Dragon Tears: Highlighting the Christian Salvation Message Through the Use of Allegorical Fantasy Fiction

The recent movie versions of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy have raised in the publishing world a public demand for good quality fantasy fiction that can be used as a teaching tool for spreading the Christian salvation message. Dragon Tears was written to fulfill this need, providing young adult readers with both an engaging fantasy story and at the same time, an allegorical format through which to receive the Christian salvation story. Dragon Tears draws its foundational material from two educational backgrounds in religion and creative writing.

The Lie That Tells the Truth: Creating Truth in Fiction and the Novel Delivering Hope

What makes fiction believable is the truth behind the words. This Capstone Project explores the ways in which authors put the truth on the page while simultaneously fabricating stories. The Reflective Paper examines writing techniques used to make the reader trust the story and the storyteller. The Creative Capstone is the result of applying these craft skills to Delivering Hope, a novel in progress about a critically ill baby bringing a dysfunctional family back together. The author relies on her personal experience of high- risk pregnancy and preterm birth to help create truth in her fiction.

Nostalgic representation of reality in television fiction: an empirical study based on the analysis of the Spanish television series Cuéntame cómo pasó

The Spanish transition from dictatorship to democracy is often described as an example of negotiation or agreement between the elites (Sánchez Cuenca and Aguilar, 2009: 433). Journalistic and political elites, aware of their important historical role, agreed a consensus on certain issues (democracy, constitution, amnesty) or characters (King Juan Carlos I), in order to ensure the stability of the democratic process (Zugasti, 2007, 2008). Television, which articulates the discourse of the masses, has been one of the basic means used to illustrate the development. Among the highlights of recent major audiovisual content, Cuéntame cómo pasó (2001-present) -a TV-series designed to explain changes with a nostalgic tone in Spanish society since 1968 until today- stands out. By choosing a random sample of episodes for this research we propose to verify the validity of the representation of the political process which contextualizes the series. By analyzing many elements, such as the opinions of the main characters, their personal, political and geographical situations, we try to show the construction of a focal point that sanctifies the official version. We also stress the pacifying and nostalgic tone, which constructs stereotypes and taboos about the process and which characterizes this series as a symbolic culmination of the democratization undertaken by the elites.

A. Greek Testament, 1768

Leather-hardcover volume containing an interleaved and annotated copy of a Greek Testament. The printed text is in Greek, but most of Pearson's notes are in English and discuss or translate the text. The inside front cover is inscribed "E. Pearson 1768." There is no title page or imprint information.

This volume contains the Chaldee Lexicon, and the first part of the Greek and English Lexicon, 1772

Title copied from the volume's title page.

This volume contains the continuation of the Greek and English lexicon, [1772]

Title copied from the volume's title page.

The volume contains the continuation of the Greek and English lexicon; & a treatise on the quantity of the Greek vowels, [1772]-1791

Title copied from the volume's title page.

A. Greek Testament, 1768

Leather-hardcover volume containing an interleaved and annotated copy of a Greek Testament. The printed text is in Greek, but most of Pearson's notes are in English and discuss or translate the text. The inside front cover is inscribed "E. Pearson 1768." There is no title page or imprint information.

Greek translations by Benjamin Wadsworth, 1766

Two-page handwritten Greek translations created by Harvard sophomore Benjamin Wadsworth on folio-sized paper. The document contains Greek translations of two letters from J. Garretson's "English exercises for school-boys to translate into Latin," copied by Wadsworth in 1766. The first page contains two sections: "As it is in English. A Letter from one friend to another," containing a copy of Garretson's Epistle IV from "E.C.," and a Greek translation of the letter beginning "Kypie..." The second page contains a Greek translation of Garretson's Epistle III from "B.J," and a note by Wadsworth: "A Letter from one Brother to another. Taken out of Garetson's English Exercise. The 3rd Exercise. or 135st page. There is not room or I would write down the English out of which I translated it. September the 2d A.D. 1766. When I was a sophomore." The document is bordered with hand-drawn double lines.

Fleshing Out and Losing Flesh: The Decomposing Corpse as Narrative Object in American Hardboiled Detective Fiction

This dissertation examines the corpse as an object in and of American hardboiled detective fiction written between 1920 and 1950. I deploy several theoretical frames, including narratology, body-as-text theory, object relations theory, and genre theory, in order to demonstrate the significance of objects, symbols, and things primarily in the clever and crafty work of Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), but also touching on the writings of their lesser known accomplices. I construct a literary genealogy of American hardboiled detective fiction originating in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, compare the contributions of classic or Golden Age detective fiction in England, and describe the socio-economic contexts, particularly the predominance of the “pulps,” that gave birth to the realism of the Hardboiled School. Taking seriously Chandler’s obsession with the art of murder, I engage with how authors pre-empt their readers’ knowledge of the tricks of the trade and manipulate their expectations, as well as discuss the characteristics and effect of the inimitable hardboiled style, its sharpshooting language and deadpan humour. Critical scholarship has rarely addressed the body and figure of the corpse, preferring to focus instead on the machinations of the femme fatale, the performance of masculinity, or the prevalence of violence. I cast new light on the world of hardboiled detective fiction by dissecting the corpse as the object that both motivates and de-composes (or rots away from) the narrative that makes it signify. I treat the corpse as an inanimate object, indifferent to representation, that destabilizes the integrity and self-possession, as well as the ratiocination, of the detective who authors the narrative of how the corpse came to be. The corpse is all deceptive and dangerous surface rather than the container of hidden depths of life and meaning that the detective hopes to uncover and reconstruct. I conclude with a chapter that is both critical denouement and creative writing experiment to reveal the self-reflexive (and at times metafictional) dimensions of hardboiled fiction. My dissertation, too, in the manner of hardboiled fiction, hopes to incriminate my readers as much as enlighten them.

The future imagined: Exploring fiction as a means of reflecting on today’s Grand Societal Challenges and tomorrow’s options

European science policy (so-called Horizon 2020) is guided by Grand Societal Challenges (GSCs) with the explicit aim of shaping the future. In this paper we propose an innovative approach to the analysis and critique of Europe’s GSCs. The aim is to explore how speculative and creative fiction offer ways of embodying, telling, imagining, and symbolising ‘futures’, that can provide alternative frames and understandings to enrich the grand challenges of the 21st century, and the related rationale and agendas for ERA and H2020. We identify six ways in which filmic and literary representations can be considered creative foresight methods (i.e. through: creative input, detail, warning, reflection, critique, involvement) and can provide alternative perspectives on these central challenges, and warning signals for the science policy they inform. The inquiry involved the selection of 64 novels and movies engaging with notions of the future, produced over the last 150 years. Content analysis based on a standardised matrix of major themes and sub-domains, allows to build a hierarchy of themes and to identify major patterns of long-lasting concerns about humanity’s future. The study highlights how fiction sees oppression, inequality and a range of ethical issues linked to human and nature’s dignity as central to, and inseparable from innovation, technology and science. It concludes identifying warning signals in four major domains, arguing that these signals are compelling, and ought to be heard, not least because elements of such future have already escaped the imaginary world to make part of today’s experience. It identifies areas poorly defined or absent from Europe's science agenda, and argues for the need to increase research into human, social, political and cultural processes involved in techno-science endeavours.