Browsing English by Issue Date
Now showing items 21-40 of 105
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Where's the Revolution?: From "Code Year" to the Continuum of Proceduracy
(North Dakota State University, 2012)As the calendar turned over to 2012, an online learning initiative, Codecademy, declared it “Code Year”—the year “for everyone” to learn code. Within six months, this call has received much attention from the public and ... -
"Who Are You and I...?": The Rhetoric of Identity in the Aloha Eagles Letters
(North Dakota State University, 2012)In 1969, four years before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, Aloha Eagles, a Republican legislator in the North Dakota House of Representatives, proposed a House Bill 319 to legalize abortion in North Dakota. ... -
"Where Everything Goes to Hell": Stephen King as Literary Naturalist
(North Dakota State University, 2012)In his bestselling nonfiction book about the horror genre, Danse Macabre, author Stephen King lists among his idols "the great naturalist writer Frank Norris" (336). While King primarily writes horror fiction, he has often ... -
Carl Sagan's Cosmos: The Rhetorical Construction of Popular Science Mythology
(North Dakota State University, 2013)Using Carl Sagan's Cosmos as a case study, this dissertation explores the intersection of science with popular culture and builds a new framework for rhetorically analyzing popular science programming. The arguments and ... -
Balancing Motherhood Experiences and Academic Science: What Makes Some Women Persist in Their Professions?
(North Dakota State University, 2013)Women both enter and leave science fields in numbers disproportionate to men (Long, Valian). Although many researchers have studied the reasons women leave the workplace in general, and STEM professions specifically, ... -
Never Just a Game: How the Interplay of Video Games and the "Real" World Complicates Boundaries in Rushdie's Luka and the Fire of Life
(North Dakota State University, 2013)The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay of games and reality as depicted in Salman Rushdie’s Luka and the Fire of Life. The convergence of several realities is a recurrent trope in Rushdie’s novels. The trope ... -
Utopia, Desire, and Exigence: Re-Theorizing Utopia as Rhetorical Action
(North Dakota State University, 2013)In this paper, I seek to redefine Utopia as a literary genre. Specifically, I argue that Utopias and utopian literature should be read as socially situated actions that are interpreted through an exigence composed of the ... -
“It’s Not about Health; It’s about Sex, Pumpkin”: Reproductive Autonomy, Medicalization, and Contraceptive Rhetoric in the Wake of the War on Women
(North Dakota State University, 2013)The purpose of this study is to better understand the ways in which contemporary women describe their contraceptive needs in the wake of the war on women, primarily in the context of the Sandra Fluke and Rush Limbaugh ... -
Writing (Dirty) New Media: Technorhetorical Opacity, Chimeras, and Dirty Ontology
(North Dakota State University, 2014)Video summarizing Ph.D. dissertation for a non-specialist audience. -
Writing (Dirty) New Media: Technorhetorical Opacity, Chimeras, and Dirty Ontology
(North Dakota State University, 2014)There is little doubt that emerging technologies are changing the way we act, interact, create, and consume. Yet despite increased access to these technologies, consumers of technology too seldom interrogate the politics, ... -
The Girl, the Film, and the Wardrobe: A Study of Texts, Tension, and Approachability in Punk Clothing and the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo
(North Dakota State University, 2014)The present study investigates how the modern re-authoring of Punk clothing styles through the character of Lisbeth Salander in Steig Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, its American film adaptation, and the ... -
Inclusive Peer Review Activities in College Writing Classes: Autistic Students' Perspectives and Ways of Participating
(North Dakota State University, 2014)To date, no composition research exists involving autistic college students and peer review. The literature regarding autism suggests that autistic students are likely to experience, value, and participate in peer review ... -
Beautiful Boy Soldiers: Kaoru Shintani’s Area 88 and the Negotiation of Japanese Postwar Masculinity
(North Dakota State University, 2014)This paper will examine the war manga Area 88 and its recent anime adaption. Area 88 depicts a fictional middle-eastern civil war in which a Japanese protagonist finds himself fighting as an unwilling mercenary. Area 88 ... -
Female Heroism and Leadership in the Anglo-Saxon Judith
(North Dakota State University, 2014)In this paper, I argue that the Anglo-Saxon Judith frames its titular character’s simultaneous adoption of sacred femininity and masculine heroic violence as the acceptable and necessary response to despair in the face ... -
Empowering Spaces: A Student Initiative in Language Acquisition
(North Dakota State University, 2014)A major concern for many international students is improving their spoken English, which requires engaged interaction with other speakers in a comfortable environment. This exploratory study analyzes a student-run language ... -
Energetic Space: The Affect of Literature in a Composition Classroom
(North Dakota State University, 2015)Rhetorical and critical theory have both prescribed and proscribed the way scholars view affect. With the exception of Reader Response Theory, literary and rhetorical theory tend to use a more long-term and permanent frame ... -
The World isn’t Split into Good People and Death Eaters: Exploring the Ambiguities of Alchemy, Immortality, Morality, and Choice in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series
(North Dakota State University, 2015)In this Master’s paper, I am exploring the ambiguous intersection between alchemy and immortality in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, especially where choice and morality complicate Rowling’s depiction of the means to ... -
From Homo stupidus to Homo sapiens: Changing and Reaffirming the Paradigm of Human Uniqueness Through Neandertal Descriptions
(North Dakota State University, 2015)Neandertal interpretation is changing the paradigm of human uniqueness, but exactly how needs to be examined. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of how Neandertal descriptions embed long-held cultural attitudes and ... -
Literalized Metaphors in China Mieville’s Bas-Lag Novels
(North Dakota State University, 2015)In this paper, I will be discussing hybridity, Othering, and agency in China Miéville’s fantasy novels set in the world of Bas-Lag. I will be expanding upon Joan Gordon’s concept of “literalized metaphors” which suggests ... -
What to Expect When You Don’t Know What to Expect: Analysis of International Student Expectations at Writing Centers
(North Dakota State University, 2015)This study focuses on international student expectations regarding Writing Centers, how participants develop these expectations and what Writing Centers can do to meet these expectations. Focus groups were held to gather ...