Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Claiming Of Kin: A Linguistic Analysis Of Southern Appalachian English In Melissa Range's Scriptorium: Poems, Jolee White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research studies the Southern Appalachian dialect present in five poems in Melissa Range’s Scriptorium: Poems. The linguistic phenomena characteristic of Southern Appalachian English observed and analyzed in the poems include lexicon, grammatical features, and phonological aspects. The research seeks to bring attention to this Appalachian woman writer as well as to bring understanding of her reasoning behind incorporating the dialect in her poetry. It establishes that the five poems by Range contain the lexicon, grammatical features, and phonological aspects of the SAE dialect. It holds meaning both grammatically and pragmatically within the context of the poem and Appalachia.

Coal, Land, And Ideology: Inventions Of Appalachia In The Mind Of The American Ruling Class, Zachary Harris

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appalachia, itself a difficult to resolutely define region, has undergone the economic forces of colonialism and industrializing capitalism which allow for an excellent case study to apply Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. No American region’s national conception is likely to have been as varied and often misrepresented as that of Appalachia. From the Revolutionary American State’s invention of early white settlers as the virtuous yeoman of the Republic to the modern perception of Appalachia as backwards, conservative, and drug-addled, shifting national economic conditions resulted in a constant invention of Appalachia in congruence. Whenever the people residing in Appalachia, whether Black, …

Analyzing The Use Of Chiastic Structures Within Patriarchal Narratives In Genesis, Hunter Seehorn

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Chiastic structures are utilized throughout the entirety of the Bible but are prominently found in the book of Genesis. This paper aims to research the stories of four different patriarchal characters of the Bible to see how chiastic structures are used in these stories. By looking at the stories of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph in Genesis, I will demonstrate the effectiveness of chiastic structures covering the entirety of the stories, as well as how smaller chiasmi work within each. An appreciation of these chiastic structures deepens our appreciation of the formal structuring of Biblical narratives and the transformational character …

Stepping Into A Moment: A Historical Reconstruction Of Lord Dunmore's Portrait, Slade Nakoff

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study of material culture study has long been estranged from mainstream academic discourse often dismissed as the examination of pots and pans. Historians are beginning to realize that material culture and cultural reconstruction offer vital insights into the past. Building upon new developments, my project reconstructs the items painted by Joshua Reynolds in his famous painting of Lord Dunmore. This reconstruction allows for the efforts of unnamed tradesmen to be retraced, making a few people and their efforts which were lost to history known once again. By employing written documentation in tandem with extant artifacts, the project recreates every …

Steadfast: Connections Fostered Through Dance, Lily Mckenzie

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Steadfast is an expression of dance as an emotional and spiritual experience, as well as an exploration of the deep connections that may be fostered through the art form of dance. My personal experience, which will function as inspiration for this choreographic piece and performance, has led me to see dance as a means to connect with God when used as worship and a way to connect with other people and form meaningful relationships. Through the production and execution of this performing art, I hope to explore and experience these aspects of dance as well as my own personal journey. …

My Perception Of Reality Expressed Through The Arts, Amanda Dunker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis project will focus on the symbolism and artistic interpretation of how I perceive reality. This thesis project uses all artistic skills that I have acquired throughout my lifetime and combines them into one mixed digital media video. This is a mix between the two digital media formats 2D and 3D. Each animation and segment syncs with the music selected manually or technically. The process of creation for each segment and explaining which software I choose to use for each task. It also dives a little further, noting the artistic decisions and why. The symbolism used within the art …

2d Character Design And Sculpting For Concept Development, Sidney Moore

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The focus of this thesis is on the transition from 2D character design to 3D model design, and how this transition affects the appeal, fluidity, and clarity of the 2D design. The source material for this project was an original screenplay entitled The Birds Work for Bea. Three characters from the material were selected for a process including ideation, research, 2D character and style exploration, 3D sculpting, and 3D printing and finishing. This project serves as a study in all aspects of the character concept development pipeline.

A Sign Of The Time: An Exploration Of Interior Design For Senior Living Via Aging In Place, Independent Living, Assisted Living, And Memory Care, Mary Lane

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The nature of this essay explores the changes in designing a space for aging clients through the end of their lives. Over the course of the essay, four major time periods, their respective design elements, and three floor plans are highlighted through a third person narrative of Jill and Don. These fictitious characters are created using research in the process of aging and personal interviews with loved ones whose experiences have been adapted or modified from their original candor to fit this storyline.

Reflections: Battling Body Image As A Dancer, Erika Shaffer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Reflections is a dance I choreographed and performed on February 25, 2022 in studio 205 Campus Center Building at East Tennessee State University. The dance explores the relationship between a dancer’s mind and body and uses mirrors and repetition to express the dancers’ perception of their flaws and insecurities. The following thesis, Reflections: Battling Body Image as a Dancer, analyzes the artistic elements of the choreographic process, my experiences as a dance student at ETSU from 2018-2022, as well as my training in my youth. My research for this thesis involves exploring the history and craft of choreography including the …

Collective, Vulnerable, Nascent (Post) Qualitative Inquiry-Writing, Catherine Thiele, Stephen Heimans, Catherine Manathunga, Suzanne Barry, Benjamin Cherry-Smith, Kristy Farrelly, Terry Grogan, Robyn Kemble, Lisa Mcilwain

The Qualitative Report

As a group of multidisciplinary postgraduate research students and teachers emerging as a “we,” we read, discussed, and then, without planning to do so, responded in writing to the textual provocations of three post qualitative texts. We picture ourselves as a “classing,” a “becoming class” (Meirieu, 2020, para. 1.). We are a study-group-thinking-writing experimentation; vulnerable, wobbling and joyously grappling to (re)shape (our) post qualitative inquiries. The experiment offered a scholarly place to critically, creatively, and softly curate post qualitative questions and wonderings. The writings below offer a lure into our nascent post-qualitative vulnerabilities. The purpose of this paper is to …

The Manchu Queue: A Complex Symbol In Chinese Identity, Alexander Jesus Serrano

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The queue hairstyle that was enforced on all Chinese men for over 260 years in China was, in fact, not a Chinese hairstyle. It can be traced to the Jurchen tribes north of the Great Wall and became a complex political and cultural symbol under the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The queue signified many things to different people at different times from its 1645 widespread implementation to its sudden disappearance following the revolution of 1911. It is in this ambiguity that the queue provides a rich analytical window through which curious minds can observe sentiments of Ming loyalism, bodily modification, …

Rabble-Rousers: A Brief Treatise On Populism And Its Ascent In The West, Andrew Baechtel

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This project aims to examine the causes for the recent ascent of populism in the West during the last dozen or so years with a lens focused on the United States and France. The primary area under observation is both the historical and contemporary role that populism and its adherents have played within our cultures. I aim to address the following: What is populism, how has it been broadly understood and how do its adherents regard it and what causes populist movements to develop. Academics in the field have produced a rich historiography that reveals a divided discourse. Previously analysts …

Building A Coalition In California: The 1911 Campaign For Women's Suffrage, Kristina A. Cardinale

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Women in California gained the right to vote in 1911 after a mass-organized campaign across the state. Suffrage, labor, and temperance organizations were driving forces behind the women’s suffrage proposition passing and being amended to the state constitution. The women figureheads and membership of these associations were responsible for organizing politically and reaching across class lines in order to build a coalition for women’s suffrage in the state. This research serves as a compilation and analysis of the female-driven clubs, leadership, and strategies behind the Campaign of 1911.

Future Proof, Melanie Asalde-Smith

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My work can be distilled into two major points of inquiry: perception and technology. I render minimalist interactions between reflective planes, shapes floating in space, and portals into the void. Driven by color, light and space, my work warps its environment through the illusion of illumination and dimension, and invites viewers to lose themselves in the altered space. This work is reflective of my life experience, caught between the real and the unreal.

Technology is both a muse and a tool in creating my analog work. The screen both heightens and distracts from my anxiety. Like many in my generation, …

100 Seconds To Midnight, Melissa Medina

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My artistic practice focuses on the concept of mortality and investigates the human condition. Through my work, I often personify the concept of death and investigate the several forms that it may take across several cultures. The skull is most often used as a symbol of mortality, and it serves as one of the key elements in my work. I am drawn to the elements portrayed in classical memento mori paintings, and as a result, I have borrowed certain objects commonly used in these works and have paired them alongside more modern elements to create a new narrative. With this …

Causal And Contributing Factors In Lynching Women, Cecelia Smith

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The violent act of lynching has mostly been identified as a method of vigilante justice perpetrated against African American men. During the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) in the south, these efforts of terror by violent mobs were employed to instill fear, to preserve an economy that had been fortified by a now-extinct slave industry, and to facilitate a white supremacist ideology. Initial lynching and data analyses have often seen scholars focus explicitly on male experiences. Women, however, were also victimized by this type of mob violence. African American women, White women, and Mexican women were lynched, but justification for such actions …

Flora's Fourth Child: Race, Gender, And Botany In The British Colonial Caribbean, Brittany L. Mondragon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In 1824, an enslaved woman named Catalina (alias Susannah Mathison) induced an abortion by drinking an herbal mixture on the Castle Wemyss Estate in Jamaica. Consequently, the estate’s attorney denounced her as an African witchcraft practitioner. Many enslaved women faced similar convictions for their botanical knowledge as British colonists misinterpreted Obeah for witchcraft or superstition. This thesis sheds light on these women’s experiences and examines how the British Empire imposed imperial rule over enslaved women by reflecting on the intersectionality of race, gender, and botany. Focusing on the Greater Caribbean area and centering primarily around Jamaica, this research explores the …

Slow Violence, Cli-Fi, And Opportunities For Change How Bipoc Futurisms Promote Activism, Francisco Baeza

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The threat of anthropogenic climate change is discussed almost exclusively in terms of “scientific” data to the exclusion of the humanities. For some worlds, climate change has already destroyed their ways of life and forced them to adapt. Climate fiction – or cli-fi – written by BIPOC authors is one way we can begin to think of how the planet is not just one world but a plurality of worlds. This project centers authors and world-makers who come from communities that have been left at the margins of the science fiction and cli-fi genres. By looking at fictions from a …

From Fast Fashion To Sustainable Slow Fashion, Isabel Agatha Millward-Pena

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to express a need for sustainability within the fast fashion industry, in the form of cultural movement that acts as alternative to the current means of production, consumption, and philosophies. Sustainability within current popular discourses is often human-centered and lacking authenticity, thus I aim to highlight an alternative that is opposite of that. In doing such, I bring to light the negative effects of the industry through a case study on the fast fashion company SHEIN, who claim to be making sustainable efforts. I analyzed SHEIN’s 2021 Sustainability and Social Impact Report (SSIR), focusing …

The Rain Over Hanoi: A Personal Project About Screenplay Structure, Story, Representation And Intergenerational Struggle, Joan Moua

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A good screenplay is first and foremost a good story. Elements of a good story include compelling characters, a theoretical structure, and a well-executed premise. The Rain Over Hanoi is an extremely intimate and personal project about an Asian American expat living in Vietnam. Our protagonist’s journey and coming of age is explored via the interactions she has with her old and new family. Communication through food, symbolism, and cultural exchange are also present throughout the screenplay, utilizing a realistic point of view for the benefit of a full story submersion experience to the reader/viewer. Themes of self-exploration, growing up, …

The Sanctuary Campus: Establishing Safe Spaces Of Higher Education For Undocumented And Daca-Status Students, Lizbet Martinez-Port

CSB and SJU Distinguished Thesis

The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 brought fear to undocumented and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status students on campuses across the United States. In his campaign, Trump detailed his desire to get rid of the Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Various institutions of higher education created resources, put in place sanctuary policies, and even declared themselves as sanctuary campuses to fight against the challenges that hindered undocumented and DACA students from achieving a higher education. This paper focuses on the policies at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, two private Catholic …

A Music Composition Through The Use Of Animal Sounds, Andy Nguy

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The knowledge on animals has been studied over many years by researching and understanding animal behavior and creativity with music. Bioacoustics shows a great deal when it comes to collecting sounds through many principles for sound data collection. With saved recording of animals, music, speeches, and so much more, it has impacted the way music is created through technology. Music production has been advancing in many creative ways. The foundation of sound manipulation is musique concrète. The project uses these concepts of audio recording and digital sounds to produce a composition that includes animal sounds.

Margin Of Error, Aubrey Felty

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

According to Utah State University’s Office of Analysis, Assessment, and Accreditation during the Fall semester of 2020, about 18% of students enrolled were students of color. About 2.5% of students enrolled identified as two or more races. Margin of Error is a docudrama that elevates the voices of multiracial college students and promotes a better understanding of multiracial individuals. The project involves actor portrayals of interviews with multiracial college students who discuss navigating their multiple racial identities at often predominantly white universities. It also features reactions and commentary on the students’ experiences from faculty and students at Utah State University. …

Lost Memories, Lost Colonies, Emma C. Smith

Honors Theses

The Roanoke Colony was the first English colony in America. The colonists were abandonded by the Governor shortly after the colony was established. In public memory, the fate of the colony is highly debated and has since become an American founding myth. As a result of the contested fate, the story of Roanoke has since become a blank slate upon which other legends can evolve. These legends become a window for historians into the insecurities of those who created them. This paper discusses why the English wanted to establish a colony, the popularization of Pocahontas, the history of marriages between …

The Underrepresentation Of Women In Filmmaking, Paola Sandoval

Honors Theses

My thesis project seeks to bring awareness to the ongoing problem of the underrepresentation of women in filmmaking. During the initial stages of filmmaking, many women contributed to the developing Hollywood industry. As film-watching grew in popularity in the 1920s, filmmaking turned into a lucrative business. Consequently, this boost of film production pushed women to the outskirts, making the field male-dominated. This has continued into the present-day leaving women having to overcome the challenges of garnering positions on a film crew.

Existing research on this topic mostly focuses on Hollywood. However, the underrepresentation of women in film is not only …

Vagabondage, Andrea Lora Castillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Vagabondage is a novel about grief and identity. The novel opens with its protagonist, Jilly, learning about her brother Parisâ??s death via a phone call with her grandma. Throughout her time of grief, she must contend with her husband, James, taking advantage of her grieving state and using her as a model for his photography careerâ??a career in which he amasses quite a reputable amount of fame. As Jamesâ?? career grows, Jilly is introduced to his best friend, Michael, a musician in a rock band. He and Jilly begin a love affair, and it is through this relationship that Jilly …

"To Control A Human Destiny:" Sound Design For Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Allison Bucher

Honors Theses

This undergraduate thesis details the sound design process for the University of Southern Mississippi’s Fall 2021 production of Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. Through analysis of the script style of the play, research of the playwright, and collaboration with the artistic team, this student created and implemented an effective sound design for this production.

Keywords: sound, design, theatre, Hedda Gabler, Ibsen

Reference Management Software In The Classroom: Student Awareness, Knowledge, And Usage, Javier Cortez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research project examines the University of Texas at El Paso undergraduate students' general awareness, knowledge, and usage of reference management software (RMS). Moreover, an important aim of the project is to compare incoming and first-year college students (freshmen and sophomores) relationship to RMS against upper-level undergraduates (juniors and seniors). The project consisted of three phases, with a lecture on RMS and a pre-and post-lecture survey bookending the project. The principal investigator recruited 150 students from two different courses within the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program at UTEP. Six classes were surveyed: four sections of RWS 1301 and two sections …

What Happened To Rosie The Riveter?: Media Portrayals Of Women In The Workforce, 1942-1946, Vivienne Cookmeyer

Honors Theses

Rosie the Riveter is a common feminist icon; however, few people know what happened to the Rosies after the war. Due to the Veterans Preference Act, women lost their jobs and went back to their home lives, which is contrary to the belief that women were incorporated into the workforce after World War II. Many women were laid off and had to fight to keep their jobs, resort to stereotypical female work, or revert to the caretaker of the home. While these women struggled for equality, there was a sustained increase in the number of women in the workforce in …

Indumentaria Contra La Mujer, Ines Gallo De Urioste

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A translation of Anne Boyer's Garments Against Women.