Digital Commons Network^™

Stronger Than Fiction: Literary And Cultural Merit Of Contemporary African American Christian Fiction, Shewanda Larue Riley

English Dissertations

My primary goals with this dissertation are to take a close look at how contemporary African American Christian fiction performs important literary and cultural functions and explore how these works reinforce or subvert perceptions of the contemporary African American Christian woman. The specific texts that I analyze are chosen from 1997-2007, the earliest time period of publication of contemporary African American Christian fiction as they set the tone for African American Christian fiction literary works that have been published since that time. The primary research question driving this project is whether contemporary African American Christian fiction has literary and cultural …

El Camino Real, From Old Trails To Modern Highways 1890-1945, Timothy Ross Reed

History Theses

An examination of El Camino Real's development and importance in twentieth century Texas.

Waving The Red, Black, And Green: The Local And Global Vision Of The Universal Negro Improvement Association In Akron And Barberton, Ohio, Stephanie Theresa Sulik

History Dissertations

This micro study of the Akron and Barberton, Ohio, Divisions of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) adds to the understanding the geographic diversity of the Garvey Movement’s expansive reach. It begins to uncover the importance of Garveyism in the Midwest and in Ohio, specifically, where the UNIA’s presence was larger than in any other Midwestern state. Black people in Akron and Barberton who, like millions of others around the world, joined Marcus Garvey’s global, Pan-African organization and embraced Garveyism’s holistic pursuit of Black liberation. Living in Midwestern rustbelt cities at the intersection of the Great Migration and the global …

Wraiths And White Men: The Impact Of Privilege On Paranormal Reality Television, Antares Russell Leask

English Dissertations

Modern paranormal TV walks the fine line between infotainment and propaganda that older white men are rational while marginalized communities, such as youths, lower social classes, women, and minorities are hysterical and gullible. White privilege is performed and glorified in reality paranormal television at the expense of marginalized groups. This view is inherently classist/racist/sexist/homophobic and does not reflect prevailing cultural norms, but points to a reemergence of the prejudiced idea that belief in the supernatural is a mark of cultural inferiority. Throughout history, marginalized groups have been considered those more prone to superstition, so with the renewed rise in racist …

Space Opera: The Aesthetics Of Personhood In The Works And Worlds Of Philip K. Dick, Gabriel Francis Mamola

English Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the major novels of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick in light of his non-fictional and speculatively mystical writings. After establishing an approach to science fiction in general and Dick in particular, grounded in the Aristotelian mimetic theory of Stephen Halliwell and the ambient rhetorical theory of Thomas Rickert, I argue that Dick came more and more, as his career progressed and his body of work developed, to understand his oeuvre as a unified art-work—unified not only by its themes but by the fictional world it portrayed. More to the point, I argue that Dick’s …

Through The Narrow Gate: Conduct, Conversion, And Community In Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Women's Novels, Katherine Lee Jones

English Dissertations

Conversion scenes and the theme of conversion are key in conduct fiction, a genre that developed from the medieval and early modern tradition of nonfiction conduct manuals. Conversion is a character’s entrance into the community being developed in and through each novel. The conversion scene gives clues to each author’s purpose, reveal’s the religious basis for each book’s instruction, and puts focus on inner piety, or pious thoughts and feelings rather than merely pious actions. Conversion provides a vehicle for authors to critique and/or intervene in broader social issues such as gender roles, racial inequality, and sexual assault. Nineteenth-century conduct …

What Germany Taught The U.S. Army: Occupational Lessons In Postwar Germany, 1945-1946, Jessica Lynn Buisman

History Theses

The study of the U.S.-occupation of Germany after the Second World War is not complete without understanding its role in changing the culture of the U.S. Army. Statesmen at the wartime conferences determined what policies the Army should implement in Germany, but these proved to be too impossible for the U.S. Army to carry out. The military directive, JCS 1067, emphasized denazification, democratization, and reeducation. U.S. policymakers in Washington envisioned U.S. troops executing these policies without hesitation. This expectation proved faulty as the occupation entered its first year. Denazification, democratization, and reeducation each failed due to a lack of communication, …

Happily-Ever-After: An Exploration Of Nineteenth-Century Laws, Marriage, And African-American Representation, Sarah Clayburn

English Theses

This thesis moves beyond the moral messages of true womanhood found in eighteenth century British-American sentimental novels to examine the alternative lessons taught in nineteenth century African-American literature. In doing so, I explore the relationship between laws, race, and literature to investigate complex questions such as: what moral lessons about the institution of marriage are conveyed in early African-American novels? How did early American laws and policies affect these moral lessons? Lastly, how have marriage, laws, and traditions affected the representation of African-American characters in novels and shaped identities within African-American communities? Through the lens of critical race theory, feminist …

Product Photography For Agricultural Products, Madison Ann Somerday

Agricultural Education and Communication

The E-commerce space is growing and E-commerce is dependent upon product photography. The product photograph is one of the most important elements of an online visual marketing strategy. When selling online, the only sense a customer can use to judge the product is sight. The picture is what your customers will utilize to decide whether they want to purchase the product or not. In the 2017 Bazaarvoice’s Shopper Experience Index, product photos are shown to be able to create a 111% conversion boost and a 180% revenue boost per visitor for top retailers and brands. The picture of a product …

Black Binder, Haylie Roche

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

I make paintings, sculptures, and installations that explore the nature of consumption and commodity. I am interested in how it has become the center of modern culture, and how we often overindulge. My paintings explore the fetishization of "the good old days" and the limbic drive to recreate past pleasures- often remembered more blissfully than they actually were. People want to follow what feels good, and are often found engaging in detrimental activities, trying to recreate the “magic” of their first time doing so. Consumption as a vehicle for escapism is also a common theme in my practice. My sculptures …

Another Perspective: Telling The Hero’S Story Without The Hero, Renee Hopper

Honors Projects

Can a YA story be effectively told through the lenses of side characters that typically exist to further the main character’s plot? What gives a side character agency? How do you make a hero without ever getting close to them through the narrator? This Honors Project seeks to answer those questions through a YA-style novella in which four different "side characters" tell their stories, and the hero's point of view is never followed.

Salt In The Deep Marine, Rachel Bollinger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Rachel Allison Bollinger: Salt in the Deep Marine

(Under the direction of Dr. Christine Butterworth-McDermott and Dr. John McDermott)

The surface tension present between liquid and air is due to the fact that liquid molecules are highly attractive to one another. Because of this, the surface of water acts like an elastic membrane, allowing human hands or light insects to sit or slide on its surface. For a moment or two, the hand or the insect seems to occupy both the water and the air simultaneously. This commonplace phenomenon is explored in the poetry collection, Salt in the Deep …

Forgiveness, Freedom And The Inmate Issue, Taylor Smith

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Forgiveness Freedom and the Inmate Issue:

It is no secret that the United States has a mass incarceration problem. The war on drugs, traffic violations, and the Three Strikes Law, are just pieces of the systems being used to repeatedly place people behind bars. What we are facing now as a society is the repercussions of reintegrating under educated, digitally literate, mentally abandoned individuals back into society. In addition to post jail operatives like parole fees, fines and probation scheduling are re-sentencing these individuals into a society they no longer relate to, that socially struggle to adapt to and that …

Peter And The Starcatcher: Creating The Character Of Peter Pan Via Rehearsal, Script Analysis, And Personal Journals, Delaney Jackson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Theatre, as an art, does an incredible job at making stage life look as organic as the lives we lead on a daily basis. That’s thanks in part to a methodical rehearsal process that the public rarely has a chance to see.

My goal with this creative project was to give the general public an opportunity to join myself and the rest of the cast of UNO’s Peter and the Starcatcher on a journey through our rehearsal process via journal keeping and character analysis before presenting the show on April 15, 2020.

Unfortunately, we had to give a painful goodbye …

The Battle Over Identity: Finnish-Americans And The Finnish Civil War, Christopher Malmberg

History Dissertations

Historical research on Finnish migration and Finnish-Americans has, until recently, been carried out by members of the Finnish-American community and as such has written out the role of Finnish-Americans in the radical labor movement, as well as their reactions to the Finnish Civil War. In some regards it could be argued that the Finnish Civil War was also fought in America, with newspapers used in battles instead of guns. Finnish-American workers’ response to the civil war, combined with Finnish-Americans’ involved in the nationalization process of Finland, illustrates the transnational nature of seemingly national events. To help create what Benedict Anderson …

Black Skin, White Money: The Transatlantic Propaganda Campaign To Recolonize West Africa, 1786 - 1863, Daniel Jason Degges

History Dissertations

Previous scholarship has mostly left the story of recolonization of former slaves and Free People of Color to West Africa in the dustbin of history. These studies also have artificially separated the multiple failed attempts into the story of either Sierra Leone or Liberia. This dissertation, for the first time, looks comprehensively and comparatively at the transatlantic propaganda campaign that accompanied each wave of support and resulting failures and the part it played in the success of the abolition movement. Ever marching westward from its London roots, recolonization’s boosters repeatedly tried to build on an imagined community that had little …

Imperial Women Of Darien: Scottish Migration And Gender In The Atlantic World, 1650-1740, Gina G. Bennett

History Dissertations

In the last two years of the seventeenth century, approximately 3,000 people, mostly Scottish merchants, soldiers, sailors and their families, migrated to a small coastal region in central America for the purpose of establishing a colony in Panama. These travelers personified the financial dreams of some elite Scottish merchants when they formed a joint stock company known as The Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in 1696. The colony of New Caledonia ultimately proved unsuccessful and ended in the first years of the eighteenth century. Because of the failure of the Darien Scheme and its close associated …

The Social Cut Of Black And Yellow Female Hip Hop, Erick Raven

English Theses

Korean female hip hop artists are expanding the definition of femininity in South Korea through hip hop. In doing so, they are following a tradition first established by Black female musical performers in a new context. Korean artists are conceiving and expressing, through rap and dance, alternative versions of a “Korean woman,” thus challenging and attempting to add to the dominant conceptions of “woman.” This Thesis seeks to point out the ways female Korean hip hop artists are engaging dominant discourse regarding skin tone, body type, and expression of female sexuality, and creating spaces for the development of new discourses …

Solitary Solidarity: Vignettes Of The Appalachian Trail, Noah L. Booth

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This past Summer, I spent two months solo-hiking the first third of the Appalachian Trail. I completed 737 total miles, starting at Springer Mountain in Georgia and continuing through North Carolina and Tennessee, before finishing my journey in central Virginia. I am no stranger to backpacking, but the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains of the Southeast were completely foreign to me. Throughout this two month excursion I kept a daily journal, logging everything from mileage and geographical features, to encounters with wildlife and humans alike. Over six months have elapsed since I completed my journey and, having had plenty of time …

On Angels’ Wings: Idolatry In Viktoria Tokareva’S “Five Figures On A Pedestal” And Lyudmila Ulitskaya’S “Angel”, Courtney E. Bentz

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In his essays on Greek deities, Ralph Waldo Emerson declared: “Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.” While the idea of gods taking a corporeal form or angels walking among humans is a common literary trope, seldom do mortal characters find themselves compared to the divine without negative repercussions. Select post-Soviet women writers, however, flip this trope to explore the opposite. They instead embrace the human as holy, restrained by little consequence, as a means to highlight its destructive qualities in the context of an intimate relationship. These contemporary authors, Viktoria Tokareva and Lyudmila Ulitskaya, …