Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Dandy As Disease: Gender Hygiene And British Nineteenth-Century Literature, Sharon Louise Fox

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“Dandy as Disease: Gender Hygiene and British Nineteenth-century Literature” explores the link between the nineteenth-century dandy, ideas of hegemonic masculinity, and Walter Besant’s The Revolt of Man, a dystopian text in which women have usurped all traditionally-masculine roles, while men are the caretakers and manual workers. The first chapter deals with the historical role of the dandy in the nineteenth-century and how he might be viewed as the cause of the fall of Britain. The second chapter revolves around Besant’s novel, exploring how men are shown to be at fault for Britain’s fall in the eyes of the rest of …

Beyond "Main Street": Small Towns In Post-"Revolt" American Literature, Rachael Price

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“Beyond Main Street” examines the impact and legacy of the literary movement that Carl Van Doren, in an infamous 1920 article from The Nation, referred to as the “revolt from the village.” This movement, which is widely acknowledged to encompass such writers as Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis, pushed back against the primacy of the heretofore-dominant pastoral tradition when it came to depictions of rural America. These authors sought to create a more accurate portrayal of the small town, one that, while not completely eschewing the pastoral, also exposed the more seedy side of village life. Critics …

Neighborhood Effects As Predictors Of Hispanic Young Adult Outcomes, Benjamin David Smith

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The present thesis explores the implications of neighborhood effects, parent-child relationship, and school attachment upon young adulthood attainment among Hispanic adolescents. By 2060, the U.S. population will consist of nearly 12.8 million Hispanic persons and will constitute nearly a third of the U.S population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Examining the Social contexts in which Hispanic adolescents develop, such as neighborhoods and schools, allows researchers a greater depth of understanding the processes and potential risks that influence young adulthood attainment, such as education and career attainment (Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002). Utilizing The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health …

The Threat At Court: Subversive Uses Of Translation, Transcription, And Tradition In The Henrician Court, Rebecca Marie Moore

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This project aims to consider the use, at the Henrician court, of the strategies of translation, transcription, and tradition to cushion and to code the presentation of dangerous and radical ideas. Each of these strategies allows the authors deniability, while nonetheless allowing them to communicate clearly with their readers. These writers speak in a code that can be interpreted by anyone at court, but use that code to create just enough distance to avoid overt confrontation with the king. This is further complicated, though, by the king’s own deeply influential role in the creation of that code. Each strategy also …

Men Who Coach Women, Shannel Blackshear

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Although Title IX helped to shape athletics in educational settings, the legislation also transformed the world of coaching. Due to the growing demand for competitive female athletics at the collegiate level, the need for qualified individuals to coach women’s sports continues to grow. As colleges and universities continue to create women’s athletic opportunities, coaching collegiate female teams has become equally competitive to coaching male athletes in terms of pay, benefits, compensation packages, and national attention (Welch & Sigelman, 2007). Despite the fact that 57% (Pilon, 2015), of female collegiate athletic teams are coached by male coaches, there is a gap …

The Way Of The Gods: The Development Of Shinto Nationalism In Early Modern Japan, Chadwick Mackenzie Totty

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This research looks at the development of Shinto nationalism in Edo Period Japan (1603-1868). It focuses on the development of intellectual thought and the relationship between the kogaku school in Japanese Confucianism and the kokugaku school in Shintoism. The primary goal is to demonstrate that there was a trend wherein members of these two schools looked back to the past in order to rediscover a lost utopia and Way. This study examines the works of Yamaga Soko, Itō Jinsai, Ogyū Sorai, Kamo no Mabuchi, and Motoori Norinaga to demonstrate how this line of thought helped contribute to the development of …

Civil War Unionists And Their Legacy In The Arkansas Ozarks, Rebecca Ann Howard

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More than a thousand men from northwest Arkansas served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The conflict devastated a region that had previously enjoyed impressive economic growth. The years of suffering during the war eventually left the region largely depopulated. As people returned to the region after the war was over, unionists and their families fought not only to rebuild, but to secure the benefits they felt their loyalty to the federal government deserved. As unionists became Republicans in the decades after the war, Arkansas became a securely Democratic state. But Arkansas’s native Republicans leveraged their wartime …

John Paul Hammerschmidt And The Early Struggle For The Construction Of Interstate 49, Anna Crayton

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In order to understand the development of the Interstate 49 corridor, which began almost a half century ago, it is necessary to analyze the complex nature of federal aid highway legislation. For nearly one-hundred years politicians struggled to create a comprehensive highway program, and many felt this had been achieved with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. However, the focus on the construction of interstate highways often overlooked the needs of important secondary and primary highways. Although John Paul Hammerschmidt, the first Republican Congressman to serve Arkansas since Reconstruction, believed the Social and economic success of the United States …

Intertribal Communication, Literacy, And The Spread Of The Ghost Dance, Justin Randolph Gage

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During the 1880s, western Native Americans created networks of communication threaded together through postal correspondence and intertribal visitation among reservations. Through this network native groups cultivated intertribal relationships and exchanged ideas despite attempts by the United States government to separate, contain, and Americanize them. Frequent visits to other reservations, often over long distances, gave men and women a chance to share news and information, exchange religious and cultural traditions, and forge new intertribal bonds. Many Indians also used letter-writing to communicate with the world outside of their reserves in ways unanticipated by government policy makers. Thousands of Native Americans learned …

What Keeps Us Here? Perceptions Of Workplace Supervision Among African American Men In Student Affairs, Todd C. Jenkins Jr.

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African American male professionals continue to be lower in numbers in the workplace across the United States compared to their White counterparts. However, the division of student affairs and student services of higher education institutions continue to serve as a gate way for African American men to serve as administrators. Several higher education institutions and sectors continue to invest in the recruitment and retention for African American male professionals, and research has shown that supervision is the key to employee professional development, performance, and success. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of African American male professionals’ …

The Decolonization Of Christianity In Colonial Kenya, Amanda Ruth Ford

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Kenya was an unusual case within the larger narrative of decolonization in the British Empire. The presence of white settlers, the relative newness of the colony, and the particular way in which the British pursued the civilizing mission all combined to make the end of empire particularly violent for all parties involved. Independence in Kenya was precipitated by a bloody civil war, known as Mau Mau, and the imposition of martial law by the government for almost a decade. In the midst of this chaos, the Church of England’s missionary body, the Church Missionary Society worked to protect their converts …

The Educational Benefits Of Cultural Institutions, Brian Kisida

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A significant portion of the education children receive occurs outside of the traditional classroom and produces outcomes not typically captured by standardized achievement tests. This dissertation is part of an effort to expand the educational venues and outcomes educational researchers rigorously examine. In particular, I present the key results from experimental studies of the effects of school tours to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR., and to the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, AR.

Chapter 1 focuses on arts exposure and critical thinking outcomes. A problem for the arts’ role in education has been a …

The Spectacle Of Orphanhood: Reimagining Orphans In Postbellum Fiction, Afrin Zeenat

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Orphan iconography has always been deployed in American literature and culture, but nineteenth-century American literature, fiction in particular, abounds in orphans, both real and imaginary. The orphan’s amphibious nature is hailed and demonized as the epitome of individualism and unbridled freedom, and also as the location of society’s anxiety. This complicated and conflicted construction of orphans animates the Social and cultural realm in postbellum America, foregrounding issues of class, race, and gender.

Outside The Lines Of Gilded Age Baseball: Profits, Beer, And The Origins Of The Brotherhood War, Robert Allan Bauer

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In 1890, members of the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players elected to secede from the National League and form their own organization, which they called the Players League. The players objected to several business practices of the National League, including aspects of the reserve clause in player contracts, the Brush Classification Plan to control their salaries, the buying and selling of players, and fines for various infractions. This dissertation explains how these events combined to produce the revolt by the players at the conclusion of the 1889 season. It also examines various other important aspects of 1880s baseball, including …

The Growth Of The Russian Orthodox Church In America: Influences During The Tenure Of Bishop Tikhon, Karl Robert Krotke

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Bishop Tikhon Bellavin spent eight years serving as the head of the Aleutian and North American Diocese for the Russian Orthodox Church. During this period the Diocese underwent structural changes that have had a lasting impact on the church. Tikhon was the right Bishop to lead these transformations because, as this thesis argues, he was educated in new theological thoughts and practices. He was forced into these decisions by the following major changes in the United States: a massive increase in immigration from Eastern Europe containing Orthodox parishioners, settlement of these parishioners predominantly on the east coast, a change in …

Volkswagen And Volkswagen: The Concept, The Car And The Company In Four Germanies And The United States, Stuart Treavor Bailey

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This thesis explores the changing cultural meanings that the Volkswagen took in Germany in an attempt to understand the cultural exchange between the United States and Germany. In sum, it establishes that the car takes a distinct cultural form in the two countries governed by unique and particular historical developments. Over the last decade researchers working with car cultures have realized the long standing error of taking American values associated with the car as a normative marker of global car cultures, yet no one has suggested a working methodology to ensure that non-normative meanings are captured in analysis. I suggest …

A Light In Darkness, Oscar Micheaux: Entrepreneur Intellectual Agitator, Airic Hughes

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Oscar Micheaux was a luminary who served as an agent of racial uplift, with a unique message to share with the world on behalf of the culturally marginalized African Americans. He produced projects that conveyed the complexity of the true black experience with passion and creative courage. His films empowered black audiences and challenged conventional stereotypes of black culture and potential. The legacy of Oscar Micheaux is historically unparalleled among his contemporaries. He transcended traditionally held perspectives about what black people could accomplish. The consciousness within his work still heavily influences black entertainment today. This study seeks to add to …

Understanding The Experiences Of African-American Relatives Who Serve As Care Providers To Custodial Children In Arkansas: An Intersectional Case Study, Carmen Johnson-Hardin

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An increase in the provision of long-term care by relative caregivers to custodial children has brought attention to the physical, emotional, and Social challenges of this complex caregiving experience. Prior studies have examined separate structural identities that focus on comparing the quality of life, educational status, Social status, and income of grandparent custodial caregivers. To extend this research, it is important to explore the gaps in service provisions to relative caregivers; comparative viewpoints of relative caregivers and service providers regarding policies and practices; and heterogeneity among Black relative caregivers utilizing an intersectional framework. Face-to-face or telephone interviews were conducted with …

Architectures For A Future South: Posthumanism And Ruin In The Novels Of Cormac Mccarthy, Joshua Ryan Jackson

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This thesis reads the novels of Cormac McCarthy as posthuman southern literature to explain why fiction from the South after World War II could no longer convey a sense of place during postmodernity: that is, because the region's culture and economy were transitioning from predominantly humanistic thinking (i.e., believing that humans [and especially southern humans] are supreme beings) to predominantly posthumanistic thinking (i.e., believing that humans are not as supreme as they think they are). It argues that we can trace this ideological change over time via structural shifts in the South’s architectural record, which we see in the ruins …

The Effects Of Brand Familiarity On Perceived Risks, Attitudes, And Purchase Intentions Toward Intimate Apparel Brands: The Case Of Victoria’S Secret, Jennifer Lynn Rose

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The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of brand familiarity on reducing consumers’ perceived risks in intimate apparel shopping, which in turn influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward intimate apparel brands. To predict relationships among perceptions of risk and consumer behaviors, the present study adopted the perceived risk theory (Cox, 1976) and a modified version of the theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).

An online survey was conducted by recruiting adult females through a large Mid-Southern university in the U.S. Reliable and valid measures from previous research were adopted and modified to assess …

Past Traumas, Present Griefs: Exploring The Effects Of Colonialism, Microaggressions, And Stereotyping From Wild West Shows To Indigenous Literature, Kimberly Dawn Allen

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Native Americans have long been, and continue to be, victims of racism, microaggression, and stereotyping. This continued exposure to violence, degradation, belittling, and discrimination work in the forefront to historical trauma and unresolved grief which has led to an increase in the numbers of individuals suffering from mental illness within the Indigenous population. Colonization created a long history of trauma and genocide that effects generations of Native American people, not just the individuals on which the horrific sins were committed. Using the lens of disability studies, this project will examine the ways in which portrayals of Native American people in …

The Fascination Of Manga: Cross-Dressing And Gender Performativity In Japanese Media, Sheena Marie Woods

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The performativity of gender through cross-dressing has been a staple in Japanese media throughout the centuries. This thesis engages with the pervasiveness of cross-dressing in popular Japanese media, from the modern shōjo gender-bender genre of manga and anime to the traditional Japanese theatre. Drawing on theories from gender-studies and performance aesthetics to delineate the female gender in traditional Japanese theatre, I follow the roles of, representation of, and media for women, concentrating on (1) manga, a form of sequential art featuring illustrations with corresponding text, (2) anime, animated productions (where the word anime is the abbreviated pronunciation of “animation” in …

Immigrant Cosmopolitanism: Jewish-American Immigrant Narratives And Modernist Cosmopolitan Aesthetics, Mindy Renee Trenary

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I propose to show in this study how Jewish-American authors of mass media immigrant works from the first three decades of the 20th century utilize a form of modernist cosmopolitan aesthetics to challenge notions that these works are unworthy of study and appreciation. These authors, not happy with the classifications and aesthetics available to them as immigrant authors, borrow from other ideologies and aesthetic schools to create an aesthetic system meeting the needs of immigrant individuals. In theory, this system, which I have termed 'immigrant cosmopolitanism,' meets the needs of these individuals and capitalizes on the authors' diverse backgrounds and …

Landscape Visibility And Prehistoric Artifact Distribution At Pea Ridge National Military Park, Jake Lee Mitchael

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Pea Ridge National Military Park, in the north east corner of Benton County, Arkansas, is the 4,300 acre site of a crucial Civil War Battle. Human occupation of the Ozark Highland landscape, however, extends far into pre-history. A 2005 report to the National Park Service details the findings of a four year cultural resource survey of the park. The sampling strategy employed in the research design (random sample site selection and 2.5% park coverage) provides an excellent dataset to assess prehistoric land use. This dataset is not dependent on artificially defined sites, representing singular activity in a limited geographical space. …

Homelessness In Arkansas, Nichelle Sullivan

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This research aims to reveal a realistic narrative about homelessness in Arkansas through the qualitative perspective provided by people directly affected by homelessness. We interviewed experts with both theoretical and applied experience in examining the causes and different pathways into homelessness, as well as some of the avenues that can assist someone to successfully navigate out of homelessness. This research documentary focuses particularly on the experiences of homeless families headed by single women and the challenges they face in resolving homelessness. Qualitative interviews were performed and a website was created that is targeted towards helping others to find the necessary …

Engineer As Writer And Woman: Gender, Identity, And Professional Discourse, Jennfer C. Mallette

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As students, academics, and professionals, women entering engineering disciplines still encounter barriers that may impede their success. In this environment, what is the role of writing in the development of a professional identity, and how does it function as an avenue or a barrier to professional success? Using an ethnographically-informed case study approach, this dissertation focuses on the experiences of three women--a biological engineering student, an industrial engineering academic researcher, and a civil engineering professional--to examine how these women use writing to construct an engineering identity, take action within their discourse communities, and to demonstrate their technical expertise and ability. …

Stand Strong, Stand Proud: Alternative And Pariah Femininities In San Diego's Punk Rock Community, Steve Moog

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Since its inception nearly 40 years ago, punk rock has often been understood as a Social space for rebellion and resistance to dominant cultural norms. As such, punk rock culture becomes fertile ground for explorations of subversive constructions of genders. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the San Diego punk rock community, this thesis unpacks the construction, embodiment and enactment of alternative and pariah forms of femininities and examines their impact on gender dynamics within the scene. Ultimately, this thesis argues that (1) the San Diego punk rock community is a space where alternative and pariah femininities can be embodied …

The Role Of Stress: Low Birth Weight And Preterm Birth For African American Women, Tionna Latrice Jenkins

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This population-based study evaluates the impact that psychoSocial stress has on adverse birth outcomes of low birth weight (LBW) and pre-term birth (PTB) among African American mothers in Arkansas. The relationship between adverse birth outcomes in African American women and stress in comparison to non-Hispanic Caucasian women data was evaluated from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) quantitative survey. Data from 2005 through 2010 was reviewed to show the impact that psychoSocial stress has on adverse birth outcomes. The study sample was comprised of 14,196 participants.

Ethnic group status is the key maternal-level independent variable in this study. Of …

The Lover's Cup, Kimberlee Relyea Guin

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This documentary film, The Lover's Cup is the story of a former Naval Officer from World War II, Dr. Phillip Trapp, who took Marines into the battle of Iwo Jima and lived to see the flag being raised on Mt. Suribachi. This 55-minute film explores his life experiences before, during and following World War II. His first-hand experiences are used to illustrate the Social and psychological impact of the Great Depression and World War II and his journey to overcome his adversity and create positive changes in the world through his subsequent education and service at the University of Arkansas …

Let Him Be An Honor To The Country: Veteran Violence And Public Opinion After The Civil War, Laura Smith

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This study examines the causes, perception, and treatment of violence and crime committed by veterans after America's Civil War. After an examination of the research problems plaguing the study of violence and crime among veterans, this study uses newspaper articles, tracts and sermons, the published journals and letters of Union and Confederate soldiers, and other contemporary sources to evaluate the presence and perception of violence and the hardships associated with the homecoming of veterans. Alcohol and drug addiction that began during the war followed veterans home. Discipline in the army was inconsistent, and violence abounded in camp as well as …