Browsing by Author "MacKenzie, Matt, committee member"
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Item Restricted American feral: a novel(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Freedman, Benjamin, author; Ausubel, Ramona, advisor; Altschul, Andrew, committee member; MacKenzie, Matt, committee memberAt its core, this novel centers around Pep Olsen, a fifteen-year-old boy living in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State in 2004. He navigates his overactive mind and anxiety, absence of his dad who works on a nuclear submarine, seeking popularity in school, adolescent relationships, burgeoning bicurious desire, and fascination with a stranger who has recently been going around town, violently killing and displaying animals. Eek! The backdrop to this local violence is the Iraq war. A different sort of violence, but no less gruesome. The war has taken over the consciousness of the community and is usually present, humming in the background of the novel. Pep navigates his own still-forming thoughts on the U.S. and its invasion of Iraq, which is put in conversation with other main characters—Grandma Bee, Ken Olsen, and Vice Principal Sanders—who each see the horror of war but react in radically different ways. Often times, characters like the Vice Principal, Clint Shackton, and others act or say things with direct allusion to historical events or speech. There's also some philosophical references and literary allusions going on, though I hope it's not too heavy-handed. I think there's also this recurring theme of human and animal, how slippages between the two can occur, and how this period makes "animals" out of folks, and what that allows to be viewed as "legitimate." The way in which stories are constructed, how the media describes violence, and the mythmaking of war are all important. It's probably worth mentioning that I also recently read a ton of weird, early 20th century American political thinkers like Walter Lippman and Edward Bernays, who sort of professionalized and developed the idea of propaganda as a "necessary" means of controlling public opinion. Those ideas are present throughout, as I see a direct intellectual through line between that era and how the Bush administration riled up war support. Grandma Bee's leftist political tendencies are a nice foil to this. It also pretty explicitly deals with the somewhat uniquely American phenomenon of both being one of the most destructive, violent international forces, and yet almost uniformly not viewed as such within the country. Delusion and how such a picture of the world is formed seem to be important questions. Thematically, one of the things I attempted here was put the early aughts nostalgia of boyhood and dial-up internet and old video games and high school culture in direct proximity to the horrors of this period. I try and let the two bounce off one another, and hopefully this helps contribute to the slightly eerie, off-kilter atmosphere of the book. On a craft level, there's a few things I tried. First, the whole book takes place over roughly two and a half days, so naturally there is a lot of expansion of moments here, living inside the head of Pep and others. There's also an abundance of dialogue, at times spanning pages. I wasn't expecting this when I started, but it quickly grew to become an essential part of the pacing of the book as well as deepening the characters. And it was also, well, fun as hell to write. There are also some bigger ideas I played with—reality and distortion, the function of language, and what the line between mind and world is when you're writing from the perspective of within someone's head, etc.Item Restricted Breastshot(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Loveland, Grace, author; Altschul, Andrew, advisor; Ausubel, Ramona, committee member; MacKenzie, Matt, committee memberBreastshot is an exploration of human suffering through the lens of the fantastic. In a series of short, interconnected stories, this novel imagines a world where magic, witches, and gods exist alongside pop stars and fast food burritos. As characters search for meaning in a world that has changed overnight, issues of absurdity and faith are addressed as avenues for exploration and understanding.Item Open Access Friendship and the role of emotion in Aristotelian and Stoic conceptions of eudaimonia(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Lins, Nicole G., author; Archie, Andre, advisor; MacKenzie, Matt, committee member; Plaisance, Patrick, committee memberAncient conceptions of virtuous and perfect friendships – specifically in Aristotle and the Stoics (i.e. Cicero, Epictetus, and Seneca) – attempt to describe the proper relations between people, when and why friendships arise, and how we ought to treat our friends. I will argue that the Stoic conception of friendship, when looked at through modern-day psychological research on what is necessary to a good friendship, presents a better model for friendship than Aristotle. This is because the Stoics better capture the positive aspects in friendship through their stance on emotion and how one ought to live in order to live well. When one lives as a Stoic, he is better placed to maintain a stable level of psychological well-being, and he is better able to care for his friends. Aristotle’s conception of friendship falls short because of his claim that friendship is grounded on moral virtue alone, as well as his claim that there are necessary contingent goods to happiness, both of which make his conception of friendship unstable and less preferable. My positive argument for the Stoics having the better conception of friendship rests on psychological research on friendship and well-being, on their ability to capture the plurality for grounds of friendship, and on their own mental stability and attitudes of affection toward others. Because the Stoic conception is supported by empirical evidence and what people actually experience in good friendships, it provides a better model for how one ought to live and act concerning their friends.Item Unknown The somatic wager(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) George Bagdanov, Kristin, author; Cooperman, Matthew, advisor; Steensen, Sasha, committee member; MacKenzie, Matt, committee memberThis collection of poems explores what it means to be a body in the Anthropocene.Item Unknown The temporal elements of emotional identification with film characters(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) McCormick, Stephanie, author; Romagni, Domenica, advisor; MacKenzie, Matt, committee member; Snodgrass, Jeffrey, committee memberI argue that the subjective experience of time passing, felt duration, is a crucial element in the emotional and immersive experience of narrative films. First, I review multiple theories of emotional identification to conclude that the most accurate and thorough account is provided by the simulation theory of emotions. Growing from this account, I establish a framework of emotional engagement (general and emotional identification) and immersion (emotional and temporal). Film theories about emotional engagement often overlook felt duration despite it being a feature of emotional experiences. A film's depiction of a character's felt duration facilitates the audience's emotional engagement and immersion. Additionally, the audience's felt duration can be manipulated by the film's pacing techniques to further engagement and immersion. There are two main upshots of my thesis I will briefly outline in the last chapter: aesthetic value and ethical value. The emotional and temporal experiences of the audience are vital to the understanding of narratives and the experience of films. Emotional identification exercises our capacity to relate to other people. This affects our ability to empathize and treat other people. In this thesis, I draw attention to felt duration as an element of emotional engagement and immersion that often goes unacknowledged.