The Field is a book-length poem which seeks to complicate the epic tradition through its investigations of transgenerational trauma and the effect of time and place on memory and identity. The narrative of The Field focuses on a family of three women, a mother and two daughters, the house they share, and the land that surrounds them. The Field is about my family’s refusal to address difficult familial narratives and the resulting severed connections to ancestral knowledge and custom. The Field is written out of and into this lack of knowledge, creating its own methods of investigation and reconstruction. The critical portion discusses the idea of a new epic subgenre, the “contraepic.”
","abstract_html":"<p><em>The Field</em> is a book-length poem which seeks to complicate the epic tradition through its investigations of transgenerational trauma and the effect of time and place on memory and identity. The narrative of <em>The Field</em> focuses on a family of three women, a mother and two daughters, the house they share, and the land that surrounds them. <em>The Field</em> is about my family’s refusal to address difficult familial narratives and the resulting severed connections to ancestral knowledge and custom. <em>The Field</em> is written out of and <em>into</em> this lack of knowledge, creating its own methods of investigation and reconstruction. The critical portion discusses the idea of a new epic subgenre, the “contraepic.”</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Sheiner, Sara"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Selah Saterstrom"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-06-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2022-06-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:25Z","subjects":["Creative writing","Poetry","Arts and Humanities"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright is held by the author. This work may only be accessed by members of the University of Denver community. The work is provided by permission of the author for individual research purposes only and may not be further copied or distributed. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
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"],"dc:subject":["Creative writing","Poetry","Arts and Humanities"],"dc:title":["The Field: A Contraepic"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:01:25Z"}