English Masters Papers

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FROM PAGES TO PLACES: SITUATING KELLY ET AL.’S THE ROBOT ZOO: A MECHANICAL GUIDE TO THE WAY ANIMALS WORK IN REAL-LIFE CONTEXT
(North Dakota State University, 2024) Alam, Nasih
The Robot Zoo: A Mechanical Guide to the Way Animals Work (1994), written by John Kelly, Dr. Philip Whitfield and Obin, consists of textual descriptions and visual images of sixteen robot animals. Among them, my discussion of Giraffe, Platypus and Rhino highlights the fact that they are endangered animals who are facing extinction due to climate change, human encroachment, poaching, illegal trade, and a lack of biodiversity. Although my other subjects of discussion such as House Fly, Grasshopper, Chameleon and Bat do not necessarily face any immediate extinction, this paper shows how scientists are using the heights and zips of these flying beings for wildlife conservation and construction engineering, even raising the possibilities of conserving real-life giraffes, rhinos, and platypuses. Therefore, in my paper, I prove that the more people watch and interact with electronic animatrons on display in robot zoo exhibitions, the more informed they will be about conservation, extinction, and the global climate crisis.
Jacques Lacan and Mary Shelley: Repressed Abandonment in Frankenstein
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Garey 111, Kyle Rasmussen
Mary Shelley's early life was fraught with developmental problems. Like Victor Frankenstein's Creation, she lacked a genuine chance to experience what Jacques Lacan calls the Real with her mother. While some readings of Frankenstein point to Mary's early development as being successful and properly supported by William Godwin's love, thus making her upbringing parallel to Victor's, Mary nonetheless experienced many of the same deprivations the Creation in Frankenstein did. In this paper, the author maintains that, based on a Lacanian analysis of Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's emotional detachment from his Creation and others reflects Mary Shelley's psychological sense that she had been abandoned and betrayed by the principal people in her life, including William Godwin, Mary Jane Godwin, Percy Shelley, and her dead mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. The feeling of being an outcast that the Creation expresses so eloquently in his Lacanian Symbolic phase coincides, in Mary's life, with the repressed abandonment issues that were coming to the forefront of her consciousness at the time she wrote her famous novel. Mary's chain of signifiers, indicating her repressed feelings, came out during her "session on the couch" in Lake Geneva and became metaphorically embodied in her seminal novel. In a Lacanian sense, the Creation was Mary's alter ego. Mary used the written word to express her feelings and was destined for such a creative expression of her inner life by being born into a literary family. Mary Shelley used Frankenstein as a vehicle to deal with the pain and the injustices she experienced during the first two decades of her life.
"Putting on My Feminist Pants": How Academic Feminists Use Clothing to Construct Professional Identity
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Gunter, Katie Marie
Feminism has traditionally been concerned with issues of women's bodies; however, an examination of women's bodies in clothing has been largely overlooked, especially in relation to feminists themselves. Constructing identity for professional feminists in the context of clothing calls into question the traditional feminist binary of privileging the mind over the body. While many feminist writers discuss a rift between second and third wave feminists concerning views on clothing, no one has produced data to show that these views are still held. This paper investigates how second and third wave professional feminists view clothing in relation to the mind/body binary using the classical rhetorical notions of ethos and terpsis. The data revealed that even among professional feminists, the mind/body binary still privileges those qualities associated with the mindand that dressing as a professional feminist means dressing for authority and the political expression of feminist values, specifically economy and comfort.
Off The Beaten Warpath: Native Representation and Themes in Chris Claremont’s X-Men
(North Dakota State University, 2023) Bittner, Michael James
“Off the Beaten Warpath”: Native Representation and Themes in Chris Claremont’s X-Men Chris Claremont, the long-time writer on several X-Men titles, used the opportunity to develop his own cast of original and highly diverse characters. Several of these new characters either were of Native heritage or became Native through the course of the narrative, and he created one of the first storylines focusing on Native themes, The Demon Bear Saga. The British-born Claremont uses Native themes throughout his tenure on the X-Men titles, sometimes adhering to, but often defying the conventions associated with Native American literature. Although not without some problematic elements, by presenting Native characters and themes in a complex, well-developed manner, Claremont’s work is one of the first mainstream comic book titles to subvert stereotypical depictions of Native Americans. Claremont’s X-Men provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of Native themes when presented by a non-native author.
Lord of the Living Souls: Dominion and the Spiritual Lives of Animals in Milton's Paradise Lost
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Russow, Kurt William
This paper examines Milton's views of the spiritual status of animals as presented in Paradise lost. It discusses how Milton enters into discussion with the discourses of 111 theology, philosophy, and both antique and modern science to construct his own nuanced view on the dominion humankind was theologically mandated to have over animals. Milton promotes a complex animal ethic based simultaneously on both hierarchy and kinship. Ultimately this ethic is used not only to celebrate animals, but also to celebrate a stewardship-oriented notion of a divinely ordained hierarchy.
Enculturating Gender: Examining Bestselling Children's Picture Books
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Smith, Kara Michele
This research examines gender depictions in 20 current bestselling children's picture books. I argue that children's picture books, specifically those aimed at children 0-5 years of age, portray gender in a way that potentially limits girls in developing and achieving their goals because of the limited options presented to them based on gender and also constrains boys' emotional growth due to the rigid standards depicted for them. These depictions are especially critical during the Sensorimotor and Preoperational stages in children's development because they are developmentally primed for acquiring and being socialized to gender knowledge. Extending the work of Hamilton et al., this research reaffirms their findings, showing that nearly a decade later, in terms of gender depictions in children's picture books, little progress has been made. Females are still largely underrepresented in central roles and in illustrations, are passive, and are presented with limited options in terms of occupations, while males are portrayed as active and independent and have a variety of occupational choices available to them. Additionally, this study employs a contemporary visual rhetorical lens to further enrich our understanding of the gender depictions in children's picture books by analyzing illustrations in terms of McCloud's definitions of the relationships between text and images and Horn's notions of proximity, white space, placement, distance, and angle. This portion of the analysis reinforces the findings and allows for a more articulated discussion of gender depictions in children's picture books.
The Feminist Cure: Feminist Identity As a Shield from Hyper-Sexualized l'vledia Induced Self-Objectification in College Women
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Carlson, Natalie Smith
This paper explores the impact of hyper-sexualized media on college women in terms of inducing self-objectification and/or inhibiting feminist identity. The survey and resulting analysis showed participants' feminist orientation ostensibly affected their inclination to self-objectify after watching and responding to a slideshow of common images of women in our culture. By comparing the reactions of women \Vith high feminist orientation and low feminist orientation, suggestions were clear about connections between an identification with feminism and a propensity to value the self and other women for characteristics beyond those of appearance and sexuality.
The Power to (Re )Produce: Biological Determinism in McTeague.
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Tobias, Stacey Jo
In McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, Frank Norris explores life among the working class of Polk Street. Through his unflattering portrayal of all the immigrant characters in the novel, Norris demonstrates his well-documented beliefs in inherited degeneracy. The relationship between Zerkow, a Polish Jew, and Maria Macapa, a Mexican maid, especially highlights these beliefs. 111 Though many scholars have approached Zerkow and Maria as individual characters, it is the complex dynamic of their relationship which this paper explores. Through the utilization of Marxist notions of commodity and feminist notions of the body and reproduction, Maria's sacrifices as an immigrant woman hoping to achieve the social normalcy of marriage and family become clear. Maria's story (with connections to her racial heritage) and body become commodities, and ultimately her power to (re )produce is compromised. Zerkow's greed, apparent not only in his stereotypical Jewish desire for gold, but also in his desire to possess Maria's story and body, leads to the devaluing of Maria and to her murder. Maria and Zerkow are two "racially inferior" characters united through a marriage based not on love, but opportunity and convenience. Their story demonstrates not only late nineteenth century ideas about race and immigration, but also Norris's personal contempt for the immigrant population.
Time to Play the Religion Card: Messiah Complexes in Battlestar Galactica
(North Dakota State University, 2010) Wolf, Carissa Noel
In 2003, Battlestar Galactica (BSG) was re-invented from its 1978 roots and updated to a post-apocalyptic narrative that reflects numerous issues in current American culture, including the influence of religious rhetoric in post-9/11 politics. As theorized by psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the fictions of a culture reveal the subconscious values and beliefs of that culture, 1 and BSG has proven fertile ground for such investigations. Four major compilations of critical essays on BSG have been published to date, with some articles analyzing the post-9/11 politics and others on the use of religion in the narrative, but few examine these elements in conjunction with each other or how the characters use them. This combination of political and religious rhetoric is especially important in how BSG cultivates multiple messianic characters to drive its narrative and resolve complex issues for its characters - yet the published scholarship remains silent on this. For a single narrative to contain multiple messianic characters is a rare phenomenon, for as mythologist Joseph Campbell observes, such salvation figures operate on global and cosmic scales. 2 Yet BSG transforms the characters of Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar into a space-age Moses and Christ, respectively, and more importantly it makes their tag-team messiahships a necessity for the narrative. In creating this messianic multiplicity, BSG suggests that a single individual cannot address all of the needs of a desperate people - a messiah can function either in the political realm ( serving as an agent of physical salvation) or on a spiritual level (delivering emotional redemption), but not both. Much of this messianic dualism emerges in the characters' rhetorical strategies - relying on classical Aristotelian forms vs. Judeo-Christian sermonic oratory, how they address underlying needs to appeal to the people, and in the ultimate 'scope' of their messianic influence on their societal and cultural history. Their messianic transformations and the mythic nature of the BSG narrative itself take a modem twist on Jungian archetypes and Campbellian universals, and thus guided by the same theorists that influenced their construction, I analyze the messiahships of Laura Roslin and Gaius Baltar through their use of political and religious rhetoric, how that rhetoric transforms them and their followers, and what this unique storytelling reveals about post-9/11 American perspectives.
Analysis of a Facebook Freakout: Rhetoric of Agency in the Places Privacy Debate
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Bakke, Abigail Rose
New technologies often generate fear regarding privacy threats, and social networking sites like Face book have lately experienced the brunt of the criticism. Face book users, even as they post greater amounts of information online, express concern over privacy violations. This paradox suggests that the issue is more complex than the private/public dichotomy and that the rhetoric used during these protests could yield insights regarding the competing worldviews expressed in a privacy debate. My paper examines discourse by the ACLU and Face book at the time the controversial Facebook Places application came out. I use cluster criticism to show how the two rhetors position themselves, each other, Face book users, and users' friends in terms of the degree of control each ;:igent is portrayed as having. My findings suggest that appealing to users' agency will be a key persuasive strategy as concerns over social networking privacy violations increase, and I comment on how sentence structure in corporate discourse can be used to enhance or detract from users' sense of agency when using social networking sites.
"Building a Class Library": Emphasizing Summary in Teaching Source Use
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Haich, Niles Andrew
The study presented here is a qualitative study evaluating four objectives for teaching source use, ones I emphasized in my Spring 2011 classes with an assignment called the "Building a Class Library Assignment." I relied on two methods for evaluation: (1) process reflection, with audio recordings of one-on-one sessions serving as my data set; and (2) product analysis, with student-written profiles serving as my data set. In analyzing the profiles, as well as the interviews, it became obvious that my students fell short in the areas I wanted them to demonstrate an understanding in. However, it also became obvious that, because of the Class Library, the message that source integration means writing summary was one all of my students retained. Also successful was the structure of the Class Library, one that provided students with a recurring context in which to practice summary, and provided me with an additional setting in which to work with students on their writing. It is for these reasons that I argue that the Class Library, and the four objectives that are emphasized in the assignment, provide one answer to the larger, pedagogical question of how to improve instruction of source use. 111
Rematerializing the Contact Zone : Discovery and Exploration in the First Year Writing Classroom
(North Dakota State University, 2011) Kornkven, Erik Kermeth
This study investigates Mary Louise Pratt's "contact zone" theory and argues that the contact zone has undergone a dematerializing process from a place with clear geographical and material connections to an imagined geography. Using the material rhetoric scholarship of Nedra Reynolds and Richard Mar back, the paper shows the weakening effect a dematerialized metaphor has on classroom pedagogy and presents a writing assignment that seeks to rematerialize the contact zone for the first year writing classroom. The paper explores other uses of contact zone pedagogy to show that there is a pattern of dematerialization prevalent in contact zone pedagogy throughout its existence. Using Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad of lived, conceived, and perceived aspects of space, an assignment is presented that attempts to rematerialize the contact zone in the classroom, effectively changing it from a place of exploration to a place of discovery. Sixty-six student papers were gathered along with reflections throughout their writing process. Students were asked to identify a community they were a part of and describe it using Lefebvre's spatial triad before identifying contact zones in their own lives. The assignment provides students with a way to approach important cultural and societal issues from a place of authority resulting in a fully embodied exploration of their own contact zones.
Taking Persephone: The Rhetoric of Consent in Rachel Smythe's Webtoon Lore Olympus (2018)
(North Dakota State University, 2023) Toay, Kaitlynn
Lore Olympus is a webtoon that reimagines the taking of Persephone in an animated, comic style. In this paper, I discuss the rhetoric of consent through a visual analysis using the intersecting fields of classical reception, feminist rhetoric, and digital humanities. I use two versions of the taking of Persephone for my analysis: Ovid’s Metamorphoses and “The Homeric Hymn to Demeter.” My analysis is split into two parts, with the first being a visual analysis of 4 panels of the webtoon, focusing on how each depicts the rhetoric of consent. The second part of my analysis is focused on the rhetorical devices within the text that serves as visual metaphors to symbolize layered meaning to readers. My findings suggest that Lore Olympus does not allow its female characters agency in removing the aspect of consent using concepts such as voyeurism and class systems to strip female characters of their agency.
The Monster-as-Slayer in Blade (1998): Blade and Posthuman Identity
(North Dakota State University, 2023) Pennings, Cassandra
Blade (1998) features an African American half-vampire whose goals seem contradictory: save the humans that would fear and hate him. A new character trope, the monster-as-slayer, is introduced in the movie’s eponymous hero, Blade, the half-vampire half-human private eye. Via this trope, the movie explores contradictions in its hero’s identity and motivations, leaving audiences in suspense throughout the film. Although there are examples of the monster-as-slayer in other media, Blade seems to begin this trend for modern film by combining classic elements of the vampire with new science fiction approaches. The result is the creation of a show-stopping posthuman superhero with whom the audience cannot help but empathize, monster or no monster. By analyzing the monster-as-slayer trope, I demonstrate a posthuman future on screen that encourages audiences to accept the monsters we are.
A Reader Response Approach to Storytelling and Tabletop Games: The Player's Experience of Dungeons and Dragons and Its Pedagogical Applications
(North Dakota State University, 2023) Hansen, Noah
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a role-playing game (RPG) that has exploded in popularity since its conception in the 1970s. This paper aims to examine how D&D, and other RPGs like it, can be utilized within an academic setting by utilizing Reader Response theory. This theory, pioneered by theorists Louise Rosenblatt and Wolfgang Iser, would serve to measure the impact that D&D has on the players. Using an IRB approved study, this paper views the emotional impact, literary experience, and individual connections that participants make while playing D&D to show the worth that D&D has as a literary tool and pedagogical device. These responses from participants would also lead to viewing D&D as a pedagogical tool by taking inspiration from Simulation Games, Devised Theatre, and the use of Reader Response within the classroom.
Writing Fires: Writing Instruction, Student Learning Perceptions, and the Importance of Connection in the Age of COVID-19
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Sullivan, Isaac
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it devastating and potentially long-lasting impacts to the world. From economic upheavals, political ramifications, and educational disruptions, COVID-19 has changed the face of many aspects of life, perhaps forever. The issue in this study is to ask how COVID-19 may have impacted the literacy development of undergraduate students through the use of emergency remote instruction. To begin investigating the issue, roughly 200 undergraduate students in writing-focused classes (first-year composition and upper-division writing courses) were surveyed to understand how they learned the rhetorical conventions and genre expectations of their discipline. Out of the 200 responses, 36 total were received. Through a mixed methods analysis of data collected through a survey, the goal was to uncover student perceptions of their literacy development by examining their thoughts on their development of their own rhetorical awareness and writing capacity.
Nostalgia for the 24th Century: How Nerd Billionaires Use Star Trek for Self-Promotion
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Eggers, Kurt
This paper examines how tech industry leaders, who I dub “nerd billionaires,” use references to Star Trek (ST) as a way to connect with the positive impression fans have of its utopian world. I show how they use ST to imply that their business interests serve to benefit, and potentially save, humanity. My study provides background on ST’s utopia and uses Pierre Bourdieu's Field Theory to demonstrate why ST at first appears incompatible with the goals of big business. By applying post-Marxist critical theory to ST media, I examine ST’s ideological implications and analyze why ST has proven to be such an attractive shibboleth for “nerd billionaires.” I argue that the politics of ST and the tech industry’s business practices prove to be less incongruous than they appear by demonstrating how ST has fostered a cultural narrative that presupposes the virtues and feasibility of saving humanity through futurist technology.
The Not-So-Universal Experience: A Content Analysis of Regional and National Secondary and Postsecondary Standards for Writing
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Rickertsen, Vanessa Anne
In this paper, I analyze six sets of high school and college standards and outcome statements on students writing to identify how expectations of students writing vary in their respective educational levels. I include local samples from North Dakota and Minnesota as well as examples at the national level. Utilizing content analysis, I identify frequently used terminology in these statements to uncover trends in how college-level writing is envisioned through the standards and outcomes. Through this analysis, I explore how the terminology used in standards and outcomes frame writing and how these pictures of writing from the high school perspective and the college perspective are connected and disconnected. My findings note that while there is shared base terminology around writing (particularly ‘audience’ and ‘purpose’), the high school standards lean more heavily on product-focused terms while the college outcomes emphasis process.
“I Am a Priest”: The Construction and Adaptability of Identity in the Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Sarkar, Majalisa Rose
The following paper investigates the construction and adaptability of identity, especially in regard to gender, religion, and culture in Louise Erdrich’s novel The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. The goal of this paper is to explore how a broader understanding of one aspect of identity, can lead to a more complex understanding of other aspects of identity. This work performs textual analysis to examine how the character Agnes/Father Damien’s gender and their religious persona are constructed in the novel as they blend their religious beliefs and their masculinity/femininity as well as how this causes them to exist in an in-between state where they are both man/woman and Catholic/Ojibwe in their spiritual beliefs. Secondary research is used to give context about gender, religion, culture, and identity, as well as how those aspects relate specifically to The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse.
Indigenous Ecocriticism and the Relationships Between Humans and Nature in Catherine Knutsson’s Shadows Cast by Stars
(North Dakota State University, 2022) Nelson, Kerri Nicole
In the midst of the climate crisis, Young Adult dystopian literature offers a glimpse of the possible dark futures in store for all of us. Yet Indigenous Young Adult literature revises the natural world not as the enemy of the survival of human beings, but as a possible ally. In Cassandra Knutsson’s Shadows Cast by Stars, a plague is raging and Indigenous blood is key to human survival. Through her journey to save her community, Cassandra demonstrates how she builds a more positive relationship with nature. By offering alternative possibilities for how to treat and interact with nature, Shadows Cast by Stars recreates nature as agentive and sentient rather than inert or bent on destroying human beings. Instead, Shadows educates its readers on the positive relationships with nature possible within Indigenous ecocritical epistemologies.

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