Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Examining The Connections Between Gender, Identity, And Land In Leslie Marmon Silko’S Ceremony And Rudolfo Anaya’S Bless Me, Ultima, Denise Perez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the representation of gender, identity, and land in the novels Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. To understand the role of gender in the novels, women are analyzed as sources of salvation and refuge for men. The male protagonists seek a “cure” or an understanding of themselves, and they are only able to achieve this through the nurturing of the women in their lives. This thesis also examines how the male protagonists develop their masculinity through the formation of a bond with the Earth, their homeland, and nature. In Ceremony and …

Post-Truth Rhetoric And Its Correlation To Social Media In The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, Emi Thomas

English (MA) Theses

In this study, I investigated the relationship between post-truth rhetoric and popular social media posts made by public figures during the 2024 United States presidential election. I focused on which topics and posts received the most or least engagement during the election, and theorized whether post-truth rhetoric impacted the popularity of the posts. In my results, I found that the effectiveness of post-truth rhetoric varied by the political topic it was addressing. The results of this study conclude that post-truth rhetoric is not always inherently unethical. Further, studying post-truth rhetoric for the purpose of understanding why it is used and …

Unheard Dissonance: An Examination Of Disability Representation In Horn Repertoire, Macy N. James

Music Undergraduate Honors Theses

In recent years, diversity has come to the forefront of many discussions within western art music. Several organizations have been founded to promote the inclusion and representation of musicians of various genders, races, backgrounds, and ethnic roups, but disability is often left out of these conversations. Due to the barriers continually faced by composers and musicians with disabilities, their voices are seldom heard within horn repertoire. However, several works for horn exist which represent disability programmatically, both by disabled and non-disabled composers. In this presentation, I will examine the musical representations of disability in these works as it relates to …

The Prescribing Of Gender, A Scope On The Societal Ideologies Showcased Within Le Roman De Silence, Derrian Fernandez

Master's Theses

Culture is constantly evolving, its ideologies cementing themselves within our minds, shaping how we as a society guide ourselves through living in such. Social class, religion, gender, all are forms of identity that have a place, and a certain understanding and standing within our culture and society. Through this understanding of ourselves, we are defined, creating multiple forms of distinct expression to help differentiate our place further. A pope is expected to wear a certain attire just as a bride is expected to. The same ideology trickles down, creating demarcations of attire that subsequently ingrain themselves into our culture and …

Transgressive Fiction And The Problem Of Negative Affect: A Case Study Of Samuel Delany’S Hogg, Brian Thornton

Master's Theses

Samuel Delany began drafting Hogg in March of 1969 and worked on it intermittently before completing the novel in October of 1973.1 Yet Hogg remained unpublished until 1995 before finally seeing the light of day “during the ‘transgressive turn’ in American literature” (Mitchell 1). As such, the novel is historically situated along what Jonathan Mitchell calls a “dual temporality,” which “allows the novel to be located as an intervention in two key moments in America’s LGBT+ history: first, the developments in identity politics coming out of the socio-political cultural shifts of the 1960s; and, second, the post-AIDS awareness 1990s”.

Fostering Creativity Through A Signature Creative Writing Pedagogy, Ryan Stone

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study offers a historical and conceptual lens to guide the proposed research. A historical account of creative writing in higher education and its relationship to progressive education and creative education is offered. The conceptual framework involves the development of the creative person through the primary pedagogical method within creative writing: the workshop. The research involves a qualitative phenomenological study. Methods utilized include coded observations and interviews.

Hey Barbie! There's A Lot Of Kens On My Screen: A Qualitative Analysis Of Female Gender Inequality In Media Representation And How Society’S Responses To It Have Evolved, Ania Delaney Boutin

Honors College Theses

Since Dr. Jean Kilbourne called attention to the dehumanization of women in magazine ads in her series of lectures-turned-documentaries “Killing Us Softly” vol. 1-4, the treatment of women in media has received attention from researchers and documentarians alike. Kilbourne asked audiences to take the impact of negative depictions of women seriously, encouraging women into careers where they could shape the next generation’s media. Subsequent documentaries assessed Kilbourne’s research and expanded it to include political consequences, minority voices, and various systemic issues.

Using a summative content analysis approach, this research examines the content of six documentaries, spanning 1979 to 2018, to …

Feral And Free: The Queering Of Motherhood In Rachel Yoder’S Nightbitch, Cassandra Haskell

Master's Theses

This thesis explores motherhood from a perspective that seeks to inform and challenge the patriarchal definitions of motherhood in order to simultaneously confront its restrictions and create new meanings from its institutionalized definition. The main text that this thesis analyzes is the 2021 novel Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, as well as the 2024 film of the same name, critiquing how it successfully queers motherhood by questioning, challenging, and defying the impractical expectations placed upon mothers by society. Some secondary scholars whose works that I utilize to support my argument are authors such as Audre Lorde, Jessica Calarco, Adrienne Rich and …

Queer X Trans Memoir: In Sight Of An Embodied History, Rhyan Warmerdam

English (MA) Theses

Are queer and trans identities innate or constructed? What constitutes a queer or trans identity? What prompts a person to identify with a particular queer or trans identity category? Prominent queer theorist Judith Butler contends that “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted” (Butler, Gender Trouble 34). However, many scholars have claimed that Butler’s theory is “not compatible with lived experience” (McCann & Monaghan 134). This project utilizes the genre of memoir to gain insight into lived experiences to put this theory to the test. Through a mini historical archive of twelve …

Understanding The Lived Experiences And Sense Of Belonging Of Bipoc Lgbtqia+ College Students At Urban Institutions Of Higher Education, Kayla M. Bassknight

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study explores the lived experiences and sense of belonging of college students who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA+) at urban higher education institutions. Using Meyer’s minority stress model, Crenshaw’s intersectionality theory, and Strayhorn’s belonging framework, the study investigates how students’ intersecting identities shape their college experiences. Through an instrumental case study design, the research focuses on the unique challenges and opportunities faced by BIPOC LGBTQIA+ students, particularly the role of co-curricular engagement and institutional agents in fostering belonging. Eleven individual interviews and two focus …

Perceptions Of Choral Diction Curricula, Caitlyn Dixon

Dissertations

This study proposed to provide in-depth insights into the current status of the efficacy of diction curricula, as well as to seek ways for enhancing the curricula to better support a culturally diverse musical experience. 21st century choral music encompasses languages and music from all over the world. While this diversity is crucial to the idea of a global choral community, it necessitates choral conductors to be scholars of diction, which includes creating the appropriate sounds for a given language. For a conductor to confidently perform in global languages requires skills, resources, and tools. This study examined the diction coursework …

The Bass Clarinet Works Of Jonathan Russell And Pedagogical Guide Of Extended Techniques Used In His Compositions, Heather Chelsea Gering

Dissertations

Jonathan Russell is one of the most prolific composers and performers of the twenty-first century and has made significant contributions to the bass clarinet repertoire. An interview was conducted with the composer to yield information on his background, education, compositional process, and his thoughts on the techniques he has written. This dissertation provides a pedagogical guide to extended techniques found within Jonathan Russell’s bass clarinet compositions. This guide is based on the works of Russell, books, videos, blogs, articles, and my own personal experiences regarding the techniques required to properly perform Russell’s works. The study demonstrates written examples and explanations …

"Beyond The Display:" How Exhibits In Museums Can Be Used To Educate Public Visitors, Ryder Wynn

Honors Theses

Museums are institutions that can be found outside of a classroom setting, where visitors can educate themselves about a certain topic presented in the exhibits that the museums display. They can do this by creating engaging environments where visitors can become invested into the story and information of the exhibits, making them want to learn more about the information provided. A good exhibit can do this in at least one of three ways: developing critical thinking skills, which can involve visual models or "learning through play," creating memorable experiences or using collective memory to teach about historical events or using …

Newgarth Revisited: Using Fuller’S Framework To Examine Two Modern Theories Of Statutory Interpretation, Gwyneth Millican

Honors College Theses

Published in 1949, Lon L. Fuller’s The Case of the Speluncean Explorers is widely renowned as a “classic in jurisprudence” for its artful presentation of different legal philosophies, such as natural law and positivist law.¹ In this paper, I revisit Professor Fuller’s Newgarth in order to examine a similar relationship between two popular theories of constitutional and statutory interpretation: originalism and pragmatism.² Drawing from Professor Fuller’s framework, I use fictional opinions to highlight the ways in which originalism and pragmatism can both be used to fall on either side of the opinion. I also place these opinions within …

Trouble Don't Last Always, Carletta Williams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Being born and raised in the South, it has become clear to me that acts of adornment and cultural representations of home are a prevalent factor of the Southern archive. Trouble don’t last always considers the various elements of coloniality that saturate function within the Southern Black home, noting that acts of adornment and cultural representations of home are a prevalent factor of the Southern archive. Enumerating the various roles that Black women play as place makers while also navigating elements of coloniality. In turn these spaces do not function without their knowledge production. This knowledge is one that becomes …

Laughing Tiger, Michael Shum

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Laughing Tiger is the title of my thesis exhibition/paper, as well as the middle name I was gifted with. The relationship I have with this name has changed throughout my life. At one point, this name was more a reminder of being different, but now it is a personal symbol I take pride in. My name is Michael Laughing Tiger Shum, and I make inventive autobiographical paintings about the relationships we invest in, whether it’s with others, objects, rituals, environments, and so on. I have broken down my painting practice into three main themes, which are actions, experiences, and thoughts. …

Mandatory Bliss, Jocelyn Reid

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mandatory Bliss is an exhibition of sculptural objects that discuss value, feminism, material hierarchy, and societal expectation. Using mundane structures and objects, this installation aims to frustrate and dissect the significance of the tangible items that we interact with every day.

Mindful Symbiotic Ecosystems. Designing For Women In Remote Workspaces, Andrea Guevara Araujo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women represent 61% of designers in the workforce but hold only 29% of leadership roles. This disparity highlights a critical need for an ecosystem that removes barriers and cultivates mentorship, community, and leadership among women (Bolt, 2020). Even though women have proven their ability to succeed in male-dominated corporate cultures, the real question is not about capability but sustainability. Driven by overwork, competition, and burnout, the workplace does not just push women out; it leads to long-term instability for the entire organization (Krivkovich et al., 2024). In the workplace, a culture of masculinity reinforces harmful, outdated mindsets and glorifies aggressive, …

Designing For Autonomy: Enhancing The Autonomy Of Young Women With Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (Pots) Through Interactive Narrative, Jessica Gobble

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is an autonomic nervous system disorder with multisystem impacts. Classified as a chronic illness and oftentimes triggered by viral infections, incidents of POTS have become increasingly common following the outbreak of COVID-19. Primarily affecting young women ages 18 to 30, POTS disrupts an individual's health during their transition to adulthood. This issue is further complicated by medical gender bias, latent care, and misdiagnosis, which leave this demographic vulnerable within traditional healthcare systems (Shaw et al., 2019). As traditional healthcare systems primarily address acute rather than chronic conditions, interactions with these systems are intermittent. Consequently, individuals …

Public Comment: Using Critique-Like Mediating Artifacts To Democratize Discourse At City Council Meetings, Piper Schuerman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Are local governments designed for equitable citizen participation? While civic engagement aims to empower citizens and support representative governance, barriers to participation can hinder those outcomes. City council meetings, key venues for public input, pose specific challenges such as long durations, dense content, and intimidating formalities. These issues disproportionately affect Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012), who frequently report feeling underinformed or having limited time to engage. This thesis explores how city council meetings might use multimodal mediating artifacts, inspired by design critique practices, to make public discourse more accessible for Gen Z adults.

Grounded in activity theory and …

Using Scaffolding, Gamification, And Self Awareness To Create Responsive Ux/Ui In Cad Software To Nurture Metacognition In Novice Users, Obed Ibrahim Gonzalez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Computer-aided Design (CAD) software represents a significant shift from manual and analog design processes to digital workflows, offering substantial utility, accuracy, and productivity benefits. However, CAD software often presents a steep learning curve, particularly for novice users who are new to the software or possess only basic knowledge. Traditional CAD curricula have predominantly focused on technical problem-solving—teaching tools and systems—while often neglecting strategic knowledge that encompasses reflection, planning, and refining, which are essential components of metacognition. Metacognition is crucial for transforming novices into experts who use fewer and more complex commands, employ sophisticated planning, and achieve their goals more efficiently. …

A Living House Never Stands Still, Holly Rose Kranker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Living House Never Stands Still is an exhibition that explores the interplay between place, memory, and the suspension of time through diverse mediums and materials. I engage with seemingly mundane objects, interpreting them through a non-linear, dream-like, and irrational framework to unearth latent connections across time–past, present, and future. Central to these explorations is the concept of home—not merely as a physical location, but as an evolving entity. Home is a sacred space for me.

My recent studio reflections are focused on the lifecycle of objects, the emotional responses they evoke, and how these cycles emulate the human body …

Big Blue, Caitlin Mae Ramos

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Big Blue is a record keeping system of sorts- to show the story of my relationship with the tallgrass Big Bluestem as an Oglala Lakota tribal citizen of The Sioux Nation. It’s meant to question the idea of binaries, what is valued, how verticality is only powerful if supported horizontally, and the legacy of the remnants that remain. Big Bluestem is a reminder of our linked survival as humans with the land and the importance of knowing the individual names of the leafy and legged beings who exist equally on it.

Weird Weather Against The Pathetic Fallacy, Avery L. Leonard

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project claims the weather and nature in Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Summer People” is weird fiction and displays an eerie subversion of John Ruskin’s literary philosophy, “The Pathetic Fallacy.” By analyzing these texts through the lens of the weird fiction genre, the signifiers of the genre make the weather in these stories extend past common literary tropes. Ruskin’s work calls attention to the literary trope of assigning weather in literature emotion, yet Algernon Blackwood and Shirley Jackson intentionally deviate from the pathetic fallacy and make the weather in their stories weird and eerie by both …

Saxophone Quartet "Phoenix", Noah Magnus

Graduate Thesis Collection

This thesis is a musical composition which is a saxophone quartet lasting ca. 35 minutes. It also has an accompanying paper.

Politics, Pedagogy, And Public Perception: A Shifting Understanding Of Liberalism In America, Jackson Trahant

Honors Theses

At Harding University, and in broader American political discourse, liberalism has been contorted from a prolific political philosophy into a meaningless misnomer. This paper studies what liberalism is to define what it isn't, by building a foundation of understanding in both modern theorists, like Sheldon Wolin, Alan Ryan, and Ian Adams, and the seminal works of classical liberal thinkers such as Locke, Tocqueville and Mill. Next, I deploy a self-designed survey, consisting of 4 passages derived from the literature written by those above. 80 Harding students responded, and their responses were gathered into SPSS, a data processing software, and ran …

A Mixed Methods Study Of The Process Of Commissioning New Music For Choirs, Kyle Justin Brazell

Dissertations

This study provided an in-depth look at the commissioning process for choral music. The pursuit of new music has a storied tradition in western culture, deeply connected with the Catholic church, starting in the medieval era. In modern times, there is a substantial amount of research on commissioning new music. However, most of the existing research is focused on band and orchestra ensembles, with very few exploring choral music commissions. Using a mixed methods design, this study identified a process for pursuing new music for choral ensembles and measured attitudes and perceptions of the director and composer during the commissioning …

The Mighty C: A Fractal Model For Modern Creativity, Joe Todaro

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The persistent ambiguity surrounding the definition of creativity has hindered its advancement across academic, educational, and professional settings. In response, this paper proposes an updated framework—The Mighty C—which defines creativity as the intrinsic human activity of generating meaningful, novel, and useful outcomes through deliberate process. This model addresses critical gaps in conventional definitions, particularly the frequent omission of meaningfulness, intentionality, and the uniquely human nature of creativity. It further emphasizes the recursive nature of these aspects across different levels of creative activity, represented through the structure of fractals. Drawing from scholarly models such as Rhodes’ 4Ps and Kaufman and Beghetto’s …

Differentiated Instruction For Students With Special Needs: “How Can We Better Equip Students, School Systems, And Society For Differentiated Instruction For Students With Special Needs In Career And Technical Educational Environments?”, Mikala A. Highsmith

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Career and Technical Education (CTE) plays a vital role in preparing students for the demands of the modern workforce by providing essential knowledge, technical skills, and industry-recognized certifications. As the number of students with disabilities, including neurodivergent learners, continues to rise, CTE programs face increasing pressure to adopt innovative, inclusive educational practices. Integrating creative teaching strategies and leveraging technology are now critical tools in addressing diverse learning needs that promote effective classroom management and enhance student engagement. Moreover, CTE programs emphasize the development of professional competencies, workforce protocols, and transferable skills that strengthen students’ employability across industries. This paper examines …

In The Shadow Of Justice: How The Mythos Of The Batman Balances Major Ethical Theories And Demonstrates The Pursuit Of Ideal Justice, Camille Bewley

Honors Theses

For more than eighty years, the Batman character has exhibited a unique synthesis of major theories of Justice, and through his experiences as a vigilante, exemplified the pursuit of the ideal virtue of Justice. Because virtue requires a lived example to be understood, Batman is one of the foundational stories fulfilling this need for one of America’s prominent pillars. Within the horror of Gotham City–a corrupt, fictional society–Batman’s actions as a vigilante, walking a tightrope to maintain morality even above the law might not only be justified, but necessary. The Batman’s nature, balancing ethical theories and maintaining hope in the …