Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Transitions: Starting The Second, Full Circle, Mary Colleen Vreeland

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will focus on the transitional influences that have led me to start the second circle of my professional life. It is an open and honest exploration of the back-story of my life and the academic and professional influences that led me to seek a Master of Fine Arts Degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. With no parallels and therefore no excuses insinuated, I will be open and dissect more of myself as the whole focus of the thesis in hopes of offering clarity to myself and other mature and disabled students seeking to become a better teacher and artist.

The Need For Caring Pedagogies: A Personal Look At Education In Depressed Economies, Catherine Curran

Theses and Dissertations

By grounding my work in this series of four essays in literary theory, but telling stories to which almost anyone can relate I hope to begin making the connection between sometimes heady academics and everyday working-class Americans. Only when learners understand their circumstances and the need for education, can they begin to take control of what they learn and how they employ that knowledge.

Virginia And The Equal Rights Amendment, Mary Bezbatchenko

Theses and Dissertations

In 1972, the campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) began in the states. Many states quickly ratified the amendment but the ERA stalled fifteen states short of the necessary three-fourths to become part of the United States Constitution. Virginia was one of the states who did not ratify the amendment and this study examines the reasons why. Much like other southern states, conservative Virginia legislators wanted to maintain traditional gender roles. STOP ERA and other anti-ERA organizations mobilized before the proponents developed a unified campaign. Legislators were able to use the rules of the General Assembly to block …

Symposium: Effects Of Human Choices On Characteristics Of Urban Ecosystems, Loren Byrne

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Most urban ecology in cities remains an “ecology in cities” rather than an “ecology of cities.” Accomplishing the latter requires the inclusion of humans within the concept of “ecosystem,” both how humans alter the properties of urban ecosystems and how these alterations in turn influence human well-being. These influences are both direct (e.g., physiological and psychological influences on the human organism) and indirect, by influencing ecosystem sustainability.

For the 2007 ESA meeting, Larry Baker, Loren Byrne, Jason Walker, and Alex Felson organized a symposium to address the relationships among human choices and urban ecosystems. In the introductory talk of this …

Effects Of Expert Testimony And Interrogation Tactics On Perceptions Of Confessions, Morgan Moffa, Judith Platania

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Evidence obtained through the process of interrogation is frequently undermined by what can be perceived as overzealous interrogation tactics. Although the majority of psychologically oriented tactics are legally permissible, they nonetheless contribute to innocent suspects confessing to crimes they did not commit. The present study examined the effect of expert testimony and interrogation tactics on perceptions of a confession. 182 undergraduates read a transcript of a homicide trial that varied based on interrogation tactic: implicit threat of punishment (maximization) or leniency (minimization) and expert witness testimony (presence or absence of expert testimony). Analysis indicated that the type of interrogation tactic …

The Secret Serbian-Bulgarian Treaty Of Alliance Of 1904 And The Russian Policy In The Balkans Before The Bosnian Crisis, Kiril Valtchev Merjanski

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The two Serbian-Bulgarian treaties, concluded simultaneously in 1904, and known in the literature under the common name of "The Secret-Serbian-Bulgarian Treaty of Alliance of 1904" are the specific topic of this thesis. These treaties between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Principality of Bulgaria contained political, military and economic provisions aimed not only against the Ottoman Empire (a common rival of both countries), but also against Austria-Hungary. A significant feature of these treaties was their obvious pro-Russian orientation, shaped in provisions like unification of the telegraphic systems of both countries with that of Russia as well as the requirement for …

Black Hole: The Role Of Black Aesthetics In Science Fiction, Thomas Leo Johnson

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The main purpose of this thesis is to answer the question of why the genre of science fiction permits African-American authors to expand their themes beyond African-American concerns and characters. This thesis puts forward the argument that science fiction provides African-American writers with the capacity to craft their works' central conflicts to include or exclude issues that affect the Black community. This thesis answers the question in four points, the first being a brief historical overview of the debate within the Black literary community on the prevalence of Black aesthetics. The overview also gives a summary of the debate over …

Down At The Bowl: A Novel, Theresa Marie Evans

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Novel set in late-1970s Cincinnati, on its traditionally conservative, Catholic west side. Karen is a sheltered seventeen-year-old girl, who gets a job bussing tables at a bowling alley restaurant. Unlike the friends she has struggled to fit in with throughout high school, Karen finds she is immediately welcomed into the group of teenagers who work there. She tries to become more street smart like her new friends, but finds herself jolted by their casual attitudes towards drinking, drugs, and sex. Along with the coming-of-age theme, the story addresses issues of homosexuality in a time when gays were just beginning to …

Women's Campaign For Culture: Women's Clubs And The Formation Of Music Institutions In Dayton, Ohio 1888-1933, Sherri Lynn Derringer

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This thesis is about the Women's Club Movement in Dayton, Ohio, using the music clubs as a case study. The dates encompassed range from the formation of the Mozart Club in 1888 to the formation of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in 1933. The formation of women's clubs, by both white and black women, was a national phenomenon, and Dayton exemplified what was going on throughout the United States. This thesis traces the roots of women's activism and association building from the early benevolent and religious reforms of the early nineteenth century to the formation of clubs, and finally the establishment …

Moving On: A Novel, Brian P. Leingang

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Hank Fossett had the perfect life with his girlfriend, Liz: a steady job, a promising career as a local artist, a healthy relationship with a wonderful woman, all while living in the cosmopolitan city of Blophton. But Hank was just dumped and didn't see it coming. Now, after four years with his girlfriend, he's alone and must figure out how to get over the girl who broke his heart. Turns to his friends to help him try to get Liz back. Instead, they help Hank get over Liz in a series of twelve steps crafted by Hank's old friend and …

Beneath The Invisibility Cloak: Myth And The Modern World View In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Mary Elizabeth Noren

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J.K. Rowling, best selling author of the Harry Potter series, uses mythology to add layers of meaning to her own creative storylines, to provide insight into the characters and plot, and to subtly foreshadow events to come. Rowling reinvents the old myths referred to in her text by creating surprise twists that are a reversal of the reader's expectations. Ultimately, Rowling's reworking of established mythology reveals the author's own modern perspective about what makes a hero, the power of choice, and the nature of evil.

Although Rowling draws from a variety of mythologies, including Arthurian legend, ancient Egyptian mythology and …

The Demise Of Industrial Education For African Americans: | |Revisiting The Industrial Curriculum In Higher Education, William L. Allen

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The purpose of this study was to examine the causes that led African Americans to resist industrial education higher education, which ended industrial training programs in predominantly Black colleges and universities during the 1920s.

Three key factors helped create this reform movement: 1) the death of Booker T. Washington; 2) the improved educational levels of African Americans; and 3) the rise in aspirations of African Americans to expand the benefits of higher education. The loss of the Civil War caused a reorientation of southern and economic conditions.

Newly freed slaves had to be granted citizenship. Southern Whites were more concerned …

Cross-Cultural Differences Between Korean And American College Students' Perceptions Of Sexual Harassment In Conversational Appropriateness, Yunekyong Chae

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The purpose of this study was to compare the cross-cultural differences of Korean and American college students' perceptions of their experiences with sexual harassment and how it impacts their thoughts and feelings. This study extends the sexual harassment literature to include Koreans' experiences with this important topic. Therefore, this study addresses four research questions: RQ1: Are there cultural differences between Korean and American students' perceptions of sexual harassment in conversational appropriateness? RQ2: Are there gender differences between Korean and American students' perceptions of sexual harassment in conversational appropriateness? RQ3: Will American students report perceptions of sexually harassing conversations more frequently …

The Role Of Popular Culture In Language Borrowing Between French And English, Marianne Elizabeth Broadwater

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This thesis proposes that popular culture often derives from the privileged upper classes and that popular culture established by the elite has played an important role in linguistic exchange throughout history between French and English. Focusing on the time periods 1066 AD to 1500 AD and the twentieth and twenty first centuries, it describes the manner of exchange and development of French and English lexicons and analyzes in detail the histories of one French word and one English word. Additionally, the examples given in this thesis illustrate the flow of popular culture from the high-ranking and powerful members of society …

Building As An Instrument, Catherine Irene Grottenthaler

Theses and Dissertations

The proposal of this thesis project is an exploration of the relationship between music and the built space. The space chosen for design is the first two floors of the Lady Byrd Hat factory located at 140 Virginia St. in the Shockoe Slip area of Richmond, VA. This project proposes the design of the building for the purposes of a music center that will benefit the community by providing music therapy, music and vocal classes, a performance space, and a café. It is to be used as an instrument for communication, health, and education. The main users of the space …

Origins Of The Jingle Dress Dance, Mark G. Thiel

Library Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Page Turner, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Denis Dercourt's 2006 film: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/07/the-page-turner.html

On The Intellectual Sources Of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, And The Debates About A National Religion, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

That French Protestants gave strong support to laïcité is by now well established. In recent work, Patrick Cabanel has even made a compelling case for the Protestant sources of laïcité, placing particular emphasis on the Protestant entourage of Jules Ferry (1832-1893) and stressing the inspiration provided by the pro-Protestant intellectual, Edgar Quinet (1803-1875.)

This article suggests that we look even earlier in time for the intellectual sources of laïcité. Seminal ideas can be found in the writings of two liberal Protestants, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Benjamin Constant (1767-1830.) Rousseau is usually counted among the opponents, and not the …

To Cite Or Not To Cite? Confronting The Legacy Of (European) Writing On African Music, Kofi Agawu

Publications and Research

English Abstract:

The current citational practice in Western scholarship is ideologically loaded, being far more suited to a written economy than a primarily oral culture in which knowledge is preserved in memory and disseminated through repeated performance. The impact of orality on musical scholarship should be more closely investigated; African scholars have all too often become informants rather than theorists of their own traditions. It is therefore proposed that the routine citation of a body of scholarship developed without Africa's historically-specific intellectual needs and ambitions in mind should in fact be discouraged.

German Abstract:

Die heutige Zitierpraxis der westlichen Wissenschaft …

Interpreter Of Maladies: Analyzing Current Young Adult Indo-Caribbean Literature For Inclusion In Today's High School Canon, Reshma Ramkellawan

HIM 1990-2015

The high school English Language Arts curricula of Central Florida has faced increasing scrutiny during the past decade under often conflicting influences such as a rapidly diversifying student population, activism for and against multicultural curriculum reform, and pressure to streamline curricula and make it conform to state testing standards. Against this social backdrop, the question of how to introduce Inda-Caribbean literature at the secondary level presents unique intellectual and political challenges. On the one hand, first and second generation Inda-Caribbean migrants make up an increasingly significant percentage of Florida's student population. Like other first and second generation Caribbean migrants, Inda-Caribbean …

Recreational Technology And Its Impact On The Learning Development Of Children Ages 4-8: A Meta-Analysis For The 21st Century Cl, Joey Templeton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on technology (specifically video games and interactive software games) and their effects on the cognitive development of children ages 4-8. The research will be conducted as a meta-analysis combining research and theory in order to determine if the educational approach to this age group needs to change/adapt to learners who have been affected by this technology. I will focus upon both the physical and mental aspects of their development and present a comprehensive review of current educational theory and practice. By examining current curriculum goals and cross-referencing them to research conducted in fields other than education (i.e. …

Patchwork Culture: Quilt Tactics And Digitextuality, Michelle P. Barrett Ferrier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embedded in the quilt top, the fabric patches are relays, time pathways to stories and memories of their former owners. Through the quilts, the voices of the past survive. The stories trace a path of connection between oral traditions, storytelling, the invention of meaning, and the preservation of cultural memory. The theory and method described herein use the quilt patchwork metaphor as the basis for a web interface for designing and modeling knowledge-based graphical, narrative, and multimedia data. More specifically, the method comprises a digital storytelling and knowledge management tool that allows one or more users to create, save, store, …

Times New Roman, Jason Mckrindey Coates

Theses and Dissertations

It is difficult to say that anything will be proven in this thesis of mine. I think of it more as an account of some things that happened in my artwork over the course of graduate school and my earlier development as an artist. Some influences are listed, but certainly not all of them. Likewise, the work that is mentioned in this paper represents a sampling rather than an in-depth survey. I don't have any tables or charts.

This Is The Right Place: Community-Based Art Education At Utah's Springville Museum Of Art, Mark Graham, Sharon R. Gray

Faculty Publications

The human condition in the post-modern world is increasingly nomadic. A sense of displacement and alienation is pervasive. Schools emphasize abstracted knowledge removed from the experience of students. Many people feel detached from the places where they live and have no particular sense of belonging or responsibility toward their communities. Museums can counter this pervasive restlessness and be a powerful source of community renewal. This article draws connections between place-based education theory and the educational mission of the art museum, as illustrated by the Springville Museum of Art. The small town of Springville, Utah enjoys an unparalleled connection with its …

Eliminative Materialism And The Distinction Between Common Sense And Science, Nada Gligorov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is one of the premises of eliminative materialism that commonsense psychology constitutes a theory. There is agreement that mental states can be construed as posited entities for the explanation and prediction of behavior, and that the nature of those states is dependent on the theory that features them. Disputes arise when it comes to the range of the commonsense theory of mental states. In chapter one, I review major arguments concerning the span and nature of folk psychology. In chapter two, relying on arguments by Quine and Sellars, I argue that the precise scope of commonsense psychology cannot be …

The Paradoxes Of Intimacy In Early Modern Drama, Brenda Marina Henry-Offor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the early modern period intimacy was neither well-defined nor discussed in the drama in the way that we do today. My dissertation is an examination of the paradoxical nature of intimacy in Renaissance drama and the impact of space on this intimacy. I am looking at the behavior of married couples and same-sex couples within the home during the early modern period. To elucidate my theory of intimacy I have chosen the plays: Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, Thomas Heywood's A Woman Killed With Kindness, William Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and John Webster's …

Edward Durell Stone: Perception And Criticism, Mary Anne Hunting

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The work of the New York City-based architect Edward Durell Stone (1902-1978) has been subject to ongoing critical controversy. Stone achieved phenomenal success, beginning in the 1950s as an architect in the period of the Cold War, with buildings on four continents, in thirteen foreign countries, and in thirty-two states. But an examination of his stylistic progression reveals that Stone increasingly fell out of critical favor as he shifted modernism from the International Style to a more "romantic" modern aesthetic that incorporated decoration along with aspects of monumentality, regionalism, historicism, and fantasy—a progression that can be traced in six of …

Judith Weir's King Harald's Saga: Innovations Of Character And Virtuosity In Contemporary Opera, Kelly Fiona Lynch

LSU Major Papers

In 1979, Scottish-born composer Judith Weir wrote King Harald’s Saga for the soprano Jane Manning. Although an opera in three acts, the cast consists of one performer unaccompanied, interpreting various characters, including the protagonist, King Harald, two of his wives, and the entire Norwegian Army. The opera presented in its entirety is ten minutes in duration. The scope of this paper is intended to assist the performer as well as those who are interested in contemporary opera. I have provided a brief overview of Weir’s compositional style in opera, chamber opera and song. As King Harald’s Saga was Weir’s first …

A Performer's Guide To Ross Lee Finney's Song Cycle Chamber Music, Joseph Charles Perniciaro

LSU Major Papers

Ross Lee Finney (1906-1997), significant American composer and pedagogue, published five works for solo voice and piano within his catalogue of genres and styles. Though composed in 1951, Finney’s setting of Chamber Music, to James Joyce’s texts by the same title, remained unpublished until 1985. This song cycle, Finney’s last published solo vocal work, will be the focus of this document and subsequent lecture recital. The purpose of this study will be to examine seventeen of the thirty-six songs from the cycle and provide performance suggestions. The written document is comprised of five chapters: Chapter One provides biographical information and …

Pale Moon Dim, T. Grant Harland

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.