Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Roxy Letters, Mary Pauline Lowry

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Roxy Letters is a comedic written in letters from Roxy—an undersexed, underemployed, well-educated, and verbose twenty-something working at the deli of the flagship Whole Foods in Austin, TX—to her ex-boyfriend Everett who is living with her, but is failing to pay rent while succeeding in totally ruining her mojo!

As Roxy struggles to raise herself from her artistic, romantic, and employment slumps, she finds a new best friend in Artemis, who is a burlesque dancing, girl goddess, and huntress of men. Roxy battles with the meth heads who live next door; reluctantly tries out a sex cult focused on …

Three Quarters, Michael Mckee Green

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Three Quarters makes retrospection into prospection. Following its speaker from the near-present to the near-past, the text imposes a spiritual and affective pilgrimage onto nine months (three quarters of a year) of his life. Codas, pieces of parataxis, and grammatical slippages color and heighten the experiences of a young man coming to terms with himself by reliving what’s come.

Murder Pass: Tackling Toxic Masculinity Through Musical Comedy, Chad Nowlan

Honors College Theses

The author discusses the process of co-writing a full-length musical that addresses issues of toxic masculinity and sexism.

Young Americans For Freedom And The Anti-War Movement: Pro-War Encounters With The New Left At The Height Of The Vietnam War, Ethan Swift

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

While a vast amount of contemporary scholarship has been dedicated to student activism during the late 1960s and early 1970s, very little of it has focused on those who supported the war in Vietnam. The few authors who have written on the topic tend to present pro-war activists as a mild-mannered force that used conventional and congenial tactics to advocate for victory in southeast Asia. This paper will upend this characterization by examining how members of the conservative organization Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) saw themselves as a besieged minority at American universities and responded to the radicalism of the …

Does It Mean? Gene Wolfe: Perverse Puzzle Maker, Marc Anthony Aramini

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The goal of this study is to re-examine the possibility of determining authorial intention, focusing on an author considered by many to be sui generis, science fiction grandmaster Gene Wolfe, well known for his confusing and difficult texts. Wolfe has a reputation as a “puzzle box” writer. Chapter One will trace some of the critical controversy surrounding his reception. Chapter Two will touch on a shift in recent twentieth- and twenty-first-century criticism from poststructural and deconstructive tenets to a more authentic trust between author and reader, attempting to minimize the implications of the hermeneutic of suspicion without decreasing the richness …

Floating Head Touching Earth, Carrieann Cahall

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Floating Head Touching Earth is a collection of short stories centered on themes of identity, historical and intergenerational trauma, familial duty, and self-discovery delivered through prose that is often tinged with surreal or strange elements. Inspired by the craft of writers like Flannery O’Connor and Aimee Bender, my work seeks to explore the power that seemingly small or forgotten experiences can have on one’s psyche in ways that ripple throughout a lifetime. The stories are organized in a manner that track an unraveling of the body, history, relationships and the minds of its various protagonists. The Buddhist mudra, or gesture, …

The Search For Home: An Analysis Of American-Socialized Filipino American Identity In Literature, Julianna Marie Crame

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many studies on Filipino American literature focus on the first-generation’s struggle with assimilation; however, American-socialized generation 1.5 and second-generation Filipino Americans also face immense pressure. How do generation 1.5 and second-generation Filipino Americans develop their identities in compliance with and resistance to stereotypes created by the dominant American and Filipino communities? To answer this question, I use a postcolonial and Asian American Studies theoretical framework to do close readings of three novels written by American-socialized Filipino Americans from the 2000s-2010s and set in the 1990s. These novels are American Son (2001) by Brian Ascalon Roley for racial stereotypes, One Tribe …

Encyclopedia Of My Body, Alice Hastings

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This creative thesis project is a culmination of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree at UNLV. The thesis—titled Encyclopedia of My Body—was composed entirely during my graduate semesters at UNLV. As a hybrid collection book of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, it explores the different bodies that create and shape human people. Included within these bodies are of course the temporal, organic bodies human people inhabit; using my own body as the focus, I explore the intersections of gender, pain, and transness. This collection however seeks to trouble the idea of bodies, and therefore explores the bodies …

Illuminating Unsung Americans Sung As A Musical Staple Within American Culture, Richard Leon Hodges

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The book Unsung Americans Sung was first published in 1944 by the Handy Brothers Publishing Company. With over 30 contributors and edited by William C. Handy, this book explores the great abolitionists of the eighteenth century and the climate of Negro culture during that moment in time. The book includes poetry, illustrations, children’s songs, choral works, scenes from major works, and art songs. Handy was not only offering his opinion of the Negro of the time, but he was creating a book that would add these freedom fighters and generational torchbearers into the archives of every American. Sadly, this glimpse …

“On The Altar Of Sectarianism”: Orson Murray’S Anti-Biblical Thought And The American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833-1863, James Carson Howard

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My thesis focuses on the abolitionist movement in America through the lens of forgotten abolitionist, Orson S. Murray. Murray was an original member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) and was editor of the Vermont Baptists’ denominational newspaper from 1835-1843. Like other abolitionists, Murray used the press as his pulpit to facilitate abolitionist thought with a Christian influence. Murray’s use of the press to circulate his abolitionist thought was however understood by the Vermont Baptist Committee as an agitating disruption toward the unity of the broader Baptist community. After Murray’s informal excommunication, it increased his skepticism of religion and caused …

Florence B. Price's Compositional Style To Song Settings Of Paul Laurence Dunbar's Dialect Poetry: A Performance Guide, Daniel Joseph Hunter Jr

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Florence B. Price (1887-1953) was an African-American composer from Little Rock, Arkansas. Ms. Price, who was a mixed-race female, was able to achieve unprecedented success during her lifetime. Price, a composer of instrumental, orchestral, and vocal music,

acknowledged the challenges of being a woman of color, trying to break into a world dominated by white men. Through her perseverance, she found success in 1933 when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor, making her the first African-American woman to have a work performed by a major orchestra in the United States. Marian Anderson, William Grant Still and …

Literal Dope, Frank Johnson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Literal Dope draws from the rich literary traditions of hip-hop and the broader umbrella of Black American art traditions. It seems to me that perhaps the best way to honor the language which raised me, taught me, and literally saved my life is to explore it, praise it, weaponize it when necessary, and deploy it as a tool for Black liberation. The work’s theory is deeply informed by bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, and a number of Black feminist artists. The world needs Black folks—especially Black men—who know love; who know how to love each other and know they …

Queering Utopia: Act Up And The Disruption Of Heteronormativity, Nicholas Lepp

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The existing literature on queer utopianism tends to analyze static aesthetic artifacts as opposed to diachronic social movements designed to create material policy changes. This opens room for various criticisms of queer utopianism regarding it being too wishful and devolving into political and social forms of queer dystopia. In order to remedy this concern, this thesis seeks to investigate how queer utopic thought can be used to create long-lasting change. To answer this question, this thesis is broadly divided into two sections—one theoretical and one practical. My theoretical section delves into an analysis of the after-effects of queer utopic cuts …

Nonstate Actors And International Law: Just War Theory Or The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights?, Jason Lee Mitchell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There is a debate taking place within the global war on terror (GWT), and its legal and moral parameters are established by two basic arguments. The first is that “Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war” (Ex parte Quirin, 37). The second is that an “Enemy combatant” is a general category that subsumes two sub-categories: lawful and unlawful combatants. The conclusion as it currently stands is …

George Gershwin's Concerto In F: A Wind Orchestra Transcription With Historical Context And Transcription Techniques, Andrew Smouse

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document discusses the transcription process of creating a wind orchestra transcription of George Gershwin’s Concerto in F. Following a brief biography of George Gershwin and historical context of the work, the transcription methodology and precise instrument substitution are provided. The resulting transcription adds a new Gershwin work to the wind band repertoire.

Focusing on three key principles, (1) maintaining the original key, expressive, and technical markings; (2) preserving the original instrumental parts of the orchestral score; and (3) continuing to use the consort and soloistic styles of composition, the document describes the transcription methodology through specific examples. These examples …

Forget Me Not & Other Stories, Zach Wilson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My thesis manuscript Forget Me Not & Other Stories is composed of several short stories and the first section of a novel. The first drafts of these stories were written during my first and second years in the program while my primary focus this semester has been the novel. I believe this thesis reflects my growth as both a writer and critical reader of fiction as a result of my time here. Much of the work included here began as assignments for a creative class, including an imitation of Marilyn Robinson’s’ Gilead written for Professor Doug Unger’s Forms of Fiction. …

Empire And Other Stories From The Black Rock, Alex Zenz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis is a collection of stories submitted as required by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for completion of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. These short pieces of fiction are narrated by women from a small town on the edge of the Black Rock Desert in the northern part of the state of Nevada as they engage with outsiders passing through, interact with the harsh expanses of wilderness surrounding their home, and contend with the changing economic landscape of the area.

Merciless: A Crude Hagiography, Lindsey Ann Klessens Appell

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is the culmination of a project that began as an attempt to explore my relationship, as a teenager, with the Main Street of my hometown, Roundup, MT. In the process of looking through the Roundup Record-Tribune archives and revisiting adolescent memories, I began to see connective tissue between the autobiographical aspects of this documentary project and the work I had been doing in reclaiming, repurposing, and “translating” folklore and mythology in my poetry. Coming out of classes in Old English and translation theory, I had also developed an interest in experimental and creative translation of early medieval texts, …

Queen Eleanor Of Aquitaine: Political Motherhood In The Middle Ages, Sherry Lynn Mason

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Historians have frequently written on the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) although few have studied her role as an affectionate, devoted, dutiful mother. This work is an attempt to address this situation through the study of available primary sources on Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Even though she was Queen of France (1137-1152) and England (1137-1189) she was considered less important than any man of her class because of the societal norms of the time. In reality she played an important part in the Angevin Empire for the power and influence she wielded in her own right. She used this …

Extraordinary, Caleigh Bubala

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

No abstract provided.

Cover Art, Jordan Horton

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

No abstract provided.

Streetopia, Haysten Perez

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

No abstract provided.

Leslieluis, Caleigh Bubala

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

No abstract provided.

Stack, Joslyn Fox

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

No abstract provided.

How Is It That, Caleigh Bubala

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

No abstract provided.

Sunday World, Caleigh Bubala

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

No abstract provided.

Ash Fall, Caleigh Bubala

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

No abstract provided.

The Drunken Cock, Chad Rohrbacher

Publications

No abstract provided.

M0mentary Lapses, Alice Salyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Master of Fine Arts exhibition Momentary Lapses, held at Tipton Gallery, February 25-March 8, 2019. The mixed media works and video examine the intersections between digital, somatic and societal decay through the mediation of the digital image by physical anthropogenic efforts.

Themes in the work include glitch art and theory, entropy, memory, decay, and loss. Contemporary American society’s desensitization associated with the oversaturation of digital imagery is discussed, as well as Guy Debord’s theory of the Spectacle, and the artistic practices of Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg.

Escape, Joslyn Fox

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

No abstract provided.