Here I have essays that I have either published or presented at conferences. Unfortunately, my MA thesis isn’t published online yet.
WORK 01
“You Must Be an Android”: The Persistence of Humanist Hierarchies in Posthumanist Science Fiction
Masters of Arts thesis submitted to the Bridgewater State University College of Graduate Studies in 2021.
Abstract: This thesis examines science fiction dystopias in which the vestiges of humanist philosophy taint the construction of posthuman subjects. With a grounding in the tenets of both humanist and posthumanist philosophy, I analyze eight works of science fiction that depict artificial intelligence, cyborgs, and body swapping to determine the common critiques made. The source of the troubling aspects of these imagined futures doesn’t derive strictly from the presence of advanced, posthumanist technologies. Instead, the authors shine a light on the monstrosity that results when technological posthumanism comes to fruition while their imagined future societies remain grounded in humanist hierarchies, including that of class, gender, and race.
WORK 02
Two Unattainable Ideals: Beneatha’s Struggle for Identity in A Raisin in the Sun
Published in Volume 14 of Bridgewater State University’s Undergraduate Review. This essay has been downloaded over 14,000 times since it was published online.
Abstract: The late 1950’s were a time for revolution in African American history as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum and grasped the attention of the public. During the fight for African American equality, Lorraine Hansberry published the critically acclaimed play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), a story of an urban black American family and their attempts to improve the trajectory of their future using a $10,000 check paid upon the death of their patriarch, Big Walter. Beneatha Younger, a twenty-year-old medical student and the daughter of the deceased, gives a voice to a fledgling generation of aspirational black Americans. Beneatha provides audiences insight into a shared experience of African Americans grappling with cultural identity through her interactions with two suitors, George Murchison and Joseph Asagai. Through Hansberry’s juxtaposition of George as a symbol of assimilation and Asagai of Afrocentrism, she demonstrates the vexing African American struggle to find a distinct identity in one of two unattainable extremes.
WORK 03
“I’m Not Like Other Girls:” Internalized Misogyny and Children’s Literature
This essay was presented at Bridgewater State University’s annual Student Arts and Research Symposium (StARS), which serves as a showcase of outstanding student research, scholarship, and creative work.
Abstract: This paper examines the internalized misogyny that appears in juvenile literature and media, with Jim Benton’s bestselling children’s series Dear Dumb Diary featured as a primary example. Internalized misogyny takes many forms both in literature and in real life, including self-objectification, minimizing the value of the self or other women, distrusting women, or competing with other women for perceived limited resources. In children’s literature, the latter is emphasized, with girls often portrayed as catty and manipulative even in their friendships with other girls. In the Dear Dumb Diary series in particular, the protagonist spends much of her energy antagonizing the female characters around her for no real reason. This portrayal of a deeply unhealthy way to perceive other women has potential to impact the way young female readers behave and think in their own lives, as childhood serves as a crucial time in a person’s gender role conditioning. There have been a number of studies conducted in the psychology and social science fields regarding self-objectification and internalized sexism, but rarely have these concepts been applied to literature and media in scholarship. I assert that though young girls internalize sexism from a number of sources, seeing a representation of another girl who has internalized misogyny is a uniquely potent and impactful way for a child to learn sexist behaviors and habits.
WORK 04
A Literary Experiment: How Old Grannis, Miss Baker, and the Dogs Express Naturalism in Frank Norris’s McTeague
Presented at the Intercollegiate Undergraduate Literary Conference at UMass Boston in Spring 2019.
Abstract: This paper analyzes Frank Norris’s 1899 novel McTeague, specifically comparing the character pairs of Old Grannis and Miss Baker to the fighting Irish setter and border collie. These pairs foil one another, with both having a thin partition separating their instinctual desires. What differs is that Old Grannis and Miss Baker are an aging pair who have mutual romantic feelings for each other despite the wall that separates their apartments, while the pair of dogs snarl and fight with each other through the fence that separates their yards. A common reading of the Grannis-Baker subplot, exemplified by Donna M. Campbell’s “Frank Norris’ ‘Drama of a Broken Teacup’: The Old Grannis—Miss Baker Plot in McTeague,” is that they are a deviation from naturalism because of their lighthearted plotline, and they they instead represent local color. I argue against this reading, instead arguing that the foiling of Grannis-Baker and the dogs is used to show the diversity of experience and emotion that can exist within the realm of a naturalist text, which contrasts the notion that naturalism is inherently dark and defeatist. I argue that the determinism inherent within naturalism does not equate to unhappy endings. Instead, determinism sets an inevitable ending, but characters are still capable of diversity within this structure.
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