Date of Award
Summer 8-23-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in English
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts
First Advisor
Poupeh Missaghi
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Keywords
Creative writing, Queer relationships, Black history, Jewish history, AIDS
Abstract
The novel, Scrolls, tells the story of an interracial Jewish couple’s life during the early AIDS crisis, foregrounding queer Jewish and Black history and the importance of queer relationships. I include scenes of humor, celebration, and joy with the goal of depicting a multi-layered grief that provides a counternarrative to the oversimplified AIDS stories written by Hollywood screenwriters.
Like Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, Scrolls is split into three parts, including a second part that illustrates a number of years has elapsed between the first and third parts. Specifically, Scrolls is composed of a first part that takes place over three days in 1978; a second part that I’ve called “The Unscrolling,” loosely based on Woolf’s “Time Passes;” and a third part that takes place over four days in 1986. The seven-day structure of the novel mimics the seven-day creation myth as told in the Torah, with a special emphasis on Shabbat, the day of rest.
Copyright Date
8-2025
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Jason Lipeles
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
162 pgs
File Size
491 KB
Recommended Citation
Lipeles, Jason, "Scrolls" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2644.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2644
Included in
Black History Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Fiction Commons, Queer Studies Commons