Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Iggy Azalea: Cultural Appropriator Or Scapegoat For Accepted Practice?, Malorie Marshall

Capstones

Iggy Azalea isn’t the first artist to profit from a entertainment persona that differs from her “real” personality. But the fact that Azalea is a white woman profiting by employing a fake “black” sound wrought through appropriating is what seems to angers people more than the quality of Azalea’s music, or anything else about her.

The Bitter Pill: How Second-Wave Feminism Failed, And Why It Doesn't Matter, Brianna Mcgurran

Capstones

It's not cool to be a feminist. It’s not anti-establishment to say you don’t identify with that label; now, it’s the status quo. Every time a celebrity like Katy Perry or Salma Hayek distances herself from feminism, blogs like Jezebel and Feministing pounce. But a few months ago I found out that all the back-and-forth doesn’t matter. The final verdict on second-wave feminism's success won’t be found in words spoken on the red carpet or in rejoinders on women’s blogs. The future of gender relations will be decided in an obscure corner of the Internet populated primarily by angry white …

Honors Recital Presentation, David Rutter

Honors Projects

The purpose of this project was rooted in the belief that the reception of a piece of music can be altered or enhanced when the audience is given a compelling historical or cultural background of each composition. With sometimes hundreds of years between the audience members and the composers, to deliver an emotionally stirring and relevant performance to a modern audience is an incredible feat. In the spirit of making my senior violin recital more accessible and entertaining to my own audience, I devoted my Honors project to gathering information on the philosophies, personalities, successes and tragedies of each of …

Jean-Luc Godard And Francois Truffaut: The Influence Of Hollywood, Modernization And Radical Politics On Their Films And Friendship, Caroline Glenn

All Theses

During the late 1950's the French film industry's hard-won financial stability during the Occupation and liberation years had all but disappeared. Combined with the dwindling, unpredictable nature of French audiences, the multi-star, literary adaptation dramas French studios produced were no longer reliable. In response to these dilemmas a transformation took place in French cinema. Known as the nouvelle vague (or French New Wave), the movement was largely, but not completely, a reaction to France's declining film industry. The nation as a whole was undergoing significant change and growth during the 1950s. From the Algerian conflict, the Fourth Republic's collapse and …

African American Environmental Ethics: Black Intellectual Perspectives 1850-1965, Vanessa Fabien

Doctoral Dissertations

The historical scholarship in environmental history centers around the narratives of elite white men. Therefore, scholars such as William Cronon, Dorceta Taylor, Noël Sturgeon, and Carolyn Merchant are calling for research that uncovers the political and moral stances of people of color on nature, land ownership, and environmental pollution. This dissertation addresses this call by engaging William H. Sewell Jr.’s cross-disciplinary approach between history and the social sciences to introduce a nuanced historical analysis that interrogates the channels via which African Americans’ environmental ethic sculpted the development of North American environmental history and activism. This dissertation contends that African Americans …

Queen Of The Underworld: The Biography Of Sophie Lyons (1848-1924), Barbara M. Gray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sophie Lyons was a nineteenth-century American pickpocket, blackmailer, con-woman, and bank robber. She was raised in New York City's underworld, by Jewish immigrant parents who were criminals that trained their children to pick pockets and shoplift. "Pretty Sophie" possessed a rare combination of skill at thievery, intellect, guts and beauty and became the woman Herbert Ashbury described in Gangs of New York as, "the most notorious confidence woman America has ever produced." Newspapers around the world chronicled Sophie's exploits for more than sixty years, because her life read like a novel. Her mentor was another forgotten woman who held a …

Material Embodiments, Queer Visualities: Presenting Disability In American Public History, Andrew B. Marcum

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the presentation of disability at three of the most popular sites for the consumption of public history in the United States including the U.S. Capitol, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. I de-construct the cultural and historical narratives and discourses of disability circulating at these sites and offer a visual culture analysis of the images, artifacts, and statuary found at each of them. My study is informed principally by the theories and methods of queer disability studies, visual culture studies, and cultural studies critiques of neoliberalism. I consider how …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

City2 Buffalo: A Smartphone App Designed To Establish A Mobile Museum Without Walls, Exhibiting The Living City Of Buffalo, Ny And Its Rich History And Environment, With A Purpose To Inform And Inspire All Toward Global Cultural Awareness And Civic Engagement, In Order To Collectively Create A Better Future., Deborah L. Russell

Museum Studies Theses

ABSTRACT OF THESIS

City² Buffalo:

a smartphone app designed to establish a mobile museum without walls, exhibiting the living city of Buffalo, NY and its rich history and environment, with a purpose to inform and inspire all toward global cultural awareness and civic engagement, in order to collectively create a better future.

The present environment, including the technological capabilities inspired by the Information Revolution, requires American museums to reconsider their traditional practices. American history museums are specially challenged to address future possibilities and difficulties resulting from social, economic and demographic change. This paper proposes a new type of history …

Highway 83 Revisited: Small Towns Rerouted By School Reform, Paul David Anderson

Culminating Projects in History

Highway 83 Revisited is an examination of how small town citizens relate to their local schools and to what extent a local school matters to the vitality of a community. To serve as a case study, I focus on the town of Pemberton, Minnesota and its school. Pemberton was founded in 1907 a railroad stop south east of Mankato and today has a population of 247. Pemberton's school began with planning by town's residents in the early twentieth century, and in subsequent decades the school district went through two consolidations, and ended in 1995 with the school's closing. I place …

Pittsburgh's Response To Deindustrialization: Renaissance, Renewal And Recovery, 1946-1999, Mariel P. Isaacson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pittsburgh was able to gradually ease its transition into a post-industrial economy in the second half of the twentieth century because of an elite-driven planning movement known as the Pittsburgh Renaissance. The Renaissance first addressed the physical failings of the city and sought state legislation that would support further urban redevelopment immediately following World War II. While the physical improvements were underway, Renaissance organizers began working with the University of Pittsburgh to upgrade Pitt's educational and recreational facilities so that it would become an engine for the city's future economic growth. City support for improved facilities, especially those pertaining to …

Demon Rum In The City Of Churches: A Spirited Fight For Alcohol Reform In Danville, Virginia, 1883-1933, Evelyn Dawn Riley

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Utilizing previous research of American alcohol reform movements, and specifically studies of alcohol in Virginia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this thesis explores the multi-faceted story of Danville, Virginia and its alcohol reform from 1883-1933. Contained within these dates are critical events and stories chronicling the complex history of conflict, and occasional cooperation, regarding alcohol in a southern town. The goal of the thesis, comprised of two parts--a context paper and an accompanying digital exhibit--was to explore how Danville’s community structure and public discourse affected the way alcohol reform was experienced and discussed in the city. Findings indicated that …

Reality Vs. Perceptions: The Treatment Of Early Modern French Jews In Politics And Literary Culture, Michael Woods

Theses and Dissertations

Although historians have written extensively on both the early modern era and the development of an absolute monarchy, the history of Jewish communities in France and the role they played has been largely ignored. Beginning with the French Wars of Religion, this study analyzes to what extent France’s religious situation affected the growth of absolutism and how this in turn affected the Jews. Taking advantage of the fractured nature of the early French monarchy, Jews began settling in provinces along the border of both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Affected by economic jealousies and cultural perceptions of Jews, the …

Constituting A Revolution: Gouverneur Morris, John Quincy Adams, And The French Revolution’S Imprint On American Identity, Tyler Norton

History Honors Program

Much of the traditional scholarship of the Early American Republic agrees that the national identity of the United States was solidified in 1789. A government and nation emerged from the Constitutional Convention, they argue. While the framers produced a governing document and a system of institutions in Philadelphia that summer, notions of American identity remained fluid. In fact, contemporary events that occurred beyond the United States’ borders left a lasting imprinting on conceptualizations of self and identity. In particular, the French Revolution (1789 – 1794) played a defining role. This paper argues that the development of national identity in the …

Fragmented Ties: Colombian Immigrant Experiences, Carolina Valderrama-Echavarria

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Social networks at places of destination play a critical role in the adaptation, adjustment and, at times, the success of immigrant groups abroad. However, despite that importance, Colombian immigrant social networks often fragment. What causes this group to do this? Three reasons for this fragmentation are domestic conflict and violence, exported divisions, and stigma and stereotypes. This paper extends the argument that the three reasons posited by scholars, together, are evidence of Historical Trauma. In order to do so it required the interweaving of three disciplinary fields, history, sociology, and psychology to answer the research question. This paper analyses the …

The Highland Clearances And The Politics Of Memory, Daniel Guy Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the ways that the Highland Clearances of Scotland have entered into public consciousness through primary and secondary sources. My dissertation argues first that the Highland Clearances fall within the sphere of colonial intervention, and secondly that there exists a robust body of cultural production that reflects the postcolonial nature of the Highlands. This cultural production is the subject of my dissertation, which examines primary and secondary histories, historical novels, drama and public memorials that preserve and reconstruct the memory of the Clearances. The first chapter examines a number of primary and secondary histories of the Highland Clearances. …

Theory And Practice: A Historical Examination Of The Assumptions And Philosophy Of Human Resource Development, Matthew Wayne Gosney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The history of Human Resource Development (HRD) is the history of human organizational growth and development. A review of the history of western civilization, with particular focus on the Industrial Revolution to the modern era, demonstrates a distinct interaction between the predominant philosophy of the time, theory, and practice. A better understanding of seminal events in HRD's history thus provides insight into informing philosophies of HRD and the assumptions upon which current HRD theory and practice rest. Research was conducted to explore this interplay between philosophy, theory, and practice. The research was thematic and historical in nature, including the evaluation …

From Marilyn Monroe To Cindy Crawford: A Historical Analysis Of Women’S Body Image Depicted In Popular Magazines From 1952 To 1995, Jayme S. Nobles

Honors Theses

For this study, the researcher viewed advertisements in popular magazines from 1952 to 1995 that focus on women’s body image. The sample consisted of advertisements found in Life and Cosmopolitan magazines. Instead of observing every issue throughout the forty-three year period, the researcher chose a few issues from each magazine every five years. 180 advertisements were viewed in this study. The researcher observed three different elements found in the advertisements: the product being sold, the appeals of sexuality, if any, in the ads, and the appearance of the advertisements’ models. This research attempted to prove that over the course of …

The Bracero Program Applied To Immigration Today, Kathryn S. Waddell

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Producing Undecidability: Placing History In The Work Of Jacques Rancière, Scott Herder

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis project emphasizes the element of history as an important factor in the concepts of politics and aesthetics that are suggested by Jacques Rancière. Rancière has received a series of criticism that his work operates at too great a remove from the actual materials of experience, and so this discussion acts as an answer to that criticism through a re-examination of his concept of the distribution of the sensible and his writing on politics and aesthetics. The focus of this discussion oscillates between the broader aspects of the aesthetics of politics and the politics of aesthetics, though its primary …

The Duty We Owe Our Creator; Reformed Theology Deism And Disestablishment In Virginia, John Parker

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution contains within it two distinct clauses, the first guarantees the free exercise of religion clause, the second prevents the establishment of a national church. Stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’, this clause ensured that these United States would never have an official state church and that citizens could not be penalized for practicing their own faith. This was a major innovation. There did exist some provision for certain sects within the legal frame work, such as exemptions from the swearing …

Byzantine Foreign Policy During The Reign Of Constans Ii, Joseph Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the foreign policy of Constans II as the first Byzantine Emperor to rule after the initial Arab conquests in Syria-Palestine. His reign, 641-668, was the first reign of a Byzantine Emperor where the entire reign was subject to Arab raids and invasions. Constans II also had to contend with the Slavs in Thessalonica and Greece and the Lombards in Italy. To complicate matters more, Constans II was forced to cope with the religious division between the eastern and western churches due to Monothelitism in the East. Beset on every frontier and inheriting a much reduced empire after …

Martin Cenquizqui, Christina Guillen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The historical novel, Cortes Cenquizqui, set in sixteenth century Mexico and Spain, follows the conflicted lives and minds of several characters through an age of freshly crossing culture, language, and power. The narrator, Maria de Quesada of high ranking Spanish and Mexica parents, resents the white world for condemning her work as a female healer or curandera. Yet she acknowledges that she is ill-equipped to leave Mexico City to live in the outlying Indigenous villages. Maria recalls the tale of her three brothers who were caught in a web of pride and prejudices. Her interjections throughout shed light on questions …

Illusion Of Control: The Struggle For History And Humanity, Samantha R. Nystrom

Honors Theses

Through the increased amount of documentation occurring in the individual’s everyday life, through the government, through social media, etc., the question of history’s place in contemporary culture arises—who is the author of history, how is the struggle over authorship played out within contemporary literature, and where does humanity fit within this struggle? I argue that the struggle for authorship within contemporary society has suspended history. Contending authors constantly rewrite the pre-narrative, the event history records, prohibiting society from moving forward. Whoever gains the ultimate authorial role, whoever becomes the author of history, controls humanity. To examine this occurrence within contemporary …

Primitivism And The Black Form: The Effect On Contemporary Black Culture Through Hip Hop, Paryss A. Sherman

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Ghost Of Ravishment That Lingers In The Land: The Beginnings Of Environmentalism In Seraph On The Suwanee And Go Down, Moses, Elisabeth Anne Wagner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Zora Neale Hurston and William Faulkner are recognized for their environmental writing. However, few scholars have acknowledged the sophisticated environmentalism present in Hurston's Seraph on the Suwanee and Faulkner's fictional depiction of Lafayette County in Go Down, Moses. This thesis seeks to prove that Hurston and Faulkner were keenly aware of the ecological problems of their hometowns through a close reading of each book alongside the environmental history each book was based on, Eatonville, Florida and Lafayette County, Mississippi respectively. Each author's distinct regional environmental knowledge helped Hurston and Faulkner to see larger national and global problems with using land …

Reconciling Order And Progress: Auguste Comte, Gustave Le Bon, Emile Durkheim, And The Development Of Positivism In France, 1820-1914, Khali Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical standards. He viewed the human mind as becoming more rationalized throughout history. In his later career, however, he argued that rationalism was a destructive force and that a …

Cutting Out Worry: Popularizing Psychosurgery In America, Antonietta Louise Iannaccone

Scripps Senior Theses

We think of the lobotomy as utterly primitive and brutal; we shudder at the idea of it. The archetypal image of creepiness, violence, and unnecessary brutality was expressed in the book and movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This procedure weighs heavy on America’s conscience but in 1945 the procedure was characterized as being as gentle as ‘cutting through butter’ and the therapeutic effect was described as ‘cutting out worry’. How did the lobotomy gain such widespread acceptance? One part of the answer is that Walter Freeman advocated for it not just among his colleagues, but through the popular …

A Historical Analysis Of The Relationship Of Faith And Science And Its Significance Within Education, John Gerard Yegge

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Science curriculum and pedagogy are at the center of a centuries-long debate concerning the appropriate relationship of faith and science. The difficulties that science educators face seem to be based in misinformation about the historical roots of this conflict. To address that conflict, the goals of this research were to separate myth from reality and to provide a necessary context to the current tensions that are disrupting science pedagogy and curriculum content within American public schools. Working within a theoretical framework of historical literacy, this qualitative, historical analysis was a comprehensive examination of the relationship of faith and science from …

Acrid Smoke And Horses' Breath: The Adaptability Of The British Cavalry, Fred R. Coventry

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to re-examine the nineteenth century British cavalry as an organization, one which has generally been characterized as deeply conservative and resistant to change in organization, operations and tactics. While the charge of conservatism is true in terms of the command structure of the British cavalry, this research demonstrates that the British cavalry of the nineteenth century typically adapted itself to the conditions in which it found itself, adopting whatever methods, tactics and weapons best suited the campaigns in which it fought. Beginning with the Crimean War's cavalry actions as a baseline for what was …