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The Life And Origins Of Paul Bunyan: Part One, Michael Ryan Croker

Theses and Dissertations

Master of Fine Arts This novel is a chronicle of the early days of Paul Bunyan, an important figure in American folk culture. While Paul Bunyan is a central figure in the tale, the story itself is told through the eyes of Clay Filinger, a young man from the backwoods of Kentucky who leaves his home on a journey of American exploration. Clay reaches Boston, where he hires on to work for John Patrick, a wealthy merchant headed to Maine in search of pirate treasure. John is travelling with his nephew, Randolph Bunyan. Along with them are two more hired …

“The Youngest Of The Great American Family”: The Creation Of A Franco-American Culture In Early Louisiana, Cinnamon Brown

Doctoral Dissertations

On April 30, 1803, the Jefferson administration purchased French Louisiana. Initially American lawmakers rejoiced at the prospect of American domination of the Mississippi River. Yet within a few short months this optimism was replaced with uncertainty and alarm as lawmakers faced the task of incorporating Lower Louisiana into the Union. As Americans tackled the many unintended consequences of the Louisiana Purchase, Louisianans also had to confront the ramifications of the landmark acquisition and the encroachment of a new American government in their lives. From 1803 to 1815, American lawmakers and Louisianans embarked on a parallel journey to incorporate Lower Louisiana …

Seeds Of Truth: The Importance Of C. S. Lewis's Interactions With Child Readers In The Chronicles Of Narnia, Joseph Thouvenel

Doctor of Ministry

This paper explores the ways in which C.S. Lewis's interactions with child readers in The Chronicles of Narnia provide important insight for communicating theological and spiritual truths to children. Through a brief examination of Lewis's own childhood as well as a concise analysis of his writings to and about children, important insights regarding the place of imagination and wonder within The Chronicles of Narnia will be revealed. This paper also inspects the seven books that comprise The Chronicles of Narnia, paying specific attention to Lewis's use of first- and second-person narrative within this series as a means of demonstrating his …

Approach At Marketing, Douglas Meyer

Art and Design

In this senior paper I wanted to work on marketing a chair through different angles of design. These angles include logo design, photography, packaging design and a few advertising works to go along. I felt that the broad parts of this project would help in creating a portfolio piece that I have designed from the ground up. In reading my paper you will see the different approaches that were made and what ones worked. In all the pieces I am going to have to research to find the best way to approach these made up problems.

Roosevelt, Churchill, And The Words Of War: Their Speeches And Correspondence, November 1940-March 1941., Leslie A. Mattingly Bean

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt inspired the Allies with memorable speeches in their fight against the Axis Powers during World War II.

These speeches resulted from their personalities, preparation, and correspondence; and the speeches directed Allied conduct and challenged Axis aggression. The speeches examined here pertain to Lend-Lease in November, 1940-March, 1941.

The author consulted the collections of Churchill's and Roosevelt's speeches and correspondence and drew from memoirs and newspapers. The first two chapters examine Churchill and Roosevelt's rhetorical abilities; the third chapter looks at how their correspondence shaped their speeches; and the fourth chapter looks at …

Replacing The Priest: Tradition, Politics, And Religion In Early Modern Irish Drama., Leslie Ann Valley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Ireland's identity was continually pulled between its loyalties to Catholicism and British imperialism. In response to this conflict of identity, W. B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory argued the need for an Irish theatre that was demonstrative of the Irish people, returning to the literary traditions to the Celtic heritage. What resulted was a questioning of religion and politics in Ireland, specifically the Catholic Church and its priests. Yeat's own drama removed the priests from the stage and replaced them with characters demonstrative of those literary traditions, establishing what he called a "new …

The Temperance Worker As Social Reformer And Ethnographer As Exemplified In The Life And Work Of Jessie A. Ackermann., Margaret Shipley Carr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project used primary historical documents from the Jessie A. Ackermann collection at ETSU's Archives of Appalachia, other books and documents from the temperance period, and recent scholarship on the subjects of temperance, suffrage, and women travelers and civilizers. As the second world missionary for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Ackermann traveled in order to establish WCT Unions and worked as a civilizer, feminist, and reporter of the conditions of women and the disadvantaged throughout the world.

Does Change In Timbre Alter Stereotypy Movements Exhibited By Three Persons With Diagnoses Of Mental Retardation And Autism Spectrum Disorder: Three Case Studies, Kathy Wade Webb

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to observe and collect data while monitoring the responses of three individuals to recorded presentations of four folk songs. The individuals, or participants, were all residents of a state-run facility in the southern region of the United States. The participants were females diagnosed with mental retardation and autism spectrum disorder, and they all exhibited one or more stereotypy behaviors in some form or another. The primary purpose of the study was to see if change in timbre of the songs would alter the stereotypy movements exhibited by these participants as the songs were presented …

Goddess, King, And Grail: Aspects Of Sovereignty Within The Early Medieval Heroic Tradition Of The British Isles, Robert Bevill

All Theses

When studying the heroic tales and epics of medieval cultures, more questions
about their origins and influences remain than answers. The search for sources for a
single work, Beowulf, for example, can and has been examined within Germanic,
Brittanic, Norse, and even Irish traditions. Scores of sources, parallels, and analogues
have been found and analyzed, but so many possibilities may only serve to obfuscate
the actual origins of the Beowulf poet's myriad influences. However, the search for
analogous works can build a stronger sense of context for certain motifs and greater
themes within a large number of similar texts. Thus, …

Captive To The American Woods: Sarah Wakefield And Cultural Mediation, Sophia Betsworth Hunt

Masters Theses

The life and narrative of Sarah Wakefield, an Anglo migrant who spent six weeks as a captive of the Santee Dakotas during the US-Dakota Conflict, show one woman's experience navigating the changing racial dynamics of the nineteenth-century Minnesota frontier. Using recent conceptualizations of “the frontier” as either a middle ground or woods, this thesis reconsiders Wakefield as a prisoner, not of Indians or her own conscience but of her region‟s ossifying racial divisions. Wakefield's initial attempts at intercultural communication, which included feeding starving Dakotas who knocked on her door, were consistent with Anglo notions about womanhood and Indian-white relations. But …

The Passions And Self-Esteem In Mary Astell's Early Feminist Prose, Kathleen A. Ahearn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the influence of Cambridge Platonism and materialist philosophy on Mary Astell's early feminism. More specifically, I argue that Astell co-opts Descartes's theory of regulating the passions in his final publication, The Passions of the Soul, to articulate a comprehensive, Enlightenment and body friendly theory of feminine self-esteem that renders her feminism modern. My analysis of Astell's theory of feminine self-esteem follows both textual and contextual cues, thus allowing for a reorientation of her early feminism vis-a-vis contemporary feminist theory. An entire chapter in the dissertation is devoted to Astell's use of Descartes's theory of regulating the …

―[Gliding] All Revealed‖: The Making And Breaking Of Myths In Shirley, Sarah Honorè Berard

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

"Real, Live Mormon Women": Understanding The Role Of Early Twentieth-Century Lds Lady Missionaries, Kelly Lelegren

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Missionary work has long been an important aspect of Christianity. At least as early as the 1870's, Protestant women began journeys to foreign lands to work as missionaries and teach people about Christianity, both the spiritual dimension and the lifestyle. These were primarily independent women who sought to enlarge the women's sphere from the confined, domestic life to which they were accustomed and because of its decline by the 1930's, historians have often labeled these missions as a "feminist movement."

Meanwhile, in 1898, their counterparts from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also began filling missions, but with …

Problems Of Connection : The Critique Of Englishness, Empire, And Nationhood In E.M. Forster's A Passage To India, Virginia Woolf's Orlando And George Orwell's "England Your England", Alexandra Megan Schultz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In the introduction to Modernism and Colonialism: British and Irish Literature, 1899-1939, Richard Begam and Michael Moses state that the “historical and cultural reality of modernism more often then not challenged the prevailing values of English culture, including its most powerful institution, the British Empire” (6). The problem of connection can be considered one of these troubled established ideologies. The English not only promoted relations between those of the same socioeconomic status and cultural upbringing, but actively discouraged connections of any other kind. This value system barred the English from any kind of social or political mobility because connections were …

“Changes” In The Country Of The Mind: Seamus Heaney’S Revision Of William Wordsworth’S “Tintern Abbey”, Trenton B. Olsen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

For almost thirty years, critics have been interested in William Wordsworth’s influence on Irish poet and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.

Victims And Aggressors: Black And Jewish Interethnic Relationships In Contemporary American Literature, Jessica Martin

All Theses

Though blacks and Jews are often portrayed together in African-American and Jewish-American writing, the reasons for the juxtapositions are curious. Contemporary authors have created a close relationship between blacks and Jews that, perhaps with the exception of their cooperation during the Civil Rights movement, historically did not exist. But, the relationship between these two groups in literature offers a unique perspective on American racial and ethnic social structures because both blacks and Jews are considered minority groups, yet they also maintain a hierarchical relationship with one another. By employing black and Jewish characters, American writers, especially Jewish-American writers, create a …

Serving The Storyline Of The Novel: The Powerful Role Of The Feudal Servant-Narrator, Stephanie Turner

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis addresses issues of class as represented through the narrative agency exercised by the servant-narrator in Castle Rackrent and Wuthering Heights. Thady Quirk and Ellen Dean are servant-narrators who strategically use feigned allegiance, astute perception, and selective disclosure to wield power over the lives of their masters. These “arts of subordination” allow the servant-narrator to tell his or her own life narrative, while appearing to share the masters’ memoirs. While both servant-narrators are motivated by economic means, Ellen Dean’s involvement throughout Wuthering Heights is further complicated by her desires of emotional connection. However, each servant-narrator achieves his or her …

"The Mirror Turn Lamp": Natural-Supernatural In Yeats, Cleston Lee Armstrong Iii

Dissertations

The supernatural portrayed in Yeats represents a carefully constructed convergence of all major themes in his canon. Yeats's first exposure to myth, the supernatural, and magic occurs in the 1890s when he worked as an editor of William Blake and Irish fairy lore. This experience at once inspired Yeats to explore mysticism and to shroud his own collected works in mystery. With the onset of modernity and the age of criticism this period ushered in, however, he was unable to capitalize on the spiritual as first imagined. As mere aesthetic, peculiar illuminations of the immaterial world Yeats so intensely sought …

The Freedom Quilt, April Jones

Theses and Dissertations

The Freedom Quilt is a play that I have written and adapted from Deborah Hokinson’s book, Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. This story explores the historic and dramatic implications in the idea of coded quilts as a form of communication among African American slaves; specifically as coded maps to freedom. There is an ongoing scholarly debate challenging the existence of these quilts, let alone that they could have been used in such a complex manner. The Freedom Quilt however, is one girl’s unique and individual story, and does not in any way suggest that maps, encoded in quilts were …

Divine Fluidity: Shifts Of Gender And Sexuality In Conservative Christian Communities, Sarah Stewart Burgess

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis draws on ethnographic research from three communities of conservative Christian women who find empowerment and agency through their religious traditions. Two communities are politically active, outspoken women who also believe strongly in "traditional" roles for women, and one community idealizes conservative standards of sexuality while accepting women who work as sex workers. These women did not view their positions as contradictory, rather, they used religious beliefs and religious practices to enact, embody or explain their complex genders and sexualities. This thesis draws on ethnographic, feminist and queer theories while showcasing the diversity within a movement largely believed to …

Collaboration Of Feminist And Postcolonial Discourses In The Plays Of Aphra Behn And Caryl Churchill, Erica Spiller

Theses and Dissertations

Subjugated groups studied by discourses of feminism and postcolonialism are commonly oppressed by white, male, imperial power systems. As different marginalized groups are exploited by the same dominant ideology the disparate discourses should collaborate in an attempt to fight the powers of oppression en masse. This thesis will explore not only how feminism and postcolonialism should collaborate, but that they have already been doing so for hundreds of years. In the seventeenth century the playwright Aphra Behn was already exploring the discourses as inseparable, and three-hundred-years later, playwright Caryl Churchill continues to do the same. By studying conventions of drama …

Chinese American Christianity: How The Ethnic-Specific Church Interacts With The Processes Of Migration And Americanization, Joshua D. Lo

Pitzer Senior Theses

This study will examine the lives and experiences of the Chinese American Christian with particular focus on the ways in which the church has affected the lives of the Chinese immigrants.

Come Tomorrow, Annemarie C. Messier

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Collection of five short stories : Foo Foo, Like Father, Birthday Girl, Omens, and Come Tomorrow.

Catholic Nationalism And Feminism In Twentieth-Century Ireland, Jennifer M. Donohue

Honors Theses

In the early 1900s, Ireland experienced a surge in nationalism as its political leanings shifted away from allegiance to the British Parliament and towards a pro-Ireland and pro-independence stance. The landscape of Ireland during this period was changed dramatically by the subversive popularity of the Irish political party, Sinn Fein, which campaigned for an Ireland for the Irish. Much of the political rhetoric surrounding this campaign alludes to the fact that Ireland was not inherently “British” because it defined itself by two unique, un-British characteristics – the Gaelic language and the Catholic faith.

As Sinn Fein’s hold on Ireland increased, …

Gender Trouble In Northern Ireland: An Examination Of Gender And Bodies Within The 1970s And 1980s Provisional Irish Republican Army In Northern Ireland, Jennifer Earles

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With this thesis, I will utilize both feminist and queer theory to highlight the gendered and bodily tactics used by the women of the 1970s/1980s Provisional Irish Republican Army. I will explore how women can both manipulate gender and use their bodies as a response to gender, ethnic, class, and colonial power relations and conflict discourses, the limitations of these approaches, and how these actions can work to reconfigure political movements, local cultures, and create a space for social change and a future beyond conflict which includes women. My methods will include a feminist content analysis of interviews, written records, …

Crashing Against The Wood, Jessica Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this collection of short stories, the characters struggle to recover equilibrium in their lives that have been turned upside down. They struggle against one another, against change, and against the loss of loved ones. No matter what bonds hold the characters together, the underlying tension of change and reaction permeates their relationships and threatens what they know to be true. A theme of discontent runs in these stories. Something beneath the surface is not right, and the characters struggle to climb out of the mess their lives have become. Some of them have been stifled, like the narrator in …

Machinal: A Sourcebook For The Actress Playing "Young Women", Brittney Rentschler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will document four phases of my rehearsal process/performance while portraying the role of Helen in Sophie Treadwell's Machinal. The first phase of the project will be researching and analyzing historical material on: Sophie Treadwell (the playwright) Ruth Snyder (the murderess upon whom the character of Helen is based), and the actual murder that occurred in the 1920's. The second phase that will be documented is a character analysis. I will take each episode and divide it into the following sections: given circumstances, what is said about the character by the playwright, by others, or by herself, objectives, tactics, …

Beyond Blonde: Creating A Non-Stereotypical Audrey In Ken Ludwig's Leading Ladies, Christine Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American society possesses strong, if not basic, stereotypes for each hair color: the "dumb" blonde, the "intelligent" or "serious" brunette, and the "spitfire" redhead. In contemporary entertainment culture, blonde women have achieved unique status beyond the stereotypes accorded to their brunette and redheaded counterparts. Revered and reviled simultaneously, these women cannot be ignored or dismissed. The convention of the "dumb blonde" is at the heart of this issue. When scrutinized, it is possible to discern at least four distinctions of this stereotype: the perceived as truly dumb, or innocent, blonde (Johanna in Sweeney Todd); the bombshell blonde (Lorelei Lee in …

Identity, Oppression, And Group Rights, Andrew Jared Pierce

Dissertations

The dissertation argues for a conception of group rights based on Habermasian discourse theory, as an alternative to the dominant multicultural liberal approach to group rights, which treats group rights as instrumental to individual rights.

Reading Joycean Comedy And Faulknerian Tragedy: Exploring The Significance Of Location, Literary Influence And The Possibilities Of Heroism With Leopold Bloom In Joyce’S Ulysses And Quentin Compson In Faulkner’S The Sound And The Fury And Absalom, Absalom!, Colin R. Cummings

Honors Theses

The distinct similarity between Joyce’s and Faulkner’s philosophical concerns (the affirmation of life in spite of its myriad difficulties), and the striking disjuncture between their aesthetic approaches (comedy for Joyce and tragedy for Faulkner), is where my interest in this project began. I sought to explore the lives and works of both writers in order to get a sense of how two artists could attempt to convey a similar message through such different means. The first thing I explore is a number of similarities between Joyce’s and Faulkner’s personal worlds (particularly their intimate connections to location) and their sources of …