Digital Commons Network^™

In Whitman's Wake, Kacie Megan Fodness

Dissertations and Theses

In Whitman’s Wake argues that nineteenth-century American writing includes a living invitation for its future readers. The kind of invitational writing prioritized in this work has not yet been fully accounted for in literary criticism. What’s more, even when we as readers have experienced such an invitation (one we feel is for us) we have not followed the feeling far enough. As a result, scholarship has largely neglected, and perhaps has consciously rejected, the intentional action of a writer that creates an encounter with their future reader. My project contributes to the ongoing critical conversation around the relationship of readers …

Cherokee Abstract Artist Leon Polk Smith: A Convergence Of Traditions, Danielle Montanino

Dissertations and Theses

This paper analyzes how Leon Polk Smith's Indigenous roots and upbringing in Indian Country had a significant impact on his artistic practice in a time of discrimination and segregation in the United States. Through examination contextualizing his work within the history and political events of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Nations it is revealed how Polk Smith developed a formal language that could navigate both worlds and be viewed through a pure abstraction lens or a lens embodying his Indigenous traditions. In addition to his Indigenous philosophies, Mesoamerican Inca Nation’s cultural motifs further ground Polk Smith’s Indigenous aesthetic, and avant-garde …

Unsettling South Dakota Literature: Countering Lionized Representations Of A Frontier Fantasy Space, Lindsay R. Stephens

Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I challenge the pervasive notion of South Dakota as a settler fantasy space by considering several of its twentieth and twenty-first century literary offerings through the lens of Settler Colonial Studies. Settler colonial ideology has long dominated historical, sociopolitical, and literary narratives in South Dakota, affecting state policy, Lakota and Dakota sovereignty, public school curricula, the state’s economy, and even state and local responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Notions of Manifest Destiny and a Wild West frontier continue to evolve, shift, and resolidify in South Dakota, playing a key role in the perpetuation of institutionalized disenfranchisement and …

Henry Adams: An Education In Autobiography, Marcellus Richie

Dissertations and Theses

This essay will begin by breaking down Henry Adams’s starting sentence in his autobiography word by word, piece by piece – pondering its meanings and permutations in the context of subsequent chapters of this iconic memoir. The essay will then consider whether Adams’s Education should still be regarded as a classic of American autobiography or seen merely as an irrelevant and out-of-date artifact. In a nation radically transformed since Adams’s time, does the book still deserve its high flung reputation? In other words, which of the images cited above is most relevant to The Education: an image of optimistic youth …

The Space Between “Seen” And “Unseen:” Queer People And The 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance, Claudia R. Campanella

Dissertations and Theses

In November 1926, a group of Black artists, writers, and activists created the first and only edition of Fire!!, edited by novelist Wallace Thurman. Fire!! was created by a younger generation of New Negroes and “devoted to the younger Negro artists” who dissented from the mainstream ideas of the New Negro Movement and used the magazine to spread their own views on the 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance. Fire!! and other texts speaking to this dissent against a Black intellectual middle class image of the movement will be studied in reference to showcasing the multi-faceted elements of the movement touching …

Flowers For Abiah: Emily Dickinson's Claim To Live According To Her Own Rules, Carmen M. Santiago

Dissertations and Theses

Emily Dickinson is known for her poems, but her epistolary body of work is as rich and as compelling. Her letters to Abiah Root reveal Dickinson's mind behind the poet and more importantly show the progression and evolution of Dickinson's ideas and sentiments regarding Victorian societal norms.

A Convergence Of Surrealism And Realism: Why Spirituality, Folklore, And The Supernatural Saturate The Work Of Toni Morrison, Kevon K. Harvey

Dissertations and Theses

This paper will analyze how Toni Morrison blends surrealistic elements into the recognized realism of her text by crafting various paradoxes within her work. Using three of Morrison’s books: Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, I will examine how each book ties a specific surrealistic component, as well as an equally relevant realistic element that will aid in the construct of a figurative bridge between the cultural past and present for African Americans. Moreover, I will discuss how the use of the surreal in Morrison’s work represents a dive into African traditions. Formed as a direct result of slavery, …

Evangelizing Neoliberalism Through Megachurches In Latin America And The United States, William O. Collazo

Dissertations and Theses

The most prominent and influential feature of worldwide Evangelicalism, is the megachurch. In Latin America megachurches have proliferated and grown in political influence when they first came into contact with neoliberalism during Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. As Latin America's poor first migrated out of rural areas into Latin American cities, then north, to the United States, they have brought with them their religion. Increasingly, this religion is Protestant, evangelical, and for many, it is Pentecostalism. Misunderstood by the early literature on Pentecostalism, is the strain of neoliberalism that has become infused in the religion's most powerful institution - the megachurch. …

Writing Indigenous Identity In Herman Melville And Joseph Conrad's Polynesian And Malay Archipelago Novels, Catherine L. Black

Dissertations and Theses

The thesis of this paper is that cross-cultural writing can be done with the right methods of communication, such as engaging narrator and education—or simply sensitive, imaginative writing. Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad’s five books set in the Polynesian and Malay Archipelagos—Typee and Omoo and the Malay Trilogy (Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, and The Rescue)— are used as master models of how to write indigenous characters with rich characterization in pivotal roles, even circa 1846 and 1896. The unique perspective and technique by which they did this is explored, a technique and perspective not …

Evangelical Dictatorship Driving The Guatemalan Civil War: Reconsidering Ríos Montt, The “Savior Of La Nueva Guatemala”, Miho Egoshi

Dissertations and Theses

The devastating earthquake that hit Guatemala in 1976 was used as a pretext for American born Protestant evangelicalism—mainly Pentecostalism—to gain entry in the Guatemalan society. A major consequence of the earthquake relief efforts by American evangelicals, is that their meddling also intensified the Mayan genocide during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-96). This thesis explores the complicit relationship of religion and politics in the Guatemalan Civil War, focusing on the evangelical dictator Efraín Ríos Montt’s regime (1982-83). Firstly, it examines how Christian evangelicalism played a pivotal role for conservative Republican candidate Ronald Reagan and, later through his administration, for Ríos Montt’s …

The 2016 Presidential Election: Demographic Transformation And Racial Backlash, Skyler Lillian Brocker-Knapp

Dissertations and Theses

Despite analysts' predictions and assertions prior to the 2016 presidential election, the Hispanic vote did not prove decisive. Donald Trump's victory elucidates a new electoral calculus, one that will be ruled simultaneously by changing demographics and the backlash against such change. While Hispanic voters largely supported Hillary Clinton, structural and individual impediments hinder their access to the voting booth and their turnout on election day. This thesis explores the reasons why the Hispanic electorate did not prove decisive in the 2016 presidential election. It further illuminates the changing Electoral College map, in which the Midwest and the Rustbelt are determined …

Music And Race In The American West, William Steven Schneider

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the complexities of race relations in the nineteenth century American West. The groups considered here are African Americans, Anglo Americans, Chinese, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. In recent decades historians of the West have begun to tell the narratives of racial minorities. This study adopts the aims of these scholars through a new lens--music. Ultimately, this thesis argues that historians can use music, both individual songs and broader conceptions about music, to understand the complex and contradictory race relations of the nineteenth century west.

Proceeding thematically, the first chapter explores the ways Anglo Americans used music to …

From Tulsa To Ferguson: Redefining Race Riots And Racialized Violence, Hesley R. Keenan

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Iktomi: A Character Traits Analysis Of A Dakota Culture Myth, Marianne Sue Kastner

Dissertations and Theses

This qualitative study comparing three separate English-language versions of a single Dakota cultural myth "Iktomi" presents a novel systematic approach for analyzing Native American folk tales to understand how stories function as tools of transmission of cultural information and knowledge. The method involved coding character traits according to type with regard to representation, ability, or attribute to ascertain patterns among the codes and elucidate character roles and relationships, reorganizing the coded traits into paired polarized correspondences to clarify relationships among traits, and assessing pronoun use and documenter effect pointing to gender-specific character activity. Findings revealed an encoded framework illuminating how …

Street Art, Ideology, And Public Space, Tiffany Renée Conklin

Dissertations and Theses

The concept of the city has come to play a central role in the practices of a new generation of artists for whom the city is their canvas. Street art is a complex social issue. For decades, its presence has fueled intense debate among residents of modern cities. Street art is considered by some to be a natural expression that exercises a collective right to the city, and by others, it is seen as a destructive attack upon an otherwise clean and orderly society. This research focuses on various forms of street art from the perspective of the urban audience. …

Structures Of Daily Life : The Material Culture Of Surry County, Virginia, 1690-1715, Anna Louise Hawley

Dissertations and Theses

This is a study of the material culture of Surry County, Virginia for the years 1690 to 1715, based on an analysis of 221 probate inventories. The inventories were divided by decades and then ranked by total appraised value. The bottom 30%, lower middle 30, upper middle 30% and the top 10% are described and changes over time examined. The picture of Surry that emerges is that of a poor county which was, nevertheless, a place of opportunity for the poorer sections of society. The bottom 60% of Surry's residents profited from the brief boom in the tobacco market (1696- …

Anna Held: A Biography, Michael Owen Hoffman

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis, a biography of the French actress, Anna Held (1873-1918), is an attempt to place her in proper perspective in American history. Essentially a record of Miss Held from birth to death, it highlights many events that made her famous. Included are examples of publicity generated by her manager-husband, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

Much credit can be awarded Ziegfeld for his expertise in publicity stunts and promotion. Undue praise, however, has been attributed to him for the origin of the Ziegfeld Follies and the success of Anna Held.

Anna was a Continental success long before she met him. His promotion …

A Comparative Study Of Communication Style In Japan And The United States As Revealed Through Content Analysis Of Television Commercials, Noriko Huruse

Dissertations and Theses

This study is an empirical analysis of communication styles in Japan and the United States. In particular, the study deals with communication styles in Japanese and American television commercials as a reflection of human communication styles in the two countries.

An Investigation Of Similarity Of The Value System Of The American And Japanese College Students, Hiroyoshi Taguchi

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the present research was to investigate whether or not there is similarity of values between American and Japanese college students. The following research hypothesis was established:

There is a positive relationship between the value system of the Japanese college students and that of American college students.