Digital Commons Network^™

Jane Austen And A Biographical Study Of The Historical Narrative Process, Serena Young

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Jane Austen, beloved national literary icon of Great Britain, is world-renowned for her fiction. Biographers have attempted to authentically piece together her life and often, try to connect her narrative to when and how her fiction was written, as well as point out circumstances within her personal life and speculate their influence on her work. Literary analysts and critics that have examined the historical narrative process, Hayden White and Kevin Gilvary, have found that the way in which a historical account is presented plays a significant role in how history is understood and perpetuated. When examining Jane Austen’s life, many …

Rex And Root: An Original Documentary, Chase Hartsell

Honors Theses

Two iconic voices. Four decades on the air. Hundreds of games. One unforgettable friendship.

"Rex and Root" details the broadcasting partnership of the Ouachita Football Network's Rex Nelson and Dr. Jeff Root: best friends who grew up together on the same street in the small college town of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

This film was completed as part of a thesis project for the Carl Goodson Honors Program at Ouachita Baptist University.

Unable To Locate A Fire, Lily Isabel Taggart

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Keeper Of The Western Door: The Life And Legacy Of Donehogawa, Or Ely S. Parker, Raphael M. Pierson-Sante

Senior Projects Spring 2023

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

Framing The Portrait Of Life: Functions Of Embedded Texts In Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift, Caroline Sisk

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Voices: Peggy Gilbert And The International Sweethearts Of Rhythm, Katelyn Still

Honors Theses

Women throughout history have had to contend with sexism and racism. A woman's voice was restricted and viewed as inferior in the south. This treatment was magnified in the world of jazz. Jazz was viewed as a boisterous male art form where a demure woman did not belong. A woman's musical voice, her form of expression, was often discredited by the public. Since women's talents were discredited, their musical voices were often hidden from history. This paper shines a light on the suppression of the female voice while uncovering the successful women of Peggy Gilbert and The International Sweethearts of …

The Life And Legacy Of Edwin Greenlaw: “Teacher And Scholar”, Mykelin Higham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing from recently available archival documents, this paper traces the life, works, and influence of Edwin Greenlaw (1874–1931), a notable scholar of Spenser and the English Renaissance and a beloved and influential teacher. Information from a biographical manuscript authored by his brother is supplemented with contextual history of literary education in turn-of-the-century America and the debates between literary historians and critics of the early twentieth century in order to trace Greenlaw’s model impact as both a practitioner and leader. His exegesis of Spenser’s political allegory, his numerous edited literature textbooks for the general student, and his activism for a more …

The Business Of Remembering, Miles Bitton

Senior Projects Spring 2022

A successful young journalist becomes wrapped up in the messy life of a former celebrity bodyguard when he takes on the responsibility of ghostwriting his autobiography.

Escaping Modesto: George Lucas, Film Auteur, And The Alteration Of Movie History, Krister Persson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This video essay analyzes the early filmography of George Lucas as a critique of auteur theory. Dissecting THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973), and Star Wars (1977) based on their autobiographic qualities, this short documentary investigates the advantages and disadvantages of viewing a complicated cinematic work through the lens of an individual author. Analysis focuses on Lucasfilm founder George Lucas and his reputation for controversially altering his works through special edition re-releases, calling into question the sanctity of theatrical releases and the confines of a film auteur. Does a filmmaker, particularly one whose films are drawn from personal experience, have …

What Mother Meant: Maternal Competence, Medical Authority, And Memory In The Case Of Mary Bickerdyke (1820-1910), Megan Marie Vangorder

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Mary Ann Bickerdyke, a poor widowed mother from Galesburg, Illinois, cared for sick and wounded soldiers across the Western theater throughout the course of the American Civil War. As a result of her efforts, authors and historians lauded her accomplishments. Her success as a Civil War nurse and Sanitary Commission agent has been the subject of several biographies and young adult books that idealize the role of women during the war. These portrayals suggest that Mary Bickerdyke provided an example of determined professionalism during the war years.

Those histories, however, do not tell the whole story. Mary Bickerdyke’s professional journey …

Actions Above Words: A Biography Of Vice Admiral Clifton “Ziggy” Sprague, John Kirwan

Undergraduate Theses

Among the many larger than life and fascinating figures of the Second World War, one who is seldom spoken of is the late Vice Admiral Clifton A.F. "Ziggy" Sprague. A quiet man from New England, Admiral Sprague was an accomplished pilot, administrator, and commander. From service during the First World War to assisting in the testing of nuclear devices following the end of the Second World War, Sprague was a force behind the scenes. He was devoted to his profession and refused to play the political game those above him did, preferring that his actions speak greater volumes than any …

Alexander Hamilton: Underdog Or Overrated?, Caity Hatchett

Honors Theses

This thesis uses the conflicting information about Alexander Hamilton as seen in Ron Chernow's biography "Alexander Hamilton" and Jessie Serfilippi's essay "As Odious and Immoral a Thing" as a case study showing why the analysis and evaluation of historical claims is important for building the most complete historical picture.

The Worst First Citizen, Sarah Nicole Passannante

Honors Papers

In his telling of the Life of Nero, Suetonius crafted an image of an archetypical tyrant that he then used throughout his other Lives. The princeps was Rome's premier citizen--as such, they needed to perform all aspects of citizenship as well as possible, especially in regards to successfully performing masculinity. Therefore, to be a good emperor was to embody male virtue; to be a bad emperor was to be effeminate and lack virtue. Suetonius crafted a rhetorical trope of the unmanly tyrant using his portrayal of Nero. This is seen most clearly in Nero 29, where Nero was sexually passive …

Bound To Slavery: Economic And Biographical Connections To Atlantic Slavery Between The Maritimes And West Indies After 1783, Sarah Elizabeth Chute

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Born in Africa, shipped to the West Indies, enslaved in the American colonies, and promised freedom in Colonial Canada: this well-known narrative traces a journey from tropical climates to northern temperate zones, from slavery to freedom. However, in the late eighteenth century, thousands of Black people experienced a journey from slavery in the American and West Indian colonies to continued enslavement in the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island). Their stories challenge our understanding of the more familiar narrative that traces the lives of free Black Loyalists who went from slavery to freedom in the Atlantic world …

“The Amazing Iroquois”: Haudenosaunee History In Myth And Memory, 1776–1955, John C. Winters

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is a history and memory study of Iroquois exceptionalism. This is an idea that shaped our understanding of the Iroquois as the “most studied” Indian nation and that they, as the debunked Iroquois Influence Thesis claimed, influenced the structure and scope of the U.S. Constitution. My study examines the lives of four related (by blood and by claim) Seneca leaders: Red Jacket, Ely S. Parker, Harriet Maxwell Converse, and Arthur C. Parker. These four stand out because each was one of the most famous Native Americans of their generation who worked within and against American colonial society and …

The History Of Martha J. Lamb: Her Origin, Rise, And Progress., Mary Collins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On June 16, 1883, Harper’s Weekly ran a story foreshadowing the transformation of the City of New York from the island of Manhattan to a massive metropolis, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Another article on the page announced that Martha J. Lamb “has become editor of the ‘The Magazine of American History.’” It does not mention that she was also president of the company purchasing the journal. Ten years later, just a few months after her death, Mrs. Lamb’s great work, her History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress, was included in …

Nineteenth Century Sacred Music: Bruckner And The Rise Of The Cäcilien-Verein, Nicholas Bygate

WWU Graduate School Collection

Nineteenth century music is known for its grandiose over-the-top performances. Larger-than-life orchestras, choruses, settings, length of works, and even harmonic language were all commonplace at this time. Hidden in among all of this was a movement pulling entirely in the opposite direction. Sacred music performed during the worship service had always been more conservative than its secular counterpart, but a new movement began to push for sacred music to regain what it had lost since the days of the Renaissance masters. The Allgemeine Deutsche Cäcilien-Verein (The Cecilian Society) was formed with the hope of reducing sacred music to its core …

Curtis Otto Bismarck Curtis-Smith, Hollis Claire Wittman

Masters Theses

Curtis Otto Bismarck Curtis-Smith, composer and pianist, spent the majority of his career serving the community at Western Michigan University. His development of the bowed piano technique contributed significantly to the course of music in the late twentieth century; his prolific compositions stand on their own artistic merit. This document attempts to provide a summation of the composer’s life, particularly in regard to his compositional activity. The first section, a biography, discusses Curtis-Smith’s life and the changes to his compositional style over his lifetime. Next, a catalog of works details the available information about the many pieces written by the …

“Manager Of Progress And Process”: The Life And Times Of H. R. Haldeman, Niklas Trzaskowski

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the political and business career of H. R. “Bob” Haldeman. Scholars studying Richard M. Nixon’s presidency and administration have given very little attention to Haldeman’s career before and after his time as chief of staff. This dissertation argues that in order to understand Haldeman’s actions as chief of staff one needs to have a firm understanding of his career before he entered Nixon’s White House. In contrast to what many have argued, an overt interest in politics and overriding ambition to serve Nixon did not solely drive Haldeman. Instead, the development of Haldeman’s career is best understood …

The Novelist And The Nun: Two Sisters, One Bond, Kathleen J. Gaffney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Gabrielle Roy (1909 - 1983) was a French-Canadian author, journalist and teacher. She was also my third cousin, first cousin of my grandfather, Stephen McEachran. She wrote fiction and nonfiction in the latter part of the twentieth century and her work spotlighted Canada’s poor, immigrants, and marginalized women. Gabrielle Roy rose to fame as a keen-eyed witness and commentator in writings spanning over forty years. Her sister Bernadette (1897 – 1970) lived a more private, spiritual life as a nun, named Sister Léon-de-la-Croix, far away from the public spotlight.

In this thesis I summarize the events that shaped both sisters’ …

The Life And Work Of Alex Klein, Ramon Thiago Mendes De Oliveira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Alex Klein is one of the best-known figures of the American oboe school. He is the winner of multiple international competitions, including the first prize at the Geneva’s Concours International d’Execution Musicale. Appointed principal oboe at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1995, Klein is one of the most highly regarded musicians hired during the Barenboim era. His recording of Richard Strauss’ oboe concerto with the CSO was awarded Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra) at the 44th Grammy Awards. In 2004, his tenure at CSO was interrupted due to the onset of Focal Dystonia; which affected multiple fingers in …

Reading The Lives Of The Sorcerers, Peter Goderie

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 2017+

This research examines the work of four celebrity magicians, exploring the living quality of magic in their biographies and in their fiction (which is often semi-biographical). I engage in an immanent reading of these texts, striving to interpret them on their own terms. The subjects of these texts celebrate their apparent otherness, but in fact, they occupy a relatively privileged position within popular culture. The texts constitute a discourse between the authors’ various conceptual selves, in order to exalt a particular public self which attains the status of ‘celebrity.' Like the Lives Of The Saints, these texts provide an example …

Forging With Embers: The Life And Pre-Gubernatorial Career Of Isaac Murphy, 1799-1864, Keith Joshua Lee Todd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gubernatorial administration of Isaac Murphy from 1864-1868, as Arkansas began emerging from the Civil War into Reconstruction, has had a thorough, if dated, examination in Arkansas historiography. However, Murphy’s life and pre-gubernatorial career, including his early political activities—being the first treasurer of Washington County, Arkansas (1836-1838), serving three terms in the Arkansas General Assembly (two in the House, 1846-1849, and one in the Senate, 1856-1857), and the totality of his action during both sessions of Arkansas’s Secession Convention (1861)—have been largely neglected. This thesis will additionally provide a biographical interpretation of Murphy necessary to fully understand his political actions—his …

Lydia Dunford Alder: The Life Of The Mormon Poet, Suffragist, And Missionary, Sarah Kate Johnson Stanley

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the life of Lydia Dunford Alder (1846–1923), who was a prominent but now nearly forgotten early Mormon writer, women’s rights activist, missionary, and leader of various women’s clubs. A respected member of the late-nineteenth– and early-twentieth-century Salt Lake City, Utah community, Alder was the colleague and friend of various distinguished Mormon leaders. While these leaders have been studied in-depth by scholars, Alder’s similar achievements have never been examined in scholarship. As the first comprehensive biography ever written on Alder, this thesis explores her birth in England (1846), her immigration to the United States (1850), her return to …

Satirical Index, Jack Honeysett

Theses - ALL

‘Satirical Index’ is a thesis of short stories describing formative memories that I think outline my experience of limbo, memory, death and nostalgia. Including a poem, which has been the culmination of my research, and represents a story that keeps restarting; never fully resolving. Continuously mutating. The body of the thesis demonstrates my history with the sensation of being out of place, or distant from my surroundings. It is my personal examination of the relationship between subject and object. In the pursuit of my thesis I discovered a method of contextualizing my visual art practice through memory, as explored in …

The Biography Of Dr. Joseph Mbelolo Ya Mpiku: A Congolese True To His Roots, Looking Beyond The World He Lives In., Zola Matingu

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This is the biography of Dr. Joseph Mbelolo Ya Mpiku, a Congolese man who has lived in three different countries, on three different continents, immersed in three different cultures. His life experiences enriched his knowledge of other cultures, and his own culture kept him grounded in his identity.

His story can be relatable to people from various cultures across generations, as culture is a key element of the way an individual sees and defines himself. A culture doesn't just benefit those from where it originated; it can be shared to enrich the human experience, not just in the differences, but …

Stories Of Betsy, Rachel May

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Trauma In Rudolfo Anaya's Tortuga, Nolan Arriaga

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to show the universality behind Rudolfo Anaya’s Tortuga and the characters’ individual responses to trauma. This includes their struggles with a manipulating darkness in the hopes to find light, which comes in various forms such as mentors, literature, oral storytelling, and the sun. Theories from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung help explain certain characters’ actions. The protagonist is on a journey to escape from the hospital or unfamiliar purgatory to go back home, which sheds light on an important Chicano issue. Tortuga delves into both social realism and magical realism, but the concept of …

Memory In Memoir & Biography: Science, Place, And Agency, Johnathan E. Longo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores modern scientific understanding of memory in humans and how it affects works of life writing. Scientific research shows that memory is unreliable and often misunderstood by the general public, and this has implications for different forms of life writing. This paper uses biographies, memoirs, and hybrid forms of life writing to explore how memory, with all its limitations, is used in service of a life story. How do writers of these sub-genres use memory and why are those strategies different from one another? Questions of agency and authority over written and spoken material make the issues still …

Parfois Le Hasard Fait Bien Les Choses: The Biography Of Justus Rosenberg, Vikramaditya H. Joshi

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

As the authorized biographer of Professor Justus Rosenberg, who, as a young man, functioned as a courier in Varian Fry’s Emergency Rescue Committee, and thus facilitated the escape of émigrés from Vichy France, I experiment in this project with a form of storytelling that juxtaposes his classroom dialogues about twentieth century novels with my account of his experiences as a guerrilla fighter during the French Resistance.

By analyzing archival material, interviewing Professor Rosenberg and retracing his journey across Europe during World War Two, while simultaneously learning French …