Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Flex, Julian Randall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within this project I have compiled a book length collection of poems entitled “FLEX” which explore questions of violence, inheritance and pastoral poetics. Taking place across the landscapes of Mississippi, The Dominican Republic, and contemporary Black masculinity FLEX serves to ask questions of what violences contributed to the speaker’s birth and what possibilities exist on the other side of such historical pain.

Alaska And The Arctic In The U.S. Imaginary, Ryan Charlton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Popular narratives of Alaska have long relied on the region’s mythical status as the “last frontier” a perception which enfolds Alaska into a continental narrative of U.S. expansion. This frontier image has foreclosed our ability to appreciate the profound instability which the 1867 Alaska Purchase brought into U.S. national discourse at a time when Americans were eager to adopt a fixed national identity. In the three decades following the purchase Alaska would resist incorporation into the national imaginary challenging the coherence of U.S. national identity and calling into question foundational myths of the United States as a continental and agrarian …

Oasis, Sarah Helen Huddleston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A novel.

Activist Modernisms: Human Rights And Anti-Totalitarianism In Mid-Twentieth Century Literature, Mary Ellen Gray

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The period after World War II saw the emergence of a new discourse of human rights, with the signing of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the postwar period and throughout the twentieth century, human rights would often be vieas a set of self-evident, monolithic, and timeless values that had merely reached their full realization after the horrors of the war. This study examines a body of literature from the 1930s and 40s, the wartime moment just before the foundation of the twentieth century universal rights ideology, to explore the process by which theories of human rights are …

Of Mules And Mamas: Four Women, Africana Mothering, And Resistance, Ebony Olivia Lumumba

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The black woman’s humanity is unjustly linked to domestic responsibility and, thus, the traditional constraints of mothering. The roles of the mother and the created archetype of the mammy often become marred with the latter role overtaking the former—leaving black children without full benefit and access to their biological maternal parent. With the pervasive threat to black lives present in spaces all over the globe, for women of the African Diaspora, simply deciding to accept the role of a mother to a life that is physically, socially, and economically under siege is revolutionary. Considering this, the act of mothering, especially …

Hong & Ramona, Amy Lam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a novel set in frontier California.

My Feet Are Chained: Settler Colonialism And Mobility In The Florida Borderlands, 1812-1866, Christine Antoinette Rizzi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project uses the framework of mobility to understand how settler colonialism functioned in a tri-racial southern borderland in the nineteenth-century. Nineteenth-century Florida constituted a borderland characterized by competition for land and resources among Seminole Indians, African Americans, and white Americans. White Americans regulated mobility, i.e. the physical movement of peoples, in order to privilege their own settlement in Florida, divest native peoples of their land, and enslave people of African descent. Beginning in 1812 and lasting through the first half of the 1860s, white Americans used legislation, the settlement of white families, the solidification of a slave system, and …

A Bargain At Any Cost: The Rise Of Dollar General, Frances Evelyn Barrett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dollar General Corporation has grown into a retail titan with more than 15 000 stores across the continental United States. The first chapter of this thesis traces the history of this multibillion-dollar firm since its founding as a family-run business in Scottsville Kentucky in the late 1930s. Situating Dollar General’s history within the evolving contexts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries illustrates that Dollar General Stores succeed when the economy staggers. Neoliberalism and global finance capitalism have only exacerbated the geographic expansion and profitability of the company as the second chapter begins to explore. Although Dollar General Stores open at …

A Balm For The Times: The Origins And Evolution Of The Lost Cause In The South Carolina Low Country, 1830-1876, Andrew Patrick Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study uses the concept of civil religion as a framework through which to examine the origins and early development of the Lost Cause in the South Carolina Low country. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as American colonists severed their ties with Great Britain and established an independent republic they likewise began forming a civil religion or a set of beliefs regarding the relationship between God and their incipient polity. Prophetic in nature the central tenets of this civil religion held that the Almighty proved actively involved in human history and that Americans represented an especially chosen …

Knowledge, Assertiveness, Competence: Using A Self-Determination Theory Framework To Explain Sexual Satisfaction In College Students, Tanja Seifen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sexual satisfaction has been shown to be related to many positive factors such as high relationship satisfaction enhanced physical and psychological health and increased overall well-being. Despite making up 27% of the sexually active population in the United States young people (ages 15-24) but are typically not taught about the benefits of sexual satisfaction or how to have a pleasurable sexual experience. Due to their high risk of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancies most education and research on young people’s sexuality focuses on risk behaviors and prevention. The goal of this study was to take a positive outlook …

Subverting The Patriarchal Panopticon: Challenges To Eugenics Rhetoric In The Novels Of Mccullers And Welty, Regina Marie Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis takes into consideration the scope of eugenics ideologies and their influence on literature specifically two mid-twentieth century authors from the U.S. South Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty. I contend that both writers engage with eugenics rhetoric challenging and subverting the prevailing ideology of the day albeit in differing ways. McCullers and Welty address different facets of eugenics rhetoric in their novels— namely the nature of “defect” and the criteria for “fitness” for “citizenship.” This thesis interrogates the ways in which these writers develop rhetorical strategies for resisting eugenics ideologies in their respective novels Reflections in a Golden Eye …

Charlotte The Assassin: A Novel, Mary Berman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The novel takes place during the federalist revolt of 1793, during the French Revolution. It involves murder, witches, and female friendships and romantic relationships.

Disturbing The Ecological Pastoral: An Examination Of Willa Cather's Fictional Spaces In My Ántonia And Death Comes For The Archbishop, Anne Carter Stowe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Willa Cather is universally lauded for her ability to render landscape into prose. Critics have observed for years that the landscape often functions as the main character in her fiction, or that her characters can easily be evaluated in terms of how deep and successful their relationships to the land are. In an attempt to evaluate Cather’s treatment of two different “Western” landscapes, I will focus first on My Ántonia, one of her most famous Nebraska novels, and second on Death Comes for the Archbishop, whose narrative unravels on the New Mexican landscape. I argue that Cather treats …

The Doubting Chain, Eric Delp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of poetry.

"Solace For [The] Very Soul": The Role Of Trees Within The American Short-Story Cycle, Breanna B. Harris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last couple of centuries, the American short-story genre became characterized by its observations of life and human nature—specifically by using scenes of nature to highlight characters’ development and the underlying theme. While much critical attention has been given to the role of nature in the American short-story cycle, very little consideration has been given to the purpose of trees and their specific breeds within the genre. This project focuses on three distinct pedagogical approaches to analyzing trees in three short-story cycles. Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome and Freud’s theory of dream-thoughts are applied to Mary Wilkins …

Neo_Fluxus & Dragons, Zachary A. Kelley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

What is a viewer? Who can be a viewer? What is the purpose of a viewer? Is viewing an artwork a process? How does a viewer interact with an artwork? What is an artist? Are the formal elements or conceptual natures more important in art making? Why is that art? These questions and more direct me in how and why I make my art.

I will be discussing the relationship between the viewer and the artwork in an artwork experience. I will define an artwork experience using an analysis of Michael Fried’s notion of theatricality, relating the viewer to the …

From Beyond The Grave: Dead Narrators In Young Adult Literature, Jessica L. Branton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While scholars and critics have explored various aspects of young adult literature, few have focused on the popular, but odd, use of dead narrators. When examining the dead narrators of Veronica Roth’s Allegiant, Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why, Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall, and Jess Rothenberg’s The Catastrophic History of You and Me, it becomes clear that the dead narrators are used as a foil for adolescent growth and maturation, and they also allow young readers to empathize with and accept death through the protagonists. These protagonists experience a proto-adulthood as they die too soon to …

A Systems Approach To Graphic Design Practice, Parisa Farmoudehyamcheh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few decades, design issues have gotten more complex, and designers got responsible for solving more significant problems, from object-level problems to system-level problems to societal-level problems. This thesis is an exploration of employing a systems approach for solving these complicated issues. The systems approach helps designers to look at matters as a whole and consider all connected pieces in a network all together. In this way, proposing solutions to those problems will address all those parts and will solve them at the same time. In this thesis, I will study and analyze case studies such as Canva, …

A Fiction Of Fragmented Falsehoods: Curriculum Of Unwanted Roads Traveled, Katherine Wyatt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an inquiry centered on lived ‘otherness’ in different social experiences. Fiction and illustrations are both creative outlets that provide opportunities of curriculum growth by offering the viewer realistic portrayals dealing with truth and factors that make us fundamentally human. “Fiction elicits an interpretation of the world by being itself a worldlike object for interpretation” (Dillard, 1988, p. 155). This study uses fiction and illustrations as vehicles of communication to provide an awareness regarding social issues in everyday lived experiences, exposing the reader to the social, cultural and historical realities persistently impeding the shared constructs of human experiences. Structuring …

Preserving The Memory Of Those Perilous Times: Archaeology Of A Civil War Prison In Blackshear, Georgia, Colin H. Partridge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the closing months of 1864 Confederate prison authorities were forced to evacuate the large stockade prisoner of war (POW) camps at Millen and Andersonville, Georgia in the face of General Sherman’s ‘March to the Sea’. While attempting to evade Union forces, approximately 5,000 POWs were sent along the Atlantic and Gulf railroad in south east Georgia, stopping just outside of the town of Blackshear. For three weeks prisoners and guards camped along a small tributary of the Alabaha River with only a few steaks to mark a deadline between them. No formal prison enclosure or fortifications were constructed and …

The Multicultural Center's Role In Black Male Success At A Predominantly White Institution, Stephan Tramaine Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many scholarly works have focused on the problems that Black males face in higher education at predominantly White institutions (PWI). However, few have explored specific factors that lead to the success of Black males. This study focuses on the Multicultural Center’s role in Black male success a PWI. There are a myriad of issues that Black men face when pursuing higher education ranging from a lack of financial resources to “invisibility” in the collegial environment. These challenges are further exacerbated for Black men who are enrolled at a PWI. The Multicultural Center (MC) is among the essential modalities that can …

From Wanderer To Warrior: Martin's Journey To Sainthood In Brian Jacques's Redwall Series, Marie A. Bliemeister

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children’s fantasy series have been set in the Medieval Era, a way to explore contemporary themes. This use of the Medieval Era is known as medievalism, where authors can explore contemporary issues by comparing them to the past (Bradford 3). Brian Jacques, the author of the popular children’s series Redwall, uses many aspects of the Medieval Era such as prophecies, glory, and battle, and visions or dreams to effectively spin a good yarn while commenting on the religious development of England in the late twentieth century. English moral was down due to the devastation of World War Two and …

The Bioarchaeology Of The Tugalo Site (9st1): Diet, Disease, And Health Of The Past, Nompumelelo Beryl Hlophe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tugalo site is a prehistoric and early historic Native American site located in northeast Georgia along the upper Savannah River basin, near the junction of Toccoa Creek and the Tugalo River. According to archaeological materials analyzed from the site it was occupied from ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Anderson et al. 1995). Although archaeological investigations of the site revealed basic characteristics of its chronology and architecture, very little analysis and reporting of the skeletal remains from Tugalo has been completed. By analyzing data collected by Williamson (1998) concerning the age and sex of the burials, the presence or absence …

Laughing Out Loud: American Indian Comedy As A Force For Social Change, Jacob M. Ward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Activism entails not only individuals overtly campaigning for changes in public spheres, but in other ways and strategies as well. One of these other avenues is the use of political satire and humor. Comedy publicizes frustrations of American issues, just as sit-ins, walk-outs, or marches do. For the most part, scholars fail to address the importance of humor. This work researches not only the comedic works of Charlie Hill, the 1491s, and other American Indian comedians, but also how their craft possibly alters stances and opinions. These comedians have a voice, and, therefore, deserve examination. This work shows the influence …

The Subaltern As Surrogate: Identity And Gender In Contemporary Postcolonial Novels, Jackson T. Turner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Postcolonial novel attempts to reveal the crimes and lasting effects of colonization. By looking at Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, I intend to reveal how the inversion of the typical postcolonial gender dynamic changes the conversation about the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The male, colonized characters within these works are used as surrogates for something that the colonizer, female has lost or desires. This change in relationship draws attention to the way in which past empires still exert their …

Whose Community Museum Is It? Collaboration Strategies And Identity Affirmation In The Amache Museum, Ting-Chun (Regina) Huang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Amache Museum is a preservation project that has multiple communities involved in preserving Amache history. It represents Japanese American as well as American history and is owned and maintained by the Amache Preservation Society (APS), which is comprised of local Granada High School students. By approaching the Amache Museum as a community museum and noticing its distinct collaborative strategy, this thesis investigates the community collaborations and the identity affirmations within the museum, and addresses the question of whose community museum the Amache Museum represents. My research explores the overlapping conceptual models of the Amache Museum: community museum and ecomuseum, …

A View From Within: University Honors Programs And African American Women At A Predominantly White Institution, Janell Lindsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American higher education undergraduate honors programs are respected for the work they do to encourage college students to push themselves towards achievement in learning during their time earning an undergraduate degree. The social movements of the mid-20th century forced open the doors of predominantly white institutions (PWIs) to African American students. Since that time, the number of African American students attending PWIs has increased; however, the research that focused on African American women in higher education, and more specifically honors programs, has not been a significant topic of study. The findings indicate that being the only female person of color …