Studies of HtaB from Corynebacterium diphtheriae

gsurc [email protected]

"Make a Party" or "Make a Decision": The Role of Formulaic Sequences in the Second Language Acquisition of English Verbs

Applied Linguistics & [email protected]

Validating CRISPR Targets in B16 Mouse Melanoma Cells

Neuroscience [email protected]

At a Rest Stop on the Road to Heaven

This is a creative writing manuscript of poetry. It contains original poems and a creative introduction to the project as a whole.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Englis

We Are Everyone You Know

The dissertation for my PhD is a composite novel called We Are Everyone You Know. The novel is set in a small town that is neither rural nor suburban, which, like the characters, defies classification. The cast rotates. Main characters become supporting characters in subsequent chapters and vice versa. I employ this strategy so the reader is able to see each character as an individual, that even those who seem to be in the background are living complex lives. The novel explores such themes as poverty, gentrification, the loss of innocence caused by a corrupt world, and the inability of people to realize their identities when the promises of youth turn out to be lies. Each chapter or story is told from either a different point of view or in a different style or genre. While the novel as a whole is grounded around a family and group of friends in a small town, the pieces of the story range in form from simple realism, to modernism, to post-modernism, to surrealism, to meta-fiction. I experiment with genres ranging from crime drama, to disaster survival, to sports comedy, to kung-fu epic, and more. Interspersed between the genre pieces are realist stories of a new lost generation—thirty-somethings who are stuck in permanent adolescence, who work at soul-crushing jobs, and who find neither the shining future that was promised to them in their youth nor the comfortable mediocrity of their parents’ lives. For this project I have been particularly inspired by the works of Louise Erdrich, James Joyce, and Jennifer Egan.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Englis

Threshing Floor: Poetry Inspired by the Black Arts Movement

ABSTRACT This dissertation represents the culmination of my doctoral studies and demonstrates my development as a poet. The dissertation begins with a critical introduction of my studies of the Black Arts Movement, which serves as a prologue to my full-length poetry manuscript. Deeply influenced by poetry written by African Americans from the Harlem Renaissance through the Black Arts Movement, I recognize the importance of poetry’s response to cultural and political change. In the introduction, I explore the works of Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Audre Lorde, Michael Harper, Nikki Giovanni, and Claudia Rankin. These poets inspired me with their poetic approaches to Black love, Black history, and Black culture. Their poems taught me lyrical techniques and a willingness both to adhere to and break from traditional poetic forms and language. Within this discussion, I intersperse segments of my own work to represent their influence. The poems selected for this manuscript draw on themes such as family heritage, African American history and culture, social justice, womanhood, religion, and the natural world. The poems are written in free verse, blank verse, and forms such as sonnet variations, and they experiment with stanza formation and visual form to reflect content and tone. Therefore, this project exemplifies my dedication to the craft, my community engagement teaching pedagogy, and my focus on modern American poetry of the Black Arts Movement and beyond.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Englis

Impact of Early Life Pain on Microglia Expression and Activation in the Periaqueductal Gray of Adult Male and Female Rats

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A Wintering Room

This collection of poetry mixes personal myth with the maternal and feminine. These poems consider the female body as natural and powerful. Themes of womanhood, the womb, and the bond of mother and child are explored. It is about breasts and babies and bees, about milk and honey.Master of Fine Arts (MFA)Englis

Screens: A Novel

There are many versions of Alexandra Marie Howell: there is the profile-picture-less, snarky wit of the Twitter user, @HowellattheMoon85, sending her observations into an unlistening void (having only a few followers, none of whom she actually knows); there is the lurker on Reddit, u/CodswallopToBoot, who observes but rarely interacts, making all her fanfic private; there is the Bumble dating app user, GrangerDanger, who is putting herself out there, only to incur textual abuse the moment she doesn’t respond quickly enough for fragile man-boys on the other end of the interface. And then there is the physical body of Alexandra Marie Howell--Alex--sitting alone in her cramped apartment, face lit by laptop and phone screens in an otherwise darkened room.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Englis

The Dupe

This dissertation consists of original poetry written between 2012 and 2016 during my time in the PhD program at Georgia State University. It is accompanied by a brief introduction which discusses a variety of techniques that make a poem or song “successful,” as well as an explanation of how I have applied these techniques in my own writing.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)Englis