Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Reclaimed From A Contracting Zion: The Evolving Significance Of St. Thomas, Nevada, Aaron James Mcarthur

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Historians tend to treat Mormon history separately from the larger patterns of western American and U. S. history. The history of St. Thomas, Nevada, the remains of which are within the boundaries of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, show that this segregated treatment is inadequate. St. Thomas was established in 1865 by Mormon missionaries after the Mormon leader Brigham Young sent them to the Moapa Valley in what is now southern Nevada to grow cotton. The town, like a few other Mormon sites in the region, was abandoned by the LDS Church, taken up by other people, and assigned …

On Our Way Out: And Other Stories, Benjamin Champlin Wright Morris

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

On Our Way Out and other stories is a collection of short fiction banded together with themes of the darkened strange, the missing and the moving, and a sense of place. The characters in these stories try to claw their way to newfound identities, whether it's through a financial transaction, saving a life, or putting a body in the ground. An action with a result is what's needed in these characters' lives. Though, often, the results are not intended. Despite the oddity inherent in these stories and characters, there is something familiar about their plight as ordinary people, something in …

August 28, 1963: Building Community Through Collective Discourse, Jennifer Nestelberger

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The August 28, 1963 March on Washington is often remembered primarily for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which serves as the pinnacle of civil rights movement oratory. This thesis, in contrast, examines speeches of the leaders of the "Big Six" organizations that preceded King's well-known words in order to shed light on the complexities of the movement and the outcomes that can result from meaningful dissent. Occurring at a time of division, the March emerged as a symbol of hope for change in the nation. The addresses of the day reflected this hope and helped build …

The New American Conservation Movement: New Strategies, Focus And Organizations For The 21st Century, Amy Deanna Northrup

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation provides evidence of the emergence of a new conservation movement in the United States. The strategic, tactical and organizational approaches of traditional conservation efforts, which began in the early 1900s, have shifted during the last two decades. Specifically, the new conservation movement is characterized by three distinct changes. First, many of the well-established conservation organizations, such as the Sierra Club and National Audubon Society, have largely abandoned their traditional focus on increasing the number of acres preserved; instead more defensive and fragmented forms of conservation now reign. The second change to the conservation movement involves a dramatic expansion …

Valley Of Fire Petroglyphs: A New Perspective On An Old Idea, Eric John Pacl

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research paper proposes to enhance the approach used in the interpretative methods of petroglyphs, in particular those located in the Valley of Fire State Park in Southern Nevada. Along with the actual content, the contextual element of elevation, in relation to ground level, will be used in an analysis of the petroglyphs located in the park. Intermittently throughout the park petroglyphs are visible at various elevations, from current ground level to the top of the rock formations several hundred feet vertically. It is this contextual element of elevation that will be key in the attempt to begin interpreting both …

A Father's Hands: African American Fathering Involvement And The Educational Outcomes Of Their Children, Theodore Samuel Ransaw

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although there is a great deal of research on hegemonic masculinity, fathering involvement and a father's influence on his children's educational outcomes, little empirical research has linked these practices to African American fathers. Because they are typically depicted as ineffective, irresponsible and non-present, African American fathers who are involved in their children's lives must do so in ways that affirm their identity, ways that are contrary to the common social conceptions and media representations of Black men. Using the framework of hegemonic masculinity, this study examined how the increase of women in the workforce translates to both the amount of …

James Jones's Codes Of Conduct, Matthew Samuel Ross

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Though his work was celebrated by his contemporaries and remains highly lauded by scholars of war fiction, James Jones's novels are already at risk of falling outside the mainstream canon of 20th Century American literature. My dissertation project proposes an intensive examination of James Jones' three volume war trilogy, From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle, collectively considered by eminent critic Paul Fussell to be the finest work to emerge from the Second World War. Jones' trilogy is a mainstay within the overall genre of war fiction, yet it has been afforded relatively little critical attention by …

"So Much For Fond Five-Dollar Memories": Prostitution In Las Vegas, 1905-1955, Marie Katherine Rowley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over the fifty years examined in this thesis, the interactions between federal and local officials shaped prostitution policy in Las Vegas and Clark County. At times that federal authorities were concerned about prostitution in the county, local leaders balanced tradition and economic necessity in their responses. In the early twentieth century, prostitution's benefits to the local economy outweighed fear of federal reprisals, so local officials worked to protect the city's brothels. By the start of World War II, the federal government's increased power and presence in the West made local officials more willing to abandon the tolerance for prostitution in …

Tiny Animals Made To Do Unnatural Things, Ashley Mary Siebels

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The stories in this collection revolve around a central theme which is expressed by my titleTiny Animals Made To Do Unnatural Things. All my characters feel guilt about decisions and experiences that haunt their past. In the present, they have come to a crossroads and are trying to decipher between what they were made to do as in vocation and evolution and what they are being made to do by the authorial pressures that loom over them (e.g. bosses, parents, loan officers, prison guards.)

In this way, my thesis pivots on the word made. Made (or to make) has many …

Buffalo Bill's Wild West In Germany. A Transnational History., Julia Simone Stetler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines European and especially German responses to Buffalo Bill's Wild West show during its two European tours in 1890-1891 and 1906. It argues that the different European countries creatively adapted the content and message of the show according to their own specific cultural values and needs. By considering Buffalo Bill's Wild West within the specific cultural contexts of the nations it toured, we are able to better explain reactions to it, including Germany's astoundingly positive response. The show was an entertaining event for American and European audiences alike with its exoticized figures, spectacular stunts, and colorful drama; however, …

Die Deutschen In Kalifornien: Germans In Urban California, 1850-1860, Carole Cosgrove Terry

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

German immigrants came to San Francisco, Sacramento and Marysville, urban northern California, seeking a better life than they had in the Germanic states of central Europe. Some came directly from Germany but some made an intermediate stop during their journey in Europe or the United States. In all three cities, they created an ethnic community where they practiced the social, economic and cultural traditions from their homeland,including Vereinswesen (associational life) and Gemutlichkeit (celebration of the joy of life), led by their ethnically based association, the Turnverein. They interacted with the main steam Anglo-Americans through associations and celebratory events to create …

Concordance Of Vocational Interest And Efficacy Of Female College Students Pursuing A Traditional Career Path, Priscilla A. Walton

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Women make up a considerable portion of the 21st century workforce. Despite the increase in the labor force, the Census Bureau continues to reflect that the majority of women are employed in what are defined as traditionally female occupations (Watson, Quatman & Edler, 2002). Even though the proportion of women in the work force has increased, women continue to be underrepresented in high-paying, high status professions that have been traditionally male dominated (Betz, 1994). Significant research has been devoted to understanding the unique variables which affect women's career choices and behaviors. According to Fitzgerald, Fassinger, and Betz (1995), women's vocational …

The Vox Populi Is The Vox Dei: American Localism And The Mormon Expulsion From Jackson County, Missouri, Matthew Lund

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 1833, enraged vigilantes expelled 1,200 Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri, setting a precedent for a later expulsion of Mormons from the state, changing the course of Mormon history, and enacting in microcosm a battle over the ultimate source of authority in America's early democratic society. This study will reexamine the motives that induced Missourians to expel Mormons from Jackson County and explore how government authorities responded to the conflict. Past studies contend that Mormon communalism collided with the Jacksonian individualism of Missouri residents, causing hostility and violence. However, recent studies have questioned many of the conventional notions of law …

Magical Realism And The Space Between Spaces, Dallin J. Bundy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Magical realism comes from Franz Roh, a german art historian and critic, who first used the term to describe the Post-Expressionism movement in visual art. His seminal writings and definitions on Post-Expressionism, then known as magical realism, were translated into Spanish and made available to Latin America in the mid twentieth century. Authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez adopted Roh's writings and re-appropriated magical realism into literary art, and from there the new genre proliferated through the Latin American Boom and magical realism in literary fiction reached global recognition, inspiring authors across the world to take it …

Homesickness And The Location Of Home: Germans, Heimweh, And The American Civil War, Joseph G. Foster

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate homesickness from the perspective of foreign-born migrants, who exhibited multiple notions of home. Letters written to loved ones depicting homesick experiences of the men at the war front illuminate the personal, sentimental, and cultural notions associated with the definition of what a "home" meant. Although focused to a narrow period of American history, this study adds to the larger themes of immigration by acknowledging migrants' abilities to adapt to their surroundings and make unfamiliar settings resemble the familiar places, faces, customs, and communities of past experiences.

“It’S Wraylynn – With A W”: Distinctive Mormon Naming Practices, Jennifer R. Mansfield

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The primary objective of this study was to investigate ways in which names among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are distinctive and the reasons behind those distinctive names. While many before me have noted that Mormons often possess distinctive names, there are few studies that attempt to determine the reasons why. Existing research has neglected to include perspectives from members of the LDS Church who practice distinctive naming. Through interviews with LDS Church members, I analyzed what they hoped to accomplish through naming and the larger cultural themes visible in distinctive LDS names. I also …

Dystopian Literature And The Novella Form As Illustrated Through Side Effects, An Original Novella, Bryan W. Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This master’s degree thesis exists in two parts: a critical introduction and an original novella entitled Side Effects. The critical introduction introduces and explains the theories on, literature surrounding, and literary uses of dystopian fiction, the novella format, and drug-based psychotherapy. Current opinion on dystopian fiction sees it characterized by a seemingly perfect societal setting that ultimately contains hidden or suppressed moral flaws. The ultimate purpose of dystopian fiction is commentary on contemporary society through a defamiliarized setting. The novella format is shown to exist in a middle-ground state between the short story and the novel, yet the format …

The Nation Before Taste: The Challenges Of American Culinary History, Andrew P. Haley

Faculty Publications

Food is material and familiar, and because it is, we are often overconfident about our ability to understand the culinary past. It is easy to believe that if we can discover the recipe for some forgotten dish, the history of the dish becomes intelligible. When it does not, it tempts those who consume culinary history to impose modern sensibilities on our predecessors. The Nation before Taste" argues that historians and museum curators must be especially vigilant when presenting the history of food. Reviewing a series of historical challenges that stemmed from studying the United States in the late nineteenth and …

Calling Through The Hollow, Mollie J. Ficek

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

These stories are bound by place. Each was born of a connection to the upper-Midwest prairie, to North Dakota and Minnesota, to the places I’ve called home. This collection explores the complicated natures of that home: of human connection navigated across a long horizon line, of cold-weather people, of loneliness in open spaces, of hope, and hotdish, and sometimes healing, too.

Teen Theatre: Exploring The Role Of The Young Adult In Art And Life, Jessica J. Vaught

Honors Program Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to summarize my exploration with a group of teenagers of two scripts and our experiences throughout the process. The scripts chosen fit two qualifications: I considered them to be examples of true quality in playwriting and they addressed adolescent self-identification. In rehearsals the teens and I discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each script we read and chose to perform a staged reading of the one we considered better suited for our ensemble. A discussion of my decision to direct a staged reading rather than a full-fledged production can be found in the Creative …

Mothers, Sons, And The Gothic Family In Brown, Poe, And Wharton, Elizabeth Lain Lyon

Scripps Senior Theses

Within Gothic literature, the mother is frequently missing. In Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Morella,” “Ligeia,” and “Eleonora,” and Edith Wharton’s “Bewitched,” men are left without parents, and they attempt to recuperate a mother-figure. To do so, the men in these texts psychologically project the role of their mother onto other women. Wives, sisters, and daughters all have the potential to become mothers to these men. This is a catastrophe for the women involved, for male perception fails to distinguish females as autonomous, unique beings. By conflating roles in the family structure, men destroy women and …

The Sibyl Dreaming Of Death And Murder While Hanging In Her Clay Jar, Bethany Buis '12

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

Interview With Ian (Sandy) Frazier, Kayle Kellerman '13

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

• Author of numerous essay collections and 5 non-fiction books, including; Great Plains (1989), On the Rez (2000), Travels in Siberia (2010).
• Writer for The New Yorker.
• Visited DePauw in February 2012 as the 2012 Mary Rogers Field Distinguished University Professor of Creative Writing.

Review: Darren Dochuk's 'From Bible Belt To Sun Belt', William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

In From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, Darren Dochuk cogently observes that there is “a general tendency in political history to treat religion as an historical agent that pops up for a short time, makes some noise, surprises some people and scares others, but then suddenly disappears again to wait for its next release” (p. xxii). As a result, when it comes to the Religious Right, there has been a scholarly obsession with trying to explain its “sudden” emergence in the 1970s (an enterprise that often includes predictions of its imminent disappearance).

Agression, Ruth Poor '13

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

African Agency In The Rally Of French Equatorial Africa, August-November 1940, Mark Reeves

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

From August to November 1940, the territories of French Equatorial Africa rallied to Charles de Gaulle’s self-proclaimed Free French government in London, rather than the Vichy government set up after the German defeat of France in June. While this episode concerns European actions in European-ruled colonies, African actors pervade the story, especially as soldiers. Africans constituted the indirect audience of all the rallies by living in the territories whose policies were affected. Africans served as actors in the role of soldiers. As soldiers, African actors exhibited agency both in actions taken during operations and by their presence in the colonial …

A Virtual Tour Of Wku’S Main Campus, Zachary Ryle

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In my WKU Honors College Capstone Experience entitled “A Virtual Tour of WKU’s Main Campus,” my task was to create a virtual tour students across the state, country and even around the world could use to view WKU’s campus without ever setting foot in Bowling Green. Throughout this experience, I filmed myself giving individual tour of over 60 different locations on WKU’s campus, with a total of 72 buildings and locations earning markers on the campus map. This virtual tour was created during the summer of 2011 and was completed by November of that same year. Once completed, Admissions Counselors …

Olympia: A Musical Composition For Wind Ensemble, Kyle Macdonald

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Olympia is a one movement musical composition to be performed by a wind ensemble. Written for the composer’s honors capstone project, Olympia is an exploration into the world of composing for large musical ensembles. The main theme, heard in the trombone solo at measure 40, is the proverbial “voice in the wilderness” that heroically comes out of chaos and is heard throughout the piece in different forms. Starting in short score with piano and percussion, the piece was then orchestrated into the final version. Written in the fall of 2011 and the spring of 2012, Olympia was rehearsed and performed …

“East Meets West”: Symphony Television Production, Nathanael Hovee

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

“East Meets West”: Symphony Television Production is a multi-camera broadcasting project covering WKU Symphony’s live performance titled “East Meets West” in Van Meter Hall on March 16, 2012. The project involved recording the WKU Symphony’s ninety-minute live performance using seven professional high-definition cameras throughout the auditorium and directing camera operators from the television control booth. The footage from each camera was synced in post-production and edited down for regional broadcast and distribution. The final video includes a majority of the pieces presented during the performance on March 16, as well as brief informative interviews with members of the WKU Symphony. …

Double Take Project: Using Applied Theatre For Campus Climate Change, Christina M. Cody

Honors Theses

Despite research gathered in the Campus Climate Report, I believe that it underrepresented the student experience of the social scene. The document primarily served as an identification tool for four major problems on campus: binge drinking, sexual assault, diversity, and disengagement in the classroom. Double Take Project also identifies similar issues however, this project uses theatrical techniques to gather the anecdotal reality of the student perspective. Double Take Project expands beyond the Campus Climate Report to inspire dialogue in a variety of student-to-student interactions and, more importantly, the project seeks action and solution plans.

The social scene dominates our culture …