Date of Award
8-2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts - English
Department
English
First Advisor
John McDermott
Second Advisor
Bridget Adams
Third Advisor
Emma Aylor
Fourth Advisor
Owen Smith
Abstract
This collection interrogates the question, “what does it mean to be human?” reframing thought experiments, dredging personal wounds, weighing societal norms, reflecting on modernity and history, and placing the contemporary in conversation with classical philosophy. These poems cannot resolve this question; however, by looking at our reflection in many different mirrors, both clear and darkling, we can find new dimensions and angles of inquiry. Philosophers once tried to determine what substance drove creation and moved all things; now we have yielded that central governing logic over to machines we have built ourselves. Perhaps the most crucial element of the riddle of the nature of our humanity is not that it is answered, but that we keep asking the question.
Repository Citation
Hoover, Victoria K., "ABANDONED APEIRON: VARIATIONS ON THE HUMAN QUESTION, FROM ARCHE TO ALGORITHM" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 684.
https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/684
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
