Digital Commons Network^™

Reconstructing Visual Narratives: Mary Colter, Fred Kabotie, And The Myth Of The West At Desert View Watchtower, Allison M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations

Desert View Watchtower opened in 1933 on the Grand Canyon South Rim, under the management of the Fred Harvey Company. The structure contains many self-contradictions, in terms of style and use. In this thesis, I argue that these contradictions come from the dichotomous motives of Desert View Watchtower's architect, Mary Colter, and her employers, the Fred Harvey Company and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. New western history theory of the Mythical West is used to explain Harvey/Santa Fe marketing, which created a narrative suggesting that Native American lifeways were going to disappear from the Southwest. I argue that …

Serial Minimalism, Feminism, And Queer Identity In Selected Piano Works Of Ann Southam, Elizabeth Churchya

Theses and Dissertations

In her late period of solo piano composition, Canadian composer Ann Southam (1937–2010) developed her own signature postminimalist style combining the static consonance of minimalism with the disruptive instability of twelve-tone serialism. This study analyzes three selected solo piano works in this compositional style: Slow Music: Meditations on a Twelve Tone Row (1979), Qualities of Consonance (1998) and Simple Lines of Enquiry (2007), illustrating how Southam develops a twelve-tone row through minimalist techniques. Additionally, the present study interprets salient structural, harmonic, and temporal elements through the context of gender and sexuality. An outspoken feminist, Southam considered her use of minimalist …

Becoming Musical: Towards A Typology Of Non-Musical Sounds In Recorded Popular Music, Jacob David Mccooey

Theses and Dissertations

There are many instances in popular music in which traditionally non-musical sounds are used musically. There is currently no research on the types and functions of non-musical sounds used musically (NMSUMs). I have collected and organized a collection of example tracks that contain these NMSUMs and analyzed their functions to determine a typology of these sounds. The analysis of the NMSUMs focused on intertextuality, intratextuality, form, texture, and how the sounds relate to traditional, musical sampling. Throughout the course of the analysis, several trends were distinguished amongst the many tracks gathered, and these trends form the basis of the typology.

Mental Trauma, Colonial Mimicry, And Internalized Racism In Tsitsi Dangarembga's The Book Of Not, Lily Kay Lynn Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s second novel in her Nervous Conditions trilogy, The Book of Not (2006) emphasizes the disabling nature of colonial domination and terror through pain and violence inflicted on the body and the mind. Through the use of Frantz Fanon’s colonial and post-colonial theory and Homi Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry the critical nature of Tambudzai—the main protagonist—position in the novel becomes apparent. Just as the title suggests, the novel becomes a book of negation and unbecoming as Tambudzai tries to find her place as a woman in Southern Rhodesia while attending a European colonial institution while war rages just …

Enslaved Women: Reproductive Choices And Medicine, Adedoyin Adekunle

Theses and Dissertations

Enslavement in the American South persisted as a form of subjugation that endured into the nineteenth century. The origins of slavery stemmed from enslavers’ aspirations for dominance. This compelled displacement involved the removal of Africans from their native lands and their subsequent transport as chattels to America. Slavery gave rise to paternalism, an attempt to justify exploitation to resolve the fundamental contradiction inherent in slavery. Paternalism gave rise to the false idea of ultimate submission, which historians have agreed that most enslavers never attained because of slave resistance. However, the study of slave resistance had been primarily focused on enslaved …

Developing A Curriculum For An Online Group Piano In The Philippines: An Ideological, Historical, And Practical Approach, Lady Abigail Imperio

Theses and Dissertations

Online distance learning, a modern educational practice, has permeated music pedagogy in the past several decades. It involves synthesizing interdisciplinary studies in philosophy, music, technology, and sociology. In this study, the integrated approach aims to develop a unique curriculum for an online group piano in the Philippine setting. This goal involves coalescing ideological, historical, and practical perspectives to develop a coherent, learner-centered approach.

The ideological approach surveys educational philosophies, music learning theories, cooperative learning theories, online learning theories, and socio-cultural perspectives relevant to forming a unique framework. The nature of online distance music learning itself presents complex challenges of international …

The Northern View Of The Southern Shore: Experience, Reconciliation, And Commemoration In Postbellum Charleston, South Carolina, Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the experiences and commemorative practices of nearly 200 northern passengers in Charleston, South Carolina, as they attended the flag reraising ceremony at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865, and then organized the Sumter Club to celebrate that event annually. While some has been written about postwar Charleston during the first half of 1865, and a little more has been published covering this flag ceremony, the Northern view and their experiences with each have not been investigated, nor has anyone written an account of this club. This dissertation utilizes the theory and methodology of the history of experience, …

Exploring The Intersections Between Gospel Music And European Choral Traditions, Through Selected Works Of Isaac Cates, Diane L. White-Clayton, And Raymond Wise, Bryon Keith Black Ii

Theses and Dissertations

This study will explore a variety of musical intersections between the gospel and European choral music traditions. The study will focus on three Gospel composers and their selected works to demonstrate accessible elements of Gospel music for collegiate choral ensembles. These musical elements will explore some comparison of styles, examples of where seventeenth through nineteenth century European choral traditions influenced the works of some Gospel composers, and appropriate pedagogical techniques for the Gospel style. The intersections will be demonstrated with examples from the composer’s scores with some comparisons to European choral works. This will include information on each composer’s background, …

A Discussion Of The Tubman Arias From The Opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line To Freedom, Mahari Allene Marie Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

Nkeiru Okoye (1972-) is an American composer of operas and orchestral works whose concert and theatrical compositions have gained extensive recognition in recent years. Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom is Okoye’s most well- known opera for which she composed the music and penned the libretto. Through her compositions, Okoye bravely addresses political and racial issues and tells the stories of well-known Black figures, such as Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was a prolific American hero that led runaway slaves toward freedom. For approximately a decade, she risked her life traveling to and from the South to …

Fourth-Grade Music Students' Perceptions Of Music Improvisation: An Ethnographic Case Study, Ashley Elizabeth Cobb

Theses and Dissertations

I facilitated this ethnographic case study to better understand potential successes and difficulties music improvisation presents in music facilitating and learning from the student perspective. The purpose of this research was to examine my fourth-grade students’ perceptions of music improvisation via improvisatory music circles using the following guiding research questions. Regarding 30-minute improvisatory music circles: 1) How do fourth-grade students (a) define music improvisation, (b) respond to facilitator-selected improvisatory music activities during improvisatory music circles, and (c) make decisions while participating in improvisatory music circles? 2) How did those students’ perceptions change throughout data collection?

I collected data from five …

Echoes Of Heritage: Documenting Contemporary Works From Singapore Featuring The Cello, Eunice Koh

Theses and Dissertations

Multiculturalism is prevalent in many countries around the world, including Singapore, and music is used as a way to reflect and represent cultural influences in societies worldwide. Singapore is a multicultural nation renowned for its diversity, and the fusion of influences from Asian heritages and Western cultures. This study echoes the heritage in Singapore, showing a brief history and development of the country, cultural integration, and representation of musical identity. The artistic tapestry of the country is achieved with endeavors from government initiatives and various music ensembles that contributed to the vibrant musical ecosystem in Singapore. This is represented through …

Planning And Adapting In The Design Process, Lindsay Kay Wilkinson

Theses and Dissertations

The costume design and technology program at the University of South Carolina requires that students extensively learn each area of the profession. The largest growth-inducing experiences and some of the highlights for me were the opportunities to adapt when challenging changes or unexpected twists and turns arose with each production or project. Through my time at the university, I have gained a better understanding of balance between time and stress management, a system for understanding and completing costume-based research, digital rendering, I have improved the communication of my ideas with a director, working out a cohesive look with a production …

Institute Of Enslavement: Enslaved Lives At South Carolina College, Jill Found

Theses and Dissertations

“Institute of Enslavement: Enslaved Lives at South Carolina College” argues that enslaved people used the structure of the school, their own knowledge, and connections to other individuals and institutions to negotiate the terms of their enslavement. It examines how enslaved people on campus influenced their daily lives to the best of their abilities, in ways that were similar and different to other forms of enslavement. “Institute of Enslavement” considers how the unique structure of enslavement on a college campus, with multiple potential masters creating inconsistent authority for the school officials over enslaved people, created opportunities as well as moments of …

Queer Eye For Costume Design: An Insight Into The Creative Process From The Perspective Of An Lgbtq+ Designer, Andrew Simon Burns

Theses and Dissertations

From the page to the stage, the creative process manifests itself differently for every theatre artist. During my time in the Costume Design and Technology Program at the University of South Carolina, I have analyzed and adapted my design process through rigorous curriculum and experiential learning. This thesis explores my artistic and professional growth by showcasing my production designs in educational and professional practice. Through these experiences, I was able to acquire a well-rounded set of skills in construction, pattern making, draping, and costume rendering that aide and elevate my designs and ability to communicate effectively with production teams. My …

A Conductor’S Guide To When We No Longer Touch: The World’S First Aids Requiem, Kevin Crowe

Theses and Dissertations

At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Kristopher Jon Anthony wrote his greatest work, When We No Longer Touch. This was a seven-movement requiem scored for flute, English horn, harp, piano, strings, percussion, tenor/bass choir, small tenor/bass ensemble, and soprano and baritone soloists. It draws on combined texts from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass and the self-help guide to grief How to Survive the Loss of a Love, featuring poetry by Peter McWilliams. These are grouped together and framed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ model of the stages of grieving. It all combines to make a work of exceptional beauty and emotional …

Linguistic Perspectives In Ecuadorian Amazonian Kichwa, Max Nathan Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the fact that Amazonian Kichwa speakers consider themselves to be both linguistically and culturally distinct from their highland counterparts (Ennis 2020; Wroblewski 2012), relatively little has been done to document their language attitudes and how these attitudes are reflected in their speech. This study shows this to be a valid line of questioning. Using commentary from interviews with Amazonian Kichwa people, I show that views on the status and future of the language are divided, as well as perspectives on the role of non-Kichwa sources like schools and governments in language maintenance. Older and native speakers of Kichwa are …

Emergent Leadership, L2 Oral Proficiency, And Social Networks During Study Abroad, Nicole C. Whitby

Theses and Dissertations

Research shows that study abroad (SA) provides a unique, yet varied outcome for students seeking to improve their target language oral proficiency during study abroad SA (Freed et al., 2004). Contemporary work in second language acquisition (SLA) during SA has looked beyond individual behaviors of sojourners to analyze social networks as a structure with significant influence on outcomes, yet emergent leadership has not been addressed within social network analysis in SA. To address this gap the current study employed a computational social network approach. This mixed methods study analyzes the social networks of 30 SA sojourners from a large private …

A Comparative Analysis Of Human And Machine Translation Quality, Catherine Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

A common question raised by both translators and Machine Translation developers is Will Machine Translation (MT) ever attain the level of Human Translation (HT) quality? Researchers have argued that MT will likely never replace HT completely because MT systems cannot anticipate all the specifications for possible translation projects (Melby & Hague, 2019) and because MT systems lack cultural understanding (Latief et al., 2020). Researchers have also argued that the use of machines should be focused on augmenting humans, rather than trying to imitate them (Brynjolfsson, 2022). The purpose of this study is to determine how the quality of MT differs …

Music And The Horse In Asia, Europe, And North America, Mykah Snyder

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the intersection between music and horses within three geographical regions: Asia, Europe, and North America. The horse and human relationship throughout regions and eras has been significantly intertwined and the horse has long been a symbol of moral standards, aesthetic values, and cultural meaning. The ways in which horses are depicted in music from these regions reinforces ethnic/national identities and strengthens the musical construction of place. Horse-related musical imagery and equestrian music can be considered from an ecomusicological perspective that foregrounds the ecological relationship between horses and human culture. This thesis also engages with concepts from anthropology, …

Artistry And Entertainment: Class And Race Navigations Of Duke Ellington And Louis Armstrong, Zachary Russell Childress

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the early careers of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and holds them against the larger cultural, social, and economic landscape of the United States during the early twentieth century. Black Americans had been freed from slavery by Emancipation, but the rise of the racist Jim Crow laws, starting in the late 1880s, had stripped away many of their freedoms once again and kept them in a lower caste of the American system. On top of Jim Crow, the United States was facing Prohibition laws, the Great Depression, and World War I, creating a tumultuous landscape for any …

Race As A Symptom Of Injustice, Henry Kelley Weiss

Theses and Dissertations

It is often assumed that racial distinction – the existence of racially distinct populations within the same society – will persist after the elimination of racial injustice. This paper disputes that assumption. I adopt a framework under which racial distinction may persist due to three broad causes: racial segregation, pressure from social institutions to practice racial endogamy, and personal preferences for racial endogamy. I examine the conditions under which each of these causes is likely to obtain and argue that each is characterized by injustice. I conclude that racial distinction is a symptom of injustice, and is unlikely to persist …

A False “Choice”: Embodied Rhetoric For A Sex Education Rooted In Reproductive Justice, Rachel La Due

Theses and Dissertations

Sex education in Wisconsin, which the state refers to as Human Growth and Development (HGD) instruction, has long been a topic of great controversy amongst community members, school board members, parents, educators, and students. This Master’s project leans into this discomfort by exploring the public rhetoric that takes place over Wisconsin’s HGD curriculum as outlined under Wisconsin state Statute 118.019 in two school districts: Madison Metropolitan and Wauwatosa. This project uses archival school board meeting footage to analyze the embodied rhetoric of students while discussing their district’s HGD curriculum in school board meetings and analyzes students’ embodied rhetoric within the …

The Birthplace Of Chivalry: The Case For An Angevin Origin, Tyler Ardell Jones

Theses and Dissertations

When we think of the medieval period some of the first things we think of are knights and their code of conduct called chivalry. Throughout Western Europe, by the early thirteenth century, chivalry became emblematic of knighthood, but where did it begin? That is the question that this thesis aims to answer. Through the assessment of the political, cultural, and literary context of Angevin rulers and their Anglo-Norman predecessors, this thesis argues that the birthplace of chivalry occurred in the courts of the Angevin Empire between 1160 and 1190. This study points to the military reforms of Henry II, clerics …

The 1946-47 Allis-Chalmers Strike And The Unraveling Of The Popular Front, Nathaniel Tease

Theses and Dissertations

Led by militant unionist Harold Christoffel, UAW-CIO Local 248 emerged at Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company in West Allis, Wisconsin in 1937. The union challenged the supreme authority of company management and established a sense of dignity and self-determination for workers during WWII. However, post-war tensions led to an eleven-month strike beginning in 1946, which was successfully put down by the collaborative efforts of the company, the press, the government, and right-wing unionists through a coordinated campaign of red-baiting and anti-Communism. As the Cold War commenced and McCarthyism emerged across the United States, unions like Local 248 were condemned as Communist-dominated and …

Imām Al-Baghawī (D. 516/1123): Tafsīr And Sunnism During The 11th-12th Centuries In Khurāsān, Nourhan Hassanein

Theses and Dissertations

A number of recent studies have focused on the intellectual trends and debates surrounding the formation of Sunnism in the 11-12th centuries. Academics have explored various currents within the intellectual and social context of Sunni Islam during the 11th-12th centuries. George Makdisi, Richard Bulliet, Jonathan Brown, Daphna Ephrat, Mohamed Eissa, and Ahmad Khan studied topics related to the educational system, the scholarly community, heresy and Sunni orthodoxy, legal studies, ḥadīth, and theology. However, the status of scholarship on works of tafsīr differs significantly. There are few studies concentrated on the classical period, such as works on the commentaries of al-Thaʿlabī …

Reality In Motion: An Audio Documentary Exploring The Fluid Essence Of Life, Alessandro Bonaiuto

Theses and Dissertations

Reality in Motion is a science communication project that aims to create an audio documentary based around the theme of movement in various aspects of life, both human and non. The project is a 30-minute podcast that explores the topic of life and movement through the lens of smaller stories. Guided by a main narrator, with the intervention of experts, Reality in Motion seeks to provoke thought and inspire curiosity about the intricate dynamics that shape our world.

The Hidden Forms Of Violence In The Lives Of Professional Women In Tagamoa, New Cairo, Nouran Elhariry

Theses and Dissertations

The desire to craft new lifestyles is the main drive for the relocation to New Cairo among Egypt’s upper middle classes. This research is focusing on the upper middle class--people who still rely on their incomes from working to maintain their status—as opposed to the elite upper class, who rely on incomes from property, investments, inheritance, and other forms of intergenerational wealth. These communities were enmeshed in high degrees of domestic violence. The power-relations reconfigured in the domestic sphere, with increasing numbers of upper middle class women embarking on professional careers while navigating households and family relations, have opened the …

Jinetes De La Tormenta: The Invasive Influence Of Gender Constructs On The Journey Towards Selfhood And Societal Progress, Marissa Nicole Luquette

Theses and Dissertations

The novel Jinetes de la tormenta, written by Spanish author, Javier Castañeda de la Torre, presents gender as an obstacle to individuals in the ongoing process of self-discovery (as it relates to personal identity) and as the underlying source of human discontent in the technological age. Jinetes represents gender as a hindrance to the developing self through masculine and feminine binaries in European colonial languages and through the performative behavioral expectations tethered to the gendered body the theoretical works of Jacques Lacan and Hélène Cixous. The theoretical works of Jacques Lacan and Hélène Cixous establish the argument surrounding linguistic gender …

Recognizing The Role Of Rhetoric In Secondary Writing Groups, Catherine Schrecengost

Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to mediate one of the most significant issues with implementing writing groups in the secondary classroom: students do not know how to meaningfully engage in discussions about their writing. Students lack the necessary skills as well as understanding of the rhetorical nature of language to effectively request and provide feedback on pieces of writing. The application of theories of dialogue and collaboration to the research about writing groups suggest that the quality of student writing depends on the quality of their discussions about writing. Thus, my action research study investigates the types of language used between students …

The Voice As Identity: How Opera Has Influenced Dubbing In Italy And The United States, Brynn Allison Staker

Theses and Dissertations

An enduring Italian tradition of celebrating the voice and the Italian language as seen by the Italian perception and interest in opera has created an environment of celebration for Italian dubbers. The long-established history of opera in Italy, as well as the modern reception of Italian opera, have effectively placed the voice at the forefront of the Italian entertainment industry. This can be seen through an examination of the careers of Italian dubbers and the success that they saw in their industry. The United States did not have a longstanding operatic tradition, and when opera was introduced it was under …