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Accounting For Mysteries: Narratives Of Intuition And Empiricism In The Victorian Novel, Brooke Taylor

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation explores the tensions between an empirical epistemology and an intuitive method of knowing the world as depicted in popular Victorian novels. These narratives attempt to assimilate alternate modes of understanding; however, the uneasiness of the relationship between empiricism and intuition speaks to larger cultural tensions about the possibility of reconciling fact and feeling in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. I argue that intuitive and imaginative modes of cognition are continually privileged in novels that explicitly claim to adhere to empirical forms of knowledge. As I examine the work of Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, and George …

Mandeville's Intolerance: The Contest For Souls And Sacred Sites In The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, Robert Patterson

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

As the first medieval text to combine the matter of the East with the matter of the Holy Land, The Travels circulated widely in over 300 manuscripts, making it an important text when studying medieval Christian attitudes toward non-Christians. Although many scholars point to The Travels as a tolerant text ahead of its time, a historicized approach reveals that Mandeville's project is better understood in terms of his intolerant universalism. I argue that in casting non-Christians as proto-Christians who stand as evidence of Christianity's global spiritual hegemony, the author appropriates and consumes them in service of his universalist agenda. I …

Explaining Partition: Reconsidering The Role Of The Security Dilemma In The Cyprus Crisis Of 1974, Michael Todd Smith

Master's Theses and Capstones

In this thesis the proposed link between a security dilemma at the domestic-level of analysis and partition following ethnic conflict is examined in the context of the Cyprus crisis of 1974. The original framework of the argument being examined was offered by Chaim Kaufmann and is analyzed here by comparing and contrasting the history of Cyprus with the components of the framework. The thesis suggests that the framework does not adequately explain the partition in the case of Cyprus, as the history of that conflict does not reflect the components observable in the proposed linkage between the security dilemma and …

Swing Voters? Roman Catholics From 1992 To 2004, Lori Gula Wright

Master's Theses and Capstones

This thesis evaluates whether Catholics are swing voters, how their voting behavior has changed from 1992 to 2004, and what issues are influencing their voting behavior. National Election Survey datasets from 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 are used. Two models are evaluated, the ethnoreligious model and the culture wars thesis. In addition, this thesis looks at whether Catholics tend to be single-issue voters.

The research and analysis of this thesis support the conclusion that Catholics are not swing voters and that their voting patterns are more similar to the general electorate than ever before. Although religious, class and cultural issues …

Worldly Rites: The Social And Political Significance Of Religious Services In Louisiana, 1803--1865., Julia Huston Nguyen

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

In antebellum and Civil War Louisiana, religious rituals contained more than spiritual meaning. They also carried social and political significance that can illustrate a great deal about that society. Sabbath services, holidays, revivals, baptisms, weddings, and funerals all reflected the values that Louisianans believed to be important. By looking at religion and the ways that residents of Louisiana experienced it, not only on a daily basis but also during the major milestones of life, one can come to a greater understanding of the ways in which they structured their society and interacted with it. Through an examination of Louisiana religion, …

"A Perfect War": Politics And Parties In Louisiana, 1824--1861., John Michael Sacher

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

My dissertation explores Louisiana's political development from 1824 to 1861. Many antebellum state studies have been written, but none focus specifically on Louisiana. While sharing the rest of the South's commitment to slavery and cotton, Louisiana possessed atypical attributes including: a unique ethnic composition, a sugar cane crop dependent upon a protective tariff, and the presence of New Orleans, the South's foremost commercial city. Louisiana's antebellum political situation resulted from the interaction of these distinctive traits with the characteristics that Louisiana shared in common with the rest of the United States. The primary focus of this political narrative is the …

Tobacco Farming In The Age Of The Surgeon General's Warning: The Cultural Ecology And Structuration Of Burley Tobacco Production In Madison County, North Carolina., Catherine Marie Algeo

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study analyzes the transformation of burley tobacco farming underway in the late twentieth century in light of social, political, and economic forces that make tobacco a contested crop. It focuses on one county in southern Appalachia, Madison County, North Carolina, where tobacco has been a cash crop for over a hundred years. A synthesis of the theoretical and methodological approaches of cultural ecology and structuration is proposed as a means of exploring the components of agricultural change within Appalachia at a continuum of scales from the local to the national, while contextualizing farming within its environmental and social settings. …

A Frontier Biography: William Campbell Of King's Mountain, David George Malgee

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to tell William Campbell's biography, simultaneously examining not only his better known military achievements, but also his contributions as a frontier justice, member of the House of Delegates, and an American patriot. Nearly all documentary evidence concerns Campbell's life after 1770. Thus, the primary object of this paper is his last decade, his period of public prominence. Since Campbell's fame was wrought to a large degree by the events of the American Revolution, a major objective of this thesis is to determine Campbell's impact on that struggle for independence.

John Ford: The Temple And The Stage. (Volumes I And Ii)., Howard Lee Ford

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

John Slidell And The Community He Represented In The Senate, 1853-1861., Albert Lewie Diket

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.