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Reflections Across Religions: A Historical Examination Of Common Themes In Zoroastrianism, Judaism, And Christianity, Jason Heckert

Graduate Theses

In the sixth century BCE, the largest empire in the world at the time, the Persian Empire, adopted a monotheistic religion that was based on the teachings of a prophet named Zoroaster. As one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism impacted the beliefs and traditions of Judaism and early Christianity. Similarities among these religions include the ideas of hierarchy among good and evil spirits, actions on earth determining one’s place in an afterlife, apocalyptic themes, and dualism. Zoroastrian beliefs found their way into early Christian culture. The remnants of Zoroastrianism in mainstream Christianity underscores the influence of that ancient Persian …

Femininity In Medieval Scandinavia: How Paganism Forged Gender Equality, Erin M. Caffey

Graduate Theses

The brutality of the Vikings and the conquests of medieval Scandinavian men have often garnered the majority of interest from the media, the armchair historian, and the scholar alike, with the pursuits and lives of their female counterparts seldom discussed. Medieval Scandinavian women’s lives though, when examined, are just as enthralling as those of the men. And while their stories are not necessarily as full of bloodshed or glory, the lives of women, those seen in both mythology and memory, provide an insight into the secular and religious foundations of medieval Scandinavian communities. Through an examination of various mythological texts, …

"They Were Men In Those Days": Gender, Class, And Ethnicity In The Paul Bunyan Tales, Dean Schmit

Honors Capstone Projects

This paper examines the development of the Paul Bunyan stories from the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century through a gendered lens.

The 1985 Move Bombing: A Study In Perspectives, Kaci Delisle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a military grade bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue, a row house in a Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. This home was occupied by a revolutionary group called MOVE. The bomb started a fire that the police and firefighters decided to “contain” rather than put out, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and the destruction of sixty-one homes. Only two MOVE members survived the fire. Using court records, documents from the investigation conducted by the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (PSIC), and other interviews regarding MOVE and the bombing, this paper reconstructs different perspectives …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 26: Confessions Of A 'Wallace Enthusiast', Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

The author’s longstanding interest in the life and thought of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is profiled in three ways, through: (1) a brief factual review of its history (2) a discussion of some problems with the way Wallace has been treated over the years, and (3) a consideration of the author’s personal experience with the paranormal, and how this has made him, if not always a full believer, more patient with divergent explanations of the type Wallace was famous for.

Black History Month At The Art Institute Of Atlanta Library, Michael W. Wilson

Georgia Library Quarterly

The 2023 Black History Month program at The Art Institute of Atlanta is described. The program entailed the use of LibGuides to assist students in identifying figures in African American history, specifically individuals who were pioneers in the students' fields of study. Students were provided access to a large paper banner to create tributes to the figures they discovered using the LibGuide.

Civil War Journalism: Two Rough Drafts Of One History, Brianna Collora

History Honors Program

This paper addresses journalism in the Civil War by analyzing both Northern and Southern reporting. The severity of censorship changed throughout the duration of the war, with it less harsh in the Union by the end. Southern officials did not censor as much, both because their resources were scarcer, and their officials were more opposed to the use of censorship. While past historians have argued that the decrease in Northern censorship is because the Union began to have the upper hand in the war, I argue that the decrease in Union censorship was not only because the Union was now …

La Simbología Del Tlacuache En Las Colecciones De Tlatilco Y La Posible Antigüedad Del Mito, Patricia Ochoa Castillo

Tejiendo imágenes. Homenaje a Victòria Solanilla Demestre

El tlacuache es un animal importante en la mitología mesoamericana y se le menciona principalmente al hablar de periodos tardíos. Sin embargo, en el Preclásico, periodo más antiguo de la época prehispánica, y en particular en las colecciones de Tlatilco, el tlacuache está ampliamente representado en la cerámica, por lo que pudo haber tenido un papel relevante dentro del sistema de creencias de estas comunidades tempranas. Es así que surge la pregunta sobre la profundidad temporal de los mitos y religiones que se conocen para las épocas tardías en Mesoamérica, y particularmente si el mito del tlacuache, uno de los …

Was Jesus Christ Born A Jew Or Not? Luther And Protestant Anti-Judaism In Nazi Germany, Darian Sullivan

All Theses

Martin Luther’s role as the founder of German Protestantism placed him in a position where he was the hero for two opposing factions that formed within the German Evangelical Church in the wake of the Nazi party’s rise to power in 1933. The two factions were the pro-Nazi German Christians and the anti-Nazi Confessing Church. The two sides appealed to different aspects of Luther’s theology to defend their beliefs. Martin Luther’s theology, particularly his anti-Judaic beliefs was a crucial issue for the divided Protestant Church. Luther’s writings are crucial for determining how influential he was for both groups.

The Invisible Influence: How Women And Enslaved People Shaped Colonial South Carolina, Abigail Doyle

All Theses

Colonial American studies often focus on the movements, actions and influences of white males and while their actions are significant to understanding the past, it leads to a one-sided view of history. In the colony of South Carolina, women and people of color were important figures that influenced society and made a lasting impact for future generations. Ann Drayton and Eliza Lucas Pinckney both became female planters in the absence of male figures in their life and thrived in their roles. Drayton and Lucas-Pinckney were legitimate agents of colonization and slavery. Quash/John Williams, who was a former slave of Eliza …

“Why I Sing The Blues”: The Blues And The Individuals Who Played Them, Daniel Byrd

All Theses

Blues music is profoundly important to not only Black history but also to American history as a whole. While the blues has been examined by several scholars and writers throughout the years such as Samuel Charters, Paul Oliver, and Elijah Wald, much of the work done seems to be geared toward biographical information on these artists or defining what exactly the blues is. In my thesis, I argue that blues is important for another reason: it speaks to the individualism that was found within the African American community following Emancipation and this can be found primarily through a robust examination …

The Moral Hygiene Movement In The United States, 1840s—1920s, Marissa Seib

History Theses

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the mental health care system in the United States underwent a series of reforms in an effort to better care for some of the country’s frailest citizens. This period, called the moral hygiene era of mental health care, emerged from a further understanding of psychiatry and psychology which led to structural changes in the mental health care system.

This thesis examines the beginnings of the Kirkbride system, which sought to reform the whole of American mental health care through landscaping and architecture as well as the specific treatment plan for each individual. Using case …

Lars Gustaf Sellstedt: Art In Buffalo And The Buffalo Fine Art Academy, Shannon N. Gilmartin

History Theses

This Master’s Thesis Project researches the life of a forgotten Buffalo artist, Lars Gustaf Sellstedt. He was born in Sundsvall, Sweden and started his life as a sailor when he became a cabin boy as an early teenager. For most of his young life until his mid-twenties, Sellstedt was a sailor traveling to all corners of the world. He started his journey as an artist while in between sailing jobs. Over many decades he portraits locally and abroad mainly in the Caribbean Islands. Sellstedt was one of the few artists in 19th century Buffalo, sharing the profession with William J. …

Innovation For The Air: A Brief History Of Worldwide Aviation, Lauren Plumley

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The purpose of this report is to present a brief but comprehensive overview of the variety of innovations related to aviation, and to discuss their impact on scientific progress over the course of human history. Relevant discoveries from the fields of physics and aerodynamics, and the numerous technologies built based upon these discoveries, are discussed over a period ranging from ancient times to the twenty-first century. The scope of this report is an overview of the development of powered and unpowered aircraft, including lighter-than-air, heavier-than-air, and aerospace technologies. Aviation developments were generally not limited to one specific country or person, …

A Pelican's Journey To Flight: A Louisiana National Guardsman, The Development Of The United States Army Air Service, And The Human Cost Of Military Innovation, James H. Smith

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

George E. Dicks deployed to the Mexican Punitive Expedition and World War I with the Louisiana National Guard. He recorded his experience in writing and photography, which reside in the Jackson Barracks Military Museum in Chalmette, Louisiana. His memorabilia reflect an officer’s perspective on early military aviation and parallel to the United States military’s experimentation with aviation. Through experimentation, Dicks became an aerial observer in World War I.

This thesis explores George E. Dicks’ memorabilia and how it both represents the development of the American Air Service and the human cost of military aviation with photographic evidence. By representing aviation’s …

Humanizing History: Applying Media Storytelling To Lived Experiences, Benjamin Goeser

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This creative project explores the tendency of individuals to avoid or alter deemed unfavorable, unflattering, or simply humiliating traits or actions in their written and spoken personal stories. Such choices come from fear and pressure to present oneself in a more perfected state for others to “like” rather than a human state for audiences to relate to and learn from. Through a series of written personal accounts to air on UNO’s college radio station and website MavRadio.FM, the project brings attention to habits of human nature more likely to remain unspoken. The goal is to encourage the sharing of …

Is Hindsight 20/20? Reconsidering Popular Perceptions Of Civil War Surgeons, Miller Bacon

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper provides a cursory examination of the history and truth of the modern “butcher” stereotype associated with Civil War surgeons. Beginning with a review of modern examples of the stereotype in cinema, educational materials, children’s literature, and academic literature, this thesis further provides a detailed historical analysis of the source of this stereotype in the nineteenth century. This analysis completes the cultural analysis present within the paper by demonstrating the presence of the “butcher” stereotype in Civil War era newspapers and literature.

Finally, after the cultural analysis of the modern stereotype and its historical roots in the nineteenth century, …

Digital Masculinity: An Analysis Of How Masculine Values Are Manifested In Online Spaces, Catherine Thompson

Honors Projects

In this research paper, I utilize previous research to demonstrate how the history of masculinity in America impacts views of social hierarchy in gendered spaces online. I describe how hegemonic masculinity affects how men view themselves and others to understand why men’s online groups like incels, pick-up artists, men’s rights activists, 4chan, and 8chan develop and thrive by providing men with groups where they can demonstrate hegemonic masculinity to other men through degrading women. Using this framework, I use a binary logistic regression model to quantify the relationship between men’s opinions surrounding internet behaviors and attitudes towards the internet with …

"The Freedom To Express Yourself": The National Park Service And The African Diasporic Roots Of Black Dance In New Orleans, Ariel D. Roy

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In partnership with the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, my project entitled “African Dance in New Orleans: The Roots of Black New Orleans Dance” exhibit will focus on the African diasporic roots of Black traditional dance practices within New Orleans’ African American community. This project aims to diversify the public and political expressions of Black dance in New Orleans. It argues that the study of dance forms and practices uncovers narratives and fragments of African and African American cultural history in New Orleans that are impossible to glean from other sources. This thesis will support three modes of African …

Women And Religion In The Mongol Empire, Karlie Barnett

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

Aspects of the Mongol Empire have been well studied in academia, but these analyses, like much of our recording and analysis of world history overall, have largely excluded women. This thesis seeks to contribute to the effort to restore women to Mongol history, focusing on how the relationship between Mongol women and religion impacted the development of the Mongol Empire and Eurasian religions during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With a focus on elite women due to the nature of the sources, I draw upon historical chronicles, traveler accounts, artwork, and contributions from scholars in this field to assert that …

Influence Of Jesuit Linguistic Manipulation On Guaraní Gender Norms In Colonial Paraguay, Anna Rumpz

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

Language was just one of the ways that colonizers and natives had to interact in unfamiliar ways post-Columbus. Histories of colonization often emphasize the physically brutal aspects, such as disease, slavery, or warfare, but colonization is a holistically violent process that adversely impacts societies on multiple levels. In particular, this thesis focuses on the link between culture and language, with respect to Jesuit Spanish-Guaraní lexicons, as a framework to understand changes to gender roles and sexuality within the Jesuit missions of the early seventeenth century.

Full Court Press: The Influence Of Midnight Basketball, Talk Radio, And Racial Coding On The Violent Crime Control And Law Enforcement Act Of 1994, George “Matt” Patino

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

During the latter half of the twentieth century, “dog whistle” rhetoric increasingly entered the common vernacular, normalized by politicians and media personalities. Initially, the terminology was ambiguous, but it became racially charged when the media started broadcasting images of African Americans alongside the “thug” label. This research explores how “dog whistles” were, in part, a neoconservative response to the liberal policies of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his “Great Society.”

This study explores how “Great Society” policies aimed to balance the liberal expansion of Civil Rights with neoconservative “law and order” policing strategies. This research also investigates how right-wing talk …

How To Burn The American Flag: Subversions Of The Flag Code Amid The Black Arts Movement, Abigail (Claire) Porfilio '23

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

I Come Creeping: Remembering The Battle Of Blair Mountain In Graphic Narrative, Ellie James

Senior Honors Theses

Between August 24 and September 4 of 1921, approximately 10,000 West Virginia coal miners marched to Blair Mountain in Logan County in a militant stand for their right to unionize. Despite its status as the largest labor uprising in United States history, few know or understand the impact of the Battle of Blair Mountain today, even within the borders of West Virginia. This creative project aims to contribute to ongoing efforts to memorialize this period of the West Virginia Mine Wars through the creation of a 10-page comic, titled I Come Creeping, which depicts and is informed by the …

Taking Science Museums To The Edge: How Science Museums Can Advocate For Social Justice, Education And Inclusivity Through Their Exhibits, Sasha C. Naples

Museum Studies Theses

Science museums have often associated affluent populations and quality education with access to scientific material and content. While these institutions have become more accessible in many ways, they can and should increase their efforts to include BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities and individuals. As the need grows for diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields so does the demand for science museums to include these communities’ needs and wants. This thesis discusses the need for and importance of BIPOC representation in science museums and what museums have already done to include them in their programming and …

“Back To The Jungle”: Investigating Rats, Grass, Scrub Typhus, And Plantations In Malaya, 1924–1974, Jack Greatrex

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In this article, I examine epidemiological research into scrub typhus in British Malaya between 1924 and 1974. Interwar research, I show, explained the incidence of the disease through conjunctions of rats, mites, plantations, lalang grass, and “jungle.” In the process, interwar researchers bridged a novel scientific vocabulary centering on disease “reservoirs” with older suspicions of plantations enabling “pests,” as well as with a later, explicitly ecological understanding of infectious disease. In exploring this history I thereby help to re-historicize the emergence of ecological notions of disease reservoirs, whilst also pushing at the limit-points of influential notions of “tropicality.”

Coastal Frontiers: The Littoral Borderland In Alta California And The Spanish Pacific World, Chantra Vanna Potts

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intricate relationship between Spanish exploration, the economy of the Pacific World, and their impact on colonization in Alta California during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It offers a new perspective on the history of the region by situating it within the context of the Eastern Pacific Basin and littoral borderlands, highlighting the transregional and global processes that shaped social and economic exchanges among Spanish colonists, Indigenous people, European and Anglo-American merchants, and diverse groups of sailors on the northern frontier of New Spain. Using the theoretical framework of mental mapping, or the subjective mental representation …

Cartographic Analysis Of Earth-Sun Relationships In Ancient Amazonia, Jackson Bennett Critser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The alignments of ancient man-made earthworks across the Amazon Basin, known as geoglyphs, have recently been discovered to predate early societal dates. Although much research indicated that the Amazon was uninhabitable until the last 1000 years (Meggers 1971), new evidence suggests this is not the case. The application of advanced cartographic and GIS technologies were implemented to link solar ‘marker’ days (e.g. solstices, equinoxes) with the alignment of geoglyphs, megaliths, stone architecture, and broader city forms to discover and analyze previously unknown Earth-Sun relationships across the Amazon Basin to conceivably sophisticated urban and architectural plans. The study of these geoglyphs …

The Family History Of Arin A. Pitcher, Arin Pitcher

Your Family in History: HIST 550/700

The Family History of

Arin A. Pitcher

30 April 2023

Arin Alicejean Pitcher authored this family history as part of the course requirements for HIST 550/700 Your Family in History offered online in Spring 2023 and was submitted to the Pittsburg State University Digital Commons. Please contact the author directly with any questions or comments: [email protected]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Family History Of Jeff Clark 29 January 2023, Jeff Clark

Your Family in History: HIST 550/700

The Family History of Jeff Clark 29 January 2023