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Item Embargo Ender(East Carolina University, May 2025) Bradley, Onyx S.C.The first five chapters of a Southern Gothic NA novel titled "Ender." The main character struggles to reconcile what they believe is right with what their family believes is right and morally acceptable to do with magic.Item Embargo The Knight of Red and White(East Carolina University, December 2024) Black, Nathan JamesThe Knight of Red and White is a work of creative fiction. This portion comprises the first seven chapters of a longer novel-length story. The story features aspects of a classic high adventure tale with elements of political intrigue in a fantasy setting. The narrative centers around themes of religion’s positive and negative influences on society, examining how religion comes to shape nations and history. This story is told from multiple perspectives in the third person and gathers a collection of characters from many different walks of society. From royals to knights, to servants, diplomats, revered clergymen, and street musicians: the story attempts to show the world from every angle and every opinion on faith or the lack thereof. The chapters present a world where faith can be used for great evil and miraculously noble deeds. In this universe religion acts as its magic system, setting a loose analogy to outlooks in our real world. Some characters adhere to faith, some see it as a tool to gain political power, some turn away from it, and others only wish to find a way to survive around it, having no strong feelings one way or another. This story hopes to give rise to discussions about where people find not just answers to universal questions, but where we find confidence and identity through theological and philosophical viewpoints. It seeks to unravel where words turn from personal affirmations to hard-held beliefs, and, by extension, find how beliefs change the destinies of people and the world itself.Item Open Access Mad Women: Grief, Familial Trauma, and Female Rage in Folk Horror(East Carolina University, December 2024) Moroney, StephanieThe film distribution company A24 has produced and distributed several unique films within the folk horror genre. The Witch (2016, dir. Robert Eggers), Midsommar (2019, dir. Ari Aster), and Hereditary (2018, dir. Ari Aster) are examples of contemporary folk horror films that utilize familial trauma as a precursor to the female protagonist’s descent to madness. The elements of folk horror amplify the feelings of isolation and loss of reality, which appear during extreme reactions to grief and trauma. Each protagonist is the eldest or sole daughter within the family structures, extending extra expectations within these roles. These expectations contribute to each protagonist’s descent into madness as they are given to others relentlessly with nothing in return. The element of social cohesion serves to direct the actions of those most vulnerable, specifically vulnerability caused by grief, which creates a loss of familiarity and shattered reality. Examining these protagonists within these three folk horror films exemplifies the harmful nature of expectation and how it draws women into madness. Madness is not simply anger but a culmination of emotions that lead to a drastic loss of self. This thesis serves to use gender theory, trauma theory, and formal analysis of the films to demonstrate the self-destructive burden of keeping a family together during a crisis.Item Open Access Why Flesh? Examining the Power of Flesh in David Cronenberg’s The Fly(East Carolina University, December 2024) Shirley, Lea OliviaThis thesis is an exploration of body horror, specifically how one film’s use of body horror impacts the body and the flesh within the body. “Why Flesh? Examining the Power of Flesh in David Cronenberg’s The Fly is a close-viewing analysis of the film and how Cronenberg’s carefully constructed film allowed for him to isolate the ways in which body horror truly terrifies audiences and forces them to confront themselves. Through the examination of flesh as it is impacted by pregnancy, aging, and chronic illness, The Fly acts as an excellent lens to discuss not only popular themes in body horror, but also get at the root of why they are horrifying.Item Embargo Traps and Other Stories(East Carolina University, July 2024) Tilley, WendyThis selection of four short stories treats low-culture plots, subjects, and storylines, with high-culture rhetorical techniques. Taking as its sources material B-movies, or Portuguese plays from the 16th century, this thesis believes that the distinction between high and low art is nonexistent, another binary created where binaries do not exist. Literature is for, and made of, drunks, prostitutes, and thieves, as much as many honorable people. It is also attempts to be American, in the sense that the plots hint at violence, aberrant sex, and Christianity, the American trinity.Item Embargo Scrumble and Other Stories(East Carolina University, May 2024) Barbee, CassidyThis project finds the liminality that exist between our reality and the magic that can be seen through a fabulist lens. I use my Appalachian upbringing to establish a setting and the stories that I grew up with to bring new meaning to my own experiences. Using the stories of cryptids and magic that I saw during my own childhood, I provide insights that I have connected through the years by using fabulism and lyrical prose. The integration of heavy themes such as trauma and disease that I’ve witnessed from my adulthood have further stressed the importance of liminality within this collection. These stories are connected through their setting in Appalachia, specifically the mountains North Carolina and West Virigina.Item Embargo The Fragments Between Us(East Carolina University, May 2024) Butler, KaitlinIn The Fragments Between Us, I immerse readers into the lives of Hudson and Emma, two college students who meet by chance in an English class. Each chapter is split between Emma’s and Hudson’s perspectives, showing fragments of their background and their perspectives. They both come from backgrounds riddled with family and relationship traumas that both repress. Through their developing relationship, readers are shown growth from both Hudson and Emma, through admitting more than they have to anyone, even themselves. Through fragmented flashbacks and confrontations about them, Emma and Hudson fall in love, and give each other the compassion they have never shown themselves. Their pain, their pasts, are mirrored in each other, and they pull each other above water in a way they could never bring themselves to do alone. Two very different people find one other by chance and open each other up to feelings neither of them could have imagined. Emma, a hopeless romantic who believed she could only live vicariously through fiction, and Hudson, who never believed true love existed, meet in the middle and have a chance to build something they never want to let go of. Their trauma and their fear follow them in fragments, but with each other, they just might be able to pick up the pieces and fit those jagged and broken pieces together and move forward.Item Open Access Arthur Miller: A Writer of Tragedy(1967-08) Smith, Phyllis ShuffThe purpose of this study is to prove that Arthur Miller, American playwright, accomplishes his stated aim--the creation of drama similar in purpose and spirit to that of the classical Greeks. This thesis goes a step beyond Miller's statement to maintain that Miller, while achieving his goal, uses the same austere general form that the Greeks employed. Since Miller mentions only one critic of Greek drama by name, H. D. F. Kitto, in his frequent references to the social drama of the Greeks, Professor Kitto's analyses and interpretations of the classical plays are used as the major source for the material on the Greek drama.Item Embargo Deadly Reflection(East Carolina University, 2023-05-09) Fornes, Bradley MDeadly Reflection is a fictional horror novel in which a group of young adults are stalked by a mysterious and sinister entity known as the Old Man, who only appears to them in mirrors or other reflective surfaces. The novel not only focuses on the elements of terror, but also showcases the lives and relationships of the characters the Old Man is menacing. This work aims to break genre conventions by presenting a racially diverse group of characters from differing backgrounds while also showing an understanding of the genre and its necessary conventions. As a work of creative fiction, Deadly Reflection features fully realized characters, a structured plot, and use of carefully crafted prose and descriptions to tell the novel's story.Item Open Access Ubiquitous in Time: Towards a Description of the Supernatural Folklore of Time Travel(East Carolina University, 2023-04-21) Budasoff, AdamThe proliferation of mass-media representations of time travel has, since the late 1800s, created a metatraditional perception that all such variants originated from that selfsame sphere of influence. This has manifested most strongly in the view that prior to H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, notions of time travel and time travelers were not extant. Seeking to prove this belief incorrect, the following thesis charts out an evolutionary pathway for time travel which demonstrates not only strong historical roots within folk traditions of the past, but a very much vibrant and active practice today. The contemporary manifestations analyzed within this work include the time slip phenomenon as reported by first-hand experiencers, ostensive practices inspired by supernatural time travel lore, and a look at the uncanny figure of the time traveler who often sits at its core.Item Open Access AM I WHO I SAY I AM? THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE: BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION IN HEALTHCARE(East Carolina University, 2023-05-01) Banville, Morgan CatherineGrounded in surveillance studies and technical communication, this study defines biometric identification technologies as personal identifiers of the body, focusing specifically on how neonatal nurses use and perceive such technologies within the context of the United States healthcare system. As biometric identification and authentication becomes more commonplace within various sectors such as healthcare and medical-adjacent, it is crucial for technical communicators to return to the origins of biometric implementation to inform current interventions, and to question the reasons behind the urgency of implementing such technologies for efficiency, security, and compliance. Drawing from a corpus of communication materials from biometric companies, questionnaires, and ten interviews with neonatal nurses, this study explores the justification of implementing biometric technologies, including how biometric technologies are defined. Data analysis was conducted using interlocking surveillance, a framework that addresses sites of surveillance and their levels of awareness, advocacy, and transparency of normalized surveillant practices. This study contributes to understandings and perceptions that neonatal nurses have of biometric technologies in healthcare and extends far past the scope of privacy. Even so, privacy in this study is situated as both a tradeoff and illusion of choice: you can change your password, but you can't change your fingerprint. Because the U.S. has a preoccupation with security and surveillance technologies, this study can better inform technical communicators how to intervene in and implement decision-making practices. In particular, this study argues that neonatal nurses are technical communicators: they communicate and negotiate specialized information. The findings contribute to redefining what it means to be a technical communicator, re-rhetoricizing how technical communication is represented in the medical sector. Further takeaways from the study influence future coalitional work, questioning and revising normalized surveillance including ethics of biometric use, and localization of community input and participatory approaches for design of and intervention in communication materials.Item Open Access ENCOURAGING PREVENTIVE ACTION BY EMPLOYING EFFECTIVE RHETORIC IN PUBLIC COMMUNICATION OF THE ZIKA HAZARD AND ASSOCIATED RISKS(East Carolina University, 2022-07-26) Morris, Abigail LThreats from Zika and other emergent arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses) often receive little scholarly attention across most disciplines thanks in no small part to the traditional view that most emergent disease discourse is only immediately relevant to those in medical and economic fields. The reality is that any time endemic threats pose risks to public welfare or become threats to national health and security, scholars from all fields should reevaluate how their current and developing skills and knowledge could be employed to help prevent and/or minimize negative outcomes when outbreaks seem likely. Scholars in the fields of rhetoric and technical communication have developed skills and knowledge that would render us particularly well suited to work with those in medical, economic, and public communication fields to develop or remediate tools and resources to alter potential outbreak outcomes in positive ways if we were offered or willing to claim a seat at their table. This study utilizes surveying of residents in Harlingen, Texas, regarding Zika as a springboard into research on public health communication failures as represented by technical documents designed to communicate health and safety information about Zika and validated by revision of those documents to increase their effectiveness in encouraging proactive prevention behaviors and retention of health knowledge.Item Open Access ENCOURAGING PREVENTIVE ACTION BY EMPLOYING EFFECTIVE RHETORIC IN PUBLIC COMMUNICATION OF THE ZIKA HAZARD AND ASSOCIATED RISKS(East Carolina University, 2022-07-26) Morris, Abigail LThreats from Zika and other emergent arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses) often receive little scholarly attention across most disciplines thanks in no small part to the traditional view that most emergent disease discourse is only immediately relevant to those in medical and economic fields. The reality is that any time endemic threats pose risks to public welfare or become threats to national health and security, scholars from all fields should reevaluate how their current and developing skills and knowledge could be employed to help prevent and/or minimize negative outcomes when outbreaks seem likely. Scholars in the fields of rhetoric and technical communication have developed skills and knowledge that would render us particularly well suited to work with those in medical, economic, and public communication fields to develop or remediate tools and resources to alter potential outbreak outcomes in positive ways if we were offered or willing to claim a seat at their table. This study utilizes surveying of residents in Harlingen, Texas, regarding Zika as a springboard into research on public health communication failures as represented by technical documents designed to communicate health and safety information about Zika and validated by revision of those documents to increase their effectiveness in encouraging proactive prevention behaviors and retention of health knowledge.Item Restricted Wild Horses(East Carolina University, 2022-03-23) Shope, Ashten LWild Horses is a Literary Fiction novel that intersects with Queer and Indigenous Literature. The narrative is a close third point of view following the perspectives of primary protagonist, Amanda Sloan (Mara), her father, Joel Sloan, and Jonathan (Jack) Aldridge. The plot explores the issues of trans-female identity, sex trafficking, addiction, Queer-family dynamics, Indigenous rights, and the overcoming of societal violence. The novel's primary narrative is juxtaposed with the Umatilla version of the Sahaptin myth, Coyote and the River Monster, a traditional origin story told by many tribes of the Columbia River basin in Oregon. The thesis is the first section of the novel, which opens with teenage Mara being coyoted back over the US-Mexican border after her sex-reassignment surgery where she then finds herself embroiled in a sex trafficking ring. She is trafficked with other trans women, many of whom are trans women of color. The narrative alternates both in POV and time between teenage Mara/adult Amanda, Joel, and Jack. In the subsequent chapters, Amanda returns to her hometown of Little Creek, Oregon to rebuild her family's derelict ranch and reestablish herself within her homeland.Item Open Access Women's Rights and Religious Bias in Dystopian Speculative Fiction: A Closer Look at Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God and Christina Dalcher’s Vox(East Carolina University, 2022-04-27) Macomber, Kelli DSpeculative fiction provides a perfect vehicle to examine the state of women's rights. Through the Intersectional Feminist lens, I consider the speculative projections within Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God and Christine Dalcher's Vox, as well as the impact that religious doctrines have on the possible outcomes the books illustrate. I use recent events to illustrate the type of contemporary actions that influenced Erdrich and Dalcher in their writing.Item Open Access The Humanization of 20th Century Europe’s Perpetrators: How Humanizing Our History’s Perpetrators Can Better Our Future(East Carolina University, 2022-04-13) Hutchens, HaliThis thesis examines the need for the humanization of 20th-century Europe's perpetrators, the Nazis, through literature. The purpose of this project is to make clear why the standpoint that Nazis were once ordinary citizens is not detrimental but rather helpful in our understanding of the Holocaust. I focus on literary works Der Vorleser (The Reader), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and The Dutch Wife, as they support my argument that the humanization of perpetrators can be educational. Within these chapters, I discuss the psychological explanations of how and why a moral person dehumanizes him/herself in order to take part in mass genocide, the relationships between the Nazis and their complicit-by-extension loved ones, and how such ideologies affect future generations. Essentially, I propose that novels which humanize fictional Nazis are useful in our strife to create a future society in which extraordinary evil, such as seen during World War II, is a thing of the past.Item Restricted Josephus, Messianism and the Jewish uprising of A.D. 65 : interpretations and analysis(East Carolina University) Osborne, Jason M.Item Open Access Item Open Access Changing Nature: Stacy Alaimo and Cary Wolfe at ASLE(2014-12-03) Feder, HelenaItem Open Access Rethinking Multiculturalism: theory and nonhuman cultures(2010) Feder, Helena