Digital Commons Network^™

Identity And Transdisciplinarity: A Study Of L2 Writing Specialist Identity Across Contexts, Joseph Anthony Wilson

Masters Theses

This study investigates the ways that second language (L2) writing specialists construct their identities in relation to the field of L2 writing. While scholarship has employed identity as a theoretical lens to analyze L2 writing specialists’ professional development, teaching philosophies, and/or research practices, such research has been limited to single institutions or teacher education programs. Through the use of a survey as well as eleven (semi-structured) interviews, this study explicates how identities are negotiated as L2 writing specialists research and teach across disciplinary, departmental, geographical, and sociopolitical contexts.I first propose my own operationalized definition of a transdisciplinary identity, which I …

Paths Of Friction: Kvæðamannafélagið, Geography And Identity In 21st-Century Iceland, Konstantine A. Vlasis

Masters Theses

Originating in the 14th century, rímur continues to remain a significant tradition in Iceland. Rímur melodies, together with the texts of Icelandic Edda and Saga poetry, were the main form of household entertainment in Iceland for almost six centuries until modern, global technologies cultivated new interests. In the early 20th century, rímur enthusiasts gathered together to form the Iðunn Society of Intoners and Versifiers in Reykjavík, to preserve the singing traditions of their ancestors. Since then, numerous other societies have organized, many within the past decade. In this way, intoning societies have become a medium through which a national Icelandic …

The Importance Of Disguise In The Middle English Romances, Sarah Catherine Moore

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the literary motif of disguise in the context of the Middle English romances. The thesis seeks to explore the various manifestations and functions of disguise, and how they relate to the familiar exile-and-return structure of the genre. Chapter I discusses the conversation of genre description of the Middle English romances, and presents the scholarship reviewed for this project along with relevant terms to the discussion at large. Chapter II explores disguise as it relates to a character’s social mobility in King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and The Tale of Gamelyn. Chapter III looks at …

Beyond Black And White: Visualizing Cultural Identity Amidst Racial Anxiety And Nativism In American Modernist Novels, Emily Moore Harrison

Masters Theses

Walter Benn Michaels’ Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism highlights that the search for identity is a mutual project of both nativism and Modernism and reveals how relevant racial identity is in American Modernism. While this is an important relationship in American Modernism, I argue that many recent studies following Michaels’ legacy of scholarship on race and nativism in modern American literature reduce individual authors’ projects, too often interpreting them all to have similar anxieties and desires for American racial identity and citing the presence of racial tropes as evidence of the authors’ own social and political arguments. Michaels set …

Laughing At Ourselves: Music And Identity In Comedic Performance, Peter Trigg

Masters Theses

Standup comedy actively performs and engages with constructions of self and social identity, especially in terms of ethnic difference and the negotiation of American race relations. Musical comedy, wherein standup comedians perform song onstage, represents one facet of this expression that configures musical texts and expectations in the service of cultural observation and critique. Bo Burnham and Reggie Watts characterize two disparate approaches to the practice based on their aesthetic tastes, existential anxieties, and racial experiences. The two present their respective identities onstage in relation to a changing American political landscape of the early 21st century that has seen widespread …

Sounding Identity: Soundscapes, Music, And Technoculture In The Chinese Diaspora Of Panama, Corey Michael Blake

Masters Theses

Present in Panama since the 19^th century, the Chinese diaspora in Panama City, Panama represents an empowered community of individuals who identify as both Chinese and Panamanian. These Chinese Panamanian hybrid identities emerge within sonic environments through an engagement with transnational media and digital technologies, notably within retail stores. Specifically, music surfaces as an especially important sonic marker of the Chinese Panamanian hybridity. Within the mall of the Panamanian Chinatown of El Dorado, an interesting mixture of both Chinese and Latin American popular music genres sounds throughout the various stores. This mixture of music genres demonstrates Chinese Panamanian agency …

“I Guess Someone Forgot To Ask Us If We Wanted To Be America’S Diversity Mascots”: The Identity Journey Of Transracial, Transnational, Korean Adoptees, Molly Jin Ah Rigell

Masters Theses

Korean, transracial, international adoptees (TRIAs) have been given an opportunity to tell their stories in the anthologies Seeds of a Silent Tree, Voices from Another Place, and More Voices. Through an examination of twelve stories from these three anthologies, I pinpoint issues that are faced by TRIAs who were raised in white families, and the significance these issues hold. I also discuss the unique perspectives displayed in each anthology, and the overall view of racial identity that can be observed through the study of a unique community. Through their status as in-between races and cultures, Korean, transracial, international adoptees can …

Hablo Español, You Know? Language And Identity In The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Rachel Ann Denton

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between language, personal identity, and culture among members of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Puerto Rico represents a unique situation socially and politically because of its colonial relationship with the United States. This relationship has facilitated a continuous circular migration to and from the mainland U.S. over the last century. As of 2012, the diasporic community now represents a greater population than those who remain on the island. While nationalistic debates in Puerto Rico have traditionally excluded this group (collectively dubbed “neoricans” or “nuyoricans”), their recent contributions to literature and Puerto Rican cultural theory, as well …

The Liminal Mirror: The Impact Of Mirror Images And Reflections On Identity In The Bloody Chamber And Coraline, Staci Poston Conner

Masters Theses

In Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (1979) and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), mirrors play a large role in the development of the female protagonist’s identity. Tracing the motif of physical mirrors and mirrored realities in these texts offers a deeper understanding of each protagonist’s coming of age and coming to terms with her own identity. Though Angela Carter’s short stories are for an adult audience, they are remakes of fairy tales, which are often viewed as children’s literature, or at least literature about the child. Though the appropriate reading age for Coraline is debatable, it can tentatively be categorized as …

Disruptive Voices In The American Musical Discourse: Comic Song Performance In The American Parlor, 1865-1917, Kevin Steven O'Brien

Masters Theses

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the American song sheet industry vastly increased in size. This mass mediated form reached a broad number of consumers, who performed this music in their homes, identified with it, and shaped the new discourse on their identity as they did so. Simultaneously, Americans were re-shaping their cultural conceptions of music, in a process Lawrence Levine chronicled as the emergence of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” distinctions. Performing music in the culturally sacralized space of the parlor was meant to be an edifying experience and a display of genteel, “highbrow” identities. Performing comic songs (comic …

Addressing Local Development And Local Identity: Rethinking The Chapman Highway Corridor In South Knoxville, William Edward Copeland

Masters Theses

This thesis addresses the idea of identity within the landscape. The mechanisms that form identity, the representation of identity through both tangible and intangible forms, and the growth,evolution, and erosion of identity over time are all topics that help to inform the argument being made. Moving from an abstract ideal to a specific place, I will address the needs of a local Knoxville community that has come to struggle in recent years due to a loss of their identity within a regional context. Working to translate the mechanisms that foster a sense of identity into physical changes to the landscape …

Blurring The Boundaries: Images Of Androgyny In Germany At The Fin De Siecle, Daniel James Casanova

Masters Theses

The following study inquires into the emergence and development of a positive, nonnormative homosexual identity in German social discourses regarding androgyny and same-sex desire during the Wilhelmine period. Literary works, medical journals, homosexual journals, and visual art in the late-nineteenth century reflect a growing interest in androgynous bodies throughout Germany’s developing homosexual community. Such primary media provide the evidence for this study. Of particular interest are the works and theories of homosexuals themselves with an emphasis on their organizational journals (such as The Own and The Annual Book of Intermediate Sexualities) and photographs. This project examines the dissemination and …

Re-Covery, Mark Christopher Manis

Masters Theses

This thesis concerns itself with the recovery of the history of Las Vegas, the effects of historic knowledge upon the cities present identity, and how focus on its past can effect individuals in its community and visitors from afar at present. Further it concerns itself with the quality of living, or lack thereof, in the surrounding neighborhoods of the thesis’ design site, The Old Mormon Fort, and seeks to make a healthy contribution to its community. The Old Mormon fort is the earliest site of modern day human settlement in Las Vegas, and in many ways has been the foundation …

Rooted In Place: The Role Of Design In Small Town Identity, Todd Owen Sparks

Masters Theses

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Longstanding critical theories on place, memory, and identity can begin to address critical questions that residents, civic leaders, and designers are currently facing in twenty-first century small town America. The rapidity with which many rural communities are now transforming is unlike any previous phase of transition; due in large part to a vastly expanding globalized economy and mass culture. Anonymous, exchangeable environments are quickly becoming a standard …

Snaps Of Eden, Michael J. Hudson

Masters Theses

The following poems are and attempt at reclamation and reconciliation. The first section wades through the delicate subject of personal history and is an attempt to show truth as a means of both self and communal healing. The second is plaintive, a brief effort to interlope into and understand worlds outside (but not foreign) to my own. The third is a poetic essay detailing the journey of a young woman facing the horrors of an undeclared, and seemingly eternal war. The fourth and final sections serve as a means of exploration of the self and place; tackling issues of sex, …