Digital Commons Network^™

Negotiating Identity: Culturally Situated Epideictic In The Victorian Travel Narratives Of Isabella Bird, Katherine Reilly Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Epideictic rhetoric, one of the classical modes of persuasion described by Aristotle, has faced some criticism concerning its value in the realm of rhetoric. Though attitudes have been shifting over the last several decades, there is still a tendency to undervalue epideictic, falling back on the Aristotelian system of ceremonial oratory. However, its “praise and blame” style of persuasion employs of the type of rhetor / audience identification described by Kenneth Burke. Epideictic rhetoric is a major component of virtually any communication, as the speaker or writer seeks to create a bond with that audience so as to persuade them …

Assessing Factors Influencing Student Success At Mississippi's Public Universities As Measured By Bachelor's Degree Completion, Christian David Pruett

Theses and Dissertations

Retention and matriculation are topics of heavy debate and inquiry in higher education as rising tuition costs, coupled with declining state support, have fueled the need for increased accountability. In Mississippi, few studies have been conducted that are unique to the public universities in the state in order to analyze success factors in higher education. The purpose of this study was to analyze these success factors at Mississippi’s public universities as measured by successful degree completion within a six-year time period. This study analyzed High School GPA, ACT Scores, Parental Income Levels, Parental Education Levels, Ethnicity, and Gender. Academic, demographic …

An Investigation Of Middle School Student Interest, Perception, And Attitude Toward Technology And Engineering, Kari Marie Cook

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate middle school student perception and attitude toward technology and engineering and to better understand how the gender of the teacher, gender of the student, and information provided in technology classes affected their perception and attitude. To accomplish this, the Technology Attitude Scale, and the Pupil's Attitudes Toward Technology—United States assessment instruments were used to form the basis of a new survey instrument focused on technology and engineering perception, use, and interest. The new survey instrument is called the Technology and Engineering Attitude Scale (TEAS) survey. Multiple 7th grade technology engineering classes from …

Expressive Writing As A Therapeutic Process For Drug Dependent Women, Meshberg Cohen Sarah

Theses and Dissertations

Women with Substance Use Disorders (SUD) have high rates of trauma and PTSD, which is linked to greater physical and mental health problems and poorer SUD treatment outcomes. While research affirms trauma should be addressed during SUD treatment, the majority of addiction programs do not offer such services. One promising intervention is Pennebaker’s expressive writing paradigm, which includes disclosure of traumatic/stressful experiences through 20-minute writing sessions over 3-5 consecutive days. While expressive writing has been linked to improvements in mental and physical health, the intervention has not been studied in persons with SUDs. The present study was a randomized clinical …

Female Cfl (Chinese As Foreign Language) Learners' Acquisition Of Native-Like Features Of Feminine Chinese Speech, Shu-Ling Ko

Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to evaluate the correlation between participants' acquisition of feminine Chinese speech patterns and time lived in Chinese speaking areas. These patterns include final particles, key words, request words, sentence patterns, and intonation. Data collection was administered through an on-line survey. Participants in this study included twenty female native Mandarin Chinese speakers and 39 female CFL learners. The data collected revealed the correlation between the participants' acquisition of feminine Chinese speech patterns and time spent abroad in a Chinese language environment. Part one of the survey targeted the demographics of the participants. The second part of the …

Unlawful Assembly And The Fredericksburg Mayor's Court Order Books, 1821-1834, Sarah K. Blunkosky

Theses and Dissertations

Unlawful assembly accounts extracted from the Fredericksburg Mayor’s Court Order Books from 1821-1834, reveal rare glimpses of unsupervised, alleged illegal interactions between free and enslaved individuals, many of whom do not appear in other records. Authorities enforced laws banning free blacks and persons of mixed race from interacting with enslaved persons and whites at unlawful assemblies to keep peace in the town, to prevent sexual relationships between white women and free and enslaved black men, and to prevent alliance building between individuals. The complex connections necessary to arrange unlawful assemblies threatened the town’s safety with insurrection if these individuals developed …

What's A Female Director To Do? The Women Of Medea Redux And The Men Of Someone Who'll Watch Over Me: A Study Of The Sexes, Sarah Mansell Yount

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis will explore the role of the female director. The two plays on which I will focus, Neil LaBute’s medea redux and Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, call for quite different casts. The former involves a woman in a police interrogation room; the latter involves three men in a Lebanese prison. Despite the overt masculinity of these plays, traces of femininity permeate. Indeed, my status as a female director provided one of the clearest paths into these plays when I directed them last year at Virginia Commonwealth University. My gender also greatly influenced my direction of the …

"Unsex Me Here...:" Looking At Gender In Nude Performance, Vanessa Passini

Theses and Dissertations

"Unsex Me Here…" is an examination of our bodies, what they mean in terms of gender and power, and why they mean what they do. Plucked from Lady Macbeth’s infamous soliloquy, the title suggests the stripping away of something essential that transforms. Sex is not the right word, but gender is. Often, these two are mistaken and interchanged. Myths that support our social structure exist at the intersection of sex and gender. In this production, I collaborated with Pete Guither of the Living Canvas to challenge notions of gender in different textual mediums (via the written text of Shakespeare’s "Macbeth" …

Username Tab Password Return, Andrea Nia Burks

Theses and Dissertations

USERNAME TAB PASSWORD RETURN

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