a male perspective and shifting to a female position, with androgynous moments in between, Orlando creates a space outside of the patriarchally enforced gender binary and its corresponding expectations. As an outlier to these standards and to English society, Orlando is able to obtain a power that is truly their own rather than an authority bestowed by or borrowed from men. Thus, when the novel ends in 1928 as women gain political suffrage in England, Orlando chooses to put motherhood aside and expresses hope for further progress for women in the future. The review and analysis of these literary works demonstrates that women are unable to gain any advantage, in power or otherwise, while operating within or on the basis of a male-oriented set of standards. Patriarchal points of access provide no opportunity to acquire or exert feminine power. Women will remain inferior in a system made by and for men as long as they are fully immersed in the constructs of a gender binary. Only by breaking from set categories, as Orlando does through androgynous presentation and gender-fluid behaviors that are informed by an awareness of traditional male and female perspectives can women make genuine progress in acquiring and wielding a power that is not built upon the oppression and segregation of women. The connection among these literary texts, beyond their focus of female characters reaching for power, is the authors' female perspective on the characters and their experiences. Because these works were written by women, the reader is forced to view, experience, and sympathize with each character from the perspective of a female authorial gaze that propounds a different set of ideal attributes and expectations for female characters from those typically imposed by an objectifying male perspective. Under the female gaze, the feminine characters become more accessible to the audience, allowing readers to understand the characters' actual motives and desires: to obtain power by having their voices heard and by achieving agency.Item Open Access Mirrors and windows : recognizing the experience of a woman of color in Jane Eyre(2021) Dinh, Katelyn N.; Quoss-Moore, Rebecca M.; Huber, Kate; Macey, J. DavidThis thesis aims to present the character of Bertha in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre as a representation of feminism and Jane's transformation into an independent player in her relationship with Rochester by examining the similarities in struggle, circumstance, and oppression between the two women. A focus on feminist theory and critical race theory will inform this thesis. By viewing Bertha as a mirror and a window for Jane, both for Jane to realize her potential independence and to witness the oppression Bertha faces as a woman of color in Victorian England, it becomes clearer that Bertha should be read and recognized as an individual rather than vaguely characterized as a madwoman and a simple plot device for Jane's development. Most of the current scholarship on Bertha centers around speculation about her mental health, appealing to the common characterization of her as a madwoman. There is much less research on Bertha's racial background and how it affects the ways the other characters and society treat her. To understand the oppression she endures and to highlight her experience as a woman of color in Victorian England, I refer to the works of Toni Morrison. This examination of Bertha becomes inevitably linked to feminist theory as well, considering the patriarchal oppression both she and Jane experience. Though they experience oppression in different ways and to vastly different degrees, they share similarities so that Jane is able to see herself in Bertha, eventually leading her to feel confident enough to claim her autonomy. Despite the lack of characterization and time Brontë spends on Bertha, especially compared to Jane, this thesis argues that considering Bertha as a main character is critical to recognizing her value not only to the growth of Jane's character but also as an individual. Critical race theory, in combination with feminist theory, reads Bertha as a woman experiencing the worst of patriarchal and racial oppression, giving the title character a figure to model her independence after, no matter how subtle. Bertha's unapologetically wild and uncontrollable nature allows Jane space to develop her own identity and autonomy at her own pace, thus creating a path for Jane to finally maintain a degree of independence in her relationship with Rochester. This thesis ultimately advocates for the inclusion of critical race theory when analyzing the character of Bertha in order to adequately understand the prejudice and trauma she is subject to and the significance of her resulting influence on Jane.Item Open Access The role of composition and literature in the secondary education classroom : revisiting the pedagogy(2021) Dahlberg, David; Johnson, Cynthia; Similly, Leslie; Macey, J. DavidCurrently, high school ELA teachers are expected to use literature and composition together during instruction and planning. This expectation is completely different from first-year college English courses, as literature and composition are often taken at different times. As it stands now a pedagogy that encompasses the use of composition and literature together does not exist for secondary teachers. There are discussions of best practices in order to teach genres or methods of writing or reading by noted authors, and educators and researchers Peter Elbow, Gary Tate, Wendy Bishop, and Erika Lindemann have debated the role of literature in composition classrooms, but there are a lack of pedagogies and explanations for teaching the two subjects together successfully. This thesis offers such a pedagogy with sample assignments. In addition, the Common Core standards, National Council of Teachers of English standards, and Conference on College Composition and Communication position statements are analyzed to emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of this pedagogy in relation to the inclusion of both subjects. Suggestions for future research includes further exploration of the connection between literature and composition and of other pedagogical approaches towards the inclusion of both subjects.Item Open Access "The truth in masquerade": masking and self-making in literature(2022) Bennett, Aubree; Macey, J. David; Huber, Kate; Quoss-Moore, RebeccaThis thesis analyzes scenes of “masquerade” in three literary texts, the Oresteia of Aeschylus (458 B.C.E.), Eliza Fowler Haywood’s short novel Fantomina; or Love in a Maze (1725), and Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), to understand the complexity of characters who practice to deceive. The performances, or masks, of the protagonists in these texts are essential means of achieving otherwise unattainable goals. As at a masquerade, however, these masks are eventually taken away, leaving the characters in dire situations.This thesis draws upon literary-critical studies of its three primary texts as well as upon the work of social and cultural historians who have studied the gendered dynamics of performance, impersonation, and self-fashioning in ancient Greece, in eighteenth-century England, and in the nineteenth-century United States. The thesis uses the work of feminist historians and critics to contextualize Clytemnestra’s performative transgression of ancient Greek gender roles, the work of historians of eighteenth-century masquerade to analyze Fantomina’s role-playing, and medical discourses associated with post-Civil War traumatic stress to understand Hank Morgan’s response to his temporal dislocation from the nineteenth to the sixth century. This thesis documents the ways in which Clytemnestra’s actions prefigure the performative qualities of the masquerade long before the masquerade emerged as a distinct social practice. It argues that Fantomina’s varied masks represent an attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to evade the restrictions imposed on upper-class women in eighteenth-century England and to claim a level of agency usually reserved to men. Twain’s “Connecticut Yankee” Hank, in turn, adopts a variety of masks to cope with trauma that, this thesis argues, recalls and reflects on the experiences of veteran amputees who sought, in the post-Civil War United States, to reclaim psychic wholeness. Much work remains to be done on masquerade as a recurrent trope in literature. This study aims to contribute to this important area of inquiry. Given further time, this study might be expanded to address representations of prostitution and masquerade in the visual arts, among other issues, as they complement or complicate literary representations of this topic.Item Open Access “The Thought of Being a Part of What You Could Not Become”: Colonial Education and the Resistance of Young Minds(2021) Barlow, Brittany; Kiang, Shun Y.; Macey, J. David; Quoss-Moore, Rebecca M.This project engages with the colonizer’s use of the colonial education system to penetrate the colonized people’s pre-colonial cultural systems and the way it leads to the destruction of any already-formed understandings a person may have of oneself. The three chapters explore and explain the ways in which these literary representations are the colonized person’s articulation of their resistance to the colonial systems, showing that these representations are to be a way of taking back and reconfiguring one’s history and identity. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed explains that our education system continues the colonial aim of reproducing proper subjects. He argues that educators must fight against this enforced system, encouraging students to think critically—“the solution is not to ‘integrate’ them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become beings for themselves” (47). Chapter one of this project presents problem-posing techniques when reading Frankenstein to challenge and deconstruct previous Eurocentric readings of the text. Chapter two critiques the colonial education system in Africa and its gendered and racial applications among young peoples, in both colonial and settler-colonial communities. The third chapter emphasizes the form of the education system, highlighting its mimetic nature in order to form “proper” subjects rather than subjects who are able to question the status quo. Within this colonial education system, colonized people are informed of who they are, who their people are, and who they are in relation to the colonizer. Each of these chapters exhibits a different aspect of the colonial education system put into place during the period of British Imperialism and the ways in which the Other destabilizes this system.