Digital Commons Network^™

Le Temps Des Copains: Youth And The Making Of Modern France In The Era Of Decolonization, 1958-1968, Drew Fedorka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the popular yé-yé phenomenon and its role in articulating a vision of modern France in the aftermath of decolonization. Yé-yé, a teen-oriented and music-based popular culture that flourished from roughly 1962-1966, was in a unique position to define what it meant to be young in 1960s France. I argue that the yé-yé popular culture, through its definition of youth, provided an important cultural channel through which to articulate a modern French identity after the Algerian War (1954-1962). Using a combination of advertisements, articles, and sanitized depictions of teenage pop singers, the yé-yé popular culture constructed an idealized …

A Historical Analysis Of The Evolution Of The Administrative And Organizational Structure Of The University Of Central Florida As It Relates To Growth, Boyd Lindsley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This was a qualitative historical study, which was recounted chronologically and organized around the terms of the four full-time presidents of the university. The review addressed the processes associated with the establishment and development of Florida Technological University beginning in 1963 through its name change to the University of Central Florida in 1979, concluding in 2013. The organization's mission, vision, and goals, how they evolved and the impact they had on the university were of particular interest. The study was focused on the administrative actions and organizational changes that took place within the university to assist faculty in teaching, research, …

Visions Of Race And Gender: Press Coverage Of The French Colonial Expositions Of 1922 And 1931, Zachary Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the interwar period, France attempted to reinvigorate interest in the empire amongst the public via elaborate colonial expositions. The colonial expositions of Marseille (1922) and Paris (1931) served as a means to celebrate the empire and to educate the French about the benefits of living within Greater France, an entity that included the metropole and the colonies. This thesis examines how press coverage of both expositions worked alongside these events to counteract anxieties regarding France's economic recovery after the war, continuing world presence, demographic losses, and most importantly the relationship between France and its colonies. It explores how the …

Sage Illusionists: A Historical Study Using Illusionists As A Reflection Of Mass Entertainment, Popular Culture, Anf Change During The Late Nineteenth Century, Clayton Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By the late nineteenth and early twenty century both the United States and Europe were experiencing massive shifts in social organization, social attitudes, and global influence due to the effects of the industrial revolution and imperialistic expansion. This birth of a public sphere and the mass entertainment industry was related to a blurring of the lines between traditional social classes. Mass entertainment's growth was directly related to the need to attract large audiences with entertainment that appealed in some way to a broad spectrum of the populace. At the same time, stage illusionists or magicians were one of the most …

Study Of Novel Nanoparticle Transport And Drug Release For Cancer Treatment., Christopher Gene England 1988-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nano-scale particles sized 10—400 nm administered systemically preferentially extravasate from tumor vasculature due to the enhanced permeability and retention effect. Therapeutic success remains elusive, however, because of inhomogeneous particle distribution within tumor tissue. Insufficient tumor vascularization limits particle transport and also results in avascular hypoxic regions with non-proliferating cells, which can regenerate tissue after nanoparticle-delivered cytotoxicity or thermal ablation. In this study, gold nanoparticles were functionalized with phosphatidylcholine (two-layer) or phosphatidylcholine and HDL (three-layer) in the formation of “layered” nanoparticles. The diffusivity of both two- and three layered colloidal gold nanoparticles and silica gold nanoshells were examined in 3D cell …

“Our Weapon Is The Wooden Spoon:” Motherhood, Racism, And War: The Diverse Roles Of Women In Nazi Germany, Cortney Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The historiography of women in Nazi Germany attests to the various roles of women in the Third Reich. Although politically invisible, women were deeply involved in the Nazi regime, whether they supported the Party or not. During Nazi racial schemes, men formed and executed Nazi racial programs, but women participated in Nazi racism as students, nurses, and violent perpetrators. Early studies of German women during World War II focused on the lack of Nazi mobilization of women into the wartime labor force, but many women already held positions in the labor force before the war. Nazi mistreatment of lower-class working …

Framing The Fight: Women's Use Of Rhetorical Coercion To Gain Political Empowerment From Revolutionary Participation—The Cases Of El Salvador, Guatemala, And Eritrea, Kyleanne M. Hunter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The below paper examines women’s ability to translate participation in antigovernment movement into political empowerment in the post-conflict government. I use the theory of Rhetorical Coercion to explore how the way in which women frame their participation impacts their ability to achieve increased political empowerment. I find that nationalistic frames are more successful than women’s-specific frames in women’s ability to achieve full empowerment and lasting rights. Using the cases of El Salvador, Guatemala and Eritrea I explore the inputs to a successful rhetorical strategy and the stumbling blocks to translating participation into national inclusion.

The Rise Of Bulgarian Nationalism And Russia's Influence Upon It., Lin Wenshuang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The exercise of nationalism is the assertion of the political sovereignty of a community in the form of a nation-state. In the case of Bulgaria, nationalism, in practice, was a long journey towards the establishment of a Bulgarian nation-state. This dissertation aims to clarify the place and role of nationalism in the reconstruction of the Bulgarian state and to examine to what extent the development of Bulgarian nationalism was influenced by Russia at the vital stage - the 1870s, when the nation fought hard against Ottoman rule and finally achieved national liberation. My motivation for examining Russo-Bulgarian historical, political and …

Academics And Activism : A Comparative Study Of Contemporary Historical Writings On Same-Sex Sexuality And Lgbt Activists In The Middle East., Lauren Copeland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the past several years, there has been an abundance of U.S. news stories outlining the widespread oppression of queer people in the Middle East. At the same time, some international human rights organizations have focused all attention on LGBT asylum seekers, implying that the only course of action for queer people in the Middle East is to flee. However, contemporary historical writers on same-sex sexuality demonstrate that the history of same-sex desire and behavior in the Middle East is incredibly nuanced and has changed greatly over time. Additionally, LGBT activists in the Middle East work from within their communities …

“That’S The Way I’Ve Always Learned”: The Transmission Of Traditional Music In Higher Education, Alexandra Frank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the establishment of degree programs in traditional music in institutions of higher education. It defines traditional music and discusses the history of traditional and folk music programs at universities and conservatories in the United States, Finland, Scotland, and England. The institutionalization of American traditional music is compared to the institutionalization of jazz music in the United States. This thesis focuses on the Bluegrass, Old- Time, and Country Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University and features original ethnographic interviews with lecturers from the program. Two similar programs in Tennessee and Kentucky are also discussed. Some of …

“Thank God It’S Only Maneuvers!:” Tennessee And The Road To War, Joshua G. Savage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Thank God It’s Only Maneuvers!:” Tennessee and the Road to War offers the reader a comprehensive explanation of the importance of the Tennessee Maneuvers of June 1941 to American preparation for World War II. Beginning with pre-war changes in the infantry, followed by the inception of the Armored Force, and continuing through the testing of both during the 1941 Maneuvers, the reader will gain an appreciation of the significance of these actions to overall American preparation before and during the Second World War. This work also presents a look at how these extensive combat actions influenced the people of the …

The Impact Of World Bank’S Conditionality-Ownership Hybrid On Forest Management In Cameroon: Policy Hybridity In International Dependence Development, Asongayi Venard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many developing countries depend on the World Bank for development assistance, which the Bank often provides with policy reform conditions. Resistance to World Bank’s conditionality caused the Bank to posit “ownership” as a country’s real assent to its development policies. The combination of ownership and conditionality invalidates the neocolonial, false-paradigm and dualism theses in explaining the international dependence development model. This study explains this model by investigating how the relationship between conditionality and ownership in the context of this model impacts forest management in Cameroon.

Integrating theoretical and methodological insights mainly from political science, economics, geosciences, and sociology, the study …

The Relevance Of Benjamin Franklin's And Thomas Jefferson's Technical Writing For Modern Communicators, Kristin Fecko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today's technical communicators enjoy an increasingly broader role and influence in the workplace, and are often given latitude to use engaging rhetoric and personal touches in many kinds of communications. Historical documents, particularly those that are substantially removed from our own era, can offer fresh approaches and insight into the enduring elements of successful communication. This study explores the technical writings of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and considers their usefulness to professionals today. Although the political writing of Franklin and Jefferson is more familiar, both men frequently wrote about scientific and technical subjects and were well-known in their day …

Women And The American Wilderness: Responses To Landscape And Myth, Gina Bessetti-Reyes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women and the American Wilderness: Responses to Landscape and Myth" explores three, middle to upper-class white women's responses to wilderness from texts published between 1823 and 1939. Through an exploration of James Fenimore Cooper's heroine Elizabeth Temple in the novel The Pioneers (1823), Isabella Bird's published letters entitled A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1873), and Muriel Rukeyser's reaction to the Gauley Bridge Tragedy of the 1930s in her book of poems The Book of the Dead (1939), I show that women's responses to the American wilderness not only included a reaction to the physical terrain but also to …

Long-Term Changes In Four Plant Communities Along An Elevational Gradient In The Front Range Of Colorado, Gregory J. Sproull

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We surveyed four plant communities along an elevational gradient in the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains for long-term overstory and understory changes. Our results were compared to those found in 1981 and 1996. We evaluated changes in succession, elevational species migration and range expansion, community diversity, and composition. We related temporal floristic shifts to prior literature on disturbance history at each site. Over time, all communities changed significantly, though in different manners. This analysis shows that plant communities are changing in dynamic and idiosyncratic ways that correspond to individualistic distribution shifts. Moreover, we exhibit the necessity of comprehensively …

Minnie And Ivy: Minnie Moore-Willson, Ivy Stranahan, And Seminole Reform In Early Twentieth Century Florida, Sarika Joshi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During an era when the Seminoles were little regarded in Florida, despite mass Indian reform nationwide, Minnie Moore-Willson of Kissimmee and Ivy Stranahan of Fort Lauderdale attempted to bring reform to the state. Living amongst members of the tribe, both women used their familiarity with Seminole life and practices, as well as their political and social connections, to enact change for the tribe. This was done, respectively, through the creation of reservations and attempting to increase educational and vocational opportunities for tribe members. This thesis examines the lives and activism of Minnie Moore-Willson and Ivy Stranahan over the first two …

The Best And Worst Of All That God And Man Can Do": Paternalistic Perceptions On The Intellectually Disabled At Florida's Sunland Institutions., Bethany Dickens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historians have studied mental institutions in the mid-20th century; however, few have discussed them within the context of the period's paternalistic social movements and perceptions. Florida's Sunland program provides a lens for studying the parental role the institutions and general public took toward the intellectually disabled. Specifically, administrators saw residents of the Sunland Training Centers and Hospitals as perpetual children, trapped in an "eternal childhood." The institution was presented as a family unit, abiding by 1950s ideals of the companionate household. When the Sunlands proved generally unsuccessful, Florida's communities began to supplement their efforts. The social movements of the 1960s …

Byzantine Foreign Policy During The Reign Of Constans Ii, Joseph Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the foreign policy of Constans II as the first Byzantine Emperor to rule after the initial Arab conquests in Syria-Palestine. His reign, 641-668, was the first reign of a Byzantine Emperor where the entire reign was subject to Arab raids and invasions. Constans II also had to contend with the Slavs in Thessalonica and Greece and the Lombards in Italy. To complicate matters more, Constans II was forced to cope with the religious division between the eastern and western churches due to Monothelitism in the East. Beset on every frontier and inheriting a much reduced empire after …

Doubting Thomas: The Testaments, Ivan Riascos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper will discuss the creation of my artwork, which has been inspired by my experiences and understandings of Catholicism and its icons. I will consider how iconography works in art, its influence, and how and why I have created this artwork dealing with my beliefs. I will also refer to the works of contemporary artists Duane Michals and Michael Wesely to help explain my exhibition, which I have titled "Doubting Thomas: The Testaments."

Shifgrethor As The Deterministic Theme In Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand Of Darkness, Amber Hanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness has received much attention, scholars have largely overlooked one dynamic and integral device found in the novel, that of shifgrethor. This thesis offers an exposition of this LeGuinian device, by examining shifgrethor as theme within a Russian Formalism framework, by first establishing a working definition, and then by examining the device used within the novel to establish it as a theme. In the first chapter, I offer the reasons behind my interest in the novel and then move into providing an overview of previous research done on The Left Hand …

The Discursive Commons: The Establishment, "Outside Agitators," And "Communist Subversives" In Gadsden's Depression-Era Political Environment, John Disque Agricola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses a turbulent and often violent political environment in Gadsden, Alabama during the Great Depression. Using a theoretical construct called the discursive commons my analysis suggests how very particular ideas such as the trope of the outside agitator, and the idea of the communist radical, were used by the establishment to incite violence against United Rubber Workers union organizers who came to Gadsden to enlist members in the 1930s and early 1940s. It is my contention that these discursive formations had affective power over the people who committed acts of violence against their own class interests. This thesis …

Road Narratives As Cultural Critiques: Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, And William Least Heat-Moon, Jesse Gipko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the advent of the automobile in the early twentieth century, Americans have been preoccupied, as they always have been, given the country's history of exploration and expansion, with traveling the continent. The American road narrative began as an exploration of the beauty and diversity of the country and as a way to explore self, but it soon emerged as a vehicle for writers to examine the country and comment on change and progress--not always positively. As America transformed throughout the twentieth century, the hope of individuality and self-expression articulated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman …

Reconciling Order And Progress: Auguste Comte, Gustave Le Bon, Emile Durkheim, And The Development Of Positivism In France, 1820-1914, Khali Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical standards. He viewed the human mind as becoming more rationalized throughout history. In his later career, however, he argued that rationalism was a destructive force and that a …

From Segregation To Integration: A Historical Study Of Music Education In The Colored School In Louisville, Mississippi Through 1970, Jeremy S. Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

What was music like, if it existed, in black schools before integration, and what happened to black music educators after integration? To properly address this, the history of segregation, major court rulings and other noteworthy attempts at integration, must be mentioned. This study reveals the untold history of the music department of Louisville Colored School in Louisville, Mississippi. This study will open the door for further, in-depth dialogue on the subject of music education in black schools before integration. Five years before the 1970 integration of public schools in Louisville, MS, Louisville Colored School, sometimes referred to as Camile Street …

The Philosophers' Stone: Alchemical Imagination And The Soul's Logical Life, Stanton Marlan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alchemy has been viewed within the context of the history of natural science as a precursor to and a primitive form of chemistry. The enigmatic goal of the alchemical process, the Philosophers' Stone, is the focus of this dissertation. A natural scientific approach has shed little light on the mythical, esoteric and symbolic attributes of the Stone, which are intrinsic parts of the alchemical imagination. From the larger perspective of the history of the human spirit, these neglected aspects of the Philosophers' Stone can be seen as vital dimensions of an ancient religious and spiritual philosophy, the goal of which …

Universal Goals & Local Application: Theological Field Education At St. John Vianney Seminary, Germaine Bruno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a curriculum history of theological field education at Denver's Roman Catholic seminary, St. John Vianney. The study utilizes archival material and the historical method to construct an educational historiography of the evolution and development of theological field curricula from 1910-2010. The research questions focus on two areas: the role of the Catholic Church in shaping seminary curricula and the adaptation and application of these Church guidelines by practitioners in the local context.

The study utilizes the conceptual tools of Kelly Ritter (2009) to analyze the findings in the light of socio-historical forces which shape curricula. According to …

The Evolution Of Healthcare For Louisville's African American Community, 1865-1990., Angela Calloway

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is well documented that inequality in the delivery of health care exists within the U.S. (Smedley, Stith & Nelson, 2003; Trivedi, Zaslavsky, Schneider, & Ayanian, 2006). Historically, our health care system was a segregated one in which white Americans enjoyed one system of health care—a more privileged one-- while black Americans experienced another, supported by law and custom. Laws changed after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but disparate practices lingered. Although there have been studies about the historical picture of segregated health care available to black Americans (Byrd & Clayton, 2000; Savitt, 2007), there is a lack of …

Predictors Of Social Vulnerability : A Multilevel Analysis., Regardt J. Ferreira

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past three decades there has been a rapid increase in the number of disasters occurring worldwide that affect communities, households and individuals. The increase in disasters and the associated impacts are evident in our society. The impact of disasters can have more chronic impacts generating social and economic hardship, loss of employment, dissolution of personal relationships, and the long-term decline of physical and mental health. A study was undertaken to develop an understanding of the predictors of individual social vulnerability on individuals nested within communities. The Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System and 14 other community level data sources …

A Problem Of Perception An Analysis Of The Formation, Reception, And Implementation Of National Socialist Ideology In Germany, 1919 To 1939, Derrick Angermeier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to dispel the notion that Nazi ideology was merely an afterthought to numerous actions taken by the Nazis. The first chapter discusses how Nazism’s earliest adherents internalized notions from World War I into an ideology that would motivate the early Nazi Movement to launch the Beer Hall Putsch. The second chapter focuses on the Nazi Party’s electoral tactics and how those actions correlated with entrenched Nazi ideological notions of recognition and community. Finally, the third chapter will seek to demonstrate that the numerous repressive measures implemented by the Third Reich were part of a general plan to …

Institutions, The State, And Economic Development: An Analysis And Evaluation Of Ha-Joon Chang's Critique Of The Dominant Discourse And His Thoughts On State-Led Development Theory, Luke M. Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines two distinct schools of thought on how to best spur economic activity in developing economies. Mainstream economists, like Hernando De Soto and Douglass North, argue private property rights and free markets, and the institutions which nourish and protect them, are the primary driver of economic growth. Heterodox economists, led by prominent author and economist Ha-Joon Chang, acknowledge institutions play an important role in inducing economic activity but challenge the notion institutions are the primary driver of development. They argue targeted state-led investment and regulation are as important, if not more important, than protecting market freedom and private …