ETDs

This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.

In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.

Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.

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The use of chivalry as a binding force in public events within four Sir Gawain romances

Description
While tournaments, duels, and challenges were analyzed within literary texts prior to the 1980's, the most recent trend in scholarship has been to focus on how these proceedings fit into a historical context. Many authors have noted how medieval rulers used tournaments, duels, and challenges as a way to kee…

While tournaments, duels, and challenges were analyzed within literary texts prior to the 1980's, the most recent trend in scholarship has been to focus on how these proceedings fit into a historical context. Many authors have noted how medieval rulers used tournaments, duels, and challenges as a way to keep their militaristic knights under control; however, there has been relatively little study on the way that these three events function as a means of social control in medieval romances. This paper examines how the public nature of these events and the chivalric nature of their participants combine to subvert the agency of not only the nobles, but also King Arthur himself in four of the Sir Gawain romances, "Ywain and Gawain", "The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain", "The Awntyrs off Arthur at the Terne Wathelyne" and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
ContributorsWilhite, Amanda (Author) / Bjork, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Maring, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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The State of Critical Theory in Fantastic Literature

Description
The study of genre literature in general, and fantasy or fairy tale literature in particular, by its very nature, falls outside the normal course of literary theory. This paper evaluates various approaches taken to create a framework within which scholarly research and evaluation of these types of genre literature might…

The study of genre literature in general, and fantasy or fairy tale literature in particular, by its very nature, falls outside the normal course of literary theory. This paper evaluates various approaches taken to create a framework within which scholarly research and evaluation of these types of genre literature might occur. This is done applying Secondary World theory to better-established literary foci, such as psychological analysis and monster theory while still respecting the premises posited in traditional literary inquiry.
ContributorsAttwood, James (Author) / Bjork, Robert E (Thesis advisor) / Corse, Douglas (Committee member) / Maring, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Translating Marian doctrine into the vernacular: the bodily Assumption in Middle English and Old Norse-Icelandic literature

Description
This study examines the ways in which translators writing in two contemporary medieval languages, Old Norse-Icelandic and Middle English, approached the complicated doctrine of the bodily Assumption of Mary. At its core this project is dedicated to understanding the spread and development of an idea in two contemporary vernacular cultures…

This study examines the ways in which translators writing in two contemporary medieval languages, Old Norse-Icelandic and Middle English, approached the complicated doctrine of the bodily Assumption of Mary. At its core this project is dedicated to understanding the spread and development of an idea in two contemporary vernacular cultures and focuses on the transmission of that idea from the debates of Latin clerical culture into Middle English and Old Norse-Icelandic literature written for an increasingly varied audience made up of monastics, secular clergy, and the laity. The project argues that Middle English and Old-Norse Icelandic writing about the bodily Assumption of Mary challenges misconceptions that vernacular translations and compositions concerned with Marian doctrine represent the popular concerns of the laity as opposed to the academic language, or high Mariology, of the clergy.
ContributorsNajork, Daniel (Author) / Bjork, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Maring, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014