Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 721 - 750 of 750

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Sputnik Crisis And America's Response, Ian Kennedy Jan 2005

The Sputnik Crisis And America's Response, Ian Kennedy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, and the Space Age had arrived. While not an American achievement, Sputnik stands as a significant juncture in United States history. This thesis explores the resulting American political crisis, its development in the final three months of 1957, and the impact Sputnik had on American life. The thesis also examines the social and political context of the Sputnik crisis and will challenge some long-standing analysis of how America's reaction to the Soviet satellite developed. To accomplish this task, it was necessary to consult both primary and …


The Legacy Of Andre Smith, Ginny Seibert Jan 2005

The Legacy Of Andre Smith, Ginny Seibert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jules Andre Smith was an architect and an artist with an aspiration to build a retreat where artists could explore and develop new ideas. In the late 1930s, due to the generosity of a benefactor named Mary Louise Curtis Bok, Smith embarked upon an undertaking that fulfilled his ambition. He created a legacy known first as The Research Studio and later as the Maitland Art Center. The intent of this thesis is to document and journey through Smith's legacy, and answer the following two questions: What is the symbolic meaning behind the imagery? Why design six acres of architecture dominated …


Developing Technical Communication Pedagogy For Nonnative Technical Graduate Students, David Sepulveda Jan 2005

Developing Technical Communication Pedagogy For Nonnative Technical Graduate Students, David Sepulveda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to develop a pedagogy for teaching academic writing to nonnative graduate students of technical disciplines in order to give them the skills they need to write papers that they can submit to academic journals and conferences, thereby advancing their careers and gaining recognition for their academic institutions. The work draws on research from the fields of technical communication and second-language acquisition in order to develop pedagogical principles for a class in which nonnative technical graduate students write an academic paper that they can submit for publication. The thesis proposes an approach that incorporates content-based instruction, certain plain …


Hurricane Shoes And Other Stories, Kristie Smeltzer Jan 2005

Hurricane Shoes And Other Stories, Kristie Smeltzer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hurricane Shoes and Other Stories is a collection of short stories that center on evolving and devolving relationships. The characters in these stories form tentative bonds with people in their lives while other relationships slip away. In "Hurricane Shoes," Katrina attempts to reinvent herself by ending an affair. Katrina's pregnancy and her mother's cancer pull the two women closer. "Da's Violets" is about Cheryl's changing relationship with her father. Just as he moves on from the wife who left him for her podiatrist, the wife returns with hopes to reconcile. These stories catch characters in moments when they must make …


Bistro Girls, Vanessa Blakeslee Jan 2005

Bistro Girls, Vanessa Blakeslee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bistro Girls is an interconnected collection of short stories focusing on characters whose lives intertwine in the affluent Floridian town of Bellamy Park. In "Bistro Girls of Bellamy Park," a senior at a privileged college struggles to confront an old friend who has slipped into addiction. In "Bobby Blues," two women's stifling situations with live-in boyfriends give way to a small hope as Valerie casts aside her illusions and leaves to find a new apartment, temporarily freeing herself from the pattern of relying on a man. In these stories people wrestle with flawed concepts of personal identity that create outward …


Plant City, Florida, 1885-1940: A Study In Southern Urban Development, Mark W. Kerlin Jan 2005

Plant City, Florida, 1885-1940: A Study In Southern Urban Development, Mark W. Kerlin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the development of Plant City, Florida as a railroad town developing on the Southwest Florida frontier from 1885-1940. The study chronicles the town's origins and economic, political, and social development in relationship to the broader historical theories of southern urban development, specifically those put forward in David Goldfield's pioneering work, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region 1607-1980. Goldfield contended that southern cities developed differently than their northern counterparts because they were not economically, politically, philosophically and culturally separated from their rural surroundings. Instead, they displayed and retained the positive and negative attributes of southern society …


The Salzburgers' "City On A Hill": The Failure Of A Pietist Vision In Ebenezer, Georgia, 1734-1774, Ashley Elizabeth Moreshead Jan 2005

The Salzburgers' "City On A Hill": The Failure Of A Pietist Vision In Ebenezer, Georgia, 1734-1774, Ashley Elizabeth Moreshead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A group of Protestant refugees from Salzburg founded the town of Ebenezer, Georgia, in 1734. The Pietists at the Francke Foundation in Halle sent two pastors, Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau, to lead the religious immigrants in their new settlement. As other historians have shown, the Halle sponsors wanted Ebenezer to fulfill their own purposes: establish social and religious autonomy under British colonial rule, reproduce the economic structure and institutions of social and religious reform of the Francke Foundation, and establish a successful Pietist ministry in North America. This study examines journals and correspondence from Ebenezer's pastors, British …


The Intellectual History Of Inter-War British Fascists, John Tucci Jan 2005

The Intellectual History Of Inter-War British Fascists, John Tucci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between World Wars I and II, allied forces girded themselves to quash yet another enemy bent on world conquest: fascism. In England, however, the British fascists set about to save what they saw as a dying empire. In an effort to restore Britain's greatness, British fascism held to fascist principles and doctrine to stem the flow of immigration, which fascists saw as darkening the pure British culture. While many of the British fascists strongly admired Nazi Germany's version of fascism, they were unique in that they forged their solutions from social ills that were distinctly British. British fascists were unabashedly …


La Conciencia Política Y Social De Luis Palés Matos: Otra Lectura De Su Poesía, Omar Carmona Sanchez Jan 2005

La Conciencia Política Y Social De Luis Palés Matos: Otra Lectura De Su Poesía, Omar Carmona Sanchez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the decades, poetry has served as a literary vehicle to express and emphasize the emotions of a person. It has provided the substantial drive for the developed and the structure of individuals dedicated to a cause. This is the case of the Puerto Rican poet Luis Pales Matos, a man that used this method to make known the racial differences he found in his country and to clear a way for the Island's independence. Palés Matos dedications have made him one of Puerto Rico most significant poets. His is the first poet in the Spanish language to dedicate part …


Protestant's Guide To Catholic "Nunsense": A Performance Study And Analysis Of "Sister Mary Hubert", Anita Endsley Jan 2005

Protestant's Guide To Catholic "Nunsense": A Performance Study And Analysis Of "Sister Mary Hubert", Anita Endsley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anita Endsley will portray the role of Sister Mary Hubert in the musical Nunsense at Seaside Music Theatre in Daytona Beach, Florida from October 28 through November 14, 2005. This parody of convent life in crisis written by Dan Goggin provides a breadth of material for analysis of the genre as well as character analysis. Dissecting the comedy will be the foundation for characteer development. The popularity of this musical among Catholic and non-Catholic audiences have created a market that inspired the writer to extend this theme through five sequels. The commercial success of these musicals suggest a strong connection …


Elizabeth Tudor: Reconciling Femininity And Authority, Mark Rohrs Jan 2005

Elizabeth Tudor: Reconciling Femininity And Authority, Mark Rohrs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Elizabeth Tudor succeeded to England's throne during a time when misogynist societal ideology questioned the authority of a female monarch. Religious opposition to a woman ruler was based on biblical precedent, which reflected the general attitude that women were inferior to men. Elizabeth's dilemma was reconciling her femininity with her sovereignty, most notably concerning her justification for power, the issue of marriage and succession, and the conflict over the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. The speeches Elizabeth presented to Parliament illuminate her successful solidification of her authority from a feminine gendered position. She established and reinforced her status through …


Truly An Awesome Spectacle: Gender Performativity And The Alienation Effect In Angels In America, Allen Gorney Jan 2005

Truly An Awesome Spectacle: Gender Performativity And The Alienation Effect In Angels In America, Allen Gorney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America uses stereotypical depictions of gay men to deconstruct traditional gender dichotomies. In this thesis, I argue that Kushner has created a continuum of gender performativity to deconstruct these traditional gender dichotomies, thereby empowering the effeminate and disempowering the masculine. I closely examine Kushner's use of Brechtian and Aristotelian tenets in the first Broadway production of the play to demonstrate that Kushner sought to induce social awareness of gay male oppression, contingent on the audience's perception of Kushner's deconstruction of the traditional gender dichotomy. I also scrutinize the role of the closet and its …


Eyes In The Text: Surveying The Ocular Aesthetic In Pat Barker's War Trilogy, James Hammond Jan 2005

Eyes In The Text: Surveying The Ocular Aesthetic In Pat Barker's War Trilogy, James Hammond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1991, British novelist Patricia Barker published Regeneration, the first of three novels that portrayed the exploits of both factual and fictional characters during the darkest days of WWI. Barker's Eye in the Door (1993), followed by The Ghost Road (1995) for which she won the Booker Prize for Fiction, completed the series that explored the effects of combat on the human psyche. What emerges as a dominant feature of Barker's war novels is her depiction of the ocular sense. Reminiscent of Orwellianism, Barker's texts contain a seemingly ubiquitous ocular presence. For example, neurasthenic patients are scrutinized by army psychiatrists, …


A Little Slice Of The Moon: Stories, Fatima Rashid Jan 2005

A Little Slice Of The Moon: Stories, Fatima Rashid

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A Little Slice of the Moon: stories is a collection of short stories that explore the struggles of various characters to find their place in the world. And the world, despite its familiarity, can be a hostile place. The characters in this collection learn that families are a fragile lot, that every desire contains a paradox, that the Road of Life can seemingly be grasped by the horns, but that the future twists and turns, yet never escapes the past. And it is the past that haunts these characters' lives. One word, one act, impacts a lifetime. In A Little …


Only Screen Deep? Evaluating Aesthetics, Usability, And Satisfaction In Informational Websites, Carrie Avery Jan 2005

Only Screen Deep? Evaluating Aesthetics, Usability, And Satisfaction In Informational Websites, Carrie Avery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role aesthetics plays in informational websites. In commercial interfaces, aesthetics (the perceived visual appeal and appropriateness of an object) has shown to correlate positively with many aspects of usability and emotional satisfaction. This thesis examines whether aesthetics has similar positive correlations in informational websites. Heuristics or guidelines for evaluating informational websites are developed based on empirical research and practitioner expertise. Categories for heuristic evaluation include usability, credibility, visual clarity, visual richness, and emotional satisfaction. A class of graduate students browsed three academic websites, evaluated them, and critiqued the heuristics. Results indicate that aesthetics does correlate with …


A Software-Based Knowledge Management System Using Narrative Texts, Thomas Rudy Mcdaniel Jan 2004

A Software-Based Knowledge Management System Using Narrative Texts, Thomas Rudy Mcdaniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technical and professional communicators have in recent research been challenged to make significant contributions to the field of knowledge management, and to learn or create the new technologies allowing them to do so. The purpose of this dissertation is to make such a combined theoretical and applied contribution from the context of the emerging discipline of Texts and Technology. This dissertation explores the field of knowledge management (KM), particularly its relationship to the related study of artificial intelligence (AI), and then recommends a KM software application based on the principles of narratology and narrative information exchange. The focus of knowledge …


The New Girl, Angela Marie Meredith Jan 2004

The New Girl, Angela Marie Meredith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The New Girl is a collection of poems in which the poet assumes a direct, unfeigned voice. These rhythmic poems cover the deeply personal to the universal and social. The body is presented as a record of experiences both good and bad. Feminist issues pertainingto marriage, work, and sexuality are explored. Whether the poem is about a personal relationship or some aspect of society, it is likely to be multi-dimensional and suggest a duality. Overall, the poems are rooted in the spiritual and attempt to relate, with holistic honesty, a sense of reverence for the impure parts of life.


Genre And Persona In Activist Websites, Margaret M.F. Boreman Jan 2004

Genre And Persona In Activist Websites, Margaret M.F. Boreman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Digital texts present significant challenges to technical communicators in terms of genre and persona. Because of the ubiquity of electronic media, we increasingly embrace digital formats over print-based documents. As a result, technical communicators must now devise the means to cue audiences to the purposes of digital documents in any given discourse community. We can only convey meaning to our Internet audiences through the use of appropriate standards and elements recognizable generic forms and rhetorical cues that we designate as conventions in specific digital discourse. Just as we use file and folder office metaphors for information stored on computers, digital …


Trackers, Robin Rozanski Jan 2004

Trackers, Robin Rozanski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trackers is a collection of short stories that attest to the oddities and complexities found even in the non-exotic middle-class American suburbs. The characters in these stories experience disappointments that result from the physical and emotional distancing of families. In "Tokens," a woman's attempts at revenge on her cheating husband are unsatisfying because she ends up feeling more alone than before. In "Trackers," eleven-year old Richard hunts for Bigfoot as he and his family cope with the emotional aftermath of his sister's suicide attempt. In these stories people struggle to maintain normalcy in their lives--sometimes through inappropriate means. When their …


Getting To The Pulp Of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood: Translatability And The Role Of Popular Culture, Jacquelyn Zuromski Jan 2004

Getting To The Pulp Of Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood: Translatability And The Role Of Popular Culture, Jacquelyn Zuromski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood (1987) veers from his favored detective-fiction genre by offering readers a 1960s coming-of-age romance, a story whose plot nonetheless spins around the protagonist seeking out his personal identity. The conflicts between Japanese tradition and modern, global perspectives are illustrated through the inclusion of popular culture elements such as music, literature and films. This thesis seeks to show how the novel's references to popular culture of the 1960s combine to help the protagonist establish an identity for himself as well as his place within the universal community. First, though, the project explores the impact of the translatability …


The Challenge Of Playing Multiple Arthurian Characters, Cynthia Lowa Jan 2004

The Challenge Of Playing Multiple Arthurian Characters, Cynthia Lowa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the portrayal of multiple roles in a production of Camelot, written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Performance and content analysis identifies and explores the difficulties and challenges in portraying multiple roles in this production, including the understudying of the leading role of Guenevere. A detailed historical analysis provides background into origin of the Arthurian legend and an examination of its historical development. A social analysis provides information on the role of women in medieval society with a discussion of the customs and laws that applied to them. Furthermore, a structural analysis of the script examines …


The Merry Wives Of Windsor: A University Actress's Approach To The Role Of Mistress Ford, Brook Akya Hanemann Jan 2004

The Merry Wives Of Windsor: A University Actress's Approach To The Role Of Mistress Ford, Brook Akya Hanemann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Art is too ethereal a thing to judge by tangible measure. There is no scale to weigh a performance on, no level to gauge a character’s balance, no plumb line to measure its depth. No critic can appoint an allotment of stars to represent the worth of a production, and the audience, though a vital participant within the performance experience, cannot act as Jury and deliberate together to reach an absolute verdict of approval or disapproval. How then can an actor go about working towards giving a successful performance? The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at a time when …


Minutes From Pragma, Juan M. Martinez Jan 2004

Minutes From Pragma, Juan M. Martinez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Minutes from Pragma is a collection of twelve pieces--a memoir, five short stories, and six short-shorts--exploring ways in which estranged characters may find refuge from chaos and entropy. These stories attempt to deal with bleakness and despair through playfulness and humor. In Enterprise Carolina: A Capsule Review, time has stopped, but somehow everyday life goes on as usual. In Errands, children work in razorblade factories. In Roadblock, the narrator lives with a relative who repeatedly sets his possessions on fire. The collection concentrates on hardship and alienation, but suggests ways in which characters may confront and endure hard times. Characters' …


A Rhetoric Of Technology: The Discourse In U.S. Army Manuals And Handbooks, Sherry Ann Steward Jan 2004

A Rhetoric Of Technology: The Discourse In U.S. Army Manuals And Handbooks, Sherry Ann Steward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the historical technical publications of the United States Army from 1775-2004. Historical research in Army technical communication reveals the persuasive characteristics of its technical publications. Elements of narrative, storytelling, and anthropomorphism are techniques writers used to help deliver information to readers. Research also reveals the design techniques writers adopted to unite the situated literacies of the troops. Analyses of print, comic, and digital media expose the increasing visualization of information since the eighteenth century. The results of such historical research can be applied to new media designs. Automating processes captured in paper-based technical manuals and adding intelligent …


Mikado Lighting Design, Adrienne M. Becker Jan 2004

Mikado Lighting Design, Adrienne M. Becker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis will encompass the completion of the lighting design for W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's opera The Mikado and a post-production written documentation of the entire production process. The thesis will involve the completion of a lighting design with all of its accompanying paperwork generated in AutoCAD and Excel. The design will require lights for a two-act, multi-locational musical. Lights will need to provide a bright environment that can transform to the various locales. The entire design process will involve close communication with the entire design team, the director and the shop crew. As lighting designer, I …


Il Pazzia D'Innamorati: A Commedia Dell'arte, Jennifer Hart Jan 2004

Il Pazzia D'Innamorati: A Commedia Dell'arte, Jennifer Hart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis proposal is to research, workshop, develop, script, direct and produce my own commedia dell'arte. This proposal stems from my desire to explore improvisational comedy theoretically and practically. The genre of commedia dell'arte is not only timeless, but continues to further our ability to create characters and scenario for future projects as the root of improvisation. By coupling research on commedia components (character, lazzi and scenario) with the creation of an improvisational troupe, a commedia piece will be developed, documented and performed. The first part of my thesis will consist of research on the history of improvisational comedy. The …


Gravity Fails, Kereth Cowe-Spigai Jan 2004

Gravity Fails, Kereth Cowe-Spigai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gravity Fails is a collection of four short stories and two memoirs that explore the ways in which characters adjust and fit into to a world that is destructive, fragmented and sometimes alien. Many of these pieces deal not with the moment of crisis, but with the aftermath. In "Gravity Fails," the young Danielle struggles to feel safe after the violent murder of her mother. Eliza Morrison negotiates the disappearance of her husband in "More Colors." "Following Rebecca" chronicles a woman's return to normalcy after her alcoholic husband divorces her. These characters are not happy; they are not healthy. Their …


Assumption, William Hinton Jan 2004

Assumption, William Hinton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Assumption is the story of a slave named Nathan living in a racially hostile environment in antebellum and post-Civil War Louisiana. Assumption Parish was the kind of place where slaves were whipped frequently, where disease and rustic living were the normal course of life, where the swamp, with all its savage foreboding, loomed nearby. It was a place, Nathan discovered, that traded in men's spirits, breaking them little by little for purposes that were difficult for him to comprehend. Like many slaves of his time, Nathan is raised without biological parents. His surrogate mother, Abbie, longs for the day when …


'A Man's World'?: A Study Of Female Workers At Nasa's Kennedy Space C, Nanci Schwartz Jan 2004

'A Man's World'?: A Study Of Female Workers At Nasa's Kennedy Space C, Nanci Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By focusing on women workers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this study seeks to understand why women were initially congregated in certain occupations such as clerical work and later moved into non-traditional jobs such as engineering and the sciences. Such an investigation requires careful examination of the changing attitudes towards female workers in technical or non-traditional fields and why and how those attitudes changed over time and the extent to which this occurred. It also attempts to identify areas of continuing concern. The study reveals that several factors contributed to the women's progress in the workplace. These included …


Set A Light In A Dark Place: Teachers Of Freedmen In Florida, 1863-18, Laura Wakefield Jan 2004

Set A Light In A Dark Place: Teachers Of Freedmen In Florida, 1863-18, Laura Wakefield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the Civil War closed and Reconstruction began, a small army of teachers arrived in Florida. Under the auspices of northern aid societies, churches, and educational associations, they proposed to educate the newly emancipated slaves, believing that education would prepare African Americans for citizenship. Teachers found Florida's freedmen determined to acquire literacy by whatever means they could, but they faced a white populace resistant to outsiders. Reformers, politicians, literate blacks, and Yankee businessmen intent on socially, politically, and economically transforming Florida joined educators in reconstructing Florida. Florida's educational system transformed during Reconstruction, and an examination of the reciprocity between Reconstruction-era …