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 . . .