Digital Commons Network^™

The Tragedy Of Caspian: C. S. Lewis And His Trauma, Chandler Hanton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reconsiders C.S.Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as a type of scriptotherapy that enabled Lewis to process and come to terms with a life full of serious and significant traumatic events. Trauma theory offers a vehicle for us to consider the alignments and connections between Lewis himself and his fictional creation, Caspian. In the specifics of both characterization and incident, Lewis mirrors the events and relationships that instilled and healed the trauma in his own life. In situating Caspian as his alter-ego, Lewis allowed his writing to function as a gender-specific therapeutic process for addressing the effects of his …

Power And Control: An Exploration Of Health And Medicine At Camp Lawton (9js1), Emily L. Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In late 1864, as the American Civil War was entering its final stages, the Confederacy built a prison to ease the overcrowding at the infamous Andersonville prison. This prison, located in Millen, Georgia, would be known as Camp Lawton. Camp Lawton was abandoned in November of 1864 but has recently been the site of ongoing archaeological investigation. Despite this, little research has been done focusing specifically on health and medicine at Camp Lawton. In this thesis, I use qualitative analysis of Civil War prisoner and guard accounts and analysis of artifacts from Camp Lawton to understand the nature of access …

(Un)Qualified Immunity: An Analysis On Qualified Immunity And Civilian Sentiments, Guy Hodge Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent events involving the deaths of unarmed, African American citizens have brought forth an increased attention to the application of qualified immunity to law enforcement. This study aims to gain a civilian perspective on qualified immunity. Qualified immunity, as defined by the Supreme Court case Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Through a national-level survey, this study captures an overall favorability of qualified immunity as well as …

Whitewashing Who We Worship: Amelioration And Cultural Imperatives In Neil Gaiman’S American Gods, Samantha Bauer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods creates a penetrating and sharp commentary on the state of essentially, every aspect of contemporary American society by populating it with myths that arrives on American shores over countless generations. From the characters to the settings, Gaiman utilizes the often-overlooked fact that myths can be found in every aspect of life. In many ways, Gaiman is building, or perhaps evolving, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces and Roland Barthes’ Mythologies to discuss the unique nature of contemporary myths and how ancient myths still play a role in our society. I contend that in …

From Wanderer To Warrior: Martin's Journey To Sainthood In Brian Jacques's Redwall Series, Marie A. Bliemeister

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children’s fantasy series have been set in the Medieval Era, a way to explore contemporary themes. This use of the Medieval Era is known as medievalism, where authors can explore contemporary issues by comparing them to the past (Bradford 3). Brian Jacques, the author of the popular children’s series Redwall, uses many aspects of the Medieval Era such as prophecies, glory, and battle, and visions or dreams to effectively spin a good yarn while commenting on the religious development of England in the late twentieth century. English moral was down due to the devastation of World War Two and …

Imperial Anxiety And Irish Myth: A Case-Study Of T.C. Boyle’S Water Music, Connor Mabry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is a long history of returning to a collective past or history during periods of cultural anxiety in human history. In what I term late-imperial anxiety comes a slew of writers returning to mythology and folklore in response to changing cultural and political environments around them. T.C. Boyle is living in a vastly changing America during the 1960s and 70s when he writes and publishes his first novel, Water Music. Boyle participates in the tradition of hearkening to the past to face the future by drawing from popular Irish mythology for his novel. In it he adapts popular …

Young, Gifted, Black, And Blocked: A Critical Inquiry Of Barriers That Hinder Black Students' Participation In Gifted And Advanced Placement Programs, Elizabeth Anne Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This inquiry explores the underrepresentation of Black students in the Gifted and Advanced Placement (AP) Program from the perspective of the student. This study focused primarily on the barriers students perceived that hindered their participation. In addition, I explored the role teachers and guidance counselors play in Black students’ decisions to enroll or drop out of AP classes, and how the history and institution of gifted educations has aid and excluded Black students. Five Black high school students, four male, and one female, were interviewed.

Theoretically, my study was grounded in two distinct inquiries; Critical Theory (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2008) …

The Obama Effect On African American High School Males, Aundra Simmons Vaughn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Of all the challenges in education today, I can think of none greater than the challenge of motivating, educating, and empowering black male learners” (Kafele, 2012, p. 67). Research documents the struggles of African American males in society and education. There is concern among educators for role models for young people to emulate (Lines, 2001). To explore President Obama as a role model and the impact of his historic election on African American recent high school male graduates, a qualitative research study was used. A phenomenological design helped described the “essence” of the phenomenon— the election of an African American …

Functional Violence In Martin Mcdonagh's The Lieutenant Of Inishmore And The Pillowman, Lindsay Shalom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While Martin McDonagh’s plays have engendered laughter, disgust, and fear, he might be best known as part of a long line of Irish playwrights who faced controversy due to their art. Much like Synge, Shaw, and O’Casey, McDonagh has faced criticism and even outrage due to the violence and misunderstood portrayals of the Irish in his plays. Though the violence in plays like The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore has been labeled gratuitous, we might better understand the purpose of that violence by examining them in light of Michel Foucault’s concepts of knowledge and power. Foucault’s approaches best highlight …

Classworks As A Means To Gaining Equity In The General Education Math Classroom: Perceptions Of Students Receiving Special Education Services, Diane Marshall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the importance of math steadily increasing, researchers in the field of special education have made efforts to increase the performance of students with disabilities (Fuchs et al., 2008; Gersten, Jordan, & Flojo, 2005). Despite the deficits these students face, the trend has been for many years that most students with disabilities in math receive their instruction in the general education classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions that students receiving special education services have regarding the effectiveness of Classworks, a computer-assisted instructional program, in helping them gain equity in the general education math classroom. Critical …

An Archaeological Investigation Into The Cluskey Embankment Stores, Andrew B. Ayala

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between November 2012 and June 2013 Georgia Southern University conducted an archaeological investigation into the Cluskey Embankment Stores (9CH1352) on behalf of the City of Savannah, Georgia. The project was first initiated by the Earl T. Shinhoster Youth Leadership Institute over a concern of how the vaults were being used. Members of the Shinhoster organization went before City Council and proposed an archaeological investigation of the Vaults. The City Council supported to the proposal and the City’s Research Library & Municipal Archives contacted Dr. Sue Moore of Georgia Southern University to conduct an archaeological investigation of the site. The Cluskey …

Amongst Women”: O’Brien, Beckett, And The Magdalen “Réamhscéal, Tiffany N. Manning

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is hard to escape the portrayal of what twentieth century life might have been like for a penitent living in one of Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. With its saturation in contemporary pop culture, the morality of these Irish Institutions has been called into question through blockbuster films and best-selling books. However, some believe that the many public representations of the Magdalen Laundries fail to tell the whole story. As tension surrounding Magdalen Laundries, as well as Church and State involvement in them, has continuously grown over the last couple of decades, many citizens of Ireland and, indeed, the world have …

Eye For The Gap: Frenzy, Liberty, And The Nietszchean Chorus In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir And Shining City, Frances Krieg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study situates The Weir and Shining City by Conor McPherson as embodying elements of Dionysian aesthetics as elucidated by Friedrich Nietzsche. Working through the lenses of Samuel Beckett’s linguistic philosophy and the premium of theater as established by Nietzsche, Artaud, and Brecht, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate how McPherson pierces the boundaries of language in drama by establishing his audience as chorus. Background information on Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and McPherson’s own comments on the plays are included with the research on the plays themselves. This work articulates the chorus itself but also the choral, …

Nothing More Delicious: Food As Temptation In Children's Literature, Mary A. Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although many critics and theorists, including Roland Barthes, have discussed food in literature, little attention has been paid to the food-as-temptation story in children’s literature. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline food is used as temptation for child protagonists, a tool to lure them into doing evil deeds or being generally mischievous. Some characters, like Alice, act as the tempters as well as the tempted, while others, like Edmund, wait passively for rescue. Coraline breaks this …

An Examination Of An Ice House At Old Town Plantation, Elizabeth A. Gillispie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Old Town plantation has had a long and prosperous life. The property has been occupied historically for more than 200 hundred years. Christopher Fitzsimmons' purchased the property in 1809. Fitzsimmons' created a working plantation and an elaborate homestead at Old Town. It is his occupation that this research centers around. Excavations in 1994 revealed the foundation footings of his home, the associated springhouse and his ice house. This thesis is an in depth examination of ice houses around the world comparatively and how these structures relate to the ice house at Old Town.

Curriculum Circus: Juggling Curriculum, Science, And The Arts, Domenica Devine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Education should open the door to better lives and better jobs. The fact is that it does not. In part, there are many causes including rigidity, political interference, and the separation between disciplines that we teach without context and without dialogue with our students. Specifically, I think that we should use education as a way to help students make better choices and have a better life. One way we can do it is by reconciling science with the other disciplines. And that is what is at the heart of curriculum studies.

There is a pervasive belief that the Western ideology …

Sex And Gasoline: Selling Sex In Twentieth Century America, Elizabeth Puckett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The adult entertainment industry as modern mankind knows it began to from at the end of the Victorian age, a time where America also happened to become a major international power for the first time. The history of the adult entertainment industries from 1900 till today can almost be seen as a history of amazing business savvy, moral battles and classic T and A. No one book or one story would capture all the jobs and products that fall under the heading of adult entertainment. But the adult entertainment industry is made of up of people and business that have …

Faunal Analysis And Comparative Study Of Mont Repose Plantation, Misty Y. Dunn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past several years excavations have been underway within a structure at the Mont Repose plantation site located near Coosawhatchie, South Carolina. This structure has yielded an array of artifacts including numerous faunal remains. Species recovered thus far include domestic species such as cow, pig, and chicken. The wild species represented within the collection include deer, opossum, raccoon, fish, bird, turtle, and alligator. By comparing the findings from the Mont Repose structure with other coastal plantation sites, it is suggested that conclusions can be drawn about who was occupying the structure. Also, it may be possible to determine the …

Kinship: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind And The Irish Big House Genre, Patricia Homer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Critics have largely dismissed Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel Gone with the Wind as a serious work of literature. Although various references to Irish culture permeate Gone with the Wind, the novel has not been compared to any Irish literature or mythology. This thesis compares Gone with the Wind with Irish Big House literature and mythology through the lens of biography and history. The works of William Butler Yeats, Maria Edgeworth, and Edith Somerville and Martin Ross are also employed to show evidence of the connection of Gone with the Wind to Irish Big House literature. This comparison results in a …

All The Beef To The Heels Were In: Advertising And Plenty In Joyce's Ulysses, Mindy Jo Ratcliff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Privileging a historicist approach, this document explores the presence of consumer culture, particularly advertising, in James Joyce's seminal modernist novel, Ulysses (1922). It interrogates Joyce's awareness of how a broad upswing in Ireland's post-Famine economy precipitated advertising-intensive consumerism in both rural and urban Ireland. Foci include the late-nineteenth century transition in agriculture from arable farming to cattle-growing (grazier pastoralism), which, spurring economic growth, facilitated the emergence of a strong farmer rural bourgeoisie. The thesis considers how Ulysses inscribes and critiques that relatively affluent coterie's expenditures on domestic cultural tourism, as well as hygiene-related products, whose presence on the Irish scene …

Troubling Women: Female Texts And Voices Of The Northern Irish Conflict, 1969-1998, Kelly M. Twilley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland between the Irish nationalist community, those desiring a united Ireland, and the Ulster loyalist community, those longing to remain a part of the UK, known as the Troubles (1969-1998). More specifically, this thesis centers on the strong and courageous women who played undeniably significant roles throughout the conflict. Some women campaigned for better and equal rights for women, some protested for political justice, some picked up guns to fight, and still others advocated for peace. Using the real women of history as a guide, it will create a lens through which …

Growing Up Biracial In A Southern Elementary School, Julie M. Kight

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explored the relationship between racial identity of biracial children (defined as fifty percent Black and fifty percent White) and their academic experiences in a southern elementary school setting. This dissertation ventured further to explore the curriculum in a southern elementary school setting and whether it meets the academic needs of the biracial child and includes the biracial child. This dissertation reflected on artifacts collected and analyzed narratives from the participants involved. These participants included six biracial female students in grades three through five. The current research employed Critical Race Theory as its theoretical framework. Critical Race Theory is …

In Fairyland Or Thereabout: The Fairies As Nationalist Symbol In Irish Literature By And After William Allingham, Cassandra M. Schell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This essay is a look at a little known Irish poet, William Allingham, who invokes the fairy as a vehicle for a political change in Ireland. It offers a close reading of a few of his poems as well as historically approaches the use of fairies in the popular culture of the nineteenth century. In Chapter I, I use an historical approach to discuss the biography of William Allingham and his place in Irish literature as a poet we have neglected. I also discuss a cultural study of the portrayal and use of the fairy in the nineteenth century. This …

Blinded By The White: Soul-Searching For The Pedagogical Possibilities Of Otherness In The White Hearts Of Parents Raising Children Of Color, Debra Clark Sukaratana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the possibilities for those who have been Otherized (minorities). I refer to possibilities in this study as the potential for minority children to prevail in the aspects of life that have been hindered by those who are white. My own personal whiteness is explored as a mother and an educator. Additional exploration in this study comes from the voices and experiences of those white parents who are raising children of color and how they are dealing with their own whiteness as it relates to the upbringing of their children. This study takes a glance at the educational …

"As-Yet-Still-Forgiven Past": Dylan Thomas And Nostalgia, David Bradley Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dylan Thomas exhibited a variety of nostalgic influences within his poetry. A careful study of his life will reveal a nostalgia that evolved from adolescent musings upon an ideal past, to a self-destructive urge to return to innocence through death. Thomas incorporates a variety of historical influences within this nostalgia, but his primary influence is ultimately his own tormented past. This study not only focuses on the personal nostalgia of one man, but the variety of ways nostalgia can affect people, history and society as sociological force.

Creating Aotearoa Through Discourse: Language And Character In Keri Hulme's The Bone People, Sabryna Nicole Sarver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I will be looking at Keri Hulmes novel The Bone People as a postcolonial text. The beginning will explore the current conversations taking place about the importance of language(s) within texts that are deemed postcolonial as they relate to Hulmes novel which is written in both Maori and English. Other important postcolonial ideas applicable to the text such as space, magical realism, and current postcolonial theory will be looked at. Previous criticism will also be examined. The final sections of this thesis will focus on Hulmes three main characters separately: Joe, Kerewin, and Simon, and their places within and outside …