Arts and Humanities Commons^™

An Iron Catalyst: Virginia’S Roadside Historical Markers And The Shaping Of A Historical Consciousness, Joseph Bayless

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis analyzes the origins and the formative period of Virginia’s historical marker program. It shows that historical markers were critical to the success of Harry Flood Byrd’s administration and his Commission on Conservation and Development. The thesis also examines how Virginia’s marker program set the standard for roadside commemoration across the entire United States. Lastly, the work appraises the influence of Dr. Hamilton James Eckenrode, his pioneering methods of historical commemoration, and his central role in the success of Virginia’s marker program.

Paul, The Athenians, And The Breath Of Life: Acts 17:22-31, William Russell Horst

Theses and Dissertations

This MA thesis argues that Paul's speech to the Athenians in Acts 17:22-31 includes biblical allusions, as well as concepts and turns of phrase that bear a strong resemblance to those of other Hellenistic Jewish texts, especially those related to the breath of life.

Catechesis For A Practicing Church, Jim Fox

Theses and Dissertations

In "Catechesis for a Practicing Church" I . . . survey the history of Christian catechesis (looking for norms regarding content and structure), explore methods and styles of contemporary experts in secular and Christian education, and reflect on the context of a practicing church as observed specifically in Vineyard Community Church (VCC) to define and build a contemporary catechesis for VCC (the model) as well as for the larger practicing church.

The Rescuer In Danger: A Scholarly Performance Edition Of Franz Xaver Süssmayr's Secular Cantata, Der Retter In Gefahr, Mark Nabholz

Theses and Dissertations

The central objective of this document is the production of a scholarly performance edition of Franz Xaver Süssmayr's secular cantata,Der Retter in Gefahr. The editing was accomplished through careful comparison of the manuscript full score, the manuscript orchestral and choral performing materials used in the first performances, and the published piano-vocal score used by choristers in post-premier performances.

Franz Xaver Süssmayr, whose name is today remembered almost exclusively for his completion of Mozart's Requiem, was a popular and respected Viennese composer in his own right. His opera, Der Spiegel von Arkadien (1794), was performed throughout Europe, and was favorably compared …

"Play Your Fan": Exploring Hand Props And Gender On The Restoration Stage Through The Country Wife, The Man Of Mode, The Rover, And The Way Of The World, Jarred Wiehe

Theses and Dissertations

The full irony and wit of Restoration comedies relies not only on what characters communicate to each other, but also on what they communicate to the audience, both verbally and physically. Hand props help foster this important relationship with the audience as props provide moments of dramatic irony where the visual meaning portrayed through the object complicates the verbal text. Specifically, gendered props such as the fan, the sword, and the pistol visually establish conventions for the sexes, yet are also used to subvert these conventions through gesture, appropriation, or misuse. Thus far, the critical conversation concerning the possibility of …

Visible Trace A Series Of Selected Projects Reflecting My Graduate School Experience, My Interest In Mark Making, Typographic Collage, And Serendipity., Meaghan Dee

Theses and Dissertations

Mark-making captures movement and preserves gesture. Marks can reveal the motion behind their creation and convey thoughts through non-verbal, non-literal means.

Exploration, Language And Application: An Approach To Teaching Beginning Instrumental Jazz Improvisation, Jeremy Todd Pownall

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to provide preservice and inservice teachers with an alternative approach to teaching beginning jazz improvisation to instrumentalists in a classroom setting. It was determined that there exists a need for an accessible (to both teacher and student) method for teaching beginning jazz improvisation to instrumentalists. This is due to the lack of emphasis on jazz improvisation at both the public school and university level, as well as the inclusion of improvisation in both the national and Georgia state standards for music performance. The teaching method presented in this study is based on previous research, …

An Examination Of College Flute Professors' Approaches To Improving Students' Intonation Skills, Kelly Theresa Cato

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine what methods college flute professors use to improve their students intonation skills and to highlight resources to aid future practices on the subject of intonation. The research questions guiding this study were (a) Do college flute professors teach students how to improve intonation skills? (b) What methods do college flute professors use to improve students' intonation skills? (c) What resources do college flute professors use in conjunction with teaching intonation? Research was conducted using a researcher-created online survey that was distributed to college flute professors throughout the United States. Findings suggested a …

Chord Conundrum: Examining The Performance Practice Of Polyphonic Figures In J.S. Bach's Solo Violin Works, Emily Vold

Theses and Dissertations

Interpreting and expressing the musical intentions of a composer in an informed manner requires great dedication and study on the part of a performer. This holds particularly true in the case of music written well before the present age, where direct connections to the thoughts of the composer and even the styles of the era have faded with the passing of time. Violinists today consistently struggle with studying and performing a set of works from the musical period referred to by scholars as the Baroque era (1600-1750), the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin without Bass accompaniment, composed by Johann Sebastian …

Constructing The Christian: Agency And Emulation In Old English Poetry, Jennifer Ross

Theses and Dissertations

Old English religious verse - born out of a productive fusion between pre-existing Germanic ideals and Christian value-systems brought to England at the end of the sixth century - grapples energetically with the question of how people ought to live morally upright lives pleasing to God. In Beowulf, Judith, Juliana, and The Dream of the Rood, a model for the believer/God relationship is constructed from a common pattern of the Germanic thane/lord relationship, but, like garments cut from the same cloth by different tailors, each poem crafts its subject differently. Still, each is constructed around a …

Pomp And Circumstances: A Film, Danielle Melissovas Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Since this is a thesis project about film, I thought it appropriate to acknowledge wellknown films about film in my chapter titles. In their own way, each of these films enhance audiences' understanding of the film industry and the creative and technical skills required in filmmaking. Writing about making my own film has had a similar effect on me because it has made me more aware of my choices and expectations about the film, as well as the collaboration that made it all possible. My thesis project began with a desire to experience every stage of the independent filmmaking process: …

Aural Landscapes, Brandi Price

Theses and Dissertations

Music and design draw upon innate parallels concerned with the creation and existence of space. By acknowledging the roles of both the visual and the aural in my design process as input and output, I attempt to achieve a deeper understanding of my intuition as a visual communicator. I believe that the visual and aural are linked—existing harmoniously together. The collected works present ever-evolving ideas on visualizing the experience of sound.

Renditions, Nathan Halverson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis includes ideas and explorations behind my MFA thesis work and the work that that preceded it in late 2010 and early 2011. In it, I use a creative text by Gertrude Stein, in which she reveals ways that writing reveals and creates language and culture, to illustrate similar ideas regarding field recording and appropriation in my art practice. I use this thesis writing to investigate practices and relationships between media and how these practices can encourage an active, participatory, listening and looking. It also contains discussion of the use of popular music in torture, which inspired Rendition(s), and …

Space: A Discovery Of Visual Language, Kelley White

Theses and Dissertations

Space is a visual communicator. The act of perceiving space is a neurological soiree that projects and negotiates meaning in our constructed world. The poetry that we observe within space is tied directly to our emotions and to previous experience. Within ourselves, we each have particular feelings, unconscious or not, relating to height, length, and depth, as well as light and shadow. For example, a long, narrow hallway may elicit anxiety, while an open, sunlit nave in a cathedral may bring about feelings of serenity and joy. Our observations and interactions within the perceptual confines of space reveal clues to …

Playing With Aesthetics In Art Museums, Susan Glasser

Theses and Dissertations

"Playing with Aesthetics in Art Museums" presents a strategy for using design thinking to mediate engrossing art experiences for adult museum visitors. Built upon a substantiated family resemblance between art and play experiences, the study synthesizes a typology of aesthetic theories, ten germane tenets of game design, and a psychographic portrait of the "archetypal" museum visitor to create a practical framework for delivering engrossing art experiences to adult visitors who typically enter museums with limited art historical knowledge. The interdisciplinary approach used is intended to replace the singular methodologies (whether art historical, pedagogical or aesthetic) that have informed museum practice …

Navigating The Space Of My Body, Ferwa Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores my process of orienting myself within spaces and inhabiting them. It focuses on how I use my own body as an instrument for developing a relationship between the two. A ritual is a social conditioning of the body and Authentic Movement is discovering body’s own route. This paper reviews my process of situating myself within a space by using both of them as the language of my body. It also discusses the development of some of my recent work through understanding the language of my own body.

The Roots And Methodologies Of Contemporary Islamic Legal Reform, Eric Robert Trager

Theses and Dissertations

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Children Of House, Grant White

Theses and Dissertations

A collection of poems

A Study Of Language Attitudes Concerning The De-Affication Of /Tʃ/, The Pronunciation Of The /Tɾ/ Consonant Cluster, And The Use Of The Definite Article With Proper Names In Santiago, Chile, Ian J. Dixon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the linguistic attitudes of natives from Santiago, Chile regarding three linguistic phenomena present in Chilean Spanish of Santiago: the fricative realization of the Spanish /tʃ/, the assibilated realization of /tɾ/ and the use of the definite article before the first names of people. The social factors of age, sex and socioeconomic status are acknowledged as possible factors contributing to the linguistic attitudes of the 64 participants interviewed.

The Walker War Reconsidered, Ryan Elwood Wimmer

Theses and Dissertations

In July of 1853, Chief Wakara's band of Utes clashed in a series of violent confrontations with the Mormon settlers. This conflict is known as the Walker War. Many complex factors contributed to this war. After some earlier violence between Mormons and different bands of Utes between 1847 and 1851, the Mormons continued their quick expansion settling on Ute lands. From 1851 to 1853 Mormon and Ute relations continued to decline as Mormons expanded their settlements occupying Ute hunting grounds. In addition to these land encroachments, new laws were enacted regulating trade between the Spanish and Utes by Brigham Young. …

A Plantation Family Wardrobe, 1825 - 1835, Jennifer Lappas

Theses and Dissertations

An examination of the Shirley Plantation Collection, Hill Carter, Mary B. Carter, their children, the plantation workers and their wardrobe between 1825 and 1835.

Family, Farming, And Military Service At Darvills, Viginia, 1965-1967: An Application Of Methodology In Community Studies, Lisa Jordan

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT AN EXAMINATION OF METHODOLOGY IN COMMUNITY STUDIES By Lisa Vaughan Jordan, M.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. Major Director: Dr. John Kneebone, Associate Professor – Department of History This thesis examines correspondence between a mother, Alma Irene Vaughan and her son, Ammon Cliborne Vaughan from Darvills, Virginia, in the rural Southside area of the state, written during 1965-1967 when the son was stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in the Army. In addition to presenting a background of …

A Rhetoric Of Change: Church Growth And Social Change At The Richmond Outreach Center, Rebekah Holbrook

Theses and Dissertations

The Richmond Outreach Center “The ROC” is an independent soulwinning megachurch in Richmond, Virginia. This thesis explores how rhetoric plays a role in the rapid growth of this urban church and considers the church’s response—rhetorically and politically—to the city’s social issues. Through a rhetorical analysis of sermons and written texts by Geronimo Aguilar, the ROC’s founder and pastor, it is concluded that Aguilar has generated a rhetoric of change that says social change must come to Richmond and that everyone, both rich and poor, are responsible for change. Aguilar galvanizes an audience to seek social change because he articulates roles …

Isolationism, Internationalism And The “Other:” The Yellow Peril, Mad Brute And Red Menace In Early To Mid Twentieth Century Pulp Magazines And Comic Books, Nathan Vernon Madison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis’ purpose is to demonstrate, via the examination of popular youth literature (primarily pulp magazines and comic books) from the 1920s through to the 1950s, that the stories found therein drew their definitions of heroism and villainy from an overarching, nativist fear of outsiders that had existed before the Great War, but intensified afterwards. These depictions were transferred to America’s “new” enemies following both the United States’ entry into the Second World War, as well as the early stages of the Cold War. This transference of nativist imagery left behind the ethnically-based origins of such depictions, showing that racism …

Murder Will Out: James Hogg's Use Of The Bier-Right In His Minor Works And Confessions, Tanya Ann Terry

Theses and Dissertations

In The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824), James Hogg uses the uncanny trope of the bier-right, a medieval superstitious belief of Christian origin that a murdered corpse will bleed in the presence or at the touch of the actual murderer, to negotiate his struggle with fading belief in local superstitions and religious faith in the Scottish Borders. Examining the origins of the bier-right, court cases involving the bier-right, and Hogg's minor works using the bier-right I offer a comparison of how Hogg manipulates and morphs this trope in Confessions. I also argue that the main …

Five Songs Of Northeastern Brazilian Folklore By Ernani Braga, Harmonized For Voice And Piano: A Performance Guide, Sergio A. De Moura Miranda

Theses and Dissertations

This paper provides a performance analysis of one of Ernani Braga's most well-regarded compositions, Cinco Cancoes Nordestinas do Folclore Brasileiro (Five Songs of Northeastern Brazilian Folklore). I include a biography of the composer, a complete catalogue of his songs, and an analysis of the music construction and technical performance challenges of his folk song cycle. By doing so, I also hope to draw attention to Braga's compositional output for voice and piano, and to raise awareness of his importance as great Brazilian musician and accomplished composer.

Merit Beyond Any Already Published: Austen And Authorship In The Romantic Age, Rebecca Lee Jensen Ogden

Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades there have been many attempts to pull Austen into the fold of high Romantic literature. On one level, these thematic comparisons are useful, for Austen has long been anachronistically treated as separate from the Romantic tradition. In the past, her writings have essentially straddled Romantic classification, labeled either as hangers-on in the satiric eighteenth-century literary tradition or as early artifacts of a kind of proto-Victorianism. To a large extent, scholars have described Austen as a writer departing from, rather than embracing, the literary trends of the Romantic era. Yet, while recent publications depicting a “Romantic Austen” yield …

The Impossibility Of Freedom In Las Manos De Dios And El Sueño Del Ángel, Matthew John Di Giordano

Theses and Dissertations

Critics generally read the matter of diagetic subjectivity as existential in Carlos Solórzano's works Las manos de Dios and El sueño del ángel. This study, however, seeks to explore the possibility of non-existential modes of subjectivity in these dramas. It posits an Althusserian mode of subjectivity due to the central conflict of the plays revolving around the oppressive rituals of a controlling church institution. Although the author expresses existential ideals, a reading that takes into account the issue of the church as an ideology producing mechanism, as well as its modes of operation, shows that on the diagetic level …

Anonymous Pseudo-Autobiographies: Passing The New Southern Studies In The Southerner And The Autobiography Of An Ex-Colored Man, Matthew S. Dinger

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to understand the South as a space through which the contested bodies of two literary characters and the men who authored them can be more fully explored: the Ex- Colored Man in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Nicholas Worth in Walter Hines Page's The Southerner; each appearing within an early twentieth-century novel masquerading as an autobiography. These bodies serve to help us understand how the regional Other of the South has inflicted itself on individuals living in the South and caused an irreparable fracture to the characters' identities forcing them into …

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead As Modern Midrash, Robert J. Taggart

Theses and Dissertations

It is the intent of this project to show that Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead might be profitably read within the context of the rabbinical exegetical tradition of midrash. It examines Gilead as a midrashic retelling of the Abraham story in the Bible, and shows how reading it in this light illuminates some of the key theological and social concerns at play in the novel. Midrash offers a unique model for reading Gilead because it combines elements of intertextuality, narrative theology and formal exegesis. Since midrash provides the framework for such a reading of Gilead, the first chapter discusses some …