Digital Commons Network^™

Son Of A Thousand Fathers, Colter Patterson Cruthirds

Dissertations

The following collection, which explores the often tenuous relationships between fathers and sons, was written by the author between 2008-2011.

Moral Performances: Melodrama And Nineteenth-Century American Literature, Jeffrey Taylor Pusch

Dissertations

Despite a high number of ticket sales, theater reviews, and innumerable letters and diary entries detailing trips to the theater, the stereotype that theater in nineteenth-century America was almost culturally invisible continued well into the twentieth century. Indeed, a scan of anthologies of American literature fails to yield any examples of nineteenth-century drama, even though figures like Henry James were also theater critics and playwrights. Just as it did in American life, theater exhibits a strong presence in the literature of the time. Considering theater’s pervasiveness, this dissertation seeks to restore it to its proper place in our study of …

Following The Principles: Case Studies In Operations Other Than War, 1945-1999, Kevin Joseph Dougherty

Dissertations

In the post-World War II-era, operations other than war (OOTW) were the types of conflict most commonly faced by the United States. This term for what had previously been called by such names as small wars and low intensity conflict was incorporated in the Army’s capstone manual, Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, in 1993. Field Manual 100-5 also listed objective, unity of effort, legitimacy, perseverance, restraint, and security as the six principles of OOTW. An analysis of eight OOTWs that occurred between 1945 and 1999 indicates that the balanced application of these principles is a reliable predicator of the operation’s …

That He May Raise, Armond Joseph Boudreaux

Dissertations

This dissertation is a work of fiction written during the author's time as a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Ladies And Gentlemen, Robert John Bartholomew

Dissertations

This collection of short stories treats of the following diverse themes: the redemptive possibilities for seemingly despicable characters; the ways in which circumstances and the social environment affect characters' sexualities and personal relationships; the lengths to which characters are willing to go to get what they want, which want is often the desire to make contact with others; the struggle between characters' narcissism and their need to come to terms with a new self image, a self image which is often at odds with the one they wish for themselves; and the beauty of vulnerability. Additionally, one of the chief …

Legal Discourse, Conceptual Metaphors, And Basic Writing Programming: A Study Of Ayers V. Fordice, Joyce Olewski Inman

Dissertations

In what ways does legal discourse influence our perceptions of students labeled as basic writers and these students’ perceptions of themselves? How does standards-based discourse affect student writers’ abilities to define themselves in academe? This dissertation involves an examination of legal and public discourse surrounding Ayers v. Fordice, one of the most prominent desegregation cases in higher education, in an attempt to answer these questions. Its intent is to explore how conceptual metaphors prevalent in these discourses affect our understandings of basic writing programming in the state of Mississippi but also in the field of composition more globally.

My …

All I Am: Defining Music As An Emotional Catalyst Through A Sociological Study Of Emotions, Gender And Culture, Adrienne M. Trier-Bieniek

Dissertations

This dissertation, "'All I Am': Defining Music as an Emotional Catalyst through a Sociological Study of Emotions, Gender and Culture", is based in the sociology of emotions, gender and culture and guided by symbolic interactionist and feminist standpoint theory. A primary focus is on understanding the emotional and empowering relationships women build with music that is written and performed by women, especially if they are using the music for emotional support or as a means to heal themselves. This study examines the cultural, emotional and gendered role music plays in day-to-day social life using data collected during forty-two semi-structured interviews …

Strange Places, Alex James Morris

Dissertations

Strange Places is a collection of short stories and short shorts written during my time at The University of Southern Mississippi. Set primarily in Akron, Ohio, the stories in this collection explore a range of themes, such as trauma, death, alienation, social class, and the struggle to connect to others. This collection is preceded by a critical introduction.

The Life And Selected Piano Works Of David Burge, Mary Chung

Dissertations

Although David Burge is recognized as one of the most important American pianists dedicated to contemporary music in the twentieth century, little is known about his contributions as a pedagogue, lecturer, writer, novelist, and, especially, as a composer. This biographical study focuses on three of his piano compositions: Second Sonata, Eclipse II, and Go-Hyang. Each work represents one of three distinct compositional periods: the first reflects the influence of Prokofiev and features characteristics of the neoclassicism; the second marks a turn to experimentalism, atonality, and serialism; and the final indicates the return to a more traditional style that makes use …

Retention Of Music Teachers Working With High Concentrations Of At-Risk Students In Metro Atlanta Schools: A Qualitative Case Study, Theron Roy Petway Iii

Dissertations

Hiring and retaining teachers in the field continues to be an educational dilemma as 50% of all teachers leave their positions in the first 5 years. The statistics are similar for those specifically in the field of music education. Although teachers at schools with high concentrations of at-risk students face more difficulties in the classroom and are at greater risk of leaving their positions, little research has been conducted in this area. The purpose of this study is to provide a base of data related to music teacher retention in schools with high concentrations of at-risk students through a case …

The Black Plumb Line: Re-Evaluating Race And Africanist Images In Non-Black Authored American Texts, Lashondra Vanessa Robinson

Dissertations

This study evaluates Africanisms (representations of racialized or ethnicized blackness) within three contemporary non-black authors’ texts: Jewish American Saul Bellow’s novel Henderson the Rain King, white southerner Melinda Haynes’ novel Mother of Pearl, and Nyurican poet Victor Hernández Cruz’s works “Mesa Blanca” and “White Table.” Though not entirely unproblematic, each selection somehow redefines black identity and agency to challenge denigrated representations of Africanist people and culture. In the process, each author subverts faulty components of American myths of racial purity, particularly stratifying black-white dualisms that promote whiteness, racial supremacy, and resulting undue privilege. This study also traces how Bellow, Haynes …

Girls Of Easy Virtue, Elizabeth Anne Wagner

Dissertations

This is a collection of four stories I have written during my time in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Running In Absentia, Jeffrey David Tucker

Dissertations

Running in Absentia is a collection of short fiction, short-short fiction (also known as flash fiction), and poetry, with a critical introduction.

Full Court Press: How Mississippi Newspapers Helped Keep State College Basketball Segregated, 1955-1973, Jason Ashley Peterson

Dissertations

During the civil rights era, Mississippi was cloaked in the hateful embrace of the Closed Society, historian James Silver’s description of the white caste systems that used State’s Rights to enforce segregation and promote the subservient treatment of blacks. Surprisingly, challenges from Mississippi’s college basketball courts brought into question the validity of the Closed Society and its unwritten law, a gentleman’s agreement that prevented college teams in the Magnolia State from playing against integrated foes. Led by Mississippi State University’s (MSU) basketball team, which won four Southeastern Conference championships in a five-year span, the newspapers in Mississippi often debated the …

Race And Justice In Mississippi's Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010, Patricia Michelle Buzard-Boyett

Dissertations

“Race and Justice in Mississippi’s Central Piney Woods, 1940-2010,” examines the black freedom struggle in Jones and Forrest counties. The writer concludes that more than any other region of Mississippi, the Central Piney Woods became the pivotal theater in the war for racial justice because the intensity of its racial oppression combined with its unparalleled suffrage campaign, and watershed street protests forced a federal alliance, instigated landmark court rulings, and generated black political victories that lay the foundations for a more equitable racial order. To obtain a broader perspective on the forces that transformed racial justice over time, this community …

Moon Landing, Jennifer Ann Marquardt

Dissertations

The following short stories began and were finished—at least as finished as they appear here—during my time at the Center for Writers.

Bitter-Sweet Home: The Pastoral Ideal In African-American Literature, From Douglass To Wright, Robyn Merideth Preston-Mcgee

Dissertations

Discussions of the pastoral mode in American literary history frequently omit the complicated relationship between African Americans and the natural world, particularly as it relates to the South. The pastoral, as a sensibility, has long been an important part of the southern identity, for the mythos of the South long depended upon its association with a new “Garden of the World” image, a paradise dependent upon slave labor and a racial hierarchy to sustain it. For African Americans, the rural South has been both a home and a place of violence and oppression, particularly during the period of slavery through …

Women Of Foreign Superstition: Christianity And Gender In Imperial Roman Policy, 57-235., Karl E. Baughman

Dissertations

The relationship between Christianity and the imperial Roman government from 57 to 235 was partially dependent upon the enforcement of traditional gender roles and the exercise of those roles by women in unique positions of influence. Rather than attempt to break free of their defined gender roles, women with distinctive connections to Christianity and the Roman government were, especially during times of crisis, able to influence imperial policies that provided an atmosphere conducive to positive growth for the early Church. This work concentrates on the crises which were connected to gender---especially times during which the emperors failed to fulfill their …

Undoing Plessy: Charles Hamilton Houston, Race, Labor, And The Law, Gordon Andrews

Dissertations

Undoing Plessy: Charles Hamilton Houston, Race, Labor, and the Law, 1895--1950, explores the manner in which African Americans countered racialized impediments during the first half of the twentieth century by attacking their legal underpinnings. Specifically, this work explores the professional life of Charles Hamilton Houston, and the degree to which it informs our understanding of change in the pre-Brown era. There were a wide range of forces at work, from individuals, organizations, and institutions, to government in its various forms (local, state, and federal), complicating any strategy to reformulate the parameters of equality. Using both labor and education law as …

Giving Voice To The Vulnerable: Discourse Ethics And Amnesty For Undocumented Immigration, Kyle Thomsen

Dissertations

The purpose of my dissertation is to explore the unique challenges facing undocumented migrants, and the claims to amnesty they can make. I take a discourse theoretic approach to this issue, following in the footsteps of Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib, among others. My thesis consists of the following claims. First, a rights-based approach to amnesty does not clearly distinguish between different types of immigrants (i.e. undocumented and potential immigrants). Second, the relevant distinguishing factor between undocumented and potential immigrants is what I refer to as rooted residency, a category which captures factors such as time spent in a nation, …

Doing History In The Adirondacks: Interpreting The Park, The People, And The Landscape, Maria F. Reynolds

Dissertations

Occupying a large portion of Northern New York State, the Adirondack Park includes six million acres of public and private land that compromise over 85 % of all wilderness lands east of the Mississippi. Unique in many ways, the Adirondack Park remains a model for sustainable living and wilderness land management. This dissertation explores the way history is used to both complicate and enrich the relationship between humans and nature in the Adirondack Park. By analyzing historic preservation, cultural landscape management, material culture, and museums this project examines the way that Park history has been told through exhibits, public programs, …

Comics And Conflict: War And Patriotically Themed Comics In American Cultural History From World War Ii Through The Iraq War, Cord A. Scott

Dissertations

Illustration has been an integral part of human history. Particularly before the advent of media such as photography, film, television, and now the Internet, illustrations in all their variety have been the primary visual way to convey history. The comic book, which emerged in its modern form in the 1930s, was another form of visual entertainment that gave readers, especially children, a form of escape.

As World War II began, however, comic books became an integral part of war propaganda as well providing information and education for both children and adults. This dissertation looks at how specific comic books of …

Abstention To Consumption: The Development Of American Vegetarianism, 1817-1917, Adam Daniel Shprintzen

Dissertations

The history of vegetarianism in the United States has long been shrouded in myth, assumption and obfuscation. Vegetarianism as a vital ideological and political movement has often been presented--even by its proponents--as a product of twentieth century modernism, reflecting a rise in ethical consumer awareness. The historical record of the nineteenth century, however, tells a very different story. The notion that dietary choices could be connected with larger social and political goals was formulated during, and changed dramatically in the nineteenth century. This dissertation charts the rise and evolution of vegetarianism in the United States from 1817 until 1917.

This …

Marx's Concept Of The Transcendence Of Value Production, Peter Hudis

Dissertations

Although the literature produced on Marx's philosophic contribution over the past 100 years is immense, most of it has focused on his analysis of the economic and political structure of capitalism, the "materialist conception of history," and his critique of value production. There has been very little discussion or analysis, however, of his conception of what constitutes an alternative to capitalism. One reason for this is that it has long been assumed that Marx's disdain for utopian socialists and his strictures against inventing "blueprints about the future" meant that his work does not address the possible content of a postcapitalist …

Global Distributive Justice After Rawls: A Modified Poggean Argument For How We Harm The World's Poorest, Mark Chakoian

Dissertations

This work presents an analysis of Thomas Pogge's approach to the problem of world poverty as presented in World Poverty and Human Rights. It begins by situating the project of Pogge relative to the work of his predecessor John Rawls. It then moves on to compare Pogge's negative-duty approach to more common positive-duty approaches by discussing the relative merits and weaknesses of the approach of Peter Singer to the problem of poverty. The remaining chapters give an in-depth analysis of Pogge's argument itself. Although there are significant holes and inconsistencies in Pogge's approach, a reformulated argument that preserves his original …

Thinking Through The Phenomenon Of Trust: A Philosophical Investigation, Jeffrey M. Courtright

Dissertations

Jeffrey M. Courtright

THINKING THROUGH THE PHENOMENON OF TRUST: A PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION

The phenomenon of trust is historically underrepresented as a topic of serious investigation in Western philosophy. This dissertation investigates the integral role that trust plays in enabling and sustaining meaning and significance in human existence. This thesis is substantiated in the following ways.

First, I explicate various senses and ways of thinking about trust in the work of two historically important philosophers, Plato and Nietzsche. I show that Socrates, in Plato's dialogue Phaedo, articulates the feeling of being entrusted with life, a feeling that one experiences as a …

Religion, Science, And The Conscious Self: Bio-Psychological Explanation And The Debate Between Dualism And Naturalism, Paul J. Voelker

Dissertations

This dissertation approaches metaphysical and metaethical questions concerning the nature of the human person, the existence and nature of God, and the nature of moral judgment through contemporary neuroscience, cognitive science, scientific moral psychology, and analytic philosophy of mind. Contrary to proposals that seek a harmonious integration of "religion and science" this dissertation argues that contemporary bio-psychological sciences give one ample reason to be skeptical of many of the metaphysical and metaethical claims embedded in religious traditions like Christianity and Buddhism. The first three chapters of the dissertation focus on the metaphysical issue of mind-body dualism while the fourth chapter …

Filiación-Fraternidad: The Hope Of Human Existence In Light Of Global Disparity. Exploring The Theological Anthropologies Of Karl Rahner And José Ignacio González Faus., Scott M. Myslinski

Dissertations

This dissertation argues that there is a need for Christian theology to critically re-examine human existence through social and structural categories in response to the current direction of globalization which threatens the humanization of human existence. Specifically, there exists a need for a contemporary Christian theological anthropology that is in dialogue with the social sciences and that attempts to develop an understanding of human sin, grace, and redemption in structural and social categories in order to offer an alternative vision of what it means to be human in light of the prevailing anthropology that is at the heart of the …

A Grounded-Theory Study Of The Teaching Methods Of Jesus : An Emergent Instructional Mode, Liv Fønnebø

Dissertations

Problem. While models of teaching and teaching methods have manifested themselves in the wake of most major world philosophies and thus are accessible to present-day educators, a defined model of teaching based on the Christian worldview is harder to find. This is strange, given the fact that the person who, by definition, stands as close to the Christian worldview as one can possibly get, Jesus Christ has the reputation of being one of the greatest teachers ever. Institutions that offer an education aligned with the Christian worldview should be the ones showing greatest interest in a model of teaching derived …

The Development Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Understanding Of Ellen G. White's Prophetic Gift, 1844-1889, Theodore N. Levterov

Dissertations

Topic. This study is a historical investigation examining the development of the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of Ellen White's prophetic gift between 1844 and 1889.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and analyze the stages of the development of the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of Ellen G. White's prophetic gift from 1844 through 1889 from a historical perspective only. This research is not a theological study and therefore it is beyond its scope to judge, to prove, or to disprove the prophetic gift of Ellen White. It starts with 1844 when Ellen White claimed to have received her first …