Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"A Conflict Of Truth With Error": Southern Preachers, Their Worldview, And Sectional Tensions, 1830-1865, Timothy A. Ehrhardt

Masters Theses

White evangelical preachers of the antebellum era presented the American South with a cosmology that was rooted in the Bible as God's revelation to all humans, with God as sovereign over a strict social hierarchy that placed the white male as household head, and women, children, and black slaves (in that order) as subordinates. This cosmology contributed to sectional tensions, as southern pastors were at the forefront of advocating a proslavery worldview, and supported secession from the Union and war as an act of purification from northern infidels who did not endorse the ministers' brand of biblical literalism.

Southern clergymen …

John Irving, Female Sexuality, And The Victorian Feminine Ideal, Tara Coburn

Masters Theses

In an interview about The Cider House Rules, John Irving states, "It is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel" (qtd. in Herel, para. 18). However, in book reviews, jacket blurbs, literary criticism, and Irving's own writing, readers and critics and Irving often assert that he is a neo-Victorian novelist, and the Victorians were a notoriously political bunch. Though Irving does not admit to the political nature of his writing, the way he treats feminist politics in his fiction has drawn particular notice by the media, who often label him as a feminist writer. …

The Snow Queen: An Opera In Three Acts Based On A Story By Hans Christian Andersen, Elaine Fine

Masters Theses

This is the analysis portion of my thesis The Snow Queen, an opera based on an 1845 story by Hans Christian Andersen. This analysis examines the opera from a structural standpoint and focuses on the harmonic language, the functions of melodic and rhythmic motives in the opera, and the relationship between the original story and its adaptation as an opera.

In addition to the structural analysis I include a discussion of literary and philosophical elements connected with the opera and elaborate on the incorporation of material from Norse mythology, contemporary Finnish poetry, and the work of the 19^th-century …

Saxo Grammaticus: History And The Rise Of National Identity In Medieval Denmark, Christopher L. Bailey

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Changes In Female Athletes' Physical Self-Esteem Across A Competitive Cycle And As A Function Of Athletic Identity, Michelle C. Reed

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine if female athletes' physical self-perceptions are different when comparing their Physical Self-Perception Profile (PSPP) scores within their competitive season with their scores during the off-season. The second purpose was to determine if physical self-perception varied as a function of their athletic identity. A secondary objective was to evaluate female athletes' physical self-esteem in an individual sport setting compared to a team sport setting. Eastern Illinois University female collegiate athletes in six different sports, track (n=15), softball (n=16), soccer (n=11), tennis (n=3), volleyball (n=5), and rugby (n=19) were given the Athletic Identity Measurement …

Keyboard Basics: A Comprehensive Group Approach For Adults, Brenda Siefferman

Masters Theses

Keyboard Basics is a beginning level group course for adults in a classroom setting, using electronic keyboards. The course was born of necessity, because no existing textbooks fully meet the needs of this particular group of learners. It is designed for non-music majors with little or no previous musical experience. The goals of this text are to: 1. introduce students to the world of music and its language; 2. give students several musical experiences to help develop a love and appreciation of music; 3. enable them to think and play musically and with expression; 4. teach students to read music; …

Birth Of A Paradigm: Digital Technology And Its Effect On Literary Studies, Chad Michael Verbais

Masters Theses

Digital technology is changing the landscape of literary studies. In essence, the proliferation of computer technology and hypertext is forcing literary scholars to look at how the expanded role of the visual in our society is influencing the way we read and disseminate texts, especially hypertexts, while they also come to a better understanding of the role of the reader in a digital environment and the overall value of electronic literature. Literary studies is witnessing the birth of a new paradigm through digital technology in textual production and dissemination that will not only raise new questions, but further examine age-old …

Searching For The Hero's Code: Questioning (White) Hero Formation In Contemporary American Film, Amanda D. Mckay

Masters Theses

The desire for heroism never wavers in the imaginations of the movie-going public. When we go to the movies, we long to see a strong character, poised to save the world (tights and cape optional, of course). However, we rarely question what the hero looks like. Hollywood perpetuates an archaic form of heroism because that is what the audience has formed long ago in their collective imagination. Much of American culture is generated by the desire to see self-starters making it in the direst of conditions.

With such a narrow construction of heroism, Hollywood has become void of equal representation …

This Man's Heart: Masculinity In The Poetry Of E.E. Cummings, Willis John Whitesell Iii

Masters Theses

"This Man's Heart: Masculinity in the Poetry of E.E. Cummings" explores changing masculinity in the life and poetry of E.E. Cummings. The relationship between Cummings and his father, his first male role model, became strained when Cummings was a teenager finding his own male identity. As he rebelled against his father, a Unitarian minister, he began writing poetry in a modernist style under the direction of a new mentor, Ezra Pound.

Cummings' early modernist poems criticize conventional male roles and configurations of masculinity as outdated. As Cummings continued to grow as a man and writer, he confronted new realities which …

Marty On The Edge, Bill Feltt

Masters Theses

Marty Kaden can fly. A champion Taekwondoist with serious hopes and a good chance of making the United States team, propelling him all the way to the Olympic Games one day, he takes his chosen martial art seriously. Trouble looms on the horizon, however, and soon brings Marty down to Earth. After suffering defeat at the hands of an arch-rival, Marty spins out of control. Worse, his master instructor disappears under what Marty believes are mysterious circumstances. Yet no one will take him seriously—the police, his mother, his master's assistant. None of them shares his concern. Marty's despair sends him …

American Kitsch: Dreams Of Vegas And Apollo Beyond Aporias, Daniel Gerling

Masters Theses

Aside from a recently published compendium of happy stories by Dan Rather and a few real estate agencies in Florida, the American Dream has been considered dead. The most common poison deemed responsible for this death has been, not the lack of success, but, the "kitschiness" of the reward. Postwar novels such as Henry Miller's The Air-Conditioned Nightmare and Edward Albee's play The American Dream declared that the Dream was no longer genuine and, therefore, no longer functional or valid.

Horatio Alger's blueprint for American prosperity began to lose its momentum to a generation of skeptics who rejected the idea …

The Rural Public Television System: The Paradox Of Identity And Role, James C. Jones Jr.

Masters Theses

The American television broadcasting system is preparing for it's greatest upgrade since color television. This change will not only effect commercial television it will also effect our community public television stations.

Since it's inception in 1967 the public television system has been the innovation leader in the broadcast industry for using new technologies to benefit education and servicing the public. Public television was the leader in satellite programming distribution, descriptive television services and closed captioning. Public television has defined and demonstrated its role as a technology leader. This research study was undertaken to define from the public's perspective what it …

Women's Heart Of Sorrow: Versions Of The Truyen Kieu In The Works Of Duong Thu Huong And Le Ly Hayslip, Vi Tran

Masters Theses

Nguyen Du's Truyen Kieu or Tale of Kieu has arguably provided a life model for Vietnamese females. The poem's influence extends in important ways to contemporary Vietnamese writers as well, including those as politically and artistically diverse as Duong Thu Huong and Le Ly Hayslip. In Novel Without a Name, Paradise of the Blind and Memories of a Pure Spring, Duong Thu Huong transforms the terms of Nguyen Du's poem to those of Vietnam during its revolutionary period and today. As an overseas Vietnamese who had earlier experienced prostitution and the moral chaos of war, Le Ly Hayslip's …

Move!, David Morneau

Masters Theses

In composing MOVE! I wanted to combine the rhythmic excitement and improvisational elements of jazz music with the refined developmental techniques found in classical music. Rather than simply borrow jazz harmonies and sounds for use in a classical composition, or compose music in a classical style for a jazz ensemble, I tried to create music where both traditions are represented equally.

Each of the movements in the suite approach the combination of these ideas differently. The suite begins out by Shout, a fanfare in a jazz style. Shout takes its name from the shout chorus of many swing tunes. …

The Strange Races On The Hereford Mappa Mundi: An Investigation Of Sources, John H. Chandler

Masters Theses

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, a thirteenth-century world map, includes mention of fifty-four strange races. Many of the races can be found in three earlier sources: Pliny's Naturalis historia, Solinus's Collectanea rerum memorabilium, and Isidore's Etymologiae. By comparison to these three sources, the works used by the author of the map will be made clear.

This study provides an edition of all the inscriptions relating to these races, and compares them to excerpts relating to the races from the three above sources, as well as St. Augustine's De civitate Dei and Pomponius Mela's De chorographia. Translations …

For Orchestra, Joo Won Kim

Masters Theses

For Orchestra is a work consisting of two movements. In the first movement, the rhythmic pattern is based on the Korean traditional rhythm called "Changdan". There are a lot of "Changdan"s employed in Korean music. One of the Changdan-rhythms that are frequently used in traditional percussion ensemble is transferred to Western instruments through various contemporary techniques. The rhythmic elements are developed and combined with melody and harmonic texture. Harmonic textures include interval construction of perfect 4th, 5th, major and minor 7th, 3rd, and 2nd. There are both tertial and quartal combinations. The relationship between melody and chords is made up …

“The Kingis Quair”: A Critical Edition, Michael D. Livingston

Masters Theses

Introduction

General Introduction

The Kingis Quair is a poem of clear Chaucerian descent, written in the same seven-line stanzas as Troilus and Criseyde, that marks the beginning of a Chaucerian movement in the literature of Scotland. The poem exists in only one manuscript, MS Arch. Selden B. 24 of the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, where it is twice attributed to King James I of Scotland (1424-1437). Indeed, it is due to the connection with James that the particular seven-line stanza format in which the poem is written is now known as "rhyme royal."

Bringing Liberalism And Communitarianism Closer, Paul Frazier

Masters Theses

The question that divides liberalism and communitarianism is: should the state exist to protect individuals and individual rights or for the good of society as a whole? This thesis suggests that this is the wrong question to ask. Individuals are not isolated and different from their communities, but are products of social settings. This does not mean, however, that individual freedom and individual rights are compromised. Rather, the only way for an individual to be an autonomous agent and to make free choices is within a society. Rights for individuals, then, must come from within a social setting. Therefore, the …

Walt Whitman: The Optimism Of An Evolutionary Pantheist, Katherine R. Hults

Masters Theses

E.M. Forster may have best described Walt Whitman's prevailing optimism in the following passage:

He is the true optimist—not the professional optimist who shuts his eyes and shirks ... but one who has seen and suffered much and yet rejoices. He is not a philosopher or theologian; he cannot answer the ultimate question and tell us what life is. But he is absolutely certain that it is grand, that it is happiness, and that 'wherever life and force are manifested, beauty is manifested.' (Allen, World 52)

Whitman was aware of the social taboos and social evils of his time, witnessing …

Journey To The Frontiers Of Perception: How Women Wrote About The Westward Movement During The Nineteenth Century In Relation To Land, Animals, And The Domestic Sphere, Brandi Dale Spelbring

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Pirsig's Phaedrus: The Journey Of The Shaman, Joseph E. Levora

Masters Theses

Robert Pirsig, in both his novels Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila, explores the conflict one man has with the beliefs and values of the culture he is living in. This conflict leads him to mental collapse and eventually a kind of rebirth into a new outlook and way of viewing the cultural values and beliefs of the society he is living in. In this thesis, I propose that Phaedrus, the central character of both of Pirsig's novels, can be compared to a shaman. I am not suggesting that Pirsig deliberately intended the reader to view …

Sorrow Into Joy: A Phenomenological Study Of Adult Women Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse, Eldine M. Webster

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to learn how six mid-life women who had been sexually abused as children perceived the way in which that early experience had impacted their life to date. Using a phenomenological qualitative life-history approach, each participant was interviewed for a period of from one to three hours. Content analysis of the interviews and member-checking with participants who volunteered to do so resulted in eight major themes emerging from the data: memories, family, career, addictions, depression, boundaries and embodiment, counseling, and synchronicity. The last theme, synchronicity, very closely related to the concept of spirituality and a …

Personality Correlates Between Fundamentalist And Non-Fundamentalist Individuals As Measured By The Neo Pi-R And The Religious Fundamentalism Scale, Jason Andrew Witt

Masters Theses

The relationship between religious fundamentalism and personality was examined. Over 150 students total, from two Midwestern universities were administered the NEO PI-R and the Religious Fundamentalism Scale. It was predicted that the individuals who scored highly on the RF Scale would score significantly higher on the Neuroticism scale and significantly lower on the Openness scale of the NEO PI-R than the non-fundamentalists. Results of the study confirmed the prediction that Openness would be significantly lower for fundamentalists, F (1, 103) = 11.093, p < 0.001. Results did not confirm the prediction that Neuroticism would be significantly higher for fundamentalists, but showed that Agreeableness was significantly higher for fundamentalists, F (1,103) = 11.127, p < 0.001. Possible reasons for the differences in personality scores between fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists were discussed, as well as suggestions for future research in this area.

The Voices From The Sanctuary: The Female Narrators Of J M Coetzee's In The Heart Of The Country And Doris Lessing's Memoirs Of A Survivor, James L. Forman

Masters Theses

In both In the Heart of the Country (1977) by J. M. Coetzee and The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) by Doris Lessing, a female narrator fabricates a sanctuary—mental rather than physical—that enables each woman to challenge, deflect, or adapt to a conflict and that shelters her from a hostile, patriarchal society. For Coetzee's narrator (Magda) in In the Heart of the Country, writing, rewriting, and editing provide the necessary devices to establish her asylum in her quest for identity. For Lessing's narrator (the survivor) in The Memoirs of a Survivor, escaping behind the wall allows her to …

Relationship Between Belief In An Active Satan And Intolerance Of Minority Groups, Jennifer L. Acord

Masters Theses

For years researchers have explored the issue of intolerance of minority groups. Research has suggested that intolerance is related to general religiosity. More recently the focus of investigation has been the relationship between intolerance and specific religious beliefs, such as belief in an active Satan, religious fundamentalism, and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). In a previous study Wilson and Huff (in press) found that belief in an active Satan was related to intolerance of gay men and lesbians and ethnic minority groups. The current study re-examined the relationship between belief in an active Satan and intolerance of various minority groups. In addition, …

Symphony In One Movement: Score And Analysis, Jon Kostal

Masters Theses

This thesis consists of the composition, Symphony In One Movement, accompanied by an analytical study. The piece is composed for large orchestra and has a duration of twelve minutes. It comprises three connected but distinct sections, whose contrasts suggest individual movements. Each section is based on a traditional formal structure: sonata, passacaglia, and rondo-variations. The intention was to acknowledge the traditional symphony through these formal structures while applying more modem approaches to elements such as harmony, melody, and rhythm.

The analytical study that follows the score provides insight to the compositional methods and tools which were employed in the …

African-American Life Writing: Harriet Jacobs And Bell Hooks, Luo Yi

Masters Theses

Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and bell hooks' Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood share a common concern with emancipation and employ complementary rhetorical strategies. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl presents Harriet Jacobs' journey of personal self-discovery through various relationships with others, and her personal narrative finally serves the larger goal of emancipation for her people. Jacobs' narrative is full of other voices, or personae. Even the narrator, Linda Brent, is pseudonymous, or "other," in this sense. Jacobs invokes these personae in her autobiography; she explores her experiences as a web of …

Piano Concerto, Ho Jun Lee

Masters Theses

This composition, Piano Concerto, represents the form of theme and variations. This composition is comprised of nine sections: Introduction, Theme, and seven variations. The theme comes from Korean folk song "Saeya Saeya Pahrahng Saeya," having a three-note melody that utilizes a three-note scale. Each variation features different variation techniques or combination of different techniques. These include rhythmic transformation, melody squeeze, contrapuntal technique, harmonic changes, meter changes, pattern changes, texture differentiation, and timbre changes.

Toward A Provident Working Class: French And English Social Reform Rhetoric, 1880-1914, James R. Gavan

Masters Theses

This research examines the rhetoric of belle epoque English and French middle class social observers. Addressing the "social question," they engaged in a debate on how best to appease an impoverished, alienated, and increasingly militant working class. Historians cite this discourse, and the meager legislation it fostered, as a transition from the unbridled nineteenth century laissez-faire to the welfare democracy characteristic of the twentieth century.

Central to the "social question" was the issue of improving social relations without altering existing class hierarchies (which favored the middle classes). Many social commentators shunned the passage of legislative safety nets in favor of …

Mass, Michael J. Miller

Masters Theses

MASS is a musical setting of the ordinary parts of the mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. These five texts constitute the bulk of Christian liturgy for well over the past millennia. MASS is scored for SATB chorus and small chamber orchestra.

The primary concept from which the movements derive their harmonic material is "chiasmus." A chiasmus is an inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases, as in the phrase "to stop too fearful, and too faint to go." It is a rhetorical device that is the basis of much Hebrew thought and permeates …