Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Positive Psychology Interventions In An Sla Context: A Semester-Long Study Of The Impact Of Positive Psychology On The Well-Being And Language Development Of English Language Learners, Carolee Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

This article reports on a study investigating the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions (PPIs) in an Intensive English Program (IEP) for non-matriculated university students. Interventions based on the PERMA model for wellbeing (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) were implemented through weekly 65-minute lessons and short daily activities. Each lesson introduced an aspect of the PERMA model such as positive emotion or achievement. Along with this focused instruction, students concurrently engaged in language learning activities. Teachers also provided short daily activities for reinforcement throughout the week. Six classes received these interventions, while three classes served as a control group …

Is This A Line? Visual Literacy, Visual Inquiry, And Visual Communication In The Elementary School Years, Connie J. Broadbent

Theses and Dissertations

As a mother and public elementary school art teacher, I recognize the impact images have in the lives of children. Our culture is image rich and often image saturated. I believe I can do more to prepare my students to become discerning consumers and creators of images. Art teachers are uniquely qualified to teach visual literacy and visual inquiry. If grade school children can be taught to think more deeply and critically about their visual world, they will be better prepared for responding to it in a healthy, empowering way. This research describes an elementary school curriculum based on teaching …

Explicit Instruction In Second Language Self-Assessment: Exploring The Potential For Improving Calibration Through Training, Rachael Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the effect of an explicit training module on improving language learner ability to accurately self-assess second-language proficiency. There was a total of 409 intermediate and advanced level participants across six languages: French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. Most of the participants had extensive immersion backgrounds. The Language Ability Self Evaluation Resource (LASER) was used to measure the perceived proficiency of the participants (self-assessed language ability). The Oral Proficiency Interview – Computer (OPIc) was used to measure the actual proficiency of the participants (rater-assessed language ability). The participants were randomly assigned to either the control or experimental …

Reading Fluency Development And Science In A Fourth Grade Dual Language Immersion Classroom, Talia A. Casares

Theses and Dissertations

Students from dual language immersion (DLI) classrooms are required to learn the language through content. However, some students have not yet developed these abilities by the time they start fourth grade. Thus, to fully comprehend content such as science, students need stronger reading and writing abilities in the second language (L2). To help stakeholders have a better understanding on how to effectively help students throughout this process, this action research studied the effectiveness of integrating literacy with science and mobile assisted language learning (MALL). Findings showed that the integrations of literacy, science and MALL were effective with statistically significant results …

How She Sleeps At Night, Alexandra Malouf

Theses and Dissertations

How She Sleeps at Night is a collection of lyric poetry constellated around experiences of disability, trauma, and womanhood. A critical essay introduces the collection by elucidating the experiences and theoretical underpinnings that shaped the body of these poems. The introductory essay distills the principles that informed my cardinal poetic goals as I wrote: to create poems that can be read again and again over a lifetime, which connect with readers' common humanity, and which acknowledge the nuances and complexities of being alive.

Satanic Injustice: A Pentadic Rhetorical Analysis Of State Of Arkansas V Echols And Baldwin, Shaelee Bryne Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

Injustice continues to be a highly discussed topic in many scholarly disciplines, including rhetoric and law. Scholars in both fields are exploring how language in legal discourse contributes to systematic inequality, discrimination, and unfairness--racial and nonracial. This rise in scholarly interest correlates with civic concern, as there have been many court cases in the last few decades that have captured public and media attention. One of these cases involved Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, two teenage boys who were convicted for murdering three 8-year-old boys. Echols and Baldwin were tried during the late 20th-century satanic panic, a well-documented social phenomenon …

Always Running At Sunset, Amelia O'Neill

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis show includes paintings that depict scenes of the trails that my dog and I frequent in Utah. These paintings are a response to experiences I have in nature and explore my relationship with my dog and the surrounding flora and fauna along the local trails. The paintings include images of rocks, sticks, dirt, trails, dogs, clouds, and dried sunflowers in the wind. In addition to realistic depictions of nature, my paintings reflect on the psychological and emotional state of being in nature. The title of the show is Always Running at Sunset, which is meant to be taken …

Performing Italian Identity: Through The Plays Gemini And A View From The Bridge, Angela Dicarolo Moser

Theses and Dissertations

"Italian Identity"is the set of values and beliefs performed daily, that are markers of what it is to be "Italian,"whether those carrying those beliefs live in Italy or not. The latter point became evident in the United States following the vast wave of Italian immigration during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Italian identity has been greatly influenced by Catholicism and its centering of values and beliefs on the family, heavily defined Italian life in America. One principal mode for constructing and disseminating these values and beliefs among Italian Americans was through the theatre. This thesis provides a close reading of …

Cherry Red Greenwashing: The Rhetoric Behind Corporate Recycling Narratives, Jessica Wallace Haws

Theses and Dissertations

As the public becomes more aware of environmental issues, corporations are pressed to consider and address the sustainability of their practices. Unwilling to drastically change business models, many corporations turn to greenwashing in an attempt to construct an environmentally friendly image while doing little to nothing to address sustainability issues. Using Kenneth Burke's work on identification and terministic screens, I analyze The Coca-Cola Company's "2020 World Without Waste Report" to illuminate how consumers come to believe in and identify with corporate greenwashing tactics. In line with Burke's theories related to identification, I argue that Coca-Cola's greenwashing strategies can be categorized …

Chameleon: A Collection Of Poems, Daniel Albert Daw

Theses and Dissertations

Chameleon is a collection of poetry that largely springs from John Keats' notion of the chameleon poet, which posits that poets can and should be able to speak with any voice or perspective in their work. A critical essay introduces the collection by putting Keats in conversation with other poets and scholars, such as Paisley Rekdal, Philip Sidney, and Fernando Pessoa, who also have much to say regarding the nature of voice in poetry. The essay further explores some of my most recurring strategies in poetry as well as what I consider to be some of the touchstones of great …

How Lucretius Uses Epic, J. Dean Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

I argue that Lucretius uses conventions of epic poetry and changes them to support his philosophical teachings. The proem of De rerum natura can be used to show how this occurs. The key moments within the proem include the invocation to Venus, how Venus is described as maternal and creative, the usage of socia to ask Venus for aid, the episode between Venus and Mars, and the establishment of Epicurean physics. I argue that the purpose of changing the expected conventions of epic is to better frame Lucretius' key idea of the purpose of life, namely reproduction.

"Do Not Blame Me": James Baldwin On White Christian Guilt And Racial Repentance, Celeste Lafollette

Theses and Dissertations

James Baldwin, a Black American writer, contends that the root cause of America’s racial problem is not necessarily prejudice or hatred but guilt. In his essay, “White Man’s Guilt,” Baldwin says that most of the arguments white people use today against the reality of America’s racial problem can be reduced to a plea: “Do not blame me. I was not there. I did not do it” (Price 411). In many of his essays, Baldwin explores white America’s long history of guilt, denial, and justification, and he explains that many white Christians—in an attempt to avoid blame and protect their power, …

Russell Means' Use Of The Universal Ecosystem Metaphor As An Act Of Indigenous Resistance, Clarissa Mcintire

Theses and Dissertations

Studies of American Indian protest rhetoric often define American Indian opposition either by its resistance or its conformity to non-Native institutional discursive norms, suggesting that only one of the two can be considered authentic to American Indian cultures and identities. Addressing this debate, this thesis examines an instance of Native opposition which successfully blends the two approaches: Russell Means' 1989 statement to the United States Senate. Means employs the mode of story to effectively shift discursive authority from the Senate committee members to pan-Indigenous peoples. I call this shift rhetorical occupation, or the appropriation of rhetorical space. Through rhetorical occupation, …

Redefining Ornamentation As Formal Functions In 21St-Century Popular Music, Matthew Kolar

Theses and Dissertations

Ornaments are embellishments and decorations of pre-established music; therefore, their existence relies on comparison to that original basis . Because pop music’s text is the recorded track rather than a written score, the determination of what is the main melody is strongly influenced by its first iteration, and ornaments can be found by comparisons of further iterations to the primary source. The goal of this thesis is to categorize the types of ornaments that exist in this repertory as well as define their overall functions. In this sense, ornamentation is being redefined; ornaments are not just decorations to a melody, …

A New South Tyrol: The Multilingual, Multicultural Society, Alec Lee Parry

Theses and Dissertations

Identity formation is a reoccurring theme in an increasingly global world. Monolingualism and monoculturalism is no longer a possible in a global world. Like greater society, should contemporary literature not also argue for a multilingual, multicultural society? South Tyrol, a province that experienced Nazism and Fascism, control by both Mussolini and Hitler, pitted ethnic German and ethnic Italian speakers against one another. Today, since the founding of Schengen Europe eradicated border controls between Austria and Italy in 1997. South Tyrol is officially trilingual, with German, Italian, and Ladin1 being the official languages, and in recent years, has taken in a …

Stasis, Eric Pahre

Theses and Dissertations

Stasis is a collection of three short stories and a long novella. These stories examine settings parallel to our own lived reality and history.

“Verdugris” follows an infestation of vermin in a 20th century setting linked to European colonialism. Power dynamics and attitudes towards cleanliness are contrasted with natural beauty, habitat loss, parasitism, and the ‘fixed’ nature of the colonial town.

“Alpentraum” describes two foreign hospice caretakers seeing to an old woman in her small home in the mountains. This short story investigates uncertainty and acceptance, as the caretakers must change their plans when the mountain is struck by a …

“Zoom Degrees”: A Reflection On Education And Experience During The Covid-19 Pandemic Of The 2020s, Campbell Childers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a self-reflection on time in the three-year Master of Fine Arts in Theater program at the University of South Carolina, during the 2020 rise of the Covid-19 Pandemic and the years after. It is a chronologically structured examination of two years of academic experiences, both prior to and during the pandemic, and one year of professionally application experience post-pandemic. The academics cover course experiences to production assignments and design opportunities, going into detail on the student’s process and thoughts at the time. The reflections on professional experience discuss the student’s future goals and how they have evolved …

Metaphors Of Memory: Complexity And The Fourth Canon, Amber Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines four main sites of memory scholarship (bodily memory, historical and historiographical memory, material memory, and digital memory), arguing that at each site, memory is treated in ways which are inconsistent with most current scholarly understandings of how it operates. Each chapter focuses on one of the major sites of memory scholarship, demonstrating how particular uses of keywords at that site undercut its own attempt to address memory’s complexity. In the process, I lay the groundwork for alternative conceptions of memory in that site that offer new avenues for memory research.

The Intersection Of Fashion And Politics: A Semiotic Analysis Of Vogue Magazine Covers Surrounding Election Seasons, Megan M. Vincent

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the political messages framed within the cover of Vogue magazines by reviewing the published issues that surround election season. By focusing on the intersection of politics and fashion through the visual representation provided by a prestigious, globally known fashion magazine, the research will observe the potential increase and growth of political involvement within influence of the fashion industry. This study will begin with the October, November, and December covers from the 2016 and 2020 presidential election. These will be accompanied by the January, February, and March covers of the following years. Guided by semiotic analysis and visual …

Screwball, Alexandra Mayer

Theses and Dissertations

This manuscript of poems explores Sephardi Jewish identity within the American diaspora. As the speaker attempts to make sense of herself and of her Jewishness in relation to her ancestry, she feels increasingly at odds with the Ashkenazi cultural practices picked up during her childhood in New York City. The poems grapple with questions such as: what Jewish culture belongs to whom? Who do bagels belong to? Who does Phillip Roth belong to? When Jewishness is not based in religious practice, what is it? Is it possible for a Sephardi Jew in America to disentangle themselves from Ashkenazi production? How …

Brave Irene, Nicole Mccaffety

Theses and Dissertations

While magical realism steps forward as guiding hand within the manuscript, these poems are interested in re-purposing the myth of the rabbit in the moon in order to explore family history and legend. The organizational force is an emotional narrative that gives shape to a manuscript full of poems interested in the speaker and their personality. The speaker invites, pleads, begs, borrows, and steals all for the purpose of being both interesting and understood. Form, particularly the sonnet, is another noticeable element with the second chapter comprised of poems entirely dedicated to the reader where the speaker comes forward onto …

Restoring Paradise Through Providence: The Emergence Of The Serendipitous Hero In The Hunger Games, Alexandra Elizabeth Oberempt

Theses and Dissertations

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games enhanced the popularity of post-apocalyptic, young adult literature written between 2004 and 2014 (a genre I call millennial dystopia). A government that sends its people to war, spies on them, and sacrifices the sanctity of the community for personal profit while the powerful and wealthy watch from a secure distance is an anxiety addressed in this fiction. The hero of millennial dystopias satiates the suffering that emerges from this angst.

Through her story, Katniss is pushed to her destiny on a path that leads her to become the hero of The Hunger Games trilogy. In …

Sex (Work) And The City: Sex Work In Columbia, South Carolina, 1860-1880, Presley Mckalyn Ramey

Theses and Dissertations

Nineteenth-century sex work in the American south has long been neglected in sex work historiography. Formerly Confederate states have red-light districts rich in history, and stories of the South waiting to be told. The city of Columbia has great significance as the capital of the first southern state to secede from the Union, and this thesis acts as a local history of the city’s red-light district. Utilizing city ordinances, court cases, census records, city directories, probate records, and wills, the lives of Columbia’s sex workers and how they interacted with the growing city around them are brought to the forefront. …

Growing Up Water, Dominique Barbee

Theses and Dissertations

“Growing Up Water” is a full-length manuscript consisting of one long poem in two parts. Louisiana is one of the most verdant naturally fertile states in the U.S. The state loses a football field of land almost every one-hundred minutes. This is largely due to climate change, oil drilling in the gulf, the cutting of canals, the waste poured in to the Mississippi river by the chemical plants that line this area (known as “Cancer Alley”), the onslaught of invasive species, the list goes on. Furthermore, due to global warming, “big” hurricanes are only becoming stronger and more frequent. Any …

Mining For Progress: Copper, Conflict, And Corporate Social Responsibility, Fritz Culp

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation examines how transnational mega-mines efface non-Western ways of knowing and being from the Andes. A growing branch of research is questioning the socio-environmental impacts of mining and the influence of regulatory institutions. Despite remarkable scholarship on the ongoing environmentalism of modern-mining, little critical attention has been given to the industry’s pivot to ‘sustainable’ development and its objectives that remain epistemologically centered on the West. My project addresses these gaps by examining Las Bambas—a large-scale copper mine located in South-Central Peru—and its contrasting objectives that emphasize both environmental ‘conservation’ and the ‘modernization’ of non-Western spaces. Building upon the critical …

Social Music Interactions And Vocal Music Improvisations In A Serve And Return Music Community, Kathleen Kaye Arrasmith

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I examined how kindergarten students and a music teacher engaged in social music interactions and displayed music characteristics during harmonic improvisation activities. The purpose of this study was (a) to describe social music interactions between kindergarten students and a music teacher and (b) to categorize and to describe kindergarten students’ and a music teacher’s vocal music improvisations during harmonic improvisation activities. The guiding research questions were (a) RQ1: How did kindergarten students and a music teacher engage in social music interactions during harmonic improvisation activities?, (b) RQ2a: What music characteristics did kindergarten students and a music teacher …

Comfort Food For The Ears: Exploring Nostalgic Trends In Popular Music Of The Twenty-First Century, April K. Balay

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will examine trends in twenty-first-century American popular music characterized by a sonority sometimes labeled “retro” or “vintage,” the production of which, I contend, often corresponds to periods of cultural upheaval, and social, political, and economic change. Engaging specifically with music produced during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the economic recession of 2008, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, my work will strive to update the dialogue between music in this century with the styles of the past that it recalls. By examining music beginning in the year 2001 and analyzing airplay charts and recording techniques, I …

The Presbyterian Exception? The Illegal Education Of Enslaved Blacks By South Carolina Presbyterian Churches, 1834-1865, Margaret Bates

Theses and Dissertations

The study of literacy among enslaved people in South Carolina is often limited to legal literature, enslaver and enslaved autobiographies, and Northern accounts of education from teachers sent to the South. The use of these types of sources to describe literacy and education of enslaved people leaves out a major contributor to the enslaved literacy movement, the churches. Using documentation from two Presbyterian churches in South Carolina, this thesis expands upon the enslaved literacy movements in South Carolina to look at the roles ministers, missionaries, and congregations played in teaching enslaved blacks how to read religious literature, why these institutions …

That Strange Darkness, Matthew Boedy

Theses and Dissertations

This novel is about the past. It is a novel about how the past always encroaches on the present and the future. Even for those who are saved from it.

Poetic Self-Representation Among Russian And British Female Poets In The Late 18Th And Early 19Th Centuries, Ulyana Brewer

Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the development of self-representation by Russian women poets of the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century through comparison with the women poets in England of the same period. The comparative analysis of the works composed by Ekaterina Urusova, Aleksandra Murzina, Anna Bunina, Mary Julia Young, Mary Scott, Janet Little, and others provides insight into women poets’ practices of exceeding the boundaries of gender-defined art to inhabit literary discourse traditionally occupied by male poets and expose the artificiality of gender and literary genre relations and engage with a variety of political, …