This thesis is an investigation into the role of names within Olga Grushin’s Forty Rooms, in order to in understand the protagonist, Mrs. Caldwell, as an “everywoman” in which readers can see themselves. I use the names of the male characters to show . . .

American contemporary and multicultural literature focuses on issues surrounding race. This project analyzes race through differing spaces, places, and environments in three works of 20th and 21st century American literature. Despite their differences . . .

“Mother Outsider” is a collection of poems that explores non-conventional motherhood while also pushing against cultural assumptions of motherhood. Questioning these societal assumptions and the speaker’s own questions of herself are central to the po . . .

Reasons to Worry is a collection of short stories and flash fiction focused on the traditions of literary fabulism and speculative fiction. Their genres span across cyberpunk, gothic, folklore, science fiction, horror, magical realism, and cosmicism. . . .

Touch the Stars/Touch the Earth is a collection of four short stories that explore themes of grief, death, loss and agency through the medium of fiction, specifically using the genres of fabulist and science fiction. Each story has a central theme of . . .

The Cost of Freedom and Other Stories is a collection of interconnected fictional short stories that turn the internal conflict into a tangible obstacle the characters must overcome. By exploring themes of escapism, obsession, and toxic patterns, The . . .

“The Good Housewife’s Receipt Book” is a master’s thesis investigating the real and symbolic role of the middling-sort rural English housewife of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the resulting gendered nature of ideas about hous . . .

ABSTRACT ALTERNATIVE SUBTERFUGE: PRANKING RHETORIC IN SHOPDROPPING AND IDENTITY CORRECTION by Hilary Beth Tellesen Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 Currently corporate rhetoric monopolizes all means of cultural . . .

ABSTRACT IN THERE SOMEWHERE: A MEMOIR by Christopher William Cullen Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 In There Somewhere is a memoir focusing on my family and relationships, and on coming of age and the male iden . . .

ABSTRACT THE NEW WORLD OF THE POST-APOCALYPTIC IMAGINATION by © Karl Becker 2010 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2010 In light of a recent explosion of post-apocalyptic narratives in popular film and literature, thi . . .

ABSTRACT A POSTMODERN VIEW OF MORALITY IN THE WORKS OF MORRISON, CAPOTE, AND O'BRIEN by Kelly Candelaria Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2010 Postmodern literature is not the first place that we think to look in ord . . .

This thesis analyzes the process of human transformation apparent in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, specifically focusing on Hugo’s representation of God’s involvement in the process. I identify three major motifs: “Mysterious and Terrible Blows”; the . . .

ABSTRACT DUST AND FRESH HOPE: BLACK MASCULINITY AND THE SPACE LEFT FOR WOMEN IN AUGUST WILSON'S DRAMA by Allia Ida Homayoun 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 This project examines August Wilson's ten-play cy . . .

ABSTRACT MASKS OF PASSIVITY: HOODOO AND VOODOO IN THE WORKS OF HURSTON, TWAIN, AND CABLE by Amanda Blair Runyan Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 This thesis addresses the texts Mules and Men (1935) by Zora Neale . . .

ABSTRACT THE PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITY IN SELECTED PLAYS BY JONSON, ETHEREGE, CIBBER, AND CROWN by Connor J. Trebra Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 This study focuses on the performance of gender and social ident . . .

ABSTRACT NEGOTIATIONS OF POWER IN RAYMOND ANDREWS‟S MUSKHOGEAN COUNTY TRILOGY by Shelli Homer Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 My thesis looks at the availability of situational power in Raymond Andrews‟s Muskho . . .

ABSTRACT ABOVE THE FOG BELOW THE SNOW by © Lucretia Annelle Fligner 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 The short stories in this fiction collection, “Above the Fog Below the Snow,” are psychological in nature . . .

ABSTRACT THE CRITICAL FORTUNES OF ARTHUR MILLER'S DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Angela M. Metzger Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2009 This thesis undertakes the task of exploring Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman throug . . .

ABSTRACT DRAMATIZING THE WRITTEN WORD: ALLUSIONS AND INSERTED GENRES AS HETEROGLOSSIA by Christopher Bertucci Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 This thesis examines the implications of two literary phenomena: (1) . . .

ABSTRACT THIS WOMAN’S WORK by © Sarah T. Knowlton 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2009 The idea of gender specific roles is a common theme that modern society wrestles with even in today’s more enlightened times. . . .

ABSTRACT LIFE IS BUT A DREAM: THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS IN TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE by Jeremy M. Gerrard Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2010 This thesis analyzes and re-defines the American Dream in twent . . .

ABSTRACT “THE RARER ACTION”: REVENGE AND PITY IN TITUS ANDRONICUS AND THE TEMPEST by © Rachel Lilia Arteaga 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 In Williams Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and The Tempest, pity . . .

ABSTRACT DEMONSTRATIONS OF POWER IN THE MARRIAGE PLOTS OF DANIEL DERONDA, THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS, AND PHOEBE JUNIOR by Carol M. Lane Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2010 This thesis will explore and analyze expressions . . .

ABSTRACT PERFORMATIVE PATRIARCHY IN THREE TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY NATURALIST NOVELS by Jacob Thomas Boone Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2011 This thesis examines protagonists’ paths to “failure” (and “success”) in thr . . .

ABSTRACT USING POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE IN THE FIELD OF COMPOSITION: A CROSS-DISCIPLINE DIALOGUE by © Erica A. Spangler 2011 Masters of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2011 This thesis analyzes, discusses, and extends the cros . . .

ABSTRACT GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ AND THE AESTHETICS OF SENSUALITY by © Mike Giuffrida 2011 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2011 My thesis consists of five sections: the introduction and overview; the aesthetics of st . . .

ABSTRACT THE POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLICS: NEW MEDIA AND GENRE IN THE FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION COURSE By © Lauren Michele Alpert 2011 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2011 This thesis analyzes work produced by students in . . .

ABSTRACT “YOUR LITTLE HANDS WERE NEVER MADE/ TO TEAR EACH OTHER‟S EYES”: VICTORIAN ANXIETY AND THE FERAL CHILD IN FRANKENSTEIN, THE JUNGLE BOOK(S), AND PETER PAN by Katharine C. Rosen-Molina Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico . . .

ABSTRACT MULTIMODALITY IN THE TECHNICAL AGE: A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF TECHNOLOGY AND WRITING by © Christina Deann Kraker 2011 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2011 This thesis begins with an examination of the spread o . . .

ABSTRACT COMPETITION AND COOPERATION: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN IN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, THE MILL ON THE FLOSS, AND JANE EYRE by Brianne P. Epley Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2011 This thesis will analyze the re . . .

ABSTRACT WALKING RELINQUISHMENTS: SACRIFICE IN WILLIAM FAULKNER’S THE SOUND AND THE FURY, AS I LAY DYING, AND “THE BEAR” by Jennifer Jean Rose Warren Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2009 The works of William Faulkne . . .

ABSTRACT ANGLO-SAXON: THE KEY TO STEPHEN KING'S "THE DARK TOWER" by  Jennifer Dempsey Loman 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2009 Stephen King engages in medieval imitation in his seven-volume series The Dark T . . .

ABSTRACT CHANGING LANDSCAPES: AMERICAN FRONTIER MYTHOLOGY AND “PLACE-MAKING” IN POPULAR WESTERN NARRATIVES by Kylee Duran-Cox Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2010 The purpose of this thesis is to explore the way tha . . .

ABSTRACT VIRTUE IN THE WORLD OF CHARLES DICKENS by Michael W. Curl Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2009 My thesis is a literary analysis looking at Dickens’s Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. Dickens’s literature a . . .

ABSTRACT IN THE CRICKET HOURS: A COLLECTION OF POEMS by Lisa K. Trombley 2010 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2010 In the Cricket Hours represents my journey as a writer. The "cricket hours" defines the time when my . . .

ABSTRACT THE RE-ENCHANTED LANDSCAPE: BRET HARTE’S AND JOHN MUIR’S SPATIAL PRODUCTIONS by William V. Lombardi Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2010 How do we discuss the role of place in literature? This thesis consid . . .

ABSTRACT TEST PATTERNS by © Jennifer A. White 2009 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2009 This collection of short stories and nonfiction essays test the patterns found within the craft of fiction and the way writers us . . .

ABSTRACT WANDERLUST: A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES by © Corey Michael Gruber 2010 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2010 Wanderlust is a collection of short stories inspired by and written with consideration for the m . . .

ABSTRACT THE WIRE: POLITICS, POSTMODERISM AND THE REBIRTH OF AMERICAN NATURALISM by Ryan Aiello Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Summer 2010 My thesis analyzes the political themes and messages in David Simon’s television s . . .

ABSTRACT RE-ENVISIONING A COMMUNITY COLLEGE READING PROGRAM: ACADEMIC READING INSTRUCTION AS AN INTEGRATED AND RECURSIVE PROCESS by © Shawn Marie Delight-Frederking 2010 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2010 This thesi . . .

ABSTRACT SABINA by Lucas Sarcona Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2011 The purpose of this creative project is to demonstrate my understanding of the craft of literary fiction. “Sabina” is intended to reflect an inte . . .

ABSTRACT LIBERTY OR LIFE: DEATH, WOMEN AND FREEDOM IN VICTORIAN SENSATION FICTION by © Kathryn E. Hudson 2011 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Spring 2011 This thesis explores and analyzes the relationship between female ch . . .

This thesis explores the different forms of losing control in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and how the characters in these texts react to los . . .

DIVING FOR ABALONE: BENEATH THE SURFACE OF GRIEF By © Sharon T. DeMeyer 2011 Master of Arts in English California State University, Chico Fall 2011 Diving for Abalone: Beneath the Surface of Grief is a collection of 59-word non-fiction stories that we . . .

A Fence in the Dark is a collection of poems that explores the relationship between memory and imagination. The poet blends the literary conventions of poetry, novel, and memoir and explores what it means to love with hate, love with fear, love with d . . .

This thesis examines how dystopian novels depict various forms of discipline exercised by a government over the body and mind of its subjects, and also offer liberation from that control through the act of writing. The first chapter reveals specific v . . .

Good Morning, Colossus is a circus train wreck through the freight cars of my mind. It represents my daily journey as a writer to do battle with myself, to chisel away at my anxiety until I arrive at something I can call a poem. Many of the poems in t . . .

This thesis attempts to analyze the structures that support and maintain the society of nineteenth-century England through the lens of the novel. Within the novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Middlemarch by George Eliot there appears a specific . . .

My thesis addresses the correlation between gender and power in The Pearl of Orr’s Island by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, and The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers. In discussing gender the main . . .

The Fortuneteller is a piece of historical fiction. Written in the style of memoir, it is part of a larger body of work on carnival culture set in late 19th and early 20th century Persia. Narrated by Nasreen, a blue-eyed, bearded woman reflecting on h . . .

Many first-year composition (FYC) instructors aim to create a student-centered classroom. However, there is often not enough student influence for the classroom to be truly student-centered. Often, instructors have difficulty in constructing opportuni . . .

This thesis explores and traces the inception of Puritan ideology from the early Puritan elites and texts available during the initial development of America in New England. Through a close examination of how Puritan faith became ideology, I argue tha . . .

Although studies show that students are reading frequently outside of school, teachers often find that students struggle with reading activities inside the classroom. This study uses network and reader-response theories to explore some of the possible . . .

This thesis examines the role dualistic conceptual frameworks play in the decision making process, and I make claims about how these limiting systems of thought impact our culture on many levels, including academia. I introduce readers to the concept . . .

Turquoise Sky is a character-driven piece, with emphasis on the psychological and psychosexual, written in the received Realist tradition of literary mode. It is a plot of decline—and hope—set in the milieu of San Francisco during the early 1970s, and . . .

This thesis provides the first philosophical systematization of John Milton’s views on freedom and uses this systematic exposition to interpret the most pivotal choices in the final three poems of Milton’s literary career—Paradise Lost (1667, 1674), P . . .

This thesis examines the nightmarish and destructive side of the American Dream as portrayed in literature about the Hollywood film industry, namely Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion, The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Day of the Locust b . . .

When an individual enters a new field of practice, an integral part of that process is the development of an identity that situates the individual as a legitimate participant in that practice. This study combines elements of identity theory with theor . . .

October Rain is a collection of poetry that seeks to explore the dynamics of change in human lives, especially loss and grief. Some of these poems follow a young woman as she loses her boyfriend to cancer, and reveal the pain and waves of her grieving . . .

This thesis will examine marital difficulties in Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee, in a way that undercuts issues of race, because both her black character and her white character face many of the same problems. The the . . .

The Best Thing to Ever Happen to You is a memoir that seeks to explore the dynamics of change in a woman’s life, especially adolescence and motherhood. These stories follow a young woman as she comes of age, capturing and evoking moments when she ques . . .

What I would like to challenge is this notion that graffiti has to be eradicated because it causes damage and that it is nothing more than vandalism, waste, and destruction. Rather, I claim that graffiti is a representation of an alternative visual na . . .

This thesis argues that, in key nineteenth century texts, humor is a means of fostering group identity and a mode of social critique. The chapter “Boundary Maintenance in Early American Humor” looks at humor as a form of boundary maintenance in both A . . .

This thesis is an autoethnographic exploration of the theoretical concept of rhetorical agency, which develops over time through practice amongst a community of writers. I use the theoretical concept of "communities of practice" to describe the ways i . . .

In 2014 CSU Chico decided to use game-based learning principles to redesign Early Start into something that didn’t feel or look like remediation. Students, not their teachers or the institution’s curriculum, would be the center of this course. Using p . . .

Water Spots is a collection of three short-fiction stories written over the course of the past five years. These stories share themes in their characters’ search for identity in changing environments while often dealing with a sense of loss—the loss o . . .

This study examines the similar subversive feministic themes that exist between Harriet Beecher Stowe’s The Pearl of Orr’s Island, Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of Pointed Firs and Willa Cather’s My Antonia. First, this thesis explores the relations . . .

This memoir is a recollection of a Mexican-American childhood lived in Huntington Beach, California. The narrative addresses a search for identity, a construction of identity, along with questions of place. This narrative is a coming of age story that . . .

You Silly Idiot is a collection of short stories that explores the relationship between self-reflection and the transitory nature of memory as it is influenced by prejudice and time itself. The author implements the literary conventions of fiction as . . .

We are in need of a more subversive reading of past and present literature and film that allows not only for a feminist literary history, but also for a feminist future in which men are more comfortable responding to and accepting women as equal to th . . .

This thesis takes a case study approach to acknowledge the existence of micro communities in classrooms and to highlight the many purposes these communities serve for students as an important part of their learning experience. The term micro community . . .

Milling is a collection of three linked narratives working with shared characters and themes in the literary genres of magical realism and Eco Literature. These three stories explore diverse uses of points of view, which work at shifting the reader’s . . .

“Deadheading” is a collection of poems that can be viewed as a travelogue. This is a documentation of exploration. These poems move. They cover terrain—terrain that is physical, emotional, temporal, cultural, and spatial. This travelogue explores many . . .

Secondhand Stories is a collection of four short stories that seek to present a variety of social issues thought the lens of a small town. The collection was written with the theme of small towns in mind to show how that specific community problematiz . . .

Catherine Talbot’s Two Days in Iraq is a novel-in-stories that takes the reader along with Catherine and her Army unit on their deployment to wartime Iraq. The stories explore the poignant changes and trauma that occur in a soldier's life when they ar . . .

Manzanitas at Gunsight Lookout is a collection of poetry to question the world. This collection explores the aspects of life I consider vital to human experience: these poems explore relationships, memory, love, emotion, and the ultimate uncertainty o . . .

Over the past two years, I have researched the complexities of e-textbooks and how the rise of new digital media has influenced the network of the textbook industry. My research traces various connections and disconnections within this network that af . . .

The intention of this thesis is to discuss the ideas of narratology in reference to different disciplines, and to show how the topic of narratology moves through to help people develop and understand the world around them. To start the discussion, the . . .

This study examines the idea of cultural hybridity in the United States by using Brando Skyhorse’s The Madonnas of Echo Park (2010) and Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical novel Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982). First, this . . .

The purpose of this research is to observe and document the learning practices of affinity groups known as guilds and their functions within collaborative virtual spaces. This ethnographic study follows a guild known as Acta nøn Verba as they progress . . .

Terraforming Hell is a collection of poems that explore the dark terrain of reality, the fantastic, and the rift that lies between. It traverses the æther and the dreamstate. Some poems find their footing in the natural world while others walk beyond . . .

Walking the line between historical autobiography and analysis of Communities of Practice and Situated Learning theories, this thesis simultaneously conducts a close examination of my own personal journey in the writing program at California State Uni . . .

Queens of Sheba is a collection of six personal essays that seek to present both personal story and universal themes. In my essays, I share stories of my family, my father’s dementia, the loss of my first husband, my relationship with food and body im . . .

Two Rooms is a collection of stories comprised of both fiction and creative nonfiction. The use of nonfiction and fiction in this project is a meditation on my recovery as an alcoholic. The two rooms discussed in this project refer to the use of ficti . . .

This thesis is built on the assumption that in order to be a serious Thoreau scholar, one must move away from Walden (1854) and read his other works. Walden is, to be sure, Thoreau’s most studied book and remains an iconic example of 19th-century Amer . . .

Inheritance is a collection of poetry that sets out to redefine the word “inheritance” through three sections. The first section of the collection follows the musical inheritance of the speaker and the impressions of family that have come before him. . . .

This memoir is a coming-of-age story utilizing three main segments: one focusing on a failed relationship with my father, another confronting mortality through the diagnosis of a chronic illness, and a third strand focusing on death through a work exp . . .

An American Dream is made up the first five chapters of a work of fiction that will ultimately become a novel. An American Dream is a novel about John and Matt, two young men who have been friends most their lives, and how this friendship comes to an . . .

Whipstitch is a collection of poems that explores themes of amateurship, grief, mental illness, addiction, and love through the poet’s decisions regarding how to use imagery, humor, and form. The poet describes individuals and cultures that make mista . . .

Within William Shakespeare’s works the women characters range from being independent and outspoken to submissive and obedient. Throughout the plays, despite their natural personalities, the women are often faced with social institutions that regulate . . .

This thesis both outlines and tests the limits of a methodology that can be used to make sense of references to certain literary genres as they appear in contemporary narratives. While much of my argument refers to literature, as I will note this meth . . .

The Judas Tree is a collection of poetry that focuses on the act of witnessing tragedy. This collection explores specific events I have observed in both nature and in firefighting. Many of the experiences in the collection were witnessed first-hand. T . . .

Dating While Fat: Notes From a Harmed Life is a memoir, collected in four linked stories, exploring the intersection of absurdity and horror at various times throughout the author’s life. “Dating While Fat” is a reflective look back at my life as a fo . . .

Kali’s Waters is a collection of short fiction stories that works with themes of religion, loneliness, death, grief, coming-of-age, and human connection. The stories are based in the genre of literary realism, but also work to challenge the norms of t . . .

Black Dogs is a collection of short stories representing my exaggerated interpretations of three themes associated with self-destructive behavior: addiction, codependency, and self-entitlement. Theses individual themes are prominent subject matter in . . .

This empirical study analyzes the digital activist ecologies created by women in highly conservative Christian circles using social media to speak against traditionally taboo topics of domestic and sexual violence. This research covers a time of uphea . . .

This thesis argues for the necessity of improved teaching practices in higher education literature courses; suggests a theoretical framework for literary study that engages readers on a personal level as well as within communities of other readers; an . . .

The last two decades have brought along much scholarship in regard to monstrosity within literature. This has been thoroughly shown through the ways in which Christians in England have made monsters of other religions. Christians have repeatedly, espe . . .

In the ongoing discussion of how to support diversity in higher education, language usage and its variation has been one of the most disputed features of writing pedagogy and instruction. The purpose of this research study was to examine how language . . .