Matching Items (20)
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- All Subjects: Short Stories
- All Subjects: Mental illness
- Creators: Department of English
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Resource Type: Text
Description
This creative project consists of three short stories with a common theme of release, letting go, and exhalation. Nymphal Instar is a story about Tommy, a young boy, and his encounter with his uncle, a troubled man who has just returned from war. The story explores the idea of growth and maturation, and the ability to move past and let go of trauma. A Cat Goes Away is about a young man, Richard, who is required to simultaneously deal with the loss of his cat and the suicide attempts of his sister. He also runs into his sister's ex-husband and is forced to deal with him. The story explores the difficulty in recognizing one's own emotions and the importance of knowing the difference between what one can change and what one cannot. Since Diagnosis is a story about Kate, a woman who has just been diagnosed with cancer and who is unable to tell her loved ones. The story explores acceptance and the idea that letting go can allow one to live more fully. Though the three stories are disparate in their characters and events, they share a commonality in their endings and in the final realizations of the characters. There is a focus on the importance of breath and breathing, and the essentiality of acceptance and release.
ContributorsMyers, Alan Yutaka (Author) / McNally, T. M. (Thesis director) / Irish, Jenny (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This project examines the literary figures of Tristan and Isolde, looking to see how each character is portrayed, how their portrayals change through time, and takes a socio-cultural perspective in attempts to explain why these portrayals were used, and why they changed. Three different versions of the Tristan and Isolde story from three different time periods were used: Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory from the 1400's, Idylls of The King by Lord Alfred Tennyson from the 1800's, and the film Tristan + Isolde distributed by 20th Century Fox in the mid 2000's. For each version of the story, the primary text or film, along with secondary sources, were used to determine how each character was portrayed. This was done by examining Tristan and Isolde's physical appearances, stations in life, actions, and personality/tone. These portrayals from each version were then compared with portrayals from the other versions to determine what changes had occurred. Finally, secondary textual information was used to examine the culture in which each version was originally published, specifically examining such socio-cultural changes that could explain why the previously determined portrayals of Tristan and Isolde were used and why they differ from versions of these characters from different time periods. The results of this study found that some characteristics of Tristan and Isolde's portrayals do not change through time. Specifically, their physical appearances and stations in life are, for the most part, fixed. Tristan is always a handsome, strong, and noble knight/warrior while Isolde is always a beautiful and delicate princess. Other characteristics, such as personality/tone and actions do change drastically from one version to the next in accordance with the changing culture in which the authors and audience members lived.
ContributorsKupsch, Mary Francis (Author) / Newhauser, Richard (Thesis director) / Haggins, Bambi (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The depiction of mental illness, schizophrenia in particular, within film is a unique phenomenon that film directors have decided to undertake more so in the last 20 years than ever before in cinematic history (Wedding & Niemic, 2014; Robinson, 2004; Gabbard & Gabbard, 1999; Wahl, 1997). Countless filmmakers have taken on the challenge of depicting this complex, yet degenerative condition that entails auditory and visual hallucinations, disorganized thought and speech, and delusions. Its portrayals are usually exaggerated and romanticized, and convey a sense of separate "Otherness" with those who have a mental disorder. And while filmmakers try to encapsulate the schizophrenic experience, it is not without psychiatric error and regarding the person who has schizophrenia as a spectacle. This unfair and ostracizing view of people who have schizophrenia is fueled by films like A Beautiful Mind and The Shining where the film either creates impossibly high standards for schizophrenics to perform at, or the film paints the character as a violent savage. In either case, the end result is the marking and, usually, denouncement of the schizophrenic for their illness. What filmmakers tend to overlook is how much the public learns from the cinematic portrayals of these disorders, and that their films are contributing to an overarching issue of public presumptions of actual schizophrenia and how it is perceived. While the Hollywood approach offers a depiction that is usually more tangible and enjoyable for masses of audiences, spectators should recognize that these are artistic interpretations that take liberties in their depictions of schizophrenia. Viewing these films with an objective mindset to better understand the inner workings of schizophrenia is absolutely crucial in arriving anything close to the truth behind this mental illness that has been demonized long enough.
ContributorsFraga, Nicholas Andrew (Author) / Miller, April (Thesis director) / Cavanaugh Toft, Carolyn (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In my Honors Thesis, I endeavor to complicate and to respond to conventional debates over historical periodization and the problem of what it means to be "modern." I understand the modern as a conceptual product of discourses surrounding religion, science, and industry. Specifically, the modern era has been defined as one in which the forms of rationalization associated with quantitative and experimental scientific methods and large-scale, technologically sophisticated industrial production have surpassed the "irrational" superstitions associated with religion. Critical responses to this definition have largely had the goal of supplanting it with another way of conceiving of the historical discontinuity between the "modern" and the "non-modern." In three essays, I aim to complicate the terms (religion, science, and industry) in which these debates have been conducted and to relate them to one another both historically and conceptually. As opposed to the goal of re-defining the modern, my goal in these essays is to complicate the existing definitions and to reveal and challenge the ideological motives of historical periodization. I illuminate the connections of the modern conception of "religion" to a colonial system of power, between scientific development and changes in economic and religious thinking, and between contemporary technological and industrial projects to an "enchanted" view of the world. In tracing these connections, I am indebted to conventional discourses of modernization, Max Weber's theory of "disenchantment," and recent scholarship on the use of materialist methods in the study of history. In these essays, I move beyond the critical project of "re-imagining" the modern, and illuminate some of the ideological commitments of that project that I consider untenable. In addition to a more sophisticated historical understanding of the meaning of religion, science, and industry, what I aim to achieve in my thesis is a better framing of some of the largest problems faced by contemporary humanity, including the looming risks of ecological, economic, and geopolitical collapse. In this framing, I situate these risks in the context of their connection to strategies of historical periodization, and argue that managing them will require a radically new view of religion, science, industry, and the roles that they play in producing historical discontinuity.
ContributorsNeibergall, William (Author) / Bennett, Gaymon (Thesis director) / Suk, Mina (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Paraprosdokian is a collection of stories about all different types of lives in Phoenix, AZ. There are several stories that work together, involving lonely teenagers at punk house shows, while the rest standalone: the eclectic interactions of a waiter at a 24-hour diner, a blind fair ride operator with a propensity for accidental murder, a hapless son of a clumsy dental assistant, a literary scholar stuck in an addiction to both Kafka and pornography, a kid who learns that writing is not a formula, and a high school death that nobody cares about. Some pieces unfold parts of 21st century culture that have been knotted in ambivalence, like how men raised on pornography reconcile with intimacy, while others are as simple as trying to encapsulate the experience of growing up in what is often perceived as an artless suburbia. The project aims at mixing prose with photography to create, as Ben Lerner describes it, “a constellation of language and image”—a complete artistic product. Using the work of a local Arizona photographer, the collection complicates a reader’s elementary notion of a “picture book” by forcing the reader to view photographs beyond exposition or symbolism. The title of the collection comes from a term used in comedic rhetoric that refers to a figure of speech in which the latter part of a statement or phrase reorients one’s understanding of the whole. Under this definition, the collection seeks to amend its author and reader’s orientation to Phoenix in a quest for empathy, giving pathetic characters a chance to speak without ever sacrificing a touch of humorous joy.
ContributorsFritz, Chandler Harrison (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Farmer, Steve (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
DescriptionA collection of chronological, interconnected short stories following the lives and changes of a family throughout the 20th century, connected through the generations by unifying objects carried in from story to story.
ContributorsGilboa, Inbal (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Soares, Rebecca (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
DescriptionShort fiction revolving around the Y2K scare, written from three perspectives. Explores the fear and uncertainty prevalent during the time and how it affected actions and relationships.
ContributorsMoore, Matthew Robert (Author) / Dalton, Kevin (Thesis director) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Early humans adapted to eating cooked food with increased energy density and absorption of macronutrients. However, in modern times many suffer from diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes which can result from too much energy being absorbed from food. This study measures glucose responses to a high glycemic meal with a side dish of raw or cooked vegetables. There was a slight trend for raw vegetables to have decreased postprandial blood glucose responses when compared to cooked vegetables.
ContributorsWilkins, Christine Marie (Author) / Johnston, Carol (Thesis director) / Jacobs, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The two stories and five vignettes contained within These Days reflect the disparate experiences of people struggling to find fulfillment in modern life, searching for connection and intimacy in a digital age. The stories reflect a broad range of experiences, a 20-something experiencing the futility of love, to a retired professor who can do nothing to stop his mind deteriorating from dementia. The five vignettes are impressionistic sketches that in the same way capture the malaise and frustration of modernity. These stories capture such topics as infidelity, toxic marriages and abusive relationships, and apathy. These stories explore an unfulfillment and disillusionment with modern life, the disconnect between observation and experience, and the inability to connect or communicate meaningfully with anyone. The stories are objective in tone and narrow in scope, reflecting diverse but fleeting experiences, as people try and often fail to find meaning or contentment.
ContributorsAbernethy, Christopher C. (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Alvarez, Maria (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Alien Play, as posted here, is a placeholder name for this working draft of a full-length stage play that functions as part-science-fiction adventure, part-spiritual-parable. As the process of playwriting is a complex array of research, outlining, drafting, revising and editing, the play is preceded by a craft essay detailing the playwright's inspiration, research, and narrative design. In order to complete this project, the playwright conducted research in the field of religious studies, focusing specifically on the phenomena of paranormal experiences through the lenses of psychology, sociology, and philosophy, asking questions such as: How and why do new religions arise? In what ways (narrative, content, structure, etc.) do these new religions reflect the spiritualist mythologies or religious institutions of the past? What do these similarities or differences say about the social, economic, or political atmospheres that give rise to such movements?
More specifically, this play works within the cross-section of religion/spirituality, mental illness, and UFO and other extra-terrestrial related anomalies to ask such questions as: What does it mean to be Human? What does it mean to be "alien" or Other? How do we internally and externally construct a binary between Humanness and Otherness, between Self and Other? How do we construct reality? In what ways does this anthropomorphize our conceptions of the Human or the Other? In what ways, specifically, may this affect our understanding or manifestation of mental illness, in ourself and others?
The play you see here is a final draft for the thesis, but is still in development elsewhere. Here is a brief log line (i.e. a short description of the general plot and conflict of a script) for the piece: Four sisters from a broken home must deal with the sudden discovery of their late father's communication with an extra-terrestrial race bearing a message of Love-and-Peace. When they, too, begin to communicate with the E.T.'s, they must juggle issues of mental illness, memory, and trauma all while outrunning a shadow government that will stop at nothing to uncover their secret.
More specifically, this play works within the cross-section of religion/spirituality, mental illness, and UFO and other extra-terrestrial related anomalies to ask such questions as: What does it mean to be Human? What does it mean to be "alien" or Other? How do we internally and externally construct a binary between Humanness and Otherness, between Self and Other? How do we construct reality? In what ways does this anthropomorphize our conceptions of the Human or the Other? In what ways, specifically, may this affect our understanding or manifestation of mental illness, in ourself and others?
The play you see here is a final draft for the thesis, but is still in development elsewhere. Here is a brief log line (i.e. a short description of the general plot and conflict of a script) for the piece: Four sisters from a broken home must deal with the sudden discovery of their late father's communication with an extra-terrestrial race bearing a message of Love-and-Peace. When they, too, begin to communicate with the E.T.'s, they must juggle issues of mental illness, memory, and trauma all while outrunning a shadow government that will stop at nothing to uncover their secret.
ContributorsFields, Savannah (Author) / Sterling, Pamela (Thesis director) / Reyes, Guillermo (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12