Arts and Humanities Commons^™

School-Based Sexuality Education, Gender, And Relationship Self-Efficacy: A Moderated-Mediation Analysis Of Sexual Behavior In First-Year College Students, Sara C. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

While the effectiveness at abstinence-only versus comprehensive sexuality education in preventing adolescent risky sexual behavior is widely researched, little is known about whether material learned in secondary school sexuality education classes impacts emerging adult sexual behavior in the college environment. Furthermore, research suggests that self-efficacy – or beliefs in one’s abilities to organize and execute actions – may be more critical than knowledge or skills in terms of how individuals enact behavior. We hypothesized a moderated-mediation effect by which the causal impact of type of sexuality education on four different sexual behaviors during the first year in college is transmitted …

Effects Of Sight Singing Using Moveable-Do Solmization On The Transposition Performance Of Undergraduate Group Piano Students, Michelle Irene Wachter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of sight singing, using moveable-do solmization, on the keyboard transposition performance of undergraduate group piano students. Thirty-nine (N = 39) undergraduate non-keyboard music majors enrolled in three intact sections of first-semester group piano courses participated in this quantitative study. Students completed an individual pretest and posttest consisting of a videotaped sight-reading and transposition performance and a pretest and posttest questionnaire. Throughout the six-week treatment period, all students received sight-reading and transposition instruction using identical musical examples. A control group sight read and transposed examples without singing, while students in two …

Gender Influenced Social Welfare Reforms At The South Carolina Confederate Soldiers’ Home And Infirmary: An Institutional History (1908 - 1957), Brian Dolphin

Theses and Dissertations

The South Carolina Confederate Soldiers’ Home and Infirmary in Columbia opened in 1909, serving two aged and infirm veterans per county. The last former Confederate state to establish a residential facility for veterans, South Carolina became the first state to reserve positions for women on the managing board. Women on the Board exercised more power there than at any comparable institution in the South, with policy implications that featured an increasingly inclusive policy for accommodation of women as both Confederate Soldiers’ Home and Infirmary administrators and occupants. When the institution closed in 1957, it had cared for women for a …

Grand Prix: A Trainer's Guide To Show Ring Success, Lauren Rebecca Allen

Theses and Dissertations

This is a memoir of my experiences as a horse lover and professional horse trainer, and the startling parallels I discovered in the Los Angeles equestrian and entertainment industries. Both worlds revolve around commodifying something that is rooted in beauty but somehow gets bruised in the process of spinning art into business. I found that my taste for romance and adventure spurred me to new heights and simultaneously crashed against reality. In pursuit of the big prizes, I was willing to slowly sell off the things I cared about most to get what I wanted, until I woke up to …

'Precious Objects': Strange 'Things' In James And Wharton, John Kinard

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, I attempt to examine the importance of things, the strange agency of objects, which emerges in the literature of the late nineteenth century. To this end, I examine the economy of things in both Henry James and Edith Wharton. I attempt to connect this object agency with the emergent discourses and technologies of the time, and to link these both with media and queer theory.

Building Sanity: The Rise And Fall Of Architectural Treatment At The South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, Kimberly Jean Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

Although many historians have acknowledged the importance of architecture in the treatment of the mentally ill during the nineteenth century, no historian has ever examined the rise and fall of the importance of architecture to the treatment of patients at the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum. By the late eighteenth century, physicians and laymen alike accepted the ideology of environmental determinism – that one’s environment exercised a direct influence over his or her behavior. In other words, mental illness was both caused and cured by the environment; thus, architecture played a key role in the treatment of mental illness. The South …

Hope Chest: A Memoir Of Home, Marriage, And Objects, Emilie L. Duck

Theses and Dissertations

As a child, Emilie often imagined what her future home would look like. As she wandered through flea markets with her mother, she would envision the pieces she found there in a home of her own, building spacious libraries, comfortable bedrooms, and well-appointed kitchens in her imagination with the same passion that other children built models out of Legos. Although the houses always changed, there was an underlying certainty that she would eventually have one house—a certainty that could not be realized once she got married, and committed to living wherever the Army stationed her husband. In this memoir, Emilie …

A Soul Composed Of Harmonies: George Herbert's Life, Writings, And Choral Settings Of His English Poetry, Benjamin Todd Ebner

Theses and Dissertations

George Herbert’s poetry is among the greatest religious poetry written in the English language. His introspective and nuanced understanding of the human soul and his beautiful style of writing have earned him his place among the great poets. His catalogue is filled with poems ready to be set to music, and dozens of them have been. However, there is no document that seeks to gather an annotated list of these compositions in one place. Further, while a few of these compositions are performed often, there are dozens of other worthy compositions that should be heard on a more wide and …

Revising For Genre: Mary Robinson's Poetry From Newspaper Verse To Lyrical Tales, Shelley Aj Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on Mary Robinson’s Lyrical Tales, not as the culminating point to which her writing inevitably led, as is frequently imagined in accounts of her life and work, but, instead, as the product of an intricate process of revision that highlights her investment in genre. Versions of many of the poems that Robinson included in Lyrical Tales originally were published in newspapers and periodicals. Rather than seeing the changes as a move toward a best or most mature or inspired version, I argue that Robinson revised to meet the requirements of her new genre, the lyrical tale. I …

Saint Dominguan Refugees In Charleston, South Carolina, 1791-1822: Assimilation And Accommodation In A Slave Society, Margaret Wilson Gillikin

Theses and Dissertations

During the 1790s and the first decade of the nineteenth century, nearly 20,000 refugees fled the French colony of Saint Domingue for asylum in the United States. They found new homes in such American port cities as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. This dissertation explores the experiences of the white planters, gens de couleur, and slaves who sought asylum in Charleston, South Carolina, and the effect their presence had on the city’s long time residents. It might seem from first glance that finding acceptance in Charleston would be easy for them, but this was not the case. …

Living On The Moon: Women, Home Making, And The House After World War Ii In Shirley Jackson’S We Have Always Lived In The Castle, Leslie Dennis

Theses and Dissertations

In my thesis, I concentrate on Shirley Jackson, her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and women’s place in post-World War II American society. To start, I introduce Jackson and her role in literary history, the housewife writer in the 1950s and 60s, and magazine culture. Then I move to a historical perspective of the 1950s and propaganda during the atomic war era. I focus my attention on how government literature worked to contain women in the home and control sexuality and gender roles. Following my discussion of domesticity, I concentrate on the history of the Gothic novel …

The Poetic Works Of Charlotte Smith: Philosophy, Sympathy, And Forging Community, Jessica Danielle Castillo

Theses and Dissertations

This work will focus on Charlotte Smith’s poetic works and how, over the course of her entire poetic career (the late eighteenth century/early nineteenth century), she exhibits a concrete sense of a poetic ethos regarding sympathy in her writing. I seek to account for the overwhelming focus on suffering subjects by illuminating her view of the relation between poetry and sympathy for others. I will also place her within a history of writers and philosophers who examined the epistemological and practical nature of feeling, sympathy, and emotional connection among human beings. Smith feels that poetry renders suffering visible to others, …

Science Fairs Before Sputnik: Adolescent Scientific Culture In Contemporary America, Sarah Michel Scripps

Theses and Dissertations

"Science Fairs before Sputnik: Adolescent Scientific Culture in Contemporary America" traces the formation and evolution of science fairs in America, focusing on the ways in which adolescents established communities of practice by engaging in these competitions. Over the course of the twentieth century, generations of American children conducted their first experiments by crafting science fair projects. The dissertation evaluates this understudied phenomenon against the backdrop of American fascinations and fears of science and evolving notions of adolescence. It argues that science fairs were central to shaping an adolescent scientific culture in the United States during the early to mid twentieth …

Creating Neighborhood In Postwar Buffalo, New York: Transformations Of The West Side, 1950-1980, Caitlin Boyle Moriarty

Theses and Dissertations

This project reconsiders post-World War II neighborhood change by examining how various groups in Buffalo, New York conceptualized, experienced and produced the West Side as a cultural and economic artifact between 1950 and 1980. This approach offers an alternative to conceptualizing neighborhoods as bounded, natural entities and it encourages narratives that complicate the prevailing metaphor of decline in rust belt cities by illuminating other components of postwar neighborhood change than population loss and economic disinvestment. This project uses neighborhood retail as a lens through which to examine how city planners, the West Side Business Men's Club, the Federation of Italian …

"Tales" Of Text And Culture: Tropes Of Imperialism, Women's Roles, Technologies Of Representation, And Collaborative Meaning-Making In Rita Golden Gelman's Tales Of A Female Nomad, Female Nomad And Friends, And Personal Website, Michelle Lynne Van Wert Kosalka

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines contemporary travel writing specifically created for a popular reading culture, Rita Golden Gelman's Tales of a Female Nomad, Female Nomad and Friends, and personal website. The project is concerned with how culture is continuously represented and shaped through the dialogic interaction between writer and reader, and the subsequent liminal spaces which emerge in moments of meaning-making. Chapter 1 is a close reading of how Gelman's works reinforce and, in some cases, resist, tropes of imperialism. Chapter 2 examines patriarchal gender roles in Gelman's works and the ways in which recent advances in feminist psychiatry and psychology can …

Caring And Cleaning "On Par": The Work Of Au Pairs & Housecleaners In The Chicagoland Area, Anna Kuroczycka Schultes

Theses and Dissertations

Immigrant domestic workers are perceived as highly exploitable and expendable employees, yet they are entangled in a very complex global exchange of services. The main purpose of this study will be to revise existing knowledge and assumptions about the female migrant service sector, especially within the field of domestic and care labor, by comparing the work of au pairs with housecleaners. Although these two forms of work appear to have many similarities on the surface, they are actually at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of visibility and regulation. Unlike the highly regulated nature of au pair work and …

Male Teachers In Elementary General Music, Scott Victor Greger

Theses and Dissertations

Male elementary general music teachers are rare, and little research exists about them. The men who teach music at the elementary level often face challenges that they must overcome through their own experimentation. One such challenge is the octave difference in singing voice between teacher and student. This study reviewed the existing literature on male elementary teachers and investigated five male elementary general music teachers at various stages in their careers. Eighteen structured interview questions were used, and the answers audio recorded and transcribed. The teacher responses were analyzed and compared to the author's own experience as a male elementary …

"So, Are We Good?" The Emerging Sensitive New Man Movement In The Boys' Club Of Stand-Up Comedy, Stephen Kohlmann

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the emerging new man comedic persona in contemporary stand-up comedy. The new man comedian eschews the hypermasculine and heteronormative traits that were common among male stand-up comedians during the boom era (1980s-1990s). The new trend of a feminized and feminist comedic persona will be analyzed through case studies of two comedians: Louis C.K. and Marc Maron. Their comedic personae transcend their on-stage comedic routines and are augmented through transmedia texts. In the case of Louis C.K., he challenges the audience's perception of his persona through his semi-autobiographical and sometimes surrealistic television series, Louie. Maron's comedic persona is …

The Cubist's View Of Montmartre: A Stylistic And Contextual Analysis Of Juan Gris' Cityscape Imagery, 1911-1912, Geoffrey David Schwartz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the stylistic and contextual significance of five Cubist cityscape pictures by Juan Gris from 1911 to 1912. These drawn and painted cityscapes depict specific views near Gris' Bateau-Lavoir residence in Place Ravignan. Place Ravignan was a small square located off of rue Ravignan that became a central gathering space for local artists and laborers living in neighboring tenements. In these early Cubist cityscapes, Gris attempted to reinterpret Montmartre's architectural landscape in abstracted geometric forms. My stylistic analyses establish several contextual readings for Gris' cityscapes that first address his profound interest in earlier Cubist landscapes painted by Pablo …

"Murderous Mania": Gender And Homicide In Milwaukee Newspapers, 1840-1900, Kadie Kroening Seitz

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the ways in which Milwaukee's newspapers used gender norms to make sense of acts of murder during the nineteenth century. First, women victims of men's violence are examined, particularly through the lenses of ethnicity, class and race. Women victims who did not fit into middle class gender norms were less likely to be portrayed as "beautiful female murder victims." Then, women perpetrators of violence (not exclusively against men) are discussed, including a specific examination of women's use of an insanity defense. Newspaper tropes used to describe women's motivations for filicide are also examined, and found to vary …

The Post-Apocalyptic Turn: A Study Of Contemporary Apocalyptic And Post-Apocalyptic Narrative, Hyong-Jun Moon

Theses and Dissertations

Few periods have witnessed so strong a cultural fixation on apocalyptic calamity as the present. From fictions and comic books to Hollywood films, television shows, and video games, the end of the world is ubiquitous in the form of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives. Imagining world-changing catastrophes, contemporary apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives force us to face urgent socio-political questions such as danger of globalization, effect of neoliberal capitalist hegemony, ecological disasters, fragility of human civilization, and so on. J. G. Ballard's final fictions, though they do not directly deal with apocalyptic events but evoke apocalyptic mood, portray the bleak landscape of …

Radical Reflection: Toward The Transformation Of Everyday Teaching And Learning In English Composition, Royal Brevvaxling

Theses and Dissertations

Education is a necessary component in the emancipatory transformation of current capitalist society, with its exploitative social relationships, to one which is based on promoting and supporting human growth and potential. A libertarian education, as Paulo Freire writes of it, "must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students" (Pedagogy of the Oppressed 59).

An additional impediment to developing education useful for this transformation is the separation of thought from action in educational theory and practice. The field of composition studies similarly operates according to …

Constructing Loyalty, Citizenship, And Identity: A Rhetorical History Of The Japanese American Incarceration, Kaori Miyawaki

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reexamines loyalty, citizenship, and identity in the United States by closely reading historical materials about the Japanese American incarceration. The Japanese American incarceration is a unique and important historical event for studying citizenship and identity, since it was a moment in the U.S. history that citizens of the country were incarcerated by their government. This raises a larger question beyond the incarceration. What does it mean to be a loyal American citizen?

By closely analyzing texts generated by the U.S. government, the Japanese American community, and White American photographers, I identify multiple, conflicting meanings and implications behind the …

Geometry Of Faith: A Stereotomic Reconstruction Of Sainte-Anne-La-Royale In Paris, Giuseppe Mazzone

Theses and Dissertations

Planned during the XVIIth century by the Italian architect Guarino Guarini, the church of Sainte-Anne-la-Royale was supposed to be built in Paris to honor the French Queen Anne of Austria. In an unfortunate twist of fate the church was only partially realized and later destroyed. Present history's only memory comes in three engravings by Guarino Guarini himself: a plan, a transversal section, and the main elevation.

An example of Italian Baroque Architecture, the building shines for its intriguing plan and complex system of vaults. Its execution was supposed to be realized according to the refined techniques of French stereotomy. Faithful …

Black Heart, Brandon Rashod Hodges

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

S-Cape Testing For Higher Proficiency Levels And Other Factors That Influence Placement At Brigham Young University, Elizabeth Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Brigham Young University (BYU) first implemented the Spanish Computer Adaptive Placement Examination (S-CAPE) during the Fall Semester of 1986 and it has been used ever since. The S-CAPE was designed to determine course placement into beginning and intermediate classes for students who have previously studied Spanish. A 10% increase occurred this year (2014) in students who have served missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of these returned missionaries gained language proficiency on their missions, and some go to BYU to begin or continue their studies. Because of the increase in enrollment of students with intermediate …

Inheriting The Library: The Archon And The Archive In George Macdonald's Lilith, Lauran Ray Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

George MacDonald's novel Lilith relates the story of a young man inheriting his deceased father's estate and coming in contact with its remarkable library and mysterious librarian. The protagonist's subsequent adventures in a fantastical world prepare the young Mr. Vane to assume authority over his inherited archive and become an archon. Jacques Derrida's exposition of the responsibilities of the archon including archival authority, domiciliation, and consignation illuminate the mentoring role of the elusive librarian Mr. Raven in Vane's adventures. By using Derrida's deconstruction of archives to unpack the intricacies of knowledge transfer in MacDonald's novel, the lasting impact of the …

Pedagogical And Ekphrastic Elements In The Story Of The Predestined Pilgrim And His Brother Reprobate By Father Alexandre De Gusm, M Cecilia Fischer

Theses and Dissertations

The object of this thesis is to analyze the presence of the pedagogical ekphrastic elements in the novel The Story of The Predestined Pilgrim and his Brother Reprobate by Father Alexandre de Gusmmão. In the past this novel has been an obscure masterpiece outside the circle of those who study early Portuguese language works. In the last half century there has been a crescendo of the study of this novel as more scholars have taken an interest in the pilgrimage motif and in particular using this novel in comparative literature. A monumental contribution to bring this novel out of obscurity …

Conscience And Context In Eastman Johnson's The Lord Is My Shepherd, Amanda Melanie Slater

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers the experiences that motivated the creation of an 1863 painting by American artist Eastman Johnson entitled The Lord is My Shepherd. An examination of the painting—which depicts a black man reading a Bible—reveals multiple artistic, social, political, and spiritual influences. Created in the midst of the American Civil War, the painting's inspiration derived from Johnson's New England childhood, training in Europe, encounters with the Transcendentalist movement, and his abolitionist views. As a result, The Lord is My Shepherd is a culminating work in Johnson's oeuvre that was prompted by years of experience and observations in an age …

Blogs, Books, & Breadcrumbs: A Case Study Of Transmedial Fairy Tales, Kristy Gilbert Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding transmedial storytelling is particularly important to fairy-tale studies. Monomedial views have long been unable to account for all of fairy tale tradition. Although the form originated in oral culture, it has long been a liminal, hybrid form that retains aspects of orality even while its principal mode of transference for some time has been something other than face-to-face communication. Transformations and adaptations across different media and contexts has resulted in a system of fairy-tale tradition that is massively intertextual and transmedial. No one medium can claim primary control over the fairy-tale tradition. Throughout time, oral tellings have inspired literary …