Matching Items (9)
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- All Subjects: creative writing
- Creators: LaCroix, Kristin
- Creators: School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposes that the personality has three components, the id, superego, and ego. The id is concerned with pleasure and gain, the reason it is often identified as a human's animalistic side. Additionally, the id does not consider social rules as closely and is the uncensored portion of the personality. The superego is the id's opposite; the superego considers social expectations and pressures immensely, is more self-critical and moralizing. The ego mediates the id and superego, and is understood as the realistic expression of personality which considers both the "animal" and human. A Fractured Whole: A Collection of Short Stories, explores Freud's construction of human personality in both form and content. Within the collection are three sections, each with a different pair of characters. Within each section, the same scene is written in the three "modes" of the id, superego, and ego, as three separate stories. The fifteen stories comprising this collection address the substance of daily life: sexuality, body image, competition, among other topics, to consider how a single person can balance the desires for personal pleasure and to satisfy social expectations. Writing the same scene in three "modes" allows for the observation of how the characters attitudes and actions alter under the influence of different parts of their personalities.
ContributorsOtte, Aneka (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Abstract "Empty Horizons": A Creative Writing Piece Max Harmon "Empty Horizons" is a creative writing piece composed of two different short stories sharing a common narrator. The first story "Can you dig it?" details a trip the narrator takes to South Dakota to go hunting shortly before starting college. On the trip the narrator contemplates certain aspects of his life and the events of the story serve as a vehicle to explore the narrator's mindset as an eighteen year old about to start a new phase in his life. The second story "Toads, Sharks and Beautiful Encounters with Uncertainty" takes place during the summer before the narrator begins his last semester in college as he attends the funeral of his recently deceased grandmother in Hawaii. During the trip to Hawaii, the narrator meets a girl his age and they are able to bond with each other over feelings of loss and uncertainty. In this story the narrator explores his feelings about life with college graduation on the horizon and comes to terms with some of the anxieties that have been plaguing him since the start of college. By detailing these two distinct and important time periods in the narrator's life the reader is able to gain a sense of understanding in regards to the narrator's own process of beginning life as an adult.
ContributorsHarmon, Max Doyle (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Popova, Laura (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This creative project is the result of reading several novellas, doing research about the form, and doing academic research regarding exchange students, South American migration to Europe, and Korean culture. Julie Yun is a Korean-America who is determining whether she will move back to Korea with her family or stay in the United States; Nathan is a young expatriate traveling in Europe who paused his education and hasn't determined whether he will return to his "home"; and Rima is a Central American who left her family and is trying to adapt to living in a new country and trying to learn a new language. The novella takes place primarily in Lausanne, Switzerland, and explores the themes of self-identity, cross-cultural communities, and how people with different backgrounds but in similar situations define home. One particular motif is that people and places are sometimes more similar to each other than we imagine.
ContributorsDe La Rosa, Stephanie Odette (Author) / Murphy, Patricia (Thesis director) / LaCroix, Kristin (Committee member) / RÃÂos, Alberto (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2013-05
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
Erosion: A Collection of Poems consists of ten prose poems that explore the processing of trauma through a single lens. We follow the work’s main character as she navigates recovery following a medical trauma in Peru from which she ought to have died. The pieces challenge the readers to immerse themselves within her narrative to understand the isolation that trauma ushers in, as she struggles to know her own newfound aloneness.
While the poems illustrate the complexity of one’s experience with both PTSD and its stages of recovery (e.g., emergency, numbness, intrusive/repetitive, integration), they are anchored in the sensory, the concrete. Amidst the terror of the symptoms at the most basic, raw level, she attempts to reclaim selfhood, which involves wrestling with philosophical suicide, reconciling realities, numbness and the widening of a barrier, stunning intimacies, the craving to feel, and both the desire and the need to connect authentically without being able to satiate such inclinations.
Influenced by the works of Frank Bidart, Claudia Rankine, James Longenbach, and Carolyn Forché, the pieces rely heavily upon rhythm and spacing, imagery, and associative linkages throughout the work to craft a sense of physical, intellectual, and emotional movement within the space.
The collection focuses upon the narrative of one survivor of trauma, and though traumas may be experienced differently, and while PTSD may manifest itself in profoundly diverse ways, the pieces aim to capture the shared foundation of the experience — the isolation and the pure, unadulterated pain — in order to cast a universal veil onto the exploration, providing the audience with insight into one of trauma’s most important facets.
While the poems illustrate the complexity of one’s experience with both PTSD and its stages of recovery (e.g., emergency, numbness, intrusive/repetitive, integration), they are anchored in the sensory, the concrete. Amidst the terror of the symptoms at the most basic, raw level, she attempts to reclaim selfhood, which involves wrestling with philosophical suicide, reconciling realities, numbness and the widening of a barrier, stunning intimacies, the craving to feel, and both the desire and the need to connect authentically without being able to satiate such inclinations.
Influenced by the works of Frank Bidart, Claudia Rankine, James Longenbach, and Carolyn Forché, the pieces rely heavily upon rhythm and spacing, imagery, and associative linkages throughout the work to craft a sense of physical, intellectual, and emotional movement within the space.
The collection focuses upon the narrative of one survivor of trauma, and though traumas may be experienced differently, and while PTSD may manifest itself in profoundly diverse ways, the pieces aim to capture the shared foundation of the experience — the isolation and the pure, unadulterated pain — in order to cast a universal veil onto the exploration, providing the audience with insight into one of trauma’s most important facets.
ContributorsBacon, Lauren Whitney (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Irish, Jennifer (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Regicide is a full-length fantasy novel whose world and plot are influenced by the Western Zodiac. It is a coming of age story that reflects an individual's changing views as they come to understand society, religion, and the history of the place where they were born. The book blurb is as follows: "When the king of Celestial Kingdom is murdered and the culprit is unknown, Vernalia Novoa is called to help fill the void his death has created. Though ill-equipped to run a kingdom, she shoulders the burdens as one of the last living Pisces capable of fulfilling the immense responsibilities. With the struggle between doing her job, finding a new ruler, and uncovering the truth about what happened to her people, the passed king’s infamous words echo: people are not always what we hope for them to be."
ContributorsMonson, Cera (Author) / LaCroix, Kristin (Thesis director) / Mara, Miriam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
"A Stitch in Time" is a creative project that centered around a creative writing project. The story explores the experiences of a witch named Elio who helps people solve issues in their real lives through the power of dreams. However, he must come to terms with the issues that are present in his own past -- and continue to affect him in the present -- in order to fully reach his potential as a witch. The completed version of this thesis project was two written chapters and a full detailed outline.
ContributorsSaifi, Abigail (Author) / LaCroix, Kristin (Thesis director) / Mara, Andrew (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
ContributorsSaifi, Abigail (Author) / LaCroix, Kristin (Thesis director) / Mara, Andrew (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
ContributorsSaifi, Abigail (Author) / LaCroix, Kristin (Thesis director) / Mara, Andrew (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05