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Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse: The History And Organization Of The New England Youth Ensemble, Valencia Collins Thevenin Jan 2017

Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse: The History And Organization Of The New England Youth Ensemble, Valencia Collins Thevenin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse and the history and organization of the New England Youth Ensemble (NEYE). Born in Lacombe, Canada in 1922, Virginia-Gene Rittenhouse was a violinist, pianist, composer, and notable music educator in the Seventh-day Adventist Church who established the New England Youth Ensemble in 1969. The ensemble has toured internationally since the early 1970s and it is the resident orchestra at Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Maryland. The youth orchestra has played numerous times under the baton of John Rutter and has performed frequently in Carnegie Hall under the auspices of MidAmerica Productions. The author …


Native Music And Regular Gigs: A History Of The Maple Leaf Bar, Pieter Frank Kossen Jan 2017

Native Music And Regular Gigs: A History Of The Maple Leaf Bar, Pieter Frank Kossen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this work is to construct a history of the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans, Louisiana in order to determine its place and establish its importance in the musical history of New Orleans. Opened in early 1974, the Maple Leaf Bar is the oldest continually-functioning music club in the city of New Orleans outside of the French Quarter, and is accorded a share of the credit for the current popularity in New Orleans of the roots music of New Orleans and Louisiana. This will be accomplished by identifying and examining comtraits the Maple Leaf Bar shares with …


One Or Two Things I Know About Us: Narrative Strategies For Autoethnography, Self-Representation And Healing In Four Memoirs By Poor-White Women From The U.S. South, Joseph Aaron Farmer Jan 2017

One Or Two Things I Know About Us: Narrative Strategies For Autoethnography, Self-Representation And Healing In Four Memoirs By Poor-White Women From The U.S. South, Joseph Aaron Farmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines autobiographical writings by formerly poor white Southern women, who are rarely considered as a group and are more typically studied with “rough South” male writers, which would suggest that few women have contributed their own gendered experience to discussions of class, race, and sexuality vis-à-vis Southern poverty. Correcting this assumption, I examine formative statements by women from poor white backgrounds, including Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Red Dirt, Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild Card Quilt, Dorothy Allison’s Trash, and Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle. Each of these writers engage in narrative strategies that do not defend …


Interwoven, Preston Tolbert Jan 2017

Interwoven, Preston Tolbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I am regularly amazed by the power of artifacts. Objects can translate intent, skill, function, place, and time, causing us to reflect upon the maker and past users. By incorporating basketry patterns on the surface of my pots, I am creating a connection to my heritage. My family made baskets back many generations. The patterns are incomplete and fade as they weave around the forms. This reflects the nature of objects that have been used to the point of collapse. We live in a society driven by partial consumption and indiscriminant disposal. When something exhibits wear, we get a new …


Vergangenheitsbewältigung- Und Aufarbeitung In Der Verlorene, Am Beispiel Meines Bruders Und Pawels Briefe, Peter Akintunde Ogunniran Jan 2017

Vergangenheitsbewältigung- Und Aufarbeitung In Der Verlorene, Am Beispiel Meines Bruders Und Pawels Briefe, Peter Akintunde Ogunniran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The search for a collective past between East and West Germany has caused an increase in the number of family novels since the reunification. Also, the need to preserve and consolidate the memory of events that took place during the Third Reich as the war generation begins to pass on has informed the proliferation of family narratives by the post-war generation, whose childhood was rooted in the post-war East and West Germany. This thesis discusses process of coming in terms with the past among the war generation and the post-war generation in novels of Hans-Ulrich Treichel (Der Verlorene), Uwe Timm …


Book Of Empire: The Political Bible Of U.S. Literary Modernism, Barry Hudek Jan 2017

Book Of Empire: The Political Bible Of U.S. Literary Modernism, Barry Hudek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Book of Empire” reveals that contrary to what is often suggested by scholars, modernism is not a moment of secularization and declining faith and that the Bible is actually a resource for mounting a radical critique of empire, nation-building, and racial oppression that defies conservative notions supporting those undertakings. For Willa Cather, William Faulkner, and Zora Neale Hurston, the Bible is a source of moral authority they use to challenge the imperialist, colonialist, and nativist projects of the twentieth-century U.S. In rebranding the Bible as politically radical, these writers are not denying the authority of the Bible, but are re-appropriating …


In The Shadow Of God, Gothataone Moeng Jan 2017

In The Shadow Of God, Gothataone Moeng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work of fiction comprises a collection of stories exploring the lives of women in post-Independence and contemporary Botswana, as they navigate love, relationships, traditions disease, caretaking and grieving in a rapidly changing world.


Education Of Women In Seventeenth- And Eighteenth-Century French Literature, Armelle Tsafack Wiggins Jan 2017

Education Of Women In Seventeenth- And Eighteenth-Century French Literature, Armelle Tsafack Wiggins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


The Effect Of A Researcher Composed Mouthpiece Buzzing Routine On The Intonation And Tone Quality Of Beginning Band Brass Students, Jason William Beghtol Jan 2017

The Effect Of A Researcher Composed Mouthpiece Buzzing Routine On The Intonation And Tone Quality Of Beginning Band Brass Students, Jason William Beghtol

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study is an investigation of the effect of an author composed mouthpiece buzzing routine modeled by the teacher on beginning band brass students’ intonation and tone quality. The subjects (N = 43) were sixth grade beginning band brass students from a large band program in the northeast region of Mississippi. The experimental group (n = 27) buzzed a daily routine modeled by their instructor at the beginning of each class period. The control group (n = 16) received no treatment and proceeded through normal classroom activities. The duration of the instructional period was ten weeks. This study utilized …


Object Of Your Rejection: The Symbolic Annihilation And Recuperation Of Queer Identities In Country Music, Lauren Veline Jan 2017

Object Of Your Rejection: The Symbolic Annihilation And Recuperation Of Queer Identities In Country Music, Lauren Veline

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the double-marginalization of white queers living in Bible Belt communities by examining the symbolic annihilation of queer identities in country music. Bible Belt queers face unique obstacles and have different needs than queer communities elsewhere due to the cultural context of their communities. The urban-centric (“metronormative”) standards of queer identity and visibility presented in the media do not translate to their lived experiences. Moreover, while white, non-urban southerners possess a source of popular-media expression through country music, queer identities are noticeably absent. The invisibility of Bible Belt queers in the media perpetuates a cycle of hostility and …


Meet And Greet, Matt Kessler Jan 2017

Meet And Greet, Matt Kessler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A collection of original short stories.


The Grounding Of Effective Aristotelian Law, Kyra Kinnaman Jan 2017

The Grounding Of Effective Aristotelian Law, Kyra Kinnaman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper aims to contribute meaningfully to Aristotelian scholarship by articulating the grounding of effective law. The grounding of law is the reason for which law’s efficacy can be explained. Two popular contenders for this explanation are natural law theory and legal positivism; however, this paper will build off the work of Donald Schroeder to show that neither theory is a tenable explanation for the grounding of Aristotelian law. Although Schroeder rejects natural law and positivism as appropriate interpretations of Aristotle, he fails to articulate what ultimately is the grounding of efficacious law. The final section of this paper will …


Poetry Is Dead, Jeffrey Lance Jan 2017

Poetry Is Dead, Jeffrey Lance

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Poetry is dead and I'm a fucking necromancer.


A “Human Endeavor”: Killing In Contemporary U.S. Combat Narratives, William Mackenzie Jan 2017

A “Human Endeavor”: Killing In Contemporary U.S. Combat Narratives, William Mackenzie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This PH.D dissertation aims to develop a 3-D numerical model of dam-break flows on movable beds. Three tasks are defined to accomplish the goal of this study. The first task is developing a 3-D hydrodynamic model to simulate dam-break flow on fixed beds with simple geometry and test the water surface tracking technique. This model solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations using a finite-difference method on rectilinear, staggered grids. The volume-of-fluid (VOF) technique with SOLA-VOF advection scheme is used to capture the free surface motion. The developed model is tested using several experimental dam-break flows and the VOF technique is …


Cold War New York: Postmodernism, Lyricism, And Queer Aesthetics In 1970s New York Poetry, Jared James O'Connor Jan 2017

Cold War New York: Postmodernism, Lyricism, And Queer Aesthetics In 1970s New York Poetry, Jared James O'Connor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the poetry of Joe Brainard and Anne Waldman, two poets of the critically neglected second-generation New York school. I argue that Brainard and Waldman help define the emerging discourse of postmodern poetry through their attention to cold war culture of the 1970s, countercultural ideologies, and poetic form. Both Brainard and Waldman enact a poetics of vulnerability in their work, situating themselves as wholly unique from their late-modernist predecessors. In doing so, they help engender a poetics concerned not only with the intellectual stakes but with the cultural environment they are forced to navigate. Chapter 1 explores Brainard's …


The Archive, Hailey Cecilia Christian Hodge Jan 2017

The Archive, Hailey Cecilia Christian Hodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Archive is an installation that considers the human brain’s potential to distort memory over time. Memories from our past can be changed by our current atmosphere, manipulated by our emotions towards the experience, or can altogether be forgotten. Humans explore the world through their eyes, making mental photographs to help them navigate the future through the experiences of their past. However, the human memory is faulty at best. We all have memories stored, false memories that we believe, and we continue to create new memories every moment. This body of work is exploring how the passage of time and …


The False Intent-Purpose Distinction In Textualism, Aaron Graham Jan 2017

The False Intent-Purpose Distinction In Textualism, Aaron Graham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Textualism is the theory of legislative interpretation championed most famously by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Textualism adopts twin interpretive commitments: (1) the meaning of a legislative text should be discerned by application of long-established canons of construction, the most important of which is that the text means what its words convey; and (2) a legislative text means what it meant at the time it was enacted. This paper examines the first principle, and in particular Scalia and treatise coauthor Bryan A. Garner’s belief that it mandates that judges forswear any consideration of legislative intent. This paper assess …


Stories, Marc David Inman Jan 2017

Stories, Marc David Inman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a work of fiction.


Diplomacy Of Pirates: Foreign Relations And Changes In The Legal Treatment Of Piracy Under Henry Viii, Jamie Deanna Sessions Jan 2017

Diplomacy Of Pirates: Foreign Relations And Changes In The Legal Treatment Of Piracy Under Henry Viii, Jamie Deanna Sessions

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.


Southern Discomfort: Performing Femininity In The Deep South, Rachel Whitney Turnipseed Jan 2017

Southern Discomfort: Performing Femininity In The Deep South, Rachel Whitney Turnipseed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The “performance” of gender is variable and multifarious, fabricated in reaction to audience, mood, and previous experiences. Starting in childhood, people “police” our gender performances, and profoundly shape our self-presentation and sense of personal identity. We gradually learn to self-edit our performances of gender, after countless critiques by others, which often negatively impact our body image as they preserve “norms,” marginalizing anyone who does not conform. The mixed-media installation, Southern Discomfort: Performing Femininity in the Deep South, examines this process and its impact on young girls. The young, blonde, female figure who appears multiple times in my installation reveal girls …


The Effects Of Participation In Band On Band Music Preference, Benny Ratliff Jan 2017

The Effects Of Participation In Band On Band Music Preference, Benny Ratliff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on band music preference, and specifically, how this preference is affected by participation in band. With this knowledge I argue that band directors can select repertoire that both challenges and engages students while still being enjoyable to perform. Despite the existence of studies that consider the many factors that affect music preference, no study has focused exclusively on band music, which remains a vital part of music education in the United States. Students from three high schools rated ten 30-second examples of concert music on a Likert-type scale. I placed these musical examples into five self-defined categories: …


Consciousness In Comatose Clowns: No Funny Business, Mary Gregg Jan 2017

Consciousness In Comatose Clowns: No Funny Business, Mary Gregg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Consider the tragic case of four circus clowns whose pie-to-the-face gag effectively knocks each one into a cream-pie coma. In each of the four cases, motor capacities (voluntary speech, limb movement, etc.) Are not available to the patient's conscious control. Although none of our apparently comatose clowns have voluntary motor capacities, each has a unique set of internal and external activity going on. In other words, each of our clowns (bozo, chuckles, wiggles, and krusty, respectively), now sits in a vegetative state. Now, there's a problem. Sometimes comatose patients are conscious, so there's a big philosophical and empirical issue going …


Twinless, Molly Mccully Brown Jan 2017

Twinless, Molly Mccully Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This manuscript is concerned with the loss of my identical twin sister, who died when we were infants. The collection as a whole uses biographical experience to engage with issues of identity, grief, sisterhood, and selfhood. It’s interested in the ways that spiritual experience is borne out in the body, and in interrogating the manner in which we’re all made and marked by our own particular hieroglyphs of loss.


Succeeding King: Ralph David Abernathy, Sclc, And The Long Civil Rights Movement, Scott Blusiewicz Jan 2017

Succeeding King: Ralph David Abernathy, Sclc, And The Long Civil Rights Movement, Scott Blusiewicz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as America’s most prominent civil rights activist during the late 1950s and the 1960s. Due to his eloquent speeches and ability to organize large-scale nonviolent protests, King inspired numerous individuals to participate in a grassroots movement for equal rights. After earning two landmark victories with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, King and his SCLC colleagues shifted the focus of their work to improving economic opportunities for America’s poor citizens. To combat poverty, King planned an ambitious …


Persistent Problems In Modified Divine Command Theory, Brandon Trey Jackson Jan 2017

Persistent Problems In Modified Divine Command Theory, Brandon Trey Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I argue that there are persistent problems in contemporary modifications of divine command theory. Divine command theory states that God’s commands are moral obligations only because he commands them. Modified divine command theories attempt to add to or amend the justification for God’s commands being moral obligations. The problem is that they aren’t successful at escaping the Euthyprho dilemma, which states the following of God’s commands: they are either a) moral obligations because they are commanded by God, or they are b) commanded by God because they are moral obligations. Modified divine command theories attempt to navigate between these two …


Revolutionary Fathers: Republican Fatherhood And The American Revolution And Early Republic 1763-1814, Travis Jaquess Jaquess Jan 2017

Revolutionary Fathers: Republican Fatherhood And The American Revolution And Early Republic 1763-1814, Travis Jaquess Jaquess

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines American fathers in the eighteenth century and argues that the American Revolution, both the war itself and the ideology it created, affected attitudes towards and practices of fatherhood. Historians have characterized the father/son relationship in the Revolutionary period as one of filial rebellion against their patriarchal fathers. My work finds, conversely, that because of their experience in the Revolution, ideas such as liberty and equality which spread throughout the colonies, and additional opportunities available to industrious young men due to national independence, fathers actively prepared their sons for an independent life free from patronage, massive inheritances, and …


Beyond Isolation: The Mississippi Delta In A Global World, Stella D. Lindsey Jan 2017

Beyond Isolation: The Mississippi Delta In A Global World, Stella D. Lindsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the paradoxes and complexities of the Mississippi Delta through an international lens. The fundamental premise guiding the research is that goods, people, ideas, technology, and capital cross national borders; therefore, local transformations can only be fully understood within a global context. The study concentrates on the evolution of the reciprocal, complex relationship between the region and the international community, along with the local and global consequences of a series of transnational exchanges. With a primary focus on agribusinesses, the research challenges traditional visions of the Delta as an isolated and provincial region immune to modernization. Instead the …


Speak'st, Art Sound: The Material Voice In Early Modern England, Nathaniel Philip Likert Jan 2017

Speak'st, Art Sound: The Material Voice In Early Modern England, Nathaniel Philip Likert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that early moderns conceived of speech as a material phenomenon; voice struck out from bodies into environments. Early modern voices thus participate in what sound studies scholars call the soundscape, which I link to current new materialist and ecological theories of network and assemblage. Within this soundscape, I pay special attention to the role of language as a semantic system of meaning. Current ecological criticism takes for granted the utter “flatness” of ontology, and as such discards the question of human language so central to previous deconstructive and discursive scholarship. My thesis attempts to account for the …


Stand Perfectly Still: Statues, Nudity, And The Pygmalion Myth In Victorian Theatre And Culture, Maggie Elizabeth Wallen Jan 2017

Stand Perfectly Still: Statues, Nudity, And The Pygmalion Myth In Victorian Theatre And Culture, Maggie Elizabeth Wallen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stephen Guy-Bray argues that though the story of Pygmalion has taken various forms in the nineteenth century, “it is often read as a story of artistic and sexual triumph” (447). But a sexual triumph for whom? My thesis addresses questions pertaining to how the nude female body is vieon the theatrical stage by focusing specifically on the myth of Pygmalion as presented in W. S. Gilbert’s Pygmalion and Galatea and George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. I argue that the image of the moving statue, especially in the melodramatic tradition of the pose plastique and tableau vivant, creates instability for the viewer …


Yesterday Lesson, Samuel Aaron Milligan Jan 2017

Yesterday Lesson, Samuel Aaron Milligan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a work of fiction describing a special education boarding school in Southern Illinois.