Digital Commons Network^™

In The Cool Of The Woods : An Original Story On Burgeoning Self-Identity For 6s And 7s, Adelaide Wainwright

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Presents an original children's story about an afternoon in the life of Maxine, whose mother insists that she leave her side and go have an adventure. Maxine reluctantly does so and meets her cousin Laura at the edge of the woods. With Laura as a guide, the magic of the woods is revealed, and soon Maxine is guiding the pair of girls in discovery. At the end of the day, Maxine leaves the woods having undergone a remarkable experience that has changed her relationship with the world around her

The Three Petals : A Modern Literary Fairy Tale In The Classical Tradition, Amy Lipman

Graduate Student Independent Studies

An original story, written and illustrated in the style of the golden age of fairy tales. The story includes sixteen original collage illustrations and is a coming-of-age tale about a young girl who embarks on a journey to seek her fortune. Travelling through a hostile world, she encounters benevolent creatures, whom she helps, using magic talismans from home, and who, in return, help her to liberate a hostage prince and destroy a force of pure evil. Also examines recent trends in the pop culture of fairy tales over the last fifty years that have inspired the author's work both negatively …

My Brain Wakes Up, Nicole Mcdonough

Graduate Student Independent Studies

An original work of fiction designed to open the conversation between students and teachers about the striking contrasts and innate beauty in how differently each of our brains are made. It is at once a work of fiction, an interview of children, an opportunity for personal reflection, and an invitation for all learners to honor our unique creativity.

The Secret Life Of Archives: Sally Siddons, Sir Thomas Lawrence, And The Material Of Memory, Laura Engel

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This essay is in two parts, in the first I attempt to map out strategies for considering archival materials through the lens of performance, and in the second I enact or perform some of those strategies through a close reading of a letter from Sally Siddons, daughter of the famous actress Sarah Siddons, to the renown portrait painter and rakish bad boy, Sir Thomas Lawrence. I present a methodology that considers archival researchers as tourists who approach archival objects and images as material for curating a virtual exhibition. I argue that this strategy allows us to recognize and attempt to …

Exploring Omissions From Historical Chronicles In Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy, Christopher Roy

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Modernism And The Ballets Russes: What Contemporary Choreography Can Learn From Diaghilev, Kelly Oden

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

In order to discover some of the features of what contemporary choreographers, dancers, artists, and musicians can learn from the Ballets Russes and the defining artistic movement of which they were a part-modernism-we must first take a journey back to Paris in the early twentieth century and work to unravel modernism's meaning in relation to different artistic media. We must ask complicated questions: What is modernism? What defines artistic success? What does it take to make something truly new? By asking such questions we can come to a deeper understanding of the conditions necessary to create a thriving artistic environment …

The Artist’S Voice And The Written Word: Language In Art From 1960 To 1975, Emily A. Francisco

Celebration

Between 1960 and 1975 there was an outpouring of artists writing critically in the United States, reflecting a mass desire to reclaim the voice of the artist in a critic-dominated art world. Texts in general rapidly spread throughout the artistic landscape during this period; as Conceptual artists challenged notions of visuality and viewership, we see a dramatic increase in artists engaging with experimental writing. This generation of artists, which included Dan Graham and Robert Smithson, had a fascination with the written word’s potential as an art medium, many using the art magazine as an alternative venue to the “elitist” art …

Iron Redemption: A Biographical Documentary With Ethnographic Elements, Natalie Domingue

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

"More Than Custom Has Pronounced Necessary”: Exploring The Correlation Between Gendered Verbs And Character In The 19th Century Novel, Nebraska Literary Lab, Oliver Baylog, Laura Dimmit, Travis Heller, Gabi Kirilloff, Shannon Smith, Grace Thomas, Chandler Warren, James Wehrwein

Department of English: Presentations

During the 19th century, gender politics played a crucial role in shaping the emergence of the novel as a popular and successful form of literature. Not only were middle class women becoming an important part of the reading public, women were also authoring novels and creating complex heroines that at times pushed against, and at other times bolstered, traditional conceptions of propriety and femininity. Along with a rise in popularity came a rise in the critique of the novel as a valid literary genre; many critics claimed that novels were capable of corrupting their female readership. Authors responded to this …

A Qualitative Study Of Nursing Living-Learning Communities, Renee Noel Bauer

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Living-learning communities, although not a novel concept, have been known to promote student performance and a sense of collegiality. Because nursing is essential to the medical profession, nursing student retention and pass rates are of paramount importance. Attrition tends to happen to nursing students in their first formative years (Newton & Moore, 2009). Therefore, this study was conducted to explore findings associated with living arrangements and residential factors promoting and deterring retention. Although most studies on this topic have utilized quantitative methods, this qualitative comparative case study, involving two universities in Indiana during the winter of 2014, examined the personal …

Exploring The Potential Of Video Games As Educational And Story-Telling Tools, Kelsen Amy Kitchen

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

For my honors thesis, I have attempted to explore the potential of video games as educational and storytelling tools. The central questions I formulated before beginning this project are twofold:

1. How can video games be used as tools to educate players?

2. How can video games be used to tell stories, and how are they unique from other storytelling methods?

In pursuit of the answer to the first question, I conducted a literature review of articles that explored the educational and cultural potential of various video games. The articles that I surveyed were diverse, ranging from studies of elementary …

Best Practice Recommendations For Publishing A Student Anthology, Ariel Peterson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This document describes the publication process for student anthologies and provides a list of specific, actionable recommendations for students and instructors publishing student anthologies. These recommendations are based upon a literature review of anthology concepts and my own experience publishing a student anthology, Voices in Print, for Utah State University's Intermediate Writing classes. I will introduce the topic of student anthologies with a brief description of their uses and benefits and then describe the publication process with a list of specific recommendations.

Competing Conceptions Of Literacy : Intersections In A Dual-Credit Writing Program., Caroline Wilkinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses how as dual-credit offerings rise, university writing programs work to respond to the pedagogical, material, and institutional concerns that inform teaching “college-level writing” in this unique space. Recent composition scholarship, such as Christine Farris and Kristine Hansen’s College Credit for Writing in High School: The “Taking Care of” Business, addresses the acceleration of these courses, questioning the extent to which the efficiency of dual credit designates writing as a “commodity easily appropriated, sold, outsourced, and knocked off” (272). My project further studies the implications of accelerated writing courses by interviewing dual-credit students, instructors, and administrators at one …

The Fallacy Of Cultural Authenticity: The Simulacra And Cultural Appropriation In The Free Market Through The Lens Of Literature, Christopher Amuzzini

Master’s Theses and Projects

I. The Individual’s Pursuit of Cultural Authenticity: Music and Materialism in E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime and Nella Larsen’s Quicksand

II. ‘Buying’ Into Culture: The Effect of Commoditization on the Cultural Artifact in Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House

III. Selling Experience: The Fallacy of Memory & Influence of Late Capitalism on the Cultural Experience in Julian Barnes’ England, England

Ideology And Subversion: Linguistic Registers In Barbara Kingsolver’S The Poisonwood Bible, Natalie Wallace

English

Effective colonial regimes have employed language to control and incapacitate their colonial subjects. However, anti-colonialist and Africanist authors have conversely used language as a significantly powerful tool in resisting colonial and neo-colonial discourses. Despite this subversive sentiment in contemporary literature about Africa, many scholars criticize Western authors, in particular, for their works about African nations, peoples, and struggles, noting their tendencies to generalize about a diverse continent, to project Western paradigms onto African contexts, and to disregard their own associations with colonial governments. Barbara Kingsolver’s 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible has received much critical attention as a work that deplores …

Riffing On The Past: Jazz And Signifying In Ishmael Reed’S Mumbo Jumbo, Kevin Wheeler

English

Jazz. A word that today signifies cool cats in dark sunglasses and black turtlenecks, a word that brings to mind the—predominantly white—big bands of World War yore, or that singular, immediately recognizable rasp of Louis Armstrong. It’s a word that reminds one of names like Miles, Coltrane and Coleman. Maybe even a man whose last name, for most intents and purposes, is the letter G. Many, however, do not associate jazz with racism, repression, and, perhaps most surprising, a disease that renders its victims hysteric and prone to fits of dance. But if they were to read either Ishmael Reed’s …

Breaking Bad: On The Western Genre And Audience Reception, Marisa Mazart

English

“Breaking Bad: on the Western Genre and Audience Reception” examines the recent TV series Breaking Bad making use of cultural scholar Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theories in order to better understand what meaning is imbued into the series and what meaning is extracted by the audiences. By treating Breaking Bad as a cultural artifact moving across what Hall defines as the parts of the circuit of culture – production, identification, representation, consumption and regulation – I will be able to answer the question of why the show is so popular and to consider the significance of that popularity. While …

The Isolated Self: A Re-Imaging Of The Individual In Mary Shelley’S Frankenstein And Mamoru Oshii’S Ghost In The Shell, Emily Wierzbowski

English

Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell films (1995 and 2004) were both created in times of great upheaval in scientific communities, and show that the further away we get from the organic body, the harder it becomes to articulate what is specifically human through dualisms. Shelley was writing during a period of secularization. Human identity and relations were no longer strictly based on one’s relationship to God or one’s family’s standing. Oshii’s work comes in the midst of the arrival of the new digital age. Medical enhancements and the proliferation of communication technologies such as …

Don’T You Be Telling Me How Tah Talk: Education, Ebonics, And Code-Switching, Laquita N. Gresham

Honors Theses

Ebonics, currently referred to as African-American English (AAE), is a highly-controversial topic inside and outside of the classroom. Many educators, scholars, and legislators debate how teachers should approach students who speak AAE and how they can fill the gap between African-American English and Standard English in a way that disbands the dialectal prejudices that may exist. This thesis focuses on code-switching as a pedagogical tool to help teachers instruct Black students in mastering Standard English on a proficient level, particularly Black students who speak AAE. This study explores current problems and practices in the way that English teachers approach AAE …

“The Impossible That Is Going To Happen”: The Denial Of Death In Roth’S Zuckerman Books, Matthew P. Germenis

Honors Theses

Since Philip Roth’s official retirement from fiction writing after the publication of his last novel in 2010, scholars have embarked on a major reassessment of Roth’s oeuvre. This analysis is a reassessment of Roth’s Nathan Zuckerman series, which includes nine novels beginning with The Ghost Writer (1979) and ending in Exit Ghost (2007). While much has been written on The Ghost Writer and its inclusion of a character that is believed to be Anne Frank, scholars have overlooked the beginning of a major theme in Roth’s work. The emphasis is often placed on Roth’s engagement with history, the Holocaust, and …

Detection Methods For Small Analytes: Improvement Of Novel Spr Technology Detection Of Toxins And Toxicants, William B. Ollayos

Honors Scholar Theses

Humans are exposed to a variety of toxic substances in their day-to-day activities that may have adverse health effects if not properly identified. An integrated dual-mode instrument that combines grating-coupled surface plasmon resonance (GCSPR) and grating-coupled surface plasmon coupled emissions (GCSPCE) should allow for the efficient detection of toxic analytes in a high-content system using gold-coated superparamagnetic nanobeads. The goal of this study is to validate the binding characteristics of the reagents intrinsic to this innovative assay methodology. Competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) assays were conducted on NNK toxicants and SEB toxins, which were the …

Middle-Earth's War On Terror: A Post-9/11 Reception Study On The Works Of J.R.R. Tolkien, James William Peebles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how Americans can and do interpret Tolkien's works in light of 9/11 and its proximity to Peter Jackson's film adaptations hitting theaters.

Reflective Tales : Tracing Fairy Tales In Popular Culture Through The Depiction Of Maternity In Three “Snow White” Variants., Alexandra O'Keefe

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

From Hip To Hypocrisy : An Exploration Of The Hipster And The Cooptation Of Style., Melissa Rothman

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Seeking Infinity: Exploring The Meaning And Potential Of Young Adult Literature, Jacinta Yanders

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The category of Young Adult (YA) Literature has experienced tremendous growth in terms of readership and works produced over the course of the last fifteen years or so. While there has been some scholarly work done on the category, the research pales in comparison to almost any other facet of literature. For whatever reasons, scholars have largely decided to ignore the changes that have occurred in YA. However, that has not stopped readers from continuing to read these books. In fact, this paper not only addresses the background and what I believe to be the defining characteristics of YA, but …

Humor In Discourse: Herr Flick And Lieutenant Gruber In ‘Allo ‘Allo, Toke Van Gehuchten

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Humor in discourse is often characterized by the specific, i.e. humor arises in a particular context. Sitcoms often provide a medium for humor in that the characters act as types through the aid of linguistic tools. In the case of ‘Allo ‘Allo, for instance, the German character of Herr Flick is exemplified by his extensive usage of syntactic features, which are associated with speaker dominance, e.g. frequent use of the imperative, deontically used modal verbs and conciseness of utterance. On the other hand, the character of Lieutenant Gruber is typified by his usage of mitigation speech devices, such as the …

Comparison Of Blood Flow Changes With Soft Tissue Mobilization And Massage Therapy, Andrea M. Portillo Soto

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Context: Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM) and massage therapy are manual techniques that claim to be able to increase blood flow to treated areas. There are no studies on human subjects that have directly investigated the effects of IASTM on blood flow. Objective: To compare the effects of Graston Technique (GT) and Massage therapy on calf blood flow, using skin temperature measures (a valid, indirect measureof blood flow), on the lower leg. Design: Single-blinded prospective, longitudinal, controlled, repeated-measures design. Setting: Research Laboratory Participants: 28 volunteers participated in the study (Age=23±3; Males=14/28 (50%); Females=14/28 (50%); Girth=39.5±4.3l; Skinfold=27.9±5.6) Interventions: Each participant …

The Effect Of Kinesiotape On Ankle Proprioception And Rom, Jenna L. Capps

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ankle ROM and proprioception are components of rehabilitation. Kinesio Tape (KT) is theorized to increase ROM and proprioception. KT is lacking in the literature in regards to proprioception and ROM more specifically in the ankle area. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of KT on ankle proprioception and ROM. DESIGN: Pretest-posttest randomized group design. Participants were assigned to one of two groups (with KT and without KT). Both groups ankle ROM was measured in all directions and 4 trials of 20 seconds. Then a five minute rest for the control group or have KT application within 5 minutes as the experimental …

The Ecology And Morphology Of Deep-Sea Benthic Foraminifera: The Australian Margin And Epifaunal Pore Characteristics, Jake Willingham

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The distribution and abundance patterns of modern benthic foraminifera are used by paleoceanographers to assess changes in ocean conditions over geologic time. Examination of modern foraminiferal analogs provides the means to determine how these single-celled protists record clues about ambient conditions in their morphology and abundance/distribution patterns. Abundance and vertical distribution patterns of deep-sea benthic foraminifera were examined along the South Australian Margin and Tasman Sea of Australia. This was one of the first studies to examine microhabitat preferences of living (Rose Bengal stained) deep-sea benthic foraminifera within the region. A total of 11 sediment cores were collected via multicorer. …

Del Norte: A Collection Of Short Stories Y El Corrido De Dani, Jesus Alfredo Reyna

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Del Norte is the title name given to this first series of vignettes and short stories. The narratives are divided into four parts including a one act play that attempt to bridge the gap between the idea of a homeland as well as the Mexican American identity through the eyes of a migrant family and its major narrator. Unlike derivative associations with the term Del Norte in other academic disciplines, my interpretation of being from “Del Norte” is manifested into stories about a homeland omnipresent in the familial relationships described in my stories. The narratives exist within this paradigm. The …