Digital Commons Network^™

Dying To Learn, Learning To Die, The Craft Of Dying In Early Modern English Drama And The Cultivation Of Dying-Voice Literacy, Simon Gaston Fortin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

DYING TO LEARN, LEARNING TO DIE

THE CRAFT OF DYING IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA

AND THE CULTIVATION OF DYING-VOICE LITERACY

by

SIMON G. FORTIN

Adviser: Professor Mario DiGangi

This dissertation contends that, through their relentless dramatization of agonies, the early modern English dramatists taught their audiences how to die. Attending a play where characters devised, discussed, prepared for, plotted, inflicted, endured and witnessed death, constituted an apprenticeship I demonstrate, akin to going to school, though informal it may have been, where audiences learned about mortality, death as an event, and dying as a process. Thus, this study points to …

A Meaning Hypothesis To Explain Speaker's Choice Of The Sign Look, Nadav Ayal Sabar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A meaning hypothesis to explain speakers' choice of the sign look

by

Nadav Sabar

Adviser: Professor Ricardo Otheguy

The purpose of the meaning hypotheses advanced in this dissertation is to explain why speakers and writers choose the forms that they do in the course of documented acts of speaking or writing. The choice of interest is the decision to use look (or /lÊ?k/), particularly in situations where see, seem, and appear would at first glance seem to be just as appropriate. The answer to the question of why language users make the choices they do is cast in theoretical terms …

Using The 2011-12 Schools And Staffing Survey, Restricted File Version, To Identify Factors Associated With The Intent For African American Math Teachers To Turnover, Bisola Neil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using data from the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey, Restricted File Version, this study examines the factors that place African American teachers of mathematics at risk for turnover using Lynham’s General Model of Applied Theory Building methodology. Univariate statistical analysis found that of the three million plus public school teachers in the United States during the 2011-12 school year, 161,360 were certified math teachers were teaching mathematics full time and 11,070 of these teachers were African American. By centering this empirical study of turnover on the African American math teacher, this dissertation highlights turnover factors that uniquely impact African American …

Connectivity: An Ecological Paradigm For The Study Of Bronze Age, Slobodan Mitrović

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Connectivity: an ecological paradigm for the study of Bronze Age” addresses the relationship between historic and prehistoric people, and the landscapes they inhabited, moved about, and continue to inhabit. It suggests alternative methodological approaches that have broader ramifications for the discipline of (Bronze Age) archaeology. By engaging the code and innovations stemming from ecology and digital technology, the research questions concern the interface – referred to as connectivity – between the archaeological sites, resources, networks of communication, and the conditions of archaeological knowledge acquisition. Drawing on published and new data, the aim of the project is to put forward a …

The Photographic Universe: Vilém Flusser’S Theories Of Photography, Media, And Digital Culture, Martha Schwendener

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite accelerated changes in the way we create, view, and experience photographs, critics and scholars in North America continue to read and assign an accepted canon of photography theory, often predicated on old concepts and technologies. This dissertation seeks to remedy that situation. It focuses on the work of Czech-Brazilian philosopher Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), author of such books as Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983), Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985), and Does Writing Have a Future? (1987), which develop a theory of technical images that reaches beyond photography to include film, television, video, computer, and satellite images. Rather …

Yellow Dust Abode: The Hawley-Suski Letters, 1942-1945, Roxanne Shirazi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On May 6, 1942, Dr. Peter Marie Suski assigned my great-grandfather, Willis M. Hawley, power of attorney to manage his personal affairs when he and his family, along with 120,000 Japanese Americans, were forcibly removed from the Pacific Coast to one of ten U.S. government internment camps. The two men began a regular and frequent correspondence that would continue throughout the war and beyond, producing at least 566 pages of letters between 1942-1960. Dr. Suski and Mr. Hawley wrote as friends, book collectors, and scholars of the Japanese and Chinese languages, and their letters comprise a richly detailed source for …

Voicing The Other: Mock Aave On Social Media, Hanna L. Smokoski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project looks at the use on social media sites of features of African American Vernacular English by nonspeakers of it. This outgroup use of AAVE does not require nor reflect any true proficiency with the variety, but instead is often used to exaggerate the social distance between the stylizers using it on social media and the marginalized people for whom AAVE is a genuine mode of communication. Through double indexicality, nonspeakers of AAVE use features of it to annex certain positive qualities associated with Black or hip hop culture—toughness, coolness, an anti-establishment stance—for themselves, while reproducing negative stereotypes of …

Millets From The Margins: Value, Knowledge And The Subaltern Practice Of Biodiversity In Uttarakhand, India, Priya R. Chandrasekaran

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Millets from the Margins: Value, Knowledge and the Subaltern Practice of Biodiversity in Uttarakhand, India analyzes what is at stake for small-scale, predominantly women, farmers as local varieties of rainfed food grains such as finger millet are being newly commodified and valued as a biodiversity resource. With support from a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation, I conducted seventeen months of ethnographic research with farmers, activists, scientists, NGO leaders, government officials, transnational functionaries and agribusiness representatives in segregated yet interconnected realms ranging from a village in the Himalayan foothills to transnational institutions in Rome.

This work demonstrates …

A Passage From Brooklyn To Ithaca: The Sea, The City And The Body In The Poetics Of Walt Whitman And C. P. Cavafy, Michael P. Skafidas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This treatise is the first extensive comparative study of Walt Whitman and C. P. Cavafy. Despite the abundant scholarship dealing with the work and life of each, until now no critic has put the two poets together. Whitman’s poetry celebrates birth, youth, the self and the world as seen for the first time, while Cavafy’s diverts from the active present to resurrect a world whose key, in Eliot’s terms, is memory. Yet, I see the two poets conversing in the crossroads of the fin de siècle; the American Whitman and the Greek Cavafy embody the antithesis of hope and dislocation …

The Hermeneutics Of International Trade Conflicts: U.S. Punitive Trade Policy Towards China And Japan, Barry F. Murdaco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes punitive trade conflicts between the U.S. and two trading partners: China and Japan. Punitive trade conflicts can be defined as trade wars between two states, retaliatory tariffs, or other forms of conflict, e.g. preventing the acquisition of foreign assets or sanctions for an undervalued exchange rate. I will examine several trade conflicts between the U.S. and Japan in the 1980s and several trade conflicts between the U.S. and China from 2001 to the present. This study is situated within a larger debate concerning the resolution of four theoretical "puzzles" in political science. The first concerns the dispute …

Bilingual French Initiatives In Public Schools: A New York Story: New Opportunities, Diversity And Shared History And Values, Claire Jm Arnod Horikawa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The French bilingual programs in New York City public schools show the liveliness and diversity of the Francophonie. The French dual language programs in particular also reunite very different interests. There are the expected interests of communities wanting to keep a home language strong. Francophone parents wanting their children to use the language as an asset for a head start in the education race. English speaking parents, attracted by the language and its culture and wanting to give a head start to their monolingual children, as the world of business, and of science is multilingual. Schools and school principals are …

Alien, Illegal, Undocumented: Labeling, Context, And Worldview In The Immigration Debate And In The Lives Of Undocumented Youth, David A. Caicedo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A key element of investigating attitudes towards unauthorized immigrants in the United States has been political orientation, yet few studies have examined the influence of such orientation on labels relevant to the immigration debate. The current dissertation project examined these attitudes among young adults using survey, focus group, and interview methodologies. Level of agreement on various statements regarding unauthorized immigrants was examined in Study I, definitions given for the labels ‘illegal’ and ‘undocumented’ were explored in Study II, and the lived experience of undocumented youth in two community colleges was investigated in Study III. It was hypothesized that: I) attitudes …

The Curious Case Of Seminole Rock: Revisiting Judicial Deference To Agency Interpretations Of Their Ambiguous Regulations, Peter M. Torstensen Jr.

Notre Dame Law Review

Seminole Rock deference warrants reconsideration as it is based on questionable constitutional and pragmatic foundations. This Note argues that courts should provide a meaningful check on agency interpretations by engaging in de novo review of agency resolutions of regulatory ambiguities. Part I explores the development of the Seminole Rock doctrine, from its questionable doctrinal foundations and rapid expansion to the developing concerns regarding its continued validity. In addition, Part I explains the variety of forms that agency interpretations can take, including legal briefs, amicus briefs, and internal memoranda, and discusses their impact in expanding the scope of Seminole Rock deference. …

The Rio Chama Basin: A Social-Ecological History Linking Culture And Nature, Sam Markwell, José A. Rivera, Moises Gonzales, J. Jarrett García

The Rio Chama Basin: Land, Water and Community

This monograph of the Rio Chama basin in northern New Mexico resulted from a larger project awarded to New Mexico State University by the National Science Foundation, Dynamics of Coupled Natural-Human Systems Program. The project was titled: Acequia Water Systems Linking Culture and Nature—An Integrated Analysis of Community Resilience to Climate and Land Use Changes. The grant was made to New Mexico State University with a sub-award to the Center for Regional Studies (CRS) at the University of New Mexico (UNM). As part of the multidisciplinary research team, the CRS investigators selected the Rio Chama watershed as a study area …

Single Valued Neutrosophic Graphs, Florentin Smarandache, Said Broumi, Assia Bakali, Mohamed Talea

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The notion of single valued neutrosophic sets is a generalization of fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets. We apply the concept of single valued neutrosophic sets, an instance of neutrosophic sets, to graphs. We introduce certain types of single valued neutrosophic graphs (SVNG) and investigate some of their properties with proofs and examples.

Effectiveness Of Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy In Predicting Order Of Difficulty Of Relative Clauses For Afl Learners, Mohamed Amin

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the difficulty order of relative clause structures in Arabic second language acquisition by checking the applicability of NPAH to predict such order using data taken from the Arabic Learner Corpus (ALC). In order to examine the hypothesis, quantitative methodology is used to determine the hierarchies of frequency and accuracy of RC structures used in non-native learners’ written and spoken production, and to determine whether L1 transfer affects acquisition order or not. Results reveal that the hierarchy of frequency is different from the hierarchy of accuracy, and both are different from the order suggested in NPAH. Findings support …

Teachers' Perceptions On Formulaic Language, Shaimaa Nabil Abdel Aziz

Theses and Dissertations

Formulaic sequences (FS) are being increasingly recognized in second language learning as a key language component that has a direct impact on language proficiency. A key aspect of FS are how it can be effectively integrated within language teaching and what practices could be used to present FS and introduce it to students. Recently, researchers have reported a growing interest in using FS in teaching language in classrooms. A mixed method of data analysis was adopted in this study where both qualitative and quantitative data were collected using three instruments “questionnaire, observations and interviews”. 75 Arabic teachers participated in the …

Transformational Leadership Style And Its Role In Promoting Innovation: A Case Study Of Three Public Hospitals In Egypt, Ragaa El Fiky

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the transformational leadership style and its role in promoting employees' innovation. The study uses a mixed method approach; quantitative and qualitative analysis. To confirm the outcomes of the collected and analyzed data, a qualitative research was conducted via in-depth and descriptive analysis of the proposed correlation. Survey and interview were conducted in three public hospitals located in Cairo, Mansoura and Damietta, Egypt. Findings of quantitative and qualitative analysis strongly supported the main question of the study that transformational leadership style has a relationship and a role in promoting employees' level of innovation which was suggested in the …

Heritage Language Learners In L2 Arabic Classes: Challenges And Instructional Strategies, Almutazbellah Alabd

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the teaching challenges and instructional practices that teachers of Arabic as a second/foreign language (ASL/AFL) use in their university-level Arabic mixed classes. Data collection procedures included an online questionnaire, class observations and teachers’ interviews. 58 respondents were surveyed, 3 teachers were interviewed, and 4 mixed classes were observed. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results revealed that the presence of Heritage Language Learners’ (HLLs) in an ASL/AFL classroom poses challenges for ASL/AFL Arabic teachers and entails developing certain types of instructional practices to overcome such challenges. They also revealed that strategies like including …

Lacking A Self(Ie): "Apps" Of Desire In Virtual Cairo, Fernando Revelo La Rotta

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores through an unconventional assemblage of methods and theories the role of selfies in the contemporary process of subjectivation. Relying on an ethnographic methodology, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and queer theory, this project explore three virtual spaces where selfies live (Instagram, Tinder, and Grindr) and how selfies circulate through the circuits of desire facilitated by the technological interface. The goal of this project is to remind us that there is no essential self and to question such an assumption in any project. Therefore, this project is not invested in discovering the truth about ourselves, the other, or a specific imagined …

Analysis Of The D1s80 Vntr Locus Polymorphism In The Nubian Population, Soha Rabie Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

D1S80 (1p35-p36), variable Number of tandem repeat (VNTR,) is a minisatellite molecular genetic marker. It is known by its high polymorphism that makes it a powerful marker in the forensic applications, paternity testing, and evolutionary studies. Hypervariable D1S80 locus has been applied to study the genetic structure of the Nubian population in Southern Egypt. PCR has been applied for repeats amplification and analyzed on 2% agarose gel. 75 genotypes and 36 alleles with their frequencies were detected for 105 unrelated individuals. Allele 27 has the highest frequency 0.119% followed by allele 26 with frequency 0.09%. Heterozygosity was calculated as 0.69%. …

The Effect Of Collaborative Writing On Individual Writing Performance, Sara Mostafa Kotb

Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated the effectiveness of using collaborative writing (CW) on an individual’s writing performance. It involved a total of 61 participants who were adult ESL learners enrolled in a general English course at a language center in Cairo. All learners were assessed to be at a border-line A2/ B1 level on the CEFR scale , based on a placement exam conducted by the institute. The sample was divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. For both groups a pre-test and a post-test were administered to track individuals’ progress. During the treatment stage, participants in …

Refusal Strategies In L1 And L2 Among Undergraduate Egyptian Students, Alaa Kamel Darwish

Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigated the refusal strategies realized by young adult Egyptian students in their L1 (Egyptian Arabic) and L2 (English). The study also explored the socio-pragmatic features of Egyptian refusals in terms of power and distance as well as the pragmatic transfer in the students’ L2 refusals. 2270 cases of refusal were collected by means of a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) and field notes. The sample consisted of 200 DCTs (collected from 100 students in L1 and L2) and 60 instances of refusals extracted from field notes collected by the researcher. The data were analyzed according to an adaptation …

Are We Intensifying The Stigma? A Content Analysis Of Movies Portraying Mental And Psychological Illnesses In The Egyptian Cinema, Caroline Mitry

Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed the content of selected Egyptian movies that portrayed mental and psychological illness throughout the history of the Egyptian cinema between 1923 and 2015. A list that includes 42 movies depicting characters with mental or psychological illnesses was compiled, out of which 13 movies were selected for analysis. Selection criteria included: representation of the mental or psychological illness/disorder as the main character or issue around which the plot revolves, popularity of the leading actor or actress, and most importantly the significance of the movie in relation to the research questions of the study. Through content analysis of the …

An Analysis Of The Pragmatic Functions Of Idiomatic Expressions In The Egyptian Novel €˜Taxi’, Hala Mohamed Elshamy

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study is to investigate the idiomatic expressions and their pragmatic functions in the conversations of the novel Taxi in the light of Speech Act Theory. The study adopts a qualitative linguistic analysis method of research. After analyzing the 58 episodes of the novel ’Taxi’, the study reveals 80 idiomatic expressions fulfilling 13 pragmatic functions: describing with six subcategories, complaining, stating, concluding, and swearing, thanking, condoling, sympathizing, deploring and excusing, agreeing and opposing and advising. These pragmatic functions have been classified based on four of Searle’s speech acts: (1) representatives, (2) expressives, (3) commissives and (4) directives. …

The Use Of Egyptian Spoken Arabic In Modern Egyptian Novels, Esraa Essa

Theses and Dissertations

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the language of novels and written literature and is thus defined as a “High” variety. Nevertheless, young Egyptian authors of the new generation prefer to use a mix between Egyptian colloquial Arabic (ECA) and MSA as a medium for creating a new spirit in novels. In fact, the sharp lines between (MSA) and colloquial Egyptian (ECA) in the Modern Egyptian Novels have begun to blur (Badawi, 1973; 2012). Badawi (1973) proposed a five-level continuum in which each level gradually merges into the next. Arabic in Egypt encompasses five levels of language: (fusha al-turath and Qur’an) …

Resurrecting Eden: Inaugural British Narration And Policy Of Iraq, Timothy Kennett

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Britain's use of technology in developing Mesopotamia. British imaginations of Mesopotamia as Eden or El Dorado, reified by a multiplicity of travel literature,archaeological digs, and geographic societies, formed the first half of a violent dialectic that granted divine right and responsibility to the British. Instead, colonialists claimed that Mesopotamia's inhabitants squandered its primordial potential through neglect and mismanagement. These justifications fueled British attempts to develop Mesopotamia, irrigation engineers designing floodgates for the Tigris and Euphrates while agriculturalists created new strains of wheat that would flourish in its climate. But technology was more than development. It formed the …

Shifting Dreams: Intersections Of The Rhetorical Imagination Of U.S. Immigration Policy And The Writing Practices Of Dreamers, Genevieve Garcia De Mueller

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation examines the intersections between the rhetoric of the DREAM Act and the discourse of the migrant activists, specifically DREAMers, affected by the Acts language. Through a hermeneutic approach combining a rhetorical, genre, and critical discourse analysis, I examine how the DREAMers respond to marginalizing textual features of the Act. DREAMers appropriate genres and rhetorical moves of the dominant discourse to combat four problem features of the DREAM Act, namely the criminalizing nature, the erasure of the affected subjects (migrants), the taking away of agency from the affected subjects (migrants), and the propagation of xenophobic racism. Often fraught with …

Siete Lenguas: The Rhetorical History Of Dolores Huerta And The Rise Of Chicana Rhetoric, Christine Beagle

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation is first an historical trajectory of Chicana Rhetoric in the American polis and then a perspectival analysis of three key texts from Chicana labor rights activist and vice president of the United Farm Workers Union Dolores Huerta. The trajectory establishes an efficacious legacy of Chicana Rhetoric and the analyses of Huerta's rhetoric explore what Chicana Rhetoric is and is not through the lens of media, scholarly, and personal rendition. I argue throughout that Chicana Rhetoric is representative of current intersections in social, political, racial, and gender rhetorics and Dolores Huerta is the embodiment of these intersections. The implications …

Validity Evidence For The Interpretation And Use Of Essential Elements Of Communication Global Rating Scale Scores, Nancy Rhoda Schneider

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Purpose Clinical communication influences health outcomes, so medical schools are charged to prepare future physicians with the skills they need to interact effectively with patients. Communication leaders at The University of New Mexico School of Medicine (UNMSOM) developed The Essential Elements of Communication — Global Rating Scale (EEC-GRS) to teach and assess patient-centered communication skills. The instrument contains seven, behaviorally anchored Elements, which support the validity and reliability of scores. This study evaluated new validity evidence that supports the interpretation and use of scores resulting from the instrument. Method Two methods were utilized to evaluate validity evidence. (1) Correlation studies …