Matching Items (7)
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- All Subjects: Fiction
- All Subjects: English
- Creators: Ison, Tara
Description
A Cut Kite, a collection of linked stories about a Nepali family haunted by the past, examines the anatomy of troubled hearts. In these lyric tales, characters often seek love, but they end up finding it in the unlikeliest of places: in a moth darting toward a candle flame in a dark house, in the middle of a barrage of blows, in the seething currents, ruthless and forgetful.
ContributorsLama, Shertok (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Dubie, Norman (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
A collection of eight stories set in American landscapes that are distorted, anachronistic or magical. The characters in these stories are hunting monsters, touring strange museums, dating shapeshifters and performing death-defying illusions, but the greatest mysteries they encounter are the most human: obsession, loneliness, loss. As they struggle to distinguish fantasy and reality, they also strive to transform and transcend the things that haunt them.
ContributorsMartone, Anthony (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Turchi, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This thesis contains stories about loss and the trauma that's felt in its wake. Within all of these stories, characters struggle with the notion of "healing" and "moving on." Whether it be a young boy who deals with his grief by cannibalizing his mother in "A Simple Request", or a teenage girl who wishes her chronically suicidal mother would finally kill herself in "Little Accidents," all stories within this collection explore the very unique, and human ways, in which people deal with grief.
ContributorsAshworth, Laura (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Turchi, Peter (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
An investigation into the cultural phenomenon surrounding books and movies that are considered critical failures, but are nonetheless championed in popular culture. Stories are an essential part of American culture, and many people not only tolerate but truly enjoy those stories that are shocking, confusing, and, in some cases, those that were created by storytellers with almost no talent at all. The continued production of these lackluster stories was considered, with an eye to the corporate influences on film studios and publishers. This paper also looked at two storytellers, the filmmaker Ed Wood and the author Stephen King, whose value as artists has been debated by passionate fans and their strongest critics. The sociological concepts of taste and cultural capital, as defined by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and the art movements of postmodernism and metamodernism, particularly the style of camp as defined by Susan Sontag and the value of bad taste in art as defined by John Waters, were investigated in regards to their connection to the popularity of bad films and novels. A brief investigation into the psychological effects of consuming bad stories, especially in children, was also included. From this foundation of the bad story as an important part of our culture's ideas about art and its consumption, the paper then addresses some of the popular methods of consumption of the bad story. For novels, the paper examines the trend of pulp fiction novels and of romance novels, going into depth on the role of E.L James' Fifty Shades of Grey in popular culture. For film, the paper examines the impact of the midnight movie trend on the popularity of subversive, counter-culture films, the role of camp genre films like Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show in our culture, particularly with an eye towards audience participation screenings, and the way in which other projects, like Joel Hodgson's Mystery Science Theater 3000, transform bad films into new, enjoyable entertainment. Overall, this paper investigates all of the positive aspects around a failed story that allow these missteps in writing and directing to still find success in our culture.
ContributorsPehoushek, Scott James (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Free, Melissa (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
An exploration of the art of writing fiction through the lens of memory, myth, and the fractured psyche, of performance and spectacle: image, projection, and the secret self. The craft of writing is the craft of myth. The very process of storytelling relies on collective, personal, and historical myth-making - stories surrounding the body and consciousness, collective and personal memory.
ContributorsHutson, Elizabeth (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Bell, Matt (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
ContributorsPanosian, N. Zari (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Fortunato, Joe (Committee member) / Talerico, Daniela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
The Vermillion Comedic Anthology comprises of three works of fiction, each around fifteen pages in length. The stories were written throughout the course of Hunter Vermillion’s residency in the English: Creative Writing (Fiction) program at Arizona State University. The first story Study-a-Broad, was written in his capstone fiction class, while the second story Herald’s Horticulture was the first piece Hunter wrote in his first fiction class.
The content of these stories is edgy, humorous, satirical (unlike this abstract), and generally absurd—all this while retaining elements of realism. “Realism” in the sense that any of these stories could occur; there are no supernatural elements contained. However, the actions and characters are so exaggerated that their purposes are to call attention to the character/societal flaws to which they reflect. The more edgy elements of these stories are not included for shock value; in fact, just the opposite. Their sparse use is purposeful to call extra attention to a certain scene or action. Often a story’s use of crude language is intended characterize these despicable actions as negative—to show that a boss should not be treating those around him like servants, for instance (as is the case in the story Fore!).
Disclaimer aside, the true intention of these stories is simple: to entertain. These are humorous pieces, aimed at poking fun at some typical college, workplace, and neighborhood drama. That’s not to say the pieces are devoid of any deeper meaning, because as described above, they seek to satirize overlooked bits of culture. However, the overarching goal of the Vermillion Comedic Anthology is to entertain readers and provide them much need escape from the stresses of the world.
The content of these stories is edgy, humorous, satirical (unlike this abstract), and generally absurd—all this while retaining elements of realism. “Realism” in the sense that any of these stories could occur; there are no supernatural elements contained. However, the actions and characters are so exaggerated that their purposes are to call attention to the character/societal flaws to which they reflect. The more edgy elements of these stories are not included for shock value; in fact, just the opposite. Their sparse use is purposeful to call extra attention to a certain scene or action. Often a story’s use of crude language is intended characterize these despicable actions as negative—to show that a boss should not be treating those around him like servants, for instance (as is the case in the story Fore!).
Disclaimer aside, the true intention of these stories is simple: to entertain. These are humorous pieces, aimed at poking fun at some typical college, workplace, and neighborhood drama. That’s not to say the pieces are devoid of any deeper meaning, because as described above, they seek to satirize overlooked bits of culture. However, the overarching goal of the Vermillion Comedic Anthology is to entertain readers and provide them much need escape from the stresses of the world.
ContributorsVermillion, Hunter Dane (Author) / Ison, Tara (Thesis director) / Hoyt, Heather (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05