Examining The Role Of Consciousness And The Absurd In Suicide, Alexandra R. Azevedo

Senior Honors Projects

In order to emphasize the significance of suicide as a subjective experience, this research project explores suicide through a philosophical lens, primarily focusing on the absurdist school of thought that gained prominence with the twentieth century French philosopher and writer Albert Camus. Despite recent advances in the scientific study of suicide, I argue that many of the historically divisive questions surrounding suicide are rooted in philosophy. My original work attempts to rectify the current disconnect between suicidality and philosophy through the analysis and application of Camus’ chief work on the subjects, The Myth of Sisyphus. Recognizing the efficacy of …

The Square Of Opposition: Innovations In Teaching Logic, Marc R. Dimartino

Senior Honors Projects

Teaching classical logic can often be challenging, especially when working with students who lack any prior experience with the more technical aspects of critical thinking. The abstraction of statements into logical symbols and the implementation of various diagramming methods can be enough to frustrate novice logicians, leading to a lack of hope and sometimes failure of mastery. The unique difficulties in teaching classical logic can, in addition, exacerbate tricky pedagogical issues that arise on a day to day basis in the critical thinking classroom. For example, it can be challenging to convey complex information in a meaningful way when dealing …

Setting Fires: Literary Women Blazing Trails For Contemporary Women, Laura Salinas

Senior Honors Projects

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim” — Nora Ephron

Literature has always provided an outlet for writers to express their commentary on society tracing from Shakespeare’s plays in the 1600’s to Jane Austen’s classic novels to the modern literary narrative. These writings are often more than just tales to entertain a crowd or a reader; they create dynamic characters that call into question the standards and expectations that society deems acceptable.

Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has created an iconic and dynamic character that resists and challenges what it means to be a woman in terms …

Marriage And Gender: A History Through Letters, Victoria Kern

Senior Honors Projects

Research on the evolution of marriage can be found quite easily, but the opportunity to see into the lives of married couples from the past is rare. Through the analysis of letters between my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, I provide a glimpse of what being married has meant throughout the 20^th Century for heterosexual couples. Societal ideas about what makes a marriage ideal have changed over time, but they have always been closely linked with gender expectations (Berk, 2013), so a feminist approach to the analysis of the evolution of marriage is used with my family’s letters as a …

Sexual And Gender Based Violence (Sgbv) In Post- Conflict Northern Uganda, Emily Thomesen

Senior Honors Projects

There is a sweet odor of earth and mangos as the sun rises over the fields of rice and pineapples. The silence of the morning is broken by the rising voices of women congregating together to worship as their little children dance to the music of their mothers’ voices. In the center of the African safari a refugee has been established for these mothers struggling under the weight of war and poverty. They learn the skills they need to provide food for their families, and counseled through the trauma of their pasts. Seven years ago this land was site of …

Pairing Technology With Effective Literacy Strategies, Alexis L. Carlson

Senior Honors Projects

School districts and policy makers have pushed schools toward tomorrow, without preparing them for today. Regardless of whether a district decides to spend thousands of dollars becoming a 1-1 school (i.e. one device per one student), or save money by instituting a bring your own device policy (B.Y.O.D), the results are the same. Students and teachers have been thrown into a digital world without first receiving training on personal and professional use of technology. Though I originally set out to combine literacy strategies and technology, I realized I needed to first build own my personal knowledge based on education technologies …

The Woods Ate Them, Amanda J. Burgess

Senior Honors Projects

For this project I set out to write a hybrid novella-memoir, while reading novels by authors generating work of a similar aim. I also took an offset printing course to learn how to print completed work, because I was interested in being able to myself make a book. Throughout, the intention of this work was an exploration of the density of the imagination and the self - all the lives we create, even if we never live them.

During my time at the University of Rhode Island, I have made repeated visits to cetain arguments and ideas, questions that intrigue …

The Theology And Agency Of Love As The Substance Of Kingian Non-Violent Philosophy And Activism., Matthew Quainoo

Senior Honors Projects

The theology of Love focuses on King’s understanding of God as love:

A Research Abstract (Project Summary)

Problem: Almost 50 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., controversy continues to swirl around the motivational forces that inspired the nonviolence approach employed by King in his fight for equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. Some scholars argue that Kings was inspired by such advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha Shakyamuni. Others believe that Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolence was an expression of the Christian theology of God …

The Role Of Compositional Music Therapy In The Treatment Of Adults With Bipolar Disorder, Tyese Andrea Brown

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to expand on a desire to expand our knowledge, and understanding about Bipolar Disorder and its relationship with compositional music therapy as a possible beneficial treatment for this illness. Compositional music therapy is both a music therapy intervention and process in which the client and therapist work together to generate an original, permanent musical model. The music may be instrumental or vocal, of any genre, and may be musically notated as a score, handwritten/types, or recorded (CD, Tape, MP3, etc.) It may incorporate the client’s original song/rap, lyrics, poetry (set to music), or be …

Robo-Teaching? : Automated Essay Scoring And K-12 Writing Pedagogy, Swati Viren Chauhan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper will examine the current state, and future, of AES in secondary literacy education through a review of current research in the topic. An analysis of the history of assessment will seek to explain why AES systems have gained such popularity within high-stakes assessment, and how the use of AES in secondary education, high-stakes testing affects pedagogy. This paper will also look into reliability and validity issues that are presented when using AES as a form of scoring essays. Finally, this paper explores some ways that AES can be used effectively within the K-12 writing classroom, rather than solely …

Putting Pedagogical Compositional Theory In Action : A Case Study Of Process Based Approaches To Exploring Unfamiliar Writing Tasks, Brett Conrad

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In this paper, I explore how employing process theory can aid eleventh grade AP English Language and Composition students in adjusting their writing to an unfamiliar composing task: the AP exam’s argument essay. I also investigate how to assist developing writers in adapting their composing to the unknown through their use of prewriting, drafting, and revising, and in their use of these reflective writing strategies that Mary Jo Reiff and Anis Bawarshi (2011) call “discursive resources”: accessing prior knowledge, possessing genre awareness, crossing boundaries, developing problem solving dispositions, and identifying as novice writers. Furthermore, I examine how to implement these …

Les Politiques Linguistiques Coloniales Et Leurs Effets Sur Les Femmes IndigèNes En AméRique Latine Et Au Maghreb : Enjeux Et Perspectives, Kristi J. Delfino

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

An aspect of colonialism that is often overlooked is linguistic colonialism - the systematic suppression of the indigenous language in favor of the colonial language. Through laws and official policies, colonial powers impose their language, culture and way of life, often resulting in the suppression of indigenous culture. In the case of South America and North Africa, the colonial powers may have left decades and even centuries ago - the 1820s and the 1950s and 60s, respectively - but the effects of their presence persist still in the languages spoken today. This has created a system that favors the colonial …

Sorry, Not Sorry : Speech As Action For Women In The Works Of Aemilia Lanyer And John Milton, Tiffany Ann Errickson

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Using the works of Aemilia Lanyer, John Milton, and Lucy Hutchinson, I will be exploring the idea of speech as action in 17th Century England and its connection to agency and community amongst women. These authors chose to show a distinct strength and sense of power in Eve and her descendants; each female subject not only has a voice, but uses it to her benefit. This is an enormous gift from an author, to whom words and language are the fruit of awareness, knowledge and power. Each representation uses their language as both a shield and sword to defend themselves …

Dynamic Future : Movements Beyond Postmodernism In Three Contemporary American Novels, Christopher Aleixo Teixeira

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores the criticism of and attempts to move beyond postmodernism in three contemporary American novels. Jonathan Safran Foer in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close offers a view in which shared experience, and specifically traumatic experience, necessitates the creation of metanarrative communities. Chuck Palahniuk in Fight Club navigates the difficulty of addressing postmodern concerns without accepting the conclusions of postmodern thinkers. Karen Tei Yamashita in Tropic o f Orange posits an ever expanding world which can only be truly understood through metanarrative.

Beelzebub : Satan's Consort In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Beth Tippenreiter

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis contends that Beelzebub is the erotic and political consort of Satan in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost. Chapter one first examines Milton’s relative contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, and his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Within Doctor Faustus, we find not only an earlier representation of the erotic and political consort relationship between Beelzebub and Satan, here named Belzebub and Lucifer, but that the primary purpose of Marlowe’s Belzebub is to be Lucifer’s consort. Chapter two’s section one focuses on the erotic consort relationship between Milton’s Beelzebub and Satan. Questions and concerns of intimate language and sexual …

Ghettoizing Black Women's Literature : A Socio-Historic Study Of Black Women Writers And The White Publishing Industry, Kimberly Wiley Luna

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This paper contributes to the conversation of race/publishing by concentrating on black women’s literature, exploring how it has been produced over the course of the last one hundred years and the impact of the white/black divide which has created a power structure where white publishers are able to assert control over black women’s writing. The focus is on three commercially successful female African American writers— Nella Larsen, Gwendolyn Brooks and Rita Dove. All three women were published by mainstream New York publishing houses made up of primarily white editors and publishers.

The research in this paper is informed by editorial …

Toward A More Intuitive Virtue Ethics: A Perspectival View, James Fanciullo

Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Unveiling Fantasy In The American Gothic, Olga Jacqueline Neroni

English

In The Plague of Fantasies, Slavoj Žižek charts the relationship between theoretical ideology, fantasy, and ideology in practice. While ideology roots itself firmly in our lives—it crafts our very reality according to Žižek—it is a paradoxically fragile and self-destructive system of interacting symbols. We consume and perpetuate fantasy in order to elucidate and internalize the laws of ideology by placing these symbols into dialogue with one another. In turn, fantasy often draws these laws to their conceptual edge, granting bodies and voices to the underlying fears and desires implied by these symbols. Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia” and William Faulkner’s The …

Short Fiction: Ulmus, Ward Heilman

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Exporting Exoticism: Captain Brinkley's Japan Described And Illustrated, Dan Johnson

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Visualizing Borges: Figures Of Interpretation, Kempton John Cox

Theses and Dissertations

In this work I explore the geometry found both in the narrative structures and the internal shapes proposed in Jorge Luis Borges’ short stories and seek to arrive at new interpretations of those works by mapping out—in graphical form—the shapes found therein. I move from basic two-dimensional shapes (lines, triangles, quadrilaterals) to those involving the element of temporality and atemporality (circles, interruptive loops, chiasmus) to shapes dealing with repetition—both geometric and temporal—and eternity (labyrinths, fractals, and Alephs). In each case and for each short story analyzed, either an existent interpretation is favored or a new interpretation is set forth.

Oncolog, Volume 60, Number 05, May 2015, Sarah Bronson, Bryan Tutt, U. Arizor

OncoLog MD Anderson's Report to Physicians (All issues) Archives

• Algorithm for Treating Advanced Ovarian Cancer Increases Complete Resection Rate: Most ovarian cancers have spread beyond the ovary by the time they are diagnosed, and they often recur even after responding to primary treatment. Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center aim to improve patient outcomes by changing the standard approach to newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer.
• Clinical Trials Explore Systemic Treatments for Brain Metastases from Breast Cancer: Brain metastases from breast cancer are difficult to treat because many of the systemic drugs that are effective against breast cancer cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. But researchers at …

Pedro De Ursúa, Francisco César Y Sir Francis Drake Tras Los Tesoros De La Nueva Granada: En Noticias Historiales De Las Conquistas De Tierra Firme En Las Indias Occidentales., Astrid Roldán

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the successful choice of exempla in Fray Pedro Simón's Noticias historiales de las conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales. It focuses on the study of specific characteristics, implications, and functional methods related to this form of argument throughout three Noticias historiales: Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre, 6ta NH, 3ra parte, Francisco César and Cacique Utibara, 2nda NH, 3ra parte, and Sir Francis Drake, 6ta NH, 3ra parte. It also explores the means by which these exempla communicate, instruct, amuse, and persuade the reader. The chronological account of Fray Pedro Simón is …

Common-Tone Preserving Contextual Inversions In The Music Of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Jessica Rudman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

To truly understand the melodic and harmonic structures of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's music, a transformational perspective is essential. Discussing her works in terms of motivic analysis, set theory, and other similar approaches is often illuminating but fails to account for certain types of subtle musical connections. Specifically, those methods focus on tracing particular musical objects but do not typically follow whatever characteristic processes might be applied to those objects. Transformation theory, on the other hand, focuses on that aspect and can thus reveal connections overlooked in other types of analysis.

Most of the pitch processes Zwilich employs can be described …

Undocumented Youth Living Between The Lines: Urban Governance, Social Policy, And The Boundaries Of Legality In New York City And Paris, Stephen P. Ruszczyk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation compares the transition to adulthood of undocumented youth in New York and Paris, along with analysis of the construction of illegality in each city. In both the United States and France, national restrictions against undocumented immigrants increasingly take the form of deportations and limiting access to social rights. New York City and Paris, however, mitigate the national restrictions in important but different ways. They construct "illegality" differently, leading to different young adult outcomes and lived experiences of "illegality." This project uses seven years of multi-site ethnographic data to trace the effects of these mitigated "illegalities" on two dozen …

Twisted Blue, Jessica Rudman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Twisted Blue was written for clarinetist Dan Liptak to perform with the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra conducted by Erberk Eryilmaz. The title comes from the bluesy progression that forms the basis of the second movement, which was in fact composed first in a few frantic fall afternoons. The opening movement followed, and then the finale.

Seasons Of Humanity In William Shakespeare's "As You Like It": The Costume Design Thesis Of "As You Like It", Cayla D. Greer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the design and build of the University of Arkansas production of As You Like It in the spring of 2014 in the University Theatre. It follows the development of the costume designs from initial costume sketches to completed costumes for a fully mounted stage production. The costume design process detailed here includes a script analysis, costume sketches and renderings, a detailed description and evaluation of the process.

Landscape Visibility And Prehistoric Artifact Distribution At Pea Ridge National Military Park, Jake Lee Mitchael

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pea Ridge National Military Park, in the north east corner of Benton County, Arkansas, is the 4,300 acre site of a crucial Civil War Battle. Human occupation of the Ozark Highland landscape, however, extends far into pre-history. A 2005 report to the National Park Service details the findings of a four year cultural resource survey of the park. The sampling strategy employed in the research design (random sample site selection and 2.5% park coverage) provides an excellent dataset to assess prehistoric land use. This dataset is not dependent on artificially defined sites, representing singular activity in a limited geographical space. …

Stand Strong, Stand Proud: Alternative And Pariah Femininities In San Diego's Punk Rock Community, Steve Moog

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since its inception nearly 40 years ago, punk rock has often been understood as a Social space for rebellion and resistance to dominant cultural norms. As such, punk rock culture becomes fertile ground for explorations of subversive constructions of genders. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the San Diego punk rock community, this thesis unpacks the construction, embodiment and enactment of alternative and pariah forms of femininities and examines their impact on gender dynamics within the scene. Ultimately, this thesis argues that (1) the San Diego punk rock community is a space where alternative and pariah femininities can be embodied …

Counting The Blades Of Grass: Series, Punctum, And The Averted Gaze In W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, Lane Glisson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

W. G. Sebald's novel The Emigrants presents an oblique view of the suppressed history of the Nazi era, through the lives of four emigrants from Germany. Sebald's unique manner of weaving biographical material, evidence, and photographs into his fiction, creates a misty world, neither fact nor fiction, in which the reader is never certain what is true or counterfeit. A series of recurring motifs and visual themes run through all the stories. This work examines how new forms of understanding arise in the spaces between The Emigrants' themes, punctuated by recurring imagery. It examines the nineteenth and twentieth century …