Digital Commons Network^™

History Textbooks And The Construction Of National Identity In Burma, Ada Chai

Senior Theses and Projects

Political leaders have often used state education systems as a tool for nation building, using school curricula to shape citizens’ national identity to be consistent with their long-term political goals. In this paper, I analyze the narratives of past kings in government-issued history textbooks in Burma examine the political and social values the Burmese State attempts to transmit to students in the process of building a national identity. Using a qualitative content analysis and coding methods, I examine 6^th – 8^th grade history textbooks. My findings indicate that the Burmese State uses narratives of ancient Burmese kings to …

Les Entretiens De Fontenelle: The Rhetorical Strategies Of A Cosmological Dialogue, Mark R. Komanecky Jr.

Senior Theses and Projects

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds is one of the first major works of the French Enlightenment. First published in 1686, the work is organized as a series of dialogues between a philosopher and a marquise who discuss scientific topics such as heliocentrism and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. Treating these subjects was a risky affair; less than a century earlier Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake, and fifty years before Fontenelle, Galileo was arrested for “holding, teaching, and defending” heliocentrism. Fontenelle employed several rhetorical and stylistic strategies in the work: he wrote in …

Reclaiming And Reconciling What Was Originally Ours--Christianity And Feminism: A Concise History, Soquel Filice

History

No abstract provided.

Technological Revolution In Astronomy, Michael Julio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the evolution of technology in astronomy and how it has impacted our understanding of the universe. It also gives a brief history of the major figures that revolutionized the science through their innovations and discoveries. Technological advancements throughout the last four centuries have allowed for the construction of instruments that can be used to see further into the universe than ever before. Thanks to technology, astronomers can now look beyond the electromagnetic spectrum as the only means of studying the compositions of celestial objects, opening a whole new way in which we can study the universe. We …

La Guerra Civil Española En La Memoria Histórica: Una Conversación Continua Con El Pasado, Jordan C. Hensley

Honors Papers

Este ensayo enfoca en una variedad de obras españoles de cine y literatura contemporanea, incluidos novelas, documentales, peliculas y una novela grafica, que narran las historias de españoles que experimentaron la epoca de la Guerra Civil Española, la represion nacionalista durante la dictadura de Francisco Franco y el proceso de transmitir los recuerdos de aquellas epocas a una generacion mas joven que no las vivio. Investiga los papeles que desempeñan estas obras en el proyecto de narrativizar eventos centrales de la memoria historica de una epoca que sigue siendo importante en el presente.

Crafting Industrial Manhood In The Manual Training Movement, 1876-1920, James Jonathan Rick

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Beyond Boston: Catholicism In The Northern New Borderlands In The Nineteenth Century, Molly Gallaher Boddy

Doctoral Dissertations

This study uncovers the religious and ethnic history of northern New England- Maine and Vermont- which has remained for too long on the periphery of scholars’ attention. In 1836, the Vermont Catholic missionary priest Jeremiah O’Callaghan warned members of the New England Catholic Church that “our own Catholicks (are) every where scattered in the woods,” writing not only of the hostile outside Protestant world faced by Catholics in Vermont during the nineteenth century, but also of the difficulty of ministering to such a geographically removed or “scattered” rural population. Still today, the story of these northern New England Catholics that …

Una Mirada Histórico Hermenéutica Al Juego En Pedagogos Del Siglo Xx: Rosa Agazzi, Édouard Claparéde Y Andrés Manjón, Claudia Milena Estévez Báez, Dolly Johanna Rico Polo, John César Santamaría Ibagué

Maestría en Docencia

La presente investigación surge movida por una serie de interrogantes, como: ¿Qué importancia le damos a las experiencias pedagógicas exitosas como ejemplo de prácticas significativas en el ámbito educativo en la actualidad? Y ¿Cómo pedagogos que causaron gran impacto en su época, son hoy en día desconocidos en nuestro país? Esto, junto a nuestro deseo de dar protagonismo a un elemento que consideramos importante en la educación: el juego, nos llevó a preguntarnos finalmente ¿cuáles son las concepciones de juego como mediación pedagógica en los pedagogos Rosa Agazzi, Édouard Claparéde y Andrés Manjón? autores que revolucionaron la educación tradicional replanteando …

Sexualizing The Body Politic: Narrative The Female Body And The Gender Divide In Secret History, Eileen A. Horansky

ETD Archive

Recent studies of eighteenth-century women writers have focused on the role of women as developers and proponents of the secret history. The secret history, recently defined by scholars such as Rebecca Bullard, Melinda Alliker Rabb, Ros Ballaster, Marta Kvande, and Rachel Carnell, among others, occupies space within several genres, including political satire and historiography. The genre's secretive nature and reliance on gossip and anecdotal evidence creates a new space for women writers that allows them to enter political discourse and offer a distinctly gendered social commentary. As public became private and private became secret, secret historians sought to expose the …

The Government Facilitation Of North Korea's Human Rights Abuses Eclipsed By The Threat Of Nuclear War, Kim Kathryn Angstro Doom

Senior Projects Fall 2015

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Intimacy And Autonomy: Twentieth Century American Women And The Quest For Self-Realization, Mary Florence Barford

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of culturally managed gender expectations on intimate spaces. The study of these intimate spaces is rooted in the biographies of four relationships in the post-war period. Through exploration of these individual stories an understanding emerges of how monolithic cultural paradigms work for men and for women in very different ways. For purposes of archival availability and continuity, this dissertation focuses on a very specific group of people, namely women of great talent and ambition who were either married to or in a relationship with a man whose fame eclipsed her own. My question became how …

John Adams And Unitarian Theology, Wesley Edward Farmer

Online Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the religious beliefs of John Adams and argues that the proper definition of Adams's belief system should only be "Unitarianism." It goes through the basic history of Unitarianism and the religious context of the Founding Fathers, and it analyzes relevant historiography on Adams's theological system, arguing against terms such as "Christian Deist" and "Theistic Rationalist." Then, the thesis suggests possible applications for Adams's religion, particularly when considering his emphasis on the ethical Jesus in relation to his desire for a moral society brought about by religion. Adams's theology can be applied to political actions he took …

American History Content-Based Instruction In China, Matthew K. Ingalls

MA TESOL Collection

This project demonstrates materials developed over a three-year period in Chinese international schools for the teaching of U.S. history to ESL learners. It includes an outline for a two-year curriculum with a regular weekly cycle, as well as a close look at strategies and tested activities intended to facilitate understanding of this complex topic and to encourage students to participate beyond passive reception. Specific cultural issues of teaching U.S. history in China are discussed, including issues of ideology and censorship.

The Role Of Local History In The Curriculum At A Rural, Southeastern Community College, Sandra Lee Walker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Local history knowledge informs citizens of the political, social, economic, and cultural aspects of their communities. Community colleges are uniquely situated to address citizens' educational needs because of their historic mission to serve local people. The problem at a rural college located in a southeastern region of the United States was the perception of a lack of local history in the curriculum. Dewey, Schon, Brookfield, and Mezirow's perspectives on reflection guided this case study. Two research questions focused on how faculty and staff at the college perceived the role of local history and its relationship to the curriculum and how …

The San Antonio Wash: Addressing The Gap Between Claremont And Upland, Benjamin C. Hackenberger

Pomona Senior Theses

Access to water from San Antonio Creek was critical in Claremont’s growth from a small stop on the Santa Fe Railroad to an agricultural powerhouse and an elite college town. While Claremont has sought to distinguish itself from surrounding communities since its founding in 1882, the innovative Pomona Valley Protective Association (PVPA) aligned Claremont with the City of Pomona and its other neighbors in a scheme to conserve the Creek’s resources at the turn of the century. Organized around the discovery of local confined aquifers and the development of a strategy to recharge them with water from the San Antonio …

The Grand Alliance: From Necessity To Suspicion, Development To Decline, Robert M. Umholtz

Master's Theses and Capstones

This thesis analyzes the development and decline of the relationship among the members of the Grand Alliance during World War II. The primary questions I answer are: what led to the creation of the Grand Alliance, and what caused the alliance to begin to decline at the peak of its effectiveness? To answer these questions, I begin with the events that took place prior to the war and describe how world leaders addressed Hitler’s aggression as individuals in lieu of an alliance; thereby showing the importance of an alliance after the war began. The study then proceeds chronologically, analyzing the …

Masculine Space: The Final Frontier; A Historical Analysis Of The Spatial Politics Of Gender Through The New Woman’S Access To Brassieres, Bicycles, And Higher Education In The United States From 1890-1930, Shelby Kirst Goldman

Senior Independent Study Theses

1890-1930 was a time of major social and cultural shifts as the Victorian conventions clashed with progressive and changing ideas of gender, race, and class, resulting in the liberated American New Woman. This thesis examines the transition of the opportunities for increased physical movement for women allotted by the popularization of the brassiere, bicycle, and access to higher education. Examining the brassiere and bicycles’ impact on women’s liberation lends insight into how the physical placement and movement of female bodies confronted gender norms, while expansion of women’s education made women intellectual threats to the patriarchal structure. My analysis of advertisements …

I Have Been Somewhere: Place In The South Carolina Poems Of Nikky Finney And Kwame Dawes, Purvis L. Cornish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis focuses on the role of “place” in the poems of two black South Carolinian poets, Nikky Finney and Kwame Dawes. Borrowing from cultural and humanistic geographers’ myriad understandings of place, as well as philosophers’, I examine the ways in which Finney’s Rice and Dawes’s Wisteria function as meditations on and transmutations of the South Carolina low country in both its physical and non-physical dimensions, ultimately shedding light on historically silenced and marginalized emplaced realities. I also examine how Finney and Dawes employ different strategies of emplacement and their influence on the poems’ structure and meaning. In the …

Lenses Of Industry: The Rise Of Industrial Photography In The United States And The Lake Superior Mining District, 1880-1933, Robert Anthony

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis, Lenses of Industry, examines how industrial companies and engineers adapted photography to their needs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Innovations in camera and plate technologies marketed to a broad range of people contributed to a steep rise in the number of photographers in the United States. Recognizing the potential that photography held for industrial companies and engineers, a handful of experts advocated the idea that photography had the potential to make many aspects of business faster, and easier, as well as to make visual records more truthful and accurate. Likewise, innovations in halftone printing technology …

Archaeological And Historical Investigations Of The Robert Newsom Farmstead (23cy497), Callaway County, Missouri, James Adam Halpern

MSU Graduate Theses

Scholarly research on slavery in the U.S. has focused on large commercial plantations in the Old South. Yet a majority of slaveholders and nearly half of the enslaved lived in smaller slaveholding houses and family farms (Burke 2010:4). This study helps redress the dearth of research on small slaveholdings through study of the Robert Newsom Farmstead, or "Celia" Site (23CY497), located in Callaway County, Missouri. The research goal is to model the antebellum spatial organization of the landholding, thereby increasing our understanding of slavery at the Newsom site and on non-plantation slaveholdings generally. This was accomplished through collection and analysis …

The Integration History Of Kuwaiti Television From 1957-1990: An Audience-Generated Oral Narrative On The Arrival And Integration Of The Device In The City, Ahmad Hamada

Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to compose an account of television history in Kuwait, one that focuses on its integration into society and is told from the audience's perspective and experience. This study represents a cultural alternative to the overwhelmingly national, institutional, and biographical focus that accompanies television history works in Kuwait and the Arab world.

The narrative is gathered and generated through the individual oral stories of 25 Kuwaitis over the age of 50, who generally represent the six geographical districts of Kuwait. Through their oral stories, the narrators examine the different areas in which television has integrated itself into society …

Why Did Narendra Modi Win? Investigating Whether Religious Nationalist Sentiment Was Responsible For One Of The Most Significant Power Shifts In Indian History, Abhinaya Swaminathan

Student Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Crabgrass Piety: The Rise Of Megachurches And The Suburban Social Religion, 1960-2000, Nathan Joseph Saunders

Theses and Dissertations

Although there were less than twenty megachurches (churches averaging over two thousand in weekly attendance) in the United States before 1960, by 2010 there were approximately fifteen hundred. Megachurches are not a homogenous group, but they exist in all parts of the country and they have enough in common to warrant their identification as part of a coherent trend in American evangelical culture. Specifically, most megachurches appeal to an ethos that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s known as the suburban social religion. The suburban social religion combined to differing degrees the American civil religion described by Robert Bellah, meritocratic …

In The Midst Of Life We Are In Death : Suicide Coverage In The South During The Civil War Era, India Miller

Honors Theses

The Civil War cast a shadow of despair over the divided nation as it left an estimated 620,000 men—roughly 2% of the population—dead on American soil, killed by American hands. Death and the Civil War are two subjects that are synonymous with one another; it is impossible to write on the war without commenting on its immense number of casualties. That said, relatively little is known about suicides behind the front lines.

Heart Of The Beholder: The Pathos, Truths And Narratives Of Thermopylae In _300_, James Christopher Holcom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that critical understanding of historical narratives needn’t be limited to cold, clinical applications of logic and reason. By doing a close textual reading of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel, 300 and Zack Snyder’s 2007 film adaptation, I posit that critical analysis of popular narratives is better served when pathos takes a central role. Traditional rhetorical criticism tends to favor empirical evidence and fact over emotional, narrative truth. Yet, the writing, recounting and interpretation of history are more akin to arts than sciences. Historical narratives are subject to the same influences and techniques that make poetry, …

An Idealist's Journey: George Clayton Foulk And U.S.-Korea Relations, 1883-1887, Joohyun Kim

CMC Senior Theses

This senior thesis studies the character and influence of a young American naval officer and diplomat. George Clayton Foulk, the 1^st Naval Attaché to the United States Legation and the 2^nd U.S. Minister to Korea, brought his intellectual ability and passion to this East Asian country. He hoped for Korea to become an independent, modernized state. Due to the strong Chinese opposition and lack of assistance from the U.S. government, Foulk failed to realize his dream and left Korea in disgrace. However, his service instilled a positive image of America in the minds of many Koreans. By closely …