Digital Commons Network^™

For Cause And Countries: Initial, Sustaining, And Combat Motivation In The Royal Air Force Eagle Squadrons, 1940-1942, Timothy Defazio

Master's Theses

Before the United States entered the Second World War, 245 American pilots pledged their service to the Royal Air Force (RAF). Organized into 71, 121, and 133 Squadrons, collectively known as the Eagle Squadrons, these foreign volunteers present an intriguing avenue of soldier motivation analysis. Employing the conceptual framework offered by John Lynn and James McPherson, this thesis analyzes three components of the Eagles’ motivation—initial, sustaining, and combat.

Viewed in context, the Eagles’ decision to join a beleaguered air force reflected a commitment to ideological principles, as the desires to defend England and curb German aggression figured largely into their …

Higher Command: An Examination Of African American Leadership In The Vietnam Era, Amanda Abulawi

Master's Theses

Since the founding of the United States, African Americans have sacrificed their lives to uphold the nation’s democratic ideals, all while being denied equal access to voting, education, employment, and housing rights at home. Military service appealed to many African Americans who hoped it would lead to social and economic advancement for themselves and their race. Despite African American military participation throughout the nation’s history, these soldiers were treated as outsiders through segregated units and often relegated to non-combative duties, until the Vietnam War. This was the first major conflict in which African Americans had been deployed in large numbers …

“My Bruises Are Inward:” A Study Of Mental Trauma In The American Civil War, Cody Turnbaugh

Master's Theses

War is traumatic. Since the American Psychiatric Association first recognized post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1980, living veterans of combat have been diagnosed at an alarmingly high rate. However, mental trauma related diagnoses have existed for centuries, including several that were identified around the time of the American Civil War. This thesis argues that Civil War soldiers experienced mental trauma related to their military service. It does so through three lenses. Focused on the mental trauma among Northern veterans, this study investigates in particular the relationship between mental trauma and socioeconomic status. It analyzes the experiences of both white and …

Paradoxes Of The Heart And Mind: Three Case Studies In White Identity, Southern Reality, And The Silenced Memories Of Mississippi Confederate Dissent, 1860-1979, Billy Loper

Master's Theses

This thesis is meant to advance scholars understanding of the processes by which various groups silenced the memory of Civil War white dissent in Mississippi. It analyzes three case studies: F. A. P. Barnard’s 1860 trial for abolitionism, the transformation of community memory which surrounded Newt Knight in the early twentieth century, and Mississippi’s interaction with the Civil War through popular culture. These examples will reveal the cultural and discursive systems that have existed in the state for more than a century. This work argues that Mississippians silenced the memory of racial dissent throughout the state’s history because it conflicted …

An Analysis Of Nobuo Uematsu’S Linear Structures: The Score Of Final Fantasy Vi’S Opera, Daniel Comeaux

Master's Theses

Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the first nine entries in the Final Fantasy video game series, creates sophisticated music in the operatic section of Final Fantasy VI. This thesis will provide a linear analysis of the music, borrowing from contrapuntal techniques of important theorists such as Heinrich Schenker and Paul Hindemith. The analysis will explain how some linear progressions play guiding roles within the music while others although heard, may not be as important. Furthermore, the most important linear structures will be shown to support the tonal identity of a movement, while important end points coincide with junctures in the …

“Precios Perle Wythouten Spotte”: Accepting The Unknowable In Pearl, Jana Ishee

Master's Theses

The fourteenth-century Middle English poem Pearl, authored by the anonymous Pearl-poet, survives in a manuscript known as London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero A.x. This dream vision, narrated by a grieving father, tells the story of his journey to Paradise, where he encounters his infant daughter, now older, regal, and wise, proffering admonishments with the authority of God to her tearful father. meeting with her in Paradise. Drawing on Caroline Walker Bynum’s work on medieval European conceptions of death and resurrection, J. Stephen Russell’s work on the dream vision genre, and Karl Steel’s work on oysters as liminal figures, …

An Annotated Bibliography Of Selected Music Theory Resources For The Middle And High School Choral Classroom With Alignment To Mississippi College- And Career-Readiness Standards, Amanda M. Brandon

Master's Theses

Middle and high school choral ensembles often struggle to produce musicians who are proficient in music theory skills; however, music theory and ear training skills provide numerous benefits to the student and ensemble. Promoting and fostering theory and ear training skills develop a student’s overall musicianship – thus, strengthening sight-reading skills– further leading to more accurate sight reading, using less rehearsal time, and the option of learning more, or even more technically challenging, literature. Additionally, developing independent musicianship skills encourages higher order and critical thinking in the choral classroom.

This project will examine and review selected music theory and ear …

Haunted And Hunted: The Gothic And The Ghostly In The Light And Asylum, Adam Dunnells

Master's Theses

Young adult Gothic horror fiction acts as a coming-of-age story wherein the protagonists must confront the metaphorical and literal ghosts while simultaneously attempting to establish a sense of identity. Applying Gothic theory and ghost theory to the ghostly stories in young adult Gothic horror demonstrates how certain young adult Gothic stories represent the struggle of adolescents as they mature into adulthood and search for their identities. I use Madeline Roux’s Asylum (2013) and D.J. MacHale’s The Light (2010) as case studies to analyze how ghostly antagonists directly oppose adolescent protagonists on their coming-of-age journeys. Analyzing these young adult Gothic horror …

Women Under Colonial Coverture: Divorce, Property Rights, And Inheritance In Early Massachusetts, Sarah Anne Hogue

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the evolution of women's legal rights - property, inheritance, and divorce- in colonial Massachusetts between 1630 and 1690. The project explores how and to what extent the legal doctrine of coverture- which severely limited married women’s legal rights- functioned in the Massachusetts Bay Colony under its Puritan government. This study examines how coverture directly impacted women’s property and divorce rights in the courts of law in the colonial Massachusetts legal system. It uses primary documents, such as official court records and Puritan sermons, to examine women’s legal rights in that colony through the intersecting lenses of …

Different Class: The Creation Of The Premier League And The Commercialization Of English Football, Colin Damms

Master's Theses

This project examines how English football evolved from a culture of hooliganism and poor upkeep into a popular and enterprising industry across the globe. The Premier League and its stars marketed the English game and its culture worldwide. Since the 1990s England has established itself as the leading club footballing nation. I argue that through football, and the culture and economics behind it, we can see the ways in which England attempted to change its image in the modern world. In the 1980s and 1990s Britain was confronted with its own established culture of violence, bigotry, and nationalist pride, particularly …

Los Zetas, Neoliberalism, And Popular Opposition: A Study In Linkages, Gina R. Lyle

Master's Theses

Los Zetas are considered by security analysts to be a transformative force within transnational criminal organizations (TCO), exporting their unique model throughout Mexico. Los Zetas’ idiosyncratic interventions include their diversification of criminal operations, professionalization of TCO security, sophisticated use of media and technology, extreme forms of violent coercion, and decentralized command structure. This project aims to complicate the narrative that Los Zetas emerged because of top leaders’ sadistic tendencies or due to an inherently violent culture in Mexico by reframing the group’s evolution within historical processes. Moving beyond Los Zetas, this project examines how persons affected by Los Zetas’ indiscriminate …

The Ill-Treatment Of Their Countrywoman: Liberated African Women, Violence, And Power In Tortola, 1807–1834, Arianna Browne

Master's Theses

In 1807, Parliament passed an Act to abolish the slave trade, leading to the Royal Navy’s campaign of policing international waters and seizing ships suspected of illegal trading. As the Royal Navy captured slave ships as prizes of war and condemned enslaved Africans to Vice-Admiralty courts, formerly enslaved Africans became “captured negroes” or “liberated Africans,” making the subjects in the British colonies. This work, which takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the everyday experiences of liberated Africans in Tortola during the early nineteenth century, focuses on the violent conditions of liberated African women, demonstrating that abolition consisted of violent contradictions …

Upending The "Racial Death-Wish": Black Gay Liberation And The Culture Of Black Homophobia, Kailyn Pope

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the origin and impact of Black homophobia found in activist spaces of mid- to late-twentieth-century American society. Black gay Americans were subjected to intersecting forms of systemic and cultural oppression that were exceedingly hard to escape due to both the homophobia in Black spaces and the racism in gay spaces. Black gay activists and artists thus had to create their own avenues of expression where they and others could fully embrace what it meant to be Black and gay. This work utilizes a Black feminist framework to explore the roots of Black homophobia and how this type …

Envisioning Justice And Solidarity In The Household Workplace: The Organizing Power Of Immigrant Domestic Workers And Employers In The Bay Area, Nicole Laporte

Master's Theses

Domestic workers are skilled professionals who engage in a variety of activities ranging from housecleaning, elderly care and childcare support in private households. In the United States, it is estimated that there are over 2.5 million domestic workers, the majority of whom are immigrant women of color.[1] Due to the historic racialized and gendered exclusion from labor law protections such as the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, [2] the labor of domestic worker professionals has been made invisible in the United States. Today, domestic workers are three times as likely to be living in poverty and are less …

The Role Of Aesthetics In Classroom Design: Implications For Engagement And Equity, Giuliana Barraza

Master's Theses

The desire for achieving greater equity in education has been a prevalent topic of research, with many studies indicating that the current education system in this country is designed in a way that exacerbates initial inequities and has a negative impact on student motivation and engagement (EOCD, 2012). While existing scholarship mostly discusses equity and engagement through the lens of curriculum and instruction, the power of physical classroom environments and aesthetic elements present in those environments is less explored. With student populations becoming more diverse, there is a greater need for new tools for teachers to utilize in pursuit of …

Refugee Policy In Australia And New Zealand: An Approach For Resettling Environmentally Displaced Persons?, Sedina Sinanovic

Master's Theses

An increase in human mobility as a consequence of climate change induced slow-onset environmental degradation and sudden-onset natural disasters is expected to be a defining feature of the 21st century. Inexorably shifting the global migratory landscape, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) approximates that roughly 250 million people will be forcefully displaced due to adverse climate impacts by 2050. While there is no international consensus on appropriately categorizing such people, this thesis refers to them as "environmentally-displaced persons" (EDPs). Since EDPs do not qualify for "refugee" status, they are not afforded access to assistance under the 1951 Convention …

Memory And Identity: Inter-Generational Resilience And Construction Of Diasporic Identities Among Somali Refugees, Hamida Dahir Sheikh Ahmed

Master's Theses

The violence and displacement many refugees face often create a lifelong trauma that manifests in many ways within themselves, their families, and communities. The Somali refugee community in the United States is no different. Since their resettlement in America started in the 1990s following the civil war, the community has struggled with different manifestations of that trauma; substance abuse and gang violence among the youth, prominence of depression and suicide rates, rise of domestic violence, as well as other direct and indirect results associated with mental health. This is the reality of many refugee and immigrant communities, coming directly from …

The Inter-American Human Rights System In The Context Of Migration: Us Immigration Policies, Maira E. Delgado Laurens

Master's Theses

International human rights laws are critical to ensuring a minimum protection level for those migrating to other nations across the globe. Despite intense efforts by the United States to sidestep such policies while misrepresenting their repeated violations of human rights now taking place at the U.S.-Mexico border, these policies remain in full force in the global governance community. The actions of the Trump administration and others clearly indicate the need for political intervention to ensure such rights are maintained. Using qualitative content analysis and participatory observation, this article reviews the effectiveness of thematic hearings, under the Inter-American Commission on Human …

A Treacherous Journey Through Latin America: The Plight Of Black African And Haitian Migrants Forced To Remain In Mexico, Zefitret A. Molla

Master's Theses

The growing presence of Black African and Haitian migrants in Mexico poses a new set of challenges to a country that is already struggling to recognize the presence of Afro-Mexicans and where mestizaje still dominates the national discourse on race. Due to restrictive U.S. and Mexican immigration policies since 2016, many of these migrants have found themselves forced to remain in a country they had only intended to transit through on their journey northward to the U.S. Mexico has only recently taken the necessary steps to recognize its Afro-Mexican population which had been marginalized and erased from history. This paper …

The Role Of Nations-State In Protecting And Supporting Internally Displaced Persons, Daisy Byers

Master's Theses

The rising increase of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) has become a global problem. There are over 40 million internally displaced people globally, and 15.9 million are displaced in Africa. These displacements come into place due to war/conflict, corruption, massive human rights violations, natural disasters, urban renewal projects (at the hands of powerful nations such as America, China, France, UK, etc.), and large-scale development projects. According to UNHCR, refugees are people who have international cross-border. In contrast, internally displaced persons must stay within their own country and stay under the protection of their government, even if the government is the reason …

The Colonial Marginalization Of Filipino And Filipino American Soldiers In The Us Army During World War Ii, Corey Joseph Tinay

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the structural paradigms in place within American society as multifaceted tools of colonialism and how they impacted the experiences of minority and colonized soldiers in the United States Army during the Second World War. The history is analyzed through the postcolonial lens, observing factors in place such as; denial of place in history, identity, and recognition of service. The research questions that this thesis addresses are as follows: What are the colonial implications in the experience of Filipino and Filipino American soldiers experience during the Second World War? Are colonial soldiers treated as more expendable than white …

Identifying Factors For Voluntary Return Migration: A Case Study Of Uzbek American Returnees, Khojiakbar Gayratbekov

Master's Theses

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many Uzbek immigrants found their ways to the United States. Given the unique historic context to their cultural and national identity, Uzbeks experience distinctive integration and adaptation process when they arrive in the United States. Despite political instability and a weak economy in Uzbekistan, data from the United States Department of Homeland Security reveal that many Uzbek immigrants are leaving the U.S. for their home country. Thus, this study investigates factors for return migration among Uzbek immigrants for the period of 2010 to 2020. This study utilizes a mixture of qualitative and quantitative …

Recognizing Race: The Impact Of Twentieth-Century Feminist Movements On Race Relations In West Germany, Lindsey Stobaugh

Master's Theses

After World War II, many West German women had a difficult time coming to terms with the atrocities that the National Socialist leadership committed during that war, as well as their own participation in the Party. Discussions of the roles of women within twentieth-century society began to grow in West Germany as the new women’s movement (die Neue Fraenbewegung) emerged from 1960s student protests. This movement included primarily middle-class white German women. They often dismissed their participation in Party racism by framing themselves as victims of a patriarchal regime. As German women discussed these matters, they ignored the …

“I’Ll Make A Captain Among Ye, And Do Somewhat To Be Talk Of Forever After”: Female Civic Agency In Sir Thomas More’S Staged Insurrection, Heather Miller

Master's Theses

Sir Thomas More is an English chronicle play that has received far less critical attention than generically similar histories written by Shakespeare. Doll Williamson, the play’s strongest female character, assumes a leadership position in initiating, as well as ultimately quelling, the Evil May Day riots, which provide the play’s initial dramatic impetus. Despite the critical tendency to overlook or diminish the seriousness of her dramatic role in the play, including in the staged insurrection scene, I argue in this thesis that we should take the concerns that Doll articulates and embodies seriously from a feminist perspective. Furthermore, I place Doll’s …

A Collection Of Misfits, Kayla Gates

Master's Theses

The following creative writing thesis, A Collection of Misfits, includes a critically informed introduction which places my works of fiction within the larger conversation of contemporary fiction. These short stories explore numerous ways in which characters fail to connect to the world around them. Characters falter with relationships, religion, and fitting in. The collection also explores how the use of humor works to bridge the fissure that can form around a character who fails to connect–creating a personal connection between reader and character. Taken in sum, these stories indicate that we, as humans, have a binding thread that intertwines …

'Disembodied Bones': Recovering The Poetry And Prose Of Elinor Wylie 2021, Sarah R. Bullock

Master's Theses

Picking a book to read is like diving for a pearl, writes Elinor Wylie, a 20th Century American poet, novelist, essayist and prominent magazine literary editor. In her essay "The Pearl Diver", she writes that it is the diver that risks the unknown- unaided by diving equipment in the form of library indexes-who gains the greatest joy, Wylie states (Fugitive Prose, 869). Wylie explains:

I venture to perceive an analogy between the rebellious pearl diver and myself, in my slight experience with public libraries...how much more delightful, how much more stimulating, to abandon the paraphernalia of card indexes and mahogany …

Remaking Divinity In Aldous Huxley’S Brave New World 2021, Sebastian Vignone

Master's Theses

Humanity is an experience. Shaped through both individual and collective encounters, we understand the self and the world around us as an amalgamation of interactions over the course of our lives. Arguably, one of the most common experiential archetypes is religion, and more specifically the relationship one has with a divine being as it has been framed by a religious institution. While the United States does not have an official religion, there is a host of people who refer to the U.S. as a “Christian nation,” and it is therefore irresponsible to elide the panoply of inequities that run through …

Women In The Outdoors: Navigating Fear And Creating Space For Spiritual Inspiration 2021, Morgan Costello

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between fear and spiritual inspiration for women in the outdoors. Specifically, this study looked at participants from SUNY Cortland’s Outdoor Education Practicum, a core course in the Recreation, Parks, and Leisure Studies Department that culminates with a two-week outdoor experience, with the goals of teaching outdoor skills and building community. This was a mixed-method study, with quantitative data collected according to pre(mid)post design and qualitative data coming from journal entries over a 5-day period. Testing was conducted using the Outdoor Situational Fear Inventory to measure fear, and the Nature Relatedness …

Found Media: Interactivity And Community In Online Horror Media 2021, Jax Mello

Master's Theses

Being isolated is a common fear. The fear can take many forms, from the fear of being the last one alive in a horrific situation to being completely deserted by everyone you love. This is a fear that has been showcased many different times in movies, novels, and every other piece of media imaginable. Although not always tied to the horror genre, the fear of being isolated is tightly intertwined with many horror stories. Therefore, it is interesting when a horror production goes out of their way to encourage interactivity within its audience. This goes beyond an artist’s desire for …

An Interdisciplinary Approach: Schizophrenia Derails Heteronormative Expectations In Psychological Narratives 2021, Bobbie Jo Weaver

Master's Theses

Required introductory psychology courses teach students a general and oversimplified version of the immense number of subfields within Psychology studies, much like introductory literature classes compress different genera throughout history into a miniscule number of “representative” texts. Nevertheless, these footholds generate an entryway into a whole new world of (specialized) exploration. Reading a text such as The Quiet Room: A Journey out of the Torment of Madness by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett provides a window for many students to crawl into one of Psychology’s darkest shadows, the field of abnormal psychology. Schiller’s non-fictional memoir, The Quiet Room, tells readers …