This paper serves as an analysis of Vladimir Nabokov's short story, Signs and Symbols, with regar... more This paper serves as an analysis of Vladimir Nabokov's short story, Signs and Symbols, with regards to its narrator, the concept of "referential mania" and the possible interpretations that the story yields.
In March of 1939, The New Yorker published “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” a short story wh... more In March of 1939, The New Yorker published “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” a short story whose namesake, Walter Mitty, would later become synonymous with “dreamer” in American political, economic, and artistic spheres. This paper analyzes the differences between the original short story - and its fairly obvious Marxist implications - and the 2013 Ben Stiller remake, which dramatically changes the tone and implications of Thurber's original version.
In May of 2014, the Chief Commander of the Royal Thai Army, Prayuth Chan-o-cha, executed a coup t... more In May of 2014, the Chief Commander of the Royal Thai Army, Prayuth Chan-o-cha, executed a coup to depose former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the governing Pheu Thai Party. Shortly thereafter, the military junta enacted interim constitutional law, suspending the 2007 Constitution to sanction the authority of Prayuth’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). This paper deals with the fallout of the 23rd attempt at re-writing the Thai constitution in less than two centuries, and how it has affected Thailand's sense of national identity, including both the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority. This paper also investigates the nuanced impact that Western tourism has had on a nation that was never colonized, and how that has changed the economic makeup of the country and foreign policy objectives of the new government.
The purpose of this paper is to connect the ideology, style, and effects of postmodernism with th... more The purpose of this paper is to connect the ideology, style, and effects of postmodernism with the development of David Foster Wallace's fundamental ideal, that of re-establishing the importance and inclusion of sincerity in American fiction. He believed the resurgence of sincerity and honesty between a writer and his/her readers would result in a renaissance of cultural innovation and ingenuity, and thus, Wallace made it his goal to produce a body of work in which the "interior self" is explored and revealed to reader, all while attempting to avoid performance. This movement was later coined "New Sincerity." Using his piece titled "E Pluribus Unum" and Wallace's theories on sincerity, irony, and the consequences of advertising and television on the American people, I will analyze a certain element of the current "transmodern" epoch in which we are living: the social media platform, Instagram. Finally, I will conclude with a comparison between 1) the revival of ironic treatment of the "self" on social media and 2) the survival of the sincere in modern television series, particularly the dark-humor technology-oriented production called "Black Mirror."
This paper serves as an analysis of Vladimir Nabokov's short story, Signs and Symbols, with regar... more This paper serves as an analysis of Vladimir Nabokov's short story, Signs and Symbols, with regards to its narrator, the concept of "referential mania" and the possible interpretations that the story yields.
In March of 1939, The New Yorker published “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” a short story wh... more In March of 1939, The New Yorker published “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” a short story whose namesake, Walter Mitty, would later become synonymous with “dreamer” in American political, economic, and artistic spheres. This paper analyzes the differences between the original short story - and its fairly obvious Marxist implications - and the 2013 Ben Stiller remake, which dramatically changes the tone and implications of Thurber's original version.
In May of 2014, the Chief Commander of the Royal Thai Army, Prayuth Chan-o-cha, executed a coup t... more In May of 2014, the Chief Commander of the Royal Thai Army, Prayuth Chan-o-cha, executed a coup to depose former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the governing Pheu Thai Party. Shortly thereafter, the military junta enacted interim constitutional law, suspending the 2007 Constitution to sanction the authority of Prayuth’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). This paper deals with the fallout of the 23rd attempt at re-writing the Thai constitution in less than two centuries, and how it has affected Thailand's sense of national identity, including both the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority. This paper also investigates the nuanced impact that Western tourism has had on a nation that was never colonized, and how that has changed the economic makeup of the country and foreign policy objectives of the new government.
The purpose of this paper is to connect the ideology, style, and effects of postmodernism with th... more The purpose of this paper is to connect the ideology, style, and effects of postmodernism with the development of David Foster Wallace's fundamental ideal, that of re-establishing the importance and inclusion of sincerity in American fiction. He believed the resurgence of sincerity and honesty between a writer and his/her readers would result in a renaissance of cultural innovation and ingenuity, and thus, Wallace made it his goal to produce a body of work in which the "interior self" is explored and revealed to reader, all while attempting to avoid performance. This movement was later coined "New Sincerity." Using his piece titled "E Pluribus Unum" and Wallace's theories on sincerity, irony, and the consequences of advertising and television on the American people, I will analyze a certain element of the current "transmodern" epoch in which we are living: the social media platform, Instagram. Finally, I will conclude with a comparison between 1) the revival of ironic treatment of the "self" on social media and 2) the survival of the sincere in modern television series, particularly the dark-humor technology-oriented production called "Black Mirror."
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Papers by Elizabeth Stallings