The High School Piccoloist: A Resource Guide, Rebecca Needham

Dissertations, 2020-current

This project aims to curate a piccolo resource guide for high school music educators and their students. Currently, there are limited pedagogical materials available for beginning piccoloists or their music educators, and these materials are primarily scattered across decades of The Instrumentalist and the now-defunct Flute Talk journals. In addition, future band directors are rarely required to study auxiliary instruments like the piccolo in their collegiate coursework. These two factors combine to create a detrimental situation: frequently, neither teacher nor student in a typical high school setting has appropriate resources to understand the instrument and its essential differences from the …

Rhythmic Complexity And Harmonic Innovation: An Analysis Of Joan Tower’S Selected Post-2000 Piano Compositions, Yun Chen

Dissertations, 2020-current

Joan Tower’s post-2000 piano compositions show her unique approach to rhythmic complexity and harmonic innovation. While existing research focuses heavily on her earlier music, her recent piano pieces require further exploration from a performer’s perspective. This dissertation analyzes four specific works: Vast Antique Cubes (2000), Throbbing Stills (2000), Ivory and Ebony (2009), and Steps (2011). It explores how Tower’s compositional choices directly affect piano performance and the listener’s experience.

The first section explores Tower’s rhythmic language in “Steps” and “Throbbing Stills.” The analysis shows how Tower uses frequent meter changes, sudden rhythmic shifts, and strong contrast between motion and stillness. …

A Description Of Zhao Zhang’S Nature No. 2 And Xiaoxuan Xu’S An Unusual Feast Of East, Sicheng He

Dissertations, 2020-current

This research presents a new path in the development of Chinese music by aiming to incorporate both modern Western and ancient Chinese influences in form, texture, tonality, topic, and other dimensions of style and structure. Two Chinese composers whose recent compositions for the piano share similar characteristics: Zhao Zhang (b. 1964; Nature no. 2, 2013) and Xiaoxuan Xu (b. 1990; An Unusual Feast of East, 2022). The research will discuss how Zhao Zhang and Xiaoxuan Xu accomplish this fusion of old and new in their recent piano works Nature no. 2, (2013) and An Unusual Feast of East, 2022. …

Constructing A Contemporary Chinese Piano Language: An Analytical Study Of Zhang Zhao’S Chinese Dream, Ziwei Zhou

Dissertations, 2020-current

The piano arrived in China in the early 1900s. Over the past century, Chinese piano music has moved from early imitation to the sophisticated and diverse styles we see today. For Chinese composers, the main challenge has always been how to balance Western techniques with Chinese traditions and their own unique voices. To address these challenges, Zhang Zhao (b.1964) stands out for his ability to turn traditional heritage into a modern piano language. After a summary of the history of Chinese piano literature, this study examines his Chinese Dream (2014) through his “Three Transformations” philosophy: (1) Western techniques for Chinese …

The Piano Music Of Orlando Fagnani And Its Connections To The Choro Tradition, Norman J. Charette

Dissertations, 2020-current

This study explores the life, piano works, and compositional style of Orlando Fagnani (1922–1977) as it fits into the choro tradition. By situating his compositions within their historical context, providing biographical insights, investigating stylistic features, and analyzing one of his piano works, Mini Prelúdio No. 1, this document highlights Fagnani’s contribution to Brazilian music and places him not only among significant composers of choro, but also among the leading Brazilian composers of the twentieth century. The fortunate timing of his birth in the same year as the Week of Modern Art contributed to a deeper connection with Brazil’s …

Examining The Experiences And Career Of A Highly Effective Orchestra Teacher: A Narrative History, Charlotte A. Hebert

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Much of the available literature on the status of string education in the United States highlights the need for qualified string teachers. However, limited researchers have analyzed the reflections and perspective of retired string teachers. Retired string teachers have a unique ability to provide insight to preservice and current string teachers from a reflective lens. In this historical narrative study, I examined the 40-year career of orchestra director Laura Mulligan Thomas through her contributions and experiences. I utilized previous string education literature to define an effective string teacher. I employed semi-structured interviews, observations of a string techniques class that Thomas …

Weaving Eigengrau, Olivia Claire Luke

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Weaving Eigengrau explores weaving as both a material ritual and an inquiry about how reality is constructed and can be pulled apart. In this project, weaving becomes a method for redirecting forces into woven patterns and examining the relationship of contradiction by treating the contrasts between light and shadow, stillness and motion, and the fixed and the ephemeral as sculptural aspects. I’m driven by theories of reality: science, myth, and philosophy, and the common threads among them. Across systems of knowledge, reality is depicted in contradiction, and I seek to blur the lines between them. Within this convergence, weaving becomes …

The 1991 Cyclone In Bangladesh: A Historical Analysis Of Operation Sea Angel, Md. Mamun Miah

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Abstract

On April 29, 1991, Bangladeshi people witnessed a destructive attack of a cyclone in the coastal region of the country. The cyclone, with a wind speed of 225 km/h, killed almost 139 thousand people and left millions of people unprotected in the cyclone-battered areas. After the cyclone, there was a humanitarian crisis of hunger, disease, homelessness, and potable water, as the two-month-old civilian government of Bangladesh was struggling to mitigate the suffering of survivors. After the fifteen days of survivors’ struggle with crisis, at the request of the government, on 12 May, the United States sent a military task …

Returning Home: Vocation As A Theological Lens To Foster The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus’ Holistic Ministry Among Migrant Returnees In Ethiopia, Ebise Dibisa Ayana

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

This dissertation examines return migration in Ethiopia, focusing on Ethiopian Domestic Worker Returnees (EDWRs) and the role of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) in addressing their holistic needs. Using theological and institutional analysis, the study finds that, although the EECMY affirms holistic ministry as its motto, it lacks clear policies and official statements specifically addressing the spiritual and psychosocial needs of the returnees’.

The research argues that migration and return migration are theological and moral issues that require a holistic response grounded in a Lutheran Theology of Vocation. Such an approach fosters an integrated ministry that attends to …

And Now It Blooms And Sings: The Music And Poetry Of Noël By Clémence De Grandval, Nicholas Stephen Carozza

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document presents a historical background with poetic and musical analysis of Noël for voice, oboe, and piano by Clémence de Grandval (1828–1907) to contextualize the work within the lives of the composer, performers, and poet. Noël occupies an important period in Grandval’s life as one of the few pieces composed after 1900, and features a unique instrumentation of voice, oboe, and piano. The work is a musical setting of poetry by Nobel laureate Sully Prudhomme and was dedicated to oboist Louis Bleuzet and baritone Paul Daraux. This document presents biographical information, compositional background, records of performances, and analysis to …

Understanding How Teachers Define And Employ Civics Education In Non-Elective Social Studies Classrooms, Joseph Kyle

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This study explored the perceptions of civics and civic education held by secondary school teachers of non-elective social studies classes in four schools within the same school district. Using a qualitative approach, this study examined how veteran teachers understood and defined civics, the ways in which they employed civics education in their teaching methodology and daily lessons, and the challenges or obstacles they perceived, if any, incorporating lessons reflecting a progressive experimentalist methodology. The study was undertaken in response to popular and governmental rhetoric reflecting a lack of civil discourse and alleging a lack of civics in public education, as …

Theosis And The Morality Of Happiness: Investigating The Implications Of The Deification Doctrine In Aquinas, Emma Newgarden

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This thesis examines the implications of a connection between the doctrine of deification or theosis (often summarized by the patristic axiom that God became man so that man might become God) and a Christian morality of happiness, an understanding of the moral life as that which comprises our true human flourishing—a transformative growth in virtue by which we grow in our capacity to realize our final telos of union with God. Deification, traditionally more strongly associated with Eastern Christian theology, has not typically been discussed in relation to the morality of happiness, arising primarily within the discourse of the contemporary …

“The Hond Hire Helde”: Solidarity, Mirroring, And Foreshadowing Between Helen, Cassandra, And Criseyde In Chaucer’S Troilus And Criseyde, Mallory K. Warner

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Geoffry Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde has divided readers and critics alike when addressing the main female protagonist: Criseyde. The poem follows Criseyde and her love interest Troilus, during the final days of the Trojan War, as the two are thrust together into a tragic affair then ripped apart by outside forces and the consequences of their own choices. By the end of the narrative, Criseyde’s autonomy is stripped from her as she is traded in a hostage exchange to the Greek army. In her last present moment in the poem, Criseyde comes to the realization that remaining true to Troilus …

Weaving In The Ends: Analyzing Fiber Art As A Subversive Symbol In Virginia Woolf’S To The Lighthouse And The Years, Samantha J. Klein

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Scholars have long overlooked the role of fiber arts in Virginia Woolf’s fiction, treating the artform as acts of ‘women’s work.’ In an attempt to fill this gap, I posit that fiber arts operate as subversion of the Victorian ‘Angel in the House’ trope within two of Woolf’s novels, To the Lighthouse and The Years. While scholarship on To the Lighthouse cites Mrs. Ramsay’s perpetual status within the home as proof of her role as an ‘Angel in the House,’ her preferred hobby of knitting actually subverts this. Most Englishwomen during the Victorian era chose to follow their Queen’s example …

Eat Or Be Eaten: A Posthuman Ecofeminist Reading Of The Vegetarian And Organ Meats, Erin Grace Elizabeth Kostic

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

As two novels that feature the reformation and reconstruction of the female body, both Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and K-Ming Chang’s Organ Meats emphasize the posthuman existence of women seeking to break free from the gender-based shackles that constrain them, leading to a striking rejection of the anthropocentric and patriarchal worldviews that plague contemporary society. My thesis comparatively examines each novel through an ecofeminist lens in an attempt to prove that it is only when a woman is able to reframe her existence outside of a male-centric worldview that she can truly find freedom. The Vegetarian’s Yeong-hye loses her …

They Can’T “Shut Us Up”: Emily Dickinson’S And Mina Loy’S Use Of Religious Struggles In Girlhood To Empower Their Feminist Poetic Voices As Women, Bridget H. Anderson

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Poet Emily Dickinson and Modernist poet Mina Loy’s works stand the test of time to create a striking religious and feminist narrative today. Dickinson’s poetry, which remained largely unknown in her lifetime, will come to wield great power in the feminist and religious spheres in the years following her death in 1886. Following in Dickinson’s footsteps, Loy’s poetry is direct and engaging in a more urgent message with her bold imagery and brash words. Dickinson’s “We talked as Girls do” (392) and “They shut me up in Prose” (445) are texts that subtly challenge the misogyny in the Calvinist religion …

Nathaniel Hawthorne And The Limits Of Half-Feminism, Jessica Mckenzie

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This project argues that while Nathaniel Hawthorne creates intellectually complex and emotionally resilient female heroines in The Scarlet Letter and The Blithedale Romance, he ultimately reinforces the patriarchal structures he appears to critique. Through the figures of Hester Prynne and Zenobia, Hawthorne demonstrates a deep awareness of women’s societal oppression and the limitations imposed upon them within nineteenth-century America. However, despite moments of resistance and autonomy, these women are never permitted full liberation, agency, or lasting fulfillment. Their narratives ultimately become constrained by the patriarchal power that denies them independence and sustaining love. Thus, Hawthorne’s work coincides with the …

(The) Invisible Threads: Portraiture, Memory, And Relational Endurance, Behnaz Ghasempour

Masters Theses, 2020-current

(The) Invisible Threads is an MFA thesis investigating how invisible interpersonal bonds, collective traces, and communal endurance can be made perceptible through drawing, material, and immersive installation. Drawing from my lived experience as an Iranian woman who has witnessed everyday constraint, collective uprising, and migration, the project asks how the presence of others continues to inhabit the body and shape identity even in conditions of separation and distance. Large-scale self-portraits, layered with other faces on transparent fabrics, copper plates, and stitched threads, position the artist’s own body as a site where personal and collective histories converge, allowing the self to …

Queer Ballroom In 1980s-90s New York City: Connections To Joy And Education, Maya A. Gary

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This master's thesis project delivers a concise history of the development of Queer Ballroom in the 1980s–1990s in Harlem, New York City, primarily focusing on low-income Black and Latino queer individuals and how they created spaces of belonging and joy during the HIV/AIDS crisis. This work illustrates how ballroom culture functioned as both a space of refuge and a network for mutual aid, outreach, and advocacy. In addition to the historical analysis, this project includes a free-to-use educational website and lesson plans aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning for grades 6 and 11. This work demonstrates the importance of …

Racial Autobiographies And Readiness To Be A Social Justice Leader, Traci Holloway

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This qualitative dissertation investigates how engaging in racial autobiography writing influences pre-service educational leaders’ readiness to enact social justice leadership. Situated within the persistent racial mismatch between increasingly diverse student populations and predominantly White school leadership, the study responds to the educational debt owed to communities of color and the limitations of traditional leadership preparation. Grounded in critical race theory, social justice leadership frameworks, and concepts of critical consciousness, the research examines how structured racial autobiographical reflection can disrupt color-evasive narratives, surface formative racial experiences, and deepen candidates’ understanding of systemic inequities. Using an action-research design within a university-based leadership …

Shaping Narratives By Defying Math: How Black Congressional Candidates Frame Economic Issues From 2018–2022, Dante Allen Miller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation moves the discussion of Black candidates economic policies beyond race to understand how Black candidates participate in racial capitalism. Using a mixed-methods approach, including textual analysis, and multinomial logistic regressions, I interrogate how 374 Black candidates navigate economic framing. Candidates use four distinct economic frames, three of which are rooted in neoliberalism, traditional, welfare state, progressive, and vague values. I present the findings in three papers which examine framing via textual analysis, the intra-categorical differences, and differences by congressional district demographics. In the first paper I show that Black candidates framing of economic issues reinforces racial capitalism even …

Addressing Sexual Health For Older Veterans By Healthcare Providers: A Mixed Method Study, Andrew James White

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background: Older adults remain sexually active, yet sexual health is frequently under-discussed in healthcare settings, particularly within veteran populations. Sexual health is essential to overall quality of life, and prior studies have shown that older patients value these conversations. However, veterans often face unique factors such as military-related trauma, including military combat exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder, in addition to compounded stigma from these topics in regards to open discussions about sensitive health issues to their healthcare providers. This study is significant in its potential to uncover systemic, cultural, and interpersonal influences that shape these dynamics, with a particular emphasis …

Within Melbourne: Landscape, Labor, And Material Culture In A Derbyshire Parish, 1650-1750, Mia Powell

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

In May of 1695, a group of inhabitants walked the grounds of the English locality of Melbourne (Derbyshire) and collected demographic data from every household within the parish boundaries. From this perambulation came a uniquely detailed census-type listing. Combining that listing with other available sources, including probate records, criminal litigation, property disputes, financial papers, antiquarian accounts, maps, and enclosure agreements from across seven record offices, this project uncovers the complex social and economic developments experienced by those who lived in Melbourne from 1650 to 1750. To analyze this well-documented parish, this thesis utilizes various methodologies. Nominal record linkage connects Melbourne’s …

Reconciliation: An Auditory Exploration Of Redemptive Suffering, Emily Eid

MFA in Visual Art

Reconciliation examines the intersection between chronic pain, Catholic theology, and contemporary sound art through the lens of radical honesty. It documents a dramatic aesthetic and spiritual pivot in my art practice, moving from grotesque, abject portrayals of agony to a hopeful representation of redemptive suffering. I share how the project evolved from an installation of anthropomorphic furniture to a sculptural work using my bed, to an audio piece presented in a semi-private “confessional booth,” all while challenging the misconceptions surrounding chronic pain and disability. Utilizing the theories of Roland Barthes, I break down the semiological and authorial aspects of the …

Welcome Tilly Norwood: Forecasting Hollywood’S Ai Policy Futures, Samuel P. Rooker

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In late 2025, weekly trade publication Variety Magazine reported on the announcement of a new acting talent in Hollywood: Tilly Norwood. Norwood is an industry outsider and the pet project of Eline Van der Velden, who unveiled the actress’ existence to the world at the Zurich Film Festival. The announcement quickly gained media coverage while Van der Velden has since faced cyclical backlash from Hollywood trade unions, which does not seem entirely without reason. Tilly Norwood is a digital persona, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) program, designed by Van der Velden’s novel AI talent studio, Xicoia, to become the next …

Miss Ogilvy Does Not Find Herself: The Repression Of Queer Expression Post World War I, Kennedie Krieger

2026 Symposium

World War l was a historical period of intense societal change, and although it brought upon a lot of devastation, there were also groups of people that experienced liberation because of the war. Radclyffe Hall’s short story “Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” is an example of the ways in which the war offered relief for queer women who had previously been expected to exist within rigid gender roles. Through an uncommon perspective, readers are able to get a sense of the ways in which gendered societal expectations shifted during the war and the positive outcomes this brought about. Although these hopeful …

The Making Of An Extremist: How Do We Become Someone Else’S Nightmare?, María Paula Morales

The Confluence

This article explores how ordinary people can be pulled into extremist movements and what psychological forces drive that process. It looks at three perspectives: social identity theory, which explains how group belonging shapes behavior, identity development, which shows how people searching for meaning may find it in extremist causes; and social neuroscience, which connects radicalization to brain activity linked to fear, loyalty, and moral judgement. Together, these approaches show that radicalization is not simply about ideology but about identity, emotion, and belonging. By understanding these dynamics, we can find better ways to prevent extremism and promote healthier, more inclusive communities.

The Purpose Of Life: An Analysis Of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty As A Cinematic Guide To Eudaimonia, Eric W. Stroud

The Confluence

This paper examines the moral formation of the protagonist of the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) through the framework of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Though extensive research has been conducted on the use of film as a vehicle for moral education and a tool for ethics pedagogy, there exists a demonstrable gap in research which applies the principles of virtue ethics to character analysis in film. This paper presents a scene-based, qualitative analysis comparing the actions of the main character to the model of habituation of virtue as presented in The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. In observing the …

Satire And Sentiment: Dickensian Characterization In Hard Times, Helen R. Ball

The Confluence

Readers of Charles Dickens both celebrate and criticize his characters, who are paramount among the quintessential aspects of his writing. His industrial novel Hard Times bears particularly the weight of such criticism in its portrayal of Stephen Blackpool, one of the Coketown factory Hands. Scholars have complained that Blackpool exemplifies, in too boring or didactic a manner, the typical virtues of the Victorian era, such as saintliness, humility, and long-suffering (Spector 365), and that his character lacks the necessary traits to compel and inspire readers.

Such a critique has prompted the following research and analysis. Using formalist observation of diction …

Hammurabi’S Laws: Ancient Traditions Of Violence, Aaron Secrist

The Confluence

The tradition of enforcing private property through violence is truly ancient, and goes back thousands of years to the first civilizations. There exists a prevailing attitude that contemporary culture is more “civilized” than the first organized societies – and while it’s true in some ways, our laws are still remarkably similar to those practiced in antiquity. In the following essay, I analyze the Law Code of Hammurabi and examine its parallels to the way laws function today. First, I will provide context for the technological advances that made the first city-states possible, then give a cultural and economic overview of …