American Studies Commons^™

Forget Burial: Illness, Narrative, And The Reclamation Of Disease, Marty Melissa Fink

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through a theoretical and archival analysis of HIV/AIDS literature, this dissertation argues that the AIDS crisis is not an isolated incident that is now "over," but a striking culmination of a long history of understanding illness through narratives of queer sexual decline and national outsiderhood. Literary representations of HIV/AIDS can be read as a means of resistance to the stigmatization of people of color, women, immigrants, and queers, debunking the narratives that vilify these subjects as threats to national security and health. In drawing connections between illness, history, and the African diaspora, my work adopts a queer theoretical approach to …

Facilitators And Obstacles Of Intercultural Business Communication For American Companies In China: Lessons Learned From The Ups Case, Hongmei Gao, Penelope Prime

Faculty Articles

This article analyzes how the execution of business strategy for global enterprises is shaped by the dual challenges of communicating in a different national culture and working in a changing economic environment. The article develops a framework from the UPS case in China to illustrate the key components of strategy for US companies operating businesses in China. The article proposes that Chinese-American communication effectiveness can be achieved through overcoming five obstacles: cultural multiplicity, relationship/ task orientation, time concept, business style difference, and language use, while utilizing five facilitators:pragmatism, gender equality, English, American pop culture, and a "big country mentality."

Identifying The Relationship Between Network Governance And Community Action Program Participation, Angelique M. Goliday

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The relevant literature consistently suggests that understanding citizen participation in community action programs is needed to maximize network governance efforts. Yet, there is no empirical evidence demonstrating a relationship between levels of network governance (NG) and citizen participation rates. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which levels of NG is correlated with levels of citizen participation in community action agency (CAA) programs, and whether variations in NG or variations over time in average income level is more strongly related to participation. The research was guided by the integrative model of democracy, which emphasizes citizen participation …

My Name And My Face, Stuart Ewen

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Film Review: Masculinity & Interracial Intimacy In 'Star Trek' And 'Gran Torino', Adrienne D. Davis

Scholarship@WashULaw

Race has long been a central object of political reflection. The salience of racial difference remains hotly debated, figuring in both “utopian” and “dystopian” visions of America’s political future. If race is a primary configuration of “difference” and inequality in the nation, then intimacy between the races is often construed as either a bellwether of equality and political utopia or a re-inscribing of political dominance, typically represented as sexual predation by men against women. Quite expectedly, these political fantasies and fears are often played out at the multiplex, and we can see them in stark relief in two recent films …

Queer Appalachia: Toward Geographies Of Possibility, Mathias J. Detamore

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Stereotypes about Appalachia abound through dubious and reductive representations of the ‘hillbilly’ icon. Sexuality and how it functions in Appalachia is usually cast from the outside as wild, violent, bestial, incestuous and generally base. Movies such as Deliverance and television shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies and The Dukes of Hazard render images of Appalachian sexuality as hyper-sexual, both naive and violent. These images of Appalachian sexual ignorance and violence that permeate popular culture have had problematic and reductive implications for rural gay/trans Appalachian folk. Mainstream gay culture has often used the perceived meanings of these images to circumscribe and …

The Role Of The Teacher Librarian Engaged In Collaboration With A Classroom Teacher During Implementation Of A Pilot Iowa Core Curriculum Unit, Mary Beth Janssen

Graduate Research Papers

This action research study was a mixed methods investigation of a previously taught Native American unit modified to include Iowa Core Curriculum (ICC) content and 21^st Century Learning standards, planned and implemented via a collaborative effort between a rural school district K-12 teacher librarian (TL) and a 5^th grade classroom social studies teacher. The two research questions being investigated asked what TL-led collaborative looks like during implementation of an ICC unit and who benefits from an ICC unit led by a TL in collaborative with a classroom teacher written interview, field notes of the TL and classroom teacher, …

Gothic Representations: History, Literature, And Film, Daniel Gould

All Student Theses and Dissertations

Gothic storytelling has come a long way since the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1764. This short novel created the standard motifs and tropes that will forever be associated with the genre-the destitute castle, the foreboding atmosphere, supernatural or inexplicable events, omens, prophecies, heroes, villains, and of course, a deteriorating world facilitated by the unconscious evils within hwnanity causing the complete destabilization of society.

This paper will examine the evolution of Gothic fiction and how it has been represented from its romantic heritage and Victorian upbringing to the American Gothic traditions of the nineteenth century and …

Workplace Nutrition And Exercise Climate: Scale Development And Preliminary Model, Joseph J. Mazzola

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is a major concern in the United States and has a multitude of negative physical and mental health consequences. Proper nutrition and exercise are important elements to initiating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Since most people spend a large amount of their time working, it is important that organizations create an atmosphere that is conducive to employees being able to eat healthy diets and exercise regularly. The social and environmental climate in terms of health was examined through the construct of a Workplace Nutrition and Exercise Climate (WNEC), defined here as the situational, social, and environmental factors within an …

An Exploratory Study Of The Intrapersonal, Socio-Cultural, And Behavioral Factors That Influence Hiv Risk Behaviors Among Ethnic Subgroups Of Black Heterosexual Men: The Intersection Of The Beliefs And Perceptions Of Black Women, Shalewa Noel-Thomas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Twenty five years after AIDS was first scientifically described, the disease continues to take its toll on the human population. HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects marginalized groups such as poor, underserved, minority populations. In the United States, Blacks become infected with and die from HIV/AIDS more than any other ethnic or racial group. Despite a vast body of literature on HIV/AIDS, little research has focused on black heterosexual men and even fewer studies have explored the context of risk among subgroups of black men.

Using qualitative research methods and a socio-ecological framework, this study explored the intrapersonal, socio-cultural, and behavioral factors that …

Constraining Basin Geometry And Fault Kinematics On The Santo Tomás Segment Of The Agua Blanca Fault Through A Combined Geophysical And Structural Study, Adam Springer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Agua Blanca fault is a major transverse structure of northern Baja California, extending more than 120km east from the Punta Banda ridge near the city of Ensenada to the San Matais Pass in central Baja. Through much of its eastern extent slip on this fault appears to be pure strike slip, however, at the Valle de Santo Tomás the fault makes a ~25°; change in orientation, which coincides with the formation of extensional basins on the fault. Recent evidence of the independent movement of the Baja Micro-plate relative to a stable Southern California Black leads to several possible hypotheses …

Heat Stress Evaluation Of Protective Clothing Ensembles, Amanda Lee Pease

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clothing directly affects the level of heat stress exposure. Useful measures to express the thermal characteristics are WBGT (wet bulb globe temperature) clothing adjustment factor (CAF) or apparent total evaporative resistance (R_e,T,_a). The CAF is assigned through laboratory wear trials following a heat stress protocol in which the air temperature and humidity are progressively increased until the participant clearly loses the ability to maintain thermal equilibrium. The critical condition is the point of thermal transition and from these conditions both the CAF and Re,T,a are computed. The first objective of this study is to compare the …

Serum Antibodies To Human Papillomavirus Type 6, 11, 16 And 18 And Their Role In The Natural History Of Hpv Infection In Men, Beibei Lu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Our understanding of humoral immune response to human papillomavirus (HPV) infection has been mainly derived from studies in women. Very little is known about humoral immune response to HPV in men. There is also a growing interest in understanding the burden of HPV exposure in the subgroups of the male population, including men who have sex with women (MSW), men who have sex with men (MSM) and men who have sex with both men and women (MSMW). This dissertation was undertaken to understand and characterize humoral immune response, measured by detectable serum antibody IgG, to HPV 6, 11, 16 and …

School Choice At The Crossroads Of Race, Class, And Accountability: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Voluntary School Choice On Elementary Schools In A Large District In The Southeastern United States, Teresa Craig Evans

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the responsibility for the desegregation of American public schools has transitioned from federal court mandates to school board programs and policies. There is widespread belief that this has resulted in the resegregation of schools across the country. One popular policy that is purported to provide the opportunity for voluntary integration, along with accountability for academic quality, is school choice. The purpose of this study was to consider the implications of such a policy in one large school district. There is an extensive body of research exploring who participates in school choice, how they make their choices, and …

Relationships Between Life Satisfaction, Symptoms Of Adhd, And Associated Outcomes In Middle School Students, Lisa Paige Bateman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Given increased evidence related to the importance of fostering life satisfaction in the overall population (Diener & Diener, 1996), as well as recent suggestions regarding the importance of increasing positive academic and social outcomes for youth with ADHD (DuPaul, 2007), it is important to gain a clearer understanding of how life satisfaction may be related to ADHD symptoms. Although research has examined the relationship between life satisfaction and externalizing behavior (Suldo & Huebner, 2004a), research on the relationship between life satisfaction and ADHD is currently limited. This study examined if levels of ADHD symptoms predicted reports of life satisfaction in …

Magnetocaloric Effect In Thin Films And Heterostructures, Christopher Bauer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goals of this work are the optimization of the magnetocaloric effect in Gadolinium thin film structures. We approach this issue from two directions, that of process optimization and of interface effects. Past results showed Gd₂O₃ in our Gadolinium thin films, and the presence of such oxide seemed to grow with the temperature at which the film was grown or annealed. Comparison of samples grown without chamber gettering to those that were gettered show differences in their structural and magnetic properties, and we conclude that gettering is an effective step in enhancing the quality of Gd thin …

Rhythms Of Rebellion: Artists Creating Dangerously For Social Change, Susan J. Erenrich

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

On December 14, 1957, after winning the Nobel Prize for literature, Albert Camus challenged artists attending a lecture at the University of Uppsala in Sweden to create dangerously. Even though Camus never defined what he meant by his charge, throughout history, artists involved in movements of protest, resistance, and liberation have answered Camus’ call. Quite often, the consequences were costly, resulting in imprisonment, censorship, torture, and death. This dissertation examines the question of what it means to create dangerously by using Camus’ challenge to artists as a starting point. The study then turns its attention to two artists, Augusto Boal …