Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Postmortem Objectification: A Spectacle Of Human Remains In German Museums, Helen Martin

Masters Theses

The net of scientific entitlement is woven from a single thread that extends from German colonialism to present-day exhibits like Körperwelten. The work of physical anthropologists in Germany and the development of the field from the late 1800s offers insight into the creation and continuity of scientific entitlement to the body of individuals deemed to be ‘others’. Museums and their exhibits embody the intentionality of the curators and researchers, and communicate these intentions to the visitors through curation and exhibit design choices. The inclusion of human remains in exhibits should be considered carefully as to be respectful of the individuals, …

The Digital Face Of Airpower: Asymmetry, Artificial Intelligence And Intimate Combat In The Twenty-First Century United States Air Force, Jordan Bolster

Masters Theses

Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) operators have been at war for over twenty-years using unmanned aerial vehicles to kill combat enemies half-a-world away. Their emotional experiences provide an opportunity to examine intimacy in warfare which can be compared and contrasted with conventional pilots and traditional rifle-bearing ground troops. By comparing and contrasting specific emotions felt across various combat environments and technologies, it is possible to answer the question of whether or not RPA operators are legitimate warriors or legitimated assassins. The implementation of RPA operators in combat zones and the proliferation of unmanned technology on the battlefield open up new questions …

A Character And A Fame To Model Their Own: Statesmanship, Masculinity, And Honor In Northern Political Culture, 1852-1874, Rachel Elise Wiedman

Masters Theses

The advent of the 1850s ushered in a period great change in the United States. Finding themselves in a moment of transition punctuated with a political changing of the guard, Americans were prompted to consider what kinds of political leadership they valued in the midst of sectional conflict and crisis. By the 1870s, the ideals northerners held looked very different than those touted only two decades before. Using the eulogies of Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, and Charles Sumner, this thesis explores how changing ideals of masculinity drove the transformation of northern political culture and in particular its values regarding …

Love On The Spectrum: Djuna Barnes’S Case Against Categorization In Nightwood, Kaitlyn A. Alford

Masters Theses

Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood is a challenging and beautiful text that continues to confound readers almost 100 years after its original publication. Though the text is often read as a “lesbian” novel, I consider the possibilities available when we read this text instead with a more open queerness in mind. By looking at the novel’s treatment of image, time, history, gender, sexuality, and identity, a new way of reading is revealed which rejects moves of taxonomization and categorization. This thesis explores how Barnes challenges dominant modes of representation and understanding, not to be a simple contrarian, but to present a new …

Bluegrass: A Voicing, Cade Botts

Masters Theses

In 2010, Fred Bartenstein’s detailed the voice stackings found in bluegrass in his article “Bluegrass Voicings.” [1]This paper will go beyond this discussion of the arrangement of voices to an examination of the harmonic voicing styles found in bluegrass music. Stamps-Braxter’s 1937 arrangement of “Farther Along”[2] and transcriptions of recordings by bluegrass legends Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers, Reno & Smiley, the Osborne Brothers, Dolly Parton, and the Grascals will be used as a case study to look at multiple chord voicings. Based on the analyses of these transcriptions, a list of “voice leading conventions” for bluegrass compositions will …

The Internet Isn’T Forever: Early Internet Fan Archives, Their Stewards, Lifespans, And The Political Nature Of The Deaths Of Their Queer Communities, Grey D. Mangan

Masters Theses

The concept of a “forever Internet” has been pervasive in the modern digital age, but the degradation of fan archives from the late 1990s and 2000s seems to tell a different story; as such, we find ourselves in the midst of a Digital Dark Age and we are losing independent digital fan archives quickly- what is happening and how can we save this digital cultural memory, particularly queer cultural memory? To lose these fan archives is to lose valuable insight into the lives and communities of the individuals who interacted in these spaces. By utilizing the lenses of play, theft, …

Urbanization On The Landscape Of The Old City: An Archaeological Investigation Of Site 40kn223 In Knoxville, Tennessee, Garrett B. Wamack

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine the effects of urbanization on the landscape and the people who lived upon it at archaeological site 40KN223 within the Old City in Knoxville, Tennessee. This landscape analysis focuses particularly on the decades from 1850 to 1920 during the birth and growth of the Old City. Amid the rising tides of commercialization, industrialization, and the flood-prone waters of First Creek, residents established a working-class neighborhood on the fringe of a substantial African American community. I examine this neighborhood and the transformation of its immediate landscape to understand how urbanization impacted its transformation, to learn who …

When “A Haircut Is Not Just A Haircut”: The Embodied Deconversions Of Former Pentecostal And Holiness Women, Casey Renee Kellogg

Masters Theses

Women of Pentecostal and Holiness belief traditions are known for embodying their faith through a set of dress standards which prevent women from cutting their hair, prohibit any form of pants, jewelry, or makeup, and require they adopt various forms of “modest” attire. While there has been significant scholarship on the social and personal significance of women’s religious dress among church members, there is little to no information about how former Pentecostal and Holiness women perceive these dress standards. Furthermore, while scholars have explored the concept of deconversion, specifically as told through narrative from a more general vantage point, there …

A Game Of Hazard, Per Chance: Reading Dice Games And Predestined Action In Troilus And Criseyde And Troilus And Cressida, Emma O. Corbin

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the references to the dice game Hazard in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Folio version of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida as means to expand the understanding of Troilus’s ability to act as an agent of change within his predetermined story. Utilizing Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens as the foundation for game and play, this work focuses on Hazard as a game of chance present in both works. As a dice game that relies entirely on chance, Hazard is a game and a place of moral and religious anxiety as demonstrated through a survey of dice-based divination and …

Fortune, Fate, And Free Will: Chaucer’S Encounters With Providence, Ciara Jane Turula

Masters Theses

It’s easy to assume that the world is innately unstable as Chaucer seems to do in the short poems “Truth”, “Lak of Stedfastnesse”, “The Forger Age” and “Gentilesse”, and yet we are called to wonder with the Black Knight in The Book of the Duchess how any divine authority could let this be the case. As Lady Philosophy informs readers in Boece, the world is not really Fortune’s chaotic kingdom of unreliability. Instead, the Earth and all that happens within it has already been laid out in the plan of Providence, which unravels regardless of whether individuals are aware …

Neurodiversity In Sense And Sensibility And Emma: Jane Austen’S Heroines And Their Cognitive Difference, Alexandra Sausa

Masters Theses

There is a dearth of criticism that analyzes Jane Austen’s characters through the lens of neurodivergence — that is, an umbrella term for neurological difference, or behavior and cognitive processing that differs from what is “typical”. Although Austen has male characters that have been read as neurodivergent, this thesis will principally focus on two of Austen’s neurodivergent heroines: Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse. To support neurodivergent interpretations of these heroines, I will supplement close readings of Sense and Sensibility and Emma with social science and psychological literature. Marianne exhibits numerous traits that characterize Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and Emma exhibits …

A Portfolio, Samuel Webb

Masters Theses

This master’s thesis is a portfolio of essays that were submitted to the philosophy department of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in order to complete the competency requirements of the PhD program. This portfolio contains three essays that fall under each of the three broad divisions that are typically used to categorize the disparate areas of discourse that philosophy encompasses: ELMS, value theory, and the history of philosophy. In “Defending Practical Attitude Intellectualism”, I reconstruct an attempt by Yuri Cath to put forward an analysis of practical knowledge which synthesizes elements from two competing analyses of practical knowledge. Next, …

Horned & Hidden Child: The Minotaur & Modern Opera, Mikeila Ashley Mcqueston

Masters Theses

Picture a world in which stories never die. Just down the street is the Halfway House for the Mythically Challenged, where fairytale creatures learn how to prepare for job-interviews. This is the world of Pasiphae, a beautiful sorceress, queen, and former wife of the ancient King Minos. After millennia on her own, she enlists the help of her Greek Chorus to rescue her children from their respective prisons – first Ariadne from the island Naxos, and now the Minotaur from Daedalus’ labyrinth. Horned & Hidden Child is a contemporary opera with music by Mikeila McQueston and libretto by Nicole Yackley. …

“Vom Verstehen Rede Ich Vorsichtshalber Nicht”: Discourses Of Memory And German-Jewish Literature In Selected Literary Award Speeches By Barbara Honigmann, Achim Schmid

Masters Theses

The literary prize speeches of German-Jewish author Barbara Honigmann make up only a small part of her mainly narrative oeuvre, yet they are relevant to her writing. On the one hand, they provide insights into the difficulties of being a German-Jewish author in the twenty-first century, on the other hand, they are also politically significant. In them, Honigmann recalls the crimes of the National Socialists against the Jewish population during the Third Reich, as well as the suffering under the socialist dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic.

Analyzing three of her speeches that were delivered between 2001 and 2015 in …

On The Possibility Of Single Correct Answers In Legal Interpretation, Francis Kwame Nyamekeh Jr

Masters Theses

My thesis examines Dworkin’s claim that there are objectively correct answers to controversial legal questions, and hence moral questions. A given moral statement is objectively true if it is true independently of what anyone believes or thinks about it. Dworkin asserts that the truth or objectivity of any moral claim depends solely on moral arguments. On the contrary, Leiter claims that any moral argument in favour of moral objectivity is empty and entails counterintuitive conclusions. Thus, moral arguments are neither necessary nor sufficient to support claims about moral objectivity.

Leiter nevertheless proposes that any forceful argument in favour of moral …

Filmmaking As A Practice In Critical Theory, Cora M. Lay

Masters Theses

This multi-part project pulls together all my fields of research under the umbrella of my ultimate interest– agriculture and its future. The film portion focuses on regional and seasonal agriculture in Southern Germany near Lake Constance. It focuses on several families who do small-scale agricultural production utilizing various methods but ultimately touches on our current disconnect from our food systems and nature. The written portion found in this document focuses on filmmaking as a practice in critical theory, a tool to visualize what written theory cannot. Filming happened over a three-week period in Summer 2021for the portion shot in Germany. …

Total Physical Response Storytelling With Undergraduate Foreign Language Learners: Exploring Vocabulary Growth, Eva M. Jones

Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes the effectiveness of two pedagogical techniques used in foreign language teaching on vocabulary growth in a university setting: Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS) and a more traditional approach that does not involve storytelling. Over two sessions taking place a week apart, participants were separated into either the Control group or the Experimental group. Each group learned the same list of vocabulary words in the treatment session. While the Control group learned the target vocabulary through a traditional method, the Experimental group learned the vocabulary through a story. In the introduction, TPRS’s origins are reviewed as well as …

Psychological Flexibility, Music Performance Anxiety, And Perceived Performance Quality: A Correlational Study With University Music Students, Tracy Lianne Viator

Masters Theses

Despite the pervasiveness of music performance anxiety (MPA) among musicians, the scientific literature on effective psychological interventions is relatively limited. While some MPA researchers regard cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) as the best suited psychotherapeutic option, others position acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as both a promising treatment for MPA and means of performance enhancement. A third-wave behavioral therapy, ACT stands apart from traditional CBT in that the treatment does not attempt to reduce symptoms, but rather aims to increase psychological flexibility: the ability to contact the present moment with full awareness and engage in values-congruent action, even if doing so elicits …

The Rhythm Of The Land: Women’S Use Of Plants During The Pigeon Phase Of Magic Waters (31jk291) In Cherokee, North Carolina, Kelly Dean Santana

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the paleoethnobotanical remains of the Pigeon phase village component of the Magic Waters site, 31JK291. The Pigeon phase represented the early Middle Woodland period in the western North Carolina region and spans from approximately 200 BC to AD 200, situated in between the earlier Swannanoa phase (1000 BC to 200 BC) and the later Connestee phase (AD 200 to AD 800; Ward and Davis 1999). The site of Magic Waters is located adjacent to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel in Cherokee, Jackson County, North Carolina, among the Blue Ridge ecoregion of the Appalachian Summit. The site …

Film Women Violence, Madison R. Ross

Masters Theses

As a condensed version of social reality, film has become a more common object of modern sociological and criminological investigation. As such, we can explore film to understand taken-for-granted as well as innovative constructions of social phenomena. Among these are gendered violence. We can use film to dig deep into its logics, elaborated in visual and narrative representations. Prior literature has analyzed crime films and the behavioral constructions within them, outlining the representations of serial homicide, rape, mass shootings and revenge. However, few studies have outlined films that do meaningful, non-voyeuristic representational work on the issue of violence against …

Unpacking Personal Identity And Necessary Decision Properties To Improve Medical Decision-Making On Behalf Of Cognitively Declined Patients Without Capacity, Dakotah Marie Kinsella

Masters Theses

What does it mean to understand another person? Suppose physical information alone is insufficient for fully understanding another person. Suppose further that John Locke’s theory of continuity of consciousness (if a person can extend into the past and still be conscious of past experiences and be conscious of what is happening in their present life, then they are the same person) being necessary for maintaining personal identity is correct. In applying these theories to my argument regarding how “no individual can possess all the same conscious experiences as another” due to the private, subjectivity of the self resulting in “no …

Reviewer Perceptions Of Englishes In The International Journal Of Nuclear Security, Rachel Brooks

Masters Theses

Linguistic bias in academic publishing, the idea that a manuscript would be rejected due to its language alone, is a growing area of concern and study. Scholars are particularly concerned that EAL (English as an Additional Language, often referred to as “non-native”) writers face this bias more than first-language English authors. The research on linguistic bias relies on understanding the perceptions about language that belong to reviewers, authors, and other parties involved in publication. This MA thesis project investigates peer reviewer perceptions of English language usage in the manuscripts that they review using the International Journal of Nuclear Security (IJNS) …

Relocating Community To The Virtual: Sound Knowledge, Affective Listening, And The (Dis)Embodying Of Sound And Space, Zachery D. Coffey

Masters Theses

Music within Protestant church communities frequently reduces the distinction between performers and audience, emphasizing the collective, participatory role of all congregation members, in manners of music making similar to those discussed by Thomas Turino. This dynamic helps establish individual and communal identities. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, church communities saw changes in their services, music, and ways of life. Meeting in a physical building proved impossible due to the dangers of COVID-19 and many churches mitigated these dangers by streaming, recording, and posting services online. Between 2020 and 2022, I observed and participated in changes to technological production …

Plants And People: Foraging To Farming Foodway Transition From Late Archaic To Early Woodland In Western North Carolina, U.S.A., Catherine Linn Herring

Masters Theses

During the Late Archaic to Early Woodland Transition, 3,200 years B.P. [Before Present], some gathering communities in the Eastern Woodlands began to increase their cultivation of plants. While archaeologists have located several sites in the Upper Tennessee River Valley and near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee that explicitly show an increase in plant cultivation, less research has focused on the North Carolina Appalachian Summit Region. This paper uses paleoethnobotanical data and spatial analysis of site locations to explore cultivation and settlement patterns in Jackson and Swain Counties, North Carolina. Data include site locations obtained from the North …

The Coming Of The Anatolians: Mobility, Conflict, And Piracy In The Early Bronze Age Aegean, Natalie M. Yeagley

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possibility that piracy was practiced in the Aegean Sea region in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000-2000 BCE), by utilizing archaeological evidence to examine the prevalence and nature of violence in this region in this period. Piracy was most likely an aspect of the great surge in mobility, wealth, and conflict that characterized the extension of the Anatolian Trade Network (ATN) from the eastern Aegean into the central and western Aegean around 2550/2500-2100 BCE. I will trace the movement and examine the impact of tangible materials such as Anatolian architecture, metals, ceramics, and ships, and their …

Choice-Based Games And Resilience Building Of Gender Non-Conforming Individuals: An Exploratory Study, Yuri M. Cantrell

Masters Theses

Research on gaming and user experience of the general population has been abundant, but gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals’ experiences had been largely overlooked until recent years. Using a phenomenological approach, the goal of this study is to find deeper understanding of this phenomenon by exploring what gaming experiences shape the identity of the participants. The exploration of gaming and gender non-conforming experiences through interviews can fill a gap in the current literature on gaming culture regarding this specific population. By taking a closer look at this topic, patterns and themes within games may provide insight to potential resilience building activities …

Hagenheim Series By Melanie Dickerson: Creating Active Fairy Tale Heroines With The Christian Feminist Voice, Skylar R. Blankenship

Masters Theses

Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm; these four men are the great authors and compilers of western canon fairy tales. They may have created the canon, but others have expanded it through multiple means, including adaptations. One current author is Melanie Dickerson with the Hagenheim Series. Her adaptations alter the setting, characters, and a few other elements, but the most critical part of her work is the addition of the Christian-feminist voice. In the original fairy tales, the female protagonists were passive and uninspiring, but in Hagenheim, they are active heroines because Christianity and feminist ideas …

Covid-19 Renters And Housing Instability: Combatting The Eviction Epidemic During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Knox County, Tennessee, Samantha B. Myers-Miller

Masters Theses

COVID-19 has exacerbated preexisting inequities in Knox County, Tennessee. The disruption to employment caused by the pandemic has imposed a great financial burden for many individuals who rent housing. The primary relief that was afforded to renters during the pandemic was enabled by a federal eviction moratorium order, where covered renters could defer payments to avoid eviction while the moratorium was in effect. Some additional rental assistance was provided to local governments through the federal CARES Act pandemic relief package. Despite these provisions, many people experienced housing crises in Knox County, where over 3,000 renters have faced eviction filing from …

There Can Be But The One Ezra Pound: Rearticulating Hugh Selwyn Mauberley As Modernist Autobiography, Joshua H. Moore

Masters Theses

Ezra Pound took Eliot’s theory of Literary Impersonality seriously and rejected biographical readings of his poetry. Yet, his poem Hugh Sewlyn Mauberley contains explicitly autobiographical material, which is directly related to the poem’s meaning and has been referenced repeatedly in historical criticism of the poem. This creates a paradox of interpretation, in which the poem’s interpretive meaning stands in contrast with the author’s preferred style of interpretation. The intent of this Thesis is to work within this paradox by applying new criticism on literary autobiography to the poem; specifically the work of Max Saunders, Kevin Wong, and Hannah Sullivan. As …

Exchange And Social Interaction In The Tennessee River Valley: A Geospatial Approach To The Analysis Of Late Archaic Archaeological Sites, Justin S. Bailey

Masters Theses

The cultural manifestation known as the Shell Mound Archaic persisted in the lower Midwest and Midsouth region of the Eastern United States for over four millennia beginning in the Middle Archaic ca. 8900 cal BP and terminating at the end of the Late Archaic ca 3200 cal BP. A geospatial approach is applied to the analysis of exotic material exchange of the Late Archaic (ca. 5800-3200 cal BP) to assess how foraging peoples in the Tennessee River Valley interacted and persisted during this time. Exotic material items manufactured from copper, marine shell, steatite, and other nonlocal materials demonstrate distinct spatial …