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Chelmsford, Daniel Davis

Masters Theses

Literary Studies with Creative Writing Emphasis

Traditionally, the term deux ex machina refers to the intrusion of a God-like being into the events of a play: in order to bring about a desired conclusion, the playwright introduces a supernatural deity who restores order. Witness the statue of Hermione at the end of A Winter's Tale.

More modem texts call for a broader interpretation. The symbolic rain of frogs at the end of Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia, or the disappearance of Charles Lindbergh in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, qualify as dei ex machina. These are events created not …

Sometimes Magic, Corey Taylor

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Violence, Christianity, And The Anglo-Saxon Charms, Laurajan G. Gallardo

Masters Theses

Concentration in Literary Studies

The thesis focuses on violence reinterpreted through the Anglo-Saxon charms that exhibit a fusion of Christian and pagan elements. In order to comprehend the impact of this fusion, I provide ecclesiastical and social histories of the Anglo-Saxons, stressing upon the interconnectedness of both-an essential concept in understanding the AngloSaxon view of the world. This interconnectedness is seen in the Anglo-Saxon perception of magic, which in their understanding was synonymous to science or religion. I provide a brief introduction on magical practices and beliefs that applied to the charms, shedding light on how they were expected to …

Found: The Etiology Of Character Realization, Within Rhetorical Analysis Of The Series Lost, Through The Application Of Underhill's And Turner's Classic Concepts Of The Mystic Journey, Lacey Mitchell

Masters Theses

This study rhetorically and visually analyzed the presence of the spiritual journey represented through the journeys of selected characters traced over several episodes of the television series LOST. Popular literature asserts the classic concept of the spiritual journey can be and has been found across the spectrum of various media. Episodes were analyzed to trace the journey of two characters, Jack Shephard and Juliet Burke. Evelyn Underhill's three-fold path and Victor Turner's concepts of liminality and communitas were implemented as a way to organize and analyze the contextual elements displayed in the episodes. The sampling used forty-seven episodes across the …

Groping For Intimacy: Modern Man's "Pressure" And The Onanistic Inversion Of Christianity, Marriage, And The Nuclear Family In Three American Novels, Nicholas Scott Olson

Masters Theses

Several critics have suggested that modernity's most fundamental theme is autonomy. Yet, few critics have considered Søren Kierkegaard's thought in relation to autonomous notions of freedom, and even fewer literary critics have considered Kierkegaard's vast influence - particularly on twentieth-century American authors - through this thematic lens. Michelle Kosch has argued that Kierkegaard's notion of despair essentially involves the self's misunderstanding of the nature of his freedom, while Samuel Loncar has argued that Kierkegaard's thought in this regard can be traced back through the German Enlightenment to Immanuel Kant's notion of autonomy. Yet, while Kierkegaard offers a fine critique of …

The Enduring Austen Heroine: Self-Awareness And Moral Maturity In Jane Austen's Emma And In Modern Austen Fan-Fiction, Brittany A. Meng

Masters Theses

Jane Austen's novels continue to be popular in the twenty-first century because her heroines are both delightful and instructive; they can be viewed as role models of personal growth due to their honest self-examination and commitment to high moral standards. Chapter one establishes the patterns of personal growth that uniquely characterizes Austen's heroines in each of her six novels. Chapter two tests these conclusions by carefully examining the character of Emma Woodhouse. Though Emma is a unique heroine due to her wealth and social privileges, she follows the principles of personal growth possessed by Austen's other heroines. Chapter three further …

John Mccone And The Cuban Missile Crisis, Christopher M. Heist

Masters Theses

My thesis focused on John McCone and his role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On this subject, I will examine John McCone's efforts from May to September 1962 to understand the Soviet buildup in Cuba, pushing President John F. Kennedy for more reconnaissance of the island to aid this effort. During the crisis in October 1962, McCone was one of the main officials responsible for briefing the Kennedy administration on the Soviet efforts in Cuba, where he sided with the members of the cabinet pushing for an air strike and invasion to remove the missiles. Following the crisis, McCone continued …

"Who Will Remain Whole? Who?": The Pursuit Of Power And Place In "The Displaced Person", Katy L. Leedy

Masters Theses

In Flannery O ’Connor’s “The Displaced Person,” each character works to forcefully displace others from their positions in a way that can be likened to colonization. Farm owner Mrs. McIntyre thinks she can act as a colonizer, but instead she has merely a position of power. Because she believes in her authority, she works to defend it; since she has nothing to defend, her efforts are fruitless. With the death of Guizac, the question of power is resolved: she has none. Instead, she had the illusion of power since she had workers beneath her. With them gone, there is no …

Blueprints Of Friendship: The Influence Of Personality On Perceived Intimacy And Comfort Level Of Disclosure In Friendship, Elizabeth Ann Briggs

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to establish whether a connection exists between Myers-Briggs personality type and friendship. Participants completed the Jung Typology Test to identify personality type as well as a survey regarding their friendship. Social penetration theory and Myers-Briggs personality theory were used as a framework for this study. All participants were from a private east coast university with ages ranging from 18-28 years. Completed surveys resulted in 32 pairs of self-identified close friends. The author analyzed the results to identify any patterns that emerged between personality and perceived intimacy and comfort level of self-disclosure within friendship. Results …

Style As A "[M]Anner Of Seeing": The Poetics Of Gustave Flaubert, Nicole Lyn Brownfield

Masters Theses

Although Madame Bovary is considered a classic of modern realism, Gustave Flaubert would disagree with his classification as a realist, as he hardly remained loyal to a single literary genre or period. Rather, he longed to create a work of literature that would stand alone as an object of art, and to make this dream a reality he employed the techniques that he believed generated artful and expressive prose. As an author and artist, he was influenced greatly by other art forms, such as music and the visual arts, and like other authors of his time, he sought to discover …

Man Thinking The World: Contemporary American Authors And The Nobel Prize In Literature, Christopher Ryan Knight

Masters Theses

After the Swedish Academy announced that Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, former permanent secretary Horace Engdahl sparked controversy with his comment that the "US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature . . . That ignorance is restraining." This thesis evaluates the legitimacy of Engdahl's criticism by considering three American authors: John Updike, Edward Albee, and Charles Simic. Each author is evaluated as a contributor to international literary dialogue. The author, drawing from Walter Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History," …

Speak Softly, But Carry A Big Stick: Tom Sawyer And Company's Quest For Linguistic Power A Sociolinguistic Analysis Of Mark Twain's The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, And Tom Sawyer Abroad, Anne Lea Ryan

Masters Theses

Social stigma associated with the way an individual speaks is not new, and language can be a powerful divider of people. Since the Norman Conquest of 1066, researchers have noted that certain English dialects have been more esteemed than others, and it is certainly well-documented that those who spoke these prestigious varieties were the authority figures. Sociolinguists have determined that one's identity is inextricably bound with the way one speaks, and Mark Twain, a nineteenth-century realist, was aware of this concept well before sociolinguistics became a defined field of study in the 1970s. Because he profusely uses varieties of English …

God Among The Gods: An Analysis Of The Function Of Yahweh In The Divine Council Of Deuteronomy 32 And Psalm 82, Daniel F. Porter

Masters Theses

The importance of the Ugaritic texts discovered in 1929 to ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies is one of constant debate. The Ugaritic texts offer a window into the cosmology that shaped the ancient Near East and Semitic religions. One of the profound concepts is the idea of a divine council and its function in maintaining order in the cosmos. Over this council sits a high god identified as El in the Ugaritic texts whose divine function is to maintain order in the divine realm as well on earth. Due to Ugarit's involvement in the ancient world and the text's …

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents; `Propaganda'": A Rhetorical Study Of Alfred Hitchcock's World War Ii Propaganda Films, Jennifer Renee Brown

Masters Theses

Alfred Hitchcock is a well known filmmaker whose work has been often studied by English, communication, and film scholars. However, those examining Hitchcock seem to have pet favorites of films they deem worthy of study. This thesis examines the lesser-known propaganda films of Alfred Hitchcock made for the British Ministry of Information in 1944. Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache each tell a story of intrigue and adventure in French territory during the German occupation and Vichy government of World War II. However, after the MOI waited almost the entire war to have propaganda made by Alfred Hitchcock, the films were …

Bridging The Gap: Intercultural Friendship Between Chinese And Americans, Zhuo Feng Li

Masters Theses

This research aims to explore Chinese and American students' intercultural friendship experiences on a U.S. campus. Twenty-five Chinese international students and twenty-five U.S. nationals participated in the study. Q-methodology was adopted in this research. Three of Hosftede's cultural dimensions (low/high power distance, individualism/collective, and masculinity/femininity) and Hall's concept of low/high context culture were used as a theoretical framework for this study. First, qualities that Chinese and Americans consider important in their friendships in each of their own culture were identified. Then this study found out that long-established expectations and understanding of friendship of both Chinese and Americans were challenged while …

Is Resurrection Atemporally Simultaneous With Death? Using Aquinas's Theory Of Eternity To Conceptualize A New Theory Of Resurrection, James T. Turner, Jr.

Masters Theses

In debates on the metaphysics of resurrection, it seems that philosophical theology is often arguing on the wrong fronts. While some philosophers and theologians spend their time arguing the feasibility of a person's bodily numerical identity at resurrection, whether or not a human being can exist apart from their body, or whether the resurrection is physical at all (among many other points of view) this thesis seeks to argue a more foundational issue: God's eternal/atemporal existence and how it affects the resurrection of mankind. If it can be shown that God's eternal/atemporal existence allows for a person to experience simultaneity …

"An Asylum To The Persecuted And Oppressed Of Every Nation And Religion": Dissenters And Liberals In The Drive For Religious Freedom In Virginia, Shelley Dawn Bailess

Masters Theses

The struggle for full religious liberty in Virginia encompassed nearly two decades and generated thousands of documents in the form of petitions and legislation. In spite of historical tendencies to claim primacy in the victory of liberty over establishment in matters of religion for one denomination or individual, it was a unique triangulation of religious dissenters and prominent legislators that resulted in the separation of church and state in Virginia. The ideas that brought these seemingly disparate groups together emerged from theological, as well as political ideas that were prevalent in 18th century thought. The passage of Jefferson's Statute Establishing …

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Intellectual Property Rights On Chinese Students, Bing Yang

Masters Theses

This study examined foreign Chinese students' adaptation to American intellectual property rights (IPR) in the perspective of Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT). Previous studies focused on historical, legal and cultural difference between China and the U.S., while Chinese students' cognition remained to be explored. Ten Chinese students from both undergraduate and graduate programs with different lengths of staying in the U.S. were interviewed individually, and interview questions were created according to the three stages of CDT. Results showed that Chinese students had eliminated their cognitive dissonances in the U.S., and some demographic and cultural factors that influenced Chinese students' cognition regarding …

Public Perception Or Media Manipulation: The Power Of The Agenda-Setting Function Of The Press Examined, Mitchell Malcheff

Masters Theses

Originally developed by McCombs and Shaw (1972), agenda-setting theory has provided a theoretical framework for numerous media bias studies. This pilot study attempted to add to that body of literature by addressing a relatively new evolution of agenda-setting theory known as second-level agenda-setting by measuring whether biased media can significantly change attitudes about a given issue. To accomplish this, participants were surveyed regarding their perceptions regarding credibility on the part of MSNBC, presented with a news package from MSNBC, and then surveyed to examine if any attitude change occurred. Significance was found to support the presence of the hostile media …

Patrick Henry: The Significance Of Harmonized Religious Tensions, Katie Kitchens

Masters Theses

This study explores the complex religious influences shaping Patrick Henry's belief system. It is common knowledge that he was an Anglican, yet friendly and cooperative with Virginia Presbyterians. However, historians have yet to go beyond those general categories to the specific strains of Presbyterianism and Anglicanism which Henry uniquely harmonized into a unified belief system. Henry displayed a moderate, Latitudinarian, type of Anglicanism. Unlike many other Founders, his experiences with a specific strain of Presbyterianism confirmed and cooperated with these Anglican commitments. His Presbyterian influences could also be described as moderate, and latitudinarian in a more general sense. These religious …

Proclaiming The Lord's Death: An Exegesis Of 1 Cor 11:17-34 In Light Of The Greco-Roman Banquet, Caleb Patton Collier

Masters Theses

From the beginning, one of the predominant elements of worship within the church was the celebration of the eucharist. Much scholarship has been done on the eucharist, examining the observance through the disciplines of church history, theology, New Testament studies, and ecclesiology. This thesis merely aims to complement current scholarship in the area of eucharistic origins. The question examined is this: "Did the Corinthian church model their eucharist observance upon the existing Greco-Roman banquet model?" In answering that question, exegetical work is presented on 1 Cor 11:17-34, the banquet is examined as to form and function, and parallels are made …

Writing A Chemistry Textbook That Supports Inquiry Based Learning, Sarah Jean Henning Toman

Masters Theses

The National Science Education Standards promote inquiry instruction. As teachers change how they teach, will textbooks follow suit? Is it even possible to have an inquiry-based chemistry textbook and if so, what would it look like and would students find it useful? This study conducted as part of the Target Inquiry Program at Grand Valley State University explored these questions by comparing student reactions to excerpts from a standard high school chemistry text to those of an inquiry-based chemistry text developed by the researcher. Reactions recorded in student interviews and achievement outcomes were analyzed to address the research questions. Results …

A Christian Augustinian Response To The Problem Of Evil In The Shinto Religion With Reference To The Thought Of Motoori Norinaga, Delia Ursulescu

Masters Theses

Despite great advances within the last few decades of Western scholarship concerning the indigenous Japanese religion, little has been written on the Shinto concept of evil. Given the overall optimistic Shinto attitude toward life, the purpose of this thesis was to analyze its view of evil with reference to Motoori Norinaga's thought in order to find out whether Shinto understands it in a realistic manner. Another aim was to compare Norinaga's position to a Christian Augustinian view to determine which one offers a more coherent and comprehensive answer to the challenge of evil. The thesis examined Norinaga's available writings and …

Spatial Rape: Globalization And The Tourist-Vagabond Relationship In Mark Z. Danielewski's House Of Leaves, Tracy Stephens

Masters Theses

At the center of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is the narrative of The Navidson Record, the story of Will Navidson’s struggle to understand and conquer the mystery of his labyrinthine house - a mystery that is profoundly connected to Navidson’s guilt over Delial, a dead Sudanese girl whose photo made Navidson famous. Navidson’s preoccupation with Delial shapes the house, lending it the characteristics of globalized space as it would have been experienced by Delial and others in her socioeconomic circumstances (whom Zygmunt Bauman has named vagabonds), in contrast to the experience of tourists such as Navidson. The …

Mechanical Properties And Microstructure Study For Direct Metal Deposition Of 316l Stainless Steel, Tian Fu

Masters Theses

"Direct metal deposition or laser cladding is a process capable of producing fully dense and net shape metal products and this process could be used on coating metal components in various engineering applications. This process has fast heating and cooling rates which can improve the surface hardness and provide excellent adhesion through metallurgical bond between coating material and substrate. This paper evaluated the laser deposited 316L stainless steel coating on 4340 steel, which is widely used for aircraft landing gear applications. The microstructure, micro-hardness and quantitative EDS were explored to verify the coating properties. The desired homogeneous microstructure and high …

Performance Evaluation Of Energy Efficient Lighting Associated With Renewable Energy Applications, Allison Nicole Sperber

Masters Theses

"The present study demonstrated lighting loads as an energy end use associated with renewable energy system applications. Incorporating an energy efficient end use within a renewable energy system can be especially beneficial regarding size and portability. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are an energy efficient alternative to traditional outdoor lighting, which is currently dominated by high intensity discharge source lamps. LEDs provide the ability to mitigate the negative impacts of diesel consumption when a diesel generator is used independently or as a backup for renewable energy applications in remote localities. In-field data was collected of traditional metal halide lamps and two comparable …

Symbol Synchronization And Dynamic Channel Estimation In Multiple Input Multiple Output Systems Using Statistical Analysis Of Eye Diagrams, Abhishek Gupte

Masters Theses

"The research work presented in this document is the continuation of the project to develop a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system using band-limited signals in strong multipath environments. The modulation format used is Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GFSK). Band-limiting introduces controlled Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI), which along with a multipath environment degrades the features of the received signal waveform that are vital to the performance of standard symbol synchronization techniques. A low complexity algorithm was deemed necessary to counter this problem so that the benefits of conserving bandwidth would not be obviated by an expensive and elaborate receiver architecture.

Such …

War And The Sentimental Past: Memory And Emotion In The Aftermath Of The Franco-Prussian War, Chad R. Cussen

Masters Theses

This thesis argues that the Franco-Prussian War provoked strong emotional responses that were encoded in the memory of the war. The management of this emotional response represented an important aspect for the establishment of the Third Republic's legitimacy. By uniting French citizens through a public memory of the warby means of commemorations, funerals, and narratives among others-the Third Republic fostered an intense national consciousness that emerged as a feature of French identity. In contrast to Eugen Weber's influential work Peasants Into Frenchmen, which emphasizes the development of "Frenchness" through interactions in social institutions such as the military and the educational …

The Perceived Influences Of Campus Living Environments On Male Identity Development, Nathaneal R. Pauley

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the traditional studies related to college male development in relation to men's perceptions of their living environments. Prior research in the field of male development identified male studies and gender identity, male gender role conflict, hegemonic masculinity and behavioral issues in college as important concepts to consider when conducting research with college men. A qualitative study was conducted to gain an understanding of five men's perceptions of their own masculinities, as well as their thoughts on single-sexed and mixed-sex campus living environments. General themes and categories from participant responses were critically evaluated …

A Queer Network: The Effects Of Lgbt Student Organizations On Self-Acceptance In College Students, Justin L. Schuch

Masters Theses

Institutions of higher education in the United States are experiencing the unique challenge of supporting their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual (LGBT) students at a time when their identity development has been well researched. Researchers have shown that the suicide rates among LGBT individuals are comparatively higher than those of their heterosexual counterparts. Many colleges and universities support their LGBT students via a network of other community members through LGBT student organizations on campus. To date, minimal research has been conducted to investigate whether membership in these student organizations is actually beneficial to LGBT members, as well as what participants …