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| author |
Stefanie Rose Shapiro
| | title |
Finding Home: A Personal Quest for Self, Belonging, and Body Acceptance
| | abstract |
This dissertation is an exploration of the meaning of home—the circuitous journey I have taken to attain, for now, the best (and ever-evolving) understanding of what home is. It combines life writing—a memoir in essays—with poetry and short stories. Short stories are included to present the imaginative, unhoused creativity of the spirit and the human tendency to layer fiction with autobiographical narrative. My multi-genre, 'eclectic storytelling' dissertation opens with a scholarly introduction that discusses my writing process; the literary influences of Tove Ditlevsen, Roxane Gay, and Marilynn Robinson; and the confluence of narrative psychology, narrative identity, and the Dialogic Self Theory with my creative work. The opportunity to use a mixed-genre approach ('eclectic storytelling') best allows me to showcase my winding road to home, for home is not a location where we arrive, but the place where the psyche, the body, and the soul coalesce and abide. Home is both unreliable and a panacea; it promises comfort, safety, and security, but its delivery can be housed in multiple places at once (i.e., a physical location, spirit, or the mind). Home is also amorphous and unwieldy in its tactility. It is the one place most people want to lay claim to and possess. Its stability provides succor; its constancy provides relief. One's perception of home is greatly influenced by the body one inhabits; therefore, home for me, is about womanhood, belonging, self and body acceptance, and the 'heroic journey' towards actualization.
| | school |
The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Drew University
| | degree |
D.Litt.
(2024)
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| advisor |
Laura Winters
Liana Piehler
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| full text | SShapiro.pdf - requires Drew uLogin |
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