Date of Award

5-4-2018

Degree Type

Creative Project

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Committee Chair(s)

Jennifer Sinor

Committee

Jennifer Sinor

Committee

Charles Waugh

Committee

Jennifer Peeples

Abstract

Confluence: A Braided Essay seeks to examine three distinct topics: the trauma of my parents' divorce, the controversial decision over Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, and Aileen Wuornos, the first documented female serial killer in the United States. The braided essay's unique format allows the author to select three different topics and weave them together. As the author braids the strands through the essay, the implications of the strands arise and begin to vibrate together on the page. Confluence is a response to the rage of a serial killer, the pain of losing Bears Ears, and the angered response towards my family's separation. Rather than responding with anger to a serial killer, a landscape, and a group of people, Confluence seeks to move out of these stifling spaces of rage and into the places we can control: our responses to traumatic events.

Included in

Nonfiction Commons

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