Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“An’ No Place To Lead ‘Em”: The Grapes Of Wrath And The Breakdown Of Myth, Nicholas F. Comeaux

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In spite of its common designation as an outmoded classic of sentimental middlebrow literature, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath remains relevant as a milestone in an extended liminal stage between the failing cultural myths of the past and the founding of newly relevant shared stories. This stage begins with the Enlightenment and continues to present-day conflicts over identity, labor, migrants, notions of truth itself, the function and responsibilities of government, and our shared ecological destiny. Arriving near the end of the Depression and its concurrent economic and environmental disasters, The Grapes of Wrath reflects a particularly chaotic stage in …

Dark Smoke Rising, Matthew Knutson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A collection of short fiction set in and around Southern California.

“I Almost Hope I Get Hit Again Soon”: The Wartime Service And Medical History Of Leon C. Standifer, Wwii American Infantryman, Alexis M. Laguna

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The American GI’s experience in hospital during World War II is absent from official military histories, most scholarly works, and even many oral history collections. Utilizing the papers of WWII infantryman, Leon Standifer, this thesis offers the reader a rare glimpse of WWII military hospital life and chronicles one soldier’s journey from willing obedience to subversive action.

This thesis compares the stated goals and procedures of the US Army medical department to the experience of Leon Standifer, an infantryman who served in northern France during the last year of the war and the American occupation of Bavaria, whose service was …

Her People And Her History: How Camille Lucie Nickerson Inspired The Preservation Of Creole Folk Music And Culture, 1888-1982, Shelby N. Loyacano

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Over the twentieth century, Camille Lucie Nickerson excelled in her multi-faceted career as an educator, musician, and interpreter for the advancement of musical education for generations of black students in New Orleans and at Howard University in Washington D.C. Nickerson devoted herself to furthering her musical education through private instruction with her father, Professor William J. Nickerson. She then graduated with a diploma from Southern University and with a B.A. and M.A. in music from Oberlin College. Nickerson’s leadership in musical associations on a local and national level enhanced her ability to reach audiences of all ages through her performances. …

Dr. Tichenor’S ‘Lost Cause’: The Rise Of New Orleans’S Confederate Culture During The Gilded Age, Granville R. Morris

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Serving three times as president of the Cavalry Association, Camp Nine of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), George Tichenor was instrumental in forging Lost Cause ideology into a potent social force in New Orleans. Though more widely remembered in New Orleans for his antiseptic invention, his support of Confederate monuments, Confederate activism, and his wife Margret’s role as vice-president of a chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) are lesser known aspects of Tichenor’s life in New Orleans. This paper examines the cultural changes taking place in New Orleans that allowed Tichenor to become a leader of the Lost …

“To Be Men, Not Destroyers”: Developing Dabrowskian Personalities In Ezra Pound’S The Cantos And Neil Gaiman’S American Gods, Michelle A. Nicholson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Kazimierz Dabrowski’s psychological theory of positive disintegration is a lesser known theory of personality development that offers an alternative critical perspective of literature. It provides a framework for the characterization of postmodern protagonists who move beyond heroic indoctrination to construct their own self-organized, autonomous identities. Ezra Pound’s The Cantos captures the speaker-poet’s extensive process of inner conflict, providing a unique opportunity to track the progress of the hero’s transformation into a personality, or a man. American Gods is a more fully realized portrayal of a character who undergoes the complete paradigmatic collapse of positive disintegration and deliberate self-derived self-revision …

‘Posed With The Greatest Care’: Photographic Representations Of Black Women Employed By The Work Progress Administration In New Orleans, 1936-1941, Kathryn A. O'Dwyer

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

For decades, scholars have debated the significance of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), emphasizing its political, economic, and artistic impact. This historiography is dominated by the accomplishments of white men. In an effort to highlight the long-neglected legions of black women who contributed to WPA projects and navigated the agency’s discriminatory practices, this paper will examine WPA operations in New Orleans where unemployment was the highest in the urban south, black women completed numerous large-scale projects, and white supremacist notions guided relief protocol. By analyzing the New Orleans WPA Photography collection, along with newspapers, government documents, and oral histories, a …

Arnold Hirsch Collection Of Ernest N. 'Dutch' Morial Oral History Interviews, 1987: A Finding Aid, Jenidza N. Rivera

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This finding aid of interviews is drawn from the Arnold R. Hirsch Collection at the Amistad Research Center. Between 1987 and 1994, historian Arnold Hirsch interviewed New Orleans’ first black mayor, Ernest Morial, and others related to that crucial era in New Orleans political history. This collection consists of 37 audiocassettes tapes that contain oral history interviews conducted by Arnold Hirsch with various New Orleanians who were active in city government and political activism. This project-based thesis covers the research and construction of the finding aid completed for this collection during an internship at the Amistad Research Center, as well …

Philadelphia Stories, Leigh A. Stuart

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

These stories provide a look at a Philadelphia family over decades.

Mobile Music Development Tools For Creative Coders, Daniel Stuart Holmes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project is a body of work that facilitates the creation of musical mobile artworks. The project includes a code toolkit that enhances and simplifies the development of mobile music iOS applications, a flexible notation system designed for mobile musical interactions, and example apps and scored compositions to demonstrate the toolkit and notation system.

The code library is designed to simplify the technical aspect of user-centered design and development with a more direct connection between concept and deliverable. This sim- plification addresses learning problems (such as motivation, self-efficacy, and self-perceived understanding) by bridging the gap between idea and functional prototype …

The Gulf Between, Christine Baniewicz

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Great swaths of Southeastern Louisiana are drowning, land giving way to water at an alarming rate. Since the 1920s, Louisiana has lost more than 1,800 square miles of wetlands to open water, an area about the size of the state of Delaware. In the same amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Breaking Bad, our state loses the equivalent of a football field’s-worth of solid ground to the rising seas. My thesis is the first part of an accessible creative nonfiction book that tells the story of what’s happening in my home state. To what extent is …

‘Habituated To Drunkenness’: Opinions Of New Orleanians About Prohibition As Revealed Through Letters To The Editor Of The Times-Picayune, 1918-1922, Ryan P. Bourgeois

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Both popular and scholarly observers have portrayed New Orleans as a city both supported and burdened by its image as a diverse cultural other within the American South, historically tolerant of certain sins of the flesh. This image has been used by proponents and critics alike in order to push their respective agenda regarding the Crescent City. This thesis will not seek to discredit this image that is based largely on fact. However, using Prohibition as a case study, this thesis will use letters to the editor to uncover attitudes of New Orleanians in opposition to this reputation to reveal …

Crossroads And Crow Feathers, Travis E. Bowman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the short story form to examine the influence of myth, magick, and the supernatural on the interstitial areas of the United States. The power of words as a force for change figures prominently in these stories. This thesis looks at the monstrous as it moves in the darkness and in the minds of humans, but also at the tremendous depths of compassion and courage we find in ourselves when faced with monstrous situations.

The Hydraulic Dimension Of Reconstruction In Louisiana, 1863-1879, Matthew P. Carlin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Louisiana developed an extensive system of levees throughout the Atchafalaya Basin and along its territorial Mississippi River. This system reached its zenith on the eve of the American Civil War. It went into dramatic decline following the conflict due to the confluence of military activity, protracted irregular warfare, and neglect stemming from labor and capital revolution. These shifts intensified with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and finally consolidated after the ratification of Louisiana’s Constitution of 1879. The shift of responsibility for the construction and maintenance of levees during the Reconstruction Era led to many significant changes in the character and function …

The Piñata, Stevie L. Cavalier

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I will discuss the making of the short film, The Piñata, from its inception to its path of being submitted to festivals. I will discuss the steps taken to complete the processes of development, pre-production, production, and post-production. In each section of this document I will relay the decisions I made during my experience being the producer, writer, director, editor, and casting director of The Piñata.

Timelocked: A Thesis, Emmett J. Crockett Iii

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the development and execution of the short film, Timelocked. I will focus on the complete process of the film’s creation, from the first inspiration of the idea through its planning, its production and, finally, its use beyond submission to my thesis committee for consideration. The most significant challenge for this project was remaining true to the story’s genre, tone, and theme throughout each iteration of its development. Therefore, the structure of the paper will serve to describe the entire process with respect to the preservation of these three …

The First Rule Of Improv, John M. Gilder

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The First Rule of Improv is a collection of fictional short stories concerned with loss, life’s unfairness, the weight of the past, and how people succeed or fail in coping. Each story explores these notions through its characters, who vary wildly in terms of both dramatic severity and success in the face of adversity, with the first rule of improv—to accept and build—being suggested by the author as the healthiest manner of approach, if not necessarily the easiest.

Do We Make A Sound? An American Morality Play, Bennett A. Kirschner

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

"Not Tea And Crumpets": The 1976 Louisiana Governor's Conference On Women And The Formation Of A New Women's Platform, 1972-1982, Vickie A. Lacoste

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The success of three Louisiana feminists in the 1970s, Fran Bussie, Clarence Marie Collier, and Pat Evans stemmed from their professional expertise in labor rights, education, and politics, respectively. By joining and maintaining memberships in a variety of social, civic, and activists groups, these feminist leaders via the 1976 Louisiana Governor’s Conference on Women created a unique network that allowed for the formation of a new women’s platform. This conference advanced women’s rights, established a working platform for reform, and helped usher in second-wave feminism in Louisiana. Using conference booklets, archived video and audio interviews, and newspaper articles, this thesis …

Amalgamations, Brennan Probst

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

I explore time, memory, and the artist’s ability to convey experience through autobiographical photographs and drawings. In my compositions, I provide an intimate look into my life, while making wider observations about how my mind processes the world. My work is concerned with circumventing the objective, static qualities of photography. I attempt to create images that convey how experiences feel, instead of how they look through the lens of an optical apparatus. With my work, I do not wish to take from the world around me, but rather to create from the world within me. By utilizing multiple exposures and …

How We Live Today And Other Stories, Gregory W. Rohloff

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

How We Live Today is a collection of stories about family connections and the process of making amends to keep a family whole. The families are not just traditional families, but also arrangements constructed out of necessity, circumstance, or convenience. The title story tells how a man ends a lengthy divide with a stepmother for the sake of her, his son, and ultimately himself. We see adolescents do the right thing in their circumstances at the risk of losing peer standing or to avert future social damage. An older golfer encourages a younger golfer, easing guilt but realizing that respect …

Darwin Or Frankenstein?, Sylvia S. Santamaria

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through sculpture and drawing, I create my own versions of natural specimens primarily based upon the visual unity of disparate organisms. Invented specimens are composed using a variety of processes employing a mixture of atypical materials following the (20^th, 21^st century) Postmodern shift away from formalist and traditional uses of any singular medium. As well as a variety of art materials, the specimens are hybrids of organic and biomorphic elements, blurring boundaries between botanical, animal, fungal, metal, and mineral. Is my approach perhaps like Charles Darwin, observant and studious naturalist, or am I more like Dr. Frankenstein, …

The Half-Lives We Were Living, Chelsey K. Shannon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This short story collection deals with themes of race, kinship, desire, subjectivity, and appearance vs. reality.

Amending The Record: Proofreading American Naval War Diaries Written In The Pontus, 1921-1922, Toria Smith

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Herman L. Midlo: Social Ally In Louisiana Religious Civil Rights, Kenneth William-Moran Taylor

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The study of social allies in the field of American Civil Rights and Liberties History is largely an underappreciated aspect of this historical era. This work argues that social allies and their stories are worthwhile histories that are beneficial to the study of American Civil Rights and Liberties using Louisiana lawyer Herman Lazard Midlo as a case study. Midlo worked as a Louisiana lawyer from the 1930s to 1960s and fought tirelessly for the religious liberties of the Jehovah’s Witness community in the state. His story shows how beneficial and consequential the actions of social allies have had and can …

The Color Of Invisibility, Bryan A. Vanmeter

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of Ralph Ellison’s use of color terminology in his novel, Invisible Man. By taking an in depth look at the circumstances in which Ellison uses specific color terms, the reader can ascertain the author’s thoughts on various historical events, as well as the differences between characters in the novel such as Ras, Dr. Bledsoe, and Rinehart.

Past The Darkness, Kathleen M. Vieira

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper will discuss the making of my thesis film, Past the Darkness. I will describe the entire process including story conception, film production, and post-production stages. I will also evaluate the merits, flaws, and outcome of this project.

Strategic Hybridity In Early Chinese And Japanese American Literature, Floyd Cheung

English Language and Literature: Faculty Publications

Early Chinese and Japanese American male writers between 1887 and 1938 such as Yan Phou Lee, Yung Wing, Sadakichi Hartmann, Yone Noguchi, and H. T. Tsiang accessed dominant US publishing markets and readerships by presenting themselves and their works as cultural hybrids that strategically blended enticing Eastern content and forms with familiar Western language and structures. Yan Phou Lee perpetrated cross-cultural comparisons that showed that Chinese were not unlike Europeans and Americans. Yung Wing appropriated and then transformed dominant American autobiographical narratives to recuperate Chinese character. Sadakichi Hartmann and Yone Noguchi combined poetic traditions from Japan, Europe, and America in …

A Space Of Their Own Color: Black Greek Letter Organizations At The University Of New Orleans, August J. Darbonne

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Every semester across the United States, countless students join Greek letter organizations. While some may recognize the Greek letters, many Americans do not know the racial divide within the Greek life system, and the difference of purpose those organizations hold. This study focuses on eight historically Black fraternities and sororities and more specifically, their chapters at the University of New Orleans, a university that throughout its history has had a predominantly White student body, and often fostered an environment overtly and subtly hostile to African-American students.

Using oral histories, university yearbooks, and university newspapers this study demonstrates how Black fraternities …

Undertow, Adam Karlin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A short story collection that explores themes of culture, history, race, movement, stagnancy, and freedom. All stories are connected by elements of water, swimming, rivers, or wetlands. All contain characters seeking to escape their circumstances, with varying degrees of success. For some characters, the arc of their development lays in their movement; for others, it lays in their learning to live with a lack of movement.