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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until June 02, 2028

ETD Abstract Container

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Up Close

Gross, Isabella Reed
http://orcid.org/0009-0003-3648-6778
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1689785180161741

Abstract Details

2023, Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, English: Creative Writing.
My thesis, Up Close, concerns three main subjects that do not have agency to speak for themselves and a final section of personal poems. In one section, I draw the reader’s attention to sites in my native northern Michigan that do not serve the functions they once did—everything from well-known tourist sites to my childhood backyard. A second section focuses on my maternal grandmother, Marilyn (née Brownell) Rybka, who raised eight children, has been married for more than sixty-five years, and who now suffers from dementia alongside small strokes that occur with regularity. I imagine what she did and was like in her past as well as what she does in her everyday life. The third section records “postcard” communications from NASA’s Mars Viking mission robots, exploring their inner thoughts as they sit idly, having concluded their missions. The final section follows a narrative following changes to the relationship to self through early trauma, the beginning and end of a romantic relationship, and rediscovering the self post-breakup. All four topics raise questions about purpose and value: why something that has lost or changed purpose is still valuable and why we should renegotiate our relationships with them.
Catherine Wagner (Committee Chair)
Keith Tuma (Committee Member)
Elizabeth Hutton (Committee Member)
69 p.
Environmental Philosophy; Gerontology; Literature
poetry; Northern Michigan; nature; hometown; grandmother; dementia; Viking 1 Lander; Mars; self-love; self-reflection; relationships; value; meaning; voice

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gross, I. R. (2023). Up Close [Master's thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1689785180161741

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gross, Isabella. Up Close. 2023. Miami University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1689785180161741.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gross, Isabella. "Up Close." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1689785180161741

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1689785180161741
© 2023, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Up Close by Isabella Reed Gross is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.