Digital Commons Network^™

"This Is The Way": Gender Representation In Disney's The Mandalorian, Brooke Solorio

Theses and Dissertations

When Disney released The Mandalorian, it quickly became the top show on its highly popular streaming platform. As with all media wielding this level of exposure, it is important to closely examine its content for depictions of peoples including females. In accordance with Sandra Bem's gender schema theory, the implicit messaging in this series can influence the formation of people's mental shortcuts about what it means to be female. This study employs content analysis to illuminate the portrayal of physical and non-physical attributes of the women present in the two seasons existing at the time of this study. Results reveal …

A Hug For Humanity: Metamodernism And Masculinity On Television In Ted Lasso, Kennedy Lesley Koford

Theses and Dissertations

The Apple TV+ sports comedy Ted Lasso has been a hit among fans, who flock to the show and its positive messages. The show offers a refreshing tone, one that promotes positivity and optimism even when faced with the reality of a cynical world. By using the analytical perspective of metamodernism to understand its popularity, scholars and fans alike can gain a deeper understanding of core message of the show, which mimics the oscillation between the cynical and the sincere. Fundamental scholars in the emerging study of metamodernism, such as Robin Van Den Akker, Timotheus Vermeulen, and Alison Gibbons will …

Reading Fluency Development And Science In A Fourth Grade Dual Language Immersion Classroom, Talia A. Casares

Theses and Dissertations

Students from dual language immersion (DLI) classrooms are required to learn the language through content. However, some students have not yet developed these abilities by the time they start fourth grade. Thus, to fully comprehend content such as science, students need stronger reading and writing abilities in the second language (L2). To help stakeholders have a better understanding on how to effectively help students throughout this process, this action research studied the effectiveness of integrating literacy with science and mobile assisted language learning (MALL). Findings showed that the integrations of literacy, science and MALL were effective with statistically significant results …

The Eternal And The Transitory: Exoticism, Otherness, And Commodity In Giovanni Boldini's La Zingara, Brandon Esposto Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Giovanni Boldini's La Zingara is an image fraught with mystery. As a lesser-known artist, scholarship on him and this painting is sparse. This thesis details the innovations that Boldini exhibited as an artist working in nineteenth-century France, using the lenses of feminist and Marxist art historical readings for a new interpretation of this piece. Participating in the oppressive systems of capitalism, sexism, and prejudice, Giovanni Boldini created the image of La Zingara for personal gain. Painting a subject from a marginalized community, the Romani, Boldini benefitted from those systems. He "others"his Italian heritage and modern art developments to construct a …

"Queen Of Kings": Masculinity And Femininity In The Visual Rhetoric Of Cleopatra Vii And Augustan Distortions Thereof, Allen Alexander Kendall

Theses and Dissertations

To address every aspect in which Cleopatra VII asserted her right to rule and maintain the favor of her own subjects and of Rome would be far too large a task for anything less than a book-length treatment. Rather than attempt to address multiple issues, this thesis addresses just one aspect of Cleopatra's political strategy to visualize her legitimacy as ruler: namely a combination of masculine and feminine elements in her iconography. This thesis will then follow the same themes in elements of Cleopatra's visual rhetoric was seized upon by the poets of Augustan Rome, who used it to the …

The Creation Of A Christian Identity In A Christianized Empire: Eulalia, Agnes, And Gender-Bending In Prudentius' Peristephanon Liber Iii And Xiv, Ryan Masato Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

While Constantine worked diligently to unite the Roman Empire under the banner of Christianity in the early fourth century after the Edict of Milan and Council of Nicaea, it was the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 under Theodosius I that made Christianity the Roman state religion. During this time of conversion and great change within the empire, as well as earlier in the fourth century, new adherents to the religion were unsure about what it meant to be a Christian as well as how one should act in order to present themselves as a true believer. Many were still very …

Gender And Religion In A Shifting Social Landscape: Anglo-Saxon Mortuary Practices, Ad 600-700, Caroline Palmer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and cross-correlates grave goods and human remains to determine whether there was an expression of the sexual division of labor during this period of social and religious change. I argue that gender roles changed as a result of adopting kingdoms and Christianity. Prior to this time period, Anglo-Saxons were primarily pagan and were buried with extensive burial goods. In addition to changes in religious and burial practices, during the Final Phase (600-700 AD) there appears to have been a division of labor that was not as dichotomous in the Migration Phase (450-600 …

The Modern Mr. Darcy: An Analysis Of Leading Men In Contemporary Romantic Comedy Film, Amanda Rebekah Roskelley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an observation and analysis of male performance in romantic comedy films released between 2005 and 2015. As a lasting genre, rom-com, like all forms of media, has the potential to influence society. Gender plays a vital role in the generic template of these films. Because women are the dominant consumers of this genre, what they observe as gender performance is important. This genre has been dissected under the eye of feminism and female gender performance but the changes in masculinity have been largely overlooked.This paper identifies common characteristics in leading men of this decade's rom-coms. After establishing …

Access, Gender, And Agency On Study Abroad: Four Case Studies Of Female Students In Jordan, Jordan Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study follows the experiences of four female students as they sought to gain access to native speakers and the L2, engage with the culture, and fulfill program speaking requirements (two hours of speaking the second language outside of class per weekday) in Amman, Jordan. The research explores the following questions: what challenges did female participants on BYU's intensive Arabic study abroad (SA) program face as they accessed native speakers and the L2 outside of the classroom, how were participants able to persevere through and overcome these challenges, and how were program interventions set up to help participants persevere …

Devastating Diva: Pauline Viardot And Rewriting The Image Of Women In Nineteenth-Century French Opera Culture, Rebecca Bennett Fairbank

Theses and Dissertations

Historically vilified, the vocalizing woman developed a stereotyped image with the emergence of the prima donna in eighteenth-century opera. By the nineteenth century, the prima donna became the focal point for socio-cultural polemics: women sought financial and social independence through a career on the operatic stage while society attempted to maintain through various means the socio-cultural stability now threatened by women's mobility. The prima donna represented both a positive ideal for women as well as a great threat to western patriarchy. A discourse emerged in which the symbol of female independence and success ”the prima donna" became the site of …

The Virgin's Kiss: Gender, Leprosy, And Romance In The Life Of St. Frideswide, Gary Stephen Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

The longer thirteenth-century Middle English verse life of Saint Frideswide found in the collection of saints' lives known as the South English Legendary (SEL) narrates an event unique to medieval hagiography. In the poem, a leper asks the virgin saint to kiss him with her "sweet mouth," which she does in spite of her feelings of considerable shame, and the leper is healed. The erotic nature of the leper's request, Frideswide's reluctance to grant it, and her shame throughout the incident represent a significant departure from the twelfth-century Latin texts on which the SEL version of the saint's …

The Female Experience: Study Abroad Students In Egypt, Heather Raquael Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explores the experiences of female students on study abroad programs, with the aim of answering the following questions: do they face unique challenges as female students (including harassment or assault), how do they avoid or cope with any negative experiences, and can we as language departments better prepare our students to have the best experiences possible? The participants for the study were primarily 12 of 50 students involved in the Brigham Young University Study Abroad to Cairo, Egypt during Spring and Summer terms 2010. Data include participant observation, student journals, and ethnographic interviews conducted during the last …

Better Speakers Make More Friends: Predictors Of Social Network Development Among Study-Abroad Students, J Wyatt Brockbank

Theses and Dissertations

Social network development has been studied in the social sciences for the last several decades, but little work has applied social network theory to study-abroad research. This study seeks to quantitatively describe factors that predict social network formation among study-abroad students while in the host countries. Social networks were measured in terms of the number of friends the students made, the number of distinct social groups reported, and the number of friends within those groups. The Study Abroad Social Interaction Questionnaire was compared against these pre-trip factors: intercultural competence, target-language proficiency, prior missionary experience, gender, study-abroad program, neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, …

Pierced Through The Ear: Poetic Villainy In Othello, Kathleen Emerald Somers

Theses and Dissertations

The paper examines Othello as metapoetry. Throughout the play, key points of comparison between Iago and Shakespeare's methodologies for employing allegory, symbolism, and mimetic plot and character construction shed light upon Shakespeare's self-reflexive use of poetry as an art of imitation. More specifically, the contrast between Shakespeare and Iago's poetry delineates between dynamic and reductive uses of allegory, emphasizes an Aristotelian model of mimesis that makes reason integral to plot and character formation, and underscores an ethical function to poetry generally. In consequence of the division between Iago and Shakespeare as unethical and ethical poets respectively, critical contention concerning the …

Sport As Art: The Female Athlete In French Literature, Christina Ann Tsaturyan

Theses and Dissertations

The modern conception of organized, codified sport originated in Europe during the 19th century. At this time, instructors began to institute the practice of certain physical activities at school as a means of teaching morals, forming character, and initiating social exchange. Sport is particularly appropriate for forming men because of its public, physical nature. The values it instills—courage, strength, leadership—are also decidedly masculine. What, then, is made of the female athlete? Are the noble qualities that sports affirm inapplicable to women? In this thesis, I argue that female participation in sports often leads to masculinization, unless the sport is transformed …

Fabricating Womanhood, Emily Fox

Theses and Dissertations

The exhibit, Fabricating Womanhood, was an attempt to explore the construction of gender and identity. While the artwork addressed well researched and documented feminist themes the artwork also stemmed from personal experiences and my coming-of-age process. The resulting installation included video, prints, painting, ceramics and found objects arranged in a set-like house construction of life-size proportions.

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 …

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 …

Rethinking The Historical Lens: A Case For Relational Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Annalisa Wiggins

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis proposes a theory of relational identity development in Chicana literature. Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera offers an interpretation of Chicana identity that is largely based on historical models and mythology, which many scholars have found useful in interpreting Chicana literature. However, I contend that another text, Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, not only illustrates the need for an alternative paradigm for considering identity development, but in fact offers such an alternative. I argue that Cisneros shows a model for relational identity development, wherein the individual develops in the context of her community and is not determined solely …

Authentic Out-Of-Class Communication In Study Abroad Programs: Success Defined By Continued Motivation And Cultural Appreciation, Erin Fairlight Olsen

Theses and Dissertations

The benefits of study abroad experience in second language acquisition have evolved from unchallenged assumption to the focus of rigorous study in the past several decades. The benefits of out-of-class contact with natives have likewise been questioned. Despite conflicting evidence of its benefit, students frequently cite out-of-class conversations with natives as among the most beneficial aspects of their language acquisition experience. Reviewing the extant literature, this study narrows in on authentic communication-that is, meaningful out-of-class contact with natives, in which students are able to genuinely express themselves and their personality-as a previously unanalyzed element of study abroad research. It is …

A Gentlemen's Benevolence: Symptoms Of Class, Gender, And Social Change In Emma, Nicholas Nickleby, And The Mill On The Floss, Aubrey Lea Hammer

Theses and Dissertations

Austen, Dickens, and Eliot each responded to discussions of their time concerning class, gender, and social change. One of the ways they addressed these issues, and sought to find solutions to the problems facing their culture, was through benevolence. Knightley, in Emma, uses benevolence as a means of mediating self-interest and sympathy. By acting out of sympathy, through benevolence, he achieves the self-interested benefits of reinforcing the class system and achieving his romantic conquests. Likewise, Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby learns how to use benevolence as a means of social mobility from his mentors, the Cheerybles. Throughout Nicholas Nickleby the hero learns …

James Thurber's Little Man And The Battle Of The Sexes: The Humor Of Gender And Conflict, Andrew S. Jorgensen

Theses and Dissertations

James Thurber, along with others who wrote for The New Yorker magazine, developed the 'little man' comic figure. The little man as a central character was a shift from earlier nineteenth-century traditions in humor. This twentieth-century protagonist was a comic antihero whose function was to create sympathy rather than scorn and bring into question the values and behaviors of society rather than affirm them, as earlier comic figures did. The little man was urban, inept, frustrated, childlike, suspicious, and stubborn. His female counterpart was often a foil: confident and controlling enough to highlight his most pitiable and funniest features. Contradictory …

Margaret Cavendish And Scientific Discourse In Seventeenth-Century England, Alisa Curtis Bolander

Theses and Dissertations

Although the natural philosophy of Margaret Cavendish is eclectic and uncustomary, it offers an important critique of contemporary scientific methods, especially mechanism and experimentalism. As presented in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy and Blazing World, Cavendish's natural philosophy incorporates rationalistic and subjective elements, urging contemporary natural philosophers to recognize that pure objectivity is unattainable through any method of inquiry and that reason is essential in making sense and use of scientific observation.

In addition to its scientific implications, Cavendish's three-tiered model of matter presents interesting sociopolitical associations. Through her own use of metaphor and her theoretical fusion of matter and motion, …