Digital Commons Network^™

The ‘Darkening Sky’: French Popular Music Of The 1960s And May 1968, Claire Fouchereaux

Honors College

This thesis explores the relationship between ideas, attitudes, and sentiments found in popular French music of the 1960s and those that would later become important during the May 1968 protests in France. May 1968 has generated an enormous amount of literature and analyses of its events, yet there has been little previous work on popular music prior to May 1968 and the events of these protests and strikes that involved up to seven million people at its height. Using data from best-selling monthly charts in France from 1963 to 1968, this thesis links particular key aspects or ideas of May …

Reconstructed, Ashley Brackett

Honors College

Reconstructed takes the opposite approach to the typical cancer narrative. Instead of witnessing the diagnosis and subsequent decline of a character, the reader is presented with a woman seeking to rebuild herself. She begins her journey fearing that her physical changes have altered her identity. She feels distanced from her everyday life and the things she once enjoyed, as if she's merely playing the part of what she used to be. As she begins to heal from this traumatic period in her life, she must face the reality of the situation and redefine what it means to be herself.

The …

La Representación De La Violencia En México Contemporáneo - The Representation Of Violence In Contemporary Mexico, Taylor Brackett

Honors College

La violencia no es un problema nuevo para México. Incluso antes de que Hernán Cortés y sus hombres pusieron un pie en el país y redujeran el imperio azteca a cenizas, la violencia de la guerra y de sangrientos sacrificios de seres humanos jugaron un rol importante en la sociedad de la región. Desde entonces, el problema de violencia ha seguido creciendo aparentemente sin fin, convirtiéndose en un asunto muy discutido además de un tema examinado por muchos escritores, músicos, y directores mexicanos. En este trabajo, examino la representación de la violencia como tema en tres productos culturales: la literatura, …

The Sapphire Mirror, Renée Levasseur

Honors College

Morgan Molloy is the worst student at Graybridge Academy, a school for the children of the rich and famous. She doesn't do her work, talks in class, and is a professional troublemaker; she's Queen Bee, and knows it. Nothing can ruin this high in life.

Until her friend goes missing.

Morgan's world is turned upside down by the aftermath of her party; things only get stranger when she receives a letter from her father, a man she has never met. After this revelation, Morgan starts to see the world a little differently - that maybe the strange disappearances of the …

A Study Of Arabic-Speaking English Language Learner’S Spoken Comprehensibility, Sophia G. A. Lataille

Honors College

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect the comprehensibility of oral language produced by English language learners whose first language is Arabic. This study will analyze four separate interviews with English language learners phonetically. Apart from the phonetic analysis, an analysis of supra-segmental errors, syntax, morphology, and semantics will be provided for each speaker. This study will also take into account the perceptions of a range of native speakers of the English language. Through each analysis the goal is to identify the factors that most affect comprehensibility in order to create an education plan for …

“Persuading The Secret”: In Search Of Maine’S Hermits, Taylor Cunningham

Honors College

I have been working on this project for nearly three years now. The journey feels like a long one—with various roads, some yet to be traveled, detours, and dead ends. Largely, it has been a process of trial and error, as I learned to navigate the boundless, at times overwhelming, depths of research—within archives, old newspapers, photographs, poems, fiction, informal conversations and formal interviews—hoping to make some sense of what hermit characters mean to the state of Maine.

I found almost immediately that inconsistencies and gaps plagued—as I’m sure they do in any sort of oral history project—my attempts at …

The Triad Of Nationality Revisited: The Orthodox Church And The State In Post-Soviet Russia, Robert D. Potts

Honors College

The Orthodox Church has been intimately wrapped up in the Russian state since Russia’s conversion to Christianity in 988. The relationship between the two is most succinctly wrapped up in Tsar Nicholas I’s so-called triad: “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality.” This paper seeks to explain the manner in which the Orthodox Church reasserted itself as a force in Russian politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 up through the first administration of President Vladimir Putin. The church under Patriarch Alexy powerfully reinserted itself into affairs of state during the August 1991 coup attempt, while its relationship with the …

Reexaming The Political Ontology Of Class: An Investigation Of A Central Marxist Concept, Ciarán Coyle

Honors College

This thesis attempted to critically examine the concept of class as it has been developed and deployed by European Marxism. The central question that guided this investigation was: “what constitutes the being of a class?” In course of developing an answer to this ontological question, this thesis approached the problem of class from two different methodological perspectives. The first part of this thesis attempted to understand class via a brief examination of the history of the concept as it appears in the writing of Marxist theorists from the original writings of Marx and Engels to the more-politically oriented theories of …

For Beste Of Bon And Blod: Three Medieval English Lyrics Composed For A Cappella Satb Choir, Cain Landry

Honors College

For beste of bon and blod is a three-movement choral composition written for advanced or professional SATB choir, a cappella. The work is comprised of three Middle English texts, Nou goth sonne under wod, Foweles in the frith, and Erthe tok of erthe, and the Latin chant Regina Cæli. The three Medieval lyrics, while having been written over two centuries by anonymous authors, were chosen to work together to form a cohesive narrative describing the crucifixion of Christ through his resurrection.

The piece uses techniques of emotional expression, motifs, and text painting to draw out the emotional intensity of the …

“Direct Descendant” Documenting Disenrollment In The Penobscot Nation, Mary L. Hamilton

Honors College

A documentary in its beginning stages, Direct Descendant (Spring 2016) is the product of the research carried out and captured on film by a direct descendent of an active member of the Penobscot Nation, as she addresses issues she has personally faced in regards to her disenrollment from the Penobscot Tribe. Driven by the personal narrative of a dissenrolled daughter of a Native American, the film follows its protagonist on the emotional journey she embarked on to foster the understanding of repercussions that follow a Native American tribe that disenrolls members at a blood quantum of 1/4. As a rough …

Characterization Of Transcriptional Control Elements In Cluster E Mycobacteriophage Ukulele, Campbell Belisle Haley

Honors College

Mycobacteriophage (phage) are a diverse group of viruses that infect Mycobacterium. Their study allows further understanding of viral evolution and genetics. Phage tightly control gene expression and transcribe their genes using host RNA polymerases. This project identifies potential transcriptional control elements in the genome of mycobacteriophage Ukulele. Promoters are sequences of the genome that allow binding of RNA polymerase and initiation of transcription. 21 putative promoters were identified in the Ukulele genome. To confirm transcriptional activity from putative promoters, a GFP reporter system was developed in mycobacterial cells. Intrinsic terminators are mRNA sequences that form secondary structure during transcription …