Arts and Humanities Commons^™

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 …

Searching For Hades In Archaic Greek Literature, Daniel Stoll

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No single volume of mythological or philological research exists for Hades. In the one moment Hades appears in archaic Greek literature, speaking for only ten lines, Hermes stands nearby. Thus, to understand and journey to Hades is to reckon with Hermes’ close presence. As I synthesize research by writers from several different disciplines, may some light be brought into the depths. May we analyze Hades’ brief appearance in archaic Greek literature, examining how what I define as the “Hermetic” emits from his breath in the one moment he physically appears and speaks.

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

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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

Voices On The Horizon: A Theory Of Ludic Rhetoric, Jeff Lohr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Voices on the horizon: A theory of ludic rhetoric begins with the assumption that rhetoric and play offer hope for cooperation and community in a fragmented and divided world. Rhetoric and play share an intellectual trajectory in the history of ideas. The earliest use of the terms rhetor and rhetoric in the Western tradition encouraged playful cooperation. The move toward reason and science during the Enlightenment relegated rhetoric to mere techniques for persuasion and silenced alternative avenues for seeking truth. Reclaiming traditional rhetoric as a meeting place for potential negotiation and cooperation encourages constructive civic discourse. The conclusion of this …

When Humanity Meets Technology: Contemplating Neil Postman's Critique Of Advertising, Yingwen Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project aims to contemplate Postman’s critique of advertising and offer insights to understand Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) in today’s mediated environment. As an essential component of IMC, the history of advertising demonstrates and documents that the medium of communication has an extensive influence on IMC practices. The concern about how communication media affect human perception, understanding, and behavior, resides within the central claim of the study of media ecology. Thus, this project investigates IMC through the lens of Postman’s media ecology perspectives, and argues that Postman’s prescient ideas provide both hope and constructive insights. Moreover, Postman’s thermostatic perspective, rooted …

Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that …

The Bioarchaeology Of The Tugalo Site (9st1): Diet, Disease, And Health Of The Past, Nompumelelo Beryl Hlophe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tugalo site is a prehistoric and early historic Native American site located in northeast Georgia along the upper Savannah River basin, near the junction of Toccoa Creek and the Tugalo River. According to archaeological materials analyzed from the site it was occupied from ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Anderson et al. 1995). Although archaeological investigations of the site revealed basic characteristics of its chronology and architecture, very little analysis and reporting of the skeletal remains from Tugalo has been completed. By analyzing data collected by Williamson (1998) concerning the age and sex of the burials, the presence or absence …

Phylogeny, Psychology, And The Vicissitudes Of Human Development: The Anxiety Of Atavism, Frank Pittenger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This cross-disciplinary dissertation provides a missing intellectual history of an ostensibly dead idea. Once widely held and no less elegant for its obsolescence, the principle of biogenetic recapitulation is best remembered by its defining mantra, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” Among psychologists and sociologists as well as embryologists, the notion that the development of any individual organism repeats in compressed, miniaturized form the entire history of its species enjoyed broad (if not uncontested) acceptance through the early twentieth century. The author reexamines the origins of this theory in the work of Charles Darwin and Ernst Haeckel, and traces its influence in psychology …

Identities Without Origins : Fat/Trans Subjectivity And The Possibilities Of Plurality., Mc Lampe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project draws upon the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Donna Haraway to critically analyze the political power and utility of origin stories as they are used within discourses of identity. I specifically examine the dominant cultural and counter-origin stories of transgender and fat bodies and argue that the counter origin stories constructed by both trans and fat studies/activism continue to engage with norms that regulate identity. These regulations create an impossible situation for individuals who are both trans and fat as they are not recognized as intelligible subjects within either category due to their lack of appropriate …

Rethinking The Community As Temple: Discourse And Spatial Practice In The Community Rule (1qs), Melissa P. Pula

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project is a spatial reading of the Community Rule (1QS) that examines how space is used as a response to the perceived defilement of the Jerusalem Temple and how it addresses the problems of atonement and priestly authority for a community without a physical temple. Edward Soja’s concept of Thirdspace—social space transformed by material and mental spaces—illuminates how temple, military, and judicial spaces order social and divine relationships for those who followed 1QS. In turn, this spatial practice creates a new place that enables the community to contest the Jerusalem Temple’s authority while legitimizing its own. While Edward Soja’s …

Transformation Of Early Nineteenth Century Chickasaw Leadership Patterns, 1800-1845, Emily Paige Smithey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is an examination of the changing leadership patterns of the Chickasaw Nation during the early nineteenth century, and combines the internal function of Chickasaw government with the leaders' responses to overwhelming external factors. This thesis begins in 1800, a time that hinges on the remnant Chickasaw political leadership offices of previous centuries, such as the Minko and Tisho Minko, combined with the formation of newer offices such as district chiefs. It ends in 1845 after the Chickasaws were forced to remove from their Mississippi homelands into the Indian Territory. After removal, the Chickasaws began a more centralized form of …

Captain John Smith And American Identity: Evolutions Of Constructed Narratives And Myths In The 20th And 21st Centuries, Joseph Corbett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historical narratives and anecdotes concerning Captain John Smith have been told and retold throughout the entire history the United States of America, and they have proved to be sacred, influential, and contested elements in the construction of the individual, sectional, regional, and national identity of many. In this thesis, I first outline some of the history of how narratives and discourses surrounding Captain John Smith were directly connected with the identity of many Americans during the 18th and 19th century, especially Virginians and Southerners. Then I outline how these narratives and discourses from the 18th and 19th centuries have continued …

Selling "Dream Insurance" : The Standardized Test-Preparation Industry's Search For Legitimacy, 1946-1989, Keegan Shepherd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the origins, growth, and legitimization of the standardized test preparation ("test-prep") industry from the late 1940s to the end of the 1980s. In particular, this thesis focuses on the development of Stanley H. Kaplan Education Centers, Ltd. ("Kaplan") and The Princeton Review ("TPR"), and how these companies were most conducive in making the test-prep industry and standardized test-preparation itself socially acceptable. The standardized test most frequently discussed in this thesis is the Scholastic Aptitude Test ("SAT"), especially after its development came under the control of Educational Testing Service ("ETS"), but due attention is also given to the …

Inside, Outside, In-Between., Aurora Maria Pope

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Inside, Outside, In-Between, held at the Carroll Reece Museum on the campus of East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee, from February 26 through March 13, 2008. The works included in this exhibition are a collection of paintings that employ the use of traditional and non-traditional materials to explore the connections between place and memory.

These pieces are investigations into materiality and process, combining local beeswax, sticks, garden soil, charcoal, and ashes together with oil, shellac, oil pastel, pencil, and other traditional artist's materials.

Ideas discussed include materiality, process, composition, …

Generative Response., Catherine Juanita Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within this supporting paper, the artist discusses Generative Response, her Master of Fine Arts exhibition. This paper is a narrative of the artist's development, philosophies, and methodologies. Further, it illustrates how her work and development have been affected by studies in humanity, social activism, human responsibility, and environmental consciousness.

Generative Response communicated the artist's ideology of process as metaphor for living life, involving the viewer in an "unfinished dialogue" wherein works of art undergo processes translating their role as part of a generative cycle. Generative Response was composed of seven sculptural components called "stations" depicting the processes of growth, …

Painting The Sublime Landscape And Learning To See Nature Along The Way, Deborah Browne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is one artist's response to the question of the relevance of landscape painting today, focusing on the communication of the idea of environmental stewardship. The process of studying nature and transferring that vision to canvas promotes greater understanding of the beauty and complexity of elements that comprise ecosystems. The artist possesses a creative impulse finding satisfaction in making artwork that expresses a love of nature as part of a larger worldview. If done well, the persuasive power of such art may be enormous. Comprised of oil paintings and written work, this thesis establishes a way of approaching both …

Cherokee Indian Removal: The Treaty Of New Echota And General Winfield Scott., Ovid Andrew Mcmillion

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Treaty of New Echota was signed by a small group of Cherokee Indians and provided for the removal of the Cherokees from their lands in the southeastern United States. This treaty was secured by dishonest means and, despite the efforts of Chief John Ross to prevent the removal of the Cherokees from their homeland to west of the Mississippi River, the terms of the treaty were executed. In May of 1838, under the command of General Winfield Scott, the removal of the Cherokees commenced. Scott encountered many difficulties including inefficient commissioners and superintendents, drought, disease, and the wavering policy …

Margaret Lawrence: Setting Her House In Order, Marion Elizabeth Markham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Margaret Laurence orders the world around her through the telling of story, and she shows us, in The Stone Angel, A Bird in the House and The Diviners, strong women ordering the world around them. The thesis analyzes the tales Laurence tells through Hagar Shipley, Vanessa MacLeod, and Morag Gunn respectively, examining the freedom gathered in these tellings. Christian symbols It also considers the complementary Judeo-and names and allusions through which their captivities and freedoms are eventually seen.

Each of the main characters face discrimination as woman, but each is transformed from slave to free woman, and this development of …