BA, Oberlin College, 1989, English

Flannery O'Connor was not an author who was afraid to take drastic measures, or to be on familiar terms with a deep mystery. She, like the great mathematicians, had points she wanted to connect,. and was willing to tear her fabric to connect them. In her fiction, the disruption she uses to forge her paths has many incarnations. The generating forces of that disruption, and the forces generated by that disruption, can be focused into three immediately identifiable categories: comedy, violence, and the grotesque. In order to better understand O'Connor's fiction and the connections between the taxed analogy of complex numbers, her writing, and her philosophy, these three topics will be dealt with one at a time; though examples from all of her short fiction will be supplied, the discussion will pivot on three stories more or less spanning O'Connor's short-fiction canon: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (1952), "Greenleaf" (1956), and "The Lame Shall Enter First" (1962).

Committee: (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2011, Mass Communication (Communication)

From 2006 to 2010, ABC broadcast Ugly Betty, a one-hour dramedy based on one of the most popular telenovelas of all time. This dissertation examines at Ugly Betty from a rhizomatic perspective that brings together the areas of representation, political economy, and fandom studies. In this sense, Ugly Betty is considered as the jumping off point to examine contemporary television as complex system. It produces and circulates representations of social life, which are also industrial commodities in economic exchanges, and catalysts for fan activity and participation. A rhizomatic perspective would argue that all of these processes are intertwined, and that accounting for these connections acknowledges the complexity of social life. Textual analysis is the method used in this dissertation. In textual analysis, the goal is to uncover the most likely interpretation for a particular text, which is why emphasis is placed on understanding the context in which this text is produced, circulates, and is interpreted by its audiences. In this dissertation, the author conducted three such textual analyses. The first one looks Ugly Betty as an industrial commodity that came to the screen as the consciousness industries as a whole turned their attention to Latinos(as), and the television industry began producing more Latino(a) themed content. The chapter also looks at the challenges of producing and broadcasting television shows in a post-network era (Lotz, 2007), characterized by rapid technological change, audience erosion, and widespread fragmentation. The second analysis focus specifically on Ugly Betty as an example of Latino(a) representation, by looking at the illegal immigration storyline that aired during the first and second seasons of the show. This chapter utilizes the concept of the myth, and posits the melting pot as a myth that allows Ugly Betty to normalize illegal immigration, by incorporating illegal Latino(a) immigrants into a broader narrative of nationhood and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mia Consalvo L. (Advisor); Jenny Nelson (Committee Member); Jerry Miller (Committee Member); Brad Jokisch D (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication