Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Who Has A Voice: Issues Of Free Speech At The University Of Mississippi From 1955-1970, Neale Grisham

Honors Theses

Amidst the upheaval of American society in the 1960s, the University of Mississippi’s administration found itself in a precarious position. A long-standing institution that prided itself on its ties to the Old South, the university was being challenged by integrationists and liberal notions of equality and social justice. The university was forced to decide between abetting the alumni that padded university pockets and the tides of change that were rippling through the university campus. Their main way of combatting this was through the surveilling of students and the vetting of potential guest speakers who may spread “controversial ideas.” While students …

Preparing And Performing A Trumpet Recital, Jesse Gibens

Honors Theses

The pieces are examined based on historical context and explained based on the practice notes that I journaled and reflected upon by comparing and contrasting standard recordings of each work. This thesis is divided into nine sections that explore the pieces that are performed, as well as the instruments used to perform them. The thesis also explores my repertoire choices based on instrumentation, style, composer, and genre, as well as how to deal with the challenges of approaching a diverse program. Historical information has been taken from articles, books, and other scholarly writings produced by experts within their fields of …

Beat The Church Crowd, Evelyn Alston Tyer

Honors Theses

Beat the Church Crowd is a collection of poems that explores a variety of topics and themes, from personal family legacy and natural disasters to bestiary, ekphrastic, and southern locale poems. It is divided into four sections: “Blue Danube,” “Anecdotes,” “Urban Legends,” and “Something Worth Protecting.” While the subject matter and forms of the poems vary, the common thread weaving each poem to the next is the slight touch of the macabre.

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 …

Sunset Piracy: The Ends Of Atlantic Piratical Careers In The Age Of Sail, Cory Henderson

Honors Theses

This thesis concerns the careers of pirates in the latest stage of that career, as pirates prepared to end their roving of the seas in order to “settle down.” Though pirates are idolized in modern fiction, their ends are often overshadowed by the highlights of their careers. Here, the goal is to find what motivated pirates to engage in a life as outlaws and then at some point choose to cast that life aside. Conclusions on this are drawn from both primary and secondary sources where pirates gave information pertaining to their view of the world and retirement in it, …

When Worlds Collide: Charlie Hebdo And Islam In The 21st Century, Mildred Morse

Honors Theses

Caricatures are entrenched in French socio-political identity. That identity has shifted due to internal and external forces, but the most important event for the socio-political identity of France in the 21st century is the attacks at Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. The event and the responses to it reignited the ideas of incompatibility of France and Islam, furthering the schism between French society and the integration of Islam. The nature of the memory of Charlie Hebdoand its effect on the perception of Islam before January 2015 and after necessitates the question, “How does Charlie Hebdo reveal contradictory ideas of …

Playing To Win: The Marriage Market In Jane Austen’S Northanger Abbey, Sense And Sensibility And Emma, Caroline Elizabeth Nall

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to analyze the implications of the marriage market in Jane Austen’s novels Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. In these books, the main focus will be on Isabella Thorpe, who is actively participating in the “game” of the marriage market, Charlotte Palmer, who has won the “game” of marriage, and Miss Bates, who has lost the “game” of marriage. The historical context of these situations, taking place in eighteenth and nineteenth century England, has been taken into account. Austen has created characters to demonstrate the many aspects of a female’s life and how it relates …

A Nonanthropocentric Response To The Cosmic Perspective Problem, Eveanne Eason

Honors Theses

This paper responds to issues that have been raised for environmental philosophy in light of developments in astrobiology and exoplanet science. In recent years, we have moved much closer to confronting evidence of life beyond Earth. Pairing such a discovery with a certain theoretical understanding of the universe, we might be motivated to address a question: with knowledge of abundant, potentially infinite alien life on Earth-like planets, why must we save our planet? In anticipation of this discovery, we can use this scenario, the Cosmic Perspective Problem, to refine a widely-held position with substantial implications for our environmental ethics. The …

Art Of Darkness, Sarah Roper

Honors Theses

This paper describes the process, production, and explanation of Art of Darkness, an artistic expression of the struggle with anxiety. All of the work is inspired by literature and art from the English Romantic and Victorian eras, and focuses on quotes about the mind, emotions, and other thought processes. As each piece highlights a different aspect of anxiety, it also portrays the struggles of anxiety through color palette, printing process, and symbolism. These printed pieces consist of letter-press printed materials, with ink-wiped backgrounds and hand-stitched details. Also included are large-scale prints with silkscreened foregrounds, a selection of bookmarks, a …

The Life And Struggles Of Red Cockaded Woodpeckers, Michaela Gay

Honors Theses

This series of paintings focuses on red cockaded woodpeckers, an endangered species of bird and the longleaf pines forests which they live in and are reliant upon. I drew my inspiration mostly from personal experience with my family’s own efforts to restore one of these forests as well as my longstanding belief in the importance of protecting the environment. However, the point of these paintings is not to preach to people, but rather to show them the beauty of these trees and birds, so they can perhaps begin to care about them themselves instead of just being told that they …

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.

Public Sentiment Toward Migration In A Globalizing World: The Case Of Spain And Its Distinctive Demeanor Toward Its Immigrants, Caroline Thompson

Honors Theses

This thesis discusses Spain's overall public opinion around immigration, exploring factors that contribute to the development of a country's attitude toward its immigrants. Spain exemplifies a particularly distinctive attitude in relation to its European Mediterranean counterparts, displaying an increased receptiveness toward its immigrant population. I examine economic factors, studying whether or not perceived economic competition can lead to significantly increased negativity toward immigrants. However, I find that, specifically regarding the Spanish case, economic competition does not determine the country's attitude toward immigration. Therefore, I focus on this element of authoritarian legacy and its contribution to public opinion around immigration. Following …

Basements Below The Sanctuary: A Story Of The Church School, Rachel Winstead

Honors Theses

This is the story of belief in a southern Mississippi town and how that belief mirrors the national conservative counterrevolution that took shape at the same time. Hattiesburg’s segregation academy and church school were founded in the context of broader social movements. As the political power of the Citizen’s Council faltered and white moderates’ voices became louder, practical solutions to retain segregation within the boundaries of law grew to be the new focus of white communities. The conservative counterrevolution exploded in the South as Christian morality and “family values” became the rallying cry of former staunch segregationists and white moderates …

The Differences In Talk About Violence And Terrorism: A Case Study Of Northern Ireland And The Basque Country, Mcclellan Davis

Honors Theses

The Northern Irish and Basque conflicts have been studied throughout the years, as both serve as examples of conflicts involving ethnonationalist terrorist groups and successful disarmaments. While there are similarities, there are also distinctions between the two conflicts. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) both fought for independence from a larger government, inflicted horrific pain on populations where they considered themselves members, but ultimately both ended without accomplishing their goal of separatism. This thesis seeks to understand the differences within these conflicts and their subsequent peace processes/disarmaments, which I believe contribute to the differences in ‘talk’ …

More Than A Language: A Detailed Look At The English Major, Hannah Woods

Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes the perceptions of the English Major in order to come up with suggestions for the Univeristy of Mississippi English Department with the purpose of increasing enrollment in the English Program. The last decade has seen a large decrease in the number of English Majors throughout the country, and this decrease has been reflected in the University of Mississippi. This thesis looks at recent opinions of the English Major in society, including popular criticisms of the major and responces from the English community. It was found that the two main criticisms of the English Major are that graduates …

Ulster, Georgia, And The Civil War: Stories Of Variation, William Loveless

Honors Theses

Ulster, Georgia, and The Civil War: Stories of Variation explores the lives of 13 men from Northern Ireland who immigrated to the American South and fought for the Confederacy. The author pursues the stories of each man’s life in order to have a more thorough understanding of what life looked like for Irish/Ulster immigrants in the South during the 19^th century. By looking at the lives of the men in Ulster, their first experiences in the United States, their experiences in the Civil War, and their lives following the war, the author identifies more variation than consistent trends.

Y'All Like Ike: Tennessee, The Solid South, And The 1952 Presidential Election, Cameron N. Regnery

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changing nature of politics in the American South, specifically through the 1952 presidential election in the state of Tennessee. For much of the South’s history, the region was dominated by the Democratic party, earning it the nickname the “Solid South”. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the South became an aggressively one-party region in which the Republican party found little electoral success and the Democratic party reigned supreme. This partisanship began showing signs of fracturing in 1948 when southern Democrats began to leave the party over racial issues. The presidency of Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) further …

Etruscan Biophilia Viewed Through Magical Amber, Greta Rose Koshenina

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I explore the usage and purpose of amber objects in burials from Etruria, specifically from the late Villanovan Period (ca. 800-720 BCE) to the Orientalizing Period (ca. 720-580 BCE). I have followed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches as well as visual analysis of amber grave goods. While there has been extensive research on the medicinal and ritual purposes of amber grave goods from excavated Etruscan tombs, I show that there was likely a specific interest in amber that contains organic inclusions likely because of the Etruscans’ interest in nature. I examine the presence and …

Pecking The Hands That Feed Them: How Society And Government Have Allowed The Poultry Industry To Exploit Labor And The Environment In The American South, Sophie M. Kline

Honors Theses

Americans eat an average of ninety pounds of chicken in one year, but where does that chicken come from? Immigrants and African Americans are the majority of the labor population in poultry processing plants located in the American South. In an effort to highlight the racism, sexism, insecurity, and environmental degradation in the poultry industry, I analyze a variety of ethnographies, articles, and science journals as well as U.S Supreme Court decisions and policies enacted by the U.S federal government in this thesis. Upon examination, I answer why society is pecking the hands that feed them. The analysis concludes that …

"Monsters In Suburbia": Women's Bodies, Monstrosity, And Motherhood In The Mere Wife, Claire M. Bonvillain

Honors Theses

This thesis explores themes of monstrosity in Maria Dahvana Headley's novel The Mere Wife in connection with issues of women's bodies and feminism. It analyzes prominent female characters in the novel and the relationships of their bodies to patriarchal authority, showing how and why bodies are deemed monstrous. It discusses the role that motherhood plays in patriarchal society, as well as explores alternatives that the novel offers to this system.

An Analysis Of The History And Ethics Of Video Games, Trenton Brock

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Honoré De Balzac’S Portrayal Of The Feminine Condition In The Wild Ass’S Skin, Père Goriot, And The Lily Of The Valley, Brooke V. Musmeci

Honors Theses

In 19th century France, women appeared to be second class citizens. They were often limited in their abilities to have independence and secure their own wealth. This perception of women perhaps justifies why, as Honoré de Balzac’s novels illustrated the realities of French society, he attempted to characterize women’s struggles to obtain control and power in their lives. In his novels The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), The Lily of the Valley (1835), and Le Père Goriot (1835), Balzac sought to prove how women could improve their lot.

Firstly, in studying how women had been relegated to second-class citizens under their …

Interpreting Efforts In Mississippi Schools: Does Spanish Dialect Diversity Hinder Communication?, Walker Fortenberry

Honors Theses

This work examines the different Spanish dialects spoken by interpreters and their clients in public schools in Mississippi and whether dialectal mismatches hinder communication between interlocutors. To do this, I conducted a brief interview and survey of several interpreters for the Tupelo Public School District. The interview and survey assessed the interpreters’ personal use of Spanish dialects as well as their ability to identify certain dialects and opinions as to the relevance of dialects in their work. I found that interpreters, though aware of dialectal differences among Spanish speakers, were generally not able to identify specific dialects. Furthermore, I found …

The Hair You Wished To Comb, Sarah Barch

Honors Theses

This thesis is a collection of poems exploring gender and trauma in Greek mythology by retelling classical stories in a female voice.

"Army, I'M Home!": Digital Community And Mediated Intimacy In K-Pop Fandom, Olivia George

Honors Theses

In this paper, I argue that we should turn our attention to the affective labor in the pop culture industry in South Korea. Using the House of BTS event as a case study of K- Pop fandom, I will address the affective labor practices and its impacts in K-Pop fandom. Idol group BTS (방탄소년단) and their company Big Hit Entertainment are a particularly apt study for this choice because they deliberately adopt mediated intimacy as a marketing tactic, creating content outside of music and across social networking platforms that cater to fans’ desire to “know” and adore BTS members. In …

‘How Has Art Refocused Consumers’ Attention Within A Visual World Through The Exploration Of Package Design?’, Frances Hackney

Honors Theses

The art of design has refocused the attention of consumers as they have entered into a visually demanding world. While this concept is complex and perplexing, stemming from endless influencing factors, the elements of design can be broken down into areas of focus to dissect the visual world of marketing. A simple way to communicate the influence of design on the consumers is to unveil the answers through the study of art.

In this thesis, the study will turn to the world of art to learn more about consumerism. The goal is to understand how visual images and the ongoing …

American Indian Sovereignty And Climate Change: Emerging Spaces And Coalitions To Assert American Indian Sovereignty During A Climate Crisis, Brenna Q. Gardner

Honors Theses

Climate change is a global issue that will affect most, if not all, populations on earth; however, it will not affect groups equally. While vulnerability varies between groups, poor, frontline, marginalized, and Indigenous people are particularly vulnerable. This thesis explores if the challenge of climate change as affecting multiple vulnerable populations presents emerging spaces in which American Indian sovereignty can be asserted. I provide a literature review on federal Indian policy and the American Indian Sovereignty movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I then analyze primary materials produced by the Indigenous Environmental Network and primary material surrounding the #NoDAPL movement. …

Clarifying The Conceptualization Of Empire: Is China's Belt And Road Initiative An Attempt At Empire?, Olivia Melvin

Honors Theses

Is 21st century China building an empire through the Belt and Road Initiative? Where do modern imperialist trends fit into the post-colonial world? This study explores different conceptualizations of empire used in previous academic studies and explores how the Belt and Road Initiative fits in this narrative of empire. Clarifying the discourse surrounding modern expansionist and imperialist behavior is a necessary first step in comparing phenomena that occur in very different historical periods. For example, when comparing former imperial dynasties of China to modern Chinese expansionist behavior, over 500 years of development divide these two historical periods. Newer terms such …

George Berkeley's Idealism: An Examination Of The Idealist Metaphysics And Its Connection To Philosophy Of Mind, Joshua L. Powell

Honors Theses

The prominent 18th century empirical philosopher George Berkeley espoused a philosophy known as “idealism.” This thesis aims to show that George Berkeley’s idealism is a formidable player in philosophy of mind. The present research unfolds his arguments for idealism as they appear in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, turning at several points to The Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous for clarification. This research further explores the fundamentals of idealism in light of philosophy of mind, highlighting idealism’s intrinsic connection to this discipline. While this work is far from exhaustive, it provides the reader with essential information …

Byron And Don Juan: A Case Study And Queer Reading Of The Closeted Libertine, Caitlin Stanfield

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the major theme of homosexuality throughout the poetry of Lord George Gordon Byron, ultimately focusing on his 1819 iteration of Don Juan. It presents historically relevant information regarding the sodomy laws, religious sermons, anti-sodomite publications, and other obstacles that, I argue, prevented Byron from expressing his sexuality openly. The queer Byron, of course, exists elsewhere. Through close readings of Byron’s correspondence and of his verse, my thesis argues that we can read Byron’s highly coded, homoerotic jargon for what it is, shedding new light on the active but concealed homosexual community of nineteenth-century England.