Matching Items (9)
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- All Subjects: creative writing
- Creators: Soares, Rebecca
- 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
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
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
Reasons to Stay Alive is a short story that follows the protagonist, Corinne Larson, and her experiences with depression and anxiety as well as self-harm and suicidal ideations. It is meant to act as an antithesis to media that romanticizes suicide, such as the television show 13 Reasons Why (2017), and instead glorify growth and healing. Specifically, it focuses on the importance of social support in the healing process. The story is separated into three different formats: narrative, letter, and free-verse poetry. It is prefaced by a poem titled ‘death by suicide’ that discusses the stigma around suicide and the reason why the phrase ‘commit suicide’ was changed to ‘death by suicide’. The story then starts with a letter written by Corinne to her future self during a time she was really struggling with depression and self-harm and suicidal ideations. It is a plea with her future self to tell her everything will be alright. The rest of the story is broken into four parts, each about a specific and important person in Corinne’s life. Each part starts off as a first person narrative from Corinne’s point of view and is a memorable experience she had with each person and ends with a short letter addressed directly to each person. The letters are a chance for Corinne to tell each person how important they are to her, how they made an impact in her life, and how they gave her a reason to stay alive. Between each part is a poem that deals with different themes relating to depression or anxiety. The story ends with a letter written by Corinne to her future self that goes back and addresses the first letter. It gives past Corinne some words of advice and tells her that her reasons to stay alive are the important people in life as well as herself and the person she will become.
ContributorsNosan, Kate (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Casey, Hayden (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2021-12
Description
In the event of a climate disaster, everything changes, but the places we’ve romanticized as a frontier will become new to us once again. New Sonoran is, in essence, an American story on a global problem. It draws on American pioneer/Old West/cowboy culture, the lasting effects of climate change denial, and the individualism that pervades American culture. I want to use this project to underscore the actual isolation of individualism, as well as create a new story that speaks to a problematic but evocative cultural history while accessing an uncertain future. For this project, I drew from a varied palette of media: comics, video games, and the pervasive cultural malaise that surrounds my current generation.
The work is based in anxieties, but its media influences are a strong indicator of tone and concept. At the very least, they helped me articulate why I wanted to work on a graphic novel on a post-climate change Sonoran. This desert that I’ve grown used to will change irrevocably, but it will be a new frontier to explore while the old will become a loss to mourn. This cycle of change is something I want to highlight in my work: we can worry, mourn, and fear, but there’s going to be something new.
New Sonoran is a graphic novel based upon the journey of Sage, a cartographer and anthropologist who travels the desert, annotating maps and studying a desert irrevocably affected by global climate change. As she catalogues the changes and losses in this new landscape, she learns how residents have adapted, and how people may still relate to the land.
The work is based in anxieties, but its media influences are a strong indicator of tone and concept. At the very least, they helped me articulate why I wanted to work on a graphic novel on a post-climate change Sonoran. This desert that I’ve grown used to will change irrevocably, but it will be a new frontier to explore while the old will become a loss to mourn. This cycle of change is something I want to highlight in my work: we can worry, mourn, and fear, but there’s going to be something new.
New Sonoran is a graphic novel based upon the journey of Sage, a cartographer and anthropologist who travels the desert, annotating maps and studying a desert irrevocably affected by global climate change. As she catalogues the changes and losses in this new landscape, she learns how residents have adapted, and how people may still relate to the land.
ContributorsBarbee, Amelia Bernadette (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Schmidt, Peter (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Uncle Dan is dead. He’s dead and Aunt Clara and Mike move across the country, leaving Jack and Jamie in their small Ohio town. Jamie spirals out of two relationships she thought would last forever, and Jack adventures across the country to bring back his cousin and return the family to a sense of normalcy. But the pair will soon realize that normal is relative and the truth is how you spin it, especially in the face of grief.
ContributorsJohnston, Catherine (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Bonfiglio, Thomas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Industrial, Systems & Operations Engineering Prgm (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Every year, Mr. Chapman takes a group of high school students on a bear-sighting trip called “Ex-bear-dition.” The story picks up at their arrival to Montana where the students learn about bears and quarrel with one another. When it’s time to take the long-anticipated, killer hike at Glacier National Park, the students find themselves in situations that require them to put their wilderness survival skills to the test. Peggy, one of the teaching assistants, and Nathan, one of the students, take a tumble in the snow, unable to return to the group. Mr. Chapman also finds himself incapable of hiking out, so the group must split again to go get help. Keller, the other teaching assistant, must lead a small assembly back to the trailhead, while Mr. Chapman’s remaining students, and Nathan and Peggy must weather their camps. This novella is a series of narratives and found materials.
ContributorsRudolph, Chloe (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Farmer, Steve (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / The Sidney Poitier New American Film School (Contributor)
Created2022-05