Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Little Girl In The Country: A Children's Book, Holly Mcginnis

Honors Theses

A Work of Children’s Literature to Address Realities of Childhood in the Southern United States

This thesis investigated the intersection of life’s realities and children’s literature. Representation is an oft-talked-about area of children’s literature. It is coming to light that many groups are underrepresented in writings for children, and recent works are attempting to broaden the types and backgrounds of characters to represent the diversity of readers and authors. This thesis is the author’s attempt to accurately represent the types of students she encountered in student teaching experiences in the Oxford-area. Using inspiration from her own childhood and knowledge of …

Religion In George R.R. Martin's "A Song Of Ice And Fire" Franchise, Sydney A. Craven

Honors Theses

This thesis is a study of religion in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire franchise. Specifically, George R.R. Martin's use of medievalisms, his interpretation of the Middle Ages, when creating the religions in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Organic Angels: Innocence, Conversion, And Consumption In The Antebellum American Novel, Laura Jean Schrock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Midcentury American novelists variously reworked the traditional conversion narrative to reflect a marked cultural shift in attitude towards human "nature," newly conceived as innocent and inclined to salvation. This liberalized aesthetic of conversion takes shape through the trope of the "organic angel," a developmental female figure whose journey from childhood innocence to saintly womanhood merges the processes of sexual maturation and Protestant conversion. Because she purifies self-interested desire by redirecting it towards spiritual ends, the organic angel provides a symbolic reconciliation of the young nation's budding imperial capitalism with its millennial expectations. While traditional emphasis on a maternal ethos at …

There Is A Gnawing Worm Under The Bark Of Our Tree Of Liberty: Anti-Mission Baptists, Religious Liberty, And Local Church Autonomy, John Lindbeck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The schism between American missionary and anti-mission Baptists of the 1820s and 1830s stemmed from an ideological disagreement about how Baptists should interact with the rest of society. While anti-mission Baptists maintained their distance from "worldly" non-Baptist society, missionary Baptists attempted to convert and transform "the world." Anti-mission Baptists feared that large-scale missionary and benevolent societies would slowly accumulate money and influence, and that they would use that influence to infringe on the autonomy of local congregations and the religious liberty of the nation. While histories of this topic often portray anti-mission Baptists as obscure and paranoid of an imagined …

Christ And Class: The Protestant Episcopal Church In The South, 1760-1865, Ryan Lee Fletcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christ and Class: The Protestant Episcopal Church in the South, 1760-1865 Ryan Lee Fletcher This dissertation examines the emergence, practices, religious culture, expansion, and social role of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the American South from 1760 to 1865. The dissertation employs three major research methodologies by: (1) centralizing the role of social class in the Episcopal Church's history, (2) seriously considering the Episcopal Church's distinctive theology, and (3) quantifying the connections that linked the Episcopal Church to the South's economic structures. Archival research, periodicals, and published records related to the Protestant Episcopal Church provided the primary evidence used in …

Neither Slave Nor Free... : Interracial Ecclesiastical Interaction In Presbyterian Mission Churches From South Carolina To Mississippi, 1818-1877., Otis Westbrook Pickett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on the efforts of a variety of missionary agencies, organizations, Presbyteries, synods and congregations who pursued domestic missionary efforts and established mission churches among enslaved Africans and Native Americans from South Carolina to Mississippi from 1818-1877. The dissertation begins with a historiographical overview of southern religion among whites, enslaved Africans and Native Americans. It then follows the work of the Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury among the Choctaw, the Rev. T.C. Stuart among the Chickasaw, the Rev. Charles Colcock Jones among enslaved Africans in Georgia and investigates the work of the Rev. John Adger and John Lafayette Girardeau among …

Place, Race, And Religion In The Local Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community And Movement Of Memphis, Tennessee, Amy Catherine Ulmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study observes the role of place in the local LGBT community and movement of Memphis, Tennessee. I gathered information from fifteen interviews, including LGBT Memphians, activists, preachers, and public figures to show what aspects of place have been the most significant in shaping the nature of the local movement, which has been growing since the early 2000s. I suggest that the conservatism, race, and religiosity of Memphis have played the most significant role. The first chapter demonstrates how LGBTs operate within a city that maintains pockets of openness, but remains largely LGBT-unfriendly according to interviewees. The second chapter observes …

The Modern Ontological Argument: In Which The Position Of Alvin Plantinga Is Refuted, Zachary Green Crownover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this work, I set out to accomplish three tasks. First, I hope to educate those who may be unfamiliar with the philosophy of religion, by presenting to them rough outlines of positions commonly assumed by logically minded spokespersons for atheism and theism, respectively. Second, I introduce and explicate the work of Alvin Plantinga—a prominent proponent of theistic belief—and in such a way that it may be clearly understood even by those without prior experience of modal logic. Finally, I adopt a polemical stance against Plantinga, and reach the following conclusion: Contrary to Plantinga's assertions, and given the modal framework …

Good Neighbors: Agents Of Change In The New Rural South, 1900 To 1940, Thomas Wayne Copeland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work paints an intimate portrait of rural people who lived in the hill counties of northeast Mississippi and southwest Arkansas between 1900 and 1940. Howard County, Arkansas and Union County, Mississippi serve as the representative counties for each hill-country region. Howard County is located in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, and Union County is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. This study identifies who in the rural communities was most responsible for bringing positive changes to their communities, questions what motivated their efforts, and evaluates their successes and failures. To this end, the work first examines …