Degree Name

Department

English

College

Humanities

Defense Date

2023-12-01

Publication Date

2023-12-06

First Faculty Advisor

Joey Franklin

First Faculty Reader

Grant Eckstein

Honors Coordinator

Aaron Eastley

Keywords

trauma, memory, personal essay, creative nonfiction

Abstract

The Dark Is Not My Enemy is a collection of personal essays exploring the connection between trauma and memory, as well as how different forms of the personal essay respond to the challenges of memory in the meaning-making process. This thesis includes three essays—a scenic flash essay, a lyric essay, and a memoir essay—and a critical introduction that explores the theories that inform the formal choices made in the essays and explains how these choices help confront, understand, and heal from sexual trauma.