http://hdl.handle.net/10057/86 http://soar.wichita.edu:8080/dspace/retrieve/43 http://hdl.handle.net/10057/86 Search the Channel s http://soar.wichita.edu:8080/dspace/simple-search http://hdl.handle.net/10057/2058 title: The denunciation of patriarchy and capitalism in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God authors: Ondieki, Benjamin Orina <br>abstract: The figuration of Janie in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is an undeniable contestation of gender oppression. The contours of previous criticism have mapped out various directions of arguments, some of which make feminism a sort of critical mantra of Hurston criticism. In spite of such existing claims that the novel challenges the premises of women’s oppression within the African American social milieu, a closer look at the text shows that critics have not exhausted all that needs to be said on this subject. This essay premises its argument on the assertion that Their Eyes protests entrenched patriarchy and middle class or bourgeois capitalism. These two ideologies dominate Janie’s grandmother’s mind, and compel her to teach the protagonist to submit and accept inferior gender status, hence affirming the argument that women as well as men contribute to the existing patriarchal order. Indoctrinated into this system by her grandmother, Janie experiences three marriages that make her realize that she can no longer live according to her grandmother’s wishes. Instead, she makes personal efforts to denounce capitalist patriarchy in order to live her life to the fullest. She explicitly tells her friend Pheoby, “Ah done lived Grandma’s way, now Ah means to live mine” (114). Janie’s process of self discovery brings to the surface complex gender oppression which cross the racial and class divide. My project will use radical feminist and Marxist feminist theories to look at Janie’s three oppressive marriages, her support at the trial from white women, and the feminist significance of the catastrophic hurricane at the end of the novel. This natural phenomenon, I intend to argue, is symbolic of a feminist, anti-capitalist revolt which powerfully articulates Marx’s theory with regards to capitalism’s appropriation of women and nature for purposes of exploitation. <br>description: Thesis ([M.A.] - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of English <br> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10057/2032 title: From the sublime to duende: a cross-cultural study on the aesthetics of artistic transcendence authors: Cooke, Patricia K. <br>abstract: For centuries, artists have used their works as a means of communication. Such communication can, at times, connect artist and audience in a unique experience which defies barriers of both language and culture. Although artists have written about this experience--referred to here as “artistic transcendence” or “artistic transport”--since classical times, no word seemed able to encompass its meaning until Longinus used the word “sublime” to describe it. The concept has since undergone several reinterpretations, beginning with the additions by Joseph Addison in the eighteenth century, and continuing to the present day in which the word remains subjective and its uses diverse. Consequently, the notion of artistic transport now requires a new definition--one which embraces both the classical and eighteenth-century notions, yet also incorporates a contemporary understanding of the concept. This thesis submits that the Spanish word duende not only fulfills, but exceeds these requirements. Both the sublime and duende contain elements of a struggle between artist and art, an ability to elevate both artist and audience to a higher realm, and shared roots in the classical notion of artistic transport. Using primary texts from Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen” to Lorca’s “Play and Theory of the Duende,” this thesis establishes a connection between the classical notion of artistic transport, the eighteenth-century understanding of the sublime, and the twentieth-century concept of duende. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates how duende, which contains both historical and contemporary connotations, represents the modern sublime both in works of art as well as in the artistic process itself. <br>description: Thesis [M.A.] - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of English <br> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10057/2022 title: A cultural study of the chair authors: Cass, Jenny R. <br>abstract: This research traces the cultural significance of chairs. It examines the ways in which chairs are used to create and reinforce boundaries between individuals and/or groups of people within various social contexts. Gender, racial, and socio-economic factors were among the major chair-related divisions explored. Building from the cultural interpretation of chairs, the thesis moves towards a close reading of the chairs that are located in several literary texts, including Lady Audley's Secret, Invisible Man, and "The Human Chair", a short story by Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo. <br>description: Thesis (M.A.) - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English <br> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:58:59 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10057/1971 title: Fairy tale woman transformed, mythical artist re-born: Recontextualizing the female artist’s narrative in The song of the lark authors: Bell, Donna Maryjean <br>abstract: This essay considers Willa Cather’s use of fairy tale, musical, and mythological references within The Song of the Lark to rewrite cultural paradigms of patriarchal oppression and create a female-empowered narrative of an artist’s life. Through a complex network of allusions, Cather creates a successful künstlerroman by conveying the complicated realities of her female protagonist’s struggle to become an artist. Only by examining the full context of the novel’s allusions can we clearly understand the author’s characterization of her main character, Thea Kronberg. <br>description: Thesis (M.A.) - Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Science, Dept. of English <br> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:58:59 GMT