Arts and Humanities Commons^™

History Is The Devil's Doing, Christopher W. Berntsen

Theses and Dissertations

My work engages with the idea of queer time and place. The waterfront, especially that in New York City is a space where these ideas have felt most potent. I utilize photography, particularly various methods of collage that combine images made from a sixty year range engaging with the queer waterfront. This work visualizes the waterfront as a space in which time exists beyond a static linear understanding of it. I look back in order to look forward, forward in order to look back. Or am I looking both ways at once?

"A New World For Instrumental Art": An Exploration Of The Nineteenth-Century Saxophone Quartet And Its Repertoire, Laney Sheehan

Honors Projects

This Honors Project examines the major characteristics of the nineteenth-century saxophone quartet and its repertoire through the lens of four musical works: Hector Berlioz’s Hymne (for six wind instruments of Adolphe Sax), Jean-Baptiste Singelée’s Premier Quatuor, Jérôme Savari’s Quatuor pour Saxophones, and Caryl Florio’s Quartette (Allegro de Concert).

A Song Of The Bluff: The Phoenix Of Pine Bluff Arkansas - Documentary, Neba Evans

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pine Bluff, Arkansas has long grappled with a reputation as a town riddled with crime and violence. Once a thriving agricultural center of the state, Arkansas residents tend to score the town’s successes as relics of the past. Economic decline, negative migration systems like white flight and brain drain, and racial disparities ties to the city’s roots has continued to take its toll on the city. Nonetheless, the community of Pine Bluff knows excellence has and continues to prosper there. A Song of the Bluff is a 15-minute documentary that seeks to flip the negative narrative by confronting these stereotypes …

In The Shadow Of The Atomic Cloud: Masculinity, Modernity, And The ‘Bomb’ In The Electoral Politics Of Canada And The United States, 1949-1963, Allen G. Priest

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores the impact of hegemonic masculinity, in the early Cold War era, on the electoral politics of Canada and the United States. It situates itself in the years between 1949 and 1963, arguably the height of nuclear fear, at a time when masculine ideals were adjusting to an uncertain postwar reality. Previous scholarship has established that the Cold War brought with it a retreat into domesticity, followed by an emergent “crisis” of masculinity. This monograph contributes to the historiography by demonstrating that the masculine architypes of the early Cold War are frequently reflected in electoral discourse. It also …

When Saeed Betrays Fuad: Laughing At The Mechanized Occupation, Ezgi Demirors

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis comparatively explores the emergence of the comic in the novel The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessoptimist by Emile Habibi and the film The Time That Remains directed by Elia Suleiman, by building on Bergson’s theory of mechanization. By tracing Bergson’s idea that comic effect is created through the creeping up of the mechanical on the living, the establishment of the “mechanical occupation” as a source of the comic will be elucidated. The comic will be explored in terms of the ways in which both texts offer a new historicizing operation, being works that focus on the narration …

From Roundabout To Roundabout: Tahrir Square (1869- 2021), Mariam Abdelazim

Dissertations

Tahrir Square not only represents a symbol of liberation but also reflects the modern history of Egypt. Its several physical changes signify the rise and fall of the monarchy, colonialism, modernism, nationalism, capitalism, echoing a constantly changing definition of the Egyptian public space. And while the surrounding façades physically define the square, either the authorities or the public control its activities.

Khedive Ismail founded the square around 1869 as a roundabout on his “Paris along the Nile” modern city. Between 1882 and 1947, the site became the barracks’ location for the British troops who colonized Egypt. In 1952, an Egyptian …

Paradoxes Of The Heart And Mind: Three Case Studies In White Identity, Southern Reality, And The Silenced Memories Of Mississippi Confederate Dissent, 1860-1979, Billy Loper

Master's Theses

This thesis is meant to advance scholars understanding of the processes by which various groups silenced the memory of Civil War white dissent in Mississippi. It analyzes three case studies: F. A. P. Barnard’s 1860 trial for abolitionism, the transformation of community memory which surrounded Newt Knight in the early twentieth century, and Mississippi’s interaction with the Civil War through popular culture. These examples will reveal the cultural and discursive systems that have existed in the state for more than a century. This work argues that Mississippians silenced the memory of racial dissent throughout the state’s history because it conflicted …

Different Class: The Creation Of The Premier League And The Commercialization Of English Football, Colin Damms

Master's Theses

This project examines how English football evolved from a culture of hooliganism and poor upkeep into a popular and enterprising industry across the globe. The Premier League and its stars marketed the English game and its culture worldwide. Since the 1990s England has established itself as the leading club footballing nation. I argue that through football, and the culture and economics behind it, we can see the ways in which England attempted to change its image in the modern world. In the 1980s and 1990s Britain was confronted with its own established culture of violence, bigotry, and nationalist pride, particularly …

The Beat Of A Subculture: A Study Of The History And Impact Of Non-Pitched Percussion In Early Hip-Hop, Jeffrey Michael Taylor

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document presents a study of the origins and role of non-pitched, percussion-based samples in the history and development of the hip-hop genre. The survey presents an historical synopsis of hip-hop’s origins including the infrastructure of the genre, the DJ forefathers, and the music and drummers responsible for the subcultural emergence. Emphasis is placed on the specific genres of music that influenced the creation of hip-hop and the drummers responsible for the sounds that were appropriated to create new musical works. Influential drummers are examined, and transcriptions are given to aid the development of relevant drum set performance techniques. A …

Musical “Conquest”: The Spanish Use Of Music In The Spiritual Conquest Of The Nahua Peoples Of Sixteenth-Century Mexico, John Richardson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Historians have grown more interested in Spanish Conquest and colonialism in the last century. While earlier historians saw the conquest through a more euro-centric lens, recent historians have tried to take a more nuanced approach to understanding the conquest. Within this research, historians are questioning traditional narratives of the "spiritual conquest," or the conversion of native peoples to Christianity. Scholars have shown that "conquest" is not the best term for this process, as there was much more give and take at play.

My research seeks to strengthen this narrative of religious accommodation through the lens of music. The transmission of …

A Text Analysis Of British Welfare Debates, Emily C. Maanum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This white paper details the process of conducting a textual analysis of three British parliamentary debates. It also discusses the development of Tableau visualizations to display the results of the analysis, along with the creation of a GitHub repository for documentation of the procedure and code, as well as a GitHub Page for displaying the visualizations. Through text analysis, this capstone project examines the rhetoric used by British members of parliament (MP) while debating the creation of a welfare state during three specific parliamentary debates in 1944: National Health Service, Social Insurance Part 1 and 2, and Employment …

'A Deadly Menace To All Young Womankind': Seduction And Protective Legislation In America, 1850-1923, Elissa Michelle Isenberg

Dissertations - ALL

"A Deadly Menace to All Young Womankind": Seduction and Protective Legislation in America, 1850-1923 looks at sexual harassment before it was an actionable offense. Although female domestic servants have endured unwanted sexual attention for most of American history, the entry of women into wage labor in factories and offices during the late nineteenth century dramatically increased the number of girls and women that were subjected to what we today call harassment. Careful examination of American newspaper archives, court records, and reformers' personal papers have uncovered cases of unsolicited sexual advances toward women, and have demonstrated that sexual harassment was considered …

‘A Deadly Menace To All Young Womankind’: Seduction And Protective Legislation In America, 1850-1923, Elissa Michelle Isenberg

Dissertations - ALL

“A Deadly Menace to All Young Womankind”: Seduction and Protective Legislation in America, 1850-1923 looks at sexual harassment before it was an actionable offense. Although female domestic servants have endured unwanted sexual attention for most of American history, the entry of women into wage labor in factories and offices during the late nineteenth century dramatically increased the number of girls and women that were subjected to what we today call harassment. Careful examination of American newspaper archives, court records, and reformers’ personal papers have uncovered cases of unsolicited sexual advances toward women, and have demonstrated that sexual harassment was considered …

Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles

Master's Projects and Capstones

How do youth engage with the spaces around them? In what ways might students connect their personal, lived knowledge to the politics and intricacies of space? The manners in which schools approach outside-of-school learning includes non-critical Place-Based Learning and field trips as optional material; however, doing so breaks the powerful relationship waiting to be explored between Critical Geography and Critical Education. This field project uses Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis as foundations to argue for the implementation of Critical Geography into high school curricula, and offers a 9-week high school curriculum to create a student-led …

Three Prongs Of Knowledge For Black/African American Parents To Prepare Them To Assist Young Black/African American Children Navigate Through Systemic Racism, Diane R Miles, Diane R. Miles

Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This dissertation focuses on three prongs of knowledge in parent education programs for Black/African American parents. These three prongs of knowledge fortify and enhance Black/African American parents' effectiveness in their role. This dissertation focuses on Black/African Americans' parenting experience because of the unique challenges they and their children face in a country that does not always value them or respects their humanity. Living in a country where systemic racism is foundational, Black/African American parents and their children have added challenges presented by this reality. It is systemic racism that creates the need for additional knowledge to ensure that Black/African …

When Half The Neighborhood Is Missing: How To Overcome Systemic Poverty And Gentrification Following The Models Of Dudley Street And Mission Waco, Kevin A. Brown, Kevin A. Brown, Kevin A. Brown

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

Abstract

By following the examples of Mission Waco and The Dudley Street Initiative, it is possible to renew a sense of beloved community by changing the narrative of poverty and gentrification by rebuilding the village through empowering the poor and marginalized.

Mission Waco and The Dudley Street Initiative are comprehensive sustainable communities because they combine numerous social and economic interventions under developed strategic plans. The principal question that this dissertation seeks to answer is whether these models can be implemented in local communities to help overcome gentrification and poverty. Implementation can be successful if we can identify the problem, rethink …

Irradiated Playground: The Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory And The Legacy Of The United States Nuclear Project, Austin Wilson

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

The former Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory (GNAL) is a historic site located outside of Dawsonville, Georgia that is now engaged with as a place of exploration, learning, and an unofficial memorial to the past. Over the course of my research I utilized archival documents, photographs I took during site visits, and internet discussions to analyze the way that modern visitors interact with the site and complicate the perceptions of public memory and history.

"Learning By Doing, By Wondering, By Figuring Things Out:" A New Look At Contemporary Homeschooling And Pedagogical Progressivism, Jacques Klapisch

History Honors Theses

Pedagogical progressive education, as defined through the work of John Dewey, Helen Parkhurst, and Carleton Washburne was the precursor to the contemporary homeschooling movement in ideology, practice, and rhetoric as defined by the writing and pedagogy of John Holt. Their shared beliefs in community, student freedom, and good experience as pertinent to education marked the relationship between these two pedagogical methods. Despite Holt's departure from the classroom through his unschooling method, the ideological consistencies between the movement are undeniable, suggesting we rethink the relationship between progressive education and homeschooling and our basic assumptions about the legacy of both movements.

Cultivating Eliot's Historical Sense: Eliotic Time And The Waste Land's Response To Alienation, Thomas Ball

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land marshals his account of historical sense as a response to the problem of alienation in modernity. Eliot’s historical sense depends upon an awareness of the endurance of the past, demanding a reorientation to the structure of temporality. I interrogate the temporal ramifications of Eliot’s account, arguing that it resonates with Henri Bergson’s durational theory of time. I ultimately investigate Eliot’s relationship to Bergson, suggesting that Eliot intervenes in the Bergsonian framework by establishing duration as a cultural, rather than individual or ontological, reality.

Meditations, Adrian D. Mosby

Theses and Dissertations

Adrian Demarco Mosby (b. 1991, Bronx, Ny) is a figurative painter focused on the use of allegory and narrative. His stone like figures depict a modern day apathy and disillusion. The narrative content is meant to formulate a moral philosophy that might combat such apathy.

History In Crisis: Museum Programming During The Covid-19 Outbreak, Lindsay Mcconnell

Honors Thesis

The subject of my research is how museums adapted their public programming in response to COVID-19. The goal of my research is to analyze how successfully museums shifted their community engagement programming to online platforms. Since I hope to work in the museum field of programming, I was motivated to conduct this research. Not much research can be found on this topic because COVID-19’s effects on museums are still unfolding. My research could provide a foundation of ideas to build on. To begin, I read articles about the relationship between museums and technology. I applied this knowledge to analyze how …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Analyzing Inhumane Practices In Mississippi’S Correctional Institutions Due To Overcrowding, Understaffing, And Diminished Funding, Ariel A. Williams

Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine the political, social, and economic factors which have led to inhumane conditions in Mississippi’s correctional facilities. Several methods were employed, including a comparison of the historical and current methods of funding, staffing, and rehabilitating prisoners based on literature reviews. State-sponsored reports from various departments and the legislature were analyzed to provide insight into budgetary restrictions and political will to allocate funds. Statistical surveys and data were reviewed to determine how overcrowding and understaffing negatively affect administrative capacity and prisoners’ mental and physical well-being. Ultimately, it may be concluded that Mississippi has high …

Has Maize Overtaken Our Reality? A Personal Briefing, Biochemical Comparison, Agrigenomics, And History Of Maize, Nader Pahlevan

Honors Theses

Maize (Zea mays ssp. Mays) is a revolutionary cereal grain that has raced to the world’s most popular staple crop, transforming societies and impacting history. This paper aims to build and portray the story maize has created through its journey to world domination. The important details that encompass this literature are maize’s cultural significance in my life’s story, the comparison of various starches broken down into amylose and amylopectin ratios, a summative historical account on maize’s spread throughout numerous parts of the old world, and the genetical analysis of maize that explains the key features that have led …

The Emergence Of Lesbianism From Women's Penal Institutions: Incarcerated Women-Loving Women, Interracial Coupling, And Women's Blues Music, 1895-1935, Sidney Wegener

Women's History Theses

This thesis explores the early-twentieth-century emergence of lesbianism as an identity label, an understanding of relationships between women-loving women, and a set of subcultures in the United States. Penal and medical professionals’ influence on the development of language surrounding and contributing to social and scientific meanings of lesbianism is analyzed as a response to the hypervisibility of women-loving women confined in women’s penal institutions. In this context, relationships between incarcerated white women and Black women received the most attention and condemnation from observers, such as reformatory administrators and research psychologists. A focus on interracial relationships between incarcerated women, especially on …

A Stolen Culture: The Harmful Effects Of Cultural Appropriation, Amirah Lockhart

Honors Theses

Entertainment has always been an outlet from reality, no matter the culture. Whether in the form of music or television, entertainment has something for everyone. Different factors influence the content of the entertainment being consumed, but culture is one of the most important and decisive elements. The appropriation of entertainers in their work is not always immediately obvious to all consumers of entertainment, but members of the affected culture are quick to notice and usually shut out. I argue that the cultural appropriation of Black culture in most cases facilitates results that are harmful and damaging to the Black community. …

Perceptions Of Roane State Community College Presidents On The Events Shaping The Institution’S Leadership History, John Norris Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A major focus of policymakers in recent years has been community colleges, which have been viewed as potential engines for economic advancement and student success. I examined the leadership history of Roane State Community College, a two-year institution of higher learning serving a nine-county service area mostly in rural East Tennessee as perceived by individuals who have served as the college’s presidents. Five current and former presidents were interviewed about their experiences as president and their perceptions of the college’s history. Narrative research was used to recount a history of Roane State Community College, and the key events and factors …

Remembering Jacob: The Literary Representation Of Memory In The Jacob Narrative, Isaac Borbon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to describe the Jacob narrative through the lens of memory. Taking Gen 28:10-22 as a case study, the objective is to place Jacob’s visit to Bethel alongside other ancient referential claims, analyzing it for authentic memories. However, the complex nature of memory is susceptible to preservation and revision. That is to say, having no desire to comport to modern historical-critical sensibilities, memory’s epistemological underpinnings are concerned primarily with reconstructing a remembered past for subsequent generations of Israelite tradents. In order to understand the historical background to the Jacob narrative in its entirety, a formal analysis of Iron …

More Than Sectarianism: How Have State And Non-State Institutions Used Violence To Form The Current Iraqi State And What Is The Effect?, Caitlyn Perkins

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the role of violence in Iraq in establishing the current Iraqi state. My chapters provide historical and theoretical context to the subject before getting into the analysis. The goal of this thesis is to show that violence in Iraq is not only caused by sectarian differences, but has been used and influenced by leaders, outside governments, and non-state institutions for personal gain and political goals at the cost of the Iraqi people.

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story? A Marxist Analysis Of "Hamilton" And Its Relationship To The Broadway Economic System, Alana Ritt

Honors Projects

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-hit Hamilton: An American Musical has been both a critical and academic darling since its premiere in 2015. A historical retelling of America’s inception through the eyes of an oft-ignored founding father, the musical weaves together a diverse cast and hip-hop musical stylings in order to tell the story of “America then, as told by America now.” While many critics and scholars alike have praised the musical for putting an exciting and accessible twist to American history, others have argued that the musical is not nearly as “revolutionary” as it claims to be. This essay is designed to …

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story? A Marxist Analysis Of "Hamilton" And Its Relationship To The Broadway Economic System, Alana Ritt

Honors Projects

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-hit Hamilton: An American Musical has been both a critical and academic darling since its premiere in 2015. A historical retelling of America’s inception through the eyes of an oft-ignored founding father, the musical weaves together a diverse cast and hip-hop musical stylings in order to tell the story of “America then, as told by America now.” While many critics and scholars alike have praised the musical for putting an exciting and accessible twist to American history, others have argued that the musical is not nearly as “revolutionary” as it claims to be. This essay is designed to …