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Monstrous Mothers: The Grotesque and Doubling in Contemporary American Literature's Maternal Figures
Get PDFThis thesis examines contemporary American literature’s representation of mothers who fail to meet societal expectations for motherhood. These mothers are products of intersectional oppression, including oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, and immigration status. My aim is to highlight these misrepresented experiences as less “monstrous” and more real--as reflections of the realities of twentyfirst century motherhood and reminders that motherhood is transformational, laborious, and oftentimes the opposite of what our initial expectations may be. It offers an interpretation of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” as representative of the specific constraints the patriarchy places on motherhood, rather than reducing the text to a purely anti-patriarchal reading. It follows with readings of Carmen Maria Machado’s “Mothers” from Her Body and Other Parties and Ocean Vuong’s novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, as testaments of intersectional oppression against mothers. Each of these mothers is working towards some form of self-healing while simultaneously adapting to an ideal of motherhood that is unattainable. Using Lacan’s Mirror Stage as a guiding force, along with taking Grendel’s mother and using her as an archetype for these “monstrous mothers,” this thesis hopes to illuminate the stories of mothers who are often rejected. The grotesque and doubling are genre-specific mechanisms that help give voice to the othered experiences of these mothers. The narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” sees herself doubled with the woman in the wallpaper; and both the narrator in “Mothers” and the character of Bad can be read as mirrored representations of motherhood. Little Dog in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous sees a mirrored connection with his and his mother’s approach to coping with their traumas. While there is a plethora of canonical and contemporary texts that I could have examined for this thesis, I chose to highlight traditionally-overlooked voices and to emphasize the intersectionality of the oppression faced by these maternal figures. By rejecting the ideal of the passive mother, we can offer a message of hope to new mothers who are searching to redefine themselves postpartum. Oftentimes the traumas surrounding postpartum depression extend past the immediacy of the mother and child. Instead, systemic oppression and generational trauma are contributing factors that should not be ignored. This thesis uses the narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the mother in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and the narrator in Carmen Maria Machado’s “Mothers'' as vehicles for unpacking the victimization, ostracization, and vilification of mothers whose stories fail to meet Western ideals.
Keywords: Carmen Maria Machado; doubling; grotesque; maternal archetype; Ocean Vuong; the Yellow WallpaperWilliams, Marty L.Coleman, Kendric L.James, ChristineM.A.Englis
A Case Study Examination of Georgia Early College Students' Perceptions Related to College Readiness
No full textThis case study examined the student perceptions of their time in one of Georgia’s Early College High Schools as related to their confidence in preparation for college. The mixed method design allowed for a look into the experiences of both recent graduates and current students. This Early College High School campus is one of eight in the state of Georgia. This campus targets a diverse population of first-generation college students and enrolls them in a program that is located physically adjacent to the public state university campus. Traditionally, many of the students who are enrolled in this program would not be expected to continue into postsecondary education and the population of the Early College campus is representative of communities that are not well represented in college campus environments. Recent graduates were interviewed using an in-depth approach via Google Meet. For phase two of the study, students who are currently enrolled in the Early College were offered a survey. This survey included items related to student perception, college readiness and additional topics of interest that arose from the phase one interviews. Three key findings resulted from the analysis of this research study. First, students’ perception of family engagement was more highly correlated with college readiness confidence than either the perception of academic preparation or social engagement. Second, students who noted a perception of positive academic preparation were also likely to perceive positive social engagement. Finally, while both current students and recent graduates perceived a high degree of self- advocacy within the Early College model, they described less certainty about relying on self-advocacy after their time in the Early College setting.Downey, SteveJung, JiyoonGerber, BrianEd.D.Education in Curriculum and Instructio
Embodied Leaders and Student-Centered Practices: Experiences of Middle School Teachers in a Mindfulness Community of Practice
No full textI designed this study to understand the experiences of teachers participating in a community of practice centered around mindfulness in a private middle school. My goal was to understand how they shared a concern around mindfulness and how they developed best practices. I grounded this study in Lave and Wenger's (1991) communities of practice as a theoretical framework, and I used a basic interpretive approach to design the study and gather data. The theory of constructivism guided my methodology. I gathered data through on-site observations and a series of three interviews with each of three participants. Once all interviews were completed and transcribed, I analyzed the data through two-cycle coding. The first cycle I coded by hand, and for the second cycle I used MAXQDA to organize, combine, and collapse codes to construct themes and subthemes. I constructed two themes, each with subthemes. The first theme describes the participants' domain and community: how the faculty shared a concern around mindfulness. Subthemes include 1) training and resources provided teachers with a strong domain, 2) embodied leadership established a unified culture, and 3) tensions arose between consistency and change. The second theme described the community's practice: how faculty learned to do mindfulness better for student-centered practice. In the words of the participants, subthemes include 1) "Student-Led," 2) "Meeting Kids Where They're At," 3) "Invitational," and 4) "Fun." My findings indicate that training and resources provided a solid foundation for developing mindfulness practices with students. Findings also suggest that members of a mindfulness community of practice must work together to navigate the tension between consistency and change which is fundamental to any community of practice.Warner, KateGunn, NicoleRuttencutter, GwenParker, ForrestEd.D.Educatio
"Welcome to the Conference." Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100, Melbourne, Australia, February 10, 2023
No full text1 video file (mpeg,mp4). ms150-40-001_parkin-tim_welcome_2023-02-10.mp4 .mp4 258.13 MB 270,672,938Dr. Tim Parkin, The Tatoulis Chair In Classics, Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne opens the conference with a welcome and a brief overview of Frazer's importance.
Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100 (Conference); Tully, Caroline Jane; Budin, Stephanie Lynn; University of Melbourne
Union School
No full text1 PDF, 79 scanned imagesUnion School. Box 1, Folder 2, Document 19, Grady County Historical Society, Grady County Historical Society – Schools Collection. Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections. Includes Board of Education minutes from 1937-1961, booklet containing history of Union Consolidated School, photographs, and newspaper clippings
Frazerian Survivals: Contemporary Witchcraft and The Golden Bough
No full text1 video file. ms150-40-020_cornish-helen_frazerian-survivals_2023-02-12.mp4 .mp4 557.25 MB 584,321,308This ethnographic paper traces how remnants of Frazer’s The Golden Bough are navigated amongst twenty-first century witches as they orient contemporary practices towards the past.
Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100 (Conference); Tully, Caroline Jane; Budin, Stephanie Lynn; University of Melbourne
Gold is the New Black: Race, the Academic Study of Religion, and The Golden Bough
No full text1 video file. ms150-40-024_zwissler-laurel_gold-new-black_2023-02-12.mp4 .mp4 623.45 MB 653,737,519This project investigates Frazer’s influence within both the academic study of religion and new religious movements, such as contemporary Paganism and New Age, with focus on his deployment of religion to code cultural difference and race. My paper draws on interconnecting hierarchies of class, geography, culture, and religion to create mutually reinforcing signifiers of alien others. Difference in one category is understood as both cause and symptom of difference in the others. Thus religious difference, in and of itself, can serve as both sign of and cypher for racial difference, while also obfuscating racial anxieties under the cover of theological disagreement or cultural critique. As the academic study of religion continues to reckon with its entanglements with colonial white supremacy, and as new religious movements struggle with traditions of cultural appropriation, Frazer offers a stark example of a self-identified scientific and descriptive project that is clearly not. The point is not that Frazer is an aberration or a failure, but that he has done us the favor of throwing into relief racial dynamics across the academic study of religion more broadly.
Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100 (Conference); Tully, Caroline Jane; Budin, Stephanie Lynn; University of Melbourne
"Sexual Agency of Ishtar in Akkadian Love Literature." Paper presented at the Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100, Melbourne, Australia, February 11, 2023
No full text1 video file. ms150-40-006_nissinen-martti_ishtar-akkadian_2023-02-11.mp4 .mp4 741.85 MB 777,890,177First Keynote Speaker. The goddess Ištar has multiple gendered agencies in Mesopotamian texts. She features as a lover, mother, daughter, as well as an independent sexual agent who is capable of transgressing gender boundaries. In the wake of James Frazer's influential theories of sacred marriage and sacred prostitution, Ištar's distinctly sexual agency has been clearly overemphasized. Nevertheless, her involvement in sexual activities and her different roles in the love life of people and of her own are prominent issues in Mesopotamian texts, and can be studied independently from the Frazerian framework. This paper examines Ištar's sexual agency in Akkadian love poems and incantations, in which the goddess features not only as a sexual agent but even as a matchmaker and guardian of human love and lovemaking.
Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100 (Conference); Tully, Caroline Jane; Budin, Stephanie Lynn; University of Melbourne
The Perils of Othering and Brothering: Some Thoughts on Dying Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia
No full text1 video file. ms150-40-009_scurlock-joanne_perils-othering_2023-02-11.mp4 .mp4 502.86 MB 527,285,407The Frazerian Fertility Cult is the mirror image of a culture that is at the same time sex-obsessed and deeply uncomfortable on the subject. From earliest times in ancient Mesopotamia, overpopulation was a serious concern and wishes for prosperity were for "people numerous as the grass", that is, only as many as the land could support. It does not follow that Christianity has no roots in this through-the-looking-glass world. The images of rising and dying divinized mortals such as Tammuz and of dying and rising Mesopotamian planetary divinities such as Marduk (planet Jupiter), Ninurta (planet Mercury), Anu (planet Saturn) and Nergal (planet Mars) strikingly evoke images of Christ, just nothing to do with fertility as opposed to creation, life and yes, even, a sort of immanent or short term salvation. Even to outline this subject would require volumes. In this short space, I propose to offer some thoughts on this subject grounded in a scholarly lifetime of research in Assyriology.
Additional Authors: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough: Frazer's Golden Bough at 100 (Conference); Tully, Caroline Jane; Budin, Stephanie Lynn; University of Melbourne
Pinevale High School 12th Alumni Reunion
Get PDF1 electronic document, PDF, 27 scanned imagesThe document, dated September 1-3, 2023, is a Pinevale High School alumni reunion book. The book includes introductions from the Pinevale Alumni Association's Chairman, Dr. Willie Houseal, a reunion agenda, information about the speakers, a Sunday worship service, the alma Mater, information about other Equalization schools in Valdosta like Magnolia and Dasher High school, list members of the alumni associations, and has class pictures for the 1962, 1963, and 1966 graduating classes