Digital Commons Network^™

A Mediterranean Connection: French Ambassadors, The Republic Of Venice, And The Construction Of The Louisquatorzien State, 1662-1702, Sherrod Brandon Marshall

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

Historians of Louis XIV’s reign have debated evolutions in the king’s administration. Such studies, despite heterogenous conclusions, better define our understanding of absolutist authority in the ancien régime as manifested through a process of so-called bureaucratic centralization. Scholars debate to what extent the monarchy achieved centralization amid the interests of individuals and corporations suspended in traditional hierarchies and socio-cultural expectations. Recently, scholars have posited that Louis’s government accommodated the concerns of its ministers through gratifications and social advancement compelling obedience to the Bourbon dynastic state. This dissertation considers for the first time how a politics of accommodation characterized the …

Enhancing Engagement For Individuals With Physical Or Cognitive Decline Through The Use Of Multisensory Activities, Jodi Taylor

Dissertations - ALL

Traditional care models typically have a pre- schedule list of activities for elders to engage in, for the purpose of leisure, enjoyments and fun. However, there are questions remaining about the long term benefits of activities and how many residents participate. “RenewedMe” is a service design project with the goal of “Enhancing engagement in individuals with cognitive or physical decline through multi-sensory activities. This project was inspired by the Montessori method principles of education that foster development, engagement and relationships through developmentally appropriate activities. My approach was to create an “environment” that fosters/sustains individualism, builds confidence and sensorial input and …

Brothers In Blood: The Significance Of Land And Loss In The Creation Of Jewish And Native American Ethnic And Religious Identity, Michael Eron Chaness

Dissertations - ALL

Volunteering at the Onondaga Nation School and collaborating with Chief Jacobs has exposed me to a new and subversive underbelly of American political and religious life. Working on sovereign Native land also provided valuable on the ground experience in Onondaga language and Haudenosaunee culture - food, humor, lacrosse, art, ceremony, government, education etc. Throughout my tenure at Onondaga I have used comparison as the backdrop for my experiences collaborating with Native peoples as well as the methodological backbone for this dissertation project.

My dissertation project, Brothers in Blood: the Significance of Land and Loss in the Creation of Jewish and …

Identity Creation And World-Building Through Discourse In Video Game Narratives, Barbara Jedruszczak

Dissertations - ALL

An exploration of how characters develop identity through language use in a video game’s narrative, specifically in video games that do not allow for players to make narrative-altering choices. The concept of literacies is used to create a critical framework through which to view video games themselves as a literacy, as well as to view them as a discourse. This thesis analyzes how dialogue is used to develop and showcase gender, sexuality, personality, moral identity in characters in and out of the player’s control, as well as how dialogue builds the narrative world in which these characters exist. This thesis …

Seeing Right From Wrong: A Defense Of A Posteriori Ethical Intuitionism, Preston John Werner

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation develops and defends the claim that our epistemic access to

moral properties is grounded in a posteriori perceptual experiences. It is divided into

two parts. In part I, I present the epistemic access problem for realist moral

epistemology, and then argue against several a priori attempts to resolve the problem. I

begin by defending an understanding of evolutionary debunking arguments according

to which the problem is grounded in a lack of epistemic access to sui generis, non-causal

moral facts. Next, I argue that even the most sophisticated versions of reflective

equilibrium fall victim to the “garbage in, garbage …

The Lonely Nineties: Visions Of Community On Television Between The End Of The Cold War And 9/11, Paul Andrew Arras

Dissertations - ALL

“The Lonely Nineties” provides a close reading of six popular series on primetime American television in the 1990s, setting their depictions of community within the context of late 20th century problems and developments in civic disengagement. This dissertation examines Seinfeld, N.Y.P.D. Blue, Law & Order, The X-Files, Touched by an Angel, and The Simpsons within their respective genres, revealing what makes nineties television distinctive, and connecting those distinctions to related developments in American social and cultural history. In the final decade when the medium still offered regularly a simultaneous experience of mass culture, television imagined communities in various states of …

Whose Honey, Whose Hive?: Genre And Rhetorical Agency In The U.S. Colony Collapse Disorder, W. Kurt Stavenhagen

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation analyzes the rhetoric surrounding the environmental crisis of the honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder, commonly known as CCD. Since 2007, the United States has lost on average a third of its honey bee colonies each year to CCD. The crisis has potentially serious environmental consequences. Without honey bee pollination services, over $14 billion worth of crops in the United States alone are in jeopardy. Drawing on environmental rhetoric, genre theory, and agricultural rhetorics, I offer a rhetorical analysis and genre analysis of the narratives surrounding CCD from select popular press newspaper articles, documentaries, nonfiction works, and personal interviews …

Incompatibilist Alternative Possibilities, Yishai Cohen

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation has two primary aims. The first aim is to defend the position that the alternative possibilities that are required for basic desert moral responsibility are incompatible with causal determinism. The second aim is to investigate such incompatibilist alternative possibilities, specifically in relation to manipulation, deliberation, and Molinist counterfactuals of freedom.

In chapter 1, “Fischer’s Deterministic Frankfurt-Style Argument”, I examine John Martin Fischer’s deterministic Frankfurt-style argument against the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). Fischer attempts to show that if causal determinism rules out an agent’s moral responsibility, it is not in virtue of its eliminating the agent’s alternative possibilities. …

The Impact Of A Supplemental Reading Intervention On The Literacy Skills Of English Language Learners And Native English-Speaking First Grade Children, Theresa Marie Dussling

Dissertations - ALL

A growing body of research has shown that interventions originally developed to help monolingual students with early reading skills offer the type of instruction necessary and effective for English language learners as well. While the research on effective early reading interventions for English language learners is expanding, the majority of the research focuses on students whose native language is Spanish. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of a supplemental reading program that emphasizes phoneme awareness and phonics with small groups of both native English-speakers and ELLs whose first language is not Spanish. This study utilized …

The Post-Colonial Language And Identity Experiences Of Transnational Kenyan Teachers In U.S. Universities, Rosemary N. Nduati

Dissertations - ALL

ABSTRACT

This qualitative interview study explored how transnational Kenyan teachers experienced marginalization of their African languages and identities in both the Kenyan and the United States contexts, but reclaimed those languages and identities as important assets in their teaching of English language. The study asked: What are the post-colonial language and identity experiences of transnational Kenyan teachers in graduate education programs in the United States in the following domains: a) their primary and secondary schooling in Kenya b) their teacher preparation in Kenya c) their teaching experiences in Kenya; and d) their graduate education in the United States?

Post-colonial theories …

The Epistemologies They Carry: An Investigation Of Feminist Writing Assignments, Kathryn Elizabeth Navickas

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines feminist writing assignments as one pedagogical site that influences students’ engagement and thinking. Drawing on rhetorical genre studies, feminist pedagogy, and composition scholarship on writing assignments, I argue that because writing assignments are genres that position students in particular subjectivities and carry implicit arguments and values, they are texts that should be revised for their theoretical and pedagogical features. The dissertation examines feminist writing assignments in the history of feminist composition scholarship, in a collection of 73 feminist-oriented writing assignments contributed by teachers who self-identified as enacting or being influenced by feminist pedagogy, and in one of …