English Honors Papers

April Stools’ Day

Alexander Soffron — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:46:13 PDT

Good Walls

Andrea Amulic — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:43:53 PDT

The Music Room & Other Stories

Jennifer Milton — Tue, 31 May 2011 12:20:00 PDT

“Who hath the world in honde”: Conflicts of Agency in Three Canterbury Tales

Samantha Anne Streger — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:22:24 PDT

This thesis examines the subject of conflicting agency in three of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and discusses the ways in which confusions of power shed light on the issues inherent in governing medieval social ideologies. In the Knight’s Tale, conflicting agency between the humans and the gods is evidence of the Knight’s failure to bring order to his tale. Because the Knight is unable to rationally explain the universe by employing the noble ideals of chivalry, honor, and faith in higher power, the confusion of power in the Knight’s Tale highlights the failure of noble pursuits. In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, I focus on the Wife’s attempts to define her desires outside of a socially constructed female stereotype. Because these desires are in part a product of socially constructed gender roles, the Wife is unable to articulate herself fully and the result is a wavering agency. In the Franklin’s Tale, I examine the erosion of female agency as the freedom afforded Dorigen in the opening marriage contract between Dorigen and Arveragus fades first into passive female power and then into a complete objectification of her character. This failure of female agency illuminates the Franklin’s inability to create utopian equality in marriage amidst socially accepted codes of behavior.

Scatterlings and Orphanages

Taylor M. Katz — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:45:17 PDT

Against Accumulation: Moby-Dick, Mason & Dixon, and Atlantic Capitalism

Scott K. Borchert — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:17:27 PDT

This thesis examines the question of what it means to think about a text as Atlantic literature. I consider two novels, Melville’s Moby-Dick and Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, in their relation to the Atlantic cycle of capital accumulation. I borrow this term from Ian Baucom, who, drawing on the work of Giovanni Arrighi, argues that the period extending from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century represents a definite epoch of historical capitalism: an Atlantic cycle of capital accumulation. To think about these texts as Atlantic literature, then, is to think about how they reproduce the logic of or understand themselves in relation to this Atlantic cycle, the dynamic engine of a circum-Atlantic world. I turn to two key theorists whose work I feel is best suited to each novel. Moby-Dick is primarily focused on capitalist production as represented by the whaling industry,and thus I employ Georg Lukács—particularly his model of realism and its emphasis on revealing the nature of production of a given social field—for my reading of that novel. Mason & Dixon, however, is less directly concerned with production and instead centers its narrative on the consumption of Atlantic commodities, which invites a reading that draws on Walter Benjamin, whose work focuses (primarily) on this stage of capitalist production. In my reading of Moby-Dick, I argue that the novel approaches the requirements of Lukácsian realism, but fails to meet them because of its compositionally eclectic nature. Because Moby-Dick is inherently contradictory, it does not contain what Lukács calls the moving center (the force that orients and directs the “totality of objects” of a given social field, in this case, capital)—or at least not conventionally. Instead, the moving center is displaced and reproduced figuratively in Ahab’s monomaniacal hunt for the white whale, leaving the empty shell of its rhetoric on Starbuck: Atlantic capitalism as contradiction. This, I argue, is not Lukácsian realism per se, but what I term a “realism of crisis,” as the text encounters its own moving center (capital) in a moment of crisis and subsequently displaces it (to Ahab). Mason & Dixon, however, traces the Atlantic cycle across space and, importantly,through a time that does not simply pass, but accumulates. We see this in the novel’s ghostliness, in how it represents commodities, and in the Benjaminian constellation of the late eighteenth and late twentieth centuries—the “bookends” of the Atlantic cycle. Through adopting a Benjaminian philosophy of history, the text reveals how the Atlantic cycle is composed not of discrete and isolated past moments moving through the empty, homogeneous time of capitalist modernity, but rather of nonsynchronously contemporaneous moments accumulating in the wake of a singular historical catastrophe. That catastrophe, Pynchon’s “the Day,” is analogous to the Atlantic cycle of accumulation. Both novels encounter the logic of capitalist accumulation and respond in turn with an alternative form of accumulation. In Moby-Dick, we see a trend of literary accumulation (the “nonrealist” element) that seeks to counteract the brutalizing reality of the logic of capitalist accumulation (uncovered by he “realist” element). And in Mason & Dixon, we see an accumulative (Benjaminian) philosophy of history that seeks to counteract the empty time of capitalist modernity, and articulates itself as a politics of melancholy.

Comunicación: Exploring Language and Cultural Barriers in Healthcare

Jessica Bayner — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:57:38 PDT

The ability to relay an idea or message to another is extremely powerful, as it requires coherence on the part of the communicator, and understanding on the part of the person one is communicating with. In terms of healthcare, a patient’s needs must be made clear to the Doctor. Likewise, a Doctor should be able to convey his/her thoughts to whomever is being treated. However, the success of such an interaction with Hispanics in particular is not only based on verbal efforts; body language, culture, and signs of respect all come into play (de Paula, Lagana, & Gonzalez-Ramirez 203, as cited by Kemp). Unfortunately, as a result of language barriers and a lack of familiarity with different customs, many Spanish-speaking patients are unable to obtain the optimal level of care from Doctors who are non-native speakers

Engine Song

Laura Jo Hess — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:41:23 PDT

This honors paper does not have an abstract.

Constructing Identity: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Passing

Andrew W. Davis — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 07:15:15 PDT

This thesis explores the constructions of African American female identity in Nella Larsen’s two novels, Quicksand and Passing. It examines the textual representations of race, class, gender and sexuality and how these representations speak to the stereotypes of African American female identity prevalent in Harlem Renaissance literature and the wider literary canon. The first chapter shows the connection among constructing racial, gender and sexual identities by paralleling Quicksand’s protagonist’s plight to define her racial identity with her simultaneous struggle to obtain sexual autonomy. It concludes that Helga’s failure to achieve autonomy signifies the novel’s critique of the racism and misogyny within its contemporary society. The second chapter focuses on Larsen’s second novel, Passing, and how the two protagonists, Irene and Clare, construct their identities in their segregated society. The agency Clare possesses in constructing her identity leads to the tragic ending of both women, for her white husband’s racism prevails and his power to dictate his wife’s identity indirectly causes her death. The thesis concludes by considering the criticism both novels receive and its influence on Larsen’s place in the literary canon. The thesis argues that both novels’ portrayal of female characters as three dimensional women capable of autonomy, refute the stereotypical representations and the novels’ tragic endings further criticize the societies that deny them agency.