Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Form And Matter In Kant's Theoretical Philosophy, Aaron Higgins-Brake

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the use of the terms “form” and “matter” in Kant’s theoretical philosophy from his earliest publications up to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). I argue that these two concepts have received unfortunately little attention in the development of Kant’s thought and in his mature writings. I begin in Chapter One by examining his increasing use of them in his pre-critical writings culminating in the Inaugural Dissertation (1770), where he first develops his theory of space as a form of intuition. Then in Chapters Two to Five, I examine his account of them in his accounts of …

Place And Placelessness: An Ecocritical Approach Towards The Mountain Imagery In Country Music, Siyuan Ma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing upon cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan’s frame of place and placelessness, this ecocritical project explores how the mountain landscapes serve to construct regional, national, cultural, spiritual, religious, even racialized identities in various human societies. Using the U.S. country music as a primary example, I argue that what country music fundamentally draws from the imagery of the Appalachian Mountains is not the Anglo-Saxon ballad music or pastoral lifestyle of/from the mountains, but the powerful sense of place and placelessness (arguably only) the mountainous scenes are capable to provoke. This exploration serves to illuminate the commonalties between humanities of different cultures and …

Made In The Divine Image: The Interface Of Boki Concepts And Pontifical Biblical Commission's Reading Of Genesis 1-2, Luther Raymond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Certain images facilitate tailoring our perception of ourselves and the rest of creation in positively practical ways, but others lead us astray and disfigure our relationships. Christians acknowledge that humans are made in the divine image, yet we allow the domineering presence of destructive frames and perceptions to counter our being divine image-bearers. This dissertation explores the intersection of the Boki Beri-be/Keredede motif and the language of the presentation of Genesis 1-2 in the 2019 Pontifical Biblical Commission Document What Is Man? calling for a recognition that humans are the embodiment of the divine presence in creation with a calling …

The Impact Of H. L. Hunt's Contribution To The East Texas Oil Boom: Exhibit Planning And Fabrication, Ashley N. Watson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The East Texas Oil Boom was a major event in Texas history that elevated the oil industry in Texas to new levels. It brought new jobs, and a new style of work and living to the state. The boom attracted businessmen such as H. L. Hunt and Clint Murchison. H. L. Hunt was a prominent figure in the East Texas Oil Boom, who established a multifaceted corporation and influenced statewide legislation for hot oil and proration. Hunt, who chose to make money at any cost, was often viewed as untrustworthy and deceptive but his business practices were lucrative, and he …

Celebrating The Texas Centennial: A National Register Nomination For The Stone Fort Museum, Melanie Caddel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the 1920s, the idea of commemorating one hundred years of Texas independence sparked an interest in Texas history. Texas boosters held meetings leading up to the 1936 Texas Centennial and planned how to celebrate and bring public awareness to Texas history. In addition to the exposition in Dallas, many towns and cities across the state celebrated the 1936 Texas Centennial with smaller fairs, erected monuments, museums, restored historic buildings, and completed other projects. As a testament to local and state history, the Stone Fort Museum has lacked the national recognition it deserves as a representation of early Nacogdoches history …

Transatlantic Memory And Identity: The Legacy Of Colonel Heg And The 15th Wisconsin In Norway And Norwegian America, Remi Berg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While memory studies of the American Civil War flourishes, ethnic and immigrant perspectives remain obscured. This project attempts to uncover how Norwegian-Americans remembered the 6000 Norwegian immigrants who fought in the Union Army. It explores the processes behind commemoration of Colonel Hans Christian Heg and the 15th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment from 1914 to 1928. It reveals that Norwegian-Americans commemorated Colonel Heg on three different and connected levels. Nationally, Norwegian-Americans raised a statue of Heg in Wisconsin after the individual determination of Waldemar Ager to challenge nativism and Americanization. Transnationally, Ager cooperated with the organization Nordmands-Forbundet who facilitated the erection of …

The Effects Of Covid-19 On Asian American Perception Of Mental Health, Emily Tseung

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study describes a qualitative study using a grounded theory, constructivist approach, which sampled (N = 6) Asian American college students who lived in the United States during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Research shows that COVID significantly impacted the Asian American perception of mental health, including mental health help- seeking behaviors and discrimination experienced. The long-term effects of this are still largely unknown. In depth, semi-structured interviews were used to explore the lived experiences of these Asian Americans. Qualitative analysis revealed thematic differences for the following themes: (a) experience with mental illness, (b) mental health help- seeking …

The Elephant In The Baithak: Tabla And Audio Technological Discourse, Tyler Thom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses how power, status, and performance practices play out between performers of tabla (North Indian hand drums) and audio engineers. To do so, I analyze engineer, performer, and music critic discourse surrounding tabla performances and technology to place it within a broader scholarly debate regarding recording technology, cultural/technological capital, technological determinism, and agency. I extend Christopher Scales’s (2012) concept of “recording culture” to “live sound culture,” or the behaviors, power struggles, and labor surrounding tabla mic’ing and amplification. I argue that audio technology separates the artist’s sound into several domains of control (stage, hall, recording, playback), each controlled …

Resisting The Historical And Geographical “Other”: The Role Of Expertise In Video Game Music, Tommy Dainko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video games create rich, virtual worlds for players to explore. Game developers have often utilized exoticism, allowing players to experience the “Other” from the comfort of home. Music is a powerful tool to evoke Otherness and can reinforce stereotypes about the past and different cultures. This thesis looks at recent games where developers have collaborated with expert musicians either from the culture depicted or with expertise in historical performance practices. I document two purposes these collaborations can serve. First, the use of expert musicians creates a veneer of authenticity allowing developers to market the games as “authentic” experiences. Second, these …

Reconciling Moral Dissonance: A Framework For Re-Integrating Moral Orientation With Life Agency During Warfighters’ Struggles With Military Moral Injury, Jeffrey L. Zust

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses case studies to critically examine the Three Mirror Model (TMM) as a framework for understanding the formation and healing of Military Moral Injury (MMI). I adapt the work of Stephen Brookfield and Neal Krause to evaluate using the TMM as a methodology for dealing with the complex issues of MMI within a military deployment cycle (training, warfighting, and healing) (Brookfield 2012, 2017; Krause 2022). Specifically, I use theorists, researchers, healers, and warfighters as key stakeholders to identify and critically examine the intersections of disciplines and the subsets of models where warfighters’ moral orientations and moral agency form …

Picturesque Portraiture: The Composition Of Reality In Hawthorne, Melville, And James, Angela Michael Gattuso Densmore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the nineteenth century, American artists were tangled in debates regarding the representation of reality. The Hudson River School of picturesque landscape painters tackled this dilemma with a compromise formula which used the real objects of nature to create ideal scenes. This dissertation applies the same picturesque formula to select examples of literary portraiture, studied under the concept of “picturesque portraiture.” Whereas the Hudson River compromise resulted in an ideal perception of reality, however, the picturesque portraits composed by nineteenth-century authors Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James attempt to invoke a non-idealized “actual” reality of the portrait subject’s person …

A Phenomenology Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Chinese International Students In The Us During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Linlin Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study investigates the lived experiences of Chinese international students during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to delve into how these individuals articulate their experiences during the pandemic, with a particular focus on how their geographical location influenced their experiences. To achieve this, the study employs an innovative approach, integrating a phenomenological method with comparative analysis to elucidate the similarities and differences between students who remained in the US and those who returned to China.

The analysis identified four principal themes among students in the US: 1) Online Learning Challenges, (2) Social Life Adaptation, (3) …

Culturally Responsive Coaching: Supervision With A Cultural Lens, Jouanna Crossland-Wells

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Culturally Responsive Practices (CRP) are a focal point for many districts across the country. The emphasis of CRP is on how the institution enacts policies and practices for the benefit of the students they serve. This study views CRP from a different lens. The focus of this study is to 1.) center the voice of Black teachers and 2.) explore culturally responsive practices for the support and edification of the teacher from their coach/supervisor. The eight Black teacher participants and their instructional coaches engaged in interviews discussing current coaching models and the dynamics of their coaching relationships.

The relevant findings …

Navigating University Of Denver As A Latinx Male-Identifying Undergraduate Student, Quisi Rodriguez-Oregel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students of color continuously persist at a lower rate than their white counterparts in higher education. Particularly for Latinx males, the number is lower than Latinx women. Universities have incorporated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies to focus on their diverse student population and address issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Despite these efforts, low retention rates for Latinx males persist. This study explores how Latinx male undergraduate students navigate a predominantly white institution as well as explore some of the challenges of DEI efforts at that institution. I conducted participant observations at the University of Denver (DU) and …

Radical Hospitality: Height And Excess Of The Other And The New Host Self, Diako Alikhani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical framework and its emphasis on the “height and excess” of “the Other,” this thesis explores and develops a sense of “radical hospitality” in Levinas and across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In particular, the thesis explores how encounter with the Other is not only marked by an overwhelming excess, but one which transforms the subject into what I call a “New Host Self:” Where the self is the host who greets the stranger with hospitality, it is ultimately the stranger—the refugee, the migrant—who transforms the host into someone new. Here, the host ultimately receives a gift …

Self-Efficacy And Racial Identity For Undergraduate Music Majors, Rachel E. Lim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students’ identities can impact their self-efficacy, or their confidence in their ability to succeed in producing a desired outcome (Bandura, 1997; Klassen, 2004a; Klassen 2004b; Oettingen, 1995; Usher & Pajares, 2008); however, little peer-reviewed research explores the relationship between racial identity and self-efficacy for undergraduate music majors. In the United States, undergraduate music students of color often navigate educational experiences where they do not find their identities represented in the curricula (Ewell, 2020), their faculty (Higher Education Arts Data Services [HEADS], 2020), or their fellow students (HEADS, 2020).

This convergent mixed methods study utilized the theoretical framework of critical race …

Sources Of Sexual And Romantic Education: Associations With Sexual Minority Men’S Sexual Experiences And Romantic Relationship Quality, Charlie Huntington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with sexual minority identities experience a variety of poorer mental and physical health outcomes, including those related to sexual and romantic quality, relative to heterosexual individuals (Beaulieu et al., 2017; CDC, 2021). These poorer romantic, sexual, and psychological outcomes may be attributable in part to lacking access to affirmative and relevant modeling of sexual minority experiences, such as through sex education (Gillespie et al., 2022; Keiser et al., 2019). This study aimed to understand how sexual minority men learn – in ways potentially both helpful and unhelpful – about romantic relationships and sexual activity, and how these experiences are …

The Transformation Of Arab Narrative From Oral To Virtual Reality: A Media Ecology Perspective, Eman Alaslani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the evolution of communication in Arab culture from orality to virtual reality (VR). Through the lens of media ecology, it investigates the development of media technologies, particularly VR, and their influence on Arab storytelling, communication, and cultural identity. Making use of the theoretical perspectives of Marshall McLuhan, Walter J. Ong, and Neil Postman, this project explores the potential of VR to reshape Arab storytelling and cultural expression. The paper further discusses the historical, social, and technological dimensions of VR as a medium with the power to alter human communication and perception. This project surveys the effects of …

Ejagham Mysticism In The Funeral Practices Of The Mgbe (Ekpe) And Moninkim Institutions: Insights For Research Methodology And Theological Epistemology., Besem Etchi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The knowledge of the divine broadens and deepens as each location contributes the history, elements, and practices related to its divine revelation. This dissertation contributes from the Ejagham locations of Cameroon and Nigeria. The Ejagham precolonial institutions of Moninkim and Mgbe (Ekpe) were tuition-paid training schools for personal development and prophetic leadership. Their structured curriculum to train one’s personal and social ejong (personality), towards the Ejagham organizing principles of beauty and excellence, is replete with Ejagham mysticism and indigenous epistemology. Unfortunately, Moninkim has been misrepresented in years of scholarly research as a girl’s seclusion and coming-of-age-for-marriage rite and Mgbe (Ekpe) …

Cultural Diversity In The Body Of Christ: An African American Theological Reading Of The Book Of Revelation, Charles Gilmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study will attempt to facilitate a more helpful reading of the text of John’s Apocalypse by placing it in an appropriate literary and historical context, deploying an African American hermeneutic, informed by the work of African American commentators such as Brian Blount, Allen Dwight Callahan, Clarice Martin, and Shanell T. Smith to develop from the text of the Apocalypse its ecclesiological content for a contemporary audience. As the church writ large (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and indigenous expressions) wrestles with its increasing global presence and the cultural and linguistic diversity which that expanded presence creates, this study will attempt to …

Pedal Points: Harmony And The Double-Action Pedal System In Modern Harp Music, Mckenna Jennings

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pedals are an invisible guide in chromatic harp repertoire. While the evolution of tonality and rise in chromaticism incentivized the invention of the double-action pedal harp, the unique restraints and extensions of this technological system influence harmony and pitch collections in chromatic harp music. This thesis explores the pedal harp and the influence the affordance and idiomacy of the pedal layout exerts onto chromatic harp repertoire. It draws on embodiment and schema theory to describe patterns of pedal motion in harp music, thus presenting and demonstrating an original theory of pedal schemas. Pedal schemas are patterns of motion defined by …

Modes In Heavy Metal Music, Richard W. Young Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modality is quite commonplace in heavy metal music, including some of the less common modes such as Phrygian and Locrian. This thesis provides musical examples and analyses of heavy metal music based on theories of scholars such as Brett Clement and Nicole Biamonte and demonstrates how modes are used in conjunction with other musical elements such as meter, tempo, instrumentation, and timbre to paint the text and color the sound. The primary focus of repertoire is selected works from the 1970s and early ’80s by early metal pioneers Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, and Scorpions. Other brief examples from Metallica, Yngwie …

The Ethical Connection Between Patient Care And Patient Safety, Caitlin Walsh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses the care ethics framework to describe potential solutions to patient safety issues seen across different areas in healthcare. Many of the works already published on Care Ethics apply the theory to only one aspect of relationships in healthcare. This dissertation uses Care Ethics to describe different levels of relationships in the various tiers and domains of healthcare in the United States. It first will describe the relationship between patients and their healthcare teams, then it describes the relationship between society and patient’s access to care. There are many barriers in society that prevent patients from accessing care …

The "Communal Gaze:" How The Collective Community Responds To The Narratives Of Sexual Violence Vocalized By Black Women, Brianna Christie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research theorizes, from within a Black Diasporic experience, the epistemic power communal gazes have on women who share, or consider sharing, their narratives of experiencing sexual violence. Black women’s experience with sexual violence in the African Diaspora is complicated by historical legacies and norms within their communities (Hartman, 1997; McDonald, 2019). The present study builds on and extends gaze theory, feminist standpoint(s), and aesthetic theory, particularly as related to the body as a rhetorical space. Informed by these theoretical perspectives and critically honoring Black women’s stories of (considering) sharing their experiences of sexual violence, this thesis addresses three research …

Reckoning With Religion In Southern Queer Lit: An Auto-Critical Approach, Amanda Garrod

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Southern Queers are under attack, but that’s not news. Despite the fact that LGBTQ youth in the South are 9% more likely to have attempted suicide in just the past year than their peers across the country (The Trevor Project). A statistic that The Trevor project correlates to is a lack of acceptance and access to affirming spaces. Yet, despite these horrific statistics, inquisition as to what makes the South so harmful/dangerous is often surface level. The Queer South is the oxymoron that defines a group of people, myself included, who have to cope under the weight of the hyper-religious …

Springtide And Other Stories, Cora G. Saddler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ebb and flow of returning to and leaving the people you love and the people who love you, echoed through the voices of mothers, daughters, and wives, and lovers. Springtide and Other Stories bring together six fabulist stories that tinker with what it means to remember and forget over entire lifetimes and single moments. The generational gift of hearing the secrets of the sea, stored in tiny, shore-swept seashells, is broken. A secluded wood that stores the memories of its people in the soil and in the bark of the trees begins to burn. An ordinary couple with peculiar …

Haiku And Human Anatomy: Investigating Students' Experience With Creative Writing To Learn Structure And Function In An Undergraduate Biology Course, Alexandra M. Ryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biology education research has identified needs and new approaches that have informed several reform movements to enrich learning, prepare students to be biologically literate citizens, and give them the skills to pursue a career in science if they choose. The Vision and Change report published in 2011 identified a need for change in undergraduate biology education due to the fast paced nature of the field of biology and outdated traditional methods of biology education that cannot keep up with societal needs. The Vision and Change report outlines five core concepts and competencies that educators should include in their undergraduate biology …

Transing My Gender: An Exploration Of The Process Of Becoming Me, Equinox Charette

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following is a collection of short stories and flash fiction assembled in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the creative writing concentration of the degree of Master of Arts in English. The pieces are autofictional in nature, tracing, with some degree of accuracy, my personal experiences with reconstructing my gender identity. The collection deals with themes of isolation, dysphoria, love, acceptance, and reflection. The pieces are largely drawn from experiences I’ve had during the course of my participating in this MA program, though there are also stories that take place during the time I spent in the military. The …

Phantasmagorya: An Experiment In Monstrous Poetics, Christopher W. Gardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A Warning Reader Beware: Here be Monsters! The following pages contain (or attempt to contain) ghouls, ghosts, cryptids, monsters of myth and movie, and paranormal and supernatural happenings of all kinds. They also contain some psychological monsters as well. Proceed, then, at your own risk. If you, like me, have learned to love the things that go bump in the night, and to see in their grotesqueries something pure and beautiful, then the following explanation will be redundant to you. If, however, you’re still afraid, let me be your guide. Nothing here can hurt you any more than you are …

Ars Goletica, The Art Of Golemancy, Aaron Thibodeau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ars Goletica is a Gothic Fantasy novel that tells the story of Claire as she begins her first semester at the College of Clay, a school specializing in the art of Golemancy. Claire has desired to be a master of a magical art since her youth, a desire turned to obsession through her natural inability to produce magic herself. While she struggles in school due to her impediment, her struggles are complicated as her mentor and roommate Alana passes away under mysterious circumstances, circumstances whose origins prove a possible solution to Claire’s failing grades at the college.