Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Billing Below Title : The Contested Autobiographies Of Frances Farmer And Louise Brooks, Karen M. Anderson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Today autobiography and memoir hold great interest for the average reader as well as the literary scholar. Some argue this form has replaced the novel as the dominant modern/postmodern narrative expression. Its study crosses departmental boundaries, surfacing in disciplines such as psychology, as well as English/literature. This thesis focuses on the autobiographies of two Euro-American actresses of the early twentieth century. Intersecting the study of film, narrative, autobiography (“female” or feminist, as well as canonical or “male”) and modernism, it focuses on text and subtext, analyzing reasons for both the works’ and actress/authors’ cultural marginalization. In art as well as …

Constance Cary Harrison, Refugitta Of Richmond : A Nineteenth-Century Southern Woman Writer's Critically Intriguing Antislavery Narrative Strategy, Gaillynn Marie Bowman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Although often maligned by literary scholars, Constance Cary Harrison, nineteenth-century novelist, journalist, essayist, and short-story author, achieved popular success with her subtle, but often radical, explorations of gender, and slavery during the antebellum and post-Civil War years. Furthermore, Harrison developed innovative characterizations of African-Americans while seeking nineteenth-century southern and northern readership through conciliatory prose. In particular, Harrison characterized a slave who gained his freedom and maintained a successful, independent life, without white assistance. This unique perspective for a Southern writer of her era stemmed from the war time destruction of her homestead, Vaucluse, which compelled Harrison to recreate an idealized …

Aesthetic Revolutionaries : Picasso And Joyce, Joy M. Doss

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Picasso’s Cubist works and Joyce’s Ulysses transcend tradition, merge time and space, and radicalize form. By accomplishing these feats, the two men become seminal embodiments of Modernism. This thesis examines the conceptual and formal qualities shared by Cubism and Ulysses. With particular attention given to changing concepts of space and time, similarities between the works are related to four characteristics generally attributed to Modernism: deviance from tradition, an emphasis on form, fragmentation, and appropriation of popular culture. The monumental effects of these works on society are examined in the conclusion. The legacy of these aesthetic revolutionaries is unavoidable and continues …

The Influence Of Feminist Pedagogy On Student Participation And Student Perception Of Learning Environment In Distance Education: A Comparative Study Of Web-Based Graduate Distance Education Courses, Tammy R. Johnson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between the level of feminist pedagogy employed in a course and student participation or student perception in that course. The study attempted to measure the level of feminist pedagogy employed in eight randomly selected, web-based distance education courses using a researcher-created instrument: The Feminist Pedagogy Scoring Rubric. Additionally, student perception of learning environment in each course was analyzed through the use of the Distance and Open Learning Environment Scale (DOLES). The rate of student participation in each course was determined by analyzing archived online communications. Four main tenets …

Telling God’S Sanction : Storytelling In The Narrative Journalism, Memoirs, And Creative Nonfiction Of Rick Bragg, Jennifer Nicole Sias

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Self-described paid-storyteller and Pulitzer-Prize-winning-narrative-journalist, Rick Bragg has used the storytelling techniques he learned from his people to write two best-selling memoirs that redefine the boundaries of the genres of memoir and creative nonfiction. His speakerly texts combine the voices of the working class of the Alabama foothills of Appalachia, his own voice as a member of this culture, and his narrative journalistic voice. In his works, Bragg has managed not only to carve a place for the voice of the working class, but also to celebrate and preserve the oral culture, history, and beautiful language of his people, the working …

The American Community Band: History And Development, Jason Michael Hartz

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Contemporary band scholars believe that the American community band experienced a revival at the end of the twentieth century. Examining the community band’s unique history from its earliest forms during the Revolutionary period through the Golden Age of Bands identifies the traditions that supported this revival. The twentieth century, however, is ripe with developments largely independent from previous eras, including the vast expansion of the music education system in the United States and the education of amateur musicians, the Great Depression, and the gradual acceptance of the band as an artistic medium. Through this study, the current revival of the …

Sir Henry Norris: English Ambassador, Huguenot Advocate, Robert G. Lilly

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Henry Norris served as English ambassador in France from 1567 to 1571, during the second and third French wars of religion, fought between Protestant Huguenots and the ruling Catholics. As ambassador Norris was able to help convince his reluctant Queen, Elizabeth I, to provide aid to her fellow Protestants in France. Elizabeth also entrusted Norris with the task of persuading the French authorities to refrain from sending forces to aid the deposed Scottish Queen Mary and Catholic rebels in the North of England. Despite contemporary criticism that he was inexperienced, and criticism from modern historians that he was ineffective, this …

Detection Of Forces And Body Load In Standing And Walking In The American Cockroach, J. Adam Noah

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Sense organs in the legs that detect body weight are an important component in the regulation of posture and locomotion. This thesis seeks to gain an understanding of how body weight is detected by sense organs of the legs, and determine how this information influences muscle activities in standing and walking. The first study tested the ability of tibial campaniform sensilla (receptors that monitor forces in the cockroach leg) to encode variations in body load using magnets attached to the thorax. Recordings of sensory activities in freely standing animals showed that proximal tibial sensilla (oriented perpendicular to the leg long …

Hit The Ground Running: A Novella And Other Stories, Lisa Robinson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This creative thesis contains a collection of short stories divided into two parts. The first half, a novella entitled Clothes on a Line, consists of a series of linked vignettes that depict the life of a young, unnamed Appalachian girl and her relationship with her promiscuous mother. Throughout the work, the narrator struggles to create and come to terms with her identity as she experiences the adversities of sexual abuse, death, alcoholism, and the looming “secret” of her unknown father. The second half, Consumed and Other Stories, features several short pieces that, while not inter-related like those in …

Chasing Demons: Female Villains And Narrative Strategy In Victorian Sensation Fiction, Heather Sowards

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis explores Victorian sensation fiction and key authors who rely on essentialism, employing the classifications of either angel or demon to their literary female figures. Using Nina Auerbach's theories on these above categorizations and Helene Cixous's linguistic binaries, I examine the ways in which the narrators of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas, and Wilkie Collins's Heart and Science force this taxonomy onto the female villains who dominate the novels' themes. By looking closely at the narrative strategies, I conclude that these female characters themselves are proposing a very different sense of self or …

Jane Austen's Powers Of Consciousness, Diane M. Counts

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis incorporates information from recent biographies, feminist studies, and scholarly interpretations focusing on Jane Austen's narrative strategies. Such incorporation of material provides a context for understanding the significance of Austen's contributions to the novel form and illuminating the development of the female narrative voice. It focuses on Emma, Austen's last novel published during her lifetime, as an exemplification of Austen's enunciation of a feminine perspective of life and vocalization of a growing female self-awareness - her powers of consciousness - through Emma. Of primary concern is Austen's use of narrative techniques enabling the reader to become intimately acquainted and …

Establishing An Elsewhere In Contemporary American Women's Autobiography, Jennifer Alena Gingerich

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

“Establishing an Elsewhere in Contemporary American Women’s Autobiography” explores women’s self-writing and the ways in which it offers another story or an elsewhere in the genre of autobiography. This elsewhere is distinct from traditional or conventional autobiography or, more specifically, how traditional autobiography has come to be understood. The project outlines various ways contemporary American women autobiographers deal with the issues of fragmentation (the lack of a coherent self), truth and lying (the self as a construction), and interconnectedness with others (the self as communal) when they write about themselves. It is both an analytical and creative thesis in which …

Final Frontier: The Methodist Church Involvement With The Recolonization Of Blacks To Liberia, Sharletta Michelle Green

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Missionary work over the course of one hundred years has changed the face of Liberia as a country. The work has affected the culture, economic structure, ethnic relationships within the country and surrounding areas and the political climate. The missionary movement into Africa did not start until the early eighteen hundreds.

In my thesis, I will focus on the ways the major stakeholders socially constructed the issues involved. I will focus on the ways in which the ideologies of racism in this period reflected American perceptions of the “dark continent.” This analysis will include the social constructions of church leaders, …

Discourses Of Disappointment: The Betrayal Of Women's Emancipation Following The French And Russian Revolutions, Crystal Denise Helton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Questions relating to gender are worth pursuing in order to more accurately discern the impact of the French and Russian Revolutions on society more broadly as opposed to just political leaders, well-known historical figures, or those predominately male citizens that comprised the upper echelons of their respective movements. A careful analysis of secondary sources, or the historiography on women’s place within the French and Russian Revolutions, reveals that, in spite of their use of egalitarian rhetoric, the revolutionary governments in France and Russia continued to view women based upon conventional standards. Discourses written by and about women before, during, and …

East 52 : A Multi-Genre Work Chronicling One Man’S Final Journey, M. Joseph Jarrett

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Middle-aged Michael Coogan heads east on US Route 52 through the area known as "Creed County" (a combination of Mercer Co, WV and Bland Co, VA), returning home to "bury" his father, although the man has been in the ground for several months. After a near fatal accident, Michael sees historical markers often revealing two stories: the typical history and the "unknown" history—a description of a fateful event that occurred in or near the locale described. Upon learning of these second histories, he visualizes the events surrounding the unknown facts related to him on the "reverse" markers. These stories trigger …