Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, English

What can readability studies tell us about the novel genre? By tracing both the history of readability studies, a partially abandoned field located at the intersection of education and literacy studies, and the history of the English language novel, this project makes a case for the validity of conversations around readability within literary circles. One of the primary outcomes of readability studies is a number of formulas that measure various elements of a text, such as vocabulary and sentence structure. However, few formulas were created with fiction, or more specifically, the novel genre, in mind. To determine the possible applications of classic readability formulas for the novel genre, this project uses a digital readability formula to measure the readability of a corpus of 127 English language novels from 1800 to 1922. However, the resulting data highlights the difficulty of measuring such a wide-ranging, unique literary genre. Finally, this project proposes a framework for using a statistical analysis of novels to identify potential lines of inquiry favorable to close reading. By approaching novels through a quantitative lens, this project highlights how considering the bigger picture can help us determine which specific elements may lead to a richer understanding of the text.

Committee: Collin Jennings (Committee Chair); Tim Lockridge (Committee Member); Mary Jean Corbett (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; British and Irish Literature; Literacy; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, English

The police have a literary history. By the Book canvasses a broad range American novels that depicted many of the organizational developments and institutional operations of municipal law enforcement in United States cities from the late-nineteenth through the early-twentieth century. I examine the rise of the police procedural as a literary genre in the true-crime fiction of Julian Hawthorne and the detective novels of Anna Katharine Green that promote the investigative processes of the New York Police Department and its specialized crime units. I examine the futurist fiction of J. W. Roberts and Frederick Upham Adams, which pushed back against debates about law enforcement's own future in their explorations of interpersonal crime, criminal enterprise, and riot control in metropolises such as Boston, Chicago, and New York. Finally, I examine social problem novels by Sutton E. Griggs that tackle the Jim Crow police state created in Southern cities like Richmond and Nashville through police abuse and neglect toward black Americans. Ultimately, the story that emerges in By the Book is about competing civic narratives -- of the police as collective protagonist and collective antagonist in American society.

Committee: Elizabeth Hewitt (Advisor); Molly Farrell (Committee Member); Andrea N. Williams (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; American Studies; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, English

Many late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British novels utilize laughter as a social corrective, but this same laughter hides other messages about women's roles. As the genre's popularity widened, writers used novels to express opinions that would be eschewed in other, more established and serious genres. My dissertation argues that humor contributes to narrative meaning; as readers laugh at “minor” characters, their laughter discourages specific behaviors, yet it also masks characters' important functions within narrative structure. Each chapter examines one type of humor—irony, parody, satire, and wit—along with a secondary female archetype: the matriarch, the old maid, the monster, and the mentor. Traditionally, the importance of laughter has been minimized, and the role of minor characters understudied. My project seeks to redress this imbalance through focusing on humor, secondary characterization, and plot.

Committee: Clare Simmons PhD (Advisor); Leslie Tannenbaum PhD (Committee Member); Jill Galvan PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2010, History

This thesis uses the novels of Catharine Maria Sedgwick, a popular author in the United States in the early nineteenth century, to consider how middle-class women from New England thought about marital options. Female writers used the relatively new genre of the novel to challenge conventional social practices and examine alternative methods of interacting with one another. This study explores Sedgwick's arguments surrounding unsuccessful relationships, single women, and successful relationships in an effort to demonstrate what certain women were thinking regarding romantic relationships in the nineteenth century.

Committee: Andrew Cayton PhD (Advisor); Mary Kupiec Cayton PhD (Committee Member); Mary Frederickson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Literature; Gender; History; Womens Studies