Senior Thesis Presentations, Spring 2020

Welcome to the virtual version of the Literature Program's Senior Thesis Presentations! Below, you will find a video of Dr. Stephannie Gearhart's opening remarks, followed by videos of student presentations.

At BGSU, all undergraduates are required to engage in experiential learning in their major field. Experiential learning, broadly conceived, is a range of experiential activities that occur in and outside of the formal classroom setting. These activities can include community-based learning, public policy projects, undergraduate research, education abroad, practicums, internships, co-ops and clinicals, related to students’ majors and/or coursework. To fulfill this requirement in Literature and to celebrate the work of our students, we ask our majors to conduct literary scholarship in the form of a thesis and to present their work to an audience. Today you will have a chance to listen to our students speak about their signature work in the videos here.

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Opening Remarks: Dr. Stephannie Gearhart, Program Director (stephsg@bgsu.edu)

“The Disenchanted Fate of Katherine Mansfield’s Feminist Characters: ”Anna Bolone (annatb@bgsu.edu)

“The Many ‘Social Contradictions’ of Stephen Gordon: Sexology, Gender Theory, and Proto-Trans* Identity in The Well of Loneliness:” Mikayla Ernst (ernstm@bgsu.edu)

“The Color Purple as Adaptation: How the Production of The Color Purple Informs Audiences:” Chelsea Head (chead@bgsu.edu)

“The Shame Cycle: How Objectifying Women Leads to Shame and Disempowerment in The Handmaid’s Tale:” Dakota Husain (dhusain@bgsu.edu)

“Problematizing Marginality Theory: How Jess’s Character Exposes Limitations in Stone Butch Blues:” Shelby Kuney (skuney@bgsu.edu)

“Mind over Manipulation: Selling Physical Beauty and Toxic Relationships to Teen Readers:” Hannah McDermott (hmcderm@bgsu.edu)

“Much More than a ‘Fiendlike Queen’: Rehabilitating Lady Macbeth:” Julie Steinen (jmstein@bgsu.edu)

“Kitchen Talk: Gendered Language in Japanese and Translation:” Briana Travis (bltravi@bgsu.edu)

"City Love: An Exploration of Male Same-Sex Desire in the Mid-19th Century:" Alisha Runnels (alishar@bgsu.edu)

Lockdown

Simon Armitage
(March 2020)

And I couldn’t escape the waking dream
of infected fleas
in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor’s hearth
in ye olde Eyam.
Then couldn’t un-see
the Boundary Stone,
that cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,
thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.
Which brought to mind the sorry story
of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre,
star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line
whose wordless courtship spanned the river
till she came no longer.
But slept again,
and dreamt this time
of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,
a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,
streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,
embroidered bedspreads
of meadows and hedges,
bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,
the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain,
the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,
the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.

"City Love: An Exploration of Male Same-Sex Desire in the Mid-19th Century:" Alisha Runnels