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- Creators: Department of English
Description
Mizungo is a work of lyrical creative nonfiction with an interactive braided essay format that plays with place and time melding culture, experience, and memory. It weaves the threads of sexuality, loss, depression, privilege, and family between photographs. This develops the themes of otherness and identity while exploring the settings of Uganda, Tempe, and small-town Utah. The piece explores the identity of "mizungo," the name given by the locals to any white person who travels to Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda, a region known for both hospitality and homophobia, this identity overtakes the author's name and sense of self propeling the mizungo to near celebrity status simply because of skin color and the privilege it promises. For McGovern, this attention creates otherness and the isolation that forces self-reflection, which propels self-healing. "Mizungo" provides her a mask in the homophobic region, that not only protects, but promotes self-acceptance. It also forces her to face her grief over familial tragedies and contemplate the settings of depression, loss, and the makings of family around the world. The timeline of Mizungo flows nonlinearly, and does not stick to one setting. Along with her mental state, the narrative explores the world and the beginning and ending of the "mizungo" identity. The narrative drops the reader onto the streets of Kampala where McGovern is first branded as "mizungo" and ends with the exploration of a different meaning of this identity. In between these scenes, the narrative pulls from memories of childhood and summers spent in Utah up through nine years later in Tempe, a few months before the story was published, and a year after traveling to Uganda.
ContributorsMcgovern, Sophia Odonnell (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / Hoyt, Heather (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
My thesis is a practice in Italian writing and Italian-English translation. During my semester abroad in Italy, I kept a journal of my experiences in Italian as a way to improve my proficiency and explore another facet of my identity. The entries included here range in topic from language acquisition, relationships, the experience of living in a foreign country, and self-exploration. Upon returning to the US, I translated each entry into English to see the different ways each language functions, as well as how my voice as a writer and individual comes through in both.
ContributorsGrasso, Olivia (Author) / Ferrando, Serena (Thesis director) / Dell'Anna, Antonella (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Description
Back and Forth is a collection of four short stories that explore cultural elements of the Philippines through folktales, magic, and loss. Each story features main characters that are discovering how to navigate through life after something jarring happens to them. In learning how to move on, they learn more about themselves, their culture, and their identity. In “Back and Forth,” the main character, Lita, learns about the magic of the world and how she herself possesses it, something that is passed down from her grandmother. However, she is forced to hide it away if she wants to live a normal life. When her aunt starts acting weird, it’s up to Lita to race against time and relearn the magic within. “The Viewing,” takes place in the United States, and the main character, Diwata, is a biracial woman that has to maneuver her way through a viewing for one of her favorite relatives while also being confronted by the brashness of white relatives that don’t appreciate her being a part of their family. Tala, the main character of “The Mound Dwellers,” must turn to an old legend that she had learned as a child to find her own daughter that has gone missing. Only after finally giving in and listening to her mother about what she suspects happened, does Tala begin to make progress. “Snowed In” is about a woman who is getting over the loss of her husband. She works through the grief by cooking his favorite recipe, a traditional Filipino dish, over and over again. Each time she finishes, it’s not quite right. By the end of the story, she finally perfects the recipe, and there’s nothing left for her to do but deal with her grief head-on. Each story, though not related to each other directly, features characters that have to unravel the mystery of their new identities after a major life change.
ContributorsAmmerman, Lian Rae (Author) / Bell, Matthew (Thesis director) / Newsom, Leah (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05