Theses and dissertations

This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students. 

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Cruising the Gay Canon: Examining Cornerstones of Gay American Fiction from 1945 to 1969

Description
In the mid-twentieth century, a number of vital and quietly revolutionary gay male writers, including Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, and John Rechy, increasingly wrote about explicitly homosexual experiences and culture despite social and legal opposition. Both individually and collectively, these four authors ultimately merged disjointed identities to establish…

In the mid-twentieth century, a number of vital and quietly revolutionary gay male writers, including Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, and John Rechy, increasingly wrote about explicitly homosexual experiences and culture despite social and legal opposition. Both individually and collectively, these four authors ultimately merged disjointed identities to establish a tradition of visibility and resistance in the United States. Divided into four main sections, this thesis examines each author’s portrayal of homosexual experiences and culture through his distinct approach with a close literary analysis of various works. The first section considers Christopher Isherwood and how milieu affects his depictions of homosexuality in The Berlin Stories (1945), Down There on a Visit (1962), and A Single Man (1964). The second examines Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar (1948) and the relationship between homosexuality and masculinity. The third section looks at how James Baldwin writes about the intersection of homosexuality, race, nationality, and class in both Giovanni’s Room (1956) and Another Country (1962). Finally, the fourth section considers the emergence of queer communities built around resistance in John Rechy’s City of Night (1963). In addition to these literary texts, original reviews of each novel published in The New York Times capture their reception and acceptance into a mainstream American readership. Through their distinct approaches, these four authors collectively present a varied, although somewhat limited, look at the homosexual experience in postwar, pre-Stonewall America.
ContributorsBramlett, Charles Paul (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05

The History of LGBT Themes in Video Games

Description
Two communities that aren’t exactly known for overlapping much with one another are the LGBT community and the gaming community. While there hasn’t historically been much of a focus on how these two communities intersect, research is slowly developing. This paper will dig into the history of LGBT representation in…

Two communities that aren’t exactly known for overlapping much with one another are the LGBT community and the gaming community. While there hasn’t historically been much of a focus on how these two communities intersect, research is slowly developing. This paper will dig into the history of LGBT representation in video games, including a loose timeline of the earliest examples of LGBT representation in games to the present day. In a separate section it will also examine how, in these cases of representation, the LGBT characters and themes were portrayed, whether positive, negative, or neutral, and what effects, if any, these examples had on the gaming community as a whole.
ContributorsTortorici, Colby Richard (Author) / Camporeale, Joseph (Thesis director) / Young, Amy (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05