2020 English Graduates

Thesis Title: The Matter of Citation: Historical Materialism and The Arcades Project

Thesis Title: Lifting the “Enigmatic Veil”: Uncovering the Artist Figure in the Life and Writings of Mary Butts My thesis explores the work of an often-forgotten British modernist, Mary Butts. It traces her recovery from 1984 to the present, and notes that the limited existing scholarship on Butts falls into two primary categories: biographical analysis and niche prose appreciation. I merge these two categories of criticism by analyzing the way her prose style was influenced by her cultural-historical moment in a reading of her project of artistic representation as continuous through her fiction, memoir, and biographical materials. Ultimately, I conclude that the artist for Butts is defined by the desire to bridge the gap between the metaphysical and the physical, a project that Butts clarifies by grounding the mystical and mythical influences of previous literary movements in sensory, tangible details. Favorite part of Reed: The people. I’ve met some of the most cherished people in my life at Reed, and beyond that, I’ve interacted with so many people here who have taught and inspired me in a multitude of ways. Very grateful. These connections are definitely my biggest take away from my time here. Favorite English class: American Pastoral and US Novels of Formation with Sarah Wagner-McCoy, Early Modern Woman with Lucia Martínez, American Modernism with Lisa Steinman, Reified Subject and the Elusive Thing with Jin Chang. Take away lesson: To pay attention to how you feel while you read and investigate the origins of those feelings. When I started here, I didn’t consider my feelings and emotional responses to texts as important in an academic setting. Since then I’ve learned that feelings and responses all come to you for a reason, and it’s worth pursuing them to find out where they come from. Now I just write about things that make me feel strange or confused.

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Thesis Title: Hear/Here: Exploring Sound and the Contours of Mastery and Desire in Ulysses My thesis explores the role of sound in James Joyce's Ulysses. I look at how the auditory realm shapes the narrative of the novel as well as the thoughts, actions, and desires of characters. Favorite part of Reed: I will always be grateful I got to take so many excellent classes that covered a wide range of topics. I feel lucky I could attend conferences with students and professors who cared so much about learning and helped make me a better student. Favorite English class: I really enjoyed taking "Memory, Desire, and the Modern Novel" which increased my interest in modernism and encouraged me to engage with authors like Joyce. I also enjoyed "Anglo-Saxon Literature and Language" as it gave me the chance to read great texts and also learn more about Old English as a language and the history behind the works we read. Take away lesson: Keep reading. Keep writing.

Thesis Title: Alligator Dreams Alligator Dreams is a series of fictional short stories focusing thematically on growing up in Florida. It grapples with the realities of growing up queer, AFAB, and southern, as well as dealing with trauma, death, family dynamics, and complicated friendships at a young age. These stories explore how a childhood in Florida is unique, while also attempting to showcase the natural side of Florida, as well as the difficulties of growing up there. Favorite part of Reed: The people I met and the amazing shows, projects, and events I was able to take part in. Favorite English class: Intro to Fiction with Peter Rock; Ambivalence, Failure, and Doubt with Sara Jaffe; and Imagination and the Working Hand with Nathalia King. Take away lesson: The process of writing is never finished, and there is always more depth to every story. You can continue to find more to explore in your own work and that of others until the cows come home, and there will always be more to discover.

Thesis Title: Painbird: A Poetic Thesis on Coping with Vague Anxieties and Particular Sorrows A collection of 32 original poems, composed specifically for the thesis. Favorite part of Reed: Being part of a stimulating and exciting yet still compassionate student body. Take away lesson: Definitely, the ability to write an analytical paper well, with proper citations.

Thesis Title: Meursalt's Linguistic Metamorphoses

Thesis Title: bobo and the poems

Thesis title: "I Felt Myself a Phantom": Spacemaking and Radical Self-Representation in the Literature and Filmmaking of Homeless Bay Areans My thesis looks at poetry, short stories, and journalism from two homeless-authored Bay Area newspapers and, after an examination of homeless representation in American film history, analyzes two documentary-style films produced in conjunction with Bay Area homeless communities. Through my thesis, I hope to bring more attention to the voices of local homeless creators in the context of a locality where homelessness and inequitable wealth and property distribution are ever-increasing issues. Favorite part of Reed: My favorite part of attending Reed was having the opportunity to work with a variety of different social service and community organizations through the SEEDS federal work-study program. In different positions, I worked with communities experiencing homelessness, domestic and sexual violence, food insecurity, and challenges related to immigration and employment status. I feel incredibly blessed to have had the chance to engage with my community in this way and to begin to learn how to navigate advocacy and systems works from a trauma-informed place. Favorite English class: Junior Seminar with Laura Leibman, American Short Story with Gail Sherman, and Theories of Mind: Representations of Consciousness in Fiction and Theory with Nathalia King. Take away lesson: Learning how to communicate effectively can actively prepare you for important work in so many different fields.

Thesis Title: Laughing at Some Fucked Up Shit: An Investigation into the Relationship Between Trauma and Stand-up Comedy My thesis is about examining the various ways material concerning personal or identity-based trauma makes its way into notable stand-up comedy routines. I consider the various performative and rhetorical strategies comics use to make difficult subjects funny, and why that is utterly important to the genre. Favorite part of Reed: I still think the best part about attending Reed was finally meeting and being around people who accepted my dumb nerdy ass. That allowed me to grow personally in ways I never have before, and now I'm so grateful to have this awesome community of people I adore! Favorite English class: So many! Junior Seminar and Dead &amp; Undead with Laura Leibman, Dante's Divine Comedy with Michael Faletra, Revision and Beyond with Sara Jaffe, Joyce with Jay Dickson- really I never had a bad class in this department! Take away lesson: Storytelling is so important to our human condition. I've always loved listening to the stories people tell across time and space, but I think at Reed I finally understood that for me, the most important part of storytelling is how it has the transformative ability to create empathy. And on top of that, I can tell my own stories too!

Thesis title: Ghost Stories: Discovering and Disintegrating Homespace My thesis is a group of essentially nonfiction memoir-style essays. I explore the mutability of the definition of home, through a series of interlocking relationships and spaces that connect back to me. I examine the tatteredness in the fabric of my selfhood through the co-constitutive threads of family, pain, food, memory, and love. Favorite part of Reed: Everything. My friends. Having classes outside. Finishing essays. Sunday morning of Renn Fayre. Favorite English Class: Queer Writing with Sara Jaffe, August Wilson with Pancho Savery, Junior Seminar with Laura Leibman, and Somatic Writing with Samiya Bashir. Take away lesson: When you learn to read and write better, you can apply those skills to anything and everything. Intellectual and creative energies share power in one another.

Thesis Title: “Intermittently Stunned to be Alive”: Jewish American Authorial Reincarnation in Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer and Nicole Krauss’ Forest Dark I look at the way Roth and Krauss reincarnate Jewish authors who died young in the 20th century, considering the way such a fictional mechanism allows for contemporary Jewish American authors to contend with their relationships to a Jewish literary canon, as well as to their identities as Jews in America. Favorite part of Reed: I really enjoyed the community that formed around the Library and Paradox. It was a community that was very clearly built on the understanding that we were all here to learn together, and relationships in the community were founded on shared academic and intellectual interests. Being aware of the work others were doing around you always put your own work into context, making class discussion feel more grounded and purposeful, academically. Losing the last half of this semester, which I would have spent around others finishing their thesis and qualing and trying to keep on top of course work together, despite those other distractions, feels like a huge loss. I attached a picture of myself taken in the library, which is probably the place I associate most with my time at Reed—that might sound a little sad, but I don't consider it so at all! I learned so much in there and loved the remarkable access to texts it gave me. The relationships I made with other students at the thesis desks and while working at the circulation desk will stick with me. Favorite English class: To pick one from each semester I was an English major: Jay Dickson's "British Women Writers," Lucia's "Phenomenology of Early Modern Lyric," and Nathalia's "Literary Imagination and the Working Hand." Take away lesson: I've been exposed to so many great texts and ways of reading at Reed. I feel as though I've been well prepared for a life of reading and thinking, and that's what I now have the responsibility to honor, after having been lucky enough to study here.

Thesis Title: The Self as Text: Augustinian Reading and the Legible Corpus in Donne and Milton This thesis explores the metaphoricity of the self as a text, an idea rooted in the ancient hermeneutics of Augustine, and prevalent in the early modern writings of Donne and Milton. Surveying the multivalent interpretability of language and bodies throughout the poetry and prose of Donne and Milton, juxtaposed with Augustine's theological reading practices, this thesis seeks to understand the limits of human intelligibility through the concept of the textual self which is both written and reading in relation to the divine. Favorite part of Reed: My favorite part of attending Reed was the inspiration that came with each week's conference discussions, especially in the English and Humanities departments. Favorite English class: "John Donne" and "John Milton" with Lucia Martinez! "The Renaissance World and the Birth of Modernity" with Michael Faletra! (technically Humanities 211-212, but still). Take away lesson: The parts of the text that my mind wants to glaze over—the ones that are difficult to grasp—are usually the parts worth spending the most time on.

Thesis Title: "Let's Do a Makeover!:" An Examination of the Modernization of Jane Austen in Clueless and The Lizzie Bennet Stories

Thesis Title: How to Eat a Woman A creative writing poetry thesis that exists at the intersection of: myth, sexuality, memory, family, and labor. Favorite part of Reed: All the ways I have grown larger and deeper and braver. Oh and meeting Jae Yeun Choi was exquisite. Favorite English class: Lisa's Contemporary American Poetry class! Take away lesson: It was simply an awareness of how deep the well of knowledge goes, that the pursuit of greater subtly and understanding never ends.

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