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Title: Waveland.
Creator: Plante, Jessica M. (Jessica Marie), Kirby, David, Cuevas, Bryan J., Hamby, Barbara, Roberts, Diane, Stilling, Robert, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences,...
Show morePlante, Jessica M. (Jessica Marie), Kirby, David, Cuevas, Bryan J., Hamby, Barbara, Roberts, Diane, Stilling, Robert, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: The dissertation manuscript, Waveland, is a sequence of lyric and narrative poems that form a loosely-structured story about the life of a character called The Navy Wife. The poems in the collection explore trauma and healing through braided topics and motifs, and the manuscript is arranged so that The Navy Wife’s exploration of self develops along a hero’s journey narrative arc. A hero’s journey includes the following components: a call to action, acceptance of the call, rising action,...
Show moreThe dissertation manuscript, Waveland, is a sequence of lyric and narrative poems that form a loosely-structured story about the life of a character called The Navy Wife. The poems in the collection explore trauma and healing through braided topics and motifs, and the manuscript is arranged so that The Navy Wife’s exploration of self develops along a hero’s journey narrative arc. A hero’s journey includes the following components: a call to action, acceptance of the call, rising action, defeat, death and rebirth, atonement, the journey home, and the establishment of a new normal. As a hero’s journey, Waveland’s narrative structure is circular; the speaker ends where she began though she is now transformed by her reconciliation with her past.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Plante_fsu_0071E_15059
Format: Thesis

Title: Revenge of the Asian Woman.
Creator: Chan, Dorothy Ka-Ying, Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Jolles, Adam, Moore, Dennis, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: “Who doesn’t think kissing is the greatest thing / in the world other than eating?” Revenge of the Asian Woman comes to life on a sexed-up soap opera / B-movie platter where passion and food and fantasy reign supreme: excess in the form of full odes and triple sonnets with towers of macarons and carnival desserts and Hong Kong street food on a skewer—and make it a double. The East Asian girl boss takes her revenge on those who have fetishized her, looking great in gold booty shorts, because ...
Show more“Who doesn’t think kissing is the greatest thing / in the world other than eating?” Revenge of the Asian Woman comes to life on a sexed-up soap opera / B-movie platter where passion and food and fantasy reign supreme: excess in the form of full odes and triple sonnets with towers of macarons and carnival desserts and Hong Kong street food on a skewer—and make it a double. The East Asian girl boss takes her revenge on those who have fetishized her, looking great in gold booty shorts, because “If I played roller derby, my name would be Yellow Fever, / knocking out all those white boys from college / who used to whisper sweet nothings to me // in Mandarin.” She narrates her parents’ love story, the Chinese-American immigrant dream, her Eastern zodiac fate, and her own sexual awakening. Revenge comes to life with scenes that mimic the movies: the speaker’s father as a young boy in Hong Kong running into a circus tent, winning a rice eating contest; young lovers in LA at 3 in the morning; and a forehead that is “too Godzilla, too Tarzan / too Wonder Woman”—scenes of a Chinese-American experience, one in which the female speaker is “ready for takeoff,” while paying homage to her heritage: a grandmother who wants to buy her all the jade and gold in the world, a younger cousin who thinks she’s had a hundred boyfriends, and a grandfather who watches soap operas with her. Revenge of the Asian Woman is really about “it,” whether that “it” is the It girl, the It trend, or the ineffable feeling you have in “LA, 3 AM, the wind in your hair, down to your / breasts, braless under a low-v dress, / stroking the driver who’s your lover.” This collection presents plenty of longing for those fleeting moments, regardless if those moments are the speaker’s first sexual awakening, “Ode to the First Boy Who Made Me Feel It”; the mother recounting her favorite childhood show about a family trying to reunite in “Triple Sonnet for Autoerotica”; or the nostalgia that’s presented with references to '80s teen films starring Andrew McCarthy, Liberace’s reign of Las Vegas, or “an appliance / that would deliver food from any part of the world—any part of the universe” from The Jetsons. And with all this sex and food and longing, Revenge of the Asian Woman is above all, a fun romp. Let’s have a little Liberace-Las-Vegas-fun along the way with the glitz and glamour and kitsch of Japanese love hotels, B-movie starring Asian girls traveling to Mars, and total fantasy fulfillment as our dreams and nightmares come to life. The Asian woman conquers all, having her cake and eating it too— “Oh, cut that cake again.”
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Chan_fsu_0071E_14985
Format: Thesis

Title: The Fall.
Creator: Keller, Raymond Allen, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Stover, Tim, Kirby, David, Horack, Skip, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This novel, whose title is The Fall, attempts to tell a modern day story of the fall of man (traditionally found in the Book of Genesis), from a greater, more humane and moral state characterized by goodness toward himself and others, to a lesser state characterized by selfishness, narrow ambition and the manipulation and oppression of those around him. The protagonist's name is Nullius Nominis (which means "no name" in Latin), but at the beginning of the novel, a passage in which he is...
Show moreThis novel, whose title is The Fall, attempts to tell a modern day story of the fall of man (traditionally found in the Book of Genesis), from a greater, more humane and moral state characterized by goodness toward himself and others, to a lesser state characterized by selfishness, narrow ambition and the manipulation and oppression of those around him. The protagonist's name is Nullius Nominis (which means "no name" in Latin), but at the beginning of the novel, a passage in which he is unexplainably falling from a very tall building known as The Capitol, seat of the Republic, he is only described as "the falling man" because he has lost his memory. Unaware of what has set his current circumstance in motion, he only knows that he is falling. Somewhat miraculously, Nullius is saved from death in the fall, and is rescued by a maintenance man named Minos, who takes him beneath the Capitol and cares for him. But, eager to find out what has happened to himself, Nullius leaves in the middle of the night, only to find that there are posters with his picture on it hung inside the Capitol: he is wanted for questioning regarding the mysterious death of the Governor. What follows is a journey of sorts, from the bowels of the Capitol to the top floor, fraught with danger and intrigue, as, in his attempt to acquit himself, Nullius learns of his own strange history, as well as that of humanity itself, and how all this fits in to the very future of the Republic.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_KellerIII_fsu_0071E_15285
Format: Thesis

Title: Polk County Death Parade.
Creator: Rupp, Elisabeth Anne, Hamby, Barbara, Kirby, David, Edwards, Leigh H., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: There are four main topics that drive conversations in small towns: births, weddings, deaths, and rumors. In my hometown, in the dead-center of Florida, most rumors revolve around strange deaths and murders. This fascination with the grotesque serves as the focal point of my manuscript. However, I also want to explore different characters who are either members of the "Rumor Mill" or subjects of their whispered meetings, as well as describe significant landmarks, which will increase the...
Show moreThere are four main topics that drive conversations in small towns: births, weddings, deaths, and rumors. In my hometown, in the dead-center of Florida, most rumors revolve around strange deaths and murders. This fascination with the grotesque serves as the focal point of my manuscript. However, I also want to explore different characters who are either members of the "Rumor Mill" or subjects of their whispered meetings, as well as describe significant landmarks, which will increase the realism of the manuscript, despite the absurdity. Throughout my project, I examine what makes "my own little postage stamp" of the world, to borrow Faulkner's phrase, unique through descriptive poems of the area, persona poems for the characters, and poems focusing on the most intriguing deaths and murders. My manuscript, tentatively titled Polk County Death Parade, explores the misunderstood aspects of small towns in central Florida. The town that serves as the focal point for my manuscript appears to be a perfectly normal town with picturesque houses, churches every quarter mile, and people unafraid to walk at any time of day. However, my manuscript challenges this idyllic surface. I explain the reality of my town by dissecting the landmarks, characters, and strange deaths that serve as fodder for the rumors and local legends. I want to create a tone that falls between The Twilight Zone and Mayberry, with nods to David Lynch and Flannery O'Connor. To achieve this tone, I will incorporate lessons from both poets and fiction writers to help me create the narratives and descriptions that accompany voice driven murder stories. I admire Billy Collins' approach to dark topics with a light tone, Flannery O'Connor's hyper-realistic characters, and Andrew Huggins' connection to regionality. I also want to incorporate Dorothy Allison's belief in treating all of her characters with respect, never writing as if they are lesser people even if their actions are reprehensible. Similarly, I want to follow Larry Brown's lead in creating places, characters, and voices that sound, if not familiar, then at least honest, for readers in and out of the South. Although not all of my poems will be focused on characterization or will be persona poems, my goal for this manuscript is to be a Southern counterpart to Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. The town and people are based on my own experiences or rumors I grew up hearing, but fictionalized just enough to enhance the natural strangeness. This exploration into small town life will illustrate the universality of searching for humor in dark situations, explore a natural fascination with the grotesque, and a guilty pleasure found through the creation of local legends and rumors. While the characters, places, and actions are unique to the manuscript, the themes, emotions, and situations stretch well beyond the city limit signs. Readers do not have to be intimately familiar with Southern small towns to connect with the characters, create an image the town for themselves, and become invested in the murders. I illustrate snap shots of humanity and explore experiences that, while specific to my town still connect with people who have never lived in a small town. Deaths, murders, and questionable characters serve as common ground between my manuscript and a wide readership. Rather than limiting the reach of my project, the intimate connection to region helps to illustrate commonalities of the human experience of dissecting the strange and unusual experiences of their own hometowns. There are three major types of poems which make up my project, which will be a singular piece without sections or chapters. The majority of the manuscript is dedicated to exploring the deaths and murders through a darkly humorous tone to illustrate the natural strangeness of the town and to explore the theme of death through a non-sentimental lens. Interspersed throughout the death poems will be persona poems; some from the point-of-view of town-characters to give context regarding who lives in this area, some from the point-of-view of the deceased, and some from the point-of-view of the murderers. These voice-driven poems will not only contextualize the people who make up the town, but will work to explore dark situations from unusual perspectives. Additionally, I will include poems dedicated to the important landmarks throughout the town, such as the most popular bar, the park with an alligator filled lake, and what is generously referred to as the local country club. These poems ingratiate the reader to the town, explaining not only the geography, but to make the reader feel as if they are a part of the town as well. My manuscript opens with "They're Good People, Babe," a voice-driven poem outlining the types of people and situations readers will encounter throughout the project, followed by a poem detailing some of the places and people readers will encounter again as the project progresses. These opening poems will help to ground the reader in the reality of the project, giving them context before they fall into the realm of rumor and hearsay. My manuscript will continue the Southern gothic tradition of telling the stories of people who otherwise would go unnoticed. In the same way Brown, Allison, and O'Connor write about the people who exist on the periphery of society, I want to tell the stories that otherwise would never be told. I hope to obscure the line between realism and surrealism, truth and the absurd, the courtroom transcripts and the surrounding rumors. Picasso says "Art is the lie that tells the truth." Therefore, although aspects of these poems will be based on true events, I will create an alternate universe for them, blurring the barriers between fact and fiction. The importance of this project lies with the characters whose stories deserve to be told, but with changes to protect the survivors.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Rupp_fsu_0071N_15270
Format: Thesis

Title: Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara.
Creator: Fargason, William H., Kimbrell, James, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Epstein, Andrew, Hamby, Barbara, Kirby, David, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of...
Show moreFargason, William H., Kimbrell, James, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Epstein, Andrew, Hamby, Barbara, Kirby, David, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: In this manuscript, I explore issues of masculinity, mental illness, and spirituality—often using the form of elegy. Many of the elegies in this manuscript are in conversation with critic Jahan Ramazani's arguments about elegies: "the modern elegist tends not to achieve but to resist consolation, not to override but to sustain anger, not to heal but to reopen the wounds of loss." The arc of the book shows the speaker working through grief, healing from loss, and confronting mental illness....
Show moreIn this manuscript, I explore issues of masculinity, mental illness, and spirituality—often using the form of elegy. Many of the elegies in this manuscript are in conversation with critic Jahan Ramazani's arguments about elegies: "the modern elegist tends not to achieve but to resist consolation, not to override but to sustain anger, not to heal but to reopen the wounds of loss." The arc of the book shows the speaker working through grief, healing from loss, and confronting mental illness. The poems of healing interrogate that "wound of loss" Ramazani describes, while detailing the inherent difficulty of opening or closing the wound. The book is structured in four sections, with each section having the central threads braided throughout. Each braid connects back to—and is filtered through—the speaker: his struggle with God, his constant conflicts with the father figure, his romantic relationships, and his own crumbling mental health. In addition to these recurring themes, I attempt to explore the distances between two people (or figures), in either a literal way, or through memory. In reckoning with those distances, the focus of exploration twists inward: the poems about other people become about the speaker. The knowledge gained from the focus inward becomes become holes in the speaker's perceived identity that the poems must then work their way out of. Several of my poems are influenced by a strained relationship with an emotionally and physically abusive father. This father figure informs my speaker's sense of masculinity through notions of power and love, which becomes mirrored in the speaker's tenuous relationship toward God throughout the manuscript. In the poems that deal directly with family, I write in the tradition of such contemporary poets as Sharon Olds. However, many of the poems in this manuscript don't glorify the body and the sensuous relationship a person can have with their body, as many of Olds' poems do. Instead, many poems look at the way the body breaks down and is impacted through chronic illness, inherited conditions, aging, and ultimately, death. Many of the poems in this manuscript filter claustrophobic human experiences and interactions through the self, attempting to navigate new knowledge that fractures one's understanding of the world. My speaker's encounters with intimacy tend to reveal the erotic to be just as claustrophobic as the self. The poems dealing with intimacy are written in the tradition of such poets as Robert Creeley (with his unresolved desire of his idealized lover) and Richard Siken (with his attempts to revive and reanimate the dead lover in Crush). Several poems attempt to reconstruct memories and fail, thereby giving the reader the sense that the speaker is always already aware that memories—even traumatic or closely held memories—degrade over time. The end of the manuscript shows the speaker working toward recovery from his mental illness, but it doesn't present that healing process in an unrealistic way, knowing that the healing process is never complete. Rather, the ending shows the speaker struggling to move forward, but moving forward nonetheless.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Fargason_fsu_0071E_15374
Format: Thesis

Title: Effects of the Novel Cannabinoid, AM11101, on Food Intake, Activity-Based Anorexia, and Neuronal Activity in Brain Areas That Control Food Intake.
Creator: Ogden, Sean Brian, Eckel, Lisa A., Kirby, David, Houpt, Thomas A., Joiner, Thomas, Wang, Zuoxin, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: The endocannabinoid system plays an important role in regulating energy balance. Administration of D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main constituent of the Cannabis sativa plant, increases food intake and decreases energy expenditure by acting on cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R). Despite these well-documented effects, THC treatment has had mixed success in alleviating symptoms and reducing weight loss in anorexia nervosa (AN) patients and in the pre-clinical activity-based anorexia (ABA)...
Show moreThe endocannabinoid system plays an important role in regulating energy balance. Administration of D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main constituent of the Cannabis sativa plant, increases food intake and decreases energy expenditure by acting on cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R). Despite these well-documented effects, THC treatment has had mixed success in alleviating symptoms and reducing weight loss in anorexia nervosa (AN) patients and in the pre-clinical activity-based anorexia (ABA) rodent model of AN. To maximize medicinal benefits while minimizing potential side effects, the novel cannabinoid AM11101 was developed with the goal of having better efficacy than THC in treating AN symptoms. The goal of this dissertation was to provide the first examination of AM11101’s ability to increase food intake in healthy animals, attenuate weight loss in the pre-clinical ABA model, and identify brain areas that are activated by acute AM11101 treatment. In the first study, the orexigenic effects of AM11101 and THC were compared in pre-fed and free-fed female rats. Acute administration of AM11101 increased food intake for up to 4 h in pre-fed rats with no compensatory decrease in subsequent feeding. Although THC increased food intake in pre-fed rats, it was less reliable than AM11101 in increasing food intake in free-fed rats following both acute and chronic administration. Similar to THC, AM11101’s orexigenic effect was mediated by an increase in meal size. The second study examined whether daily treatment with AM11101 or THC would attenuate weight loss in female rats exposed to the ABA paradigm. We found that AM11101-treated rats displayed greater resilience to ABA than THC-treated rats. AM11101 attenuated ABA-induced weight loss and helped to preserve adipose tissue through a reduction in energy expenditure rather than an increase in food intake. Despite the well-characterized orexigenic effects of cannabinoids, the underlying neuronal mechanisms remain poorly understood. In the third study, we used the immunohistochemical detection of cFos, a marker of neuronal activity, to examine the effect of AM11101 treatment on cFos expression in brain areas that control food intake. We also examined whether AM11101 modulates feeding-induced changes in cFos expression. Acute administration of AM11101 produced a robust increase in cFos expression in multiple brain areas that control food intake. AM11101 was also found to increase feeding-induced cFos expression in one of these areas, the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (ARC). These findings identify multiple brain areas where AM1101 could act to increase meal size. Taken together, these studies demonstrate for the first time that AM11101 increases food intake by a selective increase in meal size, attenuates the development of ABA with improved efficacy over THC, and increases feeding-induced neuronal activation in the ARC, a brain area that plays a critical role in controlling meal size. As such, AM11101 offers a promising new treatment to improve appetite in conditions that are characterized by undernutrition including AN.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Ogden_fsu_0071E_15526
Format: Thesis

Title: Space Struck.
Creator: Lewis, Paige, Kimbrell, James, Kalbian, Aline H., Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Andre Breton states poetry is “a room of marvels.” Every poem in Space Struck could be considered its own room—heck, stanza is Italian for room—with tall doors and portraits of influential poets (and scientists and saints and psychiatrists and lovers and everyone else who has indelibly inflected the algorithms of my thinking) hanging on the walls. The house was erected to contain all my myriad obsessions—including my own predilection to obsessiveness, but also poetry, the body, history, faith...
Show moreAndre Breton states poetry is “a room of marvels.” Every poem in Space Struck could be considered its own room—heck, stanza is Italian for room—with tall doors and portraits of influential poets (and scientists and saints and psychiatrists and lovers and everyone else who has indelibly inflected the algorithms of my thinking) hanging on the walls. The house was erected to contain all my myriad obsessions—including my own predilection to obsessiveness, but also poetry, the body, history, faith, astronomy. Always, back to astronomy. My first crush as a young child was Galileo, and that passionate interest in the vertiginous infinite has never really receded for me (though it has certainly sublimated into healthier, more lyric forms). The manuscript is designed to walk the reader through each of my rooms with humility and wonder, eagerly discovering the marvel each poem holds within its wooden chests.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Lewis_fsu_0071E_15534
Format: Thesis

Title: Rewind.
Creator: Mundell, Jonathan, Hamby, Barbara, Kirby, David, Kimbrell, James, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: My thesis, REWIND, is an homage to the life of my brother, Shane—and my own life, which today wouldn’t be possible without him. I break the thesis down into two sections, WEDGEWOOD WAY and I DO MY BEST TO REMEMBER YOU. While the first section is most explicitly about my brother, death certainly bothers the margins in I DO MY BEST TO REMEMBER YOU. All of these poems were created in grief, in closely examining what a life lived truly means. This is why I turn to narrative most often, because I...
Show moreMy thesis, REWIND, is an homage to the life of my brother, Shane—and my own life, which today wouldn’t be possible without him. I break the thesis down into two sections, WEDGEWOOD WAY and I DO MY BEST TO REMEMBER YOU. While the first section is most explicitly about my brother, death certainly bothers the margins in I DO MY BEST TO REMEMBER YOU. All of these poems were created in grief, in closely examining what a life lived truly means. This is why I turn to narrative most often, because I feel like the meaning is self-evident. I feel that when I’m writing at my best I’m seeing the narrative like one would experience a dream. The associations and what’s happening might not make sense, but the images are convincing and real. The reader should want to follow me over the bridge so to speak. I maintain a more or less organic line, and usually break lines to create emphasis and/or rhythm. Music comes naturally when I am at my most energetic and imagistic. It’s difficult to explain, but when I am in the dream and I can see the images and I’m rendering them accurately, rhythm builds and I can see and feel where to break lines. The overall shape of the poems usually come in revision. I try to maintain the energy of my initial drafts, but usually veer towards visual balance between my lines and stanzas.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Mundell_fsu_0071N_14571
Format: Thesis

Title: Every Lock Lets You in if You Listen.
Creator: Quinlan, Stephen Alexander, Kirby, David, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Epstein, Andrew, Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences,...
Show moreQuinlan, Stephen Alexander, Kirby, David, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Epstein, Andrew, Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: A collection of dithyrambic poems that explore themes of identity through the lenses of family, history, and culture.
Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Quinlan_fsu_0071E_14509
Format: Thesis

Title: Black Nova.
Creator: Kineman, Kyle, Hamby, Barbara, Franklin, Russ, Kirby, David, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Black Nova is a collection of poems written before, during, and after the death of the poet's mother. Split into three sections, each section represents a construction of identity through the fictional and nonfictional, through superheroes and personal relationships. The first section, "The Skin I'm In or Baptist Fire," explores the costumes we wear in the past to make it to our present. The second section, "Fever Dream in Black," invokes Marvel's Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans, as a friend...
Show moreBlack Nova is a collection of poems written before, during, and after the death of the poet's mother. Split into three sections, each section represents a construction of identity through the fictional and nonfictional, through superheroes and personal relationships. The first section, "The Skin I'm In or Baptist Fire," explores the costumes we wear in the past to make it to our present. The second section, "Fever Dream in Black," invokes Marvel's Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans, as a friend and companion as well as a constant source of resentment, yet jealousy to explore who we think we would like to be. The final section, "Death is a Nova," confronts mortality and the complicated relationship we have with our conjured heroes, real or imaginary.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Kineman_fsu_0071N_14546
Format: Thesis

Title: Preliminaries for Winter.
Creator: Strait, Paul Zachariah Aragorn, Kimbrell, James, Bearor, Karen A., Kirby, David, Gontarski, S. E., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The dissertation manuscript Preliminaries for Winter is a collection of poems divided into four sections, beginning with those poems set during the morning hours, then those which take place in the afternoon and evening, night, and late night, respectively. The poems are also paired like butterfly wings, thematically and/or stylistically, for the reader, ideally, to encounter them side by side in the manuscript. The poems in the book are unified, and orbit around, the trauma of the heart,...
Show moreThe dissertation manuscript Preliminaries for Winter is a collection of poems divided into four sections, beginning with those poems set during the morning hours, then those which take place in the afternoon and evening, night, and late night, respectively. The poems are also paired like butterfly wings, thematically and/or stylistically, for the reader, ideally, to encounter them side by side in the manuscript. The poems in the book are unified, and orbit around, the trauma of the heart, whether it be the loss of a loved one or the knowledge of the speaker's mortality or a longing for the inaccessible past. Each poem is a continuation of the bloodline which began with the Imagist poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, and has been passed down to poets such as Ted Kooser and James Tate. They are also indebted to the Precisionist painters, particularly George Copeland Ault, as well as Edward Hopper. Through a combination of image and narrative, the speaker of each poem in the collection extends a hand of welcome, inviting the reader to share in her or her experience.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Fall_Strait_fsu_0071E_14845
Format: Thesis

Title: Two Guys with Guns Rob Me a Collection of Poetry.
Creator: Mathews, Ramsey Paul, Kirby, David, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Kimbrell, James, Gaines, Alisha, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The poems in this manuscript synthesize three locations in my experience. These locations embody some combination of geography, space, and time specific to the South (Georgia), Southern California, and my heart. The heart is ultimately the final location for poetry made and poetry read. The poems in this document are free verse with attention to enjambment, occasional internal rhyme, and anaphora. I especially enjoy alliteration as a musical technique to please my ear. My tendency is toward...
Show moreThe poems in this manuscript synthesize three locations in my experience. These locations embody some combination of geography, space, and time specific to the South (Georgia), Southern California, and my heart. The heart is ultimately the final location for poetry made and poetry read. The poems in this document are free verse with attention to enjambment, occasional internal rhyme, and anaphora. I especially enjoy alliteration as a musical technique to please my ear. My tendency is toward gluttony with such sounds, so in my final drafts I pare the alliterative apple and leave random glimpses of the beautiful red skin of repeated consonants and vowels. These poems contribute to my argument in support of myself.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Mathews_fsu_0071E_14547
Format: Thesis

Title: The Living Panic.
Creator: Akbar, Kaveh, Kimbrell, James, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: In A Year With Swollen Appendices, Brian Eno writes, "The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them." These poems are very interested in how they might achieve this effect on the page and on the tongue and in the ear. Their obsessions (embodiment, addiction, desire,...
Show moreIn A Year With Swollen Appendices, Brian Eno writes, "The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them." These poems are very interested in how they might achieve this effect on the page and on the tongue and in the ear. Their obsessions (embodiment, addiction, desire, family, language, identity, the divine) aren't new, and the questions they ask are uniformly unanswerable. Their mechanisms are orbital rather than linear, the language circling its about rather than pass directly through it. Roethke: "The serious problems of life are never fully solved, but some states can be resolved rhythmically." My first book was written during a time of intense quiet, of fairly monastic poem-writing. Consequentially, those poems themselves were noisy, breathless, supersaturated. As my life has gotten steadily busier and louder, I've found my poems becoming quieter and more interested in silence, not language, as the fundamental architectural element. This sort of absence-as-architecture is all around us—the utility of a chair isn't the seat, but the space just above it where I put my body—and I have become interested in thinking about poems the same way. How might language form the negative space around silence, instead of the other way around? The Living Panic is deeply invested in exploring that idea.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Fall_Akbar_fsu_0071E_14892
Format: Thesis

Title: The Role of Oxytocin: Social Exclusion and Suicidal Behavior.
Creator: Chu, Carol, Joiner, Thomas, Kirby, David, Hammock, Elizabeth Anne Dunn, Li, Wen, Cougle, Jesse R., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Background: Social exclusion is a robust correlate of suicidal ideation and behavior. However, there is little research examining the biological factors contributing to the link between social exclusion and suicide risk. Prior research has indicated that oxytocin, an important modulating neuropeptide in the regulation of social interactions, protects against the negative effects of social exclusion by motivating social behavior in excluded individuals. In non-psychiatric controls, oxytocin...
Show moreBackground: Social exclusion is a robust correlate of suicidal ideation and behavior. However, there is little research examining the biological factors contributing to the link between social exclusion and suicide risk. Prior research has indicated that oxytocin, an important modulating neuropeptide in the regulation of social interactions, protects against the negative effects of social exclusion by motivating social behavior in excluded individuals. In non-psychiatric controls, oxytocin levels and desires to affiliate with others increase in response to feelings of loneliness and social exclusion; however, in individuals with psychiatric disorders that are associated with serious suicide-related symptoms, oxytocin levels decrease in response to social exclusion. This suggests that dysregulated oxytocin functioning may be a correlate of suicidal behavior among socially excluded, at-risk individuals. However, crucially, no studies have examined this potential association. Aims: This study examined whether individuals with and without a history of suicide attempts differ in their oxytocin levels and desires to affiliate with others at baseline and following social exclusion. Methods: Young adults (N = 100) with and without prior attempts completed Cyberball, a computerized, social exclusion paradigm. Prior to and approximately 10 minutes after Cyberball, blood samples and levels of self-reported desires to affiliate with others, thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness were obtained. Data were analyzed using one-way MANOVAs and two-way mixed design ANCOVAs. Results: No group differences emerged at baseline. Although no main effects emerged, a significant group by time interaction effect emerged such that among suicide attempters, desires to affiliate and oxytocin levels significantly decreased following social exclusion. Among depressed and healthy controls, desires to affiliate and oxytocin levels increased following exclusion. There were no significant changes in thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness across groups following exclusion. Conclusions: Overall, our findings suggest that dysregulated oxytocin levels in response to social exclusion may be a correlate of suicide risk.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: 2018_Su_Chu_fsu_0071E_13706
Format: Thesis

Title: The Lubbock I Carry.
Creator: Collier, Jordan T. (Jordan Taylor), Kimbrell, James, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Stuckey-French, Ned, Kirby, David, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and...
Show moreCollier, Jordan T. (Jordan Taylor), Kimbrell, James, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Stuckey-French, Ned, Kirby, David, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: The poems in The Lubbock I Carry primarily operate according to traditional free-verse poetic convention, working to render, as a means of both illumination and interrogation, the emotional and physical landscapes of the past, how they not only inform but actually mold identity through language, cultural referents (and expectations), and terrain.
Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_2017SP_Collier_fsu_0071E_13777
Format: Thesis

Title: Moon Aorta Moon Ditch Moon.
Creator: Martin, Brandi Nicole, Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: These poems are written in a frantic high lyric tradition, though confessional narrative is also a main goal. Sections of a long poem, "MOON AORTA MOON DITCH MOON" are split up throughout the collection to organize the narrative of the speaker, Todd, and the men in the speaker's life post-Todd. "MOON AORTA MOON DITCH MOON" deals with the speaker's mother and father and with their marriage before his death, while also illustrating the trauma of the speaker's own car accident and her inherited...
Show moreThese poems are written in a frantic high lyric tradition, though confessional narrative is also a main goal. Sections of a long poem, "MOON AORTA MOON DITCH MOON" are split up throughout the collection to organize the narrative of the speaker, Todd, and the men in the speaker's life post-Todd. "MOON AORTA MOON DITCH MOON" deals with the speaker's mother and father and with their marriage before his death, while also illustrating the trauma of the speaker's own car accident and her inherited alcoholism. The sections of this poem are metanarrative and playful in nature, with an omniscient speaker, while in the rest of the book, the narrative of the speaker and Todd (and later, other men) is told firsthand, beginning in medias res with "If I Have Not Todd," where the speaker jubilantly recounts the mending of this relationship after a fight. This sequence of Todd poems places the unraveling of the speaker's psyche alongside the unravelling of the relationship. This narrative arc culminates in the long poem "Exit Music (for My Sweetheart the Cheater)" displaying not just the speaker's grief over the loss of Todd but also the old, deeply embedded psychological wounds which open up again once Todd is stripped away. This long poem is the climax of the manuscript, and here all things disassemble formally as well, as the poem is split into 15 experimental sections. Following this, the speaker continues to use other men to deal with her trauma, and as the sections of "MOON AORTA MOON DITCH MOON" also escalate, until resolution is reached. This manuscript conflates Todd with the speaker's father, it combines biblical allusions with popular music references, and it depicts the lush images of the American South while also describing the poet's first trip above the Mason-Dixon line. These lyric images observing the speaker's surroundings will be coupled with stark observations about the psychology of fear and abandonment. All of these contradictions are written to achieve a single goal, that of seeing a traumatized brain in its rawest, most vulnerable and resilient form.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_2017SP_Martin_fsu_0071N_13880
Format: Thesis

Title: Blood Vinyls.
Creator: Franklin, Yolanda F. (Yolanda Franklin), Kirby, David, Jones, Maxine Deloris, Montgomery, Maxine Lavon, McGregory, Jerrilyn, Hamby, Barbara, Florida State University, College of...
Show moreFranklin, Yolanda F. (Yolanda Franklin), Kirby, David, Jones, Maxine Deloris, Montgomery, Maxine Lavon, McGregory, Jerrilyn, Hamby, Barbara, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: Blood Vinyls investigates the definition of 'Memory in the blood,' or 'blood memory,' which is defined as one's ancestral or genetic connection to their language, songs, spirituality, and teachings" (Huang 6), as well as Toni Morrison's provocative term rememory. In her novel Beloved, Morrison defines rememory as a "picture floating" and a "thought picture" as a "rememory that belongs to somebody else can be bumped into"; Morrison's definition also asserts that this rememory exists in a space...
Show moreBlood Vinyls investigates the definition of 'Memory in the blood,' or 'blood memory,' which is defined as one's ancestral or genetic connection to their language, songs, spirituality, and teachings" (Huang 6), as well as Toni Morrison's provocative term rememory. In her novel Beloved, Morrison defines rememory as a "picture floating" and a "thought picture" as a "rememory that belongs to somebody else can be bumped into"; Morrison's definition also asserts that this rememory exists in a space "where [one] was before [they] came here" (43-4). I extend Morrison's definition through this manuscript by signifying upon these definitions as poetic manifestations in order to connect these blood memories to the playing of vinyl records—including the sounds made by vinyl record players as a way to elicit, invoke, interrogate and (re)create memories. Because of the multifunction of vinyl in this collection, it is my attempt to expand the parameters of how poets can use the craft of synesthesia. This need for this expansion is critical because Blood Vinyls connects synesthesia to the African American musical tradition call and response, but in this case, the speakers or singers in these poems are not only responded to or echoed by one or more voices/singers in the poems by people and characters closely intertwined in the poet's life, but these responders are also the readers of these poems—listeners who participate in this interaction. The first line of James Longenbach's The Art of the Poetic Line, "Poetry is the sound of language organized in lines" (xi) posits a key component of the definition of poetry that also supports the plausibility for my connections between poetry, music, and memory.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_2017SP_Franklin_fsu_0071E_13822
Format: Thesis

Title: Because Hialeah.
Creator: Roque, Laura, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Winegardner, Mark, Kirby, David, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Because Hialeah follows the life of Franca, a teenage Cuban-American girl growing up in Miami's Cuban exile community of Hialeah, Florida. Figuratively, Hialeah floats in the ocean, somewhere between the Caribbean its inhabitants came from, and where it's actually located. Hialeah's stores, supermarkets, and human beings are entirely in Spanish, and more specifically, in Cuban, and even American-born residents will not learn English until they start school. Franca navigates life tugged by...
Show moreBecause Hialeah follows the life of Franca, a teenage Cuban-American girl growing up in Miami's Cuban exile community of Hialeah, Florida. Figuratively, Hialeah floats in the ocean, somewhere between the Caribbean its inhabitants came from, and where it's actually located. Hialeah's stores, supermarkets, and human beings are entirely in Spanish, and more specifically, in Cuban, and even American-born residents will not learn English until they start school. Franca navigates life tugged by opposites, torn between the conservative worldview of her Cuban family and by Miami's risqué and greedy lifestyle, all the while grappling with the ghost of her murdered father, the image of the hyper-sexual, promiscuous Latina, and the expectation that all Latinas must be chaste and obedient, during four distinct experiences with love, the last being one that almost kills her.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_2017SP_Roque_fsu_0071N_13844
Format: Thesis

Title: Whirlwind into Heaven.
Creator: Stephens, Jaclyn Anne, Butler, Robert Olen, Contreras, Robert J. (Robert John), Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department...
Show moreStephens, Jaclyn Anne, Butler, Robert Olen, Contreras, Robert J. (Robert John), Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: Some saints have poverty. Others, the ill or indigent. Evelyn Ellenberger has herself. This novel deals with themes of asceticism and sainthood as the main character, Evelyn, experiences mystic visions of St. Catherine of Siena and tries to prove to her family and to herself that she, too, is destined for sainthood. As a young girl, Evelyn Ellenberger experiences a freak accident with a neighbor's bull. Though she miraculously survives the encounter, the incident leaves her permanently...
Show moreSome saints have poverty. Others, the ill or indigent. Evelyn Ellenberger has herself. This novel deals with themes of asceticism and sainthood as the main character, Evelyn, experiences mystic visions of St. Catherine of Siena and tries to prove to her family and to herself that she, too, is destined for sainthood. As a young girl, Evelyn Ellenberger experiences a freak accident with a neighbor's bull. Though she miraculously survives the encounter, the incident leaves her permanently scarred and inspired. Throughout her adolescence Evelyn is isolated and ostracized for a mysterious illness, which her psychiatrist father diagnoses as a case of Anorexia Mirabilis, a miraculous lack of appetite most commonly seen among medieval saints. Initially, her father is her only supporter until he tries to exploit his daughter's extreme asceticism for personal gain. Years later, Evelyn Ellenberger suspects that she is pregnant and risks her relationship with her husband to pursue her own veneration as the saint she believes she is destined to become. A semi-recovered and pregnant Evelyn returns to her childhood home just as Hurricane Sandy is about to hit. Convinced that her pregnancy is the second miracle needed for sainthood, Evelyn scours her father's home and office determined to prove her case for canonization. Over the course of the novel, the characters discover that no one is as pure and holy as they claim to be. At the height of the storm, Evelyn realizes that saints aren't extraordinary people but ordinary people who do extraordinary things and that all of us could be saints if you catch us in the right moment.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Stephens_fsu_0071E_13106
Format: Thesis

Title: Falsetto.
Creator: Stephens, Robert James, Kirby, David, Latham, Don, Hamby, Barbara, Faulk, Barry J., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Inundated by the blabber of talking heads, politicos, and advertisements? Ready to hear the voice of the Bard again? The speaker in the dissertation manuscript Falsetto asks the reader to turn down all the noise and trust him, a new prophet crying out in the desert (or crying out through your dessert, as it were). The speaker of these poems, then, steps into the tradition of poet-as-prophet, a tradition handed down from predecessors such as the Biblical writers, Edmund Spenser, William Blake,...
Show moreInundated by the blabber of talking heads, politicos, and advertisements? Ready to hear the voice of the Bard again? The speaker in the dissertation manuscript Falsetto asks the reader to turn down all the noise and trust him, a new prophet crying out in the desert (or crying out through your dessert, as it were). The speaker of these poems, then, steps into the tradition of poet-as-prophet, a tradition handed down from predecessors such as the Biblical writers, Edmund Spenser, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, and others, as he guides readers through his search for meaning in relationships, music, and religion. But even as this speaker assumes that role, the manuscript and poems call into question that role as evident by the dissertation title, Falsetto, a beautiful but fake voice both confident and aware of its own construct. Indeed, the speaker is confronted with falseness and constructions in his search for meaning – the false idols, the falseness of internet relationships, and religion so true and so constructed it must be false.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SU_Stephens_fsu_0071E_13427
Format: Thesis

Title: Fabulous.
Creator: Hodge, Anna Claire, Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Gomariz, José, Montgomery, Maxine Lavon, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: "Fabulous" is a creative dissertation that combines both lyric and narrative poetry to interrogate subjects such as race, class, gender, and the natural world. Poems are original work and most have appeared in notable literary journals.
Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Hodge_fsu_0071E_13224
Format: Thesis

Title: These Mouths.
Creator: Lewis, Paige Marie, Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Kirby, David, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The collection of poems, These Mouths, is an exploration of feminine identities and feminine experience. Many of the poems in this manuscript reference Catholic figures, myths, the speaker's struggles with their own faith and religious guilt. The poems often mix these religious themes with pop culture references. The Twilight Zone is the most referenced work of popular culture within this manuscript. The Twilight Zone poems provide voices to the women characters that lacked agency within the...
Show moreThe collection of poems, These Mouths, is an exploration of feminine identities and feminine experience. Many of the poems in this manuscript reference Catholic figures, myths, the speaker's struggles with their own faith and religious guilt. The poems often mix these religious themes with pop culture references. The Twilight Zone is the most referenced work of popular culture within this manuscript. The Twilight Zone poems provide voices to the women characters that lacked agency within the original television series, while also connecting the women's struggles to the ones women face in today's society. While many of the poems within this manuscript include a yearning for safety, salvation, and calm, the love poems within this manuscript are filled with a yearning for a distant other. The overarching obsessions and anxieties of the speakers within this manuscript are related to their attempts to discover their own identity in an androcentric society while being bombarded by, and trying to navigate, religious, social, and familial representations of women.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Lewis_fsu_0071N_13163
Format: Thesis

Title: Speak Universe.
Creator: Bouvier, Geoff, Kirby, David, Wingate, Mark, Hamby, Barbara, Epstein, Andrew, Stilling, Robert, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Since everything is a text, if only we can learn how to read it, the prose poems in the dissertation manuscript Speak Universe are about interpretations, or rather, reinterpretations, or better still, productive misinterpretations of the texts of life. As such, these poems take up an isolated but empathic lyrical stance that often interchanges the watcher for the watched, to explore a metaphysics of alternative logic and holistic perception, and observe an ethics of modern life that deals...
Show moreSince everything is a text, if only we can learn how to read it, the prose poems in the dissertation manuscript Speak Universe are about interpretations, or rather, reinterpretations, or better still, productive misinterpretations of the texts of life. As such, these poems take up an isolated but empathic lyrical stance that often interchanges the watcher for the watched, to explore a metaphysics of alternative logic and holistic perception, and observe an ethics of modern life that deals with appetites, waste, and privilege. The goal of this work is to use the imaginary to improve the real, and the yearning arises from the repeated theme of the uneasily socializing self within an undefined spiritual world. Hence the title of this manuscript, Speak Universe.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Bouvier_fsu_0071E_13047
Format: Thesis

Title: Gog.
Creator: George, Brandi Lee, Kirby, David, Amsler, Eva, Gontarski, S. E., Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The dissertation manuscript Gog chronicles my experiences as a Jehovah's Witness from a working-class family, investigating larger issues of poverty, religious persecution, and generational cycles of violence while also exploring the fraught relationship between art-making and religious belief in rural America. One of the main characters, Gog, as biblical harbinger of the apocalypse and symbol of religious fervor, antagonizes the speaker in dreams and visions.
Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_George_fsu_0071E_13031
Format: Thesis

Title: Of the Out of Style.
Creator: Hipsher, Jeff, Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Of the Out of Style takes its title from Jimi Hendrix's afrofuturist proto-prog rock masterpiece "1983…(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)." As a collection the poems, as Hendrix puts it in song, "take a last look / at the killing noise / of the out of style." That killing noise in both Hendrix's lyrics and hopefully these poems can be understood as white domestic, political, and poetic space. And as such, the poems attempt to address their own role in the demarking of that space. And so again...
Show moreOf the Out of Style takes its title from Jimi Hendrix's afrofuturist proto-prog rock masterpiece "1983…(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)." As a collection the poems, as Hendrix puts it in song, "take a last look / at the killing noise / of the out of style." That killing noise in both Hendrix's lyrics and hopefully these poems can be understood as white domestic, political, and poetic space. And as such, the poems attempt to address their own role in the demarking of that space. And so again like Hendrix the motifs of science fiction are employed to refuse, alter, or abandon those spaces all together. Informed greatly by Susan Sontag's writing on science fiction film, at times even quoting her directly, the poems adopt and co-opt the many tropes of the genre outlined in her essay "The Imagination of Disaster." However, throughout the collection science fiction is positioned as both a form of resistance literature and a proponent of white capitalist patriarchy. Subversive works by Mina Loy, Douglas Kearney, and Andrew Joron are cited just as canonical stories by HG Wells, HP Lovecraft, and Jules Verne are critiqued. This juxtaposition is key to the project of the manuscript as a whole, as it reflects the complex relationship between the white male speaker's love of an inherited canon, in both literary and popular culture, and the desire to resist it. This agitation is borne out in process, as most of the poems appropriate language from these various and often oppositional sources. Poets including the aforementioned as well as Sir Thomas Wyatt, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, Adrienne Su, Catherine Wagner, Wanda Coleman, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and Fred Moten appear alongside dialogue from Jack Kirby's first volumes of The Silver Surfer and The Eternals. Excerpts from the screenplays for Planet of the Apes (‘68), AKIRA, The Shinning, and Interstellar are also included as well as lyrics from The Eagles, Kanye West, Sam Cooke, Busta Rhymes, and the astroblack jazz of Sun Ra. This act of sampling is at once in conversation with the methods of production in both the literary avant-garde and the traditions of hip-hop, while also attempting to interrogate the role of appropriation, or theft, as well as the erasure of the other in the creation of white art. The title poem opens with a line from Ashbery's "The One Thing That Can Save America." Often cited as the poet commenting on the seemingly impenetrable and private nature of his more abstracted poems, the line "I know that I braid too much on my own / Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me" is used here instead to comment on the white perspective often privileged in contemporary poetry, indicting both Ashbery and the speaker of these poems. However I also view this act as one of salvage, as the poem goes on to steal from another great personal inspiration, the Californian punk band Bad Religion, who also failed to address issues of race or gender in their thirty year career as white male activist musicians. And so the poem both equates them with Hendrix's "killing noise / of the out of style," while appropriating their language to address it. In this way, through many of these poems, I attempt to reclaim genuinely admired yet undeniably problematic white art and put it in the service of dismantling the privileges from which it benefits. This range of sampled material helps to give the poems' form a texture reflective of the various tensions in the source texts by creating in their accumulation an array of polyvocal speakers struggling to reconcile their personal cultural interests, aesthetics, and politics with the paradoxically invisible yet ubiquitous and central position of their identity.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Hipsher_fsu_0071N_13157
Format: Thesis

Title: The Juniper Cure.
Creator: Boles, Adam, Kimbrell, James, Kirby, David, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This collection of poetry explores the intersections between devotion and loss, anger and guilt, grief and hope. While some poems are buttressed by straightforward narratives, others are more impressionistic. The poems strive for precision in language, simple musicality, and emotional resonance. This collection also attempts a wide lens, a focus which looks outside of the speakers' individual experience and interior emotionality, and toward the chaotic world in which a work like this is...
Show moreThis collection of poetry explores the intersections between devotion and loss, anger and guilt, grief and hope. While some poems are buttressed by straightforward narratives, others are more impressionistic. The poems strive for precision in language, simple musicality, and emotional resonance. This collection also attempts a wide lens, a focus which looks outside of the speakers' individual experience and interior emotionality, and toward the chaotic world in which a work like this is created. In developing my poetic stance, I've wrestled with Shelly's claim that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." On the other hand, Auden admonishes that "poetry makes nothing happen." There appears to be some middle ground between these sentiments, and I find my poetry exploring that mid-space. Studding the outskirts of the manuscript are poems about war and religion; environmental degradation and disaster; and the commonplace violence that is an ever increasing aspect of our country and world. The title poem in the collection, which serves as a centerpiece for the work, is a meditation on memory as it pertains to the dementia suffered by the speaker's father at the end of his life. This relationship reoccurs throughout the collection, and is the subject behind the emotional core of the thesis. More broadly, the notions of loss and endings permeate the other poems presented in the collection. The dissolution of relationships, and the guilt, regret, and anger that go along with these moments between people inform many of the manuscript's poems. Images and ideas that point to disruption and instability are centrally figured.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Boles_fsu_0071N_13256
Format: Thesis

Title: As if We Were Already Free.
Creator: Neary, Dyan, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Kirby, David, Roberts, Diane, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: As If We Were Already Free is a novel narrated in the first person by Mackenna Doyle, a 26-year old man in prison for murdering a high school classmate when he was sixteen, a crime of which he admits culpability at the outset of the novel. One of the inciting incidents that prompts Mackenna to begin telling this story is the disappearance of his best friend and love interest Eliza, who, until three months before the novel begins, has maintained consistent correspondence with him for ten years...
Show moreAs If We Were Already Free is a novel narrated in the first person by Mackenna Doyle, a 26-year old man in prison for murdering a high school classmate when he was sixteen, a crime of which he admits culpability at the outset of the novel. One of the inciting incidents that prompts Mackenna to begin telling this story is the disappearance of his best friend and love interest Eliza, who, until three months before the novel begins, has maintained consistent correspondence with him for ten years. Mackenna spends part of the first chapter, which functions as an extended prologue, trying to figure out why she has disappeared from his life so abruptly and without warning. Mackenna is an apotheosis of the "intellectual solitude" common to a minority of people who end up serving long sentences in the General Population of state penitentiaries. There are two timelines and two stories the narrator is telling concurrently: One is the present-day prison timeline, which sets the acute tension of the novel, and the other is the story of his life as a teenager in New York City in the nineties with his two best friends, misfit kids from Staten Island—the soft-spoken, perspicacious albino Colin, and the unfailingly altruistic Eliza. The novel encompasses both gritty realism and satire, interwoven with themes of poverty, injustice, and exiles.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Neary_fsu_0071N_12954
Format: Thesis

Title: Another Mona Bone Jakon.
Creator: Sturm, Nicholas, Kirby, David, Romanchuk, Robert, 1969-, Andrew, Berry, Ralph M. (Ralph Marion), Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The poems in the dissertation manuscript Another Mona Bone Jakon are the formal dispersal and performance of the masculine "I," a subject position these poems embody and pulp as a question necessary to a poetics of radical autobiographical practice. The question is: how is pleasure a form of critique? More specifically, what is a masculine pleasure that refuses to own, to only illuminate? How to write an embodied pleasure that affirms a necessarily difficult joy in consumption, whether...
Show moreThe poems in the dissertation manuscript Another Mona Bone Jakon are the formal dispersal and performance of the masculine "I," a subject position these poems embody and pulp as a question necessary to a poetics of radical autobiographical practice. The question is: how is pleasure a form of critique? More specifically, what is a masculine pleasure that refuses to own, to only illuminate? How to write an embodied pleasure that affirms a necessarily difficult joy in consumption, whether economic, political, sexual, institutional, or intellectual, while also acknowledging complicity with systematic violence and identification with the male face (and body) of our culture's various catastrophes? What is a refusal that maps and coalesces in what it refuses? As a book of intertextual long poems, Another Mona Bone Jakon aims to be an affective archive accumulated in encounter with these questions. A range of formal approaches and styles inform these poems, including modes of lyric narrative and framing complicated by artificiality and digression, radical appropriation/deep reference methods that unframe the space of the poem, experimental translation techniques that seduce portions of the avant-garde canon into contemporary cultural exchange, the inclusion of real and imagined correspondence, and the formation of a prosody textured by broad juxtapositions of tones and discourses.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Sturm_fsu_0071E_12887
Format: Thesis

Title: There Is a Guidebook in the Hands of the World Around You.
Creator: Blair, Paige M. (Paige Marie), Hamby, Barbara, Kirby, David, Epstein, Andrew, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: "There is a Guidebook in the Hands of the World Around You" is a collection of poems separated into three sections. The first section includes a long poem which makes the argument "All Art is Buddhist," the second section is a series of poems written for strangers in the Poems-On-Demand fashion, the third section is another long poem which explores traveling India. The book, as a whole, interrogates our Universal interconnectedness and by extension my family dynamics.
Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Blair_fsu_0071N_12861
Format: Thesis

Title: The Emperor of Shoes.
Creator: Wise, Spencer, Butler, Robert Olen, Kavka, Martin, Fleckenstein, Kristie S., Kirby, David, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The Emperor of Shoes follows a long tradition of 20th century Jewish-American writers--Bellow, Roth, Paley and Olsen, to name a few--addressing issues of work and commerce in America. My novel, however, carries this tradition into the 21st century to a shoe factory in Southern China. Soon after his father gives him ownership of the shoe factory, Alex Cohen is drawn into a web of Chinese people his own age trying to flex a freedom they don't quite have yet. There is an upheaval for the...
Show moreThe Emperor of Shoes follows a long tradition of 20th century Jewish-American writers--Bellow, Roth, Paley and Olsen, to name a few--addressing issues of work and commerce in America. My novel, however, carries this tradition into the 21st century to a shoe factory in Southern China. Soon after his father gives him ownership of the shoe factory, Alex Cohen is drawn into a web of Chinese people his own age trying to flex a freedom they don't quite have yet. There is an upheaval for the protagonist's identity as Alex attempts to locate his place in this world, either as the caretaker of his father's legacy and business or as a member of the nascent Chinese democratic movement. This reinvention of self is an essential feature of the fiction coming out of the Jewish diaspora.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9493
Format: Thesis

Title: The Paper Machine.
Creator: Moody, David Antonio, Kimbrell, James, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Kirby, David, Suarez, Virgil, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The Paper Machine is a collection of narrative and contemplative poems whose speakers explore the significance of domestic relationships that shape everyday life. Works in this series of poems engage rural and urban southern settings in which the traditional abuts the contemporary--sidewalks against crop fields, dance clubs beside pulp mills. Recurrent throughout the collection are inquiries into hunger, labor, family, and longing. Additionally, poems in this collection embrace poetic forms...
Show moreThe Paper Machine is a collection of narrative and contemplative poems whose speakers explore the significance of domestic relationships that shape everyday life. Works in this series of poems engage rural and urban southern settings in which the traditional abuts the contemporary--sidewalks against crop fields, dance clubs beside pulp mills. Recurrent throughout the collection are inquiries into hunger, labor, family, and longing. Additionally, poems in this collection embrace poetic forms as settings, not only in the sense of structured rooms inhabited by language but also as industrial--a set of operable controls to be tweaked and altered towards divergent results. Similarly, poems in The Paper Machine use found lines as fibers, exploring the potential of salvaged language to become composite components of other works through rearrangement and reuse. Poet and philosopher Georges Perec once pointed out the conceptual echoes between sheets of paper and bedroom sheets, that people use both spaces to define, record, and remake identity. In a similar thread, The Paper Machine enters into conversation with the places people occupy--geographic, psychosocial, economic and familial--in an effort to understand how bedrooms, landscapes, arts and the people who engage them retain and reconstruct the slurry of daily American culture.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9415
Format: Thesis

Title: The Loneliest Sea Monster and Other Curiosities Stories.
Creator: Allen, Kilby Larsen, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Joiner, Thomas, Roberts, Diane, Kirby, David, Crucet, Jennine Capó, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences,...
Show moreAllen, Kilby Larsen, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Joiner, Thomas, Roberts, Diane, Kirby, David, Crucet, Jennine Capó, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
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Abstract/Description: Collection of short stories.
Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9283
Format: Thesis

Title: Kid Detectives of Saint Boniface.
Creator: Hallal, William J. (William John Patrick), Winegardner, Mark, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Kirby, David, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: When he suspects his dad of cheating on his mom, seventh grade bookworm Terry Jenkins uses his powers of detection to learn the truth--but it may be more than he can handle. After going through the lower grades of Saint Boniface as "that weird kid who plays detective," Terry Jenkins is ready to become a normal seventh grader. Then two things happen: someone steals his favorite book of all time, and he discovers his dad might be having an affair with his teacher. With help from his mean older...
Show moreWhen he suspects his dad of cheating on his mom, seventh grade bookworm Terry Jenkins uses his powers of detection to learn the truth--but it may be more than he can handle. After going through the lower grades of Saint Boniface as "that weird kid who plays detective," Terry Jenkins is ready to become a normal seventh grader. Then two things happen: someone steals his favorite book of all time, and he discovers his dad might be having an affair with his teacher. With help from his mean older cousin, his rival-turned-friend Ashley, and a classmate claiming to be an alien, Terry sets off to find facts and crack the case. But the adult world turns out to be the toughest mystery he's ever faced.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9345
Format: Thesis

Title: Traitor, Traitor.
Creator: Kanke, Jennifer Schomburg, Kirby, David, Mazza, Nicholas, Faulk, Barry J., Hamby, Barbara, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Traitor, Traitor is a collection of poetry combining Celtic selkie myths with the Caribbean Nanny figure to construct a narrative about a widower living in the foothills of the Appalachians during the mid-20th Century. Grounded in the Romantic tradition, the poems explore the boundaries of personal power and the limits of the human will. However, unlike the traditional Romantics, this collection also seeks to explore issues of gender and socio-economic class to become a mystical poetry of...
Show moreTraitor, Traitor is a collection of poetry combining Celtic selkie myths with the Caribbean Nanny figure to construct a narrative about a widower living in the foothills of the Appalachians during the mid-20th Century. Grounded in the Romantic tradition, the poems explore the boundaries of personal power and the limits of the human will. However, unlike the traditional Romantics, this collection also seeks to explore issues of gender and socio-economic class to become a mystical poetry of witness.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9367
Format: Thesis

Title: Environmental Religion and the American Transcendentalist Legacy.
Creator: Dillard, Daniel C., Porterfield, Amanda, Kirby, David, Corrigan, John, McVicar, Michael J., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Religion
Abstract/Description: In the nineteenth century, American Transcendentalists and other environmental religionists redefined notions of religion, nature, and humanity as a creative and sometimes effective means to manage the various social, cultural, and intellectual crises of their age. They attempted this largely through their literary output, scientific undertakings, and political discourse - all of which served as strategies and tactics to compensate for areas where they found institutionalized religion to be...
Show moreIn the nineteenth century, American Transcendentalists and other environmental religionists redefined notions of religion, nature, and humanity as a creative and sometimes effective means to manage the various social, cultural, and intellectual crises of their age. They attempted this largely through their literary output, scientific undertakings, and political discourse - all of which served as strategies and tactics to compensate for areas where they found institutionalized religion to be lacking. The result - what I coin environmental religion - was a non-reductive ecological materialism that replaced the German idealism of American Transcendentalism's metaphysical forebears. Moreover, the environmental religion they fashioned provided the framework for today's radical environmentalists and other likeminded groups. This dissertation calls for a reconsideration of the disciplinary horizon of nature religion in North American history and culture. In support of this call, I analyze the historical underpinnings of what I term environmental religion by focusing on the first and second generation of American Transcendentalists. By environmental religion I refer to an integrated network of beliefs, practices, and lifestyles by which individuals and groups gave meaning to (or found meaning in) their lives by orienting themselves to nature - the physical planet as well as that perceived to be "natural" and therefore authentic, pristine, unmanufactured, unspoiled - which they believed to be of the highest value. This work therefore seeks to draw connections between aspects in America's religious history that have remained thus far unearthed. Defining environmental religion as I have done - by focusing on a reverent orientation to nature that conceives the "natural" to be of the highest value - provides for the study of a wide range of subjects, groups, and individuals who were nonetheless connected by a deferential and awe-inspired response to nature, the environment, and the material world. In short, by concentrating on what I call environmental religion, I provide a new perspective on American Transcendentalism. However, I also trace powerful and prevalent - yet largely unexamined - trends, themes, and movements coursing through American history and culture.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9324
Format: Thesis

Title: Smoking Behind the Register at the General Deli.
Creator: Carter, Maari, Hamby, Barbara, Kirby, David, Kimbrell, James, Montgomery, Maxine L., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The lives and landscapes that exist within these poems serve as catalysts for reflections upon issues related to personal familial conflict, the attempt to construct a pragmatic, moral structure while struggling with the influence of Southern Baptist ideology, and an epistemology reliant upon the blurring together of nostalgic narratives and first-hand experience. The problematic relationship between past and present permeates these poems, and an attention to musicality is my endeavor to tap...
Show moreThe lives and landscapes that exist within these poems serve as catalysts for reflections upon issues related to personal familial conflict, the attempt to construct a pragmatic, moral structure while struggling with the influence of Southern Baptist ideology, and an epistemology reliant upon the blurring together of nostalgic narratives and first-hand experience. The problematic relationship between past and present permeates these poems, and an attention to musicality is my endeavor to tap into a kind of Southern duende in an effort to reconcile a problematic, cultural history with a sense of devotion and loyalty to place. I aim to explore, as Lorca says, the "dark sounds" that live in the bottom register of language I grew up hearing. For this reason, musicality plays a crucial role. My goal is to emulate the vernacular and cadence of my home region of Mississippi. The manuscript, itself, contain three sections, each with its own theme. The purpose of this is to map the individual's progression of understanding or, in other words, how a person comes to know meaning at different times as a result of different influences.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9301
Format: Thesis

Title: Pestilence and Politics: A Global History of the Marseille Plague.
Creator: Ermus, Cindy, McMahon, Darrin M., Kirby, David, Blaufarb, Rafe, Davis, Frederick R., Grant, Jonathan, Department of History, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: From 1720 until 1722, the French region of Provence suffered an epidemic of plague, caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, that arrived from the Levant at the port of Marseille in May 1720. During this time, it may have claimed as many as 40,000 to 45,000 lives in Marseille alone - reportedly about half of the city's population. While effective quarantine efforts, both in France and abroad, successfully prevented the scourge from spreading beyond the region of Provence, effects of the plague...
Show moreFrom 1720 until 1722, the French region of Provence suffered an epidemic of plague, caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, that arrived from the Levant at the port of Marseille in May 1720. During this time, it may have claimed as many as 40,000 to 45,000 lives in Marseille alone - reportedly about half of the city's population. While effective quarantine efforts, both in France and abroad, successfully prevented the scourge from spreading beyond the region of Provence, effects of the plague nevertheless managed to manifest themselves beyond Gallic borders in many ways. This dissertation is a comparative, transnational study that uses the plague as a lens to explore the diplomatic and commercial interests, as well as the unique responses to biological threat, of three of the most important port cities in the eighteenth-century world, namely, Marseille, London, and Cádiz (which was the capital of the Carrera de Indias, or Route to the Indies). Following the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, these cities shared a deeply intertwined diplomatic relationship. Ramifications also extended to the major colonial centers with which these ports were most closely associated, both in the Americas and Asia. This study will argue that the 1720 Plague of Provence marked a major shift in Europe from local or municipal-level disaster management, toward more centralized methods for handling calamity. This represents an earlier example of the state-level approach to disaster management and prevention employed around the globe today. Moreover, the unique ways in which European states responded to the Peste of Provence and the Great European Plague Scare that ensued varied according to their diplomatic and commercial interests and objectives, and to the regions' unique historical context and political culture leading up to the outbreak in 1720. This unique study explores the intersection of commerce, diplomacy, and disease by offering a transnational look at both the plague itself, and eighteenth-century port cities and diplomacy. It reveals the interconnectedness of the early modern world, and highlights biological disasters as major historical forces. In this way, it emphasizes the importance of tracing the ramifications of historical disasters across national and regional boundaries. Fundamentally, the present study provides the reader with a greater understanding of the complex network of forces that have influenced disaster management in the past, and continue to shape such high-level decision making to this day.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8773
Format: Thesis

Title: Else.
Creator: Goch, Bethany, Kirby, David, Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The poems in Else are lyric explorations of paradox. Specifically, they meditate on the idea that what gives comfort also has the potential to cause great harm. The central focus of the collection is a troubled relationship, but regional history, religion, and personal narrative are also important subjects.
Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8790
Format: Thesis

Title: A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth Century New Orleans.
Creator: Clark, Emily Suzanne, Corrigan, John, Kirby, David, Porterfield, Amanda, Kavka, Martin, McVicar, Michael, Department of Religion, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This study focuses on the practice of Spiritualism among a group of Afro-creole men from 1858 until 1877 in New Orleans. It contends that Spiritualism was the process in which these Afro-creoles envisioned the proper social, political, and religious ordering of the material world. Communicating with the world of the wise spirits offered the Cercle Harmonique a forum for airing their political grievances and for imagining a more egalitarian world. Many of their messages focused on what the...
Show moreThis study focuses on the practice of Spiritualism among a group of Afro-creole men from 1858 until 1877 in New Orleans. It contends that Spiritualism was the process in which these Afro-creoles envisioned the proper social, political, and religious ordering of the material world. Communicating with the world of the wise spirits offered the Cercle Harmonique a forum for airing their political grievances and for imagining a more egalitarian world. Many of their messages focused on what the spirits called "the Idea," a concept which meant humanitarian progress, equality, egalitarianism, brotherhood, and harmony. Championing the Idea, Spiritualism mediated the social and political changes experienced by Afro-creoles in the late antebellum and post-Civil War world. The messages the Cercle Harmonique received from the spirit world--and the spirits who sent them--mediated the changes to the New Orleans social, political, religious, and cultural climate. From a close reading of their séance records and noting the spiritual network into which they placed themselves, this study maps the Afro-creoles' social, political, racial, and religious goals. Concurrently, the project also illuminates how the Cercle Harmonique understood New Orleanian and American society and politics and the hierarchical Catholic institution to be limiting humanity's progress. Tyrannical leaders, corrupt power, and white supremacy worked against the Idea. However, through their séances the Cercle Harmonique connected with an idealized society, and while that idealized society existed apart from the Spiritualists, their communication provided the Afro-creoles with republican ideology to combat politically destructive forces on earth.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8758
Format: Thesis

Title: Inscriptions.
Creator: Blais, Craig, Kirby, David, Jolles, Adam, Epstein, Andrew, Hamby, Barbara, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Inscriptions is a collection of poems inspired, in part, by the twenty-four poem opening section of Walt Whitman's 1892 "Death-bed" edition of Leaves of Grass, entitled "Inscriptions." The poems of direct address in the first section appropriate and reimagine the traditional inscriptive poetic mode in a series of "For..." poems. In the second section, the "Jalopy Sonnets" explore the physical practice out of which the inscriptive mode emerged--particularly its modern day incarnation of...
Show moreInscriptions is a collection of poems inspired, in part, by the twenty-four poem opening section of Walt Whitman's 1892 "Death-bed" edition of Leaves of Grass, entitled "Inscriptions." The poems of direct address in the first section appropriate and reimagine the traditional inscriptive poetic mode in a series of "For..." poems. In the second section, the "Jalopy Sonnets" explore the physical practice out of which the inscriptive mode emerged--particularly its modern day incarnation of signage and advertising--through the incorporation of found language from various public sources. The third section inscribes place, real and imagined, physical and dream-state, unified by place names and GPS coordinates. Throughout, the poems share an "avant-pop" aesthetic that values both experimentation and accessibility equally.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8733
Format: Thesis

Title: Ten-Headed Ecstasies.
Creator: Vyas, Avni, Kirby, David, Erndl, Kathleen, Epstein, Andrew, Neal, Michael, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Abstract The poems in this series seek to relocate Valmiki's Hindu epic The Ramayana to a contemporary, American voice. The confessional tone and the focus on Sita as a primary character seeks to marry the speaker to the epic, to personalize and universalize the transcendent, ages-old story. In a simultaneously productive and destructive vein, reinventing Sita becomes imperative for the primary speaker. She written into her scenery as well as psychology, wondering what has been learned in the...
Show moreAbstract The poems in this series seek to relocate Valmiki's Hindu epic The Ramayana to a contemporary, American voice. The confessional tone and the focus on Sita as a primary character seeks to marry the speaker to the epic, to personalize and universalize the transcendent, ages-old story. In a simultaneously productive and destructive vein, reinventing Sita becomes imperative for the primary speaker. She written into her scenery as well as psychology, wondering what has been learned in the years since Sita was swallowed up by the earthÍ¾ and instead of Indra's bow, our speaker is manhandling a hand-me-down acoustic guitar. The dreams here are palpable: how does one grow out of the earth, into a mountain, along the lip of a heaven-hell, and then return to the earth? What are the metaphorical implications for a new generation of American female poets, for Sita, and for our speaker? These poems seek to explore these questions, but not fully resolve them.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9111
Format: Thesis

Title: Astronaut.
Creator: Salutsky, Ron Paul, Belieu, Erin C., Gomariz, Jose, Hamby, Barbara, Kimbrell, James, Kirby, David, Roberts, Diane, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Astronaut is a collection of poems centered in the Florida Panhandle. Part trauma narrative, part ecocritical treatise, Astronaut continues the project of its author's first book, Romeo Bones, in attempting to give speech to the silenced.
Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8882
Format: Thesis

Title: Dreaming of a Hillbilly Heaven: Religion, Emotion, and American Country Music, 1925-1954.
Creator: Ware, Adam, Corrigan, John, Kirby, David, Porterfield, Amanda, McVicar, Michael J., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Religion
Abstract/Description: The book examines the roles Protestant affective norms played the commercial development of the American country music industry. From the 1925 birth of the Grand Ole Opry and Ralph Peer's 1927 "discovery" of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family in Bristol, country music emerged from the "hillbilly" culture of the Cumberland Gap and gained nationwide credibility through efforts by promoters to combat concerns of emotive and sonic disorder and recklessness. They presented their performers,...
Show moreThe book examines the roles Protestant affective norms played the commercial development of the American country music industry. From the 1925 birth of the Grand Ole Opry and Ralph Peer's 1927 "discovery" of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family in Bristol, country music emerged from the "hillbilly" culture of the Cumberland Gap and gained nationwide credibility through efforts by promoters to combat concerns of emotive and sonic disorder and recklessness. They presented their performers, programs, and songs as utterly congruous with what they imagined to be a cultural standard of inoffensive religious feeling, sourced from and complicit in Protestant values. In Rodgers and the Carters, subsequent industry players embraced an affective discourse centered on the mortal threats of sin and the positive feelings associated transcendence. The mastery of this discourse contributed directly to the industrial standardization of country music's norms. Throughout the Depression and Postwar eras, producers and songwriters adopted a language of "good-naturedness," shorthand for a religious predisposition toward depression and its cessation, in a bid to sell records and increase exposure. This emergent para-Protestant affective-industrial complex contributed directly to country music's habitation in Nashville, now known worldwide both for Protestant governance and country music culture. It framed the successes of crossover stars like Roy Acuff and Claude Ely while complicating the careers of legends like Hank Williams. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum demonstrates the ways this affective discourse continues to influence the memory and business of American country music.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9264
Format: Thesis

Title: Peripheral Neural Sprouting Contributes to Endo-Induced Vaginal Hyperalgesia in a Rat Model of Endometriosis.
Creator: Mcallister, Stacy L., Hyson, Richard L., Kirby, David, Berkley, Karen J., Gerend, Mary A. (Mary Ann), Johnson, Andrew, Kabbaj, Mohamed, Florida State University, College of Arts...
Show moreMcallister, Stacy L., Hyson, Richard L., Kirby, David, Berkley, Karen J., Gerend, Mary A. (Mary Ann), Johnson, Andrew, Kabbaj, Mohamed, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
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Abstract/Description: ABSTRACT Endometriosis, defined by ectopic growths of uterine tissue, is considered an enigma because it is unknown how or even if these abnormal growths contribute to the painful conditions including dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and chronic pelvic pain that often accompany the disease. Many clinicians and biomedical scientists assume that the amount of ectopic growth (cysts) predicts the presence or severity of pain symptoms, even though considerable evidence suggests that this assumption is...
Show moreABSTRACT Endometriosis, defined by ectopic growths of uterine tissue, is considered an enigma because it is unknown how or even if these abnormal growths contribute to the painful conditions including dysmenorrhea, dyspareunia, and chronic pelvic pain that often accompany the disease. Many clinicians and biomedical scientists assume that the amount of ectopic growth (cysts) predicts the presence or severity of pain symptoms, even though considerable evidence suggests that this assumption is unwarranted. Studies from our laboratory using a rat model of surgically-induced endometriosis (ENDO) demonstrated for the first time that the cysts develop a sensory and sympathetic nerve supply. This discovery gave rise to the hypothesis that this newly-sprouted innervation of the cysts is a significant contributor to the development (i.e., generation) and maintenance of painful symptoms. One of these common symptoms, studied here, is vaginal hyperalgesia (often called dyspareunia in women). The purpose of this dissertation was to use a combination of immunohistochemical, physiological, and behavioral methods to test various aspects of this hypothesis. In the first study, the developmental time course of cyst innervation (sensory and sympathetic) and ENDO-induced vaginal hyperalgesia was examined over a 10 week period post-ENDO. It was found that rudimentary innervation appears within the cysts at 2 weeks post-ENDO, and becomes active at 3 weeks post-ENDO. Between 4 and 5 weeks post-ENDO, vaginal hyperalgesia becomes significant, but is highly variable as the innervation increases and approaches maturity. By 8 to 10 weeks post-ENDO the cyst innervation and hyperalgesia have both matured completely, plateaued and stabilized. Based on these findings, the developmental timeline was divided into three phases: INITIAL (1-2 weeks post-ENDO), TRANSITIONAL (4-6 weeks post-ENDO), and ESTABLISHED (8-10 weeks post-ENDO). In each phase, characteristics of the cyst innervation and vaginal hyperalgesia were found to be as follows: INITIAL, no innervation and no vaginal hyperalgesia; TRANSITIONAL, immature but active innervation and significant but highly variable hyperalgesia; ESTABLISHED, mature innervation and stabilized hyperalgesia both of which varied with the estrous cycle. Then, in each of the three phases, the contribution of the cysts (and their innervation) to ENDO-induced vaginal hyperalgesia was tested, by removing the cysts and assessing the effect on the development and maintenance of the vaginal hyperalgesia. In the TRANSITIONAL phase, the relationship between the severity of ENDO-induced vaginal hyperalgesia and the innervation of the cysts, eutopic uterus, and vaginal canal was also assessed. The effect of cyst removal on ENDO-induced vaginal hyperalgesia in the INITIAL phase prevented the development of vaginal hyperalgesia. In the TRANSITIONAL phase, cyst removal did not significantly alleviate the vaginal hyperalgesia developed prior to cyst-removal, but, prevented its future development. In the ESTABLISHED phase, cyst removal completely alleviated the vaginal hyperalgesia. Further, in the TRANSITIONAL phase, innervation of the cysts (sensory and sympathetic) and innervation of the vaginal canal (sympathetic only) significantly correlated with severity of ENDO-induced vaginal hyperalgesia. Overall, results from these studies strongly support the general hypothesis that the innervation of the cysts contributes to ENDO-induced vaginal hyperalgesia. Specifically, the cyst innervation likely contributes to the development, severity, and maintenance of ENDO-vaginal hyperalgesia. Importantly however, the varying effects of cyst removal suggest that mechanisms by which the innervation operates to contribute to the vaginal hyperalgesia change during its progression through the three phases from peripheral sensitization to peripherally-independent then peripherally-dependent, hormonally-modulated central sensitization. Thus changes, which emerge most clearly in the TRANSITIONAL phase, could help explain the poorly-understood, clinically-challenging issue on how pain transitions from an acute to a chronic problem, not only in endometriosis but also in other chronic pain conditions.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9215
Format: Thesis

Title: All the Devils.
Creator: Mink, Chris, Belieu, Erin, Kavka, Martin, Kirby, David, Kimbrell, James, Roberts, Diane, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This manuscript is a collection of poems that relies in part on an unavoidable lineage of Southern poetics, while simultaneously asserting a divergence from that poetic and reimagining how reconciliations with that lineage may be reached. Likewise, the personalities and voices within each poem play a contributing role in the flawed specter of place and event. In exchange for their confession and self-implication of deeds, fantasies, and fears, they seek a kind of pride not found in the simple...
Show moreThis manuscript is a collection of poems that relies in part on an unavoidable lineage of Southern poetics, while simultaneously asserting a divergence from that poetic and reimagining how reconciliations with that lineage may be reached. Likewise, the personalities and voices within each poem play a contributing role in the flawed specter of place and event. In exchange for their confession and self-implication of deeds, fantasies, and fears, they seek a kind of pride not found in the simple narratives of redemption.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9218
Format: Thesis

Title: Dispatches from the Sex Doll Factory.
Creator: Novak, Jess, Kimbrell, James, Faulk, Barry, Belieu, Erin, Kirby, David, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The poems in Dispatches from the Sex Doll Factory form a disjointed narrative, one that explores the displaced speaker's negotiation of the world around him. While the story is largely set in the Realdoll factory of San Marcos, California, the account is written in a matrix of histories, feminisms, pop culture, interpersonal ties, substance abuse, and intertextual tensions. The story of Pygmalion, which has been reinterpreted by generation after generation, finds new life in this telling:...
Show moreThe poems in Dispatches from the Sex Doll Factory form a disjointed narrative, one that explores the displaced speaker's negotiation of the world around him. While the story is largely set in the Realdoll factory of San Marcos, California, the account is written in a matrix of histories, feminisms, pop culture, interpersonal ties, substance abuse, and intertextual tensions. The story of Pygmalion, which has been reinterpreted by generation after generation, finds new life in this telling: these poems attempt to address why the story of the inert female form continues to fascinates us, and asks how women might claim its power. Repeatedly, the speaker attempts to address the object of desire that we seek in the Other. Zizek describes this, Lacan's "objet petit a," as "a hole at the center of the symbolic order, the mere appearance of some secret to be explained, interpreted." Here, both the speaker's love interest and the dolls act as unattainable objects of desire, replacing reality with simulacra. This collection speaks towards perceived shifts and changes in culture: disposability, a depressed economy, a fortunate increase in gender and sexual fluidity, and a major shift in our methods and means of communication due to contemporary digital technologies. Although the work relies upon the carnivalesque for its torque and forward motion, it is kept grounded in what is deeply felt by both the speaker and author.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8367
Format: Thesis

Title: Beer League Outros.
Creator: Barach, Michael, Belieu, Erin, Kavka, Martin, Kirby, David, Spiller, Elizabeth, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The dissertation manuscript Beer League Outros is, among other things, an investigation of contemporary masculinity. Roused by uncertainty regarding gender roles in post-modernity, the poems elegize via arranging male attributes into a mosaic, a virtual roster of mannish longings and foibles. Transcendental philosophy, Jewish mysticism, and inquiry into creative processes are spigots, as well, which feed the poems, and which immerse and pacify the male ego. Formally, the poems range from free...
Show moreThe dissertation manuscript Beer League Outros is, among other things, an investigation of contemporary masculinity. Roused by uncertainty regarding gender roles in post-modernity, the poems elegize via arranging male attributes into a mosaic, a virtual roster of mannish longings and foibles. Transcendental philosophy, Jewish mysticism, and inquiry into creative processes are spigots, as well, which feed the poems, and which immerse and pacify the male ego. Formally, the poems range from free verse to metrical verse; however, an ambition of each is to perform between the spinning ropes of story and song.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-8121
Format: Thesis

Title: The Crow Child.
Creator: Evans, Kerry James, Kimbrell, James, Belieu, Erin, Kirby, David, Roberts, Diane, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The Crow Child is a collection of lyric-narrative poems whose speakers investigate their ability to love, while exploring the complexities of various landscapes. Many of the poems take place in impoverished, rural, southern settings, where the speaker questions the myths and stories passed down to him, but poems also incorporate settings such as the Gulf of Mexico, Gary, Indiana, and Washington, D.C. While the settings may change with each poem, each speaker searches for an individual truth....
Show moreThe Crow Child is a collection of lyric-narrative poems whose speakers investigate their ability to love, while exploring the complexities of various landscapes. Many of the poems take place in impoverished, rural, southern settings, where the speaker questions the myths and stories passed down to him, but poems also incorporate settings such as the Gulf of Mexico, Gary, Indiana, and Washington, D.C. While the settings may change with each poem, each speaker searches for an individual truth. A collage of experiences and varying forms work to establish a yearning for connection between the speakers and their environments.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7789
Format: Thesis

Title: In the Crumbling Blacksmith Shop of My Father's Ear.
Creator: Lapinsky, Steve, Kirby, David, Coldiron, Anne, Suárez, Virgil, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: "In the Crumbling Blacksmith Shop of My Father's Ear" is a collection of poems dealing with loss and hope. Detroit is the backdrop for many of the poems in the first half of the book, however the second half focuses on family and relationships.
Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7876
Format: Thesis

Title: Land of the Free.
Creator: Cortese, Catherine Nicolle, Winegardner, Mark, Jumonville, Neil, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Kirby, David, Baggott, Julianna, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation novel is the result of a longstanding desire by the author to fictionalize an incident firmly embedded in her family lore concerning the immigration of her grandmother's parents to America, the tragic death of her great aunt in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, and a forced marriage between a young Italian girl (the author's great-grandmother) and her sister's widower (the author's great-grandfather). While the story at the heart of the novel's conflict arises from a true...
Show moreThis dissertation novel is the result of a longstanding desire by the author to fictionalize an incident firmly embedded in her family lore concerning the immigration of her grandmother's parents to America, the tragic death of her great aunt in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, and a forced marriage between a young Italian girl (the author's great-grandmother) and her sister's widower (the author's great-grandfather). While the story at the heart of the novel's conflict arises from a true incident known to few, many of the book's movements, subplots, and events align with historical occurrences woven prominently into the nation's history, including the advent of World War I, the many millions of people felled by the Spanish Flu, the progression of the women's suffrage movement and eventual passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, and the stranger-than-fiction Great Molasses Flood of 1919, which killed 21 people and injured 150 when a storage tank at the Purity Distilling Company in the North End of Boston collapsed. The novel sets itself the task of imaginatively reconceiving of the above events, while liberating the characters, settings, and situations from the context in which they originally occurred. The plot ultimately focuses on the story of two lovers, Carina Tavola and the man who becomes her brother-in-law, Giuseppe Copetti. While the book is based around one traumatic incident in the archives of the author's family history, the novel as a whole has the goal of representing with as much emotional accuracy as possible the hopes, struggles, fears, and achievements of the brave immigrants who helped shape this country into a world power in the early years of the twentieth century.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-7761
Format: Thesis

English literature (80)	+ -
English language (32)	+ -
America (11)	+ -
Composition (Language arts) (11)	+ -
Literatures (11)	+ -

Literature (7)	+ -
Arts (6)	+ -
Creative writing (4)	+ -
Humanities (3)	+ -
Neurosciences (3)	+ -
Religion (3)	+ -
American literature (2)	+ -
History (2)	+ -
Literature, Modern (2)	+ -
Psychology (2)	+ -
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