Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Study Of The Tradition Of Extreme Literature, Matthew Chi Hei Chan

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis endeavours to investigate some of the many ways literary works can engage with the tradition of extremism. In so doing, the author hopes to demonstrate the importance of the tradition as a vessel for understanding the world around and within us. In an effort to show the breadth and endurance of this tradition, this thesis critically analyses selected works by Robert Browning, Harold Pinter, and Frank Bidart in context with various other literary works.

La Oscuridad Detrás De Los Ojos Azules, Anoush Baghdassarian

CMC Senior Theses

Una obra de teatro qué se trata de un conflicto moral durante la última dictadura militar en Argentina.

A play in two acts about a moral conflict during the last military dictatorship in Argentina.

Healing From Racism With Compassion Meditation: Effects Of Coping On Mental Health, Courtney Chan

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines whether Compassion Meditation (CM) can help ethnic minority college students heal from race-related stress. The present study hypothesized that through participation in a CM intervention, the augmentation of adaptive coping strategies (i.e., self-compassion) and the reduction of maladaptive coping strategies (i.e., internalization, defined as self-blame, and detachment, defined as social isolation) would reduce depression and PTSD. Participants (N = 9) participated in an 8-session weekly CM intervention and completed three questionnaires at the beginning, middle, and end of the intervention. Results demonstrated that increasing self-compassion predicted decreases in depression, and that reducing coping via detachment predicted …

Ji Sor (1997): Self-Realization Of Women In Cinema And In History, Tong (Hilary) Lin

CMC Senior Theses

100 years ago, there was a group of women called Zishunu who stood up against the whole society and swore off marriage for life. Zishu offered an escape for many women in the Pearl River Delta area. As forerunners in female independence and liberation, Zishunu never had the chance to be the spokesman of themselves or the recognition they deserved. Ji Sor (1997), a groundbreaking work in lesbian-themed movies, beautifully depicts this special and unparalleled historical phenomenon in detail. Released a few months after the Handover of Hong Kong in 1997, this critically acclaimed movie by Hong Kong New Wave …

The Internet, Aesthetic Experience, And Liminality, Stephanie Laface

CMC Senior Theses

This work analyzes the transitional activities and experiences that are inherent to accessing and navigating the Internet. Under established anthropological fieldwork of liminality theory by Victor Turner, as well as John Dewey's claims in experiential aesthetic theory, aesthetic experiences of the Internet are characterized. This paper concludes that such internet experiences abide by liminal thresholds and therefore comprise aesthetic distinction and significance. While Dewian aesthetics can only characterize this aesthetic distinction to a certain degree, Blanka Domagalska provides an alternative liminal explanation towards classifying such experience and its effect on individuation. Conclusive classifications of internet experiences in turn lend to …

The Adventure Of A Lifetime: Examining Life Lessons In Eighteenth Century Literature, Griffin Ferre

CMC Senior Theses

Embedded within various works of Eighteenth-Century literature lie themes regarding how the protagonists of these stories pursue their own versions of happiness. This thesis examines how characters from a wide variety of Eighteenth-Century novels engage with their surroundings, often resisting the dominant social structures of the time, to fashion more fulfilling lives for themselves. From Robinson Crusoe to Elizabeth Bennet to Frankenstein's monster, these characters come from a wide variety of backgrounds but all reveal several unifying themes. They seek out personal connections rather that striving to fulfill antiquated social expectations and they focus on their own agency, rather than …

The Tale Of Tomorrow, Ariel Rubin

CMC Senior Theses

I am analyzing Nietzsche's idea of independence found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Genealogy of Morals. I am arguing that democracy can lead us to the ultimate form of independence, yet Nietzsche seems to disagree.

The Dangers Of Corporate Champions: The East India Company's Devastating Impact On Britain, Richard Newman

CMC Senior Theses

This paper argues against the common historical belief that the British East India Company’s actions benefited the British Public. While many recent historical works argue that the Company had detrimental effects on India, the common consensus believes that the Company’s actions while pillaging India benefited Britain through economic treasures and access to luxuries.

In the first section of the text, the author describes the British East India Company’s corruption, propaganda, and lobbying efforts to enrich individual members of the Company and protect personal and corporate profits. The next section describes the Company’s impact on Britain and argues that the Company …

The 1936 Nazi Olympic Games; The First Truly Modern Olympiad, Quinn Glosniak

CMC Senior Theses

Revived in 1896 by the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, the Olympic Games have come to represent the ultimate international celebration of sport, culture, and the human spirit. The grandiose festival of the current day evolved into its mature form throughout the course of the twentieth century. However, no Olympiad altered the Olympic Movement as radically as the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Through the examination of key secondary sources and primary sources like, International Olympic Committee (IOC) records, personal testimonies, and newspaper articles, this thesis examines how and why the 1936 Nazi Olympics fundamentally altered the Olympic Movement and forced the …

Partisanship In Mexico: Influence Of Violence And State Spending, Christopher White

CMC Senior Theses

This paper serves to further investigate factors influencing partisanship in Mexican politics with a focus on state spending and drug violence. With state spending, this paper builds on prior literature about political effects of federal social spending (Handelman 1997, Domínguez and Chappell 2004, Díaz-Cayeros 2009) to propose a similar theory regarding state social spending. The proposed panel data model for national elections between 2000 and 2012 finds that for diputados elections, a thousand-peso increase in state spending had a statistically significant influence on party voting – boosting PRI candidates (typically incumbents) by 0.66% and hurting both PAN and PRD candidates …

The Socio-Political And Economic Causes Of Natural Disasters, Nicole Southard

CMC Senior Theses

To effectively prevent and mitigate the outbreak of natural disasters is a more pressing issue in the twenty-first century than ever before. The frequency and cost of natural disasters is rising globally, most especially in developing countries where the most severe effects of climate change are felt. However, while climate change is indeed a strong force impacting the severity of contemporary catastrophes, it is not directly responsible for the exorbitant cost of the damage and suffering incurred from natural disasters -- both financially and in terms of human life. Rather, the true root causes of natural disasters lie within the …

Shifting Ethnic Identities In Spain And Gaul, 500-700: From Romans To Goths And Franks, Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications

Traditional scholarship on post-Roman western culture has tended to examine the ethnic identities of Goths, Franks, and similar groups while neglecting the Romans themselves, in part because modern scholars have viewed the concept of being Roman as one denoting primarily a cultural or legal affiliation. As this book demonstrates, however, early medieval 'Romanness' also encompassed a sense of belonging to an ethnic group, which allowed Romans in Iberia and Gaul to adopt Gothic or Frankish identities in a more nuanced manner than has been previously acknowledged in the literature.

What Students Do With Words: Language Use And Communicative Function In Full And Partial Immersion Classrooms, Katherine Christoffersen

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

Over the past 35 years, language immersion programs have been steadily increasing in number throughout the U.S. The popularity of these diverse, linguistically complex educational programs has led to a rather extensive body of research on language immersion and dual language contexts. Research, however, has thus far focused primarily on the quantification of language use (the amount of target language versus first language use) in different settings and with different interlocutors. Very few studies have probed the interesting and significant sociolinguistic question of what students ‘do’ with languages in the classroom. The present study fills this research gap by investigating …

Red Lights, White Hope: Race, Gender, And U.S. Camptown Prostitution In South Korea, Julie Kim

CMC Senior Theses

U.S. military camptown prostitution in South Korea was a system ridden with entangled structures of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. This thesis aims to elucidate the ways in which racial ideologies, in conjunction with gendered nationalist ideologies, materialized in the spaces of military base communities. I contend that camptowns were hybrid spaces where the meaning and representation of race were constantly in flux, where the very definitions of race and gender were contested, affirmed, and redefined through ongoing negotiations on the part of relevant actors. The reading of camptown prostitutes and American GIs as sexualized and racialized bodies will …

A New Frontier: But For Whom? An Analysis Of The Micro-Computer And Women’S Declining Participation In Computer Science, Eliana Keinan

CMC Senior Theses

Though women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has greatly increased over the past 60 years, women’s participation in computer science peaked in the 1980s. The paper searches for key motivators for women entering computer science at the peak in order to isolate factors for the subsequent steep decline. A major finding of the paper is that having a computer at home is (weakly) statistically significant as a determinant for female students choosing to pursue computer science. This relationship is insignificant for students in other STEM and non-STEM fields. A final section of the paper examines employment …

The Demandingness Of Morality: The Person Confined, Jose Salazar

CMC Senior Theses

Losing ownership and control over the development of and connection to our own person detaches us from the most innate embodiment of ourselves, our person. Without being able to develop and connect to our person, we become detached from expressing our identity, exercising our autonomy, and formulating our own values, the most intrinsic features our person encapsulates. While we yearn to act on our own projects to express our identity, exercise our autonomy, and formulate our own values the way we want, morality imposes huge demands on our person that restrain us from doing so. Morality’s major requirement to always …

Arvo Part, Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen: A Transcription For Wind Ensemble, Julian Hartridge Sconyers Iii

Theses and Dissertations

Amongst late twentieth and early twenty-first century music, Arvo Pärt’s compositional style is a unique musical voice and has led to the composer becoming the most performed living classical composer for multiple years. His unmistakable tintinnabuli style is often labeled as part of the post-modernist movement, the minimalist genre, sacred minimalism, or even as neo-medieval. Despite any label, his music is as distinctive as it is revolutionary, and many of his works are considered cornerstone works of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. However, despite the popularity of his works, most of his music is written for choir, orchestra, small chamber …

Gëm Sa Bopp: A Case Study Of Peace Corps Senegal Girls’ Camps, Tesia A. Eisenberg

Capstone Collection

This research explores the design, curriculum, and monitoring & evaluation efforts of Peace Corps Senegal Girls’ Camps through the lens of Youth Program Leadership and Design theory. The literature review reveals a research gap in youth camp programming and hopes to draw attention to this fact to promote more literature on this subject in the future. Interviews were conducted to gain information on the design and monitoring & evaluation experiences of camp facilitators from the 2015 and 2016 PCS Girls’ Camps. This research draws upon data collected from literature, interviews, personal experience, and relevant documents from Peace Corps Senegal to …

How To Handle Face-Saving In The Chinese Church Through Servant-Leadership, Jiying Song

Faculty Publications - George Fox Digital

Excerpt: "Leaders unknowingly functioning out of face-saving, the tendency to try to protect ones standing or reputation or to avoid losing some aspect of these, have a negative impact on organizational leadership. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how leaders can mitigate the negative influence of face-saving through servant-leadership in the Chinese church setting."

Accounting For Taste In Irish Traditional Music, Eryn T. Wagnon

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Although it is self-evident that people care about music, we don’t know how they make sense of their taste in it. In this study, I will explore how individuals explain their taste in music. I will specifically be focusing on the genre of Irish traditional music (ITM). One way to explore how people account for their taste in this genre is through a qualitative content analysis of online comments. I hope to demonstrate the vocabulary of motives for music preference, by focusing on how individuals account for their taste in Irish traditional music online. Also, this study will help show …

Savannah's Ethnic Irish Neighborhoods In The Nineteenth Century: A Historical Multimethod Examination, Sarah A. Ryniker

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to identify residency patterns and neighborhoods for Savannah-Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. Using a multimethod approach, this thesis explores historical, social, and economic factors that influenced settlement patterns and cultivated the conditions for an Irish-American identity, particularly in two neighborhoods, Old Fort and Yamacraw. Guided by Yancey et al.’s (1976) emergent ethnicity theory, this study uses archival materials, as well as chi-square tests for association, and the 1860 Federal Census of Chatham County, Georgia, to geolocate Irish immigrants. With an emphasis on County Wexford, Ireland, the results suggest residency was associated with Irish …

Shakespeare's "Honest And Vertuous" Ensigns: Transgressing The Military/Domestic Divide In The Henriad And Othello, Matthew R. Wentz

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores how the military service of the ensign disrupts and ultimately obliterates domestic life in Shakespeare’s Henriad and Othello. The rank of the ensign held expectations of honesty and honor, yet Shakespeare portrays his only two ensign characters, Ancient Pistol and Iago, as ironically failing to adhere to these standards. The received view of Pistol that results from his portrayal in 2 Henry IV as a stock braggadocio is challenged by a sympathetic reading of his character, especially in Henry V. Although Pistol occasionally behaves with honor in Henry V, his military service results in …

Cosmology, Mickey L. Mattox

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Sloth: America's Ironic Structural Vice, Conor M. Kelly, Christopher D. Jones

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Individualism is a popular cultural trope in the United States, often touted for its promotion of industriousness and rejection of laziness. This essay argues that, ironically, America's brand of individualism actually promotes a more fundamental form of the very vice it purports to oppose. To make this case, the essay defines the unique form of individualism in the United States and then retrieves the classical definition of sloth as a vice against charity (not diligence), contrasting Aquinas and Barth with Weber to demonstrate that this peculiarly American individualist impulse undermines civic charity by reaping the benefits of civic relationships while …

Pitch Imitation Ability In Mental Transformations Of Melodies, Emma B. Greenspon, Peter Q. Pfordresher, Andrea R. Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

Previous research suggests that individuals with a vocal pitch imitation deficit (VPID, a.k.a. "poor-pitch singers") experience less vivid auditory images than accurate imitators (pfordresher & halpern, 2013), based on self-report. in the present research we sought to test this proposal directly by having accurate and VPID imitators produce or recognize short melodies based on their original form (untransformed), or after mentally transforming the auditory image of the melody. For the production task, group differences were largest during the untransformed imitation task. importantly, producing mental transformations of the auditory image degraded performance for all participants, but were relatively more disruptive to …

That Note Sounds Wrong! Age-Related Effects In Processing Of Musical Expectation, Andrea R. Halpern, Ioanna Zioga, Martin Shankleman, Job Lindsen, Marcus T. Pearce, Joydeep Bhattacharya

Faculty Journal Articles

Part of musical understanding and enjoyment stems from the ability to accurately predict what note (or one of a small set of notes) is likely to follow after hearing the first part of a melody. Selective violation of expectations can add to aesthetic response but radical or frequent violations are likely to be disliked or not comprehended. In this study we investigated whether a lifetime of exposure to music among untrained older adults would enhance their reaction to unexpected endings of unfamiliar melodies. Older and younger adults listened to melodies that had expected or unexpected ending notes, according to Western …

Musical Expertise Has Minimal Impact On Dual Task Performance, Gianna Cocchini, Maria Serena Filardi, Marcela Crhonkova, Andrea R. Halpern

Faculty Journal Articles

Studies investigating effect of practice on dual task performance have yielded conflicting findings, thus supporting different theoretical accounts about the organisation of attentional resources when tasks are performed simultaneously. Because practice has been proven to reduce the demand of attention for the trained task, the impact of long-lasting training on one task is an ideal way to better understand the mechanisms underlying dual task decline in performance. Our study compared performance during dual task execution in expert musicians compared to controls with little if any musical experience. Participants performed a music recognition task and a visuo-spatial task separately (single task) …

Audience Reactions To Repeating A Piece On A Concert Programme, Andrea R. Halpern, Chloe H.K. Chan, Daniel Müllensiefen, John Sloboda

Faculty Journal Articles

Repetition of a piece on a concert programme is a well-established, but uncommon performance practice. Musicians have presumed that repetition benefits audience enjoyment and understanding but no research has examined this. In two naturalistic and one lab study, we examined audience reaction to repeated live performances of contemporary pieces played by the same ensemble. In all studies, we asked listeners to rate their enjoyment and willingness to hear the piece again (Affective), and perceived understanding and predicted memory of the piece (Cognitive). In Study 3, we assessed immediate recognition memory of each excerpt. In all studies, Cognitive variables increased significantly. …

Are Musical Autobiographical Memories Special? It Ain’T Necessarily So, Andrea R. Halpern, Jennifer M. Talarico, Nura Gouda, Victoria J. Williamson

Faculty Journal Articles

We compared young adults' autobiographical (AB) memories involving Music to memories concerning other specific categories and to Everyday AB memories with no specific cue. In all cases, participants reported both their most vivid memory and another AB memory from approximately the same time. We analyzed responses via quantitative ratings scales on aspects such as vividness and importance, as well as via qualitative thematic coding. In the initial phase, comparison of Music-related to Everyday memories suggested all Musical memories had high emotional and vividness characteristics whereas Everyday memories elicited emotion and other heightened responses only in the ‘‘vivid’’ instruction condition. However, …

Valkyrie, Eric Philip Yanders

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

My thesis is a science fiction novella, entitled Valkyrie. My novella focuses on the character Valerie Byrne and her mission to save a utopian city, created in the wake of a third world war, from a megalomaniac android named Dr. Viper. Valerie witnessed her parent's death when she was nine years old, at the hands of the tyrannical government that was responsible for the war. During the conflict, she willingly transformed herself into a cyborg so that she may enact her revenge, and helped overthrow the tyranny that murdered her family. The novella follows her twenty years after the war …