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The Struggle Of The Lippian State Church During The Third Reich, 1933-1936, Stefanie Glasel Gordinier

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the struggle (Kirchenkampf) of the Protestant state church of Lippe during the Third Reich, concentrating on the years 1933 to 1936. During this period, the Lippian church struggled to maintain its autonomy in the face of a concerted effort on the part of Nazi authorities to create a united - and Nazi-controlled - German Evangelical Church. This work addresses a number of important questions, such as how the Lippian church tried to confront the threat to its existence, how its pastors reacted to the Nazi regime as well as how they were influenced by various …

Going To Nowhere : Narratives Of Patagonian Exploration, Mark W. Bell

Master's Theses

Since its discovery on Magellan's circumnavigation, Patagonia has been treated differently than any other region in the world. Effectively, Patagonia has been left empty or vacated by the North. But this emptiness and blankness have compulsively attracted curious travel writers who have filled the emptiness of Patagonia with self-reflexive projections. From Charles Darwin and W.H. Hudson to Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux, Northern commentators have found in Patagonia a landscape that accommodates their desire for self-reflexivity and self-consciousness. Thus, Patagonia has been simultaneously filled and evacuated by the Northern mind. As a result, Patagonia has become increasingly about the self …

Existential Freedom And Bad Faith : Exploring The "Infinite Possibilities" In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man And Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness, Robert Aubrey Mawyer

Master's Theses

J. Saunders Redding comments that "Existentialism is no philosophy to accommodate the reality of Negro life" (209). However, Ralph Ellison's concern in Invisible Man to explore his protagonist's freedom and the ways in which he deceives himself about his freedom invites a comparison with the ontological premises of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, particularly his concept of "bad faith," in which individuals accept the identities that existing power structures force upon them. Both writers articulate the nature of selfhood in the modern world, and how easily one's true identity is lost when faced with absolute existential freedom. While Ellison …

The Re-Emergenge Of A Tory-Court Party : Peers Of The Bloomsbury Gang And Founders Of Modern British Conservatism, Matthew Thomas Locy Corkern

Master's Theses

From October 1768 to April 1784, the "Bloomsbury Gang," a political faction of intermarried, aristocratic families dedicated to conservative principles and patriotic sentiments, led the re-emergence of a Tory-Court party that developed into the modern Conservative party in Great Britain. These leaders founded a party of "Conservative Whigs" that was not ruled by, but worked in cooperation with, the monarch and his allies for almost three decades. In so doing, political opportunists such as the Duke of Bedford and the Lords Gower, Sandwich, and Weymouth, restored the English two-party system through which they maintained their dominance of eighteenth-century British society …

The First Fifty Years Of Professional Baseball In Richmond, Virginia : 1883-1932, Scott P. Mayer

Master's Theses

A detailed history of Richmond, Virginia's relationship with professional baseball has never been chronicled, especially the turbulent, early years of its development. This study explores Richmond's relationship with baseball from 1883-1932. It includes information about the men who played on the field, the team owners, and also comments on the relationship shared by the team and the city.

The most reliable source of information regarding early baseball is the local newspaper. A detailed reading of the Richmond Daily Dispatch, and the successive Richmond Dispatch and Richmond Times-Dispatch, was undertaken for this project. While several newspapers have existed in Richmond's history, …

Wounded Women: A Study Of Central Virginia's Civil War Pension Widows, Heather R. Racer

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates the lives of Civil War widows who applied for pensions under the 1888 law in Virginia, concentrating on Albemarle, Buckingham, Cumberland, Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa, and Nelson Counties. The focus of the study centers on both their pre- and post-war lives to determine who these women were before and after the loss of their husbands. Using the Confederate Pension Applications, a group of 156 widows emerged from these counties. The Manuscript Census of 1860 presented a picture of pre-war life while the censuses of 1870, 1880, and 1900, along with the pension applications, helped reveal their lives after …

Segments, Carol Coggin

Master's Theses

Segments is fictionalized memoir structured as eight short stories, or segments of the central character's life. These autobiographical incidents begin in Redding, California, in 1947, when the central character leaves the family farm on her first day of school only to return to face the loss of her innocence. I find it ironic that boys and girls sexually abused by a parent or other family member are not considered incest victims, but incest survivors. Even if one survives the effects of incest, all subsequent perspectives and decisions are colored by loss of trust.

"Praise Raleigh" is told by a third …