Constructing Sculptural Wearables: Indigenous Steam Education At The Intersection Of Art And Science, Patricia Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes an approach to STEAM education in which art is viewed as a unique discipline with distinct ways of thinking. The researchers developed and evaluated a STEAM education program to explore how art and science work together to expand and accelerate inventive thinking among Native American middle school students who participated in American Indian Services (AIS) Pre-Freshman Engineering Program (PREP). An important context of this project was the unique local environment and culture that included Diné (din-eh) culture in Gallup, NM. We hypothesize that integrating culturally responsive transdisciplinary art into an existing STEM summer program will increase students' …

On Expertise Change: The Use And Misuse Of Cultural Evolutionary Models, Ge Fang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Expertise is a major topic in the thoughts of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in the West, as well as in the thoughts of Daoist and Buddhist philosophers in the East. Expertise interests ancient philosophers due to the distinctive phenomenology of expertise, the puzzle surrounding the relationship between declarative knowledge and expertise, the practical process of expertise formation, and the use of expertise acquisition as a model for ethical and epistemic development. Philosophical interest in expertise has resurfaced in the last century, particularly regarding the phenomenology of expert performance, the relation between knowledge and expertise, and expertise-based models of ethical and …

Exploring The Perceptions And Lived Experiences Of African American Women With Past Criminal Histories, Georgett Tracyann Kerr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the reintegration experiences of African American women with prior criminal histories, focusing on how they navigated systemic barriers and demonstrated resilience. These women often face compounded challenges stemming from systemic racism, gender discrimination, and economic hardship, which hinder successful reentry into society following incarceration. Historical policies such as the War on Drugs and the Welfare Reform Act disproportionately impacted African American women, contributing to higher arrest rates and increased stigma within the criminal justice system. Upon release, many encounters significant barriers to employment, housing, mental health care, and social acceptance. Despite these adversaries, some African …

Analyzing National War Propaganda Through Comparison Of Diverse Case Studies, Ike Sugitani

Dissertations and Theses

In the build-up to war, national governments utilize propaganda to gather public support for the war effort. In some instances, propaganda campaigns are conducted but war does not occur. This begs the question as to why war follows propaganda campaigns in some cases, but not in others. I argue that propaganda efforts that lead to war can be generally characterized through three major strategies based on a patriotic participatory social structure, a claim to moral authority, and the blending of individual concepts of the state, government and nation. In this study, I analyze the major historical case studies of the …

Making The Macc: Communities Of Practice And Cultural Citizenship In Austin, Texas, Cassie Lynn Smith

Anthropology ETDs

Meaningful community engagement is a challenge for local governments without a thorough understanding of constituents’ histories and their relationship with City government. This dissertation investigates the City of Austin’s (COA) Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) in Austin, Texas, to understand how this culture and arts institution engages with and is influenced by its patrons. This study analyzes the role of the MACC’s community of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991)—an evolving group of educators, activists, artists, and COA staff—in shaping public policy and educational programming as well as creating places of belonging for marginalized people in the city. …

“…Stay On It…”/A Theory///“Illumination Happens”//, Lara E. Goldmann

Art & Art History ETDs

“…stay on it…”/a theory///“illumination happens”// is a critical engagement with the work of contemporary Black artists Arthur Jafa and Adam Pendleton, explored through the lens of the Black radical tradition. Bridging aesthetics, politics, and history, the dissertation investigates how their visual, sonic, and conceptual practices articulate Black life, insurgency, and imagination.

Drawing on theorists such as Fred Moten, Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, Frantz Fanon, and Cedric Robinson, the study constructs a framework that considers Blackness as an ontological, social, and aesthetic force. It examines how Jafa and Pendleton unsettle dominant epistemologies, staging acts of refusal and creation that resonate within …

Composition Portfolio Of Doug Falk, Doug Falk

Music ETDs

This composition portfolio contains six compositions:

Heterogeneity (2020) for solo guitar

Amalgamation (2023) for reed quintet

Oil and Vinegar (2024) for wind symphony (satisfying the requirement of one work for large ensemble)

Shouting into the Abyss (2024) for flute with electronics (satisfying the requirements of a work for electronics and a work for voice)

Movements Come, Movements Cease (2025) for voice, trumpet/flugelhorn, marimba, electric bass, drum set and fixed media; written in collaboration with choreography by Laura Orozco Garrett (satisfying the requirement of one collaborative work)

Celestial Bodies in Motion (2025) for 10 piece wind ensemble (satisfying the requirement for …

Interdependence And Place In Mescalero Homelands, 1660-1865, Joseph A. Ukockis

History ETDs

This dissertation examines strategic relationships that Mescalero Apaches made among themselves and with non-Mescalero communities from 1660 to 1865. It references Mescalero place names in piecing together pertinent stories across their vast ancestral homelands, demonstrating regional continuities in social, political, and economic dynamics over two centuries. It argues that bonds of interdependence, rather than armed resistance, were critical in maintaining autonomy and the ability to move freely, conduct effective diplomacy to protect claims to homelands, access resources in times of scarcity, and form key alliances that presented possibilities for resistance to colonial domination. Central to these dynamics were Mescalero and …

College Football Or Abortion Education? An Examination Of The University Of Arizona’S 1974 Stadium Bonds Bill, Emma Masterson

History ETDs

In 1974 the University of Arizona renovated their football stadium through a bonds bill passed by the state legislature. The renovations allowed the university to increase the stadium’s capacity by 17,000 seats. While in the state house, an Arizona Congressman attached a rider to the bonds bill banning the university’s medical school from performing abortions in most circumstances, effectively barring the university from teaching the medical students how to perform the procedure as well. This thesis seeks to position the University of Arizona football stadium renovations and abortion ban within the larger histories of American higher education and Arizona. This …

Secured Through Stone: The Power, Monuments, And Memory Of Thyra Danmarkarbót And The Jelling Dynasty, Jacquelyn Truitt

History ETDs

Sometime in the mid-tenth century on the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, the Viking Age Queen Thyra (d. ca. 958/9) passed away and the epithet Danmarkarbót—Denmark’s Adornment—was skillfully carved onto her memorial runestone. Yet Thyra’s story has been clouded by few and unreliable textual sources, by differing assessments of her familial background that have emerged from those sources, and by misrepresentations of the material culture relating to her. This thesis explores Thyra and her place within the Viking Age Jelling dynasty through textual and material evidence and considers how the construction of both medieval and modern memory work and memorialization …

“Vasallos De Su Magestad”: Colocaciones, Cortesía Y Contacto En Documentos Coloniales En Español Del Siglo 18 En Bolivia, Joaquin Tapia Guerra

LSU Master's Theses

The present study analyzes Spanish collocations and keywords used in politeness strategies found in colonial documents from the late 18th century in the provinces of Moxos and Chiquitos, in eastern Bolivia. The focus of attention is a portion of the archival material used where a denunciation translated from Movima to Spanish by interpreters and sent between Spanish officers on mission is found. Through the analysis of the corpus, sociopragmatic patterns were identified that could constitute evidence of the translinguistic contact and the situation of social asymmetry that presumably took place between Spanish officers and members of the Movima community. In …

Linguistic Identity: An Ostensive Definition, Kiesha Martin

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation offers an ostensive definition of linguistic identity illustrated through historical and literary examples, lived experience, and even public policy. Linguistic identity consists of three parts: idiolect, dialect, and linguistic agency. The idiolect is a speaker’s personal identity. The dialect is a speaker’s social identity. Linguistic agency is the synthesis of both. This is an attempt to clarify the nature of the relationship between language and the self. Linguistic identity is an aspect of identity that has received scant attention in philosophy—even amidst the focus on language and linguistic analysis in this discipline. The objective is to bring linguistic …

Dwelling, Kelly Erin Mclysaght

Dissertations and Theses

dwelling explores the network of connections between time, the self, and physical space. People and place are layered, and memories haunt these blurred spaces. Poems follow several lines of questioning: what lingering presence does abuse leave in the body and in the home? Is it possible to inhabit and share space with these presences, and if so, what does that mean for identity, relationships, and safety? Through repetition, image, and syntax, dwelling constructs a maze, enacting the conflicting desire to both linger in memory and run from it, holding the haunting beauty of grief and loss alongside anger and alienation.

If We Must, We Must: A Better Way To Utilize Placement Exams, Samantha Bravo

Masters Theses (Archived)

College placement exams have been part of a student’s continuing education journey for many years. In a state like Texas, who has had a very extensive and dynamic history in regard to education assessment, students wishing to enter into college must take a state specific college placement exam. Is this state specific placement instrument helping its students? Texas pioneered a shift to a college and career ready focused state curriculum, so does this focused curriculum prepare students for the state college placement exam? How can this potentially be used in a way that can better serve its students? By analyzing …

From Glory To Glory: The Analogy Of Being In The Thought Of Karl Barth And Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Philip Micele

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In response to Karl Barth’s rejection of the analogia entis as “the invention of the Antichrist,” Erich Przywara insists that the great Protestant theologian’s criticisms are essentially of no avail, “because for him this biblical Christianity came, in fact, to assume the shape of a system of ‘ever greater dissimilarity,’ which is to say it fell under the spell of the very analogy he sought to flee.”[1] Przywara further stresses that “it is precisely in the analogy, understood as the ‘analogy of ever greater dissimilarity,’ that God is mighty and declares himself – the God who, ‘if you comprehend …

Exploring Reciprocal Determinism, Behavior Capability, Observational Learning, And Self-Efficacy On Protective Behaviors For African American Millennial Women With Cardiovascular Disease And Depression, Ja’Sent Angelic Brown

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cardiovascular disease plays a significant role in the number of death and disabilities around the world. While there have been marginal gains in positive health outcomes for women who suffer from cardiovascular disease, African American women continue to fall behind compared to their White counterparts. There is a comorbidity of cardiovascular disease and depression in older African American women. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain an in-depth understanding of how the comorbidity of cardiovascular disease and depression uniquely present in young African American women, how these two diseases influence cardiovascular health protective factors, and how components of …

Critical Mineral Mining And Native American Rights, Spencer Beeman Janes

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the intersection between critical mineral mining and Native Americans' rights. Critical minerals are essential for creating electric and sustainable energy sources that fuel the world's evolving technological landscape. The United States is making a concerted effort to mine these minerals on American soil due to their vital role in serving the U.S economy and national defense. However, many of these mineral reserves lie within close proximity to Native American reservations, and mining them directly impacts Native American communities. The development of critical mineral mines can offer substantial benefits to indigenous communities, but they also have the capacity …

I, As In We, Cj Maruyama

Dissertations and Theses

I, as in We is a hybrid collection of poems, essays, fictional letters, documents, and photographs through which the author revisits ancestors and explores their multiracial roots. Drawing on stories, interviews and research grounded in the Japanese American experience, the collection develops a call-and-response polyvocality that spans generations and geographies. In its use of white space, form experimentation, and tonal shifts, the work confronts the fluid, often ambiguous boundaries that shape identity. The compiled written and visual materials evolve into an original document--one that reaches toward heritage, belonging, and truth.

The Art Of Memory: The Medieval Peutinger Map, Amber Shrewsbury

Dissertations and Theses

The Peutinger map is an enigma: a twelfth-century map of the Roman Empire, it is secular and oddly shaped, its dimensions distorted to show Rome at the center of the world. Its creator, purpose, and provenance currently remain lost to history. Long considered by classicists to be a copy of a lost Roman original, the map has not been seriously examined by medievalists, possibly because it does not adhere to the Christian "T-O" style of medieval mappaemundi.

While other scholars have focused on what the Peutinger map reflects about ancient Rome, I have chosen to explore how the Peutinger …

False Starts & Finish Lines: Youth Sports, Coaching, & The Crisis Of The American Dream, John S. Lammert Jr

Master's Theses

False Starts & Finish Lines: Youth Sports, Coaching, & the Crisis of the American Dream examines how the American youth sports system reflects, reproduces, and at times resists the evolving contradictions of the American Dream. Drawing on a comparative analysis of institutional documents from public high schools, travel clubs, and recreational leagues, this thesis interrogates how youth sports have shifted from inclusive spaces of play and character-building to stratified marketplaces governed by the Athletic Industrial Complex (AIC). It argues that rising costs, performance pressures, and privatized structures have transformed access to sport—and, by extension, to the Dream itself—into a function …

The People's Rivers: Early Environmental Regulation And The Oregon State Sanitary Authority, Avery Morgan Fischer

Dissertations and Theses

The environmental movement in Oregon can trace its origins to the turn of the twentieth century, where citizen activism and initiative led to the creation of an early environmental regulatory agency, the Oregon State Sanitary Authority. This creation established that the State of Oregon had a duty to preserve, not just the navigability or usability of rivers and waterways, but the quality and purity of its water. The Oregon State Sanitary Authority played an active role in maintaining and protecting the environment as a mandate of the people, and throughout its thirty-year existence battling industrial polluters, reluctant municipalities, and disinterested …

A Performance Guide To Christos Hatzis’ Songs On Poems By Sappho, Maria E. Thomas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

Christos Hatzis’ Three Songs of Poems by Sappho (1999) represents a compelling yet understudied contribution to contemporary art song repertoire. This study examines Hatzis’ settings of Sappho’s Fragments 1, 16, and 44, offering both scholarly analysis and practical performance guidance to make the cycle more accessible to singers and scholars. Through musical and textual analysis, this project reveals how Hatzis bridges ancient Greek lyric poetry with modern compositional techniques. The study demonstrates his innovative approach to word painting, rhythmic flexibility, and extended tonality, showing how these elements honor Sappho’s intimate first-person voice while creating a distinctive 20th-century art song …

For Us, By Us: A Digital Ethnographic Exploration Of Black Podcasts, Intimacy, & Sexual Pleasure, Dominique C. Dillard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sociological literature written about Black folks interprets their sexual behavior as unhealthy, risky, and non-normative. Black people are seldom acknowledged as humans, so it is not surprising to discover a discourse that does not portray them as sexual subjects. Studies examining Black sexual subjectivity through white and colorblind ideologies dominate the discussion, reproducing racist discourse historically ascribed to Black bodies. Guided by Audre Lorde’s concept of erotic as power, I document an alternative epistemology about Black sexuality. I argue the construction of Black sexuality must focus on sexual selfhood to grasp how this population conceptualizes and makes sense of their …

Let Us Break Bread Together: A Historical Analysis Of African American Chefs’ Influence On American Gastronomy, Danielle S. King

Capstone Collection

This Capstone project examines the historical impact of African American chefs on American gastronomy, highlighting their substantial contributions to the nation's culinary heritage from 1619 to 2024. By employing Jessica B. Harris's book High on the Hog as a foundation, the research identifies a critical gap in existing study abroad programs: the Black diaspora within the United States. The proposed four-week educational program aims to immerse participants in African American culinary heritage across four culturally rich cities: Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; Chicago, Illinois, and Oakland, California. With a community cultural wealth framework, the program integrates historical research, hands-on …

Everyday Life In The U.S.: An Intersectional Approach To A North Korean Refugee Woman’S Identities, And Experiences, Lyounghee Kim

Communication ETDs

This dissertation examines everyday experiences of a North Korean refugee woman in the U.S., centering her narratives as sites of critique, resistance, and meaning-making. Grounded in Critical Refugee Studies, Asian American Studies, and Critical Intercultural Communication and framed by intersectionality, it explores how interlocking structures of power shape and are shaped by her life. Rather than focusing solely on trauma or assimilation, this study highlights her digital storytelling, faith, and mutual aid practices as acts of survival, dignity, and moral agency. Using a qualitative, narrative inquiry approach grounded in critical reflexivity, it thematically analyzes her stories to reveal how she …

With Vim And Courage: Confederate Soldiers And The Politics Of War, Michelle N. Norello

LSU Master's Theses

The Confederate cause has captivated historians for many decades. At first glance, the Confederacy embodies a persistent effort to promote white supremacy, the planter class, and independence. While this assessment is accurate, individual Confederate soldiers possess diverse narratives that both challenge and support the labels assigned over the years. The political dimension of the Civil War opens new avenues for scholarly exploration concerning Confederate soldiers. But what insights might this offer regarding the nature of the Confederacy, civilian political engagement, and democracy? The answer to this question is complex and nonlinear. Previous research has acknowledged the numerous reasons why Confederate …

The Call Of Cucurrucucú, Rachel Olivia Blair

Dissertations and Theses

This is a site of geologic excavation; where charged voices like porous monoliths and forked-tongue shapeshifters call out in fragmented polyphony. What lies broken or misshapen, what can be pieced back together.

What is purity when the body that is being inherited is drowning in murky waters.

Ghost Highway: De-Touring Albuquerque's Route 66, Madison A. Garay

Art & Art History ETDs

Route 66 was a U.S. Numbered Highway stretching from Chicago, IL to Santa Monica, CA, rising to fame through music and popular culture. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Route 66 has a troublesome twin life as Central Avenue, a highly politicized space where bodies are contested. In this thesis, the function of public arts and architecture of Albuquerque’s main street thoroughfare, Central Avenue, will be analyzed as visual devices of U.S. Highway 66, or known in popular culture as “Route 66.” I employ a critical Derridean framework through Mark Fisher’s theorization of hauntology and Gerald Vizenor (White Earth Ojibwe)’s theory of …

Manual For Independence: How Democratic-Republicans Used The Memory Of The Revolution To Start The War Of 1812, Chloe Pellegrin

LSU Master's Theses

In its earliest form, the memory of the American Revolution was far from pure, riddled with partisan jabs and purposeful currents of present events. This, however, has received little attention even with the rise of memory studies within professional history. Scholars have addressed the popular memory of a variety of other pivotal moments from the Civil War to both World Wars. Revolutionary memory has been studied within the contexts of later eras, but almost never in the era immediately following the end of the war. Other scholars such as Alfred Young, Margot Minardy, and Michael McDonnell have all done work …

Secondary Ela Mentor Teachers’ Feedback On Preservice Teachers’ Video-Recorded Lessons, Homood Alharbi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the feedback practices of secondary English Language Arts (ELA) mentor teachers and the reasoning behind their feedback to preservice teachers (PSETs) during early field experiences. Motivated by my own experience as a preservice teacher, where the absence of timely, meaningful feedback often left me without needed guidance, I was drawn to study how mentor teachers notice, interpret, and respond to novice teaching. This study focuses not on the mentoring relationship itself, but on the content and rationale of feedback provided by mentors.

Three secondary ELA mentor teachers participated in this qualitative study. Each responded to two video-recorded …