Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Recollections Of A Tejana Life, Carolina Yáñez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This thesis encompasses the life of a young woman navigating life in Texas through various political and social barriers. My interdisciplinary practice analyzes the historical context of Mexicans in Texas from its Revolutionary period into current injustices. Through fiber, printmaking, and photography I create a visual diary to illustrate what the political has made personal. These works display the beauty of Tejano culture, but also the power struggles that threaten communities I care for, as well as my own existence that persists against far-right wing agendas.

Current politics and government leadership in Texas have inspired me to make artwork calling …

The Rise And Fall Of The Contagious Diseases Acts: An Examination Of The Legislative Influences, Medical Discourse And Repeal Arguments, Elizabeth Henderson

All Theses

The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) were the most important legislative intervention concerning sexuality in the nineteenth century. The CDA was a public health measure passed to address the spread of venereal disease amongst the British Army and Navy, and targeted Britain's most vulnerable women – sex workers – because they were blamed for being the presumed cause and primary mode of spreading venereal disease. This resulted in the legalization of what critics of the CDA would call surgical assault, or instrumental rape, of working-class women suspected of being sex workers. Historians who study sexuality and sex work in Britain have …

Crusade From Afar: British Conservative Revolutionaries And The Nationalist Cause In Spain, Russell Crosthwait

All Theses

The Spanish Civil War catalyzed a distinctive intellectual movement among Britain's interwar right—the Conservative Revolutionaries. This thesis explores how this conflict provided ideological coherence to figures like Arnold Lunn, Arthur Bryant, and Douglas Jerrold, who occupied a unique position between conventional conservatism and fascism. Through organizations such as the Friends of Nationalist Spain, these intellectuals translated their abstract critiques of liberalism, democracy, and industrial capitalism into concrete political action. The thesis demonstrates that these figures were neither simple conservatives nor card-carrying fascists, but proponents of a third way between the two. This study challenges the conventional narrative that portrays British …

The Shift Of Western Power In The Anglo-American Relationship As Examined Through The Military Events Of World War Ii, Zaina A. Nait Omar

All Theses

How did the authority within the Anglo-American Alliance begin to shift toward the American domination that ruled the second half of the twentieth century? By examining the events of World War II, this thesis restructures the typical timeline with which historians have approached the dynamic of authority in the Anglo-American Relationship. Many historians claim that America was the perceived senior partner by 1941; however, this thesis demonstrates that by examining things from a military lens, that date must change. The British continued to operate under the intention of maintaining their global authority through 1945 and even into 1946. The thesis …

Displacement And Dreams: The Loss Of Home In A New South Town, Dora Helen Impson

All Theses

Despite much research regarding the experience of white city dwellers of Greenville, South Carolina, in the twentieth century, telling the stories of the city’s Black neighborhoods still remains to be done. This thesis chronicles the Black neighborhood of Little Texas, which was found northeast of the city’s central business district from its inception in the 1870s to its demise in the 1970s. By situating the city’s efforts to restrict and limit Black spaces within the historical framework of nationwide efforts of residential segregation ordinances, racially restrictive covenants, and city planning, this thesis argues that Greenville followed many other cities in …

Industrialization And Immigration: Latino And Hispanic Immigrants In The South Carolina Upstate, Matthew D. Girardeau

All Theses

European investment in the South Carolina Upstate created favorable conditions for Latino immigration. French tire manufacturer Michelin came to the region in the 1970s, and the construction of the largest BMW plant in the world in the 1990s greatly impacted the local economy. The Upstate had a history of outside investment, beginning with Northern industrialists in the textile industry and later European companies that provided equipment for textile mills. The automotive industry did not necessarily employ Latinos, but the money generated by the sector created booming construction and service industries. Latinos built a community in western Greenville County and established …

The Grizzly, May 1, 2025, Kate Horan, Erin Ewing, Renee Washart, Claudia Tracy, Nathaniel Nerone, Sidney Belleroche, Adam Denn

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

The Grizzly Takes On CoSA! • Senior Alumni Award Honorees • A Goodbye • And a Hello! • Repair Cafe • Hillel: A Home for Many • Ursinus College 2024-25 Crossword • Sports Stars Shine at URSPYS • Ursinus Softball Battles Through Ups and Downs

Querying The Ecological Sublime: Colonial Aesthetics, Anticolonial Thought, And The ‘Double Fracture’, Tacuma Peters

Publications and Research

This article examines the ecological sublime in its relationship to the history of colonial aesthetics, anticolonial thought, and contemporary colonialism. It argues that, while Edmund Burke utilized the sublime in support of colonialism (including settler colonialism) in North America and colonial slavery, Samson Occom and Ottobah Cugoano developed versions of the sublime to contest British colonialism in the Americas. The history of this aesthetic contestation has not been represented in scholarship on the ecological sublime, which, this article shows, has a vexed relationship with historical and contemporary colonialism. The article argues that the ecological sublime exhibits the “double fracture” of …

Reversing Residential Segregation In Richmond: Recommendations For A More Inclusive Future, Jacob Ellis

Honors Theses

Cities are dynamic, evolving reflections of our societies. The current built environment of Richmond, Virginia, is shaped by its stored history with zoning, which is inextricably linked to race. Since 1927, the City of Richmond, Virginia has had some form of a zoning ordinance in place, intended to create a system of de facto residential segregation. While the first zoning ordinance primarily focused on separating residential and industrial spaces in response to the City Beautiful movement and early 20th-century progressive ideals, zoning in Richmond quickly became a weapon of segregation and racism. As the former capital of the Confederacy, Richmond …

The Assizes Of Romania: Feudal Law And The Latin East, Caleb Silvergleid

Honors Theses

I conduct a comparative analysis of the Assizes of Romania (c. 1335) in two key spheres of law - the law of the feudal contract and the law of inheritance. I do so by placing the AR alongside a few legal traditions that might plausibly have influenced it: the customary law of different regions in northern France as recorded in the Coutumes de Beauvaisis (c. 1281-3) and the Summa de legibus Normannie (c. 1254-8), those of the Kingdom of Lombardy in Northern Italy in the Libri Feudorum (c. 1120-1200), and the collection of the Crusader law of the Latin East …

20th Century Graphic Design Development: Bridging Theory, History, And Practice Through Russian Constructivism, Oscar A. Gonzalez Jr.

Theses

This project centers on examining Russian Constructivism as a design movement and its influence on contemporary graphic design practices. It focuses on bridging historical theory and visual style with modern studio work, particularly through the creation of LGBTQ+ advocacy posters inspired by Constructivist aesthetics. The aim is to analyze the formal visual elements of Russian Constructivism while producing original designs that engage with current issues of identity and inclusion. Additionally, the project explores how the integration of analog and digital techniques can elevate visual messaging and creative expression.

Kentucky History Is Native History: Decolonizing Native Portrayals In Kentucky Museums., Mandala Gupta Verwiebe

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Utilizing prominent decolonial museums scholarship, interviews conducted with anthropology and museum professionals, and Kentucky museum exhibitions, this research explores the history of Kentucky’s public institutions’ Indigenous representation and recommends guidelines to improve their portrayal of Native people. Through a historical analysis, this research finds factors that influence Kentucky institutions’ portrayals of Native history, such as early harmful grave looting of Indigenous ancestral remains, the prominence of the Myth of the Dark and Bloody Ground, and a weakened state governmental Native American Heritage Commission. After considering both decolonial theory and the experiences of Kentucky heritage professionals, this research recommends three methods …

The First Of Its Kind--The Impact Of Wher-Am And Wdia In Postwar Memphis Radio., Emily Stucky

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

In 1947, WDIA Memphis became the first radio station in the U.S. to switch to programming featuring only Black performers and announcers. Eight years later in 1955, WHER-AM became the first all-female radio station in the country, also originating in Memphis, Tennessee. This thesis will discuss the ways WHER and WDIA have both contributed to and reflected social change movements between 1947 and 1970, from civil rights to feminism. Substantive sources include media perceptions of both stations through local newspapers, interviews with early participants, and various secondary scholarship on the impact of both stations. Ultimately, I argue that Memphis’s racialized …

Moving The Goalposts: American Sports Coverage In Newspapers And The Construction Of Gender, Race And Sexuality In The Olympics In 1928, 1932, 1936., Jacob Havers

All Theses

This thesis takes an in-depth look at the media coverage of women in the Olympics in 1928, 1932 and 1936. Specifically following the track athletes Kinue Hitomi, Louise Stokes, Tidye Pickett and Mildred “Babe” Didrikson the thesis explores how by being athletic women they had their identities as feminine figures heavily questioned and scrutinized in newspapers at the global level. The harshest of these critics was often the American media, who held strict standards of race, gender and sexuality in the late 1920s-mid 1930s. They sought to uphold these standards at the global scale, and the American media’s interrogation of …

After Midnight: Analyzing Legacy Business Programs' Potential To Capture Patron Perspectives Through A Case Study Of Four Charleston, Sc Nightlife Spaces, Shawnya Peterson

All Theses

Within historic preservation, Legacy Business Programs (LBPs) are increasingly popular initiatives to support and celebrate businesses that have contributed to the history and culture of their communities and reached a certain operational age. LBPs are important to their communities and are part of a growing trend towards vernacular study and democratization within the preservation field. In particular, LBP application processes have the potential to document significant aspects of these important community businesses. Different LBP application questions can capture different types of business information from a range of perspectives. Within the movement towards greater inclusivity in historic preservation, understanding and documenting …

Reviving Baybayin: The Pre-Hispanic Writing System Of The Philippines, And Raising Awareness In The United States, Richana K. Stone

Honors Thesis

Baybayin is an Indigenous system of writing in the Philippines that has been preserved, but has seen rapid decline in usage throughout the centuries. This paper explores the history of Baybayin and the methods of reviving the written script that have been suggested and used to reimplement Baybayin into the daily lives of Filipinos. Furthermore, this paper will look at how Lakota and Peruvian recording systems, the winter count and the khipu, respectively, have been preserved and used in modern times. Viewing the history of these groups and how they preserved these writing systems sparks a potential for the adoption …

Poets, Pioneers, And In-Betweeners: Musicians Of The South Asian Diaspora, Kancana Preetika Kathiravan

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

Sid Sriram, Arooj Aftab, and Ganavya Doraiswamy are three Asian American musicians who have experienced a meteoric rise over the past five years. These artists are signed to major labels, receive mainstream media exposure, have multiple Grammy nominations, and tour internationally. Through different avenues, they have built up diverse audiences that include members of the South Asian diaspora who see their own stories and music represented. Rather than being a single part of a cross-cultural collaboration, these musicians belong to both worlds. With backgrounds both in South Asian and American musical styles and grammars, these musicians are like their work: …

Book Review: Local Signs And Wonders: Essays About Belonging To A Place, Susanna R. Smith

Georgia Library Quarterly

Book Review of Local Signs and Wonders, by Richard Rankin

The Sound Of Young America/The Soul Of Young America: A Sonic Rhetoric Inquiry Into 1965 And The Music Defining A Generation In Crisis, Jessica Dyche

All Dissertations

The Sound of Young America/The Soul of Young America: A Sonic Rhetoric Inquiry into 1965 and the Music Defining a Generation In Crisis builds a case for sonic rhetoric theory that sees sonic rhetoric move outside of pedagogy, becoming a valuable tool for rhetorical analysis outside the classroom. To this end, The Sound of Young America/The Soul of Young America employs sonic rhetoric concepts and methodology grounded in cultural rhetorics, social history, and sociomusicology to inquire into the cultural and social relevancy of rock music, specifically to this project, in 1965. Sonic rhetoric sees sound and music as underexplored, but …

The Adirondack Frontier: Reclaiming A Vital Role In Shaping The Nation, Peter Nelson

Master's Theses

The traditional version of Adirondack history from the revolutionary period to the middle of the nineteenth century, which portrays the region as unexplored primeval wilderness, is nineteenth-century romantic mythology. It ignores thousands of years of Indigenous habitation and misrepresents early Euro-American activity in the region as well. In fact, from the earliest days of colonial exploration of North America until the middle of the 19th-Century, New York's Adirondack region was a dynamic American frontier, as important in shaping the destiny of the nation as the Northwest Territory or, later, the West. Activities in the Adirondack frontier contributed to the decimation …

A Tale Of Two Women, Cassady Brown

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Avenging Chief Sam: A Missed Opportunity In Galveston’S Commemorative Landscape, Eddie L. Brown Jr.

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This work centers on Chief Alfred Sam and the Oklahoma Blacks who were followers of his 1914 Back-to-Africa Movement. While public memory has portrayed return to Africa movements as disconnected moments in Black history, my work reinterprets Sam’s movement as foundational and revisits Galveston as the space utilized by nearly five hundred of his followers. It further asserts, that Galveston should be considered as the historical extraction point for the United States’ only Back-to-Africa movement of the twentieth century. While the Galveston landscape holds more than 200 historical markers and is the commemorated home of Juneteenth, no commemorative markers exist …

A Woman Of Saint-Domingue: Intimacy, Endurance And The Perpetuation Of Saint-Domingue’S Class-Based Social Order In Nineteenth-Century New Orleans, Lillian M. Legardeur, Lillian M. Legardeur

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This microhistory follows Eugenie Peneault (1774-1853) by means of a journal she kept during the Haitian Revolution and her subsequent relocation to New Orleans. Born the daughter of a baker, Peneault advanced through personal connections within the Creole elite to marry a member of the island-born planter class with ties to the minor nobility. With her fellow emigres, she recreated the patriarchal slave society of Saint Domingue in Cuba, then adapted its values to an urban setting in New Orleans, where she and her husband connected with local elites. This woman’s journal sheds light on experiences of pregnancy and childcare …

Dekonstruktion Der Afd: Eine Analyse Der Rechtspopulistischen Deutschen Partei Der„Alternative Für Deutschland”, Elizabeth A. Breckenridge, Elizabeth Breckenridge

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Die Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) ist eine rechtsextreme populistische Partei, die innerhalb eines Jahrzehnts rasch an Macht gewonnen hat, insbesondere in den ostdeutschen Bundesländern, aufgrund ihrer Betonung der Nationalisierung, ihrer populistischen Rhetorik und ihrer Anziehungskraft auf Wähler, die Ängste vor Einwanderung und kulturellem Wandel hegen. Die AfD hat es innerhalb von fünf Jahren geschafft, eine starke Wählerschaft zu mobilisieren, 2017 Sitze im Bundestag zu erringen und gilt nun als wichtigste Oppositionspartei zu den etablierten Parteien. Die AfD ist die erste rechte Partei seit 1945, die aufgrund des Aufstiegs rechtspolitischer Ideologien bedeutende Wahlerfolge erzielen konnte. Aufgrund des reaktionären Pendelschwungs nach dem …

Divine Achilles And His Raging Heart: Cannibalism In The Iliad, Lucca Crowe

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The story of the Iliad is one of identity. As Achilles struggles with whom to identify with, his divine mother or mortal father, he is consumed by an overwhelming rage that threatens to overpower him, dragging him down from both divinity and mortality into the very depths of monstrous savagery. This article examines the role that diet, particularly the act of cannibalism, plays in differentiating humans from gods and beasts. By examining Achilles identity struggle through the lens of cannibalism, this article sheds light on the broader ways Greek and Roman authors used cannibalism to express notions of otherness, situating …

A Voice For Unity: The 1947 Freedom Train And Collective Memory Of The American Revolution, Joseph Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

One element of American Revolution memory is how united the colonists were during the Revolution. Many subsequent political groups, such as the American Heritage Foundation (AHF), utilized this idealistic collective memory to advocate for unity and legitimize their agendas. Through the 1947 Freedom Train, the AHF shaped and reinforced a unified, idealistic, national heritage to unite Americans against the perceived threats of communism, disloyalty, and disunity at home, partially by framing the American Revolution as a united endeavor. Some Utahns and Americans at large, while supporting the pro-capitalist message embedded in the train, applied its message to support the protection …

Making Peace Among The People: The Development Of Brigham Young's Political Thought And Activity, 1838-1846, Garrett R. Elkins

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Brigham Young assumed the role as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1838, as the Church began to face extreme persecutions by the state of Missouri. Although he was a mostly apolitical individual preceding his new role, over the next eight years Young would hold political office and help the Church navigate challenging relationships with local, state, and federal governments. By the time he led the Latter-day Saints to the Great Basin and became president of the Church in 1847, Young had gained significant experience over several years …

Color Expressions In Euripides’ Ion, Erik Shelley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This analysis explores color expressions in the play Ion by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. Because the ancient Greeks experienced color differently, I examined words used in the play, including light, dark, fire, green, water, blood, and gold. These expressions imply different themes and concepts that Euripides uses to portray the duality between his two main characters, Ion and Creusa. This thesis showed how the mother-son pair acts as a foil for the different aspects of color found throughout the play that reflect ancient Greek culture.

The Effectiveness Of International Courts In Contributing To Rebuilding And Resolving Conflicts In Societies Post-Genocide, Garrett Connely

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

In the aftermath of mass atrocities, international courts have emerged as key mechanisms for delivering justice and fostering post-conflict reconciliation. Rooted in the precedent set by the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, these institutions aim to prosecute crimes that often go beyond national legal systems. However, their effectiveness remains contested, largely due to their dependence on state cooperation and the complexity of post-conflict environments. This project examines the societal impact of international courts in two significant cases – Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Through a comparative analysis of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal …

Toujours Beaucoup: Representations Of Childhood And Education In 20th Century French Literature And Cinema, Delaney Drury

Honors Theses

The Third Republic’s reforms established France’s public education system on several foundational ideals: upholding republican values, resisting autocratic authorities, promoting critical thinking, and promoting personal liberty and freedom of thought. This project explores French literature and cinema with significant representations of education for the purpose of examining to what extent such ideals are upheld or undermined in their portrayals of education. Such an examination of French education and its underlying values is significant in such a time in history when France is experiencing a “contemporary crisis of republican schooling” (Sachs 179). Alongside the historical significance of such studies, the more …