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The Mantrap
No full textThe Mantrap is a burlesque horror novella set between suburban Sydney and a fictional, inner-city burlesque theatre. The story follows Frankie Follie, a washed-up showgirl haunted by her mother’s legacy and the specter of the stage that killed her. It opens in a hallucinogenic haze that blurs reality into surrealism, solidifying Frankie’s delusion as its baseline. As she navigates the collision of the woman she’s trying to be— trophy wife, mother, satisfied suburbanite—with the darker parts she can’t forget, she’s drawn back to The Mantrap theater. There, she confronts the shame and secrecy of her tragedy, the horrors of motherhood, and the revival of an undead dream, pushing her toward her destiny. The novella explores duality, generational trauma, and the female body as a site of violence. It ‘burlesques’ story by using parody, camp, and splatstick to frame its critique, and contributes to contemporary feminist horror by positioning exploitation as something inescapable, inherited, and even desired.Extension Studie
Unveiling Veils of Infinitivity Apophasis and Envisioning the Invisible in the Study of Mysticism
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Virgilian Vision and Voice
No full textThis dissertation explores how vision functions not merely as a theme in Virgil’s poetry, but as a poetic method: a means of structuring narrative, shaping emotion, and producing meaning through language. Drawing on frameworks from ancient rhetorical theory, Roman visual culture, and modern narratology, I examine how acts of seeing in Virgil’s Eclogues, Georgics,
and Aeneid are framed, deferred, and restructured by poetic form. This project focuses not only on what characters see, but on how vision itself is staged—rhetorically, symbolically, and emotionally—and how this visual logic interacts with poetic voice.
At the heart of this inquiry is the relationship between vision and voice, or more materially, between image and text. I define voice not as sound, but as focalization. In Virgil, seeing is rarely direct or complete; it is mediated by memory, grief, desire, and delay. Through close readings of poetic imagery, metaphor, and gesture, I argue that vision in Virgil is not a neutral act of perception, but a site of poetic labor—recursive, unstable, and generative.
The dissertation is organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 lays the theoretical groundwork through ancient concepts of ekphrasis and enargeia, tracing how poetic vividness in Virgil complicates seeing and knowing. Chapter 2 turns to the eye itself, exploring how Latin terms like oculus, lumen, and acies function not only anatomically, but metonymically and emotionally—through tears, violence, sleep, and transformation. Chapter 3 examines visual directionality and movement in the Aeneid, from Aeneas’ seaborne departures to the rhetorical force of volvens oculos and ante oculos formulas. Chapter 4 focuses on poetic images themselves—imago and monumentum—and how vision becomes a way of remembering, mourning, and imagining. The chapter pairs scenes from Eclogue 2, Georgics 4, and Aeneid 1 with Hellenistic precedents to show how Virgil constructs a poetics of visual framing.
Taken together, the chapters show that to “read with the eyes” in Virgil is not to see clearly or completely, but to engage in a process of orientation, affect, and poetic recognition. The project ultimately argues that in Virgil, vision is not simply depicted—it is performed, challenged, and reimagined as a vital mode of poetic expression.Classic
MIRACLE AND WONDER
No full textOn the surface, my novel is based on the Greek myths of Orpheus and Eurydice and uses the fictional genre of magical realism. In the Rockies of Colorado, a couple inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice live a fulfilling life. Their life together is idyllic without being unrealistic.
The wife dies a slow and ugly death from cancer. Despair fills the man as he comes to realize that he is losing her. She dies, and he is despondent. Lost in a cloud of memories, he exists without purpose or meaning. Over time, he becomes convinced that if there is an afterlife, as his faith suggests, he can locate her in Hell. He sets off to rescue her.
His travels to find his love share elements of Dante’s journey to the center of Hell. Different American cities fill in as various levels of Hell as portrayed in Inferno. Along the way, he picks up a traveling companion, a young woman traveling alone and wanting protection on her journey. Reality and sanity crumble and shatter his self-confidence as the man begins to suspect that she may be the incarnation of Eurydice. He questions how well he knew his wife and love.
Reality begins to fragment as the man and his companion move closer to the center of Hell. They wander through the strange surroundings. The woman worries about advances from her fellow wanderer as they experience a transformative spiraling relationship with an explosive finish.
In the end, as in the original Greek Orpheus and Eurydice myth, Eurydice cannot return to earth. Worse, the Orpheus character discovers that his wife is not the original Eurydice; they have failed to sync up in this lifetime. Indeed, his traveling companion is Eurydice, but she is too young in this time frame. Orpheus must decide whether to rejoin his wife in Hell or try to make his life work with the real Eurydice.Extension Studie
Flourishing Communities: The Role of Faith Communities in the Promotion of Flourishing and the Common Good
No full textThe purpose of this paper is to provide a narrative review of many aspects of the outward facing work of congregations and faith-based organizations. While the majority of the paper is spent on the review, the final portion of the paper outlines the importance of equipping faith communities to better describe and assess the impact of their own work and the value of establishing common metrics such that congregations and faith-based organizations can facilitate greater learning about best practices within and between themselves. We further suggest that efforts to understand how churches flourish must include the outward facing work of faith communities to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how faith motivates and sustains care for the larger community. Finally, while many of these suggestions are put forward for the benefit of faith communities and organizations themselves, we point to important ways in which such efforts can make a meaningful contribution to broader policy discussions about the role of faith communities as partners in the promotion of community health and well-being.Accepted Manuscrip
AI as a Catalyst for Decarbonization: Integrating Artificial Intelligence Into Climate-Aligned Investment and Infrastructure
No full textThis thesis investigates the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a catalyst for the climate transition, analyzing how AI enables emissions reduction, resource optimization, and advanced climate-risk measurement across energy, mobility, agriculture, finance, and urban systems. With foundational models increasingly commoditized, competitive advantage shifts toward high-quality data, integration capabilities, and alignment with emerging ESG and disclosure standards. The study proposes a structured framework for evaluating and deploying Climate AI solutions, emphasizing measurable climate impact, policy-fit, and system-level scalability. Case studies illustrate how AI-enabled platforms—particularly in carbon accounting, smart grids, predictive industrial systems, and nature monitoring—can accelerate climate outcomes when supported by coordinated stakeholder action. The thesis concludes that AI is evolving into essential climate infrastructure, requiring investment strategies that merge venture-style innovation with long-horizon sustainability priorities.Author's Origina
What Lies in Orange Skies: A Thesis in the Field of Creative Writing & Literature for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
No full textThis thesis is the first half of my novel, What Lies in Orange Skies. The nine
chapters included take place from September 1985 through January 1986 in a fictitious
small town on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
Squall Isle is an idyllic place to grow up unless your father is Dane Burke, the
resident seascape artist who has a habit of irrational outbursts and periods of
disappearing. The Burke children, caught in the whirlwind of their father’s everchanging
moods, their mother’s neglect, and a close-knit community of busybodies, try their best to
survive. Tash, a senior in high school with a habit of binge drinking and making poor
choices, risks her reputation to avoid her home and father at all costs. Feeling responsible
for taking care of his sisters, the anxiety-prone middle child, Duncan, struggles in school,
jeopardizing his chances at a baseball scholarship. The youngest, Camille, a gifted ten-
year-old who pretends to be a Catholic priest, is obsessed with dead saints that don’t
decay and documenting her siblings’ transgressions and suspicious behavior. When she
suspects they’re concealing an unnatural secret about their father, Camille sets out to
uncover the truth.
What Lies in Orange Skies is a novel about mental illness, childhood trauma, the
price of survival, and the freedom of reconciliation and forgiveness.Extension Studie
“Fox Hill” and “The Fade” Selected Stories of Queer Horror
No full textMy thesis project is two short stories selected from a collection that explores internalised homophobia as a form of horror. These literary stories borrow elements from various subgenres of horror such as the vampire, mental asylum, plague, and creature. The two selected stories herein respectively allude to supernatural horror and the slasher.Extension Studie