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Item Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Me, her Reader(Southern New Hampshire University, 2023-05-16) Ainsworth, Michele; Harrison, Marlen; Lee, ChristopherAt the beginning of her book, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott presents Pilgrim’s Progress as a guidebook for living to the March sisters. In turn, Little Women itself allows the female reader to use Alcott’s text for their own journey to their feminist self. This paper illustrates how Alcott’s book, Little Women influences the develop of agency in its reader. Therefore, the 19th century female writer, Louisa May Alcott continues to have relevance and influence toward the 21st century woman, reflecting the link between feminist thought and literature. By using autoethnography within this paper I am using my own voice and my experiences to illustrate the discovery of how Little Women affected me and my role in society. This paper uses a combination of the theoretical frameworks of both feminism and the reader-response literary theories. The reader-response theory allows me to illustrate my own reactions to Alcott’s book and how I could look up to Jo March as a role model and her sisters as friends. The feminism lens illustrates how Alcott modeled aspiring writer Jo March as herself therefore illustrating how young women can reach their full potential despite how they perform their gender. This paper incorporates arts-based research (ABR) and the form of creating with collage to illustrate creating art provides the creator with the empowerment of agency.Item Derek Walcott’s Omeros: How Effective Stories Benefit the Human Experience(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-01-25) Gustave, Trisha Pauline; Harrison, Marlen E.; Lee, ChristopherThis thesis offers a fresh perspective about the benefits of stories on the human experience when they are written, structured, and told effectively. To examine how stories inform us, Derek Walcott’s epic poem Omeros is deconstructed through the theoretical framework of narratology in the paper. The theory of narrative highlights how Walcott’s exceptional use of structure, language, characters, and themes educate readers about the past and present struggles of life on the island. In his poem, Walcott revisits the history of St. Lucia through the tale of local characters who feel dispossessed in a post-slavery/post-colonial environment. Mieke Bal’s “The Point of Narratology,” Mark Freeman’s, “Why Narrative Matters: Philosophy, Method, Theory” and David Herman’s “Storytelling and the Sciences of Mind: Cognitive Narratology, Discursive Psychology, and Narratives in Face-to-Face Interaction”, explain how stories help readers form human connections whilst providing them with an opportunity to understand familiar and unfamiliar worlds that are imagined or real, in the past, present, or future. Through Walcott’s Omeros, this thesis expands on the idea that stories allow writers to transport their interpretation of identity and their experience of the self and otherness, as readers experience how Walcott uses storytelling, textuality, and expression to revisit unhealed wounds within himself and his people.Item Immigration, Identity, and the Caribbean Immigrant Student in the English Language Arts Classroom(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-01-26) Jones-Young, Neisha; Harrison, Marlen Elliot; Lee, ChristopherThe incidence of immigration to the USA from the Caribbean region has seen a steady increase in the last few decades. As such, the number of Caribbean immigrants, in particular those of school-age, has increased exponentially. These immigrants often experience a sense of displacement and alienation as a result of being uprooted from their Caribbean culture and transplanted in a foreign one. The absence of adequate Caribbean cultural representation in mainstream society and in the schools, in particular, serves to deepen this identity crisis. However, there are a variety of ways in which this problem may be addressed and alleviated. One such way is through the expansion of the ELA curriculum to incorporate representations of Caribbean culture. Such an expansion would benefit not only the Caribbean immigrant student but also the other students as well.Item Literary Evolution: How Technology Can (and Will) Enhance Literary Scholarship(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-01-29) Niesen, Joseph Leo; Harrison, Marlen; Lee, ChristopherThe impact of computer technology on the creation of the written word is something apparent in the multitude of available e-books, blogs, and collaborative writing sites that populate the internet. Existing and emerging technologies are starting to change not only the format of what is written, but the content and context of modern literature as well. For the Literary scholar the opportunity to explore writings that would not have seen public release without the rise of electronic publishing is both exciting and terrifying. Contemporary and future scholars need to be cognizant of the role that software, format, and electracy played in the creation of a given text. This project examined the secondary skills necessary for the modern literary scholar to assess the increasingly populous textual landscape and make sense of the wealth of secondary and tertiary information available. Computer driven research methods like topic modeling and data mining were explored as they have been used by those in the humanities to study both current and historical works in new and exciting ways. In the case study for this project, Omar Robert Hamilton’s The City Always Wins was examined in the context of the secondary media that applies to the primary text. Because Hamilton’s novel is set during, and primarily focused on, the Arab Spring protests that took place in Cairo in 2011, this analysis incorporated information found in non-literary sources like YouTube videos, news articles, and social media artifacts of the period. By incorporating additional sources, this paper brought lite to how Hamilton’s novel reflects both the ever-present civil unrest in 2011 Egypt and the growing importance of digital literacy to the development of a well informed and ideologically aligned population.Item Latina Voices, the Immigrant Experience and the Missing Stories in American Literature(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-03-20) Camacho, Crista Cristella; Harrison, Marlen; Lee, ChristopherLatina/Chicana stories in American literature are important to understand contemporary America as a multicultural society. However, Chicana/Latina literature is not considered part of mainstream American literature. Previous papers regarding this topic have brought up challenges that Latina/Chicana literature confronted in the space of American literature. The absence of Latina/Chicana stories in American life has affected the development of immigrants and their children’s identity. This paper explores and suggests the importance of Latina/Chicana stories in America from the perspective of Chicana/Latina writers. Looking at the text through Feminist and Marxist lenses highlights the problems that ultimately marginalize Latina/Chicana writers. Their stories are rooted in economic and gender inequalities in America and in their countries of Origin/Heritage. The Autoethnography method provides the narrative of the author’s personal experience as a Latina/Chicana developing her identity as a guiding point to display the need of advancing the growth of multicultural American literature.Item Comics Literature to the Rescue: Multimodal Theory within Composition Literature Classrooms(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-06-23) Allaire, Faith; Harrison, MarlenA top priority for community colleges is ensuring student retention and overall academic success, and core class requirements bear the responsibility of ensuring this. Degree demographics from Three Rivers Community college in Norwich, Ct were analyzed to show that the majority of students on this campus will be required to enroll within the ENG 102- Composition and Literature course in order to graduate, making this course a key area to ensure that student engagement and retention is at its peak efficiency. However, students are often not connecting with literature in the classroom, leading to low student engagement and contrasting the objectives of this course. After reviewing numerous academic texts and pairing them with respective comics literature, this study confirms that comics literature is an exemplary tool to mitigate growing ambivalence in students while still ensuring that course objectives can be met. This is due to comics literature’s ability to maximize multimodal elements. Multimodal theory is meeting the needs of students who are acclimated to digital technology while also providing an environment that allows for a new academic structure found within on-campus classrooms and online to adapt. This study looks at various elements found unique to comics literature structure. It also looks at literary genres and how they appear in the text and applies traditional literary theories taught in current classrooms. Finally, sample discussion questions, assignments, and essay prompts are provided to show the practicality of implementing multimodal theory and comics literature into a Composition and Literature course.Item Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity of Multi-Cultural Text Using Critical Race Theory in a 21st Century Classroom: Equitable or Hindrance?(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-10-11) Whitneybell, Brittany; Harrison, Marlen; Lee, ChristopherEducation has always understood racial and ethnic lines, teaching them in a K-12 classrooms. Teaching about the civil war to the civil rights and everything in between, students gain foundational understanding in terms of the treatment of a culture or race versus the others. Looking at other races, we can also understand the troubles that they also go through and look at them in a comparative manner to formulate and evaluate our understanding of history. Further, looking at texts from various perspectives in terms of race, ethnicity, and cultural background aids in the comprehension of perspective. By reading multiple views on a black perspective, or a Native American perspective, students see various aspects within the cultures. Looking through autoethnographic terms, we can see the creation of critical race theory and how it creates a negative connotation for ethnic literary lenses. By taking this away from the classroom and our students, we are not teaching them about our nation’s history which in turn is hindering both the students, and our nation.Item Disabled Identities Revealed Through the Empiricism of a Quartet of Female Dramatis Personae: a Psycho-Social Autoethnographic Portrait(Southern New Hampshire University, 2022-11-11) Domenick, Anthony; Harrison, Marlen; Lee, Christopher; ChristopherDramatists have always built upon pure psychological foundations for character development. The intrinsic qualities associated with humanity impel subjective thoughts, insights, and interpretations on consciousness and introspection. There have been a plethora of protagonists and antagonists to illustrate this argument. In particular, the following four female personas exemplify motifs of affliction, dereliction and social ostracism: Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller from The Miracle Worker, Sarah Norman from Children of a Lesser God, and Laura Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie. These characters are detailed and contrasted through an autoethnographic perspective culminating in the universal theme of psychosocial survival. The cognitive processes, sensibilities, and visceral tendencies of these disabled female characters rouse exploration. Orphaned, blind, and institutionalized, Annie Sullivan overcame egregious cruelties through fervency for an education. With indefatigable exertion, her first job was teaching a deaf, blind, and mute Helen Keller, an exile from humanity, appropriate behavior and basic communication skills with the ultimate goal of language and its significance. The pedagogy process becomes a quagmire of violent tantrums and thwarted efforts. Analogously, Sarah Norman is also a defector from humanity. A version of a misanthrope, Sarah rejects the hearing world with its condescending nonconformity to the language, culture, and values of her world, the deaf world. Laura Wingfield also disengages humankind with a penchant for escapism tethered to an incandescent menagerie of unicorns. What is most intriguing about all four personas is the dramatist’s distillation of the human experience, in particular, their social and psychological adaptation and resignation as an affirmation of their inured reality.Item The Personal is Political: A Feminist Approach to Renaissance Literature(Southern New Hampshire University, 2023-03-13) Morrison, Kayla; Green, Amy; Lee, ChristopherThis project connects themes of the second wave feminist movement of the 1970s to Renaissance literature. A close reading of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus reveal prevailing themes of the movement. Feminist writers such as Carol Hanisch, Betty Freidman, and Simone de Beauvoir speak out against the same challenges faced by women in both Renaissance plays. Issues of financial autonomy, status, and sexuality arise in both Renaissance literature and second wave feminism. Utilizing a new historicist and feminist lens, research proves Renaissance writers were aware of feminist issues which later emerged in the 1960s-1970s movement.Item Words and weddings: shifts in the vocabulary of marriage and literature(Southern New Hampshire University, 2017) Astl, Catherine; Harrison, MarlenLiterature abounds with versions of courtship leading to marriage. By exploring the morphology and usage of words associated with matrimony, changes in grammar, as well as mining Greek, Elizabethan, Shakespearean, Romantic, and Victorian works, changes occurred in what marriage meant to society, and what words were used to describe marriage. Identifying patterns, alongside interdisciplinary applications, and the heavy use of New Historicism, shows how the institution of marriage –the modern ones based on relationships, versus mere family ties, rank, and “business-like” arrangements of old - resulted in an evolution that could only have come about with societal changes allowing that relearning. (Author abstract)