Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Effects And Comparisons Of Receptive Live Music Listening And Expressive Music Making On Mood With Elderly Adults In A Congregate Residential Setting, Rory Kendall Bolton

Theses and Dissertations

It is important to consider mood and its effect on elderly persons as many older adults will experience symptoms of depression. In prior studies, research indicated that preferred music listening and expressive music making can positively change mood in older adults. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the differences between receptive music listening and expressive music making (presented as a facilitated group music therapy session) and their effect on participants’ mood. The researcher hypothesized that 1) there would be a significant difference for pre and posttest standardized mood assessment (PANAS) scores between the receptive music listening and …

Institutional Factors Influencing African-American Male Involvement In Undergraduate Student Organizations, John Mark Davenport

Theses and Dissertations

Students attending colleges and universities who have purposeful opportunities to interact with peers and faculty about educational matters and who are challenged with consistent encouragement report higher levels of satisfaction with their collegiate experience and have higher persistence rates than students who do not receive these opportunities (Kuh et al., 1991; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Schroeder & Mable, 1994). In higher education, African-American males are neither retained from admission through graduation at a rate comparable to majority students nor African-American women (AASCU, 1988; ACE, 2008; Harper, 2012). In this study I set out to determine which institutional factors influence African-American …

Resistance, The Church, And A Comparison Of Ceramics From Sixteenth-Century Caluco, El Salvador, Alison Denise Hodges

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines ceramics from the church of San Pedro y San Pablo, Caluco, El Salvador, to investigate the pressures of Spanish evangelization during the Colonial Period. It compares the church's ceramic assemblage to two privately-owned houses, also within Caluco. Examining choices in ceramic styles for serving food and drink is one way to examine the colonial policies of reducción, which were to instill a regular, commonplace Christian order in everyday life. The materials in question were a large number of Spanish majolicas, as well as 300 locally-made vessels, and form, decoration, and ware was noted for each. The relative …

Fan The Flames Of Discontent: Contemporary Labor Literature And Social Movements, Ericka Rae Wills

Theses and Dissertations

Fan the Flames of Discontent: Contemporary Labor Literature and Social Movements balances a literary approach to textual analysis with socially grounded reflections on diverse worker organizations. Chapters analyze Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead, Helena Maria Viramontes's Under the Feet of Jesus, and Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day alongside worker-writers' texts and testimonies, such as Fran Leeper Buss and María Elena Lucas's Forged under the Sun / Forjada bajo el sol and The Heat: Steelworker Lives and Legends, a collection of United Steelworkers' Institute for Career Development writings. In each of five chapters, this dissertation respectively discusses how literature …

Life Is Calling ... How Far Will You Go ... Back In The Closet? Identity Negotiation And Management Among Queer, Peace Corps Volunteers, Kate Elizabeth Slisz

Theses and Dissertations

There is little to no research surrounding the experiences of queer, foreign-aid workers. To address this gap, a study was conducted to explore how compulsory heterosexuality affects the social construction of sexuality in societies where queer, foreign-aid workers serve and how this influences their identity negotiation and management processes. Participants consisted of ten self-identified queer, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), as well as, the researcher herself who also identifies as queer. Data was gathered through both semi-structured interviews and autoethnographic research. Meaning structuring through narratives was used to analyze the data. Analysis revealed that strategies of silencing, counterfeiting, and lying …

Ideographs And American Mass Media: Understanding The Narrative On The Israel-Palestine Conflict And Its Influence On Publics, Savanna Lynn Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the American mass media's narrative on the Israel-Palestine conflict to understand the power of ideographs and their influence on specific publics. I focus on two popular ideographs in mass media reporting,and, in order to examine how these ideographs are utilized to construct a narrative for the media's publics, the political ideologies they represent, the agendas they further, and the consequences their narrow use has on developing counterpublics and emerging alternative narratives around the conflict. I focus my attention on the mass media's coverage of a sixteen day Israeli shelling in Gaza and how public consent is acquired …

"Sing Me A Sad Song And Make Me Feel Better": Exploring Rewards Related To Liking Familiar Sad Music, John D. Hogue

Theses and Dissertations

Hogue (2013) tested some of Levinson's (1997) theoretical ideas about why people like listening to songs that make them sad. Particularly, Hogue tested Levinson's ideas of communion, mediation, savoring feeling, and how absorption interacted with the songs to affect communion and the emotion. Hogue, however, did not use musical stimuli that were familiar to the participants, which is a precursor to Levinson's (1997) theory. This thesis retested Levinson's theory comparing familiar songs against unfamiliar songs and songs from another participant.

Data were collected from 82 participants. Each participant provided songs that induced happiness and songs that induced sadness. Participants listened …

Living Between Dialectics: A Bakhtinian And Lacanian Reading Of Jade Snow Wong's Fifth Chinese Daughter And Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Xiaojun Luo

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation creates a dialogic web encompassing the sociocultural and psychological aspects of Jade Snow Wong's and Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiographies Fifth Chinese Daughter and The Woman Warrior. The American mainstream society and Chinese patriarchal community have conceived insurmountable ethnic and gender differences that are inherent in Wong's and Kingston's growing-up environment. The dissertation argues that how the two authors perceive the way of how these differences have been conceived is central to our understanding of their representations of ethnic female consciousness when they are writing as both subjects and writers. The dissertation notes, to be more specific, Wong's and …

Sexual Minority Educators And Public Disclosure: How Identity And Culture Influence The Decisions To Be Out In School Settings, Breanna Evans-Santiago

Theses and Dissertations

In thirty years, sexual minority educators will have taught at least 65,676,600 children. Several studies have shown that sexual minority teachers exercise the right to refrain from disclosing their sexual identity because they are aware of the possible repercussions when they "come out" in the K-12 educational setting. Choosing whether or not to disclose their sexual identities may result from the juxtaposition of deciding how and with whom to identify. This study specifically analyzes cultural factors and educators' commitments as professionals in educational settings. This study dissects the stories from five K-12 educators that identify as Lesbian or Bisexual. Several …

Tenant Management Groups In Chicago Public Housing 1940-1990: 50 Years Of Struggle And Progress, Megan Helene Rufin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the work and effectiveness of formal and informal resident management groups in public housing in Chicago, IL during 1940 to 1990 as reported by local newspapers. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is infamous for managerial neglect of buildings and, more importantly, its residents. It is for this reason that CHA residents throughout the city regularly came together on their own merit in an attempt to effect change and better their circumstances. This thesis evaluates the process in which Chicago public housing residents politicized themselves in order to create better living situations for themselves and their families in …

The Storm Still Echoes: Suspense And Ambivalence As A Way Of Life, Shailen Mishra

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three interrelated components that inquire into two themes: the epistemological and aesthetic merit of narrative suspense, and the generative potential of constraint-based writing. In the opening chapter, titled "Doubt in Perpetuity: Rethinking Suspense as a Mode of Aesthetics, and an Epistemological Inquiry," I undertake a theoretical inquiry to prove that suspense can be a rich analytical device to study complex aesthetics of writers. I theorize suspense at its elemental level and from an epistemological standpoint to prove that suspense is not simply a plot-level concept of "what happens next." Instead, by analyzing particular scenes from …

Music Therapy As Treatment For The Psychological Distress Of Victims Of Intimate Partner Violence: Comparing Expressive And Receptive Music Interventions, Kristiana Miner

Theses and Dissertations

Domestic violence or intimate partner violence refers to physical, sexual, or emotional harm committed by a current or former intimate partner. Intimate partner violence has varied and serious repercussions in the lives of its victims. The direct consequences of violence combined with the physical aftermath of emotional distress, fear, and anxiety can lead to a variety of ailments. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and suicide are both major concerns for female victims of IPV. Considering that the issues faced by many victims of DV are pervasive and complex, treatment for survivors needs to be comprehensive and multifaceted. Music therapy is an evidence-based …

Effects Of Explicit Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction For English Learners With Specific Learning Disabilities, Sara Lynn Jozwik

Theses and Dissertations

In this intervention study, I engaged principles of culturally responsive research to examine the effectiveness of explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction for English Learners (ELs) with specific learning disabilities (SLD). This study replicated and extended previous research (Jitendra, Hoppes, & Xin, 2000) by modifying instruction found to be effective for native English speakers (i.e., explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction with a self-monitoring procedure). Modifications included: (a) integrating culturally relevant text, (b) providing native language support, and (c) melding strategies from the fields of teaching English as a second language and special education. Through a co-teaching model, I provided instruction to …

Rhetorics Of Engagement Across And About Faith And Worldview Difference, John Maclean

Theses and Dissertations

Interactions across faith and worldview difference are becoming increasingly common in many communities and around the world. These interactions can be verbally or physically violent, and even deadly, or they can be beautiful and enriching, or they can be ignored, resisted or refused. In this dissertation I put scholarship that endorses a broader conception of rhetoric in conversation with my personal experience in interfaith relations and dialogue in order to discover better ways to study these interactions. I propose and develop two constructs, "rhetorical space" and "rhetorical stance", that I use to explore and analyze people's attitudes toward and experiences …

The Quiet Girl In The Quiet Room: Can The Subaltern Speak?, Julie Tran

Theses and Dissertations

I was searching for a cure for being voiceless when I learned that I am not voiceless at all; I am silent. Voice, however, is a product of the dominant ideology of the ruling class, a product equated with presence and participation, whereas silence is a product of the resistance of the subaltern, a product equated with self-effacement and submissiveness. Therefore, voice is often understood as the opposite of silence, and those who possess voice possess power. The subaltern is consequently excluded, only heard and considered when adopting Western language and culture. This conformity fractures the identity of the subaltern, …

Frontier Respectability To Gilded Age Splendor: Women And Consumerism In The Cultural Development Of Bloomington, Illinois, 1839-1900, Kera B. Storrs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the importance of late nineteenth century gender ideals and consumer practices in the development of the city of Bloomington in McLean County, Illinois. Most histories of not only Bloomington, but the greater Midwest, have focused on the rise of industry and business, and their effect on the development of the region. This study instead places women's social and cultural activities at the center of the story, and explains the significance of feminine consumption to the community's growth from a small frontier village to a Gilded Age city. While all of Bloomington's classes played a role in this …

Merchant Guilds, Local Autonomy, And Municipal Governance In A South China Treaty Port: Shantou, 1858- 1939, Fusheng Luo

Theses and Dissertations

Between the mid-nineteenth century and the 1930s, Shantou, a treaty port located at the southeast coast of China, evolved from a mere fishing village into an international port and a thriving commercial city. Shantou presents an unusual case study among the treaty ports of China on account of its location at the periphery of the empire and its connection to a South China Southeast Asia trading zone. The absence of Chinese imperial as well as foreign influence, combined with the centrality of trade to the city, allowed the local merchants to play dominant roles, settling trade disputes and taking over …

Alive And Human: Situating Wallace, Lethem, And Russell In Contemporary Fiction, Carissa Kampmeier

Theses and Dissertations

This project will attempt to provide an outline of some of the most salient constructions of present-day literary fiction, where those constructions might overlap or conflict, and how various contemporary authors and their works might usefully fit within those constructions. This project will argue that fiction-writers following postmodernism are presented with a unique problem of how to write fiction in a way that acknowledges the problems of using language as a primary meaning-making structure without falling down a linguistic rabbit hole where a text ceases to be about anything other than itself. Beginning with David Foster Wallace, this project will …

The Countryman: Joseph Addison Turner And The Cultural Construction Of Confederate Nationalism, Christina Lea Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This master's thesis starts from the premise that Confederate nationalism was not just a political entity, but a cultural project. It examines the role of print culture in shaping a distinctive and unified Confederate community. Emerging on the eve of the Civil War, Confederate nationalism flourished due to the creation and dissemination of southern print culture through newspapers and magazines. This thesis approaches the development of Confederate cultural nationalism through a case study, Joseph Addison Turner, who wrote and edited a weekly journal, The Countryman, from 1862 to 1866. Through The Countryman, Turner advocated and shaped white southern beliefs and …

Listen. I Have Something To Say! A Critical Inquiry Into The Educational And Socio-Cultural Context Of African-American Male Student Achievement In An Urban School Setting, Patricia P. Watson

Theses and Dissertations

There is a general awareness that a substantial gap exists between the educational achievement of the White and African-American populations in our nation. Several prominent researchers have attempted to address this issue of the achievement gap. Kinjufu (1985), with his seminal work on the fourth-grade failure syndrome, Noguera (2008), Ferguson (2001), Tatum (1997), Payne (2005), and Gordon and Gordon (2006) all point to issues of race and income. Leary (2005) offers a theory of multigenerational trauma; Fordham and Ogbu (1986) present their theory of oppositional culture; while Sewell (1998), Gurian (2005), Kozol (1991), and Sax (2007) suggest that the gap …

Utilizing Illinois State University's Environmental Legacy And Historical Collections To Sustain A Global Future, Melissa Nergard

Theses and Dissertations

The scholarly capital of materials at Illinois State University includes numerous natural history collections from the mid-nineteenth century that hold significant research and historical value. Changes in pedagogical methods and academic leadership, however, created confusion and territorial competition in who would preserve and manage the collections. Consequently some specimens from those early collections have been both lost and forgotten. This thesis used a systems approach to track the material losses incurred when institutional support shifted in the 1870s, and the original collectors and curators left Central Illinois for national interests in Washington, D.C. Yet, historical environmental collections have become increasingly …

An Old Soldier's View Of The Early Cold War, 1949-1953, Daniel Scott

Theses and Dissertations

This Master's Thesis examines General Douglas MacArthur's strategic assessments which led to his pursuit of the expansion of the Korean War beyond the Yalu River. By examining General MacArthur's actions during the Korean War, I clarify the reason behind his desire to expand the war into Manchuria and China. This evaluation also provides insight into MacArthur's overall early Cold War strategy - 1949-1953. This Master's Thesis challenges the notion that General MacArthur's desire to use atomic weaponry in the expansion of the Korean War as being indicative of a flawed personality or a lack of understanding of the geopolitical situation. …

Subsistence Strategies In The Upper Illinois River Valley: The Kuhne Site Case Study, Autumn Beyer

Theses and Dissertations

Stuart Struever's excavation of the Kuhne site, located in the Upper Illinois River Valley occurred during the start of archaeological interest in the region. The faunal remains recovered during this excavation offer a unique opportunity to understand subsistence strategies in the area during the Middle Woodland period. Using standard zooarchaeological methods, these remains were analyzed to better understand which animal species were targeted by Middle Woodland people in this region, which season(s) the site was occupied, and how bones were modified for utilitarian and other purposes. These findings were then compared to faunal assemblages from Middle Woodland sites in the …

Dr. Frankenstein's Hideous Progeny: A Typology Of The Mad Scientist In Contemporary Young Adult Novels And Computer Animated Film, Farran Leanne Norris Sands

Theses and Dissertations

The following study explores representations of mad scientists in a variety of novels for young adults, and in computer animated film for adolescents. Building from their typologies and furthering the work of scholars such as Glen S. Allen, Roslyn D. Haynes, and Sven Wagner, all of whom focus on texts for adult audiences, this study proposes and presents a typology of mad scientists as they are represented in texts for adolescents and young adults. Expanding the work of these scholars, this study aims to show where children's mad scientist texts both follow and deviate from current mad scientist typologies in …

Revisiting Gender Equality In Millennium Development Goal 3: Establishing Education For Women As A Human Right, Colleen Renee Kahl

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate Millennium Development Goal 3 and to propose a new goal based in a human rights-based approach. This goal promotes gender equality and women's empowerment and is primarily measured by gender parity in education. For many countries in the developing world, this goal is far from being reached and has resulted in millions of children, particularly girls, out of school. The primary focus of this thesis will be on the secondary level of education as gender parity is far from being obtained. This thesis will review the goals and the human rights-based approach …

Aggregation And Satiation: Finding Meaning In Repetition, Samantha Buchanan

Theses and Dissertations

In my work, I see repetition, but also complexity and variation. This supportive

statement examines my interest in the aggregate, in forms composed of multiples, as well as the repetitive processes required in their construction. I look at the ways in which predictability, recursion, and rhythm function in my repetitive practice, as well as how the energy expended throughout the process manifests in the matter of the work. What I intend for the viewer is the perception of a holistic and simultaneous sensory experience.

Cliffdwellers: A Study In Wildness, Stoney Larkin Sasser

Theses and Dissertations

How do I find wildness? This question is a central tenant of my work and manifests psychologically and physically in my installation, video and performance work. As the diversity of non-human ecosystems wanes and wildness along with it, I am overwhelmed by idea that the human generated debris might eventually cover the earth and become our new landscape, our new wilderness. I wonder "what do we do with all of this stuff'? In my installations, I play with the materials I gather and accumulate. I construct `ecosystems' often using pedestrian materials such as nylons, fabric, lint and glitter to explore …