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(1 - 8 of 8)
- Title
- THE HARM IN KNOWING: THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSPECTIVE AND THE DANGERS OF KNOWLEDGE IN H.P. LOVECRAFT.
- Creator
- Dane, Cherokee, Miller, Timothy S., Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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H. P. Lovecraft has been a significant influence in horror fiction, but most of the attention paid to Lovecraft’s work focuses on his Cthulhu Mythos. This thesis examines a group of fantasy stories from Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, overlooked in favor of his horror tales. I argue these stories merit attention for their presentation of an ideological conflict central to much of Lovecraft’s work: reality, knowledge, and science vs. fantasy, imagination, and dreams. Lovecraft demonstrates the...
Show moreH. P. Lovecraft has been a significant influence in horror fiction, but most of the attention paid to Lovecraft’s work focuses on his Cthulhu Mythos. This thesis examines a group of fantasy stories from Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, overlooked in favor of his horror tales. I argue these stories merit attention for their presentation of an ideological conflict central to much of Lovecraft’s work: reality, knowledge, and science vs. fantasy, imagination, and dreams. Lovecraft demonstrates the limitations and importance of one’s perspective, illustrating the need to be flexible in one’s beliefs and viewpoints. I also argue that this understanding of perspective encourages alternative readings of Lovecraft’s other work, as well as enabling a greater understanding of horror and fear of the unknown.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014016
- Subject Headings
- Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips), 1890-1937
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- “THIS LAND IS IN MY BONES”: WITCHES, MAGIC, AND ECOLOGICAL RELATIONALITY IN TERRY PRATCHETT’S TIFFANY ACHING SERIES.
- Creator
- Peebles, Amanda, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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Tiffany Aching and the Witches of the Discworld Series use knowledge that is based on working with and connecting to the natural world instead of against it, primarily through their use of magic without using magic and their use of “headology,” to create the desired effect without detriment to the ecology of the Discworld. This puts them in contrast with the male, Unseen-University wizards, whose magic works against the ecology of the Discworld as it changes and corrupts the world around it....
Show moreTiffany Aching and the Witches of the Discworld Series use knowledge that is based on working with and connecting to the natural world instead of against it, primarily through their use of magic without using magic and their use of “headology,” to create the desired effect without detriment to the ecology of the Discworld. This puts them in contrast with the male, Unseen-University wizards, whose magic works against the ecology of the Discworld as it changes and corrupts the world around it. Further, the relationship that Tiffany Aching has within her home, the land she was born in, and her ecology becomes a nexus between the natural world and human communities. This connection between herself and her land is comparable to the one that Ged learns through his journey in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. This connection between the authors is not simply a categorical one but one that connects them, their work, and an ideological push against individualism that relies on interconnectedness between species.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014003
- Subject Headings
- Pratchett, Terry. Tiffany Aching series, Pratchett, Terry. Discworld series, Fantasy literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- SOCIAL GHOSTS OF THE DOMESTIC SPHERE: THE HAUNTING PRESENCE OF THE MONSTROUS MOTHER IN CONTEMPORARY FICTION.
- Creator
- Dvorak, Alicia, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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This thesis argues that the numerous widespread fears about deviant domestic behavior that rose to prominence in Western nations during the post-World War II era can still be observed in contemporary fictional representations of what I term the “monstrous domestic”: when mothers and the domestic spaces that they occupy are depicted as “bad,” “evil,” or otherwise threatening. Using psychoanalytic, feminist, and monster theory, as well as sociocultural context, I examine four works that...
Show moreThis thesis argues that the numerous widespread fears about deviant domestic behavior that rose to prominence in Western nations during the post-World War II era can still be observed in contemporary fictional representations of what I term the “monstrous domestic”: when mothers and the domestic spaces that they occupy are depicted as “bad,” “evil,” or otherwise threatening. Using psychoanalytic, feminist, and monster theory, as well as sociocultural context, I examine four works that prominently display and condemn the monstrous domestic: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014), and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2007). Ultimately, I contend that the continued presence of wicked mothers who utilize their domestic power to control and harm their children within fiction indicates that, despite social progress, an unconscious cultural uneasiness about (un)acceptable maternity and domesticity still remains.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013892
- Subject Headings
- Jackson, Shirley, 1916-1965. Haunting of Hill House, Gaiman, Neil. Coraline, Kent, Jennifer, 1951-, Flynn, Gillian, 1971-, Fiction--Criticism and interpretation
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- READING TRANSNESS IN AI NARRATIVES: HOW ARTIFICIALITY CONSTRUCTS TRANSGENDER IDENTITY.
- Creator
- Sheridan, Tristan, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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Transgender identity and the concept of artificial intelligence are constructed and understood through dichotomies such as natural/unnatural and real/artificial, with each dichotomy informing the other; what is “unnatural” is often deemed to be a mimicry of the “natural,” therefore a false representation of what is “real.” By surveying various classic SF texts and their portrayal of AI characters through the lens of transgender studies—drawing upon scholars including Susan Stryker, Sandy...
Show moreTransgender identity and the concept of artificial intelligence are constructed and understood through dichotomies such as natural/unnatural and real/artificial, with each dichotomy informing the other; what is “unnatural” is often deemed to be a mimicry of the “natural,” therefore a false representation of what is “real.” By surveying various classic SF texts and their portrayal of AI characters through the lens of transgender studies—drawing upon scholars including Susan Stryker, Sandy Stone, and Florence Ashley—I assert that artificiality itself is a construction formed by cisnormative ideals and standards to exclude certain others (namely, transgender people) that requires reframing. I examine how these representations in works such as Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2 reveal and articulate the constructed dichotomies and cultural narratives which surround transgender identity, as well as how contemporary, trans-authored works such as Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous can offer tools for responding to and reconfiguring those dichotomies.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2023
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014196
- Subject Headings
- Transgender fiction, Artificial intelligence in literature
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- THE VOICE NOT FROM RIVIA: SILENCE, ECOFEMINISM, AND THEIR LIMITS IN THE WITCHER SERIES.
- Creator
- King, Bryce Lyne, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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The Witcher book series by Andrzej Sapkowski and the corresponding The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game by CD Projekt RED intersectionally relate the feminine to the natural in their joint secondary world of the Continent, and in doing so rely on the “key feminine,” a term to describe a female character who embodies the feminine ideals of the secondary world while also saving it from environmental disaster, yet not being representative of it, deconstructing the goddess and witch dichotomy....
Show moreThe Witcher book series by Andrzej Sapkowski and the corresponding The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game by CD Projekt RED intersectionally relate the feminine to the natural in their joint secondary world of the Continent, and in doing so rely on the “key feminine,” a term to describe a female character who embodies the feminine ideals of the secondary world while also saving it from environmental disaster, yet not being representative of it, deconstructing the goddess and witch dichotomy. Geralt’s predispositions as a witcher places him in conflict with nature, but his moral code and decisive silence allow for a space in which, though the two occur independently and jointly, the voice of the feminine and the voice of the nonhuman world can be heard on their own terms, instead of through the objective filtering of the hero. Yet, in this space of voices and silence, the natural world remains opposed to the protagonists, which CD Projekt RED elevates to monstrifying the natural in opposition to the player, giving voices to some zoomorphic and anthropomorphic monsters, but leaving other nonhuman ecomorphic creatures without voice, encouraging anthropocentric dominance over the environment.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013928
- Subject Headings
- Sapkowski, Andrzej. Wiedźmin. English (Series)
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- The Reintegration of Women and Class Conflict into Epic/Grimdark Fantasy.
- Creator
- Domosh, Jacob, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon (1999) is a well-received novel grounded in the Secondary World traditions of both epic and grimdark fantasy, that may – upon a first read – appear like any other fantasy novel set in its own world – featuring humans and nonhuman characters, giants and dragons, swords and sorcery, floating castles and continent-spanning empires. The use of these fantasy elements creates a wonderfully immersive first novel for the wonderfully evocative Malazan Book of the...
Show moreSteven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon (1999) is a well-received novel grounded in the Secondary World traditions of both epic and grimdark fantasy, that may – upon a first read – appear like any other fantasy novel set in its own world – featuring humans and nonhuman characters, giants and dragons, swords and sorcery, floating castles and continent-spanning empires. The use of these fantasy elements creates a wonderfully immersive first novel for the wonderfully evocative Malazan Book of the Fallen series, but the series accomplishes more than that; Erikson’s novel is set in a Secondary World that is distinct from the other grimdark and epic fantasy settings that came before it in that the Malazan world is a setting in which patriarchal norms and misogyny have never existed. Furthermore, Erikson’s text, as both epic fantasy and participating in grimdark fantasy tropes, acts to distance these subgenres from the critiques sometimes leveled at earlier such works. Where pre-Erikson (and still some post-Erikson) epic fantasy has been critiqued as misogynistic and entrenched in notions of patriarchal hierarchies – and pre-Erikson (and still much post-Erikson) grimdark fantasy has been critiqued for subjecting the female characters therein to excessive violence, often sexual in nature, and wallowing in graphic depictions of said violence -- Erikson reverses course and reintroduces women into epic fantasy as human beings rather than objects of male domination. This reintroduction allows for notions of class conflict to permeate the text.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013901
- Subject Headings
- Erikson, Steven. Malazan book of the fallen, Fantasy
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- Rape and Reverence: Culling the Lessons from 20th Century Ethics.
- Creator
- Piconi, Gabriella, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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This thesis aims to contribute to contemporary feminist theory through the integration of several interdisciplinary texts from the last century, all of which challenge an existing, male-oriented norm of woman as ‘lesser’ in a particular field of study. The historical position of woman as ‘other’ in a negative light is a postulate that contemporary feminist studies may take too much for granted. The supposed lack of prominence of women in scripture, such as what Phyllis Trible gestures to, for...
Show moreThis thesis aims to contribute to contemporary feminist theory through the integration of several interdisciplinary texts from the last century, all of which challenge an existing, male-oriented norm of woman as ‘lesser’ in a particular field of study. The historical position of woman as ‘other’ in a negative light is a postulate that contemporary feminist studies may take too much for granted. The supposed lack of prominence of women in scripture, such as what Phyllis Trible gestures to, for example, is not erasure at all, but women present as archetypes, a mode of representation later dispersed in literature and film. The textual ‘absence’ of the feminine which has been previously understood as erasure may in fact be a clandestine interpretative tool which must be sought for, or, within a textual framework, explicated. Instead of accepting woman as a minimized ‘other’ to be merely a given in biblical and other texts, her peripheral role must be teased out in order to be fully appreciated. The critical most important to this claim include Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development and film theorist Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, the latter of which lends this thesis its title. Lastly, I will be using erasure as an interpretative method as applied to a series of case studies: to analyze the female figures in Hamlet using Carol Gilligan’s psychological development framework; to consider Haskell’s rigorous critique of American cinema alongside Woman in the Dunes, a 1964 film based on a fabulist novel, which uses erasure as its modus operandi; and to apply Phyllis Trible’s hermeneutic interpretive method to Lot’s wife. The interdisciplinary design of this thesis allows for the inclusion of scholars from a variety of inherently ethical disciplines to showcase how societal perceptions of women have informed women’s ethical decision-making and identity.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2022
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014081
- Subject Headings
- Feminist theory, Feminism, Feminist ethics
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- Title
- DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, SO WE TELL THEM INSTEAD: THE COMPLEXITIES AND ETHICS OF POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATION.
- Creator
- Hersey, Justin, Miller, Timothy, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
- Abstract/Description
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This project examines some of the ethical consequences of posthumous publication of authors' unfinished works, private correspondence, and other materials, with the central example being the extensive catalogue of J.R.R. Tolkien published in the decades after this death by his son Christopher Tolkien. It builds a moral and philosophical framework for understanding the "posthumous harm" that can impact the deceased, for example when the desires they expressed in life are frustrated, or their...
Show moreThis project examines some of the ethical consequences of posthumous publication of authors' unfinished works, private correspondence, and other materials, with the central example being the extensive catalogue of J.R.R. Tolkien published in the decades after this death by his son Christopher Tolkien. It builds a moral and philosophical framework for understanding the "posthumous harm" that can impact the deceased, for example when the desires they expressed in life are frustrated, or their reputations suffer damage when draft or private materials become public, especially for a wide audience. In the case of J.R.R. Tolkien, his Beowulf translation shows how an author's intentions for a work may actually be to not publish, as doing so contradicts their beliefs and values. Both literary executors and the consumer public that creates a market for such "new works" should more carefully evaluate the posthumous harm that posthumous publication can bring.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2024
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014405
- Subject Headings
- Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973, Posthumous publications, Beowulf--Translations
- Format
- Document (PDF)
