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Scholar's name: Marcella Munson
Department: Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature
Email: mmunson@fau.edu
Format: Institutional Scholar

Title: Color lines: "Passing" and its implications for literary subjectivity in Richard Wright and Boris Vian.
Creator: Guillerm, Celine, Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract/Description: If mid-twentieth-century African-American authors based discussions of race in America on the theories of prominent Franco-African writers, African-American writers such as Richard Wright were also highly influential in discussions of race in the French literary context. Wright's novel Native Son focuses on protagonist Bigger Thomas, a young black man who accidentally commits murder. After realizing how the white community has interpreted his act, Bigger tries without success to break free of...
Show moreIf mid-twentieth-century African-American authors based discussions of race in America on the theories of prominent Franco-African writers, African-American writers such as Richard Wright were also highly influential in discussions of race in the French literary context. Wright's novel Native Son focuses on protagonist Bigger Thomas, a young black man who accidentally commits murder. After realizing how the white community has interpreted his act, Bigger tries without success to break free of "double consciousness," or fragmented subjectivity, first articulated by W. E. B. DuBois. Boris Vian's text J'irai cracher sur vos tombes problematizes Wright's literary analysis of race through protagonist Lee Anderson, an explicit literary reworking of Bigger. Lee, in deliberately passing as white in order to murder two women, displays a more deliberate subjectivity. The act of passing erodes the legal foundation of black segregation and highlights a more active subjectivity, yet it also displays the limitations encoded in that act.
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Date Issued: 2005
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13262
Subject Headings: Racially mixed people--United States., African Americans--Race identity., African Americans in literature., Passing (Identity) in literature., Group identity in literature., Vian, Boris,--1920-1959.--J'irai cracker sur vos tombes., Wright, Richard,--1908-1960.--Native son.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: La metamorphose de l'amour dans l'oeuvre de colette.
Creator: de Lima, Edwige Verdier., Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract/Description: Many critical studies of Colette, drawing heavily on psychoanalytic theory in order to explicate the biographical particulars of her life which are present in her works, have sought to brand the writer as feminine archetype of the free-spirited and inconstant libertine of the early twentieth century. But while such studies often note the general importance of the theme of love in Colette's works, they have tended to ignore both the larger literary metamorphosis which the theme of love...
Show moreMany critical studies of Colette, drawing heavily on psychoanalytic theory in order to explicate the biographical particulars of her life which are present in her works, have sought to brand the writer as feminine archetype of the free-spirited and inconstant libertine of the early twentieth century. But while such studies often note the general importance of the theme of love in Colette's works, they have tended to ignore both the larger literary metamorphosis which the theme of love undergoes and its metonymic links to the act of writing itself. Indeed, in Colette's works the letter and the mirror become privileged symbols through which the love felt by the narrator is channeled and ultimately displaced towards the act of writing and self-apprehension. Paradoxically, the act of writing is what enables Colette's narrator to enact her own liberation, it is also the act of writing in which she encounters isolation.
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Date Issued: 2003
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13058
Subject Headings: Colette,--1873-1954--Criticism and interpretation, Love in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Le moi et l'autre dans Robinson Crusoe de Daniel Defoe et Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique de Michel Tournier.
Creator: Peric, Milica., Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract/Description: Daniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe reflects major philosophical currents of the Enlightenment and brings them to bear on diverse issues: scientific advances, new economic models, British colonialization, the relation of the Other to the self. But if Robinson Crusoe presents Friday as Other who fulfills a crucial role by helping Robinson as narrating subject successfully complete the journey of self-knowledge, Michel Tournier's postmodern revision, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique...
Show moreDaniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe reflects major philosophical currents of the Enlightenment and brings them to bear on diverse issues: scientific advances, new economic models, British colonialization, the relation of the Other to the self. But if Robinson Crusoe presents Friday as Other who fulfills a crucial role by helping Robinson as narrating subject successfully complete the journey of self-knowledge, Michel Tournier's postmodern revision, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique , has a quite different teleological aim. Through constantly shifting narrative and theoretical perspectives Vendredi undertakes a forceful critique of key aspects of the Western tradition which Robinson Crusoe confidently hailed: Lockean and Cartesian reasoning, traditional framing dichotomies central to the Western tradition (Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel), modern conceptions of the thinking subject. Vendredi ultimately suggests the inability of the postmodern subject to know itself while simultaneously critiquing those Western traditions whose perspectives are founded on hegemonic globalization.
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Date Issued: 2003
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13097
Subject Headings: Defoe, Daniel,--1661?-1731--Robinson Crusoe, Tournier, Michel--Vendredi, ou, Les limbes du Pacifique, Self (Philosophy) in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Exotisme et alterite dans les oeuvres de Pierre Loti et de Victor Segalen.
Creator: Montonen, Jane M., Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract/Description: At the turn of the twentieth century when French imperialism is on the rise, the writers and naval officers Pierre Loti and Victor Segalen represent otherness in their literary work in different and even antagonistic ways. Loti, who became famous early in his lifetime, depicts exotic lands and his vision of the Other in an impressionist, sentimentalist, and sometimes-ethnocentric way while Segalen proposes to redefine exoticism polluted by colonial discourse. Segalen recognizes the uniqueness...
Show moreAt the turn of the twentieth century when French imperialism is on the rise, the writers and naval officers Pierre Loti and Victor Segalen represent otherness in their literary work in different and even antagonistic ways. Loti, who became famous early in his lifetime, depicts exotic lands and his vision of the Other in an impressionist, sentimentalist, and sometimes-ethnocentric way while Segalen proposes to redefine exoticism polluted by colonial discourse. Segalen recognizes the uniqueness of foreign cultures and innovate in giving a voice to the Other. In spite of the differences between the two authors, it has not been emphasized enough their mutual attraction for the past and imaginary civilizations, their opposition to the assimilation of foreign cultures into European culture, and their blindness toward colonial ideology.
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Date Issued: 2005
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13295
Subject Headings: Exoticism in literature., Difference (Psychology) in literature., Loti, Pierre,--1850-1923--Criticism and interpretation., Segalen, Victor,--1878-1919--Criticism and interpretation.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Courtisanes et modeles: Representations de la femme juive dans la litterature francaise du dix-neuvieme siecle.
Creator: Silverstein, David., Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract/Description: The realist authors of nineteenth-century France consistently represent the Jewish woman as the epitome of beauty and intelligence. While glorifying her image, this representation betrays a complex system of social and gender bias. By examining selected works of Balzac, the freres Goncourt, and Maupassant, a nuanced transformation can be traced in the representation of the Jewish woman. As a literary figure negotiating a social system that emphasizes her religious identity, she is celebrated,...
Show moreThe realist authors of nineteenth-century France consistently represent the Jewish woman as the epitome of beauty and intelligence. While glorifying her image, this representation betrays a complex system of social and gender bias. By examining selected works of Balzac, the freres Goncourt, and Maupassant, a nuanced transformation can be traced in the representation of the Jewish woman. As a literary figure negotiating a social system that emphasizes her religious identity, she is celebrated, vilified, and ultimately transformed into a heroine by virtue of her courage rather than her physical attributes.
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Date Issued: 2004
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13157
Subject Headings: Jewish women--France--History--19th century, France--Ethnic relations, French literature--19th century--History and criticism, Jewish women in literature, Antisemitism--France--19th century, Artists' models in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: SOUTHERN FRINGES: LITTLE MAGAZINES AND LARRY BROWN’S EARLY SHORT FICTION.
Creator: Gleek, Charlie, Hagood, Taylor, Munson, Marcella, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Abstract/Description: “Southern Fringes: Little Magazines and Larry Brown’s Early Short Fiction” seeks to revitalize and expand the scholarly field of the New Southern Studies, employing textuality, book history, and postcritique perspectives towards the study of literary events and objects. Whereas the New Southern Studies rightly problematizes and dismantles notions of the signifier southern named in connection with literary works, such approaches often ignore paratextual elements, including material and...
Show more“Southern Fringes: Little Magazines and Larry Brown’s Early Short Fiction” seeks to revitalize and expand the scholarly field of the New Southern Studies, employing textuality, book history, and postcritique perspectives towards the study of literary events and objects. Whereas the New Southern Studies rightly problematizes and dismantles notions of the signifier southern named in connection with literary works, such approaches often ignore paratextual elements, including material and sociological features, that work to frame and support these narratives. This dissertation addresses such shortcomings, arguing that paratextual formations function as vital spaces for constructing senses of southernness in service of both bibliographic identity and readers’ literary discernments. Exploring public epitext in a variety of locations, as well as four cases of Larry Brown’s short stories appearing in Mississippi Review, The Greensboro Review, and The Chattahoochee Review, this dissertation demonstrates how Brown’s writing emerges as southern fringe: a joint presence of autobiographic, material, perceptual, and other paratextual elements that frame Brown’s writing in unique locales outside of the literary mainstream. This dissertation's implications include adopting a mode of reading and analysis, focusing on case studies and surface readings of paratext serving specific bibliographic documents, as a way to move beyond generalizing and broad claims about the nature, function, and interpretation of literature. Additionally, this dissertation focuses on little magazines, materiality, and paratext as expanded sites and perspectives for the continued growth and development of interdisciplinary humanities fields such as the New Southern Studies.
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Date Issued: 2021
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013753
Subject Headings: Brown, Larry, 1951-2004, New southern studies, Paratext, Little magazines
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: An Experimental Study of an Information-Based Complexity Metric.
Creator: Danaher, Mary Schindlbeck, Florida Atlantic University, Coulter, Neal S., Harold, Frederick G., Munson, John C.
Abstract/Description: Through a small contained environment, this study evaluates an information-based complexity metric theory and its relationship to the effort expended in constructing a program. The metric, which calculates the amount of information present in a program specification, determines the specification's complexity measure. The observed measures of programmer effort were the numbers of keystrokes, insertions, deletions, and runs needed to complete the program specification. It was theorized that a...
Show moreThrough a small contained environment, this study evaluates an information-based complexity metric theory and its relationship to the effort expended in constructing a program. The metric, which calculates the amount of information present in a program specification, determines the specification's complexity measure. The observed measures of programmer effort were the numbers of keystrokes, insertions, deletions, and runs needed to complete the program specification. It was theorized that a program with a higher complexity value than that of another program will require more programmer resources to complete. A significant relationship between the metric and the number of keystrokes was found.
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Date Issued: 1987
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14412
Subject Headings: Computer programs, Multivariate analysis
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: THE ETHICS OF DIALOGIC AUTHORSHIP: COLLABORATIVE WOMEN’S WRITING IN THE FRENCH, FRANCOPHONE, AND ITALIAN TRADITIONS.
Creator: Pezzullo, Viviana, Munson, Marcella Lee, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Abstract/Description: This dissertation investigates the ethics of authorial collaboration in contemporary collaborative women’s writing and its effect on the power dynamics inherent in the writing process. Collaborative writing occupies a continuum, from ethnographic autobiography, in which the writer outranks the generally anonymous subject, to the celebrity “ghostwritten” autobiography, which overturns this hierarchy. This study focuses more narrowly on more covert forms of collaboration implying a differential...
Show moreThis dissertation investigates the ethics of authorial collaboration in contemporary collaborative women’s writing and its effect on the power dynamics inherent in the writing process. Collaborative writing occupies a continuum, from ethnographic autobiography, in which the writer outranks the generally anonymous subject, to the celebrity “ghostwritten” autobiography, which overturns this hierarchy. This study focuses more narrowly on more covert forms of collaboration implying a differential of symbolic capital that foregrounds asymmetrical writing relationships. Importantly, these asymmetrical relationships cannot be unproblematically reduced to the general (or generic) conception of “coauthorship,” turning instead towards a form of paratextual dialogue that acknowledges the presence of diverse and sometimes conflicting authorial voices that manifest themselves in various ways in different parts of the text. By focusing on a variety of covert collaborative forms, including so-told narratives from different epochs and traditions, the dissertation will expand our conception of collaborative writing and simultaneously develop a more dialogic notion of authorship, putting in conversation Bakhtinian concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia, and polyphony with feminist theory. The case studies present in the dissertation, ranging from feminist journals of the 1970s to slave narratives, provide the crucial function of offering a profound and carefully nuanced series of contexts in which to examine the deeper moral principles and obligations that tie collaborators to each other. Simultaneously, this analysis aims to start a discussion about privilege in the writing collaborative process as well as issues of minority representation in literature. The relationship between authorial voices that hold a differential of symbolic capital also invites to reflect on the complicated sociocultural dynamics between socalled “dominant” or “prestige” languages–what Pascale Casanova calls “dominating” languages–and “minority” languages (such as Italian dialects and Guadeloupean Creole). For this reason, starting from the Bakhtinian concept of heteroglossia this dissertation leads to a sociolinguistic analysis of the linguistic habits of collaborators, highlighting how language becomes one of the forms of power imbalance.
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Date Issued: 2021
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013845
Subject Headings: Sociolinguistics, Authorship—Collaboration, Ethics, Women's writing
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: L'Evolution des Femmes dans les Rougon-Macquart D'Emile Zola.
Creator: Konrad, Carolyn L., Munson, Marcella L., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Lingustics and Comparative Literature
Abstract/Description: This study examines the representation of women in Emile Zola’s famous series Les Rougon-Macquart. Critics have described Zola’s novels and their presentation of women as misogynist, yet this judgment obscures many of the textual details establishing the female protagonists’ relationships to industrial capitalism and the rapidly changing social landscape in late nineteenth century France. This study reexamines the narrative synthesis between Zola’s naturalist “objective” narrator and his...
Show moreThis study examines the representation of women in Emile Zola’s famous series Les Rougon-Macquart. Critics have described Zola’s novels and their presentation of women as misogynist, yet this judgment obscures many of the textual details establishing the female protagonists’ relationships to industrial capitalism and the rapidly changing social landscape in late nineteenth century France. This study reexamines the narrative synthesis between Zola’s naturalist “objective” narrator and his female protagonists. It also highlights one particular pairing that of Adelaide Fouque and her opportunist daughter-in-law, Felicité Puch: Whereas Adelaide, the biological matriarch of the family who figures in each of the twenty novels, does not have an active voice, Felicité as maternal protectrice of the family speaks frankly, even aggressively. Zola uses this pairing to link one generation to the next, a key structural element of his naturalist project. Ultimately, Zola’s representation of women is more complex than might otherwise be understood.
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Date Issued: 2016
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004726
Subject Headings: Zola, Émile, -- 1840-1902. -- Rougon-Macquart., Zola, Émile, -- 1840-1902 -- Criticism and interpretation., Zola, Émile, -- 1840-1902 -- Characters -- Women.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Libertinage et feminisme dans les lettres du colonel talbert de francoise-albine puzin de la martiniere benoist.
Creator: Montonen, Jane M., Munson, Marcella L., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Lingustics and Comparative Literature
Abstract/Description: In 1767, Mme Benoist published an epistolary libertine novel entitled Lettres du Colonel Talbert. Although she has received little critical attention to date, she was a prolific author who appeared with great regularity at minor literary salons. Her presence at these salons is well-established in personal memoirs and correspondences, and actively remarked upon by other authors—men and women—of the period, including Mme Roland and Choderlos de Laclos. Mme Benoist’s preferred genre was the...
Show moreIn 1767, Mme Benoist published an epistolary libertine novel entitled Lettres du Colonel Talbert. Although she has received little critical attention to date, she was a prolific author who appeared with great regularity at minor literary salons. Her presence at these salons is well-established in personal memoirs and correspondences, and actively remarked upon by other authors—men and women—of the period, including Mme Roland and Choderlos de Laclos. Mme Benoist’s preferred genre was the novel with its explicit blend of high and low literary cultures, its melding of the philosophical and the sentimental, its pursuit of formal innovation, and its deliberate marketing in multiple formats and for multiple audiences, including publication through the mainstream book market, and serial publication in revues and journals with a large female readership, such as the Journal des Dames. This study focuses on Lettres du Colonel Talbert (1767) as both a paradigmatic and privileged text inside Mme Benoist’s larger corpus, and one which explicitly engages many of the most pressing moral and philosophical debates of the period, including the legal status of women. To do so, Mme Benoist appropriates the libertine novel as specific novelistic subtype. In Les Lettres du Colonel Talbert, Mme Benoist parodies the libertine novel and in doing so, converts the libertine textual economy to one in which well-established narrative codes of femininity and masculinity are inverted. Although her depiction of the heroine, Hélène—an exceptional and courageous young woman who resists the predatory advances of a man through sheer strength of moral character—is not in itself unusual, Mme Benoist’s choice to frame her heroine’s moral struggle in a narrative epistolary exchange between two diametrically opposed male “types” in enlightenment thought—the libertine and the honnête homme— Mme Benoist effectively subverts masculine textual dynamics at the level of plot and character. More importantly, she also subverts the libertine novel’s traditional identification with masculine authorship.
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Date Issued: 2014
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004141, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004141
Subject Headings: Benoist, Françoise Albine Puzin de La Martinière -- 1724-1809 -- Lettres du Colonel Talbert -- Criticism and interpretation, Feminism in literature, Libertinism in literature, Revolutionary literature, French -- 18th century -- Criticism and interpretation, Women and literature -- France -- 18th century
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: THE BONES WE CARVE: THE AUDACITY OF LATINX POLITICAL NARRATIVES.
Creator: Acosta, Ana-Christina Gaspar de Alba, Munson, Marcella L., Florida Atlantic University, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Abstract/Description: This interdisciplinary dissertation examines Latinx political self-representation across a variety of narrative forms including fiction, nonfiction, film, and social media. Beginning with identifying points of political intersection and divergence within the imagined Latinx voting bloc incorrectly homogenized in mainstream discourse, the dissertation looks at how narrative empathy and political concerns for a singular issue– the child migrant crisis–play out differently across fiction and...
Show moreThis interdisciplinary dissertation examines Latinx political self-representation across a variety of narrative forms including fiction, nonfiction, film, and social media. Beginning with identifying points of political intersection and divergence within the imagined Latinx voting bloc incorrectly homogenized in mainstream discourse, the dissertation looks at how narrative empathy and political concerns for a singular issue– the child migrant crisis–play out differently across fiction and nonfiction written narratives. The dissertation then takes a turn towards exploring the lack of prominent Latinx political figures in the cultural imaginary, especially Latinas, by looking back to Latin America for exemplary models, and presenting community organizing as seen in recent filmic representation as an alternative form of political engagement. Finally, it focuses on two Latinx political figures–Oscar Zeta Acosta and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez–who rose to notoriety half a century apart, yet took similar community insider/political outsider approaches to their historic runs for office. Overall, the dissertation stresses the importance of self-representation as a means of creating and controlling narrative empathy, as well as countering a mainstream narrative of a monolithic Latinx bloc that is both politically unengaged and threatening.
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Date Issued: 2022
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00014020
Subject Headings: Latinx, Latin Americans, Narratives, Latin Americans--Political and social views
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Gratitude is an Action.
Creator: Perkins, Shana [Choreogrpaher], Perkins, Shana; Egwu, Chetachi Egwu; Sweet Honey in the Rock [Music], Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Brooks, Clarence; Egwu, Chetachi; Washington, Toranika [Text], Block, Kristen; Carney, Laurie; Chavarria, Juan; Finkelstien, Michael; Glasser, Marnie; Horswell, Michael; Munson, Marcella L.; Kopani, Gvozden; Page-Sarfati, Judith; Perkins, Shana; Prioulx, Lise [Voice Overs], Catalano, Alex [Photographer], Cowden, Jessica [Costumes], Department of Theatre and Dance
Abstract/Description: The FAU Repertory Dance Theatre Ensemble, the University’s professional dance company, was founded to exhibit works by established and emerging artist, to offer a forum for collaborations using dance as the common medium and to showcase the wide range, scope and diversity of dance.
Date Issued: 2013
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FAde2013grat
Subject Headings: Dance performance
Format: Set of related objects

FAU Theses and Dissertations (11)	+ -
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