Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Nietzsche And Eternal Recurrence: Methods, Archives, History, And Genesis, William A. B. Parkhurst

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I argue that Nietzsche's thought of eternal recurrence is merely a kind of thought experiment that has two forms of engagement. The first form of engagement is destructive and results in the principles of classical logic being reduced to epistemic nihilism. In this first form, Nietzsche is thinking eternal recurrence, as it is presented in previous philosophers, to its end. The second form of engagement does not require the presuppositions of classical logic and is made through the affect of disgust. This second mode of engagement can result in two outcomes; suicidal pessimism or life affirmation.

The work on eternal …

Land Goddesses, Divine Pigs, And Royal Tricksters: Subversive Mythologies And Imperialist Land Ownership Dispossession In Twentieth Century Irish And American Literature, Elizabeth Ricketts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Land ownership dispossession is a key feature in establishing imperial hegemonies. In the colonial context, limiting access to land concentrates wealth, power, and influence in the hands of a small colonial or neocolonial elite, excluding others from financial independence, accumulation of generational wealth, political representation, and a stable living situation. British imperial activities spanned multiple continents, engaging similar patterns of dispossessing the native population from their land, language, and cultures. In this endeavor, culture and literature in particular, as Edward Said points out in Culture and Imperialism, have been complicit in inculcating imperial ideologies and justifying territorial occupation. As Said …

Relationship Between Working With Professional Evaluators And An Organization’S Evaluation Culture, James M. Wharton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mission-based organizations like zoos and aquariums are investing in evaluation capacity to help them improve their mission performance, but are these resources improving their professional culture, or merely creating evaluations? This study surveyed the leadership from 100 programming departments at accredited U.S. zoos and aquariums to learn how work with professional evaluators might be related to the nature of an organization’s evaluation culture. Survey results showed no statistically significant relationships between a self-reported measure of evaluation culture and either institutional demographics or work with professional evaluators. Follow-up interviews with nine case study organizations, however, were more supportive of the role …

Assessment Of The Environmental Sustainability Of A Small Water Production Facility In Madagascar, Jesal Patel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nearly 2.2 billion people around the globe struggle with access to safely managed drinking water (WHO/UNICEF, 2019), however, there have been certain initiatives taken, particularly by means of small water production facilities for enhancing access to basic drinking water services in rural areas. The water production facility, specifically located in the low- and middle-income countries, usually encounter operational difficulties as a result of limited availability of resources and are required to depend on other resourceful countries for goods and services. Although, with limited research done for assessing the environmental sustainability of water facilities in low- and middle-income countries, numerous data …

The Communicative Constitution Of Environment: Land, Weather, Climate, Leanna K. Smithberger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My project examines the communicative constitution of environment: how we mediate environment in discursive practice, and arrange chaotic and complex timeplaces into organized relationships of agents and objects which act and are acted upon. Climate scholars across disciplines are calling for a paradigm shift in how we understand, study, inhabit, and relate to Earth’s varied environments. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how communication practices do the work of constituting the environment as we know it, and therefore conclude with the hopeful suggestion that these same practices can be used to do the work of a paradigm shift — that is, …

Of Body And Mind: Bioarchaeological Analysis Of Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century Anatomization And Institutionalization In Siena, Italy, Jacqueline M. Berger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Institutional bioarchaeology is a growing sub-field within bioarchaeology, particularly social bioarchaeology as informed by the biocultural approach. However, the majority of studies in this vein have primarily addressed English-speaking contexts, to include analyses of institutional assemblages preserved archaeologically, and anatomical collections. The present study examines of the Siena Craniological Collection (SCC) - located in Siena, Italy. The collection was assembled between 1862-1931, and originally contained remains of 1,122 patients from both the general and mental hospitals in operation in Siena during this period (Brasili-Gualandi & Gualdi-Russo, 1989a). In addition to demographic analysis of the Siena Craniological Collection as a whole, …

Hegel And Schelling: The Emptiness Of Emptiness And The Love Of The Divine, Sean B. Gleason

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that, all appearances to the contrary, Hegel does not attempt to achieve a complete systematization of reason in a self-reflexive sense in his system of philosophy. Quite the opposite, I maintain that the absolute Idea is the actuality of the self-transcendence of the divine. Along these lines, I argue (in agreement with Slavoj Žižek) that the absolute “Idea” is non-total and incomplete; in this sense, Hegel is neither a modern thinker nor a post-modern thinker, but rather he presents a version of thinking that is both modern and post-modern, while neither merely one nor the …

Peminist Performance In/As Filipina Feminist Praxis: Collaging Stand-Up Comedy And The Narrative Points In Between, Christina-Marie A. Magalona

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project documents the interdependent effort between performers, authors, and texts, through re/theorizing the role of the personal narrator in autoperformance as both an individual, and a part of a political collective. Through a scripted and staged performance, studied as the data, I critically engage with representations of first-generation women of color via comediennes (Ali Wong and Cristela Alonzo) and their personal narratives, and dialogically consider moments of dis/identification as a Filipina American.

Rooted in performance in/and communication studies, the overarching method employed is conspicuous aesthetic performance, via a scripted and staged narrative performance. I join performance and other methods …

Reframing The Gothic: Race, Gender, & Disability In Multiethnic Literature, Ashely B. Tisdale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is about the exploitation and disposability of disabled bodies. I am interested in understanding how some bodies are vulnerable to systems of exploitation by virtue of their race, gender, and disabilities. Chapter one interrogates Alejandro Morales’s The Rag Doll Plagues, where ill and disabled female characters are disposed of during the protagonists’ journey toward national progress. Hanya Yanagihara’s The People in The Trees is the subject of chapter two. In this novel, ill, elderly characters of color are experimented on as their sovereign island is mined by pharmaceutical corporations. Chapter three discusses how James Hannaham’s Delicious Foods portrays …

Mental Illness Diagnosis And The Construction Of Stigma, Katie Lynn Walkup

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how mental health legislation and related policy documents contribute to identification, diagnosis, and stigmatization. Using a mixed methods approach including content and stylometric text analysis with R as a heuristic for close and critical reading, I demonstrate how these documents normalize mental health concerns as a public threat. To do this work, I analyze how the Florida Mental Health Act (Chapter 394) and the Florida Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act (SB 7026) circulate and sustain dominant narratives about mental illness. I trace where these narratives are distributed into Florida school districts’ mandatory mental health …

Intersections Of Race And Place In Short Fiction By New Orleans Gens De Couleur Libres, Adrienne D. Vivian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although New Orleans joined the United States following the Louisiana Purchase, the city’s French colonial period continued to influence New Orleanians. The lives and writing of nineteenth century New Orleans gens de couleur libres, free people of color, document continued exchanges with France and the Caribbean despite the city’s increasing Americanization. Drawing from Westphal’s theoretical work on geocriticism, Intersections of Race and Place in Short Fiction by New Orleans Gens de Couleur Libres locates sites of transgressivity and their representations in writers Michel Séligny, Adolphe Duhart, and Victor Séjour’s French language short stories. Chapter One examines New Orleans’s historical and …

The Dream Act And Daca: A History Of Immigrant Children, Sofia Paschero

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis writes the history of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM ACT) and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Chapter One gives a background history on immigration reforms in the 20th century. Chapter Two focuses on the history of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM Act). Chapter Three is the immigrant children story. This chapter is an oral history. My main argument is immigrants have always been and still are, easy targets. Politicians create immigrants as scapegoats in order to avoid the social, political, cultural, and economic issues that are affecting people …

Consumerism And Pride: The Fate Of Paris’ Marais “Gayborhood”, Christina M. Csensich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the 1980s the Marais neighborhood in Paris, France, became a haven for queer people, specifically gay, white men, filled with queer-owned and queer-centric businesses. By the year 2020, however, these businesses had been priced out by name-brand international corporations. In the 1990s, French television commercials and programs would not speak the word ‘homosexual,’ even when a character was openly queer. By the 2010s, companies regularly featured queer people and gay pride imagery and slogans in their advertising. The queer community in Paris has a unique relationship with the consumer economy, one that ties aspects of queer identity directly to …

The Value Of Sleep: Aura And Aesthetics Of Cohabitation In Juha Lilja's Revision Of Warhol, Christopher Costabile

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis positions Juha Lilja’s 2013 digital video work, Sleep, as a prime example of what the author terms an “aesthetics of cohabitation” — a newly suggested method of artistic creation set in opposition to capitalist society’s commodification of both space and time, represented here through the work of Robert Hassan and Jonathan Crary. Lilja’s eight-hour-long video work, which is accessible on YouTube, is a reimagining and re-envisioning of Andy Warhol’s film of the same name. It subverts the intended function of digital streaming platforms while using digital technology to meet aesthetic criteria in shot length and overall duration, which …

The Mass Is The Medium: Marshall Mcluhan And Roman Catholic Liturgical Change, Ashil D. Manohar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The liturgical changes of Vatican II sought to bring a period of renewal to the Catholic laity by encouraging active participation and making the Mass more simple to understand. However, the time after the Council was characterized by confusion and disengagement by the laity. I will be discussing three significant changes to the liturgy at this time, The change from Latin to the vernacular, the change in the orientation of the altar and priest, and the change in acoustics, sound, and music. I will be examining all of these changes through the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, famous for coining …

Empress Nur Jahan And Female Empowerment: A Critical Analysis Of A Long-Forgotten Mughal Portrait, Angela N. Finkbeiner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a study of a seventeenth-century watercolor portrait of the Mughal EmpressNur Jahan (r. 1611-1627). Titled Nur Jahan Holding a Musket and created by court painter Abu’l Hasan, the painting has not been the subject of a scholarly work before. In this unorthodox depiction of a female, Nur Jahan is shown sporting androgynous attire while actively loading a matchlock musket. Through visual and textual analysis, I read this portrait as a symbol of an empowered female and argue that once its meaning is decoded it can serve as a complex historical document that complicates Nur Jahan’s persona. Moving …

White Too Long: Christianity Or Nationalism?, Rachel E. Osborne

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tension, racism, and violence being enacted in the name of Christianity have brought new attention to the work of many scholars of religion who have documented and analyzed the relationship between white Christianity and racism in the U.S. In his 2020 book White Too Long, Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) director and religious studies scholar Robert P. Jones states unequivocally that “[i]n survey after survey, white Christians stand out in their negative attitudes about racial, ethnic, and religious minorities (especially Muslims), the unequal treatment of African Americans by police and the criminal justice system, their anxieties about the changing face …

Four Hollywood Film Adaptations Of Little Women: Identifying Female Subjectivity In Characters, Plots, And Authorship, Haiyu Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My thesis examines the expressions of the limits and possibilities of female subjectivity in the four Hollywood film adaptations of Little Women, filmed in 1933, 1949, 1994, and 2019 respectively, by combining textual and audience analysis with adaptation theory, feminist film theory, and feminist adaptation theory. In exploring the disparate femininity of female characters, the different representations of plots, and the authorship and changes of structure, I argue that the 1933 and 1949 versions present evidently conservative and patriarchal characteristics in the text, but their female subjectivity can be obtained through the complexity of emotion of the female audience …

Analyses Of Woodland Check-Stamped Ceramics In Northwest Florida, John D. Blackburn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research compares prehistoric check-stamped ceramics from two northwest Florida sites, Sunstroke (8Li217) and Roy Whitfield (8Gu52), to investigate change through time in pottery manufacture of this ubiquitous type from the Early to Late Woodland Periods, about 100-1000 C.E. These sites are about 60 km apart and connected by waterways in the middle and lower Apalachicola valley drainage system. The Roy Whitfield site is considered Early Woodland based on other diagnostic pottery types, and the Sunstroke site has been radiocarbon-dated to the Late Woodland Period. Check-stamping is a common form of ceramic surface treatment across the Woodland Period and beyond, …

Threatened By The Outback: Landscape And Ecology In The Australian New Wave, Richard T. Dyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Scholarship discussing the Australian outback as a cinematic setting often conceives of this space as sharing a “frontier iconography” with the American west. A significant element of this conception is attributed to the natural features of these setting’s respective landscapes, which are said to share an arid climate, rugged geologic formations, and vast open spaces. In this project I instead strive to challenge the associations frequently conjured between these natural spaces by identifying an ecological stance within the Australian “new wave” outback film that is at odds with the presentation of the landscape in both classical Hollywood westerns and the …

Seasonality, Labor Organization, And Monumental Constructions: An Otolith Study From Florida’S Crystal River Site (8ci1) And Roberts Island Shell Mound Complex (8ci40 And 41), Elizabeth Anne Southard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades, archaeological research has provided evidence that some mounds in the southeastern United States were constructed in short episodes. A large work force would have been required to accomplish these monumental projects. Shell mounds, in particular, provide an opportune type of architecture to investigate whether seasonal aggregations of laborers gathered at sites to engage in large-scale work projects because these mounds are constructed of aquatic resources that leave signatures for what time of the year they were caught or harvested. This study investigates whether the residents of the Crystal River site (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI40 and 41) …

Politics Vs. The Environment: The Spatial Distributions Of Mississippian Mound Centers In Tampa Bay, Adam J. Sax

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Safety Harbor culture that resided in West-Central Florida during the Mississippian period (~1000-1500 CE) was distant from the Mississippian heartland but built similar platform mound complexes and exhibited social hierarchies despite practicing an estuarine lifestyle that likely did not rely on extensive agriculture. To determine whether this coastal culture exhibited similar spatial patterns of platform mound centers to traditional inland cultures, GIS spatial analyses including distance matrices, density analyses, and least cost analyses (LCA) were performed within the Safety Harbor geographical nexus of Tampa Bay. The results were able to detect temporal changes in settlement patterns and estimate the …

Our Story, Our Homeland, Our Legacy: Settlement Patterns Of The Geechee At Sapelo Island Georgia, From 1860 To 1950, Colette D. Witcher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Gullah Geechee are descendants of enslaved Africans who worked on the island coastal plantations of Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Northern Florida. The Gullah Geechee are known for having retained African cultural connections and practices in the United States through intergenerational knowledge transmission. On Sapelo Island, Georgia, during their 250 years on the island a least 15 historic communities have been acknowledged as representative of their distinct presence on the island. Hog Hammock which was established in 1878, is the last intact Gullah Geechee owned community, due to forced abandonment of the other communities during the early 1950s. …

Un Rompecabezas Americano: La Identidad Y Los Escritores Hispanos En Estados Unidos, Keren N. Benalcazar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Hispanic immigrant authors in the US portray the process of identity formation in diaspora affected by the act of immigration itself through the analysis of four main themes: cultural identity, language, alienation and the immigrant's experience with borders and border culture. While Hispanic literature of immigrants has evolved over time in the United States, many of its general themes remain the same. Focusing on authors from the 19th to 21st centuries, this thesis covers 18 works ranging from novels, to essays, to poetry to short stories, all by various Hispanic authors, most of them immigrants or …

Generic Expectations In First Year Writing: Teaching Metadiscoursal Reflection And Revision Strategies For Increased Generic Uptake Of Academic Writing, Kaelah Rose Scheff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how student uptake of academic genres in First Year Writing (FYW) are challenged by the concept of writing expectations. Previous research on uptake has focused on uptake between genres with little attention to the role of writing expectations on the event of uptake or how to translate these expectations to students pedagogically. Identifying pedagogical uptake strategies for students to use across academic genres provides instructors with insight into student challenges in FYW and strategies for students to understand their own writing on a metacognitive level by assessing writing expectations. My thesis investigates uptake of academic writing in …

Stakeholder Experiences With Arts-Based University-Community Partnerships In General Education, Veronica Leone Matthews

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

University-community partnerships (UCPs) have significant potential as a way for universities to connect with communities and provide students with High Impact Practices (HIPs). Despite over 20 years of literature calling for increased community engagement, institutions of higher education have been slow to integrate UCPs into the General Education curriculum. Certain components have been identified as necessary for the effectiveness and sustainability of UCPs. However, little is known about the experiences and perceptions of key stakeholders including students, faculty, and community partners who participate in arts-based UCPs. This study investigated these stakeholders’ perceptions regarding participating in arts-based UCPs as part of …

Women, Peace And Security In Zimbabwe - The Case Of Conflict In Non War Zones, Rutendo Chabikwa

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is the United Nation’s (UN) key policy instrument for addressing gender violence in conflict zones. However, the agenda has been preoccupied with “hot” conflicts, and its application and relevance to sustained, but “low level” conflict situations is poorly conceptualized. This research considers this issue through a case study of Zimbabwe since 2000. I make the case for broadening the understanding of conflict as found in the WPS agenda.

This paper addresses the question: ‘How does the case of Zimbabwe exemplify the need for a broader understanding of conflict within the WPS agenda as …

State Building In Post Conflict Rwanda: Popular Participation Of Citizen In Local Conflict Mitigation, Innocent Ndahiriwe

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

When studying local state building this article addresses the questions how does state led conflict mitigation in post conflict Rwanda work? How is it experienced by the citizens in terms of participation, accountability and local state legitimacy? Theoretically, the study engages with literature on state-building, state society relations and local conflict mitigation. The study’s findings have indicated that the citizens’ contribution to local state-building was still modest due to low motivation among the citizens involved in the conflict mitigation process due to insufficient resources and infrastructure in the conflict mitigation process, despite the fact that the state has granted legal …

S-21 As A Liminal Power Regime: Violently Othering Khmer Bodies Into Vietnamese Minds, Daniel Bultmann

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The article analyzes the structure, scripts, and procedural logics behind the violent practices in S-21, the central prison of the Khmer Rouge, as a liminal power regime. The institution’s violent practices and operations served to reveal a “Vietnameseness” and/or otherness within the victims and to prove not only their guilt regarding a singular crime but also a long history of treason and collaboration with the Vietnamese, as well as a moral shortcoming that put them outside their own imagined Khmer moral universe and made them part of a larger scheme. The initial and—for the ideology of the revolution—problematic sameness of …

Gender, Age, And Survival Of Italian Jews In The Holocaust, Susan Welch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Political scientists have examined the role of gender in genocide but have largely ignored the Holocaust in these analyses. Yet, the Holocaust is the largest genocide in human history and there is much we do not know about how gender affected individual experiences. Nor do we have a very precise understanding of the impact of age in survival, beyond the common wisdom that old and young people usually did not survive. Here we examine in more detail the impact of gender and age and their intersection among the nearly 7,000 Italian Jews deported to the east, mostly to Poland and …