Theses & Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
- ItemBang(University of Guelph, ) Barss, Kate; Thamavongsa, SouvankhamCan a book be birthed? Can a poem be mothered? These are the central questions behind BANG, a lyric narrative collection investigating concepts of artistic embodiment, abortion, and pregnancy. Incorporating inspiration from the artwork and life of Ana Mendieta, this project explores the body as material, as something we create, sculpt, and birth. Mixing voice-driven poetry with forms invoking mothering, like ekphrasis and erasure, this work asks if living can be an act of art, if life itself can be a text. This collection operates in murky territory: exploring our blurry cultural holdings around abortion, gendered violence, and art. It explores ethical questions around pregnancy, what it means to choose, or not choose, to give birth. Ultimately, this text argues that abortion can be an act of care and mothering. These poems offer a look at a text that attempts to live, breathe, and blurs boundaries between life and art.
- ItemBalancing History and Memory: a Dialectic of Jewish Imagination(University of Guelph, ) Bloomfield, Liam; Singer, SandraThis thesis examines the way that history and memory interact with post-Holocaust cultural texts, interrogating the way in which anti-Semitism affects Jewish identity construction. An analysis of If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew interrogates the merits of historically-centred Jewish identity and Great House challenges memory-driven Jewish identity. Building off of the premise that Jewish identity becomes a negative identity when it is constructed by the non-Jewish Other, the thesis argues that Hunters exemplifies elements of Theodor Adorno’s Negative Dialectics in its post-modern de-historicization of past and present forms of anti-Semitism within its fictional framework. The show reconciles the divide between history and memory in Jewish identity formation, illustrating how the way history and memory is represented in fiction matters most.
- ItemFox Fox Flux(University of Guelph, ) Poon, Jessica; Leung, CarrianneFox Fox Flux is a coming of age novel chronicling almost a decade in the life of Pluto. With wide-ranging cultural and literary references including but not limited to Anton Chekhov, Adrienne Rich, Judith Butler, Shakespeare, Italo Calvino, Rachel Cusk, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and Johannes Brahms, the reader is taken on Pluto’s journey through unrequited teenage love, internalized misogyny, problematic friendships, being fetishized as an Asian woman, interracial relationships, the aftermath of rape, the dissolution of a committed relationship, and, life-changingly, the acquisition of a dog from an unexpected source—her rapist’s mother. These experiences all coalesce into a portrait of often self-deprecating and humorous dissatisfaction with heterosexuality, romance, and womanhood.
- ItemNation of Terrible Jewish Daughters(University of Guelph, ) Peel, Lishai; Maclear, KyoNation of Terrible Jewish Daughters is a work of hybrid creative nonfiction which addresses questions around the nature of motherhood, daughterhood, and nationhood. Through a collection of essays, spanning centuries and continents, this writing explores themes of migration, mental illness, and (imagined) community belonging and can be seen as part of the ongoing feminist corrective project offering a multiplicity of voices and a diversity of experiences around the topic of motherhood. Written through a lens of historical marginality and second-generation culture making, this work is shaped by literature that centers Jewish characters and stories.
- ItemFaces Born of Nothing(University of Guelph, ) Nwodo, Blessing; Lubrin, Canisia; Thammavongsa, SouvankhamFACES BORN OF NOTHING is a women centered, speculative short story collection. If you were stuck with just two expressions forever, and they determined your fate in a sexist, religious fanatic society, which two would you pick? Rather than pick, Nwigwe becomes a chameleon in “Faces Born of Nothing”. In “Wife Material”, the marriageability of unmarried women is visible and can be measured and worn like a fabric. “Wrenching Off Training Wheels” is a second person narrative following the uncovering of the phenomenon called the Holy Ghost. In “Daddy Day”, a cat oversees a man ‘babysitting’ his child while his wife handles an emergency. Faces Born of Nothing explores the connection between the African interpretation of religion and misogyny, as well as the societal expectations of masculinity and gender roles. The collection contains thirteen stories intertwined by time, gender, relationships, and the patriarchy.