Poe-Related PhD Dissertations (2017–2021)

All abstract excerpts (save for Tsokanos’s) are copied from the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses online database.“Missing Homes” examines three nineteenth-century authors whose experiences of displacement home, professions and/or class influenced their literary innovations…. Attention to these authors, I argue, offers a parallel theory nostalgia in which unsettled longing place call home registers political discontent with relationship between individual collective rather than reconciles displacement.“Hypnaesthesis” argues understanding somnambulism, nightmare, insomnia as aesthetic categories gothic dark romantic traditions antebellum American literature that provide critical insights into experiential costs exhortations normative vigilance prevalent Enlightenment. During this period unceasing became watchword liberty Lockean conception self, understood dependent on waking consciousness, fused Protestant Enlightenment ideas about salvation, productivity, freedom form philosophical core identity. By exploring nocturnal territory thought through experience works Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, show how provides alternative paths post-enlightenment thinking, introducing sleep fundamental problem reimagining subjectivity collectivity.“Decomposition Explanation” looks visual art addresses literature’s paradoxical duration, using Poe—whose 1846 poetics statement, “Philosophy Composition,” points representational provocation—as my point departure. read Poe’s poetic vocabulary, his tales, magazine hoaxes paratextual relation various writing practices post–World War II period—namely, installations French artist Pierre Huyghe, poetry performance Vito Acconci, AIDS Hervé Guibert, conceptual-confessional Trisha Low—to offer description what counter-duration…. My research highlights conceptual strategies, media politics, social critiques new lens by reinterpret politics form, well way redescribe history experimental writing.“Spontaneous Form: Four Studies Consciousness Philosophical Fiction” rethinks modernist stream consciousness narration its precursors light epistemology informed David Hume, Immanuel Kant, William James. trace an counter-tradition Victor Hugo Poe Virginia Woolf Toni Morrison parodies empiricism foregrounding Kant called “spontaneity” mind—that dimension we actively construct our knowledge.Gothic narratives employ doubles partly challenge notion stable, coherent self. dissertation focuses characters arise within characters’ own minds, such Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Henry Jekyll Edward Hyde, narrators “The Tell-Tale Heart” “William Wilson,” narrator Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Yellow Wall-Paper.” These suggest readers really should fear is not villain or supernatural entity, but might be lurking apparently healthy mind brain. In examining characters, scientific dual brain, suggests two symmetrical hemispheres brain can function separately, if something disturbs balance hemispheres, it could cause drastic personality change, even reveal second distinct personality.“‘Finding First Act’: Nineteenth-Century Literature Discourse Science” presence, role, significance discourse science work Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Chesnutt, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Silas Weir Mitchell, Karl Pearson, among others. Beginning publication Lyell’s Principles Geology 1830, paradigm shift status prominence had profound variegated impacts production have so far escaped sustained attention…. This takes account unintended consequences, failures, misperceptions, scientifically reinforced prejudices biases often omitted accounts progress order examine manner contemporary writers seized upon them evidence failure inherent science.The 1799 1929 marks remarkable era development themes mystery investigative fiction. From early “mysteries detection” more structurally formalized detective stories, project differences modes devices employed Anna Katharine Green, Dashiell Hammett, significant contributions progression popular genre…. study adds fiction important cultural registry concerns close examination key texts engage each author’s stylistic illustrate continuous arc over time.A multitude references Hellenic Latin antiquities present some most prominent short stories poems…. was philhellene inspired idol, Lord Byron, neoclassical movement…. The aim delve intertextuality undertones effort … stress importance construction creative universe.Each chapter “Wandering Comparisons” spotlights flâneur outside France foregrounds aspect flânerie obscured conventional Baudelairean account. Recovering indigenous allows non-Western histories modernity…. third starting channels interest occult. There argue prolific enchantment—not residual “Oriental” element, fact product number Western fin-de-siècle spiritualist movements—complicates Max Weber’s iconic association modernity “disenchantment world.” Flânerie mystical sense discloses itself at level form: human displaced realm idea. What follows figurative flânerie, narrative bricolage competing voices, infused oracular energy logic spontaneity.In study, Montgomery Bird’s Sheppard Lee (1836), “Morella” (1835), “Ligeia” (1838), “Eleonora” (1842), Melville’s Confidence Man (1857), Chesnutt’s Conjure Woman (1899), trope metempsychosis—the supposed transmigration soul another body time death—complicates process sympathetic identification limits…. Anticipating late twentieth- twenty-first century criticisms, sympathy only difficult sympathizer attain sustain also perhaps damaging recipient, particularly when white recipient not…. Ultimately, action metempsychosis premised difference commonality, knowing knowing—intellectual ethical stances potentially useful beyond.This explores abiding fascination European Middle Ages, nebulous historical periodization spanning roughly Fall Rome (410 CE) Columbus’s arrival New World (1492 CE). Recent field postcolonial medievalism, brought bear canonical “Fall House Usher,” Twain’s Connecticut Yankee King Arthur’s Court, Faulkner’s Sound Fury, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Dispossessed, reveals extent medievalisms exist creole medievalisms, simultaneously sublimating modern colonial contestations subverting those reinterpreting Ages terms non-European spacetime.This reconsiders defined critics like F. O. Matthiessen who revised work, Jane Tompkins S. Reynolds. attempts continued revision, expansion, redefinition existing paradigms network approach. approach observes critically overlooked yet center during nineteenth century, Philadelphia. small, local examined contextualized current understandings then placed larger national international networks production, dissemination, reception. due canon literature, serves access print culture Philadelphia years he lived worked there, 1838–44. expand complicated term today historically.By attending aesthetics imaginative housing, dynamic forms inanimate containers, delves ongoing negotiations gets count animate. track concept across historically broad array film Usher” (1839) Hawthorne’s Seven Gables (1851) Z. Danielewski’s Leaves (2001) Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). “housing” texts, seek understand unsettle interiors exteriors ways bring distinctive populating life. Each isolates names particular instances houses structures disrupt static passive containment, move builds Diana Fuss’s modernity’s sensuous formative imbrication material spaces internal, psychological structures. Where Fuss specifically attends shaped writerly imaginations, shifts focus surfaces put animating relations. Ultimately stake relational artificial illuminating constructed nature character.“Untimely Verse” treats Phillis Wheatley, Rufus Griswold, Walt Whitman major narrower recovering circulated, developing set authorship periodical book formats. Thematically, organized around issues temporality reading practice verse once yet-still-emergent category poetry. It traces developed reflected growing exemplary untimely circulation America, while labors indefatigable anthology czar, came embody all-too-timely values written published day, eventuating twentieth-century obsolete synonymous graveyard forgettable largely forgotten poets.Featuring Dickinson representative biblical Apocalypse primary subject Gothic mid-nineteenth beyond, appropriated mode expressing America’s anxieties authors’ moment documents letters, journals, personal libraries, periodicals, other influences. framing matter Gothic, contradict sentimental mainstream religious society. Their pairing apocalyptic frameworks definition broadened include range featured subjects, peculiarly American.Poe’s grievance “Sonnet—To (1829) against science’s epistemological authority transitioned lifelong journey increasingly fruitful maneuvering. engagement reached apogee Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848), cosmological treatise near end While exalting intuition imagination pathway Truth, Eureka upon, questions, revises wealth authorities astronomical works…. scrutinizes career demonstrate science, astronomy, related fields, particular, assisted motivated Truth build universe…. analyzed “Al Aaraaf” (1829), Unparalleled Adventure One Hans Pfaall” extensive endnote tale, Narrative Arthur Gordon Pym Power Words” (1845), (1848). incorporated numerous events, discoveries, theories, Tycho Brahe’s supernova, lunar voyages, United States Exploring Expedition, Herschel’s Pierre-Simon Laplace’s Nebular Hypothesis, Newton’s laws gravity, Kepler’s law planetary orbits. Instead dismissing springboards imagination, inspects contexts closely uncover role cosmos. challenges problems posed developments stimulated investigate elusive knowledge develop method obtaining Truth. contemplating merits limitations achieved fusion invention.Providential capitalism marriage providential Christian market-oriented capitalist ideology post-revolutionary Atlantic century. individuals permitted themselves used so-called “divine economist” market economy. Backed slave market, capital transactions were rendered violent, ecstatic, individual, experiences. Those formed bases national, racial, classed negotiation constellated communities Atlantic…. Writers Ottobah Cugoano, Venture Smith, John Jea, and, later, Nantucket, Redburn: His Voyage, recognized dehumanizing potential power arrangement. They described humans commodified invisible operations ends maintained aegis divine sovereignty.When George du Maurier’s infamous mesmerist Svengali performs elastic penny whistle, instrument produces sound “more almost voice itself.” suggestion more, conversely less, calls attention precariousness under threat confronts enigmatic voices transatlantic definitions human, figures frustrate taxonomic classification sonic terms. Discussions stethoscopic listening, physiognomy, vivisection, mesmerism Britain frame chapters, underscoring preoccupation embodiment foundational both medical knowledge. Through analysis bodies soundscapes Stevenson, H. G. Wells, others, discovers recalcitrant force subverts bodies.This thesis repeated appearance liminal identifies inhabit boundary life death produce inexplicable voices: talking corpses, ghosts, ventriloquists, mediums, non-human bodies. Washington Irving, Bird, Melville continually associate dead, dying, African Americans Native amplify marginal positions communities. criticism classifies non-white female site otherness, marginality male citizen himself. six chapters articulate whiteness different vocal contexts: ventriloquism storytelling blackface minstrelsy enchanting speech wordlessness Melville. Across figure’s essentialist racial ideologies prescriptions citizenship period. Inexplicable act powerful articulations question, contest, negate ideals autonomous, rational, industrious, social, respectable citizen. demonstrates border explore attempt contain threats fragile negated citizenship. doing so, contributes scholarship concerned period.This conflict unifying, ubiquitous runs throughout all looking texts. chosen “Morella,” Black Cat” Poe; Wuthering Heights Brontë; Strange Case Mr. Hyde Stevenson. [argues] positioning central theme, one text arguably defining literature. been variety unifying factor, given wide reach influence whole. studied independent thrives conflict, reliance conflict. here address gap writings highlight again, boiled down disagreements conflicts, sizes severities.