thesis american literature

Department of English

Recent PhD Dissertations

Terekhov, Jessica (September 2022) -- "On Wit in Relation to Self-Division"

Selinger, Liora (September 2022) -- "Romanticism, Childhood, and the Poetics of Explanation"

Lockhart, Isabel (September 2022) -- "Storytelling and the Subsurface: Indigenous Fiction, Extraction, and the Energetic Present"

Ashe, Nathan (April 2022) – "Narrative Energy: Physics and the Scientific Real in Victorian Literature”

Bartley, Scott H. (April 2022) – “Watch it closely: The Poetry and Poetics of Aesthetic Focus in The New Criticism and Middle Generation”

Mctar, Ali (November 2021) – “Fallen Father: John Milton, Antinomianism, and the Case Against Adam”

Chow, Janet (September 2021) – “Securing the Crisis: Race and the Poetics of Risk”

Thorpe, Katherine (September 2021) – “Protean Figures: Personified Abstractions from Milton’s Allegory to Wordsworth’s Psychology of the Poet”

Minnen, Jennifer (September 2021) – “The Second Science: Feminist Natural Inquiry in Nineteenth-Century British Literature”

Starkowski, Kristen (September 2021) – “Doorstep Moments: Close Encounters with Minor Characters in the Victorian Novel”

Rickard, Matthew (September 2021) – “Probability: A Literary History, 1479-1700”

Crandell, Catie (September 2021) – “Inkblot Mirrors: On the Metareferential Mode and 19th Century British Literature”

Clayton, J.Thomas (September 2021) – “The Reformation of Indifference: Adiaphora, Toleration, and English Literature in the Seventeenth Century”

Goldberg, Reuven L. (May 2021) – “I Changed My Sex! Pedagogy and the Trans Narrative”

Soong, Jennifer (May 2021) – “Poetic Forgetting”

Edmonds, Brittney M. (April 2021) – “Who’s Laughing Now? Black Affective Play and Formalist Innovation in Twenty-First Century black Literary Satire”

Azariah-Kribbs, Colin (April 2021) – “Mere Curiosity: Knowledge, Desire, and Peril in the British and Irish Gothic Novel, 1796-1820”

Pope, Stephanie (January 2021) – “Rethinking Renaissance Symbolism: Material Culture, Visual Signs, and Failure in Early Modern Literature, 1587-1644”

Kumar, Matthew (September 2020) – “The Poetics of Space and Sensation in Scotland and Kenya”

Bain, Kimberly (September 2020) – “On Black Breath”

Eisenberg, Mollie (September 2020) – “The Case of the Self-Conscious Detective Novel: Modernism, Metafiction, and the Terms of Literary Value”

Hori, Julia M. (September 2020) – “Restoring Empire: British Imperial Nostalgia, Colonial Space, and Violence since WWII”

Reade, Orlando (June 2020) – “Being a Lover of the World: Lyric Poetry and Political Disaffection after the English Civil War”

Mahoney, Cate (June 2020) – “Go on Your Nerve: Confidence in American Poetry, 1860-1960”

Ritger, Matthew (April 2020) – “Objects of Correction:  Literature and the Birth of Modern Punishment”

VanSant, Cameron (April 2020) – “Novel Subjects:  Nineteenth-Century Fiction and the Transformation of British Subjecthood”

Lennington, David (November 2019) – “Anglo-Saxon and Arabic Identity in the Early Middle Ages”

Marraccini, Miranda (September 2019) – “Feminist Types: Reading the Victoria Press”

Harlow, Lucy (June 2019) – “The Discomposed Mind”

Williamson, Andrew (June 2019) – “Nothing to Say:  Silence in Modernist American Poetry”

Adair, Carl (April 2019) – “Faithful Readings: Religion, Hermeneutics, and the Habits of Criticism”

Rogers, Hope (April 2019) – “Good Girls: Female Agency and Convention in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel”

Green, Elspeth (January 2019) – “Popular Science and Modernist Poetry”

Braun, Daniel (January 2019) – Kinds of Wrong: The Liberalization of Modern Poetry 1910-1960”

Rosen, Rebecca (November 2018) – “Making the body Speak: Anatomy, Autopsy and Testimony in Early America, 1639-1790”

Blank, Daniel (November 2018) – Shakespeare and the Spectacle of University Drama”

Case, Sarah (September 2018) – Increase of Issue: Poetry and Succession in Elizabethan England”

Kucik, Emanuela  (June 2018) – “Black Genocides and the Visibility Paradox in Post-Holocaust African American and African Literature”

Quinn, Megan  (June 2018) – “The Sensation of Language: Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley”

McCarthy, Jesse D.  (June 2018) – “The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, 1945-1965

Johnson, Colette E.  (June 2018) – “The Foibles of Play: Three Case Studies on Play in the Interwar Years”

Gingrich, Brian P.  (June 2018) – “The Pace of Modern Fiction: A History of Narrative Movement in Modernity”

Marcus, Sara R.  (June 2018) – “Political Disappointment: A Partial History of a Feeling”

Parry, Rosalind A.  (April 2018) – “Remaking Nineteenth-Century Novels for the Twentieth Century”

Gibbons, Zoe  (January 2018) – “From Time to Time:  Narratives of Temporality in Early Modern England, 1610-1670”

Padilla, Javier  (September 2017) – “Modernist Poetry and the Poetics of Temporality:  Between Modernity and Coloniality”

Alvarado, Carolina (June 2017) – "Pouring Eastward: Editing American Regionalism, 1890-1940"

Gunaratne, Anjuli (May 2017) – "Tragic Resistance: Decolonization and Disappearance in Postcolonial Literature"

Glover, Eric (May 2017) – "By and About:  An Antiracist History of the Musicals and the Antimusicals of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston"

Tuckman, Melissa (April 2017) – "Unnatural Feelings in Nineteenth-Century Poetry"

Eggan, Taylor (April 2017) – "The Ecological Uncanny: Estranging Literary Landscapes in Twentieth-Century Narrative Fiction"

Calver, Harriet (March 2017) – "Modern Fiction and Its Phantoms"

Gaubinger, Rachel (December 2016) – "Between Siblings: Form and Family in the Modern Novel"

Swartz, Kelly (December 2016) – "Maxims and the Mind: Sententiousness from Seventeenth-Century Science to the Eighteenth-Century Novel"

Robles, Francisco (June 2016) – “Migrant Modalities: Radical Democracy and Intersectional Praxis in American Literatures, 1923-1976”

Johnson, Daniel (June 2016) – “Visible Plots, Invisible Realms”

Bennett, Joshua (June 2016) – “Being Property Once Myself: In Pursuit of the Animal in 20th Century African American Literature”

Scranton, Roy (January 2016) – “The Trauma Hero and the Lost War: World War II, American Literature, and the Politics of Trauma, 1945-1975

Jacob, Priyanka (November 2015) – “Things That Linger: Secrets, Containers and Hoards in the Victorian Novel”

Evans, William (November 2015) – “The Fiction of Law in Shakespeare and Spenser”

Vasiliauskas, Emily (November 2015) – “Dead Letters: The Afterlife Before Religion”

Walker, Daniel (June 2015) – “Sociable Uncertainties: Literature and the Ethics of Indeterminacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain”

Reilly, Ariana (June 2015) – “Leave-Takings: Anti-Self-Consciousness and the Escapist Ends of the Victorian Marriage Plot”

Lerner, Ross (June 2015) – "Framing Fanaticism: Religion, Violence, and the Reformation Literature of Self-Annihilation”

Harrison, Matthew (June 2015) – "Tear Him for His Bad Verses: Poetic Value and Literary History in Early Modern England”

Krumholtz, Matthew (June 2015) – “Talking Points: American Dialogue in the Twentieth Century”

Dauber, Maayan (March 2015) – "The Pathos of Modernism: Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Stein (with a coda on J.M. Coetzee)”

Hostetter, Lyra (March 2015) – “Novel Errantry: An Annotated Edition of Horatio, of Holstein (1800)”

Sanford, Beatrice (January 2015) – “Love’s Perception: Nineteenth-Century Aesthetics of Attachment”

Chong, Kenneth (January 2015) – “Potential Theologies: Scholasticism and Middle English Literature”

Worsley, Amelia (September 2014) – “The Poetry of Loneliness from Romance to Romanticism”

Hurtado, Jules (June 2014) – “The Pornographer at the Crossroads: Sex, Realism and Experiment in the Contemporary English Novel”

Rutherford, James (June 2014) – "Irrational Actors: Literature and Logic in Early Modern England”

Wilde, Lisa (June 2014) – “English Numeracy and the Writing of New Worlds, 1543-1622”

Hyde, Emily (November 2013) – “A Way of Seeing: Modernism, Illustration, and Postcolonial Literature”

Ortiz, Ivan (September 2013) – “Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Modern Transport”

Aronowicz, Yaron (September 2013) – “Fascinated Moderns: The Attentions of Modern Fiction”

Wythoff, Grant (September 2013) – “Gadgetry: New Media and the Fictional Imagination”

Ramachandran, Anitha (September 2013) – "Recovering Global Women’s Travel Writings from the Modern Period: An Inquiry Into Genre and Narrative Agency”

Reuland, John (April 2013) – “The Self Unenclosed: A New Literary History of Pragmatism, 1890-1940”

Wasserman, Sarah (January 2013) – “Material Losses: Urban Ephemera in Contemporary American Literature and Culture”

Kastner, Tal (November 2012) – "The Boilerplate of Everything and the Ideal of Agreement in American Law and Literature"

Labella, John (October 2012) – "Lyric Hemisphere: Latin America in United States Poetry, 1927-1981"

Kindley, Evan (September 2012) – "Critics and Connoisseurs: Poet-Critics and the Administration of Modernism"

Smith, Ellen (September 2012) – "Writing Native: The Aboriginal in Australian Cultural Nationalism 1927-1945"

Werlin, Julianne (September 2012) – "The Impossible Probable: Modeling Utopia in Early Modern England"

Posmentier, Sonya (May 2012) – "Cultivation and Catastrophe:  Forms of Nature in Twentieth-Century Poetry of the Black Diaspora"

Alfano, Veronica (September 2011) – “The Lyric in Victorian Memory”

Foltz, Jonathan (September 2011) – “Modernism and the Narrative Cultures of Film”

Coghlan, J. Michelle (September 2011) – “Revolution’s Afterlife; The Paris Commune in American Cultural Memory, 1871-1933”

Christoff, Alicia (September 2011) – “Novel Feeling”

Shin, Jacqueline (August 2011) – “Picturing Repose: Between the Acts of British Modernism”

Ebrahim, Parween (August 2011) – “Outcasts and Inheritors: The Ishmael Ethos in American Culture, 1776-1917”

Reckson, Lindsay (August 2011) – “Realist Ecstasy: Enthusiasm in American Literature 1886 - 1938"

Londe, Gregory (June 2011) – “Enduring Modernism: Forms of Surviving Location in the 20th Century Long Poem”

Brown, Adrienne (June 2011) – “Reading Between the Skylines: The Skyscraper in American Modernism”

Russell, David (June 2011) – “A Literary History of Tact: Sociability, Aesthetic Liberalism and the Essay Form in Nineteenth-Century Britain”

Hostetter, Aaron (December 2010) – "The Politics of Eating and Cooking in Medieval English Romance"

Moshenska, Joseph (November 2010) – " 'Feeling Pleasures': The Sense of Touch in Renaissance England"

Walker, Casey (September 2010) – "The City Inside: Intimacy and Urbanity in Henry James, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf"

Rackin, Ethel (August 2010) – "Ornamentation and Essence in Modernist Poetry"

Noble, Mary (August 2010) – "Primitive Marriage: Anthropology and Nineteenth-Century Fiction"

Fox, Renee (August 2010) – "Necromantic Victorians: Reanimation, History and the Politics of Literary Innovation, 1868-1903"

Hopper, Briallen (June 2010) – “Feeling Right in American Reform Culture”

Lee, Wendy (June 2010) -- "Failures of Feeling in the British Novel from Richardson to Eliot"

Moyer, James (March 2010) – "The Passion of Abolitionism: How Slave Martyrdom Obscures Slave Labor”

Forbes, Erin (September 2009) – “Genius of Deep Crime:  Literature, Enslavement and the American Criminal”

Crawforth, Hannah (September 2009) – “The Politics and Poetics of Etymology in Early Modern Literature”

Elliott, Danielle (April 2009) – "Sea of Bones: The Middle Passage in Contemporary Poetry of the Black Atlantic”

Yu, Wesley (April 2009) – “Romance Logic: The Argument of Vernacular Verse in the Scholastic Middle Ages”

Cervantes, Gabriel (April 2009) – "Genres of Correction: Anglophone Literature and the Colonial Turn in Penal Law 1722-1804”

Rosinberg, Erwin (January 2009) – "A Further Conjunction: The Couple and Its Worlds in Modern British Fiction”

Walsh, Keri (January 2009) – "Antigone in Modernism: Classicism, Feminism, and Theatres of Protest”

Heald, Abigail (January 2009) – “Tears for Dido: A Renaissance Poetics of Feeling”

Bellin, Roger (January 2009) – "Argument: The American Transcendentalists and Disputatious Reason”

Ellis, Nadia (November 2008) – "Colonial Affections: Formulations of Intimacy Between England and the Caribbean, 1930-1963”

Baskin, Jason (November 2008) – “Embodying Experience: Romanticism and Social Life in the Twentieth Century”

Barrett, Jennifer-Kate (September 2008) – “ ‘So Written to Aftertimes’: Renaissance England’s Poetics of Futurity”

Moss, Daniel (September 2008) – “Renaissance Ovids: The Metamorphosis of Allusion in Late Elizabethan England”

Rainof, Rebecca (September 2008) – “Purgatory and Fictions of Maturity: From Newman to Woolf”

Darznik, Jasmin (November 2007) – “Writing Outside the Veil: Literature by Women of the Iranian Diaspora”

Bugg, John (September 2007) – “Gagging Acts: The Trials of British Romanticism”

Matson, John (September 2007) – “Marking Twain: Mechanized Composition and Medial Subjectivity in the Twain Era”

Neel, Alexandra (September 2007) – “The Writing of Ice: The Literature and Photography of Polar Regions”

Smith-Browne, Stephanie (September 2007) – “Gothic and the Pacific Voyage: Patriotism, Romance and Savagery in South Seas Travels and the Utopia of the Terra Australis”

Bystrom, Kerry (June 2007) – “Orphans and Origins: Family, Memory, and Nation in Argentina and South Africa”

Ards, Angela (June 2007) – “Affirmative Acts: Political Piety in African American Women’s Contemporary Autobiography”

Cragwall, Jasper (June 2007) – “Lake Methodism”

Ball, David (June 2007) – “False Starts: The Rhetoric of Failure and the Making of American Modernism, 1850-1950”

Ramdass, Harold (June 2007) – “Miswriting Tragedy: Genealogy, History and Orthography in the Canterbury Tales, Fragment I”

Lilley, James (June 2007) – “Common Things: Transatlantic Romance and the Aesthetics of Belonging, 1764-1840”

Noble, Mary (March 2007) – “Primitive Marriage: Anthropology and Nineteenth-Century Fiction”

Passannante, Gerard (January 2007) – “The Lucretian Renaissance: Ancient Poetry and Humanism in an Age of Science”

Tessone, Natasha (November 2006) – “The Fiction of Inheritance: Familial, Cultural, and National Legacies in the Irish and Scottish Novel”

Horrocks, Ingrid (September 2006) – “Reluctant Wanderers, Mobile Feelings: Moving Figures in Eighteenth-Century Literature”

Bender, Abby (June 2006) – “Out of Egypt and into bondage: Exodus in the Irish National Imagination”

Johnson, Hannah (June 2006) – “The Medieval Limit: Historiography, Ethics, Culture”

Horowitz, Evan (January 2006) – “The Writing of Modern Life”

White, Gillian (November 2005) – “ ‘We Do Not Say Ourselves Like That in Poems’: The Poetics of Contingency in Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop

Baudot, Laura (September 2005) – “Looking at Nothing: Literary Vacuity in the Long Eighteenth Century”

Hicks, Kevin (September 2005) – “Acts of Recovery: American Antebellum Fictions”

Stern, Kimberly (September 2005) – “The Victorian Sibyl: Women Reviewers and the Reinvention of Critical Tradition”

Nardi, Steven (May 2005) – “Automatic Aesthetics: Race, Technology, and Poetics in the Harlem Renaissance and American New Poetry”

Sayeau, Michael (May 2005) – “Everyday: Literature, Modernity, and Time”

Cooper, Lawrence (April 2005) – “Gothic Realities: The Emergence of Cultural Forms Through Representations of the Unreal”

Betjemann, Peter (November 2004) – “Talking Shop: Craft and Design in Hawthorne, James, and Wharton”

Forbes, Aileen (November 2004) – “Passion Play: Theaters of Romantic Emotion”

Keeley, Howard (November 2004) – “Beyond Big House and Cabin: Dwelling Politically in Modern Irish Literature”

Machlan, Elizabeth (November 2004) – “Panic Rooms: Architecture and Anxiety in New York Stories from 1900 to 9/11”

McDowell, Demetrius (November 2004) – “Hawthorne, James, and the Pressures of the Literary Marketplace”

Waldron, Jennifer (November 2004) – “Eloquence of the Body: Aesthetics, Theology, and English Renaissance Theater”

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Digital Commons @ USF > College of Arts and Sciences > English > Theses and Dissertations

English Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2024 2024.

The Drama of Last Things: Reckoning in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Drama , Spencer M. Daniels

African Spirituality in Literature Written by Women of African Descent , Brigét V. Harley

Hidden Monstrosities: The Transformation of Medieval Characters and Conventions in Shakespeare's Romances , Lynette Kristine Kuliyeva

Making the Invisible Visible: (Re)envisioning the Black Body in Contemporary Adaptations of Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Urshela Wiggins McKinney

Lawful Injustice: Novel Readings of Racialized Temporality and Legal Instabilities , Danielle N. Mercier

“Manne, for thy loue wolde I not lette”: Eucharistic Portrayals of Caritas in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature and Drama 1350-1650 , Rachel Tanski

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Of Mētis and Cuttlefish: Employing Collective Mētis as a Theoretical Framework for Marginalized Communities , Justiss Wilder Burry

What on earth are we doing (?): A Field-Wide Exploration of Design Courses in TPC , Jessica L. Griffith

Organizations Ensuring Resilience: A Case Study of Cortez, Florida , Karla Ariel Maddox

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Using Movie Clips to Understand Vivid-Phrasal Idioms’ Meanings , Rasha Salem S. Alghamdi

Writing Supports for Honors Thesis Students: An Applied Program Evaluation Study , Krysta Banke

An Exercise in Exceptions: Personhood, Divergency, and Ableism in the STAR TREK Franchise , Jessica A. Blackman

Vulnerable Resistance in Victorian Women’s Writing , Stephanie A. Harper

Curricular Assemblages: Understanding Student Writing Knowledge (Re)circulation Across Genres , Adam Phillips

Anthropocene Fiction: Empathy, Kinship, and the Troubled Waters at the End of the World , Megan Mandell Stowe

PAD Beyond the Classroom: Integrating PAD in the Scrum Workplace , Jade S. Weiss

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Social Cues in Animated Pedagogical Agents for Second Language Learners: the Application of The Embodiment Principle in Video Design , Sahar M. Alyahya

A Field-Wide Examination of Cross-Listed Courses in Technical Professional Communication , Carolyn M. Gubala

Labor-Based Grading Contracts in the Multilingual FYC Classroom: Unpacking the Variables , Kara Kristina Larson

Land Goddesses, Divine Pigs, and Royal Tricksters: Subversive Mythologies and Imperialist Land Ownership Dispossession in Twentieth Century Irish and American Literature , Elizabeth Ricketts

Oppression, Resistance, and Empowerment: The Power Dynamics of Naming and Un-naming in African American Literature, 1794 to 2019 , Melissa "Maggie" Romigh

Generic Expectations in First Year Writing: Teaching Metadiscoursal Reflection and Revision Strategies for Increased Generic Uptake of Academic Writing , Kaelah Rose Scheff

Reframing the Gothic: Race, Gender, & Disability in Multiethnic Literature , Ashely B. Tisdale

Intersections of Race and Place in Short Fiction by New Orleans Gens de Couleur Libres , Adrienne D. Vivian

Mental Illness Diagnosis and the Construction of Stigma , Katie Lynn Walkup

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Rhetorical Roundhouse Kicks: Tae Kwon Do Pumsae Practice and Non-Western Embodied Topoi , Spencer Todd Bennington

9/11 Then and Now: How the Performance of Memorial Rhetoric by Presidents Changes to Construct Heroes , Kristen M. Grafton

Kinesthetically Speaking: Human and Animal Communication in British Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century , Dana Jolene Laitinen

Exploring Refugee Students’ Second Language (L2) Motivational Selves through Digital Visual Representations , Nhu Le

Glamour in Contemporary American Cinema , Shauna A. Maragh

Instrumentalization Theory: An Analytical Heuristic for a Heightened Social Awareness of Machine Learning Algorithms in Social Media , Andrew R. Miller

Intercessory Power: A Literary Analysis of Ethics and Care in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon , Alice Walker’s Meridian , and Toni Cade Bambara’s Those Bones Are Not My Child , Kelly Mills

The Power of Non-Compliant Logos: A New Materialist Approach to Comic Studies , Stephanie N. Phillips

Female Identity and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesian Novels , Zita Rarastesa

"The Fiery Furnaces of Hell": Rhetorical Dynamism in Youngstown, OH , Joshua M. Rea

“We developed solidarity”: Family, Race, Identity, and Space-Time in Recent Multiethnic U.S. American Fiction , Kimber L. Wiggs

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Remembrance of a Wound: Ethical Mourning in the Works of Ana Menéndez, Elías Miguel Muñoz, and Junot Díaz , José Aparicio

Taking an “Ecological Turn” in the Evaluation of Rhetorical Interventions , Peter Cannon

New GTA’s and the Pre-Semester Orientation: The Need for Informed Refinement , Jessica L. Griffith

Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: A New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students , Brianna Jerman

The Karoo , The Veld , and the Co-Op: The Farm as Microcosm and Place for Change in Schreiner, Lessing, and Head , Elana D. Karshmer

"The weak are meat, and the strong do eat"; Representations of the Slaughterhouse in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature , Stephanie Lance

Language of Carnival: How Language and the Carnivalesque Challenge Hegemony , Yulia O. Nekrashevich

Queer Authority in Old and Middle English Literature , Elan J. Pavlinich

Because My Garmin Told Me To: A New Materialist Study of Agency and Wearable Technology , Michael Repici

No One Wants to Read What You Write: A Contextualized Analysis of Service Course Assignments , Tanya P. Zarlengo

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Beauty and the Beasts: Making Places with Literary Animals of Florida , Haili A. Alcorn

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature , Timothy M. Curran

Seeing Trauma: The Known and the Hidden in Nineteenth-Century Literature , Alisa M. DeBorde

Analysis of User Interfaces in the Sharing Economy , Taylor B. Johnson

Border-Crossing Travels Across Literary Worlds: My Shamanic Conscientization , Scott Neumeister

The Spectacle of The Bomb: Rhetorical Analysis of Risk of The Nevada Test Site in Technical Communication, Popular Press, and Pop Culture , Tiffany Wilgar

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Traveling Women and Consuming Place in Eighteenth-Century Travel Letters and Journals , Cassie Patricia Childs

“The Nations of the Field and Wood”: The Uncertain Ontology of Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Literature , J. Kevin Jordan

Modern Mythologies: The Epic Imagination in Contemporary Indian Literature , Sucheta Kanjilal

Science in the Sun: How Science is Performed as a Spatial Practice , Natalie Kass

Body as Text: Physiognomy on the Early English Stage , Curtis Le Van

Tensions Between Democracy and Expertise in the Florida Keys , Elizabeth A. Loyer

Institutional Review Boards and Writing Studies Research: A Justice-Oriented Study , Johanna Phelps-Hillen

The Spirit of Friendship: Girlfriends in Contemporary African American Literature , Tangela La'Chelle Serls

Aphra Behn on the Contemporary Stage: Behn's Feminist Legacy and Woman-Directed Revivals of The Rover , Nicole Elizabeth Stodard

(Age)ncy in Composition Studies , Alaina Tackitt

Constructing Health Narratives: Patient Feedback in Online Communities , Katie Lynn Walkup

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Rupturing the World of Elite Athletics: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of the Suspension of the 2011 IAAF Regulations on Hyperandrogenism , Ella Browning

Shaping Climate Citizenship: The Ethics of Inclusion in Climate Change Communication and Policy , Lauren E. Cagle

Drop, Cover, and Hold On: Analyzing FEMA's Risk Communication through Visual Rhetoric , Samantha Jo Cosgrove

Material Expertise: Applying Object-oriented Rhetoric in Marine Policy , Zachary Parke Dixon

The Non-Identical Anglophone Bildungsroman : From the Categorical to the De-Centering Literary Subject in the Black Atlantic , Jarad Heath Fennell

Instattack: Instagram and Visual Ad Hominem Political Arguments , Sophia Evangeline Gourgiotis

Hospitable Climates: Representations of the West Indies in Eighteenth-Century British Literature , Marisa Carmen Iglesias

Chosen Champions: Medieval and Early Modern Heroes as Postcolonial Reactions to Tensions between England and Europe , Jessica Trant Labossiere

Science, Policy, and Decision Making: A Case Study of Deliberative Rhetoric and Policymaking for Coastal Adaptation in Southeast Florida , Karen Patricia Langbehn

A New Materialist Approach to Visual Rhetoric in PhotoShopBattles , Jonathan Paul Ray

Tracing the Material: Spaces and Objects in British and Irish Modernist Novels , Mary Allison Wise

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Representations of Gatsby: Ninety Years of Retrospective , Christine Anne Auger

Robust, Low Power, Discrete Gate Sizing , Anthony Joseph Casagrande

Wrestling with Angels: Postsecular Contemporary American Poetry , Paul T. Corrigan

#networkedglobe: Making the Connection between Social Media and Intercultural Technical Communication , Laura Anne Ewing

Evidence of Things Not Seen: A Semi-Automated Descriptive Phrase and Frame Analysis of Texts about the Herbicide Agent Orange , Sarah Beth Hopton

'She Shall Not Be Moved': Black Women's Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home , Rondrea Danielle Mathis

Relational Agency, Networked Technology, and the Social Media Aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing , Megan M. Mcintyre

Now, We Hear Through a Voice Darkly: New Media and Narratology in Cinematic Art , James Anthony Ricci

Navigating Collective Activity Systems: An Approach Towards Rhetorical Inquiry , Katherine Jesse Royce

Women's Narratives of Confinement: Domestic Chores as Threads of Resistance and Healing , Jacqueline Marie Smith

Domestic Spaces in Transition: Modern Representations of Dwelling in the Texts of Elizabeth Bowen , Shannon Tivnan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Paradise Always Already Lost: Myth, Memory, and Matter in English Literature , Elizabeth Stuart Angello

Overcoming the 5th-Century BCE Epistemological Tragedy: A Productive Reading of Protagoras of Abdera , Ryan Alan Blank

Acts of Rebellion: The Rhetoric of Rogue Cinema , Adam Breckenridge

Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson , Jessica Lauren Cook

Decolonizing Shakespeare: Race, Gender, and Colonialism in Three Adaptations of Three Plays by William Shakespeare , Angela Eward-Mangione

Risk of Compliance: Tracing Safety and Efficacy in Mef-Lariam's Licensure , Julie Marie Gerdes

Beyond Performance: Rhetoric, Collective Memory, and the Motive of Imprinting Identity , Brenda M. Grau

Subversive Beauty - Victorian Bodies of Expression , Lisa Michelle Hoffman-Reyes

Integrating Reading and Writing For Florida's ESOL Program , George Douglas Mcarthur

Responsibility and Responsiveness in the Novels of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley , Katherine Marie McGee

Ghosts, Orphans, and Outlaws: History, Family, and the Law in Toni Morrison's Fiction , Jessica Mckee

The "Defective" Generation: Disability in Modernist Literature , Deborah Susan Mcleod

Science Fiction/Fantasy and the Representation of Ethnic Futurity , Joy Ann Sanchez-Taylor

Hermes, Technical Communicator of the Gods: The Theory, Design, and Creation of a Persuasive Game for Technical Communication , Eric Walsh

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Rhetorical Spirits: Spirituality as Rhetorical Device in New Age Womanist of Color Texts , Ronisha Witlee Browdy

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The Untimely Avant-Garde: Literature, Politics, and Transculturation in the Sinosphere (1909-2020) Fangdai Chen

Recovering the Language of Lament: Modernism, Catastrophe, and Exile Sarah Corrigan

Beyond Diaspora:The Off Home in Jewish Literature from Latin America and Israel Lana Jaffe Neufeld

Artificial Humanities: A Literary Perspective on Creating and Enhancing Humans from Pygmalion to Cyborgs Nina Begus

Music and Exile in Twentieth-Century German, Italian, and Polish Literature Cecily Cai

We Speak Violence: How Narrative Denies the Everyday Rachael Duarte Riascos

Anticlimax: The Multilingual Novel at the Turn of the 21st Century Matylda Figlerowicz

Forgetting to Remember: An Approach to Proust’s Recherche Lara Roizen

The Event of Literature:An Interval in a World of Violence Petra Taylor

The English Baroque:The Logic of Excess in Early Modern Literature Hudson Vincent

Porte Planète; Ville Canale –parisian knobs /visually/ turned to \textual\ currents Emma Zofia Zachurski

‘…not a poet but a poem’: A Lacanian study of the subject of the poem Marina Connelly The Tune That Can No Longer Be Recognized: Late Medieval Chinese Poetry and Its Affective Others Jasmine Hu The Invention of the Art Film: Authorship and French Cultural Policy Joseph Pomp Apocalypticism in the Arabic Novel William Tamplin The Sound of Prose: Rhythm, Translation, Orality Thomas Wisniewski

The New Austerity in Syrian Poetry Daniel Behar

Mourning the Living: Africa and the Elegy on Screen Molly Klaisner

Art Beyond the Norms: Art of the Insane, Art Brut, and the Avant-Garde from Prinzhorn to Dubuffet (1922-1949) Raphael Koenig

Words, Images and the Self: Iconoclasm in Late Medieval English Literature Yun Ni

Europe and the Cultural Politics of Mediterranean Migrations Argyro Nicolaou

Voice of Power, Voice of Terror: Lyric, Violence, and the Greek Revolution Simos Zenios

Every Step a New Movement: Anarchism in the Stalin-Era Literature of the Absurd and its Post-Soviet Adaptations Ania Aizman

Kino-Eye, Kino-Bayonet: Avant-Garde Documentary in Japan, France, and the USSR Julia Alekseyeva

Ambient Meaning: Mood, Vibe, System Peli Grietzer

Year of the Titan: Percy Bysshe Shelley and Ancient Poetry Benjamin Sudarsky

Metropolitan Morning: Loss, Affect, and Metaphysics in Buenos Aires, 1920-1940 Juan Torbidoni

Sophisticated Players: Adults Writing as Children in the Stalin Era and Beyond Luisa Zaitseva

Collecting as Cultural Technique: Materialistic Interventions into History in 20th Century China Guangchen Chen

Pathways of Transculturation: Chinese Cultural Encounters with Russia and Japan (1880-1930) Xiaolu Ma

Beyond the Formal Law: Making Cases in Roman Controversiae and Tang Literary Judgments Tony Qian

Alternative Diplomacies: Writing in Early Twentieth-Century Shanghai, Istanbul, and Beyond? Alice Xiang

The Literary Territorialization of Manchuria: Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia from the Frontier Miya Qiong Xie World Literature and the Chinese Compass, 1942-2012 Yanping Zhang

Anatomy of ‘Decadence’ Henry Bowles

Medicine As Storytelling: Emplotment Strategies in Doctor-Patient Encounters and Beyond (1870-1830) Elena Fratto

Platonic Footnotes: Figures of Asymmetry in Ancient Greek Thought Katie Deutsch

Children’s Literature Grows Up Christina Phillips Mattson

Humor as Epiphanic Awareness and Attempted Self-Transcendence Curtis Shonkwiler

Ethnicity, Ethnogenesis and Ancestry in the Early Iron Age Aegean as Background to and through the Lens of the Iliad Guy Smoot

The Modern Stage of Capitalism: The Drama of Markets and Money (1870-1930) Alisa Sniderman

Repenting Roguery: Penance in the Spanish Picaresque Novel and the Arabic and Hebrew Maqāma Emmanuel Ramírez Nieves

The “Poetics of Diagram” John Kim

Dreaming Empire: European Writers in the Fascist Era Robert Kohen

The Poetics of Love in Prosimetra across the Medieval Mediterranean Isabelle Levy

Renaissance Error: Digression from Ariosto to Milton Luke Taylor

The New Voyager: Theory and Practice of South Asian Literary Modernisms Rita Banerjee

Be an Outlaw, Be a Hero: Cinematic Figures of Urban Banditry and Transgression in Brazil, France, and the Maghreb Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

Bāgh-e Bi-Bargi: Aspects of Time and Presence in the Poetry of Mehdi Akhavān Sāles Marie Huber

Freund-schaft: Capturing Aura in an Unframed Literary Exchange Clara Masnatta

Class, Gender and Indigeneity as Counter-discourses in the African Novel: Achebe, Ngugi, Emecheta, Sow Fall and Ali Fatin Abbas

The Empire of Chance: War, Literature, and the Epistemic Order of Modernity Anders Engberg-Pedersen

Poetics of the unfinished: illuminating Paul Celan’s “Eingedunkelt” Thomas Connolly

Towards a Media History of Writing in Ancient Italy Stephanie Frampton Character Before the Novel: Representing Moral Identity in the Age of Shakespeare Jamey Graham

Transforming Trauma: Memory and Slavery in Black Atlantic Literature since 1830 Raquel Kennon

Renaissance Romance: Rewarding the Boundaries of Fiction Christine S. Lee

Psychomotor Aesthetics: Conceptions of Gesture and Affect in Russian and American Modernity, 1910s-1920s Ana Olenina

Melancholy, Ambivalence, Exhaustion: Responses to National Trauma in the Literature and Film of France and China Erin Schlumpf

The Poetics of Human-Computer Interaction Dennis Tenen

Novelizing the Muslim Wars of Conquest: The Christian Pioneers of the Arabic Historical Novel Luke Leafgren

Secret Lives of the City: Reimagining the Urban Margins in 20th-Century Literature and Theory, from Surrealism to Iain Sinclair Jennifer Hui Bon Hoa

Archaic Greek Memory and Its Role in Homer Anita Nikkanen

Deception Narratives and the (Dis)Pleasure of Being Cheated: The Cases of Gogol, Nabokov, Mamet, and Flannery O’Connor Svetlana Rukhelman

Aesthetic Constructs and the Work of Play in 20th Century Latin American and Russian Literature Natalya Sukhonos

Stone, Steel, Glass: Constructions of Time in European Modernity Christina Svendsen

See here for a full list of dissertations since 1904 .

Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.

© 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College

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American Literature Research Paper Topics

This article provides a comprehensive guide to American literature research paper topics , showcasing the depth and diversity of the literary landscape in the United States. From colonial beginnings to contemporary voices, American literature offers a rich tapestry of stories, themes, and perspectives. For students diving into this vast field, choosing the right topic is crucial. This guide not only lists an array of potential American literature research paper topics but also delves into the evolution of American literary movements, offers practical advice for topic selection, and gives tips on how to craft a compelling paper. Additionally, with iResearchNet’s expert writing services, students are equipped with professional resources to ensure their research endeavors are a success.

100 American Literature Research Paper Topics

American literature, a vast and diverse field, encompasses a range of themes, styles, and epochs. From the colonial tales of the early settlers to the modern narratives of the 21st century, the U.S. literary canvas is as broad as the country’s history. This comprehensive list offers a variety of American literature research paper topics divided into ten distinct categories, ensuring that every student can find a theme that resonates with their interests and academic goals.

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I. Colonial and Early American Literature

• The religious undertones in the works of Anne Bradstreet.
• Exploring captivity narratives: Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity.”
• Jonathan Edwards and the rhetoric of the Great Awakening.
• The role of nature in early American literature.
• Benjamin Franklin’s “Autobiography”: A study in self-fashioning.
• The evolution of the American Dream in early American writings.
• The emergence of American Gothic: Charles Brockden Brown’s “Wieland.”
• Slavery narratives: Comparing Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.
• The role of women in colonial American literature.
• Native American oral traditions and their influence on early colonial writings.

II. Romanticism and the American Renaissance

• Washington Irving and the creation of American myths.
• Edgar Allan Poe: The master of American Gothic.
• Transcendentalism: The philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau.
• Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”: An exploration of good vs. evil.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s exploration of Puritanical guilt in “The Scarlet Letter.”
• Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and the birth of free verse.
• Emily Dickinson: A recluse’s perspective on society and nature.
• The frontier in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales.
• Gothic elements in the works of Louisa May Alcott.
• Dark romanticism: A comparative study of Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville.

III. Realism and Naturalism

• Mark Twain and the critique of American society in “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
• Henry James and the art of psychological realism.
• The portrayal of urban life in Stephen Crane’s works.
• Edith Wharton’s critique of the Gilded Age in “The Age of Innocence.”
• The conflict of man versus nature in Jack London’s writings.
• The influence of Darwinism on American naturalist writers.
• Kate Chopin and the awakening of female sexuality.
• The immigrant experience in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.”
• The rise of regionalism: Willa Cather and the American Midwest.
• Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” and the dark side of the American Dream.

IV. The Harlem Renaissance

• Langston Hughes and the jazz poetry movement.
• Zora Neale Hurston’s exploration of black folklore in “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
• Claude McKay and the politics of race in America.
• Jean Toomer’s “Cane”: A mosaic of African American life.
• The influence of jazz and blues on Harlem Renaissance literature.
• The role of magazines and journals in promoting African American voices.
• Nella Larsen’s exploration of racial identity in “Passing.”
• Alain Locke’s “The New Negro” and the redefinition of African American identity.
• Gender and sexuality in the works of Wallace Thurman.
• The intersection of visual arts and literature during the Harlem Renaissance.

V. Modernism

• F. Scott Fitzgerald and the disillusionment of the Jazz Age.
• Ernest Hemingway’s narrative style and the “Lost Generation.”
• Gertrude Stein and the avant-garde literary scene.
• T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and the fragmentation of modern society.
• The influence of World War I on American modernist writers.
• John Dos Passos and the critique of capitalism in “The U.S.A. Trilogy.”
• William Faulkner’s innovative narrative techniques.
• The works of E.E. Cummings and the break from traditional poetic forms.
• The influence of expatriation on American modernist literature.
• Djuna Barnes and the exploration of sexuality in “Nightwood.”

VI. The Beat Generation

• Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”: Defining the Beat ethos.
• Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”: A protest against conformity and consumerism.
• William S. Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” and its critique of post-war America.
• The role of jazz and drug culture in the Beat literary movement.
• The Beat Generation and their relationship with Eastern spirituality.
• Female voices in the Beat movement: Diane di Prima and Joanne Kyger.
• The legacy of Neal Cassady: From muse to writer.
• The impact of San Francisco Renaissance on the Beats.
• The Beats and their dissection of the American Dream.
• The global travels of the Beat Generation and their reflections in literature.

VII. Postmodernism

• Thomas Pynchon and the entropic vision of “Gravity’s Rainbow.”
• Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five”: War, time, and metafiction.
• Metafiction and historiographic metafiction in works by John Barth.
• The detective novel reimagined: Paul Auster’s “City of Glass.”
• Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and the haunting of history.
• Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” and the fear of death in postmodern society.
• Paranoia and conspiracy in Robert Coover’s novels.
• Postcolonial critique in Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses.”
• The consumerist dystopia in Bret Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho.”
• Maximalism in David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest.”

VIII. Contemporary American Literature

• Identity and multiculturalism in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake.”
• The post-9/11 American psyche in novels by Jonathan Safran Foer.
• Magical realism and the immigrant experience in Junot Diaz’s “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”
• The reimagining of the American West in Annie Proulx’s works.
• Technology and isolation in Dave Eggers’ “The Circle.”
• The deconstruction of the family narrative in Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections.”
• The changing American South in the works of Jesmyn Ward.
• Dystopian futures in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Testaments.”
• Coming-of-age in the digital age: Sally Rooney’s novels.
• The clash of cultures in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Americanah.”

IX. Literature of the American Frontier and West

• The myth versus reality of the Wild West in Owen Wister’s “The Virginian.”
• Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” and the brutality of westward expansion.
• The legacy of frontier humor in Mark Twain’s early works.
• Women’s perspectives on the frontier: Willa Cather’s “O Pioneers!”
• Native American voices and the frontier: N. Scott Momaday’s “House Made of Dawn.”
• The environmental ethics of the American West in Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire.”
• Revisionist Westerns: Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove.”
• Exploration of masculinity and the mythic West in Sam Shepard’s plays.
• The Gold Rush in American literature: Joaquin Miller’s poetic works.
• The Asian American experience in the Old West: Sui Sin Far’s stories.

X. Science Fiction and Dystopian Literature

• The socio-political critiques in Philip K. Dick’s novels.
• Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series and the fall of the American empire.
• The fear of otherness in Robert A. Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land.”
• Environmental collapse in Octavia E. Butler’s “Parable” series.
• Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and the danger of censorship.
• The commercialization of society in Frederik Pohl’s “The Space Merchants.”
• Feminism and gender in Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness.”
• The evolution of the post-apocalyptic narrative in American science fiction.
• The role of technology and artificial intelligence in contemporary American science fiction.
• The resurgence of dystopian literature in the 21st century: Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series.

American literature, shaped by history, society, and diverse voices, offers a plethora of research topics. Whether students wish to delve deep into a specific era or explore overarching themes across epochs, this list provides a starting point. Armed with these American literature research paper topics, scholars can embark on an enlightening journey through the annals of American literature, discovering insights that not only illuminate the texts but also reflect the nation’s evolving identity.

American Literature and the Range of Topics It Offers

American literature, as vast and varied as the landscape of the country itself, encapsulates the spirit, dreams, and dilemmas of its people over centuries. From the indigenous narratives of pre-colonial America to the postmodernist critiques of the late 20th century, the literary output of the United States mirrors the sociopolitical changes, cultural shifts, and individual narratives that have shaped its history.

Colonial and Early American literature, for instance, grapple with themes of discovery, colonization, and the quest for identity in a new world. Authors like Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards exemplify this era’s struggles and spiritual yearnings. Their works lay the foundation for the Romantic period that followed, characterized by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These authors delved deep into the human psyche, often highlighting the dualities of human nature and the looming American wilderness.

The transcendentalist movement, spearheaded by figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, presented a unique take on individuality, nature, and spirituality. Their perspectives provided a stark contrast to the realist and naturalist writers of the late 19th century, who, influenced by Darwinism and the Industrial Revolution, presented a grittier, more deterministic view of the human experience.

The 20th century ushered in a literary renaissance, with the Harlem Renaissance leading the charge. This era, defined by writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay, not only redefined African American literature but also laid the groundwork for successive generations of writers to explore themes of racial identity, inequality, and heritage.

American literature’s vast scope is further broadened by the Beat Generation, Postmodernists, and contemporary writers, each adding layers of complexity and depth to this already multifaceted literary tradition. The Beats, with their unorthodox lifestyles and candid explorations of sexuality, spirituality, and societal rebellion, paved the way for postmodernists to break literary conventions and question the very nature of narrative and authorship.

In the contemporary realm, the literary landscape is even more diverse, with authors from various backgrounds addressing issues such as immigration, gender identity, technology, and globalization.

Considering the vastness and depth of American literature, the range of potential American literature research paper topics is immense. Whether analyzing a specific author’s style, comparing literary movements, or delving into the socio-political implications of a particular work, students have a plethora of avenues to explore. The beauty of American literature lies not just in its rich tapestry of stories but also in the endless academic inquiries it sparks.

The American literary canon, forever expanding and evolving, stands as an open invitation for scholars, students, and readers alike to delve in, explore, and contribute to the ongoing conversation. The American literature research paper topics presented earlier merely scratch the surface of what’s possible, offering a starting point for those eager to embark on their own literary journey through the annals of American literature.

How to Choose an American Literature Research Paper Topic

The process of selecting American literature research paper topics can be both exciting and daunting. The vast expanse of literary works, spanning from the earliest colonial narratives to the contemporary experimental pieces, offers a plethora of subjects to dive into. However, choosing the right topic is crucial not only for academic success but also for maintaining personal interest throughout the research process. Here’s a comprehensive guide to assist you in making an informed choice:

• Start with Personal Interest: Your enthusiasm for a particular era, author, or theme can drive the quality of your research. Always consider what genuinely intrigues you about American literature. Is it the Harlem Renaissance, the transcendentalist movement, or the postmodern era?
• Read Widely: Before settling on a topic, immerse yourself in a variety of texts. By exploring a wide range of works, you might discover a previously unconsidered area of interest or identify gaps in existing research.
• Historical Context Matters: The socio-political backdrop against which a literary work was produced often deeply influences its content and themes. Understanding this context can provide richer layers of meaning to your research.
• Consider Genre and Form: Instead of focusing solely on an author or era, consider diving into specific literary forms – poetry, short stories, novels, plays – or genres like Gothic, mystery, or magical realism within American literature.
• Check Availability of Resources: It’s essential to ensure that adequate resources – primary texts, scholarly articles, critiques – are available on your chosen topic. Conduct preliminary research to gauge this.
• Consult Professors or Mentors: Engage in discussions with your professors or academic mentors. Their insights, based on years of experience and study, can guide you toward a promising research area or warn you about potential pitfalls.
• Evaluate Scope: Ensure that your chosen topic is neither too broad nor too narrow. A topic that’s too expansive can be overwhelming, while an overly specific subject might lack substantial content for a comprehensive paper.
• Interdisciplinary Approaches: Consider merging literary analysis with insights from fields like sociology, psychology, or history. For instance, you could study the portrayal of mental illness in American literature through both a literary and psychological lens.
• Stay Updated with Recent Scholarship: Literary interpretations evolve over time. Ensure you’re familiar with the latest scholarly discussions surrounding your topic. This can help refine your thesis and approach.
• Relevance and Contribution: Ask yourself how your research will contribute to the existing body of knowledge. Aiming for a fresh perspective or a unique interpretation can make your work stand out.

Choosing a topic for a research paper in American literature is a journey of discovery. It’s about finding the right balance between personal interest, academic relevance, and the potential contribution to the field. Remember, the process of research and writing should be as rewarding as the final product. By carefully selecting your topic, you set the stage for a fulfilling academic endeavor.

How to Write an American Literature Research Paper

Delving into the world of American literature is like embarking on a thrilling journey across time, cultures, and ideologies. From the early Native American oral traditions to the cutting-edge contemporary narratives, the literary landscape of America offers a vast terrain to explore and analyze. Writing a research paper on such a subject is not just about summarizing texts, but about adding to the discourse. Here’s a detailed guide to help you craft a compelling and insightful research paper on American literature:

Your research paper journey begins with a strong introduction. This is your chance to captivate your reader’s interest, provide some background on your topic, and present your thesis statement.

• Choose a Strong Thesis: A clear, concise, and debatable thesis is the backbone of your research paper. Ensure it provides a fresh perspective or a unique angle on your chosen topic.
• Research Thoroughly: Dive deep into primary sources (novels, poems, plays, etc.) and secondary sources (critiques, essays, and scholarly papers). Libraries, academic databases, and online literary journals are invaluable resources.
• Develop a Structured Outline: Before diving into writing, chalk out an outline. This ensures a logical flow to your arguments and helps in organizing your thoughts systematically.
• Maintain a Critical Perspective: While it’s essential to understand various interpretations, always maintain a critical lens. Challenge existing viewpoints, draw your conclusions, and support them with evidence.
• Incorporate Quotes Wisely: Direct quotes from literary works can bolster your arguments. However, use them judiciously. Ensure they serve a purpose in your narrative and always provide proper citations.
• Understand Literary Devices: Having a firm grasp of literary devices like allegory, symbolism, or irony will enhance your analysis. Highlight where authors have employed these tools and discuss their significance.
• Historical and Cultural Context: American literature cannot be detached from its historical and cultural backdrop. Embed your analysis within this context, offering a richer and more nuanced understanding.
• Stay Objective: While personal interpretations are vital, ensure your arguments remain objective. Avoid overly emotional or biased language.
• Revise and Edit: Once your initial draft is ready, take a break before revising. Fresh eyes can spot inconsistencies, redundancies, or errors. Check for clarity, coherence, and overall flow. Grammar, punctuation, and syntax should be impeccable.
• Properly Format and Cite: Adhere to the specified format, whether it’s APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, or Harvard. Properly cite all your sources to avoid plagiarism. Utilize tools or software that can help streamline this process.

Wrap up your research paper by reiterating your main arguments and thesis. Highlight the significance of your findings and hint at potential areas for future research. Writing an American literature research paper is a rigorous but rewarding process. It demands diligence, critical thinking, and a deep appreciation for the literary arts. Remember, it’s not just about presenting facts but weaving a story that adds value to the existing body of knowledge. With dedication and passion, you’ll not only craft an impactful research paper but also deepen your connection with the rich tapestry of American literature.

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Home > ARTSSCI > English > dissertations

English Dissertations and Theses

The English Department Dissertations and Theses Series is comprised of dissertations and thesis authored by Marquette University's English Department doctoral and master's students.

Theses/Dissertations from 2024 2024

Muslim Cultural Resistance , Ibtisam M. Abujad

Speculative Escapism in Contemporary Fantasy: Labor, Utility, Affect , Liamog Seamus Drislane

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S WRITING: A CRITICAL EDITION OF A NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE AND TRAVELS OF MRS. NANCY PRINCE (1856) , Susan E. Landwer

Disillusionment and Domesticity in Mid-20th-Century British Catholic Literature , Catherine Simmerer

A LIBERATED WEST?: FEMALE AUTHORS’ REPRESENTATIONS OF THE "REAL AND THE FANTASIZED" ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER , Amanda Diane Zastrow

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Lifting the Postmodern Veil: Cosmopolitanism, Humanism, and Decolonization in Global Fictions of the 21st Century , Matthew Burchanoski

Gothic Transformations and Remediations in Cheap Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Wendy Fall

Milton’s Learning: Complementarity and Difference in Paradise Lost , Peter Spaulding

“The Development of the Conceptive Plot Through Early 19th-Century English Novels” , Jannea R. Thomason

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Gonzo Eternal , John Francis Brick

Intertextuality and Sociopolitical Engagement in Contemporary Anglophone Women’s Writing , Jackielee Derks

Innovation, Genre, and Authenticity in the Nineteenth-Century Irish Novel , David Aiden Kenney II

Reluctant Sons: The Irish Matrilineal Tradition of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and Flann O’Brien , Jessie Wirkus Haynes

Britain's Extraterrestrial Empire: Colonial Ambition, Anxiety, and Ambivalence in Early Modern Literature , Mark Edward Wisniewski

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Re-Reading the “Culture Clash”: Alternative Ways of Reading in Indian Horse , Hailey Whetten

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

When the Foreign Became Familiar: Modernism, Expatriation, and Spatial Identities in the Twentieth Century , Danielle Kristene Clapham

Reforming Victorian Sense/Abilities: Disabilities in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Social Problem Novels , Hunter Nicole Duncan

Genre and Loss: The Impossibility of Restoration in 20th Century Detective Fiction , Kathryn Hendrickson

A Productive Failure: Existentialism in Fin de Siècle England , Maxwell Patchet

Inquiry and Provocation: The Use of Ambiguity in Sixteenth-Century English Political Satire , Jason James Zirbel

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

No Home but the World: Forced Migration and Transnational Identity , Justice Hagan

The City As a Trap: 20th and 21st Century American Literature and the American Myth of Mobility , Andrew Joseph Hoffmann

The Fantastic and the First World War , Brian Kenna

Insane in the Brain, Blood, and Lungs: Gender-Specific Manifestations of Hysteria, Chlorosis, & Consumption in 19th-Century Literature , Anna P. Scanlon

Reading Multicultural Novels Melancholically: Racial Grief and Grievance in the Joy Luck Club, Beloved, and Anil's Ghost , Jennifer Arias Sweeney

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Ethos of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric and the Democratic Function of American Protest and Countercultural Literature , Jeffrey Lorino Jr

Literary Cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy , Sunil Samuel Macwan

The View from Here: Toward a Sissy Critique , Tyler Monson

The Forbidden Zone Writers: Femininity and Anglophone Women War Writers of the Great War , Sareene Proodian

Theatrical Weddings and Pious Frauds: Performance and Law in Victorian Marriage Plots , Adrianne A. Wojcik

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Changing the Victorian Habit Loop: The Body in the Poetry and Painting of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris , Bryan Gast

Gendering Scientific Discourse from 1790-1830: Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet , Bridget E. Kapler

Discarding Dreams and Legends: The Short Fiction of Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty , Katy L. Leedy

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Saving the Grotesque: The Grotesque System of Liberation in British Modernism (1922-1932) , Matthew Henningsen

The Pulpit's Muse: Conversive Poetics in the American Renaissance , Michael William Keller

A Single Man of Good Fortune: Postmodern Identities and Consumerism in the New Novel of Manners , Bonnie McLean

Julian of Norwich: Voicing the Vernacular , Therese Elaine Novotny

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Homecomings: Victorian British Women Travel Writers And Revisions Of Domesticity , Emily Paige Blaser

From Pastorals to Paterson: Ecology in the Poetry and Poetics of William Carlos WIlliams , Daniel Edmund Burke

Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts , Kathleen R. Burt

Apocalyptic Mentalities in Late-Medieval England , Steven A. Hackbarth

The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages , William Storm

(re)making The Gentleman: Genteel Masculinities And The Country Estate In The Novels Of Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen, And Elizabeth Gaskell , Shaunna Kay Wilkinson

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, and Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives of Teenage Girls in the 1940s , Carly Anger

Placed People: Rootedness in G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and Wendell Berry , David Harden

Rhetorics Of Girlhood Trauma In Writing By Holly Goddard Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Sandra Cisneros, And Jamaica Kincaid , Stephanie Marie Stella

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

A Victorian Christmas in Hell: Yuletide Ghosts and Necessary Pleasures in the Age of Capital , Brandon Chitwood

"Be-Holde the First Acte of this Tragedy" : Generic Symbiosis and Cross-Pollination in Jacobean Drama and the Early Modern Prose Novella , Karen Ann Zyck Galbraith

Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, and Revisions that Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela , Jarrod Hurlbert

Violence and Masculinity in American Fiction, 1950-1975 , Magdalen McKinley

Gender Politics in the Novels of Eliza Haywood , Susan Muse

Destabilizing Tradition: Gender, Sexuality, and Postnational Identity in Four Novels by Irish Women, 1960-2000 , Sarah Nestor

Truth Telling: Testimony and Evidence in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell , Rebecca Parker Fedewa

Spirit of the Psyche: Carl Jung's and Victor White's Influence on Flannery O'Connor's Fiction , Paul Wakeman

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Performing the Audience: Constructing Playgoing in Early Modern Drama , Eric Dunnum

Paule Marshall's Critique of Contemporary Neo-Imperialisms Through the Trope of Travel , Michelle Miesen Felix

Hermeneutics, Poetry, and Spenser: Augustinian Exegesis and the Renaissance Epic , Denna Iammarino-Falhamer

Encompassing the Intolerable: Laughter, Memory, and Inscription in the Fiction of John McGahern , John Keegan Malloy

Regional Consciousness in American Literature, 1860-1930 , Kelsey Louise Squire

The Ethics of Ekphrasis: The Turn to Responsible Rhetoric in Mid-Twentieth Century American Poetry , Joshua Scott Steffey

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Cognitive Architectures: Structures of Passion in Joanna Baillie's Dramas , Daniel James Bergen

On Trial: Restorative Justice in the Godwin-Wollstonecraft-Shelley Family Fictions , Colleen M. Fenno

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

What's the point to eschatology : multiple religions and terminality in James Joyce's Finnegans wake , Martin R. Brick

Economizing Characters: Harriet Martineau and the Problems of Poverty in Victorian Literature, Culture and Law , Mary Colleen Willenbring

Submissions from 2008 2008

"An improbable fiction": The marriage of history and romance in Shakespeare's Henriad , Marcia Eppich-Harris

Bearing the Mark of the Social: Notes Towards a Cosmopolitan Bildungsroman , Megan M. Muthupandiyan

The Gothic Novel and the Invention of the Middle-Class Reader: Northanger Abbey As Case Study , Tenille Nowak

Not Just a Novel of Epic Proportions: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man As Modern American Epic , Dana Edwards Prodoehl

Recovering the Radicals: Women Writers, Reform, and Nationalist Modes of Revolutionary Discourse , Mark J. Zunac

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

"The Sweet and the Bitter": Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings , Amy M. Amendt-Raduege

The Games Men Play: Madness and Masculinity in Post-World War II American Fiction, 1946-1964 , Thomas P. Durkin

Denise Levertov: Through An Ecofeminist Lens , Katherine A. Hanson

The Wit of Wrestling: Devotional-Aesthetic Tradition in Christina Rossetti's Poetry , Maria M.E. Keaton

Genderless Bodies: Stigma and the Myth of Womanhood , Ellen M. Letizia

Envy and Jealousy in the Novels of the Brontës: A Synoptic Discernment , Margaret Ann McCann

Technologies of the Late Medieval Self: Ineffability, Distance, and Subjectivity in the Book of Margery Kempe , Crystal L. Mueller

"Finding-- a Map-- to That Place Called Home": The Journey from Silence to Recovery in Patrick McCabe's Carn and Breakfast on Pluto , Valerie A. Murrenus Pilmaier

Emily Dickinson's Ecocentric Pastoralism , Moon-ju Shin

The American Jeremiad in Civil War Literature , Jacob Hadley Stratman

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Literary Art in Times of Crisis: The Proto-Totalitarian Anxiety of Melville, James, and Twain , Matthew J. Darling

(Re) Writing Genre: Narrative Conventions and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison , Jennifer Lee Jordan Heinert

"Amsolookly Kersse": Clothing in Finnegan's Wake , Catherine Simpson Kalish

"Do Your Will": Shakespeare's Use of the Rhetoric of Seduction in Four Plays , Jason James Nado

Woman in Emblem: Locating Authority in the Work and Identity of Katherine Philips (1632-1664) , Susan L. Stafinbil

When the Bough Breaks: Poetry on Abortion , Wendy A. Weaver

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Heroic Destruction: Shame and Guilt Cultures in Medieval Heroic Poetry , Karl E. Boehler

Poe and Early (Un)American Drama , Amy C. Branam

Grammars of Assent: Constructing Poetic Authority in An Age of Science , William Myles Carroll III

This Place is Not a Place: The Constructed Scene in the Works of Sir Walter Scott , Colin J. Marlaire

Cognitive Narratology: A Practical Approach to the Reader-Writer Relationship , Debra Ann Ripley

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Defoe and the Pirates: Function of Genre Conventions in Raiding Narratives , William J. Dezoma

Creative Discourse in the Eighteenth-Century Courtship Novel , Michelle Ruggaber Dougherty

Exclusionary Politics: Mourning and Modernism in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Amy Levy, and Charlotte Mew , Donna Decker Schuster

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

Toward a Re-Formed Confession: Johann Gerhard's Sacred Meditations and "Repining Restlessnesse" in the Poetry of George Herbert , Erik P. Ankerberg

Idiographic Spaces: Representation, Ideology and Realism in the Postmodern British Novel , Gordon B. McConnell

Theses/Dissertations from 2002 2002

Reading into It: Wallace Stegner's Novelistic Sense of Time and Place , Colin C. Irvine

Brisbane and Beyond: Revising Social Capitalism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America , Michael C. Mattek

Theses/Dissertations from 2001 2001

Christians and Mimics in W. B. Yeats' Collected Poems , Patrick Mulrooney

Renaissance Roles and the Process of Social Change , John Wieland

'Straunge Disguize': Allegory and Its Discontents in Spenser's Faerie Queene , Galina Ivanovna Yermolenko

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Home > ACADEMIC-UNITS > College of Arts and Sciences > Department of English Language and Literature > ENGLISH_ETD

MA in English Theses

Theses/dissertations from 2018 2018.

Implementing Critical Analysis in the Classroom to Negate Southern Stereotypes in Multi-Media , Julie Broyhill

Fan Fiction in the English Language Arts Classroom , Kristen Finucan

Transferring the Mantle: The Voice of the Poet Prophet in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson , Heidi Brown Hyde

The Effects of Social Media as Low-Stakes Writing Tasks , Roxanne Loving

Student and Teacher Perceptions of Multiliterate Assignments Utilizing 21st Century Skills , Jessica Kennedy Miller

The Storytellers’ Trauma: A Place to Call Home in Caribbean Literature , Ilari Pass

Post Title IX Representations of Professional Female Athletes , Emily Shaw

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

“Not as She is” but as She is Expected to Be: Representations, Limitations, and Implications of the “Woman” and Womanhood in Selected Victorian Literature and Contemporary Chick Lit. , Amanda Ellen Bridgers

The Intrinsic Factors that Influence Successful College Writing , Kenneth Dean Carlstrom

"Where nature was most plain and pure": The Sacred Locus Amoenus and its Profane Threat in Andrew Marvell's Pastoral Poetry , James Brent King

Colorblind: How Cable News and the “Cult of Objectivity” Normalized Racism in Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign , Amanda Leeann Shoaf

Gaming The Comic Book: Turning The Page on How Comics and Videogames Intersect as Interactive, Digital Experiences , Joseph Austin Thurmond

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

The Nature, Function, and Value of Emojis as Contemporary Tools of Digital Interpersonal Communication , Nicole L. Bliss-Carroll

Exile and Identity: Chaim Potok's Contribution to Jewish-American Literature , Sarah Anne Hamner

A Woman's Voice and Identity: Narrative Métissage as a Solution to Voicelessness in American Literature , Kali Lauren Oldacre

Pop, Hip Hop, and Empire, Study of a New Pedagogical Approach in a Developmental Reading and English Class , Karen Denise Taylor

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Abandoning the Shadows and Seizing the Stage: A Perspective on a Feminine Discourse of Resistance Theatre as Informed by the Work of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, and the Sistren Theatre Collective , Brianna A. Bleymaier

Mexican Immigrants as "Other": An Interdisciplinary Analysis of U.S. Immigration Legislation and Political Cartoons , Olivia Teague Morgan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

"I Am a Living Enigma - And You Want To Know the Right Reading of Me": Gender Anxiety in Wilkie Collins's The Haunted Hotel and The Guilty River , Hannah Allford

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Gender Performance and the Reclamation of Masculinity in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns , John William Salyers Jr.

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

"That's a Lotta Faith We're Putting in a Word": Language, Religion, and Heteroglossia as Oppression and Resistance in Comtemporary British Dystopian Fiction , Haley Cassandra Gambrell

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Mirroring the Madness: Caribbean Female Development in the Works of Elizabeth Nunez , Lauren Delli Santi

"Atlas Shrugged" and third-wave feminism: An unlikely alliance , Paul McMahan

"Sit back down where you belong, in the corner of my bar with your high heels on": The use of cross-dressing in order to achieve female agency in Shakespeare's transvestite comedies , Heather Lynn Wright

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Between the Way to the Cross and Emmaus: Deconstructing Identity in the 325 CE Council of Nicaea and "The Shack" , Trevar Simmons

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Home > College of Arts and Sciences > English Language and Literature > Master's Theses

Master's Theses - English Language and Literature

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

“Hideous things have happened here”: Rape myths, rape culture, and healing in adolescent literature , Holly J. Greca

Moments of excess: Type 1 diabetes and the myth of control in adolescent fiction for girls , Michelle E. LeGault

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

A sociophonetic analysis of female-sounding virtual assistants , Alyssa Allen

Vampire narratives: Looking at queer-centric experiences in comparison to hetero-centric norms in order to model a new queer vampiric experience , Marah Heikkila

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Overhearers’ perceptions of familiarity between interlocutors in computer-mediated communication based on GIF usage , Alexa F. Druckmiller

Feminism by proxy: Jane Austen’s critique of patriarchal society in Pride and Prejudice and Emma , Alexis Miller

The memory of mythmaking: Transgenerational trauma and disability as a collective experience in Afrofuturist storytelling , Jessica Tapley

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Body image/imagining bodies: Trauma, control, and healing in graphic memoirs about anorexia , Kristine M. Gatchel

Word-final /t/-release and linguistic style: An investigation of the speech of two Jewish women from metro Detroit , Janet Leppala

Hermione syndrome: Reexamining feminist sidekicks and power in 2000-2010 children’s and young adult fantasy literature , Josiah Pankiewicz

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Fear and (non) fiction: Agrarian anxiety in “The Colour Out of Space” , Antonio Barroso

Sculpted from clay, shaped by power: Feminine narrative and agency in Wonder Woman , Mikala Carpenter

Players in a storm: Climate and political migrants in The Tempest and Othello , Darcie Rees

Reclaiming racial/ethnic identity vs. reconstructing Asian American masculinity in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese , Hyun-Joo Yoo

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

The organization of turn-taking in fieldwork settings: A case study , Amy Brunett

Exploring the political impact of literature and literary studies in American government , Taylor Dereadt

"We met in a bar by happenstance": Master narratives in couples stories , Brent A. Miller

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

What is the negro woman's story?: Negro Story Magazine and the dialogue of feminist voices , Maureen Convery

Illustrating adolescent awareness: Teaching historical injustices and promoting agency through picture books in secondary classrooms , Melissa Hoak

Phonemic inventory of the Shor language , Uliana Kazagasheva

Cannibalism in contact narratives and the evolution of the wendigo , Michelle Lietz

Parody and the pen: Pippi Longstocking, Harriet M. Welsch, and Flavia de Luce as disrupters of space, language, and the male gaze , Kelsey McLendon

Haec fortis sequitur illam indocti possident: A linguistic analysis of demonstratives in genres of early Latin fragments , Erica L. Meszaros

Tricking for change: Establishing the literary trickster in the western tradition , Christopher Michael Stuart

Because, x: A new construction of because in popular culture , Stephanie Walla

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Kim, Joseph Hakkyu (2024) Senior thesis (Major), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/4b17-ek62. The existence and identity of the Asian American literary canon have been contentious, and thus so have the methods to study it. Operating with a capacious definition of the Asian American literary canon, I argue the canon exists as a vast heterogeneous one encapsulating the diverse experiences of Asian Americans over generations. I apply a longitudinal study of selected works of the Asian American literary canon and adapt a queer reading hermeneutic to identify forms of literary dissent. Applying social generationality (generational identity) and the hermeneutic in reading the canon illuminates a pattern of socially imposed violences and quasi-queer acts of literary subversion. Ultimately, reading the canon vis-à-vis social generationality illustrates the evolution of Asian American experiences via the evolution of their perceived violences and modes of persistence. Item Type: Thesis (Senior thesis (Major)) Subject Keywords: Asian American Literature ; Social Generationality ; Violence and Subversion ; Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Literature; Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Literature - Prose Fiction; Hixon Writing Center Degree Grantor: California Institute of Technology Division: Humanities and Social Sciences Major Option: English Awards: George W. Housner Prize for Academic Excellence and Original Research, 2024. Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Literature - Prose Fiction, 2024. Thesis Availability: Public (worldwide access) Research Advisor(s): Group: Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Literature, Mary A. Earl McKinney Prize in Literature - Prose, Hixon Writing Center Thesis Committee: Defense Date: 19 March 2024 Record Number: CaltechTHESIS:03202024-022831525 Persistent URL: DOI: 10.7907/4b17-ek62 ORCID: Author ORCID Kim, Joseph Hakkyu Thesis Files - Final Version 281kB Repository Staff Only: item control page Open Access Theses and Dissertations Thursday, April 18, 8:20am (EDT): Searching is temporarily offline. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to bring searching back up as quickly as possible. Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use. Advanced search options Browse by author name (“Author name starts with…”). Find ETDs with: in /   in /   in /   in Written in any language English Portuguese French German Spanish Swedish Lithuanian Dutch Italian Chinese Finnish Greek Published in any country US or Canada Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile China Colombia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Italy Japan Latvia Lithuania Malaysia Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Peru Portugal Russia Singapore South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand UK US Earliest date Latest date Sorted by Relevance Author University Date Only ETDs with Creative Commons licenses Results per page: 30 60 100 October 3, 2022. OATD is dealing with a number of misbehaved crawlers and robots, and is currently taking some steps to minimize their impact on the system. This may require you to click through some security screen. Our apologies for any inconvenience. Recent Additions See all of this week’s new additions. About OATD.org OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions . OATD currently indexes 7,221,548 theses and dissertations. About OATD (our FAQ) . Visual OATD.org We’re happy to present several data visualizations to give an overall sense of the OATD.org collection by county of publication, language, and field of study. You may also want to consult these sites to search for other theses: Google Scholar NDLTD , the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. NDLTD provides information and a search engine for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), whether they are open access or not. Proquest Theses and Dissertations (PQDT), a database of dissertations and theses, whether they were published electronically or in print, and mostly available for purchase. Access to PQDT may be limited; consult your local library for access information. Literary Criticism Introduction Literary Theories Steps to Literary Criticism Find Resources Cite Sources thesis examples SAMPLE THESIS STATEMENTS These sample thesis statements are provided as guides, not as required forms or prescriptions. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The thesis may focus on an analysis of one of the elements of fiction, drama, poetry or nonfiction as expressed in the work: character, plot, structure, idea, theme, symbol, style, imagery, tone, etc. In “A Worn Path,” Eudora Welty creates a fictional character in Phoenix Jackson whose determination, faith, and cunning illustrate the indomitable human spirit. Note that the work, author, and character to be analyzed are identified in this thesis statement. The thesis relies on a strong verb (creates). It also identifies the element of fiction that the writer will explore (character) and the characteristics the writer will analyze and discuss (determination, faith, cunning). Further Examples: The character of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet serves as a foil to young Juliet, delights us with her warmth and earthy wit, and helps realize the tragic catastrophe. The works of ecstatic love poets Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir use symbols such as a lover’s longing and the Tavern of Ruin to illustrate the human soul’s desire to connect with God. The thesis may focus on illustrating how a work reflects the particular genre’s forms, the characteristics of a philosophy of literature, or the ideas of a particular school of thought. “The Third and Final Continent” exhibits characteristics recurrent in writings by immigrants: tradition, adaptation, and identity. Note how the thesis statement classifies the form of the work (writings by immigrants) and identifies the characteristics of that form of writing (tradition, adaptation, and identity) that the essay will discuss. Further examples: Samuel Beckett’s Endgame reflects characteristics of Theatre of the Absurd in its minimalist stage setting, its seemingly meaningless dialogue, and its apocalyptic or nihilist vision. A close look at many details in “The Story of an Hour” reveals how language, institutions, and expected demeanor suppress the natural desires and aspirations of women. The thesis may draw parallels between some element in the work and real-life situations or subject matter: historical events, the author’s life, medical diagnoses, etc. In Willa Cather’s short story, “Paul’s Case,” Paul exhibits suicidal behavior that a caring adult might have recognized and remedied had that adult had the scientific knowledge we have today. This thesis suggests that the essay will identify characteristics of suicide that Paul exhibits in the story. The writer will have to research medical and psychology texts to determine the typical characteristics of suicidal behavior and to illustrate how Paul’s behavior mirrors those characteristics. Through the experience of one man, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, accurately depicts the historical record of slave life in its descriptions of the often brutal and quixotic relationship between master and slave and of the fragmentation of slave families. In “I Stand Here Ironing,” one can draw parallels between the narrator’s situation and the author’s life experiences as a mother, writer, and feminist. SAMPLE PATTERNS FOR THESES ON LITERARY WORKS 1. In (title of work), (author) (illustrates, shows) (aspect) (adjective).  Example: In “Barn Burning,” William Faulkner shows the characters Sardie and Abner Snopes struggling for their identity. 2. In (title of work), (author) uses (one aspect) to (define, strengthen, illustrate) the (element of work). Example: In “Youth,” Joseph Conrad uses foreshadowing to strengthen the plot. 3. In (title of work), (author) uses (an important part of work) as a unifying device for (one element), (another element), and (another element). The number of elements can vary from one to four. Example: In “Youth,” Joseph Conrad uses the sea as a unifying device for setting, structure and theme. 4. (Author) develops the character of (character’s name) in (literary work) through what he/she does, what he/she says, what other people say to or about him/her. Example: Langston Hughes develops the character of Semple in “Ways and Means”… 5. In (title of work), (author) uses (literary device) to (accomplish, develop, illustrate, strengthen) (element of work). Example: In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Poe uses the symbolism of the stranger, the clock, and the seventh room to develop the theme of death. 6. (Author) (shows, develops, illustrates) the theme of __________ in the (play, poem, story). Example: Flannery O’Connor illustrates the theme of the effect of the selfishness of the grandmother upon the family in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” 7. (Author) develops his character(s) in (title of work) through his/her use of language. Example: John Updike develops his characters in “A & P” through his use of figurative language. Perimeter College, Georgia State University,  http://depts.gpc.edu/~gpcltc/handouts/communications/literarythesis.pdf << Previous: Cite Sources Next: Get Help >> Last Updated: Jul 15, 2024 1:44 PM URL: https://libguides.uta.edu/literarycriticism University of Texas Arlington Libraries 702 Planetarium Place · Arlington, TX 76019 · 817-272-3000 Internet Privacy Accessibility Problems with a guide? Contact Us. Imprinted by Belief An essay series on American literature and faith. Credit... Nada Hayek Supported by Share full article By Ayana Mathis Ayana Mathis’s most recent novel, “The Unsettled,” was published in September. Published Aug. 24, 2023 Updated April 11, 2024 The essays in this series hold that American literature is imprinted by belief: freighted by ideas about morality, justice and standards for living that are derived from the nation’s Christian underpinnings. Christianity’s imprint on our literature isn’t necessarily about piety or doctrine — though that is sometimes the case. It also trucks in paradox and, at its best, acts as a hedge against over-simplistic and reductive notions of society and of person. In American literature, religious ideas are often more implicit than explicit — a pool into which the work dips, often to great effect. James Baldwin’s soaring, sermonic prose; Toni Morrison’s scriptural authority; William Faulkner’s Genesis-like cosmologies of Southern identity and place: All draw heavily on a Christian-inflected aesthetic. Which is not to elevate this belief system above others in a country as multifaith as it is multicultural and multiracial. To the contrary, among the issues we will encounter in this series is Christianity’s tendency to take down its faith counterparts. Christianity can be a real bruiser. It is cherry-picked and jury-rigged, co-opted and corrupted, and yet it remains inextricable from American identity — which is precisely why it repeatedly finds its way into our fiction. For American writers even now, Christianity continues to provide a vast web of references, imagery and metaphor. This web is ever pressing, particularly at this juncture, when so much of what passes for Christian sentiment is reductive and illegitimately recruited for political and economic motives. Such forces risk hijacking religious conversation so that we can no longer see ideals that might remind us that human beings are capacious and sacred, and that our dealings with one another ought to reflect as much. I propose these essays as a means of, to borrow the title of one of Adrienne Rich’s most famous poems, “Diving into the Wreck”; each will examine a different aspect of human experience: the prophetic; forgiveness; suffering and evil; apocalypse; and hope. As Rich writes: “I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail.” Advertisement Thesis Statements for a Literature Assignment A thesis prepares the reader for what you are about to say. As such, your paper needs to be interesting in order for your thesis to be interesting. Your thesis needs to be interesting because it needs to capture a reader's attention. If a reader looks at your thesis and says "so what?", your thesis has failed to do its job, and chances are your paper has as well. Thus, make your thesis provocative and open to reasonable disagreement, but then write persuasively enough to sway those who might be disagree. Keep in mind the following when formulating a thesis: A Thesis Should Not State the Obvious Use Literary Terms in Thesis With Care A Thesis Should be Balanced A Thesis Can be a Blueprint Avoid the Obvious Bland: Dorothy Parker's "Résumé" uses images of suicide to make her point about living. This is bland because it's obvious and incontestable. A reader looks at it and says, "so what?" However, consider this alternative: Dorothy Parker's "Résumé" doesn't celebrate life, but rather scorns those who would fake or attempt suicide just to get attention. The first thesis merely describes something about the poem; the second tells the reader what the writer thinks the poem is about--it offers a reading or interpretation. The paper would need to support that reading and would very likely examine the way Parker uses images of suicide to make the point the writer claims. Use Literary Terms in Thesis Only to Make Larger Points Poems and novels generally use rhyme, meter, imagery, simile, metaphor, stanzas, characters, themes, settings and so on. While these terms are important for you to use in your analysis and your arguments, that they exist in the work you are writing about should not be the main point of your thesis. Unless the poet or novelist uses these elements in some unexpected way to shape the work's meaning, it's generally a good idea not to draw attention to the use of literary devices in thesis statements because an intelligent reader expects a poem or novel to use literary of these elements. Therefore, a thesis that only says a work uses literary devices isn't a good thesis because all it is doing is stating the obvious, leading the reader to say, "so what?" However, you can use literary terms in a thesis if the purpose is to explain how the terms contribute to the work's meaning or understanding. Here's an example of thesis statement that does call attention to literary devices because they are central to the paper's argument. Literary terms are placed in italics. Don Marquis introduced Archy and Mehitabel in his Sun Dial column by combining the conventions of free verse poetry with newspaper prose so intimately that in "the coming of Archy," the entire column represents a complete poem and not a free verse poem preceded by a prose introduction . Note the difference between this thesis and the first bland thesis on the Parker poem. This thesis does more than say certain literary devices exist in the poem; it argues that they exist in a specific relationship to one another and makes a fairly startling claim, one that many would disagree with and one that the writer will need to persuade her readers on. Keep Your Thesis Balanced Keep the thesis balanced. If it's too general, it becomes vague; if it's too specific, it cannot be developed. If it's merely descriptive (like the bland example above), it gives the reader no compelling reason to go on. The thesis should be dramatic, have some tension in it, and should need to be proved (another reason for avoiding the obvious). Too general: Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote many poems with love as the theme. Too specific: Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink" in <insert date> after <insert event from her life>. Too descriptive: Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink" is a sonnet with two parts; the first six lines propose a view of love and the next eight complicate that view. With tension and which will need proving: Despite her avowal on the importance of love, and despite her belief that she would not sell her love, the speaker in Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink" remains unconvinced and bitter, as if she is trying to trick herself into believing that love really does matter for more than the one night she is in some lover's arms. Your Thesis Can Be A Blueprint A thesis can be used as roadmap or blueprint for your paper: In "Résumé," Dorothy Parker subverts the idea of what a résumé is--accomplishments and experiences--with an ironic tone, silly images of suicide, and witty rhymes to point out the banality of life for those who remain too disengaged from it. Note that while this thesis refers to particular poetic devices, it does so in a way that gets beyond merely saying there are poetic devices in the poem and then merely describing them. It makes a claim as to how and why the poet uses tone, imagery and rhyme. Readers would expect you to argue that Parker subverts the idea of the résumé to critique bored (and boring) people; they would expect your argument to do so by analyzing her use of tone, imagery and rhyme in that order. Citation Information Nick Carbone. (1994-2024). Thesis Statements for a Literature Assignment. The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/writing/guides/. Copyright Information Copyright © 1994-2024 Colorado State University and/or this site's authors, developers, and contributors . Some material displayed on this site is used with permission. Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar Request Info Search Search Site Faculty/Staff Open Navigation Menu Menu Close Navigation Menu Literature Review Guidelines Making sense of what has been written on your topic. Goals of a literature review:. Before doing work in primary sources, historians must know what has been written on their topic.  They must be familiar with theories and arguments–as well as facts–that appear in secondary sources. Before you proceed with your research project, you too must be familiar with the literature: you do not want to waste time on theories that others have disproved and you want to take full advantage of what others have argued.  You want to be able to discuss and analyze your topic. Your literature review will demonstrate your familiarity with your topic’s secondary literature. GUIDELINES FOR A LITERATURE REVIEW: 1) LENGTH:  8-10 pages of text for Senior Theses (485) (consult with your professor for other classes), with either footnotes or endnotes and with a works-consulted bibliography. [See also the  citation guide  on this site.] 2) NUMBER OF WORKS REVIEWED: Depends on the assignment, but for Senior Theses (485), at least ten is typical. 3) CHOOSING WORKS: Your literature review must include enough works to provide evidence of both the breadth and the depth of the research on your topic or, at least, one important angle of it.  The number of works necessary to do this will depend on your topic. For most topics, AT LEAST TEN works (mostly books but also significant scholarly articles) are necessary, although you will not necessarily give all of them equal treatment in your paper (e.g., some might appear in notes rather than the essay). 4) ORGANIZING/ARRANGING THE LITERATURE: As you uncover the literature (i.e., secondary writing) on your topic, you should determine how the various pieces relate to each other.  Your ability to do so will demonstrate your understanding of the evolution of literature. You might determine that the literature makes sense when divided by time period, by methodology, by sources, by discipline, by thematic focus, by race, ethnicity, and/or gender of author, or by political ideology.  This list is not exhaustive.  You might also decide to subdivide categories based on other criteria.  There is no “rule” on divisions—historians wrote the literature without consulting each other and without regard to the goal of fitting into a neat, obvious organization useful to students. The key step is to FIGURE OUT the most logical, clarifying angle.  Do not arbitrarily choose a categorization; use the one that the literature seems to fall into.  How do you do that?  For every source, you should note its thesis, date, author background, methodology, and sources.  Does a pattern appear when you consider such information from each of your sources?  If so, you have a possible thesis about the literature.  If not, you might still have a thesis. Consider: Are there missing elements in the literature?  For example, no works published during a particular (usually fairly lengthy) time period?  Or do studies appear after long neglect of a topic?  Do interpretations change at some point?  Does the major methodology being used change?  Do interpretations vary based on sources used? Follow these links for more help on analyzing  historiography  and  historical perspective . 5) CONTENTS OF LITERATURE REVIEW: The literature review is a research paper with three ingredients: a) A brief discussion of the issue (the person, event, idea). [While this section should be brief, it needs to set up the thesis and literature that follow.] b) Your thesis about the literature c) A clear argument, using the works on topic as evidence, i.e., you discuss the sources in relation to your thesis, not as a separate topic. These ingredients must be presented in an essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion. 6) ARGUING YOUR THESIS: The thesis of a literature review should not only describe how the literature has evolved, but also provide a clear evaluation of that literature.  You should assess the literature in terms of the quality of either individual works or categories of works.  For instance, you might argue that a certain approach (e.g. social history, cultural history, or another) is better because it deals with a more complex view of the issue or because they use a wider array of source materials more effectively. You should also ensure that you integrate that evaluation throughout your argument.  Doing so might include negative assessments of some works in order to reinforce your argument regarding the positive qualities of other works and approaches to the topic. Within each group, you should provide essential information about each work: the author’s thesis, the work’s title and date, the author’s supporting arguments and major evidence. In most cases, arranging the sources chronologically by publication date within each section makes the most sense because earlier works influenced later ones in one way or another.  Reference to publication date also indicates that you are aware of this significant historiographical element. As you discuss each work, DO NOT FORGET WHY YOU ARE DISCUSSING IT.  YOU ARE PRESENTING AND SUPPORTING A THESIS ABOUT THE LITERATURE. When discussing a particular work for the first time, you should refer to it by the author’s full name, the work’s title, and year of publication (either in parentheses after the title or worked into the sentence). For example, “The field of slavery studies has recently been transformed by Ben Johnson’s The New Slave (2001)” and “Joe Doe argues in his 1997 study, Slavery in America, that . . . .” Your paper should always note secondary sources’ relationship to each other, particularly in terms of your thesis about the literature (e.g., “Unlike Smith’s work, Mary Brown’s analysis reaches the conclusion that . . . .” and “Because of Anderson’s reliance on the president’s personal papers, his interpretation differs from Barry’s”). The various pieces of the literature are “related” to each other, so you need to indicate to the reader some of that relationship.  (It helps the reader follow your thesis, and it convinces the reader that you know what you are talking about.) 7) DOCUMENTATION: Each source you discuss in your paper must be documented using footnotes/endnotes and a bibliography.  Providing author and title and date in the paper is not sufficient.  Use correct Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style form.  [See  Bibliography  and  Footnotes/Endnotes  pages.] In addition, further supporting, but less significant, sources should be included in  content foot or endnotes .  (e.g., “For a similar argument to Ben Johnson’s, see John Terry, The Slave Who Was New (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 3-45.”) 8 ) CONCLUSION OF LITERATURE REVIEW: Your conclusion should not only reiterate your argument (thesis), but also discuss questions that remain unanswered by the literature.  What has the literature accomplished?  What has not been studied?  What debates need to be settled? Additional writing guidelines History and American Studies About the Department Major Requirements & Courses What courses will I take as an History major? What can I do with my History degree? History 485 Methodology Choosing a Topic Book Reviews Historiographic Clues Understanding Historical Perspective Sample Literature Review Using Quotations Ellipses and Brackets Footnotes and Endnotes Content Notes Citation Guide Citing Non-Print Resources How to Annotate Annotated Examples Journals vs. Magazines Understanding Plagiarism Historians Define Plagiarism Plagiarism Tutorial UMW Honor System Presentation Guidelines Tips for Leading Seminars Hints for Class Discussion Speaking Center Guidelines for a Research Paper Library Research Plan How to Use ILL Database Guide Guide to Online Research Writing Guidelines Recognizing Passive Voice Introduction and Conclusion MS Word’s Grammar and Spellcheck Writing Center What You Need to Know Links to Online Primary Sources by Region What will I learn from my American Studies major? What courses will I take as an American Studies major? What can I do with my American Studies degree? American Studies 485 For Prospective Students Honors and Award Recipients Internships Alumni Intros How have History & American Studies majors built careers after earning their degrees? Learn more by clicking the image above.   Recent Posts History and American Studies Symposium–April 26, 2024 Fall 2024 Courses Fall 2023 Symposium – 12/8 – All Welcome! Spring ’24 Course Flyers Internship Opportunity – Chesapeake Gateways Ambassador Congratulations to our Graduates! History and American Studies Symposium–April 21, 2023 View umwhistory’s profile on Facebook View umwhistory’s profile on Twitter The best free cultural & educational media on the web Online Courses Certificates Degrees & Mini-Degrees Audio Books The Ten Best American Essays Since 1950, According to Robert Atwan in Books , Literature | November 15th, 2012 3 Comments “Essays can be lots of things, maybe too many things,” writes Atwan in his fore­ward to the 2012 install­ment in the Best Amer­i­can series, “but at the core of the genre is an unmis­tak­able recep­tiv­i­ty to the ever-shift­ing process­es of our minds and moods. If there is any essen­tial char­ac­ter­is­tic we can attribute to the essay, it may be this: that the truest exam­ples of the form enact that ever-shift­ing process, and in that enact­ment we can find the basis for the essay’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion to be regard­ed seri­ous­ly as imag­i­na­tive lit­er­a­ture and the essay­ist’s claim to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as a cre­ative writer.” In 2001 Atwan and Joyce Car­ol Oates took on the daunt­ing task of trac­ing that ever-shift­ing process through the pre­vi­ous 100 years for  The Best Amer­i­can Essays of the Cen­tu­ry . Recent­ly Atwan returned with a more focused selec­tion for  Pub­lish­ers Week­ly :  “The Top 10 Essays Since 1950.”  To pare it all down to such a small num­ber, Atwan decid­ed to reserve the “New Jour­nal­ism” cat­e­go­ry, with its many mem­o­rable works by Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Michael Herr and oth­ers, for some future list. He also made a point of select­ing the best essays , as opposed to exam­ples from the best essay­ists. “A list of the top ten essay­ists since 1950 would fea­ture some dif­fer­ent writ­ers.” We were inter­est­ed to see that six of the ten best essays are avail­able for free read­ing online. Here is Atwan’s list, along with links to those essays that are on the Web: James Bald­win, “Notes of a Native Son,” 1955 (Read it here .) Nor­man Mail­er, “The White Negro,” 1957 (Read it here .) Susan Son­tag, “Notes on ‘Camp,’ ” 1964 (Read it here .) John McPhee, “The Search for Mar­vin Gar­dens,” 1972 (Read it here with a sub­scrip­tion.) Joan Did­ion, “The White Album,” 1979 Annie Dil­lard, “Total Eclipse,” 1982 Phillip Lopate, “Against Joie de Vivre,” 1986 (Read it here .) Edward Hoagland, “Heav­en and Nature,” 1988 Jo Ann Beard, “The Fourth State of Mat­ter,” 1996 (Read it here .) David Fos­ter Wal­lace, “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster,” 2004 (Read it here  in a ver­sion dif­fer­ent from the one pub­lished in his 2005 book of the same name.) “To my mind,” writes Atwan in his arti­cle, “the best essays are deeply per­son­al (that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal) and deeply engaged with issues and ideas. And the best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb, so they demon­strate a mind in process–reflecting, try­ing-out, essay­ing.” To read more of Atwan’s com­men­tary, see his  arti­cle in Pub­lish­ers Week­ly . The pho­to above of Susan Son­tag was tak­en by Peter Hujar in 1966. Relat­ed Con­tent: 30 Free Essays & Sto­ries by David Fos­ter Wal­lace on the Web by Mike Springer | Permalink | Comments (3) | Related posts: Comments (3), 3 comments so far. Check out Michael Ven­tu­ra’s HEAR THAT LONG SNAKE MOAN: The VooDoo Ori­gins of Rock n’ Roll Wow I think there’s oth­er greater ones out there. Just need to find them. 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All rights reserved. Advertise with Us Copyright Policy Privacy Policy Terms of Use Sample Topics Literature and Culture: Great Britain (Prof. Feldmann) Topics for Bachelor and Master theses 1. the following is a list of titles chosen for bachelor or master theses. it is meant as a guideline for finding a suitable topic of your own:. Beeton’s Book of Household Management as Self-Help Manual for the Victorian Housewife Blurring Identity Boundaries: The Liminality of Gender and Race in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet and Why Don’t You Stop Talking Lost in Austen as a Post-Modern Re-Creation of Pride and Prejudice Commercial Aesthetics: Representations the Female Body in Victorian Advertisements Domestic Spaces in Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Stoker’s Dracula (1897) Transcending the Eyes: Marginalised Discourses of Perception in Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor The Representation and Function of the Female Body and Motherhood in Richard III Negotiating ‘Irishness’ in Transnational Spaces between an (Imagined) Homeland and the Diaspora Negotiating Identity in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and its 1992 Film Adaptation Travelling the Slum: Voyeurism and the Sensational in Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor Gothic Fiction and Representations of Science: Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde  and H.G. Wells’  The Time Machine ‘A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble’: Types of Masculinity in Bram Stoker’s Dracula ‘Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown’: Zur Darstellung englischer Königinnen in zeitgenössischen Spielfilmen Chick Lit zwischen Tradition und Innovation – ein Vergleich von Erzählerinnen, Protagonistinnen und Milieus am Beispiel von Helen Fielding und Janet Evanovich ‘Tedious virtue, fascinating evil’? Forms and Functions of the Villain in Gothic Melodrama Detecting the Neo-Victorian: The Detective as an Element in the Intertextuality in Victorian and Neo-Victorian Crime Writing Kulturelle Differenzen und Identitäten in zeitgenössischer britischer Literatur und Film Konstruktionen städtischer Armut in der 2. Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts Neue Helden braucht das Land? Zur Darstellung von Arbeiterklasse und Männlichkeit im Kontext der Neuformulierung eines Mythos im Britischen Film der 1990er Jahre Konzepte der Liebe in William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew und in filmischen Adaptionen 2. Here are some additional fields you might want to consider when choosing a topic: Popular culture and popular myths Popular cultural practices, such as tourism Forms of canonization and popularization The ‘cultural work’ of texts and their ideological functions The intersections of categories of difference (e.g. gender, class, ethnicity, religion, age…) The interplay of discourses in texts (e.g. scientific, economic, political…) Discourses of gender and sexuality Afro American Studies Senior honors theses, recent dissertations, spotlight on..., how to find dissertations. Afro Am 117: Survey of African American Literature I Afro Am 118: Survey of African American Literature II Afro Am 170/171: The Multicultural Experience in American Life and Culture AFRO AM 222 Black Church In America Afro Am 236: History of the Civil Rights Movement Afro Am 254 Introduction to African Studies Afro Am 290c/753: The Blues Afro Am 293B: THE AFRICAN DIASPORA AND THE WAR ON DRUGS (Afro American Studies 293B Afro Am 297A: Black Springfield Matters Afro Am 326: Black Women in U.S. History Afro Am 331: The Life and Writings of W.E.B. Du Bois Afro Am 491C: Cuba: A Social History AFROAM 494DI: The W.E.B. Du Bois Senior Seminar Afro Am 365: Composition: Style and Organization (Junior Year Writing) Afro Am 605/History 797S: African Americans and the Movement to Abolish Slavery Afro Am 652/234: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance Afro Am 691C: Historiographical Methods in Afro-American Studies Afro Am 692G: African American Women's Narrative Afro Am 692U: Dynamics of Race and the Law Afro Am 701 & 702: Major Works in Afro American Studies English 891BB: African American Women Playwrights History 591FG: First Generation-Urbanism and Breaking Baseball's Color Barrier History 593K: African Americans in Antebellum New England History 594Z: Black Women’s Political Activism Black Women Suffragists Educ 218: Hip Hop Nation Language and Literacy Practices Journalism 395M: The African American Freedom Struggle and the Mass Media Librarian for Afro American Studies Database Searching / Research Log Reference sources How else are we going to do research when the library is closed? are available in Special Collections and Archives, 25th floor. Arranged by year, by department or alphabetically by name. These cannot be checked out. Recent dissertations in Afro American Studies at UMass Amherst Dr. Stephanie Evans received her PhD from the UMass Amherst Department of Afro American Studies in 2003. Her dissertation, Living legacies : Black women, educational philosophies, and community service, 1865-1965 , is available for checkout and online . Doctoral Theses in Afro American Studies Umass dissertations. To identify individual doctoral dissertations , use the Library Catalog author, title, subject or keyword search. To browse all Afro American Studies dissertations, use the general subject heading: Theses -- Afro American Studies -- Doctoral The Library keeps physical copies of UMass doctoral theses , and provides online access to recently completed dissertations: UMass Amherst Afro-American Studies Dissertations Collection in ScholarWorks . Online PDF . On the 20th floor. All call numbers start with LD3234.M267, followed by the year of the thesis. These can be checked out. In the Five College Depository. Library use only. Older dissertations also available in Microforms. Library use only. Dissertations from other Universities Use the database Dissertations and Theses , which now provides full text of recent doctoral and some masters theses, mostly completed in colleges and universities of the United States and Canada. (In instances when full text is not available, try requesting through Inter-Library Loan .) Two books by graduates of the Afro American Studies department were selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Titles for 2008. Both books began as dissertations in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies , University of Massachusetts, Amherst. << Previous: Journals Next: Course Guides >> Last Updated: Jul 8, 2024 6:23 AM URL: https://guides.library.umass.edu/afroam © 2022 University of Massachusetts Amherst • Site Policies • Accessibility Bibliography More Referencing guides Blog Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics Referencing guides 137 IMAGES Thesis American Literature Poet Research Paper by Student Prep Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 Sample literary thesis statements 1) Characteristics of American Literature: Essay Example How to Write a Literary Thesis A thesis statement is a one VIDEO An Introduction to American Literature part Thesis writing HOW TO WRITE A LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY W. THESIS STATEMENT LITERATURE REVIEW Award Ceremony in honour of Dr. Jaci Eisenberg How to Write a Thesis Statement on Pre-Columbian (Native Ame PART II Literature Review Databases COMMENTS Recent PhD Dissertations Ebrahim, Parween (August 2011) - "Outcasts and Inheritors: The Ishmael Ethos in American Culture, 1776-1917" Reckson, Lindsay (August 2011) - "Realist Ecstasy: Enthusiasm in American Literature 1886 - 1938" Londe, Gregory (June 2011) - "Enduring Modernism: Forms of Surviving Location in the 20th Century Long Poem" Brown Digital Repository This dissertation aims to explain the emergence of a set of vital, if unrecognized, realist imperatives in American literature and critical thought at mid-twentieth century. …. Year: 2016. Contributor: Osment, Sarah M (creator) Bewes, Timothy (Director) Burrows, Stuart (Reader) Nabers, Deak (Reader) Brown University. English Theses and Dissertations Theses/Dissertations from 2018. Beauty and the Beasts: Making Places with Literary Animals of Florida, Haili A. Alcorn. The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature, Timothy M. Curran. Seeing Trauma: The Known and the Hidden in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Alisa M. DeBorde. Recent PhD Dissertations The Contrafacta of Thomas Watson and Simon Goulart: Resignifying the Polyphonic Song in 16th-century England and France. Joseph Gauvreau. Of Unsound Mind: Madness and Mental Health in Asian American Literature. Carrie Geng. Cultural Capitals: Postwar Yiddish between Warsaw and Buenos Aires. 1000 Literature Thesis Topics and Ideas This page provides a comprehensive list of literature thesis topics, offering a valuable resource for students tasked with writing a thesis in the field of literature.Designed to cater to a wide array of literary interests and academic inquiries, the topics are organized into 25 diverse categories, ranging from African American Literature to Young Adult Literature. American Literature Research Paper Topics 100 American Literature Research Paper Topics. American literature, a vast and diverse field, encompasses a range of themes, styles, and epochs. From the colonial tales of the early settlers to the modern narratives of the 21st century, the U.S. literary canvas is as broad as the country's history. This comprehensive list offers a variety of ... American Literature Since its inception, American Literature (AL) has been regarded as the preeminent periodical in its field.Written by established scholars as well as the newest and brightest young critics, AL's thought-provoking essays cover a broad spectrum of periods and genres and employ a wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches--the best in American literary criticism. English Dissertations and Theses Theses/Dissertations from 2018. PDF. The Ethos of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric and the Democratic Function of American Protest and Countercultural Literature, Jeffrey Lorino Jr. PDF. Literary Cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy, Sunil Samuel Macwan. PDF. MA in English Theses Theses/Dissertations from 2015. PDF. Abandoning the Shadows and Seizing the Stage: A Perspective on a Feminine Discourse of Resistance Theatre as Informed by the Work of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, and the Sistren Theatre Collective, Brianna A. Bleymaier. PDF. English Language and Literature Exploring the political impact of literature and literary studies in American government, Taylor Dereadt. PDF "We met in a bar by happenstance": Master narratives in couples stories, Brent A. Miller. Theses/Dissertations from 2016 PDF. What is the negro woman's story?: Negro Story Magazine and the dialogue of feminist voices, Maureen Convery. PDF Limning Asian American Literature with Social Generationality: Violence The existence and identity of the Asian American literary canon have been contentious, and thus so have the methods to study it. Operating with a capacious definition of the Asian American literary canon, I argue the canon exists as a vast heterogeneous one encapsulating the diverse experiences of Asian Americans over generations. I apply a longitudinal study of selected works of the Asian ... OATD Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use. October 3, 2022. OATD is dealing with a number of misbehaved crawlers and robots, and is currently taking some steps to minimize their impact on the system. This may require you to click through some security screen. thesis examples The thesis may focus on illustrating how a work reflects the particular genre's forms, the characteristics of a philosophy of literature, or the ideas of a particular school of thought. Example: ... An American Slave, accurately depicts the historical record of slave life in its descriptions of the often brutal and quixotic relationship ... Imprinted by Belief: An Essay Series on American Literature and Faith An essay series on American literature and faith. Ayana Mathis's most recent novel, "The Unsettled," was published in September. The essays in this series hold that American literature is ... Thesis Statements for a Literature Assignment The first thesis merely describes something about the poem; the second tells the reader what the writer thinks the poem is about--it offers a reading or interpretation. The paper would need to support that reading and would very likely examine the way Parker uses images of suicide to make the point the writer claims. Literature Review Guidelines b) Your thesis about the literature c) A clear argument, using the works on topic as evidence, i.e., you discuss the sources in relation to your thesis, not as a separate topic. These ingredients must be presented in an essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion. 6) ARGUING YOUR THESIS: The thesis of a literature review should not only ... The Ten Best American Essays Since 1950, According to Robert Atwan Robert Atwan's favorite lit­er­ary genre is the essay. As edi­tor and founder of The Best Amer­i­can Essays series, Atwan has read thou­sands of exam­ples of the remark­ably flex­i­ble form. "Essays can be lots of things, maybe too many things," writes Atwan in his fore­ward to the 2012 install­ment in the Best Amer­i­can series, "but at the core of the ... Sample Topics Topics for Bachelor and Master theses. 1. The following is a list of titles chosen for Bachelor or Master theses. It is meant as a guideline for finding a suitable topic of your own: Beeton's Book of Household Management as Self-Help Manual for the Victorian Housewife. Blurring Identity Boundaries: The Liminality of Gender and Race in Jackie ... 12.6: Literary Thesis Statements The thesis may focus on illustrating how a work reflects the particular genre's forms, the characteristics of a philosophy of literature, or the ideas of a particular school of thought. Example 1: "The Third and Final Continent" exhibits characteristics recurrent in writings by immigrants: tradition, adaptation, and identity. Theses & Dissertations This book is based on Christopher Lehman's Afro American Studies dissertation, Black representation in American animated short films, 1928--1954, completed in 2002 and available online and in the Library. "Closer to the truth than any fact": memoir, memory, and Jim Crow by Jennifer Jensen Wallach. Call Number: E185.61 .W1925 2008. Dissertations / Theses: 'Literature and the war' This thesis examines the function and presentation of "Nature" in American literature written between 1945 and 1971. It argues that the widespread presence of ecological representations of "Nature" within Cold War literature has been critically overlooked, as a result of Cold War literary criticism's comparatively narrow concentration on the direct effects of political and ... Dissertations / Theses: 'Contemporary African American literature Video (online) Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Contemporary African American literature.'. Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you ... American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States and in the colonies that preceded it.The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature but also includes literature produced in languages other than English. [1]The American Revolutionary Period (1775-1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin ... Dissertations / Theses: 'African literature' Video (online) Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'African literature.'. Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard ... Hegemony, co-production and the American Empire: essays in honor of John maintains that the stakes in history writing are rather high. In one of our discussions of a draft chapter from my doctoral thesis, John argued - with his characteristic impatience -that durable politics can be accomplished with robust scholarship and emphasized that intellectual work is unbelievably hard work. essay homework paper phd review speech study thesis