Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2021, English

Gold is a central figure in early medieval northern European literature. In early English and Icelandic cultures, it theoretically served as a system stabilizer and maintained social bonds. In practice, however, as seen in Volsunga Saga and Beowulf, gold is clearly a volatile substance that serves only to sow discord and create violence. In its truest form of the hoard, gold operates as a site of both psychological and physical transformation. It is a threat to the very societies it is meant to protect. Ultimately, its use shows the inevitability of the decline of the societies that heavily relied upon it.

Committee: Mary Kate Hurley (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Icelandic and Scandinavian Literature; Literature; Medieval Literature; Middle Ages

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2017, English

Although arguments about gender and genre in Old Norse-Icelandic literature are not uncommon, many often ignore the influence genre has on gender representation. In this paper, I argue that The Saga of the Volsungs is a masculine text and, thus, changes the way its feminine characters are presented. However, poems from The Poetic Edda, the texts by which the saga is inspired, offers compelling alternatives to typical gender roles, depicting complex female characters that can only exist within the fragmentary and episodic nature of the poetry. A close reading of the saga and eddic poetry reveals a marked difference in feminine voice and agency; that is, the voice of the eddic woman is much louder, demanding, and has more agency than the saga woman. In my discussion of genre in the Old Norse context, I look toward scholarship about gender and genre, saga and masculinity. I will examine how Gudrun from the poems differs from Gudrun from the saga and, focusing on genre, I will explore why they might be different, linking the Eddic poetry with Helene Cixous's idea of l'ecriture feminine. In my readings, I explore the "First Poem of Gudrun," the "Second Poem of Gudrun," "The Poem of Atli," "Greenlandic Lay of Atli," and "Whetting of Gudrun," along with the scenes in the saga that correspond to those depicted in these poems. This comparison uncovers a series of deletions, misattributions, and understatements in the saga that either tone down or completely silence Gudrun and take away her agency. Though I maintain that the reasons for this treatment of women are in the saga's masculine nature and stylistic requirements, I briefly consider the possible influence Christianity might have had on the saga when it was written, and thus how Christianity and its masculine bias may have changed the way in which women are presented.

Committee: Christina Fitzgerald Dr. (Advisor); Melissa Gregory Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Icelandic and Scandinavian Literature; Literature; Medieval Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Comparative Studies

Contributing to Victorian novel studies, literary theory, and gender studies, this dissertation studies individual indebtedness and speculation as testing-grounds of the management of the self, highlighting the role of novelistic narrative in the attendant subjective experiences and practices. Its central conclusion is that self-government in the credit economy takes the form of a uniquely temporal sensibility or form which is here named “diachronic binding.” Diachronic binding, as is shown, consists of a continuous motion between speculation and austerity, where the violence and disciplining of the latter often takes on particularly gendered expressions. In the Introduction, the historical-comparative dimensions of the project are discussed and its contours charted through a reading of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting Found. Following Chapter 1, which is devoted to outlining the theoretical basis of the argument concerning time, gender, and the credit economy, Chapter 2 opens on to an engagement with the Victorian novel, starting with an analysis of the figure of what is here called the “rootless woman.” Living in a state of constant suspense and flight, is is considered how Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair personifies the haunting presence of an irreducibly unpaid quantitative gap at the heart of capitalist value production. The rootless woman, it is concluded, simultaneously stages the general fear of failing to profitably engage temporal market forms and the desire to exclusively associate women with these failures so as to rhetorically legitimate their exclusion from the market and subjection to domestic patriarchy. The analysis of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, in Chapter 3, continues to consider the unevenly gendered enactments of value. In contrast to Daniel's successful engagement of the binding dynamic between future speculation and past validation, it is considered how Gwendolen is set up to fail in her motion from speculation to austerity. The `Hermione' epis (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Eugene Holland (Committee Chair); Philip Armstrong (Committee Member); Jill Galvan (Committee Member); Ethan Knapp (Committee Member); Katherine Hayles (Committee Member); Gudni Elisson (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Comparative Literature; Gender Studies; Icelandic and Scandinavian Literature; Literature; Modern Literature; Social Research

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

The Baby Boomer generation presents a care-giving challenge for America, both financially and ideologically. Not only are they a much larger generation than their parents, but a more diverse population with an entirely different set of aspirations and fears about the aging process. Due to these demographic and cultural shifts, many community based models for senior living have emerged in the past decade, which allow seniors to age in place and maintain independence. These models challenge traditional ideas about senior living design and planning, as they abandon communities generated by proximity in favor of ones generated by social processes.

Committee: Michael McInturf M.Arch. (Committee Chair); Aarati Kanekar Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture; Icelandic and Scandinavian Literature