Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Negotiating Hope And Honesty: A Rhetorical Criticism Of Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, Lauren Lewis Reber

Theses and Dissertations

Young adult dystopian fictions follow the patterns established by the classic adult dystopias such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but not completely. Young adult dystopias tend to end happily, a departure from the nightmarish ends of Winston Smith and John Savage. Young adult authors resist hopelessness, even if the fictional world demands it.

Using a rhetorical approach established by Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction and The Company We Keep, this thesis traces the reasons for the inclusion of hope and the strategies by which hope is created and maintained. Booth's rhetorical …

The Translator's (In)Visibility In Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, Amy Dawn Glauser

Theses and Dissertations

Transferring words and ideas from one language to another has always been a puzzling and difficult matter for those involved in it. For centuries, English-speakers and translators have dealt with these difficulties by enforcing, through professional codes of ethics and through publishing contracts, what Lawrence Venuti calls "the translator's invisibility," as chronicled in his book by the same name. By evaluating translation solely on the transparency and fluency of the target language translation (that is, by making a translation not seem like a translation), English translators and audiences assured that translators remained faithful to original authors' intents, or so they …

The Silent Majority: Conservative Perception, Mobilization, And Rhetoric At The Utah State International Women's Year Conference, Jenny Lynn Mcgee Harris

Theses and Dissertations

Held in 1977, the Utah State International Women's Year (IWY) Conference became a battleground. Mobilized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and conservative groups, 14,000 women revolted against the state coordinating committee. Chaired by Jan Tyler, Utah's IWY committee tried to plan the conference to include both liberals and conservatives; however, they found themselves overwhelmed by the audience. The participants rejected all nationally formulated resolutions, voted against or reworded workshop sponsored resolutions, and elected to the National IWY Conference an overwhelmingly LDS, conservative slate of delegates. Mobilization of conservatives at Utah's meeting was complex. The LDS …

A Study Of The For The Strength Of Youth Pamphlet, Jared A. Jepson

Theses and Dissertations

This study is an examination of changes in the various editions of the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, an outline of standards and expectations for the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Over the course of the past forty years, eight editions of the pamphlet have been printed. The first edition was published in 1965 and the most recent publication was in 2001.

The study revealed that significant changes have been made in the various editions. The initial six pamphlets, which were published from 1965-1972, focused on social behavior of the youth such as dress …

The Need, Feasibility, And Means Of Establishing A Speech Center, Julie Carter Irvin

Theses and Dissertations

According to Tom Shachtman, "the speech of too few people achieves eloquence, and that of the vast majority does not even reach a tolerable level of articulate behavior" (5). Articulate behavior has not always been a rare characteristic; from antiquity through the mid-twentieth century, the study of rhetoric was privileged and considered necessary for a well-rounded education. If today's society is inarticulate, then how can eloquence and articulateness be reintroduced as staples of a successful person in today's society? The answer is easy - through the study of rhetoric. After examining the study of rhetoric from antiquity to the present, …

An Undergraduate Theatre History Course Design Utilizing Problem-Based Learning, Mary Alice Blackwell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis was written to provide an alternative teaching model for an undergraduate theatre history class. The course design, utilizing the Problem-Based Learning educational model, aims to create a student-centered, experiential theatre history class. The first section explores the history and evolution of the theatre discipline in academia. These chapters examine the expansion and transformation of the theatre curriculum within the discipline and higher education. The second part examines the history and the methodologies of Problem-Based Learning. Based on the philosophy of educator John Dewey, PBL is considered to be a non-traditional method of teaching and learning that encourages the …

Memories We Forget, Michael Dax Iacovone

Theses and Dissertations

I have always preferred the journey to the destination. When I was growing up, my family drove back and forth between Florida and New York every summer. My father did the driving, my mother sat next to him, and my older brother and sister sat in the back seat. This left the cavernous back of the family station wagon for me and the luggage. There was no radio, very little conversation, and I didn't sleep. I spent these summer trips staring for endless hours, out of the back window of the car, transfixed on the expanse of open road behind …

Exploring Classical And Contemporary Conception Of Ethos Applied Case-The Rhetorical Ethos Of President George W. Bush, Bobby J. Antrobus

Theses and Dissertations

By exploring classical and contemporary conceptions of rhetorical ethos, this thesis assembles theories of analysis and then applies them in the form of rhetorical analysis of the rhetorical ethos exhibited by President George W. Bush in his presidential speeches. The theoretical investigation reveals the extensive use of the ethical appeal in all manner of rhetorical situations in the contemporary world but especially focuses on how political rhetoric has come to rely predominantly on this persuasive appeal. The study examines several speeches given by President Bush and concludes that his success as president is attributed largely to the sophisticated rhetorical strategies …

Defending Defense: Circular Arguments About Artmaking, Ryan Mulligan

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is a critical look at video and performance arts intrinsic relationship to culture. Investigations of storytelling, personal mythology, fear, and image saturation. Think-pieces on the nature of art in an entertainment society. Juggling a brief overview of various works and their relation to over arching themes of game theory, dark humor, and fascination with media. An in depth look at the process of the thesis show, "Defense is the Best Defense." Multiple takes on the thesis exhibit counterbalance the need for contemporary art to include description. This paper is a detailed look at the process of Ryan Mulligan's …

If Chivalry Is Dead, Women Have Killed It, Nicole Heimbach

Theses and Dissertations

I am interested in the dual meaning of pattern. Pattern is a design format used for decoration. By introducing certain images into patterns, they have the ability to give meaning or messages. The repetition of a certain image emphasizes importance to a particular idea or issue. I embroider pattern designs onto pre-manufactured clothing pattern pieces as a response to things in society that I find absurd. This body of work focuses on female iconography. The delicate nature of these materials lends themselves to feminine associations. Embroidery, which is stereotypically associated with women's work, is used to play on these clichés.Patterns …

Playing To Learn, John Stanko

Theses and Dissertations

This creative project explores some major issues about visual communication in digital games. The project will continue to address new questions and invite questions from my visual and communication design colleagues. My hope is that, through this document, designers will see digital games like photography was seen around the turn of the century, and movies in the 1950's and 60's. In other words, as a rich new medium that offers creative people a virtually unexplored environment in which to work and create.�

Escape Artist, Charles F. Gustina

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reviews the background, influences, and evolution of the body of work entitled Folia, which forms the basis for the candidate's thesis exhibition. It traces the development of the candidate's artistic inclinations from drawing to photography. Directorial and Pictorialist photography are discussed as forebears in the Influences chapter. Evolution of the Body of Work details how the current work grew from both the candidate's background and influences. A Brief Anthology of Quotations references Susan Sontag's influential work, On Photography, with quotations that have either influenced the candidate's work or reflect his perceptions of art and life. The balance of …

Gustav Stickley's Hapke-Geiger House And Noland And Baskervill's Hunton House: Richmond Architecture Ca. 1915, Victoria Katsuko Carter

Theses and Dissertations

Textbooks teach architecture as conveniently divided into styles and periods, but in reality styles overlap. At the turn-of-the-twentieth century there were three major architectural and decorative movements in the United States: the Aesthetic Movement, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the American Renaissance Movement. This thesis shows how superficial stylistic labels can be by comparing two very different-seeming houses of the early twentieth century: The Hapke-Geiger House of ca. 1912 in Chesterfield, Virginia, based on a Gustav Stickley Arts and Crafts design, and the Hunton House of 19 14 in Richmond, Virginia, designed in the American Renaissance style by Noland …

A Tinker's Studio, Catherine L. Hudnall

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is meant to describe and explain a space in which one can imagine things necessary for making objects that wobble, squeak, clack, creak, crank in and out, open and close, light up, roll about and generally hurl themselves into creepy existence. It is also an endeavor to describe some objects having lately taken such a journey into being. These include (but are not limited to): a chess table for one, an examining table and tray, two workbenches, chessmen and women, creaky floorboards, stairs on wheels, a stool on wheels, and Monsters of various sizes and shapes.

Magic Mountain, Diana Al-Hadid

Theses and Dissertations

My installations are propositions for an imaginary world that relies on its own internal logic, a world of believability without recognition. While the work references landscape it also emphasizes its contrivance, as it is automatically estranged in an "unnatural" gallery setting. I subvert or de-familiarize the materials and processes that I use in the service of creating a fictitious environment. My places are impossible places. They are irregular, illogical, and unstable. Our imagination can be one of most dangerous things to psychological stability as it is an inventory of all things possible, no matter how irrational or improbable. The irrational …

Codes Of Interaction, Timothy Michael Martin

Theses and Dissertations

The ideas within this thesis are meant to clarify my explorations, research and painting practice during my studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. I expand on my general statements about being fascinated by advancing technologies and concerned about the after effects of these advancements. The writing explores my curiosity about the internal, skeletal structure of things and how they operate. I explain how the paintings are idiosyncratic hybrids that evoke animation, imaginary scientific propositions, blueprints, maps, and advancing technologies. The work combines these interests with my observations of day-to-day experiences. Isolated events provide found compositions which I then manipulate: a seemingly …

The Exodus Experiment: Theatrically Bridging The Cultural Gap, Kari Hatfield

Theses and Dissertations

As a theatre professional and a practicing Christian, I have found it very difficult to bring my two worlds together. Theatre is a tool for education, discussion, and understanding. In my work on this project, I have explored the ways in which theatre can and cannot help us understand each other on the volatile subjects that divide our contemporary culture: homosexuality and religion. Twenty-nine people with various backgrounds and worldviews were interviewed for this project. The words from these interviews were used to create the beginnings of a script for a play that explores the issues of homosexuality, religion, and …

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In National Periodicals, 1982-1990, Matthew E. Morrison

Theses and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has continued to receive exposure in national periodicals. This thesis will explore that image from 1982 to 1990. During those years, the church continued to grow in membership and expand its existing programs.

National periodicals can assist in assessing the public image of the Church because they help "mould public attitudes by presenting facts and views on issues in exactly the same way at the same time throughout the entire country." In this manner, they help to form the public opinion about the Church. They also reflect existing opinions because magazine publishers …

Experimental Navigation And The Creative Process, Teresa A. Engle

Theses and Dissertations

For this creative project, I am exploring alternate methods of navigating urban environments, and ways in which this activity can inspire creativity. This process is intended to create a new awareness of the urban landscape, break out of the prescribed, and to inspire innovation. The range of possibilities for this way of navigating is vast, and part of the challenge of my experience has been defining boundaries, assigning variables, and using strategies for exploration – making my process inherently morphological. I hope that my work here will encourage others to step out of their comfort zone and experience their environment …

The Photographer's Wife: Emmet Gowin's Photographs Of Edith, Mikell Waters Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Exemplified in the oeuvres of photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, and Emmet Gowin, the photographer's wife is a distinctive subject in twentieth-century American fine-art photography that fuses the domains of public and private life through the conflation of art and marriage. The transgressive nature of this juncture can be located in a confluence of gazes - the artist's, the subject's, and the viewer's - that are embroiled in constructing subjectivities. The phrase "photographer's wife" underscores an assumed imbalance of power reflecting a binary of active/passive, artist/model, and husband/wife. It is this study's contention that the complexity of the …

The Marinhieros Project: Roseneath Rd & Patterson Ave, Jacqueline H. Crowley

Theses and Dissertations

In questioning the very nature of a thing, at its most basic level, a new assessment can be made of what the thing in question truly is. When we ask ourselves, what is a weed, we begin to pull the word apart - to decrypt the word from the cultural baggage that has collected around it over the course of the history of language.The cultural connotations of 'weed' cling to it like barnacles, removing the word from its true value. We reevaluate meaning, chronicling all the possible constructions of a word, all the possible varieties, where it came from, what …

We Believe In Nothing, Sarah Bednarek

Theses and Dissertations

A discussion of the important aspects informing my work, including, ideology, and feminism among other issues.

Working Space, Timothy D. Devoe

Theses and Dissertations

By altering the outward appearance of the gallery walls, I address the hidden inner temperaments and characteristics of these seemingly benign facades. Architectural rubble impacts with the gallery space in imagined collisions, exposing and distorting its hidden inner workings and structures. Sometimes my walls grow so fat that they need immediate and temporary structural solutions. They may even slump over in a pathetic heap under their own perceived mass.Using everyday wall building materials like 2x4s and drywall, or even harvesting the material directly from the gallery, I anthropomorphize the surface of the space. Rather than the architecture receding into the …

The Etoile Du Deseret: Portrait Of The French Mission, 1851-1852, Douglas James Geilman

Theses and Dissertations

One of John Taylor's most significant achievements during his mission to France, 1849-1851, was the publication of a French-language Latter-day Saint periodical, the Etoile du Déséret. Appearing in twelve issues from May 1851 to December 1852, the Etoile served a variety of functions for the earliest missionaries and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France. A study of its historical context and of its contents allows readers a glimpse into the circumstances under which the missionaries labored and into the needs of the growing Church. Furthermore, the Etoile provides a vivid example of John …

Thalhimers Department Store: Story, History, And Theory, Elizabeth Thalhimer Smartt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at Thalhimers department store through the lenses of story, history, and theory. It first introduces the intertwining narratives of the author's paternal family and the store's history, then shares the author's personal story of Thalhimers. The second half outlines the master narrative of the American department store then applies "fantasy-theme analysis" and the symbolic convergence theory to stories and artifacts related to Thalhimers. A conclusion discusses the end of the department store era including a deeply personal goodbye from the author.

Curriculum For Middle School Percussion, Amanda Hertel

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Sacred Soli From Oratorios: Baroque Period To The Twentieth Century, Holly M. Chesnut

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate briefly the evolution of musieal styles and characteristics found in sacred soli from oratorios over the course of the Baroque Period to the Twentieth Century. The author chose eight representative arias for examination in this project, with two arias being chosen for each of four periods, the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Twentieth Century, selected because of the prominence of both the composer and the aria in the context of choral history. The thesis is divided into four basic sections, the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Twentieth Century. The author will discuss historical influences …

Flight Signs, Flight Symbols, Margaret Mary Urban

Theses and Dissertations

I am investigating the significance of historic events of flight through image making; particularly incidents that captured the collective imagination and became part of our cultural memory. These events have surpassed mere entries in historical texts and become mythic. In the terms of Jungian psychology, they have become symbolic. In terms of Semiotics, they have become signs. Through photographs and installation, I seek to understand their presence in my, and our, unconscious mind.

Long Walk In Flight School, William H. May Iv

Theses and Dissertations

Long Walk in Flight School is a document intended to complement a body of artwork that includes photographs, giclee prints, animation, and a twenty two page book of images. The main focus of the text is to discuss two types of exchange; my energy with tools in exchange for an object or event, which is then exchanged in the imagination of the audience for something else, a hybrid thing. These exchanges are part of the performance or presentation of the work. Beginning with a brief description of intent at the start of graduate school, it traces my development as an …

The Unwantables: An Exploration Of Visual Narrative, Marius I. Valdes

Theses and Dissertations

The Unwantables is a creative project that has evolved from my lifelong interest in and relationship with visual stories. To me the most compelling aspect of visual storytelling is "imagination". The author possesses the ability to create new worlds, interesting characters, and situations that can have the potential to communicate about any topic. My project explores visual narrative as a communication tool to explain the role of imagination in my life.