Digital Commons Network^™

Thematic Groupings In Magpie Miao Narrative, Won Ho Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Magpie Miao is a Hmong-Mien language spoken in Guizhou Province of southwest China. This thesis presents a description of three particles (jik, nid, and dik) and participant reference, which are both useful for understanding boundaries between and climaxes within thematic groupings. The primary data source for this thesis consists of five oral narratives, one of which is included in the appendix.

The three particles function as both aspectual markers and connectives. They function as the former when they occur at the end of a clause and as the latter when they occur at or near the …

A Hell House Divided: Performing Identity Politics Through Christian Mediums Of Proselytization, Allan N. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Every year, during the month of October, hundreds of Christian churches throughout the United States open the doors of their Hell House to surrounding communities. Hell Houses are Christian haunted houses designed to literally scare the Hell out of visitors so they will accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. In the place of vampires or zombies, Hell Houses portray the sins Satan is mostly likely to tempt teenagers to commit. Scenes include young girls receiving abortions, young men believing lies that they were born gay, and careless individuals drinking and driving. As para-theatrical performances, Hell Houses lead …

Co-Learning Pedagogies In The Media Literacy Education Classroom, Erika Hill

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research project describes the experiences of students in BYU's Hands on a Camera Project as they were introduced to co-learning pedagogies. Hands on a Camera is a media literacy service-learning project where university students are placed in public schools to teach K-12 students documentary production and media literacy. The project consists of a preparation phase and a teaching phase. In the research project, students were required to complete peer-learning and peer-teaching assignments during the preparation phase as in order to prepare for the teaching phase. This ethnographic study describes student experiences—positive and negative—with peer learning during both phases …

Democracy Online: Immigration Discourse Over Time, Brian David Harris

Theses and Dissertations

The growth of internet communication has affected deliberative democracy by introducing new public spheres. One emerging public sphere is the discussion forum linked to online news sources. By analyzing 1,768 comments posted to a regional online news website, I discuss five key frameworks that commenters used to simplify the debate over immigration. I also find that extreme comments decreased in frequency over a two-year period while more moderate comments increased. In light of group polarization theory, this finding suggests that the forum is more like a single community with a fairly moderate average position to which people with differing opinions …

The Policies Of The State And Targeting The Poor In Egypt: Egypt's Transition To A Welfare State?, Catherine Isaac Van Bebber

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding who the poor are and what defines their level of deprivation is critical in the state's responsibility to its citizens. This thesis looks at how the Egyptian State targets the poor through the narrative of poverty during the last sixty years. While the state has historically addressed this issue within the broader context of societal welfare, it has not always specifically targeted the marginalized and vulnerable groups. The Egyptian State has transitioned from authoritarian socialism, to a rentier economy, and then to a free market state without upsetting the status quo of the ruling bureaucracy and state agents. Recently, …

Factors Influencing An Increase In The U.S. Study Abroad Poplulation In The Middle East/North Africa, Cara Kathleen Lane

Theses and Dissertations

In the last 60 years, the relationship between the United States and the Middle East has become increasingly important to policy makers, academics, business people, and the general population. Particularly in the fallout of the events of September 11, 2001, both the U.S. government and the public have acknowledged an immediate need for a deepening of American understanding of the people, languages, and culture of the Middle East/North Africa (MENA). During the last decade, one significant way in which Americans have gained in-depth knowledge about this region has been through participation in Study Abroad (SA) programs. Data from the Institute …

The World Bank And The Land Center For Human Rights: Spaces Of Contested Meaning, Keith Glenn Whitmire

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1970s, the World Bank has been engaged in a project of neo-liberal economic reform and social change in the Egyptian countryside. These reforms have resulted in profound changes in the countryside, including loss of owned or rented land by smallholders due to impoverishment and social change. Though the effects of the World Bank's views have been seen in the countryside and in greater Egypt, the particular nature of these conceptions and how they affect policy remains obscure. Meanwhile, organizations such as the Land Center for Human Rights are conceptually and geographically closer to Egyptian farmers and provide a …

Constructing Desire(S) And Consuming Taste(S) Among Egypt's Elite: An Ethnongraphic Study Of The American University In Cairo's New Campus, Rebecca Munz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis demonstrates that The American University in Cairo (AUC) is a novel configuration of neo-liberal restructuring through which we can understand new trends in food consumption and new Egyptian understandings of cosmopolitanism. This study is based on anthropological fieldwork carried out predominantly on AUC's campus as well as in greater Cairo where ethnographic data was collected through interviews and participant observation. Based on the research conducted, it was found that the Egyptian government and private corporations are modernizing Cairo's cityscape in accordance with neoliberal and high modernist ideologies through promoting the construction of new social spaces which cater to …

The Terminal Classic At El Mirador, Peten, Guatemala., Richard M. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Recent excavations uncovered numerous small rooms constructed on top of the Danta Acropolis at El Mirador, Guatemala. The characteristics of the settlement and the material items indicated that it was a late occupation and lacked the features associated with large Maya polities and Classic Maya culture. This thesis focused on describing the continuities and changes that occurred from the Late Classic to the Terminal Classic at El Mirador based on the ceramic assemblage and architecture. Significant continuity and stability of the pottery making community is reflected in the ceramic assemblage. Additionally, it was desirable to gain an understanding of how …

The Influence Of Profession And Therapy Type For The Cost Effective Treatment Of Sexual Dysfunction, David Fawcett

Theses and Dissertations

Sexual dysfunctions are serious mental health issues that impact an estimated one in three Americans. Due to the complex, relational nature of most sexual dysfunctions, mental health professionals trained to work with couples and their relationship interactions are likely to have better outcomes when treating clients with sexual dysfunction. Data from CIGNA Health Solutions was analyzed to explore differences in therapy outcome for various types of mental health professions when treating clients with sexual dysfunctions. The current research is a retrospective analysis of administrative data that explores whether or not type of profession (i.e. psychologists, Masters of social work, marriage …

Parent-Child Communication About Substance Use: Experiences Of Latino Emerging Adults, Kathryn Reid-Quiñones

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current studies was to identify messages that Latino parents communicate to their offspring about the use of legal and illegal drugs and to determine associations between parental messages and substance use outcomes. Previous research has identified parent-child communication as protective against tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use. However, most of these studies have failed to examine the specific messages communicated and those that have focused almost exclusively on non-Hispanic Caucasians. Study 1 identified messages that Latino parents communicate to their offspring regarding legal and illegal drugs through two focus groups with Latino college students (N = …

I Wanna Rock!, Amanda Briede

Theses and Dissertations

Do you know that feeling? That feeling when the music you are listening to a concert or a new record and it just seems right? When you think, that’s it! That’s what music should sound like! When the music seems to touch your soul or mirror it, or…. something. And when you feel that, nothing else seems to exist and you are purely experiencing the music. My thesis work explores the way in which we try to capture this ephemeral moment of pure experience in order to keep it with us to revisit at our leisure. This, however, is a …

Ewiges Deutschland As An Examination Of Popular Political Culture In National Socialist Germany 1939-1940, Howard Joseph Sherrick Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Under the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment functioned the Winterhilfswerk des deutschen Volkes (the “WHW”), or Winter Assistance Program of the German people. Initially designated in 1933 to assist the unemployed, the WHW expanded its reach by disseminating propaganda in the form of an annual edition of the Ewiges Deutschland:Ein deutsches Hausbuch household book from 1939 through 1943, intended to entertain and politically educate German family members throughout the year. Decidedly more comprehensible than Mein Kampf, another widely popularly disseminated book in Nazi Germany for weddings, Ewiges Deutschland likely enjoyed a more satisfied audience of readers. A study …

Health And Disease On Hiwassee Island: A Study Of Late-Mississippian Human Remains, Cassandra Pardo

Theses and Dissertations

The intensive agricultural subsistence strategy of late pre-Columbian populations of North America has long been associated with chronic nutritional and disease stress as a consequence of episodic or recurring agricultural shortfall and the compromised community health of aggregate village settlement. Social stratification, defined archaeologically by burial location and grave goods, is thought to be a primary force in shaping different health patterns within these communities.

This study is a bioarchaeological review of the Dallas phase (AD1300-1550) skeletal collection from Hiwassee Island in east Tennessee. The purpose is to gain an understanding of community health and to explore status-related differences in …

Cumulative Risks To Eastern Oysters, Crassostrea Virginica In The James River, Va, Vrushali Lele

Theses and Dissertations

In an effort to apply Cumulative Risk Assessment (CRA) as developed by the U.S. EPA, the present study investigates the cumulative risks to Eastern oysters due to multiple stressors such as salinity, temperature and oxygen and carbon dioxide. I also compared the effectiveness of the Hazard Quotient Method (HQ) in CRA. Ambient conditions in the James River, VA were obtained from the Virginia DEQ database and respiratory responses were estimated using values from the literature. The multiple environmental stresses are evaluated using a probabilistic analysis that combines the environmental conditions. It was concluded that salinity was the most influential stressor …

Completing The Circle: The Actor's Cool Down, Anna Kurtz

Theses and Dissertations

Physically, vocally, and physiologically something happens to the actor in rehearsal and performance that can impact the actor’s everyday life. Practitioners have described this as boundary blurring, emotional hangover, and post-dramatic stress. Even acting as a profession can breed stressful situations for the actor. Actors can combat the blurring, the hangover, and the stress through awareness and process. As a part of process, actors warm-up to prepare their bodies and voices and to transition from real life to stage life. An often ignored aspect of process, but no less significant than the warm-up, is the cool down. After researching the …

Convictions And Ambivalences: Theorizing Power At A Cairene Feminist Ngo, Laura Wulf

Theses and Dissertations

In this project, I attempt to conduct an “ethnography of theory” among women activists in an Egyptian feminist non-governmental organization (NGO). In doing so, I follow the calls for grounding theory of gender and the Middle East in day-to-day lived experience, through ethnography rather than “polemic” (L. Abu-Lughod 2010). This model takes women to be active participants in the creation of their own subjectivities and focuses on the analytic frameworks they employ in understanding this process. The Cairene feminist NGO, New Woman Foundation (NWF), is a forum for a range of professionals, young students, and activists who together encompass a …

Alice Brill's Sao Paulo Photographs: A Cross-Cultural Reading, Danielle Jean Hurd

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I consider the influence of Alice Brill's transnational background on her photographs of 1950s São Paulo. Brill was born in 1920 to a Jewish-German family. In 1934 she immigrated to São Paulo where she involved herself in local artistic circles. From 1946-47 she received a grant to study at the University of New Mexico and with the Art Students League in New York. Brill learned photography during her time in the United States, hoping to create documentary photo-essays in Brazil which she could send to American illustrated magazines. None of Brillss works were published in the United …

On Things And Margins, Will Machin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration into an alternate ground for discourse. It is an exploration of the edges of the possibilities of words, the centers of margins, and the question of the lives of objects in this time of abundant cast-offs. The truths and limits of an emerging globalized multi-polarity of culture, are put in play. The secret lives of things are brought into the same room as words. The potential for radical landscape is considered.

Embody - Encode, Mary Catherine Brooks

Theses and Dissertations

According to Walter Murch, sound designer, “The clearest example of encoded sound is speech. The clearest example of embodied sound is music.” In image, object and performance I have been exploring the embodiment of the encoded through the graphic representation of symbols (illustrate), the manifestation of symbols through material construction (embody), the activation of symbolized meaning though performance (enact), and the dematerialization of form and democratic dispersal of information through shared experience (engage). This methodological approach aims to transform metaphysics into physical being as a mode for researching energetics and abstract communication by bringing theory into practice where it can …

Geochemical Analysis Of Ancient Fremont Activity Areas At Wolf Village, Utah, Laura Morrison Pyper

Theses and Dissertations

There is growing interest in the use of geochemical analyses for the evaluation of anthropogenically altered soils and other archaeological deposits. Areas of human habitation and activity tend to accumulate greater levels of soil phosphorus and trace metals. These elevated concentrations leave permanent signatures that can only be removed by erosion of the soil itself, and so phosphorus and trace metal mapping have become popular field procedures to identify areas of habitation and activity. Gridded soil samples were collected and soil phosphate and trace metal ions were extracted to identify these activity areas at the ancient Fremont site Wolf Village …

Predicting The Diffusion Of Next Generation 9-1-1 In The Commonwealth Of Virginia: An Application Using The Deployment Of Wireless E9-1-1 Technologies, Dorothy Spears-Dean

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the deployment of Wireless E9-1-1 Phase One and Wireless E9-1-1 Phase Two as a diffusion of innovation. The research method used in this study is a cross-sectional study employing secondary data in a discriminant function analysis. The study population is Virginia units of local governments (95 counties and 39 cities) that had not deployed Wireless E9-1-1 Phase One or Wireless E9-1-1 Phase Two as of January 1, 2001. The period of time included in this study is from 2001 to 2006. The purpose of the study is to assess the overall accuracy of the three principle theories …

Between The Camera And The Gun: The Problem Of Epistemic Violence In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Katherine Ann Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Since the 75th anniversary of the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane in 2003, a growing number of journalists and historians writing about the disaster have incorporated Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God as part of the official historical record of the hurricane. These writers often border on depicting Their Eyes as the authentic experience of black migrant workers impacted by the hurricane and subsequent flood. Within the novel itself, however, Hurston theorizes on the potential epistemic violence that occurs when a piece of evidence—a photograph, fallen body, or verbal artifact—is used to judge a person. Without a person's …

The Neoliberal Dream Of Segregation: Rethinking Gated Communities In Greater Cairo, A Case Study, Al-Rehab City Gated Community, Safaa Marafi

Theses and Dissertations

New suburbs such as New Cairo received strong support from President Mubarak, the government, elite businessmen, and a group of members of the National Democratic Party, who surrounded the president. I argue in this thesis that urban segregation has existed in Cairo for quite some time. However, since the last decade's adaptation of neoliberal polices by the government, the implementations of these polices have sharpened the dichotomy in the urban fabric, which is crystallized in the support given by the Egyptian government to local and foreign construction companies to build gated communities in the suburbs Cairo. Private security systems and …

Localization Of Open Educational Resources (Oer) In Nepal: Strategies Of Himalayan Knowledge-Workers, Tiffany Ivins

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines localization of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Himalayan community technology centers of Nepal. Specifically, I examine strategies and practices that local knowledge-workers utilize in order to localize educational content for the disparate needs, interests, and ability-levels of learners in rural villages. This study draws on insights from non-formal education (NFE) stakeholders in Nepal, including government, UN, international and national NGOs, local knowledge-workers, and learners from different villages. I specifically focus on a sample of seven technology centers to better understand how localization is defined, designed, and executed at a ground level. I illuminate obstacles knowledge-workers face while …

The Origins Of The Maya: A Comparative Analysis Of Narratives, Thomasina Ilene Morris

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to document the changes in archaeological origin narratives concerning the lowland Preclassic Maya. This was accomplished by tracking the changes in four major narratives over several decades. These narratives include Herbert J. Spinden's Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America; The Ancient Maya written by Sylvanus G. Morley, with additional editors, George Brainerd, Robert J. Sharer, and Loa Traxler; Michael D. Coe's The Maya, and Richard E.W. Adams's Prehistoric Mesoamerica. The specific parts of the narratives analyzed were the origins of agriculture, ceramic technology, writing, and monumental architecture. Changes in metaphorical language …

The Political, Social, Historical, And Literary Significance Of The Writings Of Carolina Maria De Jesus, Kristin Alexis Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The writings of Carolina Maria de Jesus, specifically Quarto de despejo, Casa de alvenaria, Diario de Bitita, and poetry selections from her collection Minha antologia are oft times excluded from "canonical" literature. Many critics both in the press and in academic circles refuse to recognize her writings and story as works of merit, focusing primarily on surface issues without addressing the content of her works. The reason for this is complex, spanning the issues of race, education, socio-economic status, and gender. Contrary to the arguments of many critics over the past sixty years, Carolina's writings are valuable …

An Iron Catalyst: Virginia’S Roadside Historical Markers And The Shaping Of A Historical Consciousness, Joseph Bayless

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis analyzes the origins and the formative period of Virginia’s historical marker program. It shows that historical markers were critical to the success of Harry Flood Byrd’s administration and his Commission on Conservation and Development. The thesis also examines how Virginia’s marker program set the standard for roadside commemoration across the entire United States. Lastly, the work appraises the influence of Dr. Hamilton James Eckenrode, his pioneering methods of historical commemoration, and his central role in the success of Virginia’s marker program.

Spatiality And Temporality In Communication Theories, Diana Iulia Nastasia

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation has been planned and written as an extended review of literature on space and time within and outside of communication studies, and as a thorough categorization of issues about spatiality and temporality that have been and might be employed outside of and within communication studies. This dissertation has been envisioned and conceived as a critical look at both theories that consider space and time as unproblematic, that reify an ideal-typical perspective of time and an absolute-universal perspective of space, and theories that problematize space and time, that challenge the settled and predominant view of spatiality and temporality. The …

Women's Expectations And Experiences Of Childbirth In An Egyptian Public Hospital, Zeinab Ahmed Mohamed Farahat

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to understand women's reasons for giving birth at a busy teaching hospital in Greater Cairo, and what their experiences of it have been. It asks whether women's parity and the money paid upon admission to the hospital had an impact on their expectations and experiences. The thesis uses secondary data from interviews conducted in 2001 with mothers who had normal births, before they left the hospital. It is part of a larger project that investigated practices surrounding normal childbirth. The results are analyzed using the perspectives of critical medical anthropology, biomedicine and public health. Fear of the …