Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Beyond Nationalism: James And Grace Lee Boggs And The Black Radical Tradition In 1980s Detroit, Ryan A. Mccarty

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the Black Radical Tradition in the 1980s through the lens of James and Grace Lee Boggs and their dedication to grassroots, community organizing and evolving revolutionary rhetoric. Existing scholarship on the decade is largely dedicated to the dialectic fluctuation of Black Power ideology and liberal reform that created a more conservative political agenda centered around partisan politics. Alternatively, the activism of James and Grace Lee Boggs in the immediate aftermath of the Black Power Era presents a complex view of the decade, providing space for black radicalism. The adaptation of the couple’s theories and mobilization strategies …

Buffalo Renaissance: The Northern Plains Tribes' Path To Self-Determination, Elizabeth Louise Johns

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This long-form journalistic story and photo essay is about the Blackfoot Tribes in the United States and Canada and their efforts to restore bison to their land, their diet, and their culture. In 2014, ten tribes from the United States and Canada came together at Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana to sign the Buffalo Treaty, a commitment to bringing wild buffalo back to parts of their historical range. The Treaty signing marked the first time in more than 150 years that a diverse group of tribes, some historical enemies, came together in the name of restoring the animal they evolved …

A Search For Community, Alexander Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I attempt to understand what is meant by community by grounding the analysis in Raymond Williams’ historical definition. From this, I work the criteria of community as described by Williams so to determine their precise meaning and primacy. I attempt to show why community must be small in size while arguing that humans are in a community with nonhumans. Building upon this move, I take up an argument for the role of place in community formation. This preceding inquiry is meant to prime an analysis of both virtue ethics and literature, specifically an application of Martha Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities to …

"A Pressure Not To Be Resisted Or Evaded": Military Occupation, Reform, And The Incorporation Of Northern Montana, 1879-1916, Hayden Nelson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores Fort Assinniboine’s role as an extension of the federal government’s military arm in the Northern Plains. It argues that the military occupation of northern Montana served to incorporate the northern borderland region and peoples into the American mainstream as a part of the national reconstruction processes following the Civil War into the twentieth century. In a period of half a century, north-central Montana transformed from a Native American common hunting ground lacking any major white settlement to a rapidly developing agricultural region. Fort Assinniboine played a central role in this transformation, hastening the economic collapse of the …

Fabrications, Molly V. Rivera

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The objects that surround us tell a story of our past, and act as physical stand ins for a person, place, or experience no longer present. My work explores the significance of objects and how we use them to preserve our memories and make them tangible. Memory is ephemeral and changes over time, simultaneously growing weaker and stronger. I use clay to accentuate this relationship, visually depicting both preservation and decay.

Inspired by my personal narrative, I recreate specific objects of significance by hand. This results in subtle variations of the original, much like the changes in our memory over …

Permutation, Ryan K. Caldwell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Caldwell, Ryan, M.F.A, Spring 2020 Ceramics

Abstract:

Chairperson: Trey Hill

Permutation, is an exploitation of utilitarian pottery and domesticity within the gallery setting through the use of handmade tables and cabinetry. The gallery is transformed into a more comfortable environment and exhibits a casual essence. This paper explores the thoughts, interpretations, influences, reflections, and definitions of his most recent work created for his Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition. Caldwell presents his work as an ongoing continuum of conceptual research and physical exploration of form and surface.

Sing, Woman!, Emma Marie Spencer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

How The West Was Fun: Constructing The Western Tourism Experience In The Yellowstone Wylie Camps, 1880-1916, Jennifer E. Simpson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Somebody Told Me You Died, Barry E. Maxwell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Somebody Told Me You Died is a sampling of works exploring the author’s transition from “normal” life to homelessness, their adaptations to that world and its ways, and their eventual efforts to return from it. The collection dovetails into a final essay examining the struggle to comprehend and rise above a racist upbringing.

In Defense Of Non-Anthropocentrism—A Relational Account Of Value And How It Can Be Integrated, Ian I. Weckler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change has been show to be caused by humans. Human-centric behaviors have affected the world to the extent that many believe we have entered a new geologic epoch. This epoch— the Anthropocene—has prompted exploration into the ethical relationship between humans and the rest of the world. We know that a purely anthropocentric ethical system of values has lead ecological imbalance and environmental destruction, and that a non-anthropocentric (or humancentric) ethical system of value would be better suited for maintaining and regaining a habitable environment. However, past conceptions of non anthropocentrism have relied on abstract conceptions of value that fail …

Drama Applied To Content-Based Instruction In Elementary Education, A. Rocio Muhs

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Growing public interest in bilingual education has prompted many school districts to offer dual language models. Unaddressed challenges inherent in dual language immersion programs can compromise the quality of implementation, thus affecting student achievement and ultimately program sustainability. This study investigates how the integration of dramatic arts into core subject instruction in Spanish improves student learning and motivation among first grade second-language learners. Based on the existing challenges confronting a Dual Language Immersion Program in Western Montana, this study asks: What is the relationship between students’ attitudes about learning in a second language and the teacher’s pedagogical practices? In this …

Hear Me Roar, Abigail R. Seethoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hear Me Roar, a compilation of personal essays interspersed with short forms, grapples with the nuances of compliance versus autonomy in the context of the male gaze, beauty standards, and pop culture. The collection also explores what it means to treasure something—another person, an object—and how to express and deepen that affection.

Son Of Red Earth Or The George Story: Novel Excerpt, Callie Ann Atkinson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Digitizing The Corporeal: The Affect Of Mediatized Elements In Theatrical Performance, Kurtis Layne Hassinger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the affect of digital media in live performance. The research is generated from work with integrated digital media in Carol Ann Duffy's 2015 adaptation of Everyman as well as Samuel Beckett's radio play Cascando. Through experimentation and implementation of motion tracking digital elements and actor-manipulated sonic and visual digital media achieved with MIDI and OSC mapping, I explore the embodiment of performances by actors when their various characters are represented on the physical as well as the digital stage simultaneously.

The research interrogates digital media in storytelling when actors can manipulate imagery and language in real time …

Marketing The Golden Rule: Near East Relief And Philanthropy’S Role In The Political Economy, 1915-1930, Elizabeth Berit Barrs

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The history of the American aid agency Near East Relief (NER), particularly its Golden Rule Sunday campaign from 1923 to 1928, reveals an integral part played by philanthropy in the broader political economy in the interwar years, specifically in the American food industry. Millions of Americans participated in the campaign by eating a simple four-cent orphanage-style meal and donating the cost difference from their normal Sunday dinners to support starving children orphaned by the Armenian genocide. By the mid-twenties NER’s Golden Rule Sunday became a nation-wide cultural phenomenon.

Near East Relief was founded in 1915 as a temporary effort to …

Coalescent: A Collection Of Defining Life Experiences, Stephanie A. Dishno

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Coalescent: A Collection of Defining Life Experiences, reflects on my experiences and curiosities of important life events that a person may use to construct their narrative identity. In this paper, I discuss my reflections, influences, and materials used to create my thesis exhibition, Coalescent. I describe my work as a collection of life experiences that are used to construct a narrative identity.

Handing Down The Heritage: Preserving Irish Diasporic Identities In The Festival City Of Montana, Margaret Mary Walsh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Butte, Montana is a tough, historic industrial town in western Montana known for its mining, its Irish, and strangely, its festivals. The city boasts countless parades and community events each year for a variety of holidays as well as for showcases of traditions and ethnic pride. Three celebrations in particular, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, and An Rí Rá, attract visitors from all over the country – and world – who seek to experience the enthusiasm and splendor of these celebrations. So, what can these popular celebrations in Montana’s Festival City, Butte, reveal about the Irish community living there? …

Collaborative Conservation: A Philosophical Analysis Of The Efficacy And Commensurability Of Tek And Western Science, Anne M. Belldina

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis seeks to explore the similarities and differences between traditional ecological knowledge and Western science as a way to address long-held misconceptions about the efficacy of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK. The motivation for this project arose from a deep desire to investigate the historical injustices toward Indigenous peoples in the name of conservation. The goal of this analysis is to illustrate that effective collaboration between Indigenous knowledge holders and Western scientists is not only possible, but desirable. I outline three major barriers from which I draw out three minimum criteria which much be met if collaborative conservation efforts …

Ethical Eating: Overcoming Alienation In The Industrial Food System By Aligning Our Practices With Our Principles, André Kushnir

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis arose out of a moment of discord, while an environmental philosopher was eating blackberries in the middle of a blizzard in Missoula, Montana. What follows is an attempt to bridge the gap between our principles and our practices, by asking the questions: What does ethical eating look like? Is it possible within our current industrial food system? and If not, what needs to change? Responding to the publication of the 2019 EAT-Lancet report, this essay moves beyond thinking of ethical eating as “healthy” and “sustainable” and challenges the networks of suffering and labour that we take for …

Complicity And Climate Change, Shalomita Kristanugraha

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As individuals, how should we understand our personal complicity in climate change related harms? In this thesis, I argue that the predominant way we think of complicity within the Western moral paradigm—that is, as a distribution problem—is inadequate in helping us understand the nature of our complicity in climate change related harms. This inadequacy, in turn, psychologically hampers individual citizens residing in high-emitting nations of the Global North from effective and sustainable social and political engagement with climate change. To address the inadequacy and obstructions that result from it, I follow the discussion between Christopher Kutz and Iris Marion Young …

Dark-Night And Nameless:Globalization In Murakami’S Kafka On The Shore And The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Thomas Velazquez Herring

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"Black Colorism And White Racism: Discourse On The Politics Of White Supremacy, Black Equality, And Racial Identity, 1915-1930", Hannah Paige Mcdonald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The following study unravels how Garveyite black nationalists, black integrationists, and Virginian white supremacists understood the race problem and its solution between 1915 and 1930. The racial identity and experiences of these three distinct groups, each informed how they understood the race problem and its solution. The divergent notions about the source of and solution to the race problem coalesced with colorism, sowing seeds of intraracial and interracial conflict and cooperation between the Garveyite black nationalists, black integrationists, and Virginian white supremacists as they navigated how to redress white supremacy and black equality. According to black integrationists and Garveyite black …

Legal Interpretation, Mykaila Ashlynn Berry

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The purpose of this project is to provide a fresh and in-depth analysis of legal jurisprudence through the use of two of the most important legal theorists of our time, H. L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin. This project focuses on how Dworkin’s position in his famous paper “Hard Cases”, helps us understand an important Supreme Court case, Cohen v. California. Cohen will be the main focus of my project. The project will discuss the case and the possible ways of deciding the case. Then the project explains both Dworkin’s and Hart’s positions. Finally, the project will analyze how Dworkin’s …

Progress And Patriarchy: Female Students At The University Of Montana, 1918-1922, Natalie D. Mongeau

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Physical Education student Lillian Christensen embodied the reality female students faced while pursuing higher education at the University of Montana in the 1920s. Known as “co-eds,” women were expected to be more than just successful in academics. Coeds were expected to pursue women-acceptable majors, attend clubs, organize events, and participate in the campus traditions that all reinforced gender standards. Essentially, the ideal coed was expected to succeed at everything while their academic achievements were seen only as a path to their ultimate role of wife and mother. Even while women were achieving significant victories for women's rights in the 1920s, …

Phillis Wheatley And Judith Sargent Murray: Revolutionary Founders In Women’S Political Activism And Women’S American Literary Tradition, Rebecca L. Warwick

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

During the Revolutionary War the dominant belief, held by men and women alike, was that women did not possess the mental capacity or intelligence for politics. Many perceived that women were strictly domestic beings, and therefore could not participate nor contribute to the inherently political war effort. Nonetheless, a few brave women such as Phillis Wheatley and Judith Sargent Murray insisted on participating in the political dialogue of their new nation through their poetry.

Through the respective lenses of gender and race, Murray and Wheatley used their literary skills and intellectual abilities to engage with the themes of patriotism, freedom …

Implementing Eco-Friendly Housing Techniques In Western Montana: Green Home Montana: Eco-Friendly Housing And Living Practices - Final Capstone Portfolio, Nicolas Ray Ream, Karlyn Roberts, Savannah Willison, Dylan Trent

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

While the green building movement is common practice in the commercial realm, it is not yet widely popular with residential buildings. We considered the question “How can residents of western Montana adopt eco-friendly housing practices that are locally appropriate and relevant?” There is an opportunity to increase green living practices among renters and homeowners in western Montana through retrofitting, gardening, composting, and similar behaviors. By considering climatic factors relevant to the region, suggestions for relevant eco-friendly practices can be made available to homeowners and renters alike. We will research green living practices used in other countries with similar climatic factors …

Solitary Solidarity: Vignettes Of The Appalachian Trail, Noah L. Booth

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This past Summer, I spent two months solo-hiking the first third of the Appalachian Trail. I completed 737 total miles, starting at Springer Mountain in Georgia and continuing through North Carolina and Tennessee, before finishing my journey in central Virginia. I am no stranger to backpacking, but the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains of the Southeast were completely foreign to me. Throughout this two month excursion I kept a daily journal, logging everything from mileage and geographical features, to encounters with wildlife and humans alike. Over six months have elapsed since I completed my journey and, having had plenty of time …

On Angels’ Wings: Idolatry In Viktoria Tokareva’S “Five Figures On A Pedestal” And Lyudmila Ulitskaya’S “Angel”, Courtney E. Bentz

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In his essays on Greek deities, Ralph Waldo Emerson declared: “Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.” While the idea of gods taking a corporeal form or angels walking among humans is a common literary trope, seldom do mortal characters find themselves compared to the divine without negative repercussions. Select post-Soviet women writers, however, flip this trope to explore the opposite. They instead embrace the human as holy, restrained by little consequence, as a means to highlight its destructive qualities in the context of an intimate relationship. These contemporary authors, Viktoria Tokareva and Lyudmila Ulitskaya, …

Wonder: A Phenomenological Exploration, Henry R. Kramer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper presents a phenomenology of wonder through careful description of the internal state of wonder, defined here as “full engagement with something that bewilders you.” This phenomenology explores what is at stake in regards to our inhibitions toward wonder, how we can overcome those inhibitions, what the experience of wonder is like, and what effects wonder can have on our lives and ethical activity. This includes an investigation of the relationships between wonder and topics such as judgment, attention, engagement, imagination, play, and our ethical treatment of the more-than-human world. This paper demonstrates that by cultivating wonder we are …

Synchrony: An Aspect Of The Abilities Of Steppe Horse Archers In Eurasian Warfare (525 Bce – 1350 Ce), Chris Hanson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Animals moving in unison as a group are quite intriguing to observe. Horses can run across terrain and change directions without jostling each other. They appear to move as if they know how to avoid crashing into others and run fluidly through their environment. This ability to maneuver without hindering herd is called synchrony and also extends to other animals including fish in schools and birds in flocks. Humans, on the other hand, need to create orderly formations in battle to move without interfering with adjacent warriors. For example, the Romans, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, and Byzantines trained their infantry and …