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Item My dildo called Nicaragua: rewriting cultural mythos(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2018) Benton, Sonja Annalise; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Linda KarellThis, more than anything, is a retelling of a story. It is a retelling of being an activist, a cancer victim, a writer, a student, a teacher, and an American. It is a new mythology of the classroom, the university, of the creation of language. I draw on Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde, and countless others, to guide a new conception of how to move in the world, how to become, and how to rewrite the myths that have been told about us. I hoped to create an answer and precedent for my own experience and shed new light on the work of 80s intersectional feminists as a guide for activism in the 2010s and 2020s to come. Its success as a paper depends on those who do work in the future, on the guidance it manages or doesn't manage to provide to others. I will never know how this work concludes, since it is just a continuation of previous work meant to help fork into new continuations in the future. It is the drawing of a map that was already partially drawn, and that is nowhere near finished yet. It is a call for more people willing to draw.Item The ethos of Sheridan's Daybreak(s): historical constructions of space, place, and rural identity in Sheridan County, Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2016) West, Craig Roland; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Kathleen RyanFollowing from the fact that the concept of ethos carries connotations that imply spatiality, it can be said that ethos is determined in relation to the spatial inhabitants of any given place. In trying to understand a spatially determined ethos, this thesis studies the construction and reproduction of The Sheridan's Daybreak(s) series from Sheridan County, Montana. Produced throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, these local histories lend themselves to a study of the characteristic qualities of place negotiated by the presence of matter together in space. The study of the Daybreak(s) reveals an anthropocentric presentation of ethos in the 'pioneer' figure that inevitably understands itself in relation to the context of 'nature' which it shares the spaces of Sheridan County with. It also reveals a nostalgic and romanticized type of memory in regards to both spaces and the past families of this place that does not critically engage with the events of those families lives. And it reveals the persistent presence of the global within the local spaces of its inhabitants through presentations of the Rural Idyll and modern day, mechanized agricultural production. Each of these, in part, make up the ethos of the spaces of Sheridan County represented in the Daybreak(s). In interpreting the representations of space and place, this thesis argues for continually ongoing re-readings of our local histories in order to better understand the ethos of the past that contributes to the socially and materially constructed present. In doing so, scholars can give more attention to issues of rurality and local history while giving credit to the material contexts from which these local histories arise.Item The medium of subversion : graphic literature and the hybrid/discrete debate(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2003) Marvin, Robert Christian; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Susan KollinItem Recovering the ethics of readership from immediacy : Holocaust and deconstructive criticism's spectre in Anglophone African trauma narratives(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2010) Oines, Luke Anton; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert BennettAnglophone African Trauma Narratives is a title that classifies a growing subgenre of Lost Boy and child soldier narratives. This corpus is represented by works such as: A Long Way Gone, What is the What, War Child, Beasts of No Nation, and They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky. Such works market the memories of violent childhood as an empathy-creating nexus for Western audiences. Despite the humanitarian appeal, the aesthetic architecture of AATN creates serious problems for ethical readership. The virtuality created by these texts (to varying degrees) has the effect of transporting the reader's consciousness into the "presently happening" mind of the narrator. The result of this intimate spectatorship is that readers' ethical discriminations are lessened because of the close proximity to scenes of violence. Such frames of reading are argued to create false empathy, numbness, and complicity to violence. If this subgenre inherently creates problems for ethical reading, an outside ostension of ethical paradigms is needed. My thesis argues that recovery from the problem of presence in AATN can only derive from ethical-literary recognitions of absence. The works of Primo Levi and Theodor Adorno argue for aesthetic representations that recognize ethical absence and distance. Such Holocaust critics deny narrative testimony's inherent right to frame events through abject or sublime expressions. Holocaust critics set important ethical demands for AATN's presentation of aesthetic excess. Secondly, my thesis asserts that deconstructive ethical criticism shares similar ethical aims to Holocaust values of absence. Levinas' concept of alterity, and Derrida's deconstructive mourning each create a deeply motivated ethical value of absence. These frames of reading otherness may deny readers the ability to create unethical empathies and equivocations. My thesis confirms that Holocaust and deconstructive ethical lenses are structured in such a way that they create a double-demand to otherness. The aporia created by this double-demand makes for the most ethical recognition of absences in traumatic narrative. The scope of my argument suggests that meaningful relationships to the past can alter the way that "presence" is responded to in reading.Item Chasing the dream : literature and regional construction in California's Great Central Valley(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2006) Bryson, Rachel Welton; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Susan KollinAs a region, California's Great Central Valley can be defined through the physical and cultural characteristics assigned to the space by its residents. Not unlike the larger regions of which it is part, the Valley's cultural landscapes have long been constructed as sites of wealth, fertile ground, and opportunity. Drawn to the region's myriad promises and possibilities, populations moving into and within the region often search for their part in a frequently elusive California Dream. Yet as with any place, the lived experience of the Valley's residents is often far removed from the construction of the region as a land of prosperity and mobility. Tracing the various constructions of region in the Great Central Valley requires an understanding of cultural and regional identity as complex and multifaceted. No two individuals experience the landscapes they inhabit in the same way; as a result, any attempt to define a unitary regional identity in the Valley is ultimately problematic. Despite the diverse experiences and interpretations of the Valley and its inhabitants, many overlapping themes emerge, resulting in what I call a "regional imaginary'-a set of meanings assigned to a region by its residents. Although many methods exist by which to explore and tentatively define the idea of a regional imaginary in the Central Valley, one of the most productive involves utilizing critical regional approaches to literature and other narrative works. By examining the many novels, poems, and other narratives written about the Valley, the various cultural, historical, and natural forces that converge and conflict in the Valley's landscapes may begin to come into focus.Item Lost or aware? : an examination of reading types(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2010) Forslund, Elizabeth Nicole; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert BennettReader response theorists focus on studying how and why readers read, and the effects of these practices on literacy. One aspect of reader response theory that has been largely ignored, however, is the fundamental conflict that exists between two different "types" of reading: reading for pleasure, or ludic reading, which I called "immersion reading," and reading with a critical detachment from the text, or "awareness reading." Theorists such as Louise Rosenblatt and Wolfgang Iser tend to favor one "type" of reading or the other, not acknowledging the fact that both "types" exist and exert a pull on the reader. The conflict that results between the two "types" of reading, I argue, are enforced by educational practices aimed at funneling students towards one type of reading, depending on age and educational level. This educational trend is problematic for two reasons. First, because it limits the perceived appropriateness and thus the scope of literacy education in schools, and second because it actively discourages readers-especially reluctant readers-from seeing literacy as complex, multifaceted and engaging. I argue instead in support of a metacognitive approach to literacy, one that recognizes the conflicts readers encounter and addresses the potential difficulties and successes facing student readers.