Illness and Persephone

2005

2005, for majors in Religion and in Classical Studies, and for concentration in Feminist and Gender Studies, Bryn Mawr College

In this dissertation I develop a theoretical framework for the practice of dream reading as a form of literary engagement worthy of attention from educators. Dream reading is a form of research in which the researcher takes responsibility for selfreflection and potential transformation of self through the construction of knowledge based on "reading" literary fictive images as if they arose from night dreams. This study develops dream reading theory through an exploration of Carol Shields' novel, Unless, as if it were a dream. It examines women's silence and the disposition of fear of knowing from multiple perspectives. The study uses my personal dream journals together with a variety of theoretical works in feminist, consciousness and dream theories to inform interpretations of Norah, Reta, Lois, and Danielle. For as Donald says, "when stories and ideas are juxtaposed, so that their meanings collide, they can shift our focus to new semantic spaces [to] clarify the experienced world" (p. 294). This work is a limit case that investigates women's silence and fear of knowing as they emerge from my personal experience of resistance to the chaos and uncertainty of disintegrating and rebuilding through midlife into crone.

International Journal on Humanistic Ideology, 2008

The Romanian writer Mircea Eliade identifies the discovery of non-European spiritual universes as the prime phenomenon of the twentieth century (Journal I 163). These universes, Eliade observes, are not dead museum pieces but life-worlds that cause cultural alterations and metamorphoses (Journal III 7). In his enigmatic short story "The Captain's Daughter" (which takes its title from Alexander Pushkin's novella about the survival of an epic love under a brutal social order), Eliade conjures the spirit of the fourteenth century Persian poet Hafiz to sacralize the world.

International Journal on Humanistic Ideology, 2008

Mircea Eliade’s “The Captain’s Daughter” invokes the legacies of Hafiz and Pushkin to sacralize the world. In this enigmatic short story, the motif of boredom denotes the characters’ immersion in profane time and in a mechanistic mode of being. A captain hires a peasant boy, Brânduş, to box with his son, Valentin. Brânduş subverts Valentin’s socialization into reflexive violence, and reveals that he knows that the captain’s daughter, Agrippina, had been left back a year at school. Intrigued, Agrippina tries to find out how Brânduş discovered the secret that was at once a family disgrace and transformative mystery. The young boy represents the spiritual freedom missing in Agrippina’s suffocating social and family environment. In its recollection of the various cultural guises of love, in its return to origins, Eliade’s story unifies cultures and connects us to the living universe. Keywords: Eliade, The Captain’s Daughter, Hafiz, Pushkin, Romanian short story, Romanian literature, Persian literature, Persian poetry, Russian literature.

I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Wendell Aycock for his support, patience, and guidance during the preparation for this work. I want to extend my appreciation to Dr. Bryce Conrad and Dr. Michael Schoenecke who, along with Dr. Aycock, allowed me the opportunity to explore a subject that interests me and who gave me insightflil and conscientious direction during the revision process. I want to extend my gratitude to Dr. William Marcy, Dean of the College of Engineering, for allowing me to take much needed time away from my position in order to complete this degree, and for the unending support that he and the College of Engineering have extended to me. I want to thank John Chandler for his support. Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my mother Ruby McDowell for always reminding me that it is never too late to learn and never too late to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks. And I want to especially thank Ron Fontenot for his many years of support and encouragement. 11 n PERSEPHONE: THE MAIDEN AND INNOCENCE 29 m DEMETER: THE MOTHER AND EXPERIENCE 64 IV HECATE: THE WISE CRONE AND RECONSTRUCTION 99 V. AFTERMATH: GOING TO WAR AND BACK AGAIN 128 VI CONCLUSION 164 BIBLIOGRAPHY 176 m CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION American literature about the Vietnam War is a not a luxury but a necessity, something we vitally need for the present and future. -H. Bruce Franklin, Vietnam War in American Stories, Songs, and Poems, 1

2008

Beauty enriches our lives and enlivens our work for social change. This inquiry explores how we experience and create beauty, and how this experience can transform us. Beauty is described as not inherent in an object, but rather it arises out of the connection between object and viewer. For this reason, beauty is both momentary and timeless. Looking at our experience of beauty is valuable for designing social change because we are more likely to sustain a beautiful solution: one that we feel connected with, one that is congruent with our sense of the world. Using a phenomenological approach and the lens of Whole Systems Design, several experiences of beauty are considered as examples for this inquiry, including interactions with nature, participating in the arts, and engaging in interpersonal communication. Five chapters frame this inquiry. The first begins by considering how we might illuminate beauty in our lives and work, and the second looks at cultivating that connection through awareness of sensory experience, then applying this awareness to the work that we do with each other. The third chapter considers the creation of beauty, and working in congruence with our systems. Transformation, the fourth chapter, investigates the relationship of ugliness with beauty. Illuminating its presence leads us to transformation, which is at the heart of social change work. Explored in the final chapter is how beauty can be our invitation to others for engaging in the work of social change. The conclusion offers insights gained during the inquiry and lingering questions for future consideration.

The focus of Transcending the I was to leverage autoethnography not only as a method of inquiry, but also as a catalyst for experiencing transformational change within one person’s psyche through research outcomes focused on answering the question: how can the experiences of contemplative silence, mindful awareness, and indigenous ceremony facilitate transformational learning in support of human growth towards wholeness and interdependence? Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research whereby the author uses self-reflection and writing to explore personal experience and connect autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings. After 20 years in a large corporation, this author found herself senior in an organization and earning a healthy income but unfulfilled in purpose and meaning. Feeling there should be something more to life than long hours, little time for family or friends, and full of meaningless things attempting to satiate her growing discontent, she took a leap-of-faith into liminal space to discover a world greater than the contemporary society she came from. While subjective well-being can be hard to define and even harder to measure, the 2017 World Happiness Report (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs) continues to demonstrate that measures of happiness such as economic, social, and health are important to everyone, yet nothing is as important as mental health, or eudaimonia, that sense of meaning and purpose in one’s life (p. 5). Through journaling, introspection, and storytelling, this author approached inquiry and analysis as a ceremony by which to reveal habits and patterns of her way of being which mirrored the larger culture she researched. Many findings in this study describe a modern world in need of remembering those sacred bonds of family, community, and a shared humanity. While science has made great advancements in medicine and technology, we continue to fail at establishing a root cause between many of our behaviors and the psychological, physical, and environmental ills of our world. The spirit of this research drew upon the bases of these practices to then demonstrate the power of contemplation, mindfulness, and ceremony as one method of restoring wholeness and relationship within our collective human spirit.