Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Virginia Woolf’S Fictional Biographies, Orlando And Flush, As Prefigures Of Postmodernism, Jacob C. Castle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the way in which the fictional biographies of Virginia Woolf, Orlando and Flush, prefigure central tenets of postmodern fiction. To demonstrate the postmodern elements present in Orlando and Flush, this thesis focuses on how the fictional biographies exhibit three postmodern characteristics: concern for historiography, extensive use of parody, and the denaturalization of cultural assumptions. Born from Woolf’s desire to revolutionize biography by incorporating elements of fiction alongside historical fact, these two novels parallel later works of historiographic metafiction in several key respects. Woolf’s extensive use of parody in Orlando and Flush prefigures how postmodern parody …

Restoring Relationship: How The Methodologies Of Wangari Maathai And The Green Belt Movement In Post-Colonial Kenya Achieve Environmental Healing And Women's Empowerment, Casey L. Wagner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The effects of the colonial project in Kenya created multi-faceted damages to the land and indigenous people-groups. Using the lens of ecofeminism, this study examines the undergirding structures that produce systems such as colonization that oppress and destroy land, people, and other beings. By highlighting the experience of the Kikuyu people within the Kenyan colonial program, the innovative and ingenious response of Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement proves to be a relevant and effective counter to women's disempowerment and environmental devastation in a post-colonial nation. The approach of the Green Belt Movement offers a unique and accessible method for empowering …

Prudery And Perversion: Domination Of The Sexual Body In Middle-Class Men, Women, And Disenfranchised Bodies In Victorian England, Ashley Barnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that with the rise of the middle-class, Victorian England saw the development of a power model in which middle-class men, middle-class women and disenfranchised bodies of children and lower-class women suffered from the demands of bodily domination. Because the bodily health of middle-class men was believed to represent national health, it was imperative that he dominate his body, particularly with regard to sexual urges. Consequently, the bodies of women with whom he sought sexual release suffered from forms of bodily domination as well. Through an analysis of journals and private writings of those living in Victorian England, …

Reconciling The Past In Octavia Butler's Kindred, Haley V. Manis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the observations of Nancy J. Peterson on historical wounds as a springboard to discuss Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred and its use of both white and black characters to reexamine the origins of the historical wounds and why they are so difficult to deal with even today. Other scholarly works will be used to further investigate the importance of each character in the story and what they mean to the wound itself. Specifically, Dana is analyzed alongside the other main characters: Rufus, Alice, and Kevin. Though Dana’s relationships with these characters, Kindred’s version of the past can be …

The Handweavers Of Modern-Day Southern Appalachia: An Ethnographic Case Study, Cathryn F. Washell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most prominent traditions associated with the Southern Appalachians is the art of weaving. Extensive research has focused on the history of Appalachian weaving, but there is little on the current weaving community. Today, the region still serves as an axis for weaving, and many practicing weavers, weaving instructors, and learning institutions can be found in Southern Appalachia. The core of this study is the interviews with ten weavers that reside and practice their work in Appalachia. Using concept coding, the transcripts of the interviews led to the development of four major themes that highlight the weavers’ discovery …

Heritage Tourism In Washington County, Tennessee: Linking Place, Placelessness, And Preservation, Chad F. Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the formation of spatial theory and the linkage between space and place and their relationship with historic preservation and heritage tourism. First, this thesis analyzes the terms space and place, and how scholars define each term. Second, this thesis focuses on the concept of placelessness. Third, this thesis examines historic preservation as a strategy to help alleviate placelessness and as a crucial link to heritage tourism. This thesis also will use regional examples of preservation and tourism as exemplified by the preservation efforts of private organizations, citizens, and government officials in Jonesborough,Johnson City, and Washington County,Tennessee. This …

Recasting The White Stereotype Of Southern Appalachia: Contribution To Culture And Community By Black Appalachian Women, Sherry Kaye Ms.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The myth and image of Southern Appalachia spun by local color writers of the early nineteenth century and, later, by local elites in privileged positions of power have long cast the historiography of the region in tones of Caucasian lineage and remediation. The production of culture, contribution to community, and service to church and, family long considered to be the domain of women has predominantly been viewed from the privilege of a white perspective. Prescriptive definitions of a monochromatic culture in the Uplands of Southern Appalachia has written out the cultural contribution of diverse ethnicities who continue to call the …

Descendants, Katie J. Sheffield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The photographer discusses the photographs in Descendants, her Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition which was held at Tipton Gallery, Johnson City, Tennessee from October 31, 2016 through November 23, 2016. The exhibit consisted of 19 large format color photographs. This body of work visually represents the artistʼs interest in those who participate in Civil War re-enactments.

The historical and contemporary influences discussed are in accordance to Sheffieldʼs photographs. Historical influences include Matthew Brady, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Walker Evans, and Helen Levitt, as well as those of contemporary artists; Martin Parr, Stacy Kranitz, and Anderson Scott.

Online Education: The Relationship Between The Perceptions Of Online High School Teachers Compared To Traditional Classroom Teachers Regarding The Visual Arts, Karen A. Fine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The incorporation of the arts as an academic subject in the high school distance education delivery method is being reinvented as something new. Most of the current research is focused on college courses. Online high school curricula are most often placed in research studies as an afterthought. Perceptions of faculty members from high schools with traditional instructional delivery models as well as public online schools concerning online education as it relates to the arts in 5 different areas was the focus of this research; mentor, delivery method, satisfaction, student learning, and curriculum. Examining the perceptions of teachers gives a blueprint …

Imagery And Objectification: A Study Of Early Modern Queenship, Heather R. Geiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Queen Anne Boleyn (~1507-1536) failed to meet social norms during her time as Queen Consort to Henry VIII (1491-1548). By tracing concepts of queenship through the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Andreas Capellanus, Thomas Malory, and Juan Luis Vives this thesis demonstrates how Anne united the office of queen and mistress to bring her downfall and introduce a new construct of queenship.

Dead Center: Polarization And The Democratic Party, 1932-2000, Colin S. Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Polarization forced massive changes in the institutions of Washington throughout the 20^th century, and the Democratic Party played a key role throughout. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic Party formed the powerful New Deal coalition. The coalition faltered in the turbulent 1960s under the pressures of the Vietnam War and racial unrest. The chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago dealt the coalition a mortal wound. Young voters and activists gained an outsized voice in the party. Several crushing defeats in presidential elections followed as the party chose unelectable candidates who appealed to the passions of left-wing activists …

The Church, State, And Literature Of Carolingian France, Steffan James Geiter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the eighth century rise in power of the Carolingian Church and the Carolingian dynasty through an early promise of religious revival, monarchial revival, and increased Papal power. Such aims gained the Carolingians a powerful in the Church. Aided by Boniface (672-754 AD) and the Church, the Carolingians replaced the Merovingians in Francia. In conjunction with this revival, Church scholars dictated a reformation of kingship in treatises called the Speculum Principum. A king’s position became tremulous when they strayed from these rules, as it betrayed their alliance. Ultimately, Louis the Pious (778-840 AD) faced deposition after they …

New Appalachians Of The Twenty-First Century: Reinventing Metanarratives And Master-Images Of Southern Appalachian Literature, Kelsey Alannah Solomon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Appalachian studies tradition ascertains that Appalachian people politically, socially, and academically represent a heterogeneous minority group of our own. In post-capitalistic America, however, the Appalachian region serves as a hotspot for media misrepresentation and tourism that perpetuate through works of fiction, nonfiction, and scholarship both negative and positive stereotypes in the overall American consciousness. Twenty-first-century Appalachian authors, I contend, are reinventing Appalachia from its postmodern rubble through fictionalized reconceptualizations of our region’s history, shifts in our collective consciousness from anthropocentric to ecocentric, and subversions of the heteronormative discourse of our internal colony through explorations of the psychosexual. The contemporary …

Kindred, Katelyn Osborne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kindred, an MFA exhibition held at the Tipton Gallery located in downtown Johnson City from Feburary 22^nd to March 4^th. Kindred presents two bodies of work, which are a collection of drawings, etchings, monoprints, and lithographs, that center around a personal mythology and symbolism of self-identity and discovery. These works explore the physical and spiritual connection behind being a fraternal twin through the metaphorical use of animal imagery.

The ideas discussed in this paper center around the process of creating a personal mythology and symbolism through my observations of animals and how I relate that experience to …

Flushed, Virgilia K. Ellis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist describes the process and development of the work throughout her graduate career, relating them to the most recent works of her thesis exhibition. Topics discussed include experiences of beauty and themes of transformation. Contextual influences include the Rococo period as well as ideas and theories of Romanticism and the sublime. Histories and theories on representations of the body are also discussed.

The artist discusses her MFA thesis exhibition Flushed, at the Tipton Gallery in Johnson City, Tennessee, from April 13th to April 24th, 2015. Two painting installations, a sculptural installation, and a number of collages are included. Media …

Love On - The Life Of A Suicide Survivor: A Performance Autoethnographic Study, Patricia R. Wheeler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Suicide touches the lives of millions of people each year in this country alone, yet conversations about suicide loss and survival after a loss remain taboo and often do not happen. The story I performed for this performance autoethnographic study centers on my life as a survivor of suicide. It provides a starting point for dialog regarding trauma, grief, and suicide loss. The narrative was constructed directly following the sudden death of my father, which had a direct effect on my ability to produce artistic work. The development, staging and performance of the story were altered to account for the …

An Actor’S Approach To Claire In Proof By David Auburn, Kathryn Patterson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The areas of study in the Proof thesis contain research on the play, the playwright, and the acting style utilized in the performance and character analysis. The acting style in this process focuses on the actor’s creative work in preparation of portraying a female character. This character is a controlling woman that is unable to manipulate others. By using relaxation techniques involving the Alexander Technique, the actor was able to transition into the character with honest emotions and motives. Finding similarities to the character by using personal relationships gave the actor the ability to discover connections with the character in …

“Mere Supplicants At The Gate”: Northeast Tennessee Politics In The Antebellum Era, O.J. Early

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Antebellum political historians have long studied the era between Andrew Jackson’s election and the secession crisis through the colored knowledge of the Civil War. This project is an effort to reverse that trend. It explores northeast Tennessee’s political culture from the late 1830s through the start of the Civil War. It reveals that the Second American Party System, a wave of new enfranchised voters, and the area’s demographics mixed together to lay a foundation for the aggressive and populist political style that permeated the region from the 1830s through the 1850s. At the heart of these issues was the transition …

A Proper Cup Of Tea: The Making Of A British Beverage, Rachel M. Banks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tea is a drink the Western world associates with Britain. Yet at one time tea was new and exotic. After tea was introduced to Britain, tea went through a series of social transformations. The British gradually accepted tea consumption as a sign of gentility and all social classes enjoyed the drink. After 1834, when the East India Company lost their monopoly on the trade with China, a new tea industry began in India and control passed to British entrepreneurs. Faced with difficulty in their efforts to make their industry into a facsimile of Chinese methods, the British reconstituted their tea …

Exploring Ethnic Stereotypes Through The Production Of Five Short Films, Ines Galiano Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a nontraditional thesis that combines social research in ethnic stereotypes in TV and film with the creative process of film production. This paper contains the formal step of research, in addition to the details on the production and creation of five original short films related to the issue of ethnic representations.

Refuse To Go Quietly: Jewish Survival Tactics During The Holocaust, John D. Caraveo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During World War Two, the European Jewish population was faced with this during Shoah (the Holocaust). From Kristallnacht in November 1938 to the collapse of the Nazi Regime in May 1945, they relied heavily on each other and their instincts to discover ways to survive while in the ghettos, labor camps, and partisan units, if they managed to escape and head for the forests. Even with some Jews turning on their own to help the Nazis, the vast majority stuck together and did everything they could to persist and survive. While only two uprisings were viewed as successes, the ghetto …

Women In The 1929 Textile Strikes In Elizabethton, Tennessee And Gastonia, North Carolina, Steven K. Knapp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In southern labor history the role of women remains one of the most overlooked and misconstrued. Most works on the subject have relegated women to support roles within the labor movement or designated those who stood out as wild women. Through the use of existing works on the topic, interviews with strikers and witnesses, and contemporary newspaper articles, this thesis will show, in two case studies, of Elizabethton, Tennessee, and Gastonia, North Carolina, that women involved in the 1929 strikes were neither merely supporters nor wild women. They were instead the public faces of the textile labor movement and took …

Meta-Forms, Rickey P. Bump

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses his Master of Fine Arts exhibition, Meta-forms, held at the Tipton Gallery in downtown Johnson City. Exhibition dates are from March 14 through March 25, 2016. The artworks on display are a series of drawings made from carving wood panels and sheet metal and are accompanied with a large scaled site-specific installation. The exhibition culminates from research of historic and contemporary figures for non-objective art. The author gives insight to the artistic process while creating his exhibition, as well as their personal connection with the artwork.

King Fred: How The British King Who Never Was Shaped The Modern Monarchy, Austin W. B. Hilton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the British monarchy in the eighteenth century and how the philosophy of Frederick, Prince of Wales, helped to shape that monarchy. The early Hanoverians were seen with contempt by many of their subjects, often being ridiculed as ignorant outsiders. They helped matters none by their indifference to Britain, its people, or its culture. Prince Frederick, George II’s eldest son, however, changed all of this. His philosophy on kingship, influenced by Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke’s work, The Patriot King, helped to change the perception of the Hanoverian dynasty. When Prince Frederick died in 1751 before he could take the …

Remembrance: Drink While The Water Is Clean, Marissa Angel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper supports the Artist’s Master of Fine Arts exhibition held at the Tipton Gallery, located in downtown Johnson City TN from November 30, 2015 through January 22, 2016. The works Included in the exhibition consists of a series of mixed media collage paintings, a large scale etching combined with clay and a site specific installation.

The Exhibit features work that delves into the concept of nature as a subject of beauty, as well as a symbol of the resiliency of life. The work in this exhibit exposes the separation that exists between humanity and the natural world. Through …

Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, And The Canterbury Tales: Parallels In The Comic Genius Of Henry Fielding And Geoffrey Chaucer, Zachary A. Canter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The parallels between the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and Henry Fielding are very striking. Both authors produced some of the greatest works in English literature, yet very little scholarly investigation has been done regarding these two in relationship with one another. In this work I explore the characters of Chaucer’s Parson and Parson Adams, assessing their strengths and weaknesses through pastoral guides by Gregory the Great and George Herbert, while drawing additional conclusions from John Dryden. I examine the episodic, theatrical nature of both authors’ works, along with the inclusion of fabliau throughout. Finally, I look at the shared motif …

That 80'S Show! - The Politics, Film, And Television Of The Reagan Years, Gable Hackett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 1980’s were a transformative era for the United States of America. The nation had been through a very tumultuous and difficult period following the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, Watergate Scandal, and recession that had plagued the late 1970’s. The fortieth President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, sought to alter this direction by bringing the United States back into a conservative renaissance. He accomplished this in part by using his history in and knowledge of Hollywood. Films and television shows were used by President Reagan to paint the image he had of a better America. A return to …

Dollhouse, Whitney Goller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses the work in DollHouse, her Master of Fine Arts exhibition on display at Tipton Gallery, Johnson City, Tennessee from January 25 to February 5, 2016. The exhibition was an installation consisting of five sets, each containing furniture - both 2D and 3D - and a mask with instructions relating to a room found within a dollhouse.

The sets and supporting thesis explore the ideas of social norms, feminism, and identity, and how submission to ideologies can create emptiness, while engagement can prompt social change. Topics include the process and evolution of the work and the artists who …

Elsewhere, Amber Law

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The photographer discusses the work in Elsewhere, her Master of Fine Arts exhibition held at East Tennessee State University in the Reece Museum, located in Johnson City, Tennessee. The exhibition is displayed from March 1 through March 31, 2016 and consists of 17 color photographs and 3 videos representing a body of work that visually communicates the photographer’s interest in transient lifestyles.

The influence and research regarding the concept is communicated by a focus on artists, literature and art historical knowledge that pertain to Law’s work. The artists included are Rineke Dijkstra, Jocelyn Lee, Lise Sarfati, Stephen Shore, Robert …

Keats And America: Attitudes And Appropriations, Jessica Hall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While John Keats never traveled to America and only wrote a handful of admittedly hostile lines about it in his poetry, American writers and readers have consistently regarded Keats as one of the greatest and most influential poets of the past two centuries. His critical reputation in America has been stable since the 1840s, enduring throughout changing tastes and movements, and his biography and work have been utilized in manifold appropriations by American poets and writers. I examine Keats’s attitude toward the United States—which was in conflict with the general feeling regarding the country by his fellow Romantic poets—and briefly …