Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis creates an adaptation of act five, scene three of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus that reshapes the play by focusing on female empowerment through the character Lavinia. Specifically, by using other Shakespearean characters' dialogue that can speak towards her situation, I have written a monologue and stage directions for Lavinia. The same patriarchal… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This case study's fan fiction and its subsequent non-RPF romance novel version reveal a complex blend of the fan fiction, romance novel, intimatopia, pornography, slash fan fiction, Real Person Fan Fiction, and Men's Hockey Real Person Fan Fiction genres and subgenres. Intimatopia's ideological framework provides a specific method for the romance novel's reordering of… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Majer, Tyler, Thesis advisor (ths): Brown, Stephen, Degree committee member (dgc): Epp, Michael, Degree committee member (dgc): Hodges, Hugh, Degree committee member (dgc): Loeb, Andrew, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis presents a critical history of stand-up comedy alongside rhetorical analyses of specific stand-up routines and performances to argue for stand-up's efficacy as a therapeutic artform. Through analysis of the history, function, and content of satire, this thesis presents stand-up comedy as an artform utilized for more than just simple laughter. Stand-up comedy, as a form… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Through an exploration of shared stories, hauntings and the sea, this study outlines the idea that an ideological shift is a necessary first step to address the impact of colonialism in the publishing industry. This thesis draws sustained attention to the ways in which colonialism has an inextricable material effect on the publishing industry, and focuses on the myriad ways this past… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis argues that Canada, as it is regarded by the Canadian citizenry, exists as a collection of public-facing narratives within a collectively imagined national mythos. This mythos, as it stands in 2022, is an accumulation of layers of narratives built on the foundation of former British imperial myths honed by bourgeois ideologies and ideals into a uniquely 'Canadian'… more
Year: 2023, 2023
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Games, and especially video games are fast becoming the most pervasive media form, and live streaming games is fast becoming the most pervasive way of experiencing those games. This thesis looks at the history of broadcast, the practices of technological hobbyists, the social and technological aspect of games, gaming communities that transform game narratives, and gaming communities that… more
Year: 2022, 2022
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis creates an adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest that reshapes the play through a focus on queer identities. Specifically, through setting the play at a Drag club and changing the characters accordingly a nuanced view of how gender roles shape the interactions we have with ourselves, our society, and our environment. The chapters that proceed the adaptation… more
Year: 2022, 2022
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Perkins, Sarah Rachel, Thesis advisor (ths): McGuire, Kelly, Thesis advisor (ths): Eddy, Charmaine, Degree committee member (dgc): Principe, Concetta, Degree committee member (dgc): Bhanji, Nael, Degree committee member (dgc): Nichols, Naomi, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis considers the fanfiction genres of slash-fiction, and Alpha/Beta/Omega fiction through an analysis of fandom's embedded gift economy structures. Previous research on fanfiction and fandom structures have often characterized the gift economy nature of these spaces as countercultural and as separate from the frequent exploitation inherent in economic-based systems. There… more
Year: 2022, 2022
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Pfeiffer, Elisabeth Rose, Thesis advisor (ths): Popham, Elizabeth, Degree committee member (dgc): Baetz, Joel, Degree committee member (dgc): Eddy, Charmaine, Degree committee member (dgc): Bailey, Suzanne, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis examines how co-creators Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro's 2014 graphic work, Bitch Planet, is in all conceivable ways a seminal and prescient example of — to use their term — "non-compliance" in the comics form and industry. From its inception as a feminist dystopia, written by a white woman and illustrated by a Black man, in an industry that is… more
Year: 2022, 2022
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Rankin, Cynthia Mary, Thesis advisor (ths): Steffler, Margaret, Degree committee member (dgc): Steffler, Margaret, Degree committee member (dgc): Bailey, Suzanne, Degree committee member (dgc): Nichols, Naomi, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, print death notices have increased in number, length, and deviations, often as the only form of public recognition for the deceased. This thesis provides close readings through feminist and anti-ageist lenses of ninety print death notices, published in The Peterborough Examiner and Peterborough This Week between October 2019 and October 2021. These… more
Year: 2021, 2021
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Two dominant narratives emerging throughout the war were the national narrative––that is, the narrative of the war as articulated by the British nation via texts such as political speeches, recruitment posters, and popular music–– and the poetic narrative––that is, the narrative of the war emerging from poets, specifically battlefront poets for the sake of this thesis. One hundred years… more
Year: 2021, 2021
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis proposes that Benjamin Britten's 'Peter Grimes' leads its audience toward actively constructing an attitude toward its maskless protagonist. Grimes's tragedy results from the social construction of his character from ambiguous and unseen actions. Utilizing the theories of Hannah Arendt and Carl Jung, this thesis proposes that Grimes may have resisted… more
Year: 2021, 2021
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Dugas, Alexandre, Thesis advisor (ths): Findon, Joanne, Degree committee member (dgc): Polito, Mary, Degree committee member (dgc): Bode, Rita, Degree committee member (dgc): Bailey, Suzanne, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>Artistic expressions such as writing, theatrical productions, music, and film arguably contribute to a culture's representation of itself to the outside world. Most cultures have been either read or misread through their artistic outputs over the course of history, although the Irish culture stands as a particularly misunderstood one. Through years of colonization and rebel warfare… more
Year: 2020, 2020
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>My analysis of twentieth century Mars science and fiction outlines how the ongoing dialogic between Mars science and fiction publics influences the American frontier dialectic and how Mars serves as the arena where this debate comes to life. It examines connections between myth, science, and fiction by tracing the evolution of historical and literary representations of the American… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis examines the work of queer women who author graphic autobiographical texts. Alison Bechdel, Sarah Leavitt, and Elizabeth Beier all employ the graphic medium to narrate their personal experiences with coming out, growing up, and navigating heteronormative spaces as lesbian or bisexual women. By studying the work of these three authors in tandem, this thesis functions to expand… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores the work of Black queer authors who write and reproduce cities in their texts. James Baldwin and Dionne Brand create knowable and readable spaces of the cities in which they write. By studying the work of these two authors, this thesis seeks to understand how Black queer people navigate city spaces, and how Black queer authors create a literary imaginary about the… more
Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The university newspaper is a vital aspect of the university public, as it provides a platform for students to voice their opinions on topics pertaining to the culture of their university and gives students critical information about what is happening on campus. This thesis uses the University of Regina's The Carillon as a case study to evaluate how university newspapers interact… more
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis is concerned with how specific aesthetic elements function in various contemporary texts to distort, obscure, or illuminate the immoral actions and behaviours being represented. This thesis applies the moral status philosophy of Mary Anne Warren, along with the moral philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas and Zygmunt Bauman. Close reading and critical analysis are supported by… more
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores Frankenstein's popular culture narrative, contrasting recent Frankenstein texts with the content of Mary Shelley's classic novel and James Whale's iconic films Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The research investigates how Frankenstein's legacy of adaptations function intertextually to influence both the production and the… more
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>My thesis proposes to uncover what I term an Emilian Philosophy in the reading of Emily Brontë's only novel, and suggests that Wuthering Heights reflects Brontë's vision of a society progressing toward social and spiritual reform. Through this journey, Brontë seeks to conciliate the two contrasting sides of humanity – natural and social – by offering a middle state that… more
Year: 2016, 2016
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Robert Bringhurst states that polyphonic art is a faithful, artistic reflection of the multiplicity of the world's ecosystems. This ecocritical perspective recognizes that human art informs our understandings of the world, and therefore artists have a moral obligation towards that world. In Chapter One I argue that mimesis should be reclaimed as a useful literary category since all… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Women as Gifts and the Triple Hecate Myth in Shakespeare's</p><p>Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, and Cymbeline</p><p>Women are placed into sexual roles by the patriarchal system in which we live. Gayle Rubin terms this a "sex/gender system" and explains that within this system women are exchanged as "gifts… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores the rhetoric of theft imposed on online music by comparing file</p><p>sharing to shoplifting. Since the litigation between the music industry and Napster, file sharing has been perceived, both by the entertainment industry and by a music listening public, as a criminal act. However, file sharing has more in common with home taping and music archives than… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This three-part history explores Web 2.0's ability to make music products a collaborative, ongoing creative process that is reflective of early twentieth century live-music publics, where the realization of a performance was actualized by performers together with their audience in a shared physical space. By extension, I follow the changing dynamic of the producer/consumer… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This study is an attempt to look at how orality plays a role in modern society to move people to action in a social engineering process. By examining the theories for the formation of publics as outlined by Jurgen Habermas and Michael Warner, I argue for the existence of an oral public and further show that it can be engineered with some of the tools provided. This theoretical foundation… more
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Game texts present unique and dynamic opportunities for lability: how readers can make choices while reading that alter the narrative's nature or outcome. Labile decisions are neither simply correct nor incorrect--the reader renders judgement to produce a desired outcome. When encountering labile challenges, players employ an interpretive strategy to resolve them. Many game texts… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Gallagher, Sara S., Thesis advisor (ths): Epp, Michael, Thesis advisor (ths): Macleod, Lewis, Degree committee member (dgc): Dunaway, Finis, Degree committee member (dgc): Popham, Beth, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>The Beat Generation shaped, and was shaped by, the post-WWII containment culture that arose in 1950s America. This so-called cultural containment reflected the social, political, and economic factors that were unique to the post-WWII period and are often </p><p>considered concurrent to post-war McCarthyism, which promoted a national ideology of exclusionism that was foremost… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>ABSTRACT</p><p>There is a growing number of juvenile novels and picture books that mean to educate the reader about synaesthesia. The synaesthete in these texts for young readers desires to be a social agent, yet sh/e also considers synaesthesia to be a healing power and a deeply personal psychedelic form of escapism; I argue that the synaesthete in these texts `uses'… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis is an attempt to explore the role that musical texts played in the development of a public by writing a work of fiction and then applying to it a critical exegesis. Part One, the literary text Some Of This Is True, (re-)creates and remembers punk in its iteration in Regina, Saskatchewan, in the late 1970s. Part two, the critical exegesis, examines how the theories of public… more
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis examines how food, culture and identity are linked to the idea of "home." Through a reading of oral narratives produced on the YouTube channel "ShowMetheCurry," I investigate how presenters Anuja and Hetal "write back" from a diasporic space in Texas, to the YouTube global public, and how food and cuisine, even in the age of globalization can be… more
Year: 2013, 2013
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores post-millennial girl fiction, or young adult works published for girls since the turn of the millennium. Writing for girls has been traditionally placed beneath `more serious' literature, within a hierarchal model, while modern works enjoy an iconic status that is the product of cross-media popularity and a wide readership. Criticism has focused on post-… more
Year: 2013, 2013
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Name(s): Creator (cre): Deshane, Evelyn, Thesis advisor (ths): Eddy, Charmaine, Degree committee member (dgc): Chivers, Sally, Degree committee member (dgc): McGuire, Kelly, Degree committee member (dgc): Mitchell, Liam, Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University Abstract: <p>This thesis examines what the term "transgender narrative" represents at this particular time and location. I do this by examining various methods of transgender storytelling through different forms of media production, including autobiography, film, novels, and online platforms such as Tumblr and YouTube. In chapter one, I look at the production of novels and the value system… more
Year: 2013, 2013
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p><italic>The Battle of Maldon</italic>: A Medieval Screenplay</p><p>History and Heroism in the Cinematic Adaptation of an Old English Poem </p><p> <italic>The Battle of Maldon</italic> is an artistic representation of a historical event whose style lends itself to being adapted into a screenplay. This project examines how the poem presents a… more
Year: 2013, 2013
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>Despite - or perhaps because of - her popularity as a best-selling poet, the work of Mary Oliver has been minimized and marginalized within the academy. Nevertheless, Oliver's readership is an expansive and devout one made up of a wired yet insular North American public in search of reconnecting with the natural world. I propose that through Oliver's poetry readers access the… more