Digital Commons Network^™

The Environmental Imaginations Of Moby-Dick: Technology And Vulnerability In Human/More-Than-Human Relationships, Jensen A. Lillquist

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the twenty-first century, the relationship between the human and the more-than-human is a problem of massive proportions, as we live in an age of climate change, mass-extinction, over-population, and resource depletion. Evaluating how we have arrived where we are and re-thinking the issues at play as we move forward is crucial for future adaptation of human/more-than-human relationships; this is the primary goal of my analysis of the environmental imaginations of Moby-Dick.

I argue that the four primary environmental imaginations—the providential, the utilitarian, the Romantic, and the ecological—that have influenced United States culture since European settlement are represented by Herman …

Of Ruptures And Raptures: Locating Ideology With Lidar Imagery, William Dale Schroeder

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Archaeological praxis necessarily requires at least one object (a piece of technology or something that functions as an object) to articulate and explain ideologies from the past. This is problematic because ideology is abstract and difficult to locate in the archaeological record in reified form. Archaeology’s preoccupation for over 100 years has been the systematic location, identification, and excavation of discrete artifacts; features, and sites; interpreting meanings from comparative studies and data sets; and putting the past in order all while documenting change over time. Historical archaeologist Mark P. Leone identified fences, the Plat of the ideal City of Zion, …

Meat Reimagined: The Ethics Of Cultured Meat, Valan Anthos

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In this paper I explore a relatively new technology that is being developed to try and solve some of the major issues with modern animal agriculture called cultured meat. I cover the short history of this technology and where it is at currently before addressing two different ways of evaluating the ethics of cultured meat. Responding to much of the praise for cultured meat based on consequentialist ethics, I lay out reasons for skepticism and how some of these estimates might be overblown due to those people advocating for it being situated in the ideology of ecomodernism. I argue that …

Cultivating Wildness, Christopher Reed

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The thesis discusses wildness within the context of agriculture. Wildness can be characterized as autonomous, innate and Other. As autonomous, wildness can never be fully controlled. Because it is innate, wildness is inborn in human beings and inherent in the Other-than-human world. As Other, wildness cannot be fully understood. Because wildness is Other, our only avenue to knowledge is experience of the Other-than-human world through which wildness is present.

Our ultimate concern is the wildness inherent in humans. By experiencing manifestations of wildness, we provide ourselves with opportunities for co-creation. Co-creation requires humans to be receptive to the Other-than-human world …

Introduction To Parallel Computation, Clinton Mckay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Introduction to Parallel Computing is a course designed to educate students on how to use the parallel libraries and tools provided by modern operating systems and massively parallel computer graphics hardware.

Using a series of lectures and hands-on exercises. Students will learn about parallel algorithms and concepts that will aid them in analyzing a problem and constructing a parallel solution, if possible, using the tools available to their disposal.

The course consists of lectures, projects, quizzes, and homework. The combination of these components will deliver the necessary domain knowledge to students, test them, and in the process train them to …

Praesentia Ex Machina: The Millennial Technoculture, Liveness And Theatre, Reid J. Reimers

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This work examines the modern technoculture, its component parts and the changing role of theatre in Anglo-American culture. Our contemporary society is marked by the ubiquity of digital technologies and has become reliant on their commodities. The emerging Millennial Generation has matured with many of these devices and has embraced the modern technoculture. Many changes in daily life brought on by new technologies are obvious, but fundamental shifts remain obscured by the nature of technology itself. These subtle transformations are cumulative and have caused a technological disorientation with broad reaching implications. Liveness, initially defined as that which is unrecorded, has …

What Is Orientation In Reality? A Philosophical Exploration Of Technology, Placement, Enchantment And Wonder, Patrick Maurice Burke

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis gives an account of the ontological basis of the profound sense of disorientation in contemporary society and attempts to discover through a phenomenological account of orienting experience that which holds the possibility of authentic orientation in reality. Martin Heidegger’s understanding of “being-in-the-world,” the “there” of Dasein, and the epochal revealing of reality as resources in modern technological society is the philosophical backdrop for the thesis. This philosophical foundation is elaborated upon by showing that the challenging-revealing of the real as resources within the “framework” of technology results in the ontological “dis-traction” of reality. This dis-traction pulls apart the …

Barriers To E-Learning Job Training: Government Employee Experiences In An Online Wilderness Management Course, Lisa Ayrdrie Kathleen Eidson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Learning at work as an employee is inherently different from being a student in an academic setting and, as such, is beset with different challenges. As trends in the adoption of e-learning for the delivery of job training increase, new challenges related to distance learning with technology have also emerged. Recognition that continued learning in the workplace, now via technological methods, is required for maintaining proficiency and achieving career goals means that understanding the challenges unique to learning at work is paramount.

This qualitative study explored barriers to successful online job learning. Interviews with thirty federal government employees from the …

Beyond Wilderness: Wildness As A Guiding Ideal, Christopher James Dunn

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis is largely a response to William Cronon’s essay “The Trouble with Wilderness or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” found in The Great New Wilderness Debate. Cronon is himself responding to many things, in large part to Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature and also to the wilderness vision typified by Dave Foreman; thus this thesis is also a response to McKibben and in many respects a defense of Foreman-like thought. Besides Cronon, I consider a wide variety of sources, taking from them in order to build a case for, and to explicate, wildness as a guiding ideal. …

Renewable Energy In Montana: System Applications And Technlogy, Mandi Lee Corr

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Energy is a critical topic of debate today, and much interest has turned to renewable energy forms. The negative implications of fossil fuel use are outweighing their benefits, as the twenty-first century has seen environmental, economic, and social consequences unfold. Montana is in a unique position in that it has five forms of renewable energy for heating and electricity generation purposes. Solar, wind, small-scale hydro, biomass, and geothermal energies are available across the state. These energy forms have the potential to provide residences and businesses with heat and electricity year-round, using a seasonally complementary, integrated system. The current installation of …

Interpretive Technology In Parks: A Study Of Visitor Experience With Portable Multimedia Devices, Lee Gregory Rademaker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The GPS Ranger is a new portable technology that provides visitors to Cedar Breaks National Monument (CBNM) with interpretive information specific to a location. The GPS Ranger uses a built in global positioning system to trigger video, audio, or slideshows that are displayed on a 4 inch display. The GPS Ranger is new to natural area parks like CBNM. Technological advancements have enabled devices like the GPS Ranger to be used in many new places. Researchers have a history of investigating and publishing literature on park visitor experiences with interpretive media. However, no exploration of the experiences visitors have with …