2045 research outputs found
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The “Evil” of Railway Gauge Breaks: A Study of Causes in Britain, India, Japan, and Manchuria
Full text linkA railroad gauge is defined as the width between two rails on a track. In the earliest days of railroading, many companies adopted different gauges, often resulting in chaos where incompatible lines met up. By the 20thcentury, most countries selected a single national gauge, but the fallout from the ‘battle of the gauges’ can still be felt today, making the issue of gauge breaks more than an historical footnote. This thesis suggests that the study of track width can provide meaningful insight into why Britain and Japan differed so greatly in constructing their own railroad lines—differences that impacted their oversight of railway systems in India and Manchuria. After examining the causes of gauge breaks in these countries, the thesis concludes that whether a gauge break problem arose or was quickly resolved largely depended on the following factors: (1) Whether interested parties adopted a localist or nationalist approach to railroad construction (i.e., building a line instead of a network); (2) How the railroads were financed, and whether investors were impacted by economic losses and the unprofitability of lines; (3) Inconsistent railway policies that were often influenced by a revolving door of advisors and/or parties with conflicting interests (e.g., laissez-faire proponents versus advocates of strong regulatory oversight); and (4) The ability of those most impacted by gauge breaks to petition for redress
Camp is Undead(?): Queer Vampire Becoming in the Age of Nonconformity
Full text linkBeginning from their establishment in Gothic literature, vampires have always represented the Other: people of color, Jews, sex workers, and queers have always inhabited the illegibility of the vampire. By taking on this label through identifying with representations of the vampire in film, there’s a potential for the transformation of a subject that allows for retooling kinship, embracing non-normative forms of being, and existing beyond thresholds of static identity. Employing the philosophy of becoming posited by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, I argue that analyzing the figure of the queer vampire through its transformative, ‘becoming’ potential both problematizes and reinforces its function as a discursive figure in media. This reading of queer vampire media (particularly lesbian vampire exploitation films and their antecedents) reveal the political potential for identity and community formation of becoming-vampire in a posthuman framework, and allows for the phenomenon of Real Vampires that emerges from Goth subcultures and the advent of queer/vampire/Goth subjectivities
The Last Puritans: Confessional Poetics in the New England Gothic
Full text linkThis paper proposes that the confessional mode has a place within the evolving genre of the New England Gothic, an assertion that within the scope of this project focuses primarily on the work of Anne Sexton as an example of the convergence of the New England confessional poets and the New England Gothic. Moving from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter to Anne Sexton’s poem “The Double Image,” this paper evaluates the status of hereditary guilt, secrets, social critique, and madness within the framework of the New England Gothic and in doing so, situates the confessional mode within that framework. It combines religious, historical, feminist, and psychological methodologies to define the New England Gothic and bring The Scarlet Letter and “The Double Image” in conversation with one another. Combining elements from texts by Ringel, Mogart, Carruth, and Dreyer, this project seeks to present a more comprehensive definition of the New England Gothic, one which has room for and is elevated by the confessional mode
Trapped in Time: Examining the Academy\u27s Temporal Confines in the Works of James Joyce and Sally Rooney
Full text linkIn this paper, I propose that James Joyce reveals the ways in which artists registered the rising imposition of public time within schools which subsequently contributed to the mechanization of art and an emphasis on original production. Then, Sally Rooney helps us to see that these anxieties are still present in what Ian Kidd has labeled our “culture of speed” (339). Like the literary modernists, we are afraid that humans have been mechanized with the sole motivation of efficient production which leaves no time for creative thought and innovation. In response to these concerns, we have placed a great amount of pressure on a need for originality, but Rooney proposes that instead of resisting the past, we should let it in to our artistic processes. By doing so, we will return to a love for art which will be the driving force in our contemporary success
Heard: Pondering Life\u27s Soundscapes
Full text linkThis collection explores the relationship between music, culture, and personal experience. The product of a fall semester honors Expository Writing course, Heard traces the songs that have impacted students\u27 lives. From folk and punk to Broadway and yacht rock, the music of the collection has shaped each author\u27s life in both small and profound ways
Woven Together: Women Creating Stories Through Textiles
Full text linkA series of textile art pieces exploring the relationship between women, textiles, and storytelling
Playing Through Life, Death, and Grief in Fortnite and Elden Ring
Full text linkThis paper analyzes the cultural processes of grief and death practiced in Fortnite and Elden Ring in relation to the military history of the countries in which these games were produced. This close reading utilizes a methodology of media archaeology, visual studies, and liveness theory to analyze the affordances and regional practices present in these games and argue their design and consumption is haunted by the military histories of the United States and Japan respectively. As a result, Fortnite and Elden Ring are demonstrated to function as local sites of grief and mourning in relation to the opposing relationships with the military present in each game\u27s country of origin
The Secret Life of a Black Aspie: A New Form of Slave Narrative
Full text linkIn Anand Prahlad\u27s 2017 memoir The Secret Life of a Black Aspie, he describes his upbringing as a Black child growing up on a plantation in Virginia. Through his claims to speak to the spirits of enslaved people and his unique perception of chronology, Prahlad creates a memoir that works as both a neo-slave narrative and a first-person memoir of slavery, and this only becomes possible through his necessary dismissal of neurotypical and Western ideals of how time, memory, and place work
