Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Teacher Collaboration And Elementary Arts Integration: Policy And Possibility, Tara L. Carpenter, Mark A. Graham, Corinna Peterken, Mikaela Cannon, Anna Harris

Faculty Publications

Arts education can be an important part of the elementary child’s experience. However, keeping the arts in schools is often a challenge because of funding concerns and competing academic priorities. An important strategy in arts education advocacy and policy is arts integration. Arts integration creates a rationale for the arts based on the enhancement of the educational experience for all students and the potential to engage underserved or less engaged students with academic disciplines through the arts. This article examines teacher experiences within a statewide program that funds arts specialists in elementary schools with the requirement that they integrate the …

Faithful Democracy: Synthesising Religious And Political Practice In The Sydney Alliance, Rosemary Hancock

IES Papers and Journal Articles

This article examines the role religious institutions, communities, and individuals might play in democratising 21st-century cities. Based on participatory action research with the Sydney Alliance, a broad-based community organisation in Sydney, Australia, I examine how a civil society coalition attempts to draw religious communities into the political life of the city, the way religious culture and space shapes the political culture of the coalition, and the challenges faced by the coalition in working across religious and nonreligious difference. I argue that political coalitions like the Sydney Alliance that work across diverse worldviews are pulled in two different directions: the effort …

Defining And Exploring Animal Sentience, Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva Mrs, Ian J.H. Duncan, Nicholas Palmer

Animal Sentience

One of the commentaries on the target article notes that "animal sentience" is difficult to define operationally. This response to the commentaries develops a working, usable definition of animal sentience and examines the relationships between animal emotions and sentience.

Malthi In Media: Peopling An Ancient Village In Virtual Space, Rebecca Worsham, Sarah Kam, Annika Lof, Nora Sullivan, Aurora Bagley

Other Student Projects

STRIDE Project "A Digital Archaeology of Malthi, Greece"

/="/">Digital applications have increased the possibilities for the visualization of archaeological material. Here are presented two reconstructions of the Bronze Age settlement Malthi, created using Minecraft and Twine, both readily accessible programs. These recreations draw on data from archaeological work at the site and are intended to depict alternative interpretations of the settlement, allowing for the uncertainty inherent in archaeology. They are likewise intended to invite interaction with the site beyond physically visiting, with the goal of increasing participation in the formation of knowledge about Malthi. The approach advocated here is …

Correlates Of Christian Religious Identification And Deidentification Among Sexual And Gender Minorities: A U.S. Probability Sample, G. Tyler Lefevor, Lauren J. A. Bouton, Edward B. Davis, Samuel J. Skidmore, Ilan H. Meyer

Psychology Faculty Publications

Using a U.S. nationally representative sample of 1,529 sexual and gender minorities (SGMs), we examined the demographic and developmental correlates of Christian religious deidentification. We found that SGMs who were older, Black, cisgender men, and/or lived in the American South were more likely to identify as Christian in adulthood, relative to other SGMs. Those who were never Christian reported being more out to family and friends at earlier ages than those who were raised Christian. SGMs who were raised Christian, but did not identify as Christian in adulthood reported, more adverse childhood experiences and bullying than other SGMs. Sexual minorities …

Mrs. Blackbird And The Visiting Chair, Taylor Barnhart

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The following thesis is a middle grade novel exploring the events of one summer in the lives of two siblings, Susannah and Sawyer. The siblings are grieving the recent death of their mother and, at the same time, attempting to navigate the emotional withdrawal of their father. During the summer, the siblings get to know their eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Blackbird, who communicates with the spirit of her dead husband through an old armchair which is rumored to have magical powers. The novel deals primarily with the theme of grief and its pervasive nature in people’s lives. The story looks at …

Invisible Monsters: Chuck Palahniuk’S Transgressive Look At A Hyperrealized Society, Jordan R. Trevarthen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

By critically analyzing Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters, I was able to conclude that the transgressive portrayal of hyperrealized consumerism warranted a close examination into the value American society places on an individual’s ability to replace authenticity for consumer obedience. Palahniuk’s dangerous representation of the body throughout the novel serves to highlight numerous ways in which a consumer transgresses against their own physical and mental well-being to achieve happiness constructed by capitalistic agendas. By using French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality in connection with gender, disability, and feminist theory and ecocriticism, I attempt to deconstruct the neoliberal ideology to which …

Preparations, Sarah E. Lewis

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The following thesis is an excerpt from a novel depicting Caleb Warring and his employer, Mr. Phineas Pruitt, in their business of running a funeral home. It’s been a year since Caleb started working for Mr. Pruitt and since the bodies they had been embalming and preparing started coming back to life. After researching and careful planning, the two decide to embark on a trip to discover the solution to their problem, accompanied by Caleb’s best friend and Mr. Pruitt’s sister. Through the technique of agential constellations, the use of the uncanny, and a distinction between horror and terror, this …

“Laugh, When I Gives You A Joke”: The Forms And Functions Of Humor In The Great War, Samuel Sakoulas Griffin

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In today’s popular memory, the First World War experience is not well-known for its humor. Yet during and after the war, soldiers produced a small but significant wave of wartime joke books and humorous war-story collections, in part to cope with their experiences in terrible, industrialized war, and also as a way to interpret, commemorate, and remember the war. These humorous interpretations and memories of the war clashed with the dominant literary reaction to the war, that of the mutilation of bodies and pointless deaths. But humor appeared in the midst of the slaughter, and today serves as an opening …

Menagerie Pains, Rachel D. Mcclay

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In my creative thesis, readers follow Toddus as he accomplishes different tasks set out by the prince he serves, Prince Dinnax. My critical introduction examines the use of a hero in both my book and Redwall, by Brian Jacques, through the three steps of a hero’s journey outlined in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell’s steps can be found in almost every book published, even non-adventure books. After following the steps, I examine my own choice of hero. Toddus is a personal guard to a prince, and as such does not carry a lot of …

Domesticity And Religion: Women In Italian American Literature And Culture Of The 1930s, Madeleine J. Kirkpatrick

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The lives of Italian American women of the early twentieth century have been documented in fragments in histories of immigration and in the literature written by the children of first-wave immigrants. This documentation often leaves an incomplete picture of how Italian women lived and moved in their new American context in the first decades of the twentieth century. This thesis examines Pietro Di Donato’s portrayal of Annunziata in his 1939 novel Christ in Concretealongside the journals of Elba F. Gurzau, a real-life, second-generation Italian woman living in New York City during the 1930s. By holding these women up next to …

Celebrating Mundane Moments, Meidi Karampourdashti

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

I feel appreciation for life and recognize the beauty of being present in the moment, not only living for a future goal. I paint moments that highlight shared slices of life that are common throughout many contemporary cultures. The theme of my paintings is to celebrate mundane moments with images living them, regardless of their geographical location. I am pausing the moments representing what appears over and over through life, reminding myself I can enjoy all of them. This body of work slows down to focus on the beauty of a moment’s essence spent with family members or friends and …

In Between Lines: An Investigation Of The Ghanaian Migration Experience, Teddy Osei

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

As my socio-cultural experiences continue to evolve, so does my interest in contemporary border discourses. The question of ''who qualifies to be where and how,'' lingers in my mind daily as I reflect on my migration experience as a Ghanaian living in the United States of America. Another area of interest is the social and physical challenges endured by individuals transitioning from one geographic location to another.In replicating these experiences, I make ceramic sculptural vessels associated with sojourning. In my ceramic sculptures, I use specific elements, such as ropes and Ghana must-go bags, which honor Africa's past and its people …

A Part From You, Kenneth Rick Briggenhorst Jr.

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

I invite empathy through art that is technologically assisted to find alternative interpretations for nontheologically informed faith. The sudden passing of my dearest friend, Jimmy, encouraged me to dig through my archives of data, to cherish all the bytes that remain of him. In this endeavor, I find that death is not the end, but a post-physical state of being. I express this sentiment in a part from you, where the work utilizes inanimate constructs to place your faith in, to make sense of the complexities of grief in a digitally tethered way of life. This life that allows many …

A Music Teacher’S Use Of Informances With Primary Level Classes And Study Of Family Attitudes For Music Education: An Action Research Study, Joseph Cooke Emerson

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Concerts are often the summative project for the elementary music room. However, the emphasis on concerts creates challenges for music instruction. The preparation for a traditional concert often takes away from instructional time, which is already limited for music instruction. Second, the use of concerts conceals many aspects of the instructional process from students’ families. This results in a limited view and understanding of their child’s formal musical education. By designing opportunities for parents and other stakeholders to see students beyond a traditional concert, I thought that I could help to deepen families understanding of music education in my elementary …

Syncretistic Religiosity In The Mausoleums Of Bangladesh: Exploring The Possibility Of A Blended Religious Identity, Sadia Afrin

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Firstly, this thesis investigates the syncretistic religious nature of Bangladeshi mausoleums, along with the historical background of the Sufi mausoleums and the flourishment of this syncretistic religiosity. The study explores the contribution of Sufis to the spread of Islam in Bengal. It discusses how the liberal attitude of mausoleum enshrined Sufis toward their followers of diverse faiths patronized syncretism. The study here hypothesizes that the religious practices of Bangladeshi mausoleums are syncretistic; they are neither exclusively Muslim nor Hindu but present a blended identity. It demonstrates how religious syncretism is an undeniable phenomenon in the mausoleums of Bangladesh and how …

Auto-Exploited: Narrative Explorations Of The Commodification Of Time, Grace C. Willis Ms.

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of the phenomenon of the auto-exploitation of the modern individual through and in conjunction with the commodification of time. It explores the eruption of gig-work in recent decades in the United States, and the ways in which the modern individual is both consumer and product, buying and selling her own constructions of identity in order to gain time, fiscal currency and a sense of socioeconomic worth from herself and others. Using theoretical frameworks of Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Catherine Rottenberg and Byung-Chul Han, I explore the ways in which the modern individual is …

"An Infinite Advantage": A Kierkegaardian Analysis Of Anxiety And Despair In Post-War American Literature, Jeremiah Davis

Dissertations and Theses

“An Infinite Advantage”: A Kierkegaardian Analysis of Anxiety and Despair in Post-War American Literature uses a theistically informed existentialist lens to examine issues of selfhood as depicted in American literature from the mid-twentieth century. During this period in America, the changing nature of religious worship led to an uncertain understanding of what it meant to be an individual. With examinations of characters from five novels published in the period, I explore how Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy can help us better understand how Christian authors from the period attempted to define what makes up a self and how a self is to …

Escape, Constance Leigh Lieber

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

My creative non-fiction thesis, Escape, is a memoir of the five years I lived in Bern, Switzerland, 1988-1993. During that time, I interviewed my neighbor, Horst Schirm, about his life during the waning years of World War II in what was the eastern border of the German Reich (Jauer, Schlesien) but is now Poland (Jawor, Sląsk). His mother with Horst and his two brothers and sister traveled from Jauer to Frankfort am Main and back to Jauer in an attempt to escape the Allied bombing raids and to find their father, who was missing. Finally, they, with the other remaining …

Zara And The Strong Gauntlets, Donnell Earl Griffith

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

My creative fiction thesis, Zara and the Strong Gauntlets, is the first part of a full length novel in the fantasy genre. The story follows Zara, a servant to a high member of society which she spends every day serving. Zara’s world is turned upside down when she walks into her master’s assassination. Zara is tossed out of her home, and with nowhere left to turn, tries to find a way to be able to stand up on her own two feet, and through her trials, discover a sense of self that will determine her new path in life.

After …

On The Way To Maturity, Mikhail Ilyin

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

My experience as a dance maker is rooted in the following: use of space, interpersonal relationships, efforts in dynamics, psychology, and personal memory, all of which inform my thesis project. This thesis project specifically investigates the stages of psychosocial development as seen through the theories of psychologist Erik Erikson. It explores the emotional effect of these psychosocial stages on people, including conflicts and positive impacts. I demonstrate how these developmental stages can define a person's identity and how audience members, choreographers, and artists from various fields might be influenced by them. Weaving together my research and personal experiences in fine …

Negotiating Scientific Identity And Agency: Graduate Student Perspectives On A Public Communication Of Science Course, Lillian Campbell

English Faculty Research and Publications

Drawing on interviews with nine graduate science students, this article explores perspectives on a Public Communication of Science (PCS) course designed to help students translate their research for a public talk given at a local town hall. I first outline the history of the student-run course and then discuss three course components—public rhetoric of science; improvisation; and audience awareness. Within each component, I describe one student’s particular experience with the course. I describe how students transferred rhetorical lessons from the course to their academic writing but could also transfer rigid views of communication from their scientific work back into their …

Minds Of The Mental: A Poetry Journal, Aviyah Washington

A with Honors Projects

This honors project shares 12 original poems written by the author.

Deadly Emotions: The Argument For Tempered Feeling In British And American Literature Of Sentiment, Miranda Anne Liebsack

Dissertations and Theses

This project focuses on late eighteenth-century literature of sentiment, specifically examining the man and woman of feeling characters in The Adventures of David Simple (1744) and Volume the Last (1753), both written by Sarah Fielding, The Man of Feeling (1771), written by Henry Mackenzie, The Power of Sympathy (1789) by William Hill Brown, and The Coquette (1797), by Hannah Webster Foster. I use the following terms to analyze these texts: sensibility functions as the ability to feel great emotion, emotionally and physically; sympathy is the ability to connect with another with emotions, and sentiment is tempered emotion based in morality …

The Sanctuary Of Demeter And Kore: The Portrayal Of Corinthian Gender Ideologies In Ritual Landscape, Kaia C. Brose

Dissertations and Theses

The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Acrocorinth reflects gender ideologies and concerns within the larger region of Korinthia. Archaeological finds particularly serve to illustrate the sanctuary’s role in maintaining these gender ideologies and concerns. This thesis focuses on the depiction of gender ideologies that reflect a shift toward a wealthier material culture in sixth-century Corinth with themes of feminine virtue and fertility prevalent in the sanctuary. The study of certain ceramics shapes and iconography serves to reveal the sanctuary’s role within the larger religious landscape it was located in. The kalathos, pyxis/Frauenfest scene, and the liknon illustrate the presence …

Little Mexico In The Black Hills: A Study Of Mexican Migration And Settlement From 1970-1990s, Sabrina Escalante

Dissertations and Theses

In the early 1970s, the members of the small-town Ojos de Agua de Ocampo, Michoacán, in Mexico, began migrating to the United States to escape poverty. As they continued to work in the fruit fields of California, some of them decided to follow the fruit, which eventually led them to the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, where their Mexican community expanded through the late 1990s. In this thesis, I argue that without following the fruit, Mexicans would not have found the Black Hills and job security as loggers. The environmental similarities between the Black Hills and Ojos de Agua …

Trauma And The American Dream: Frictions Of The Dominant Fiction In Steinbeck And Smith, Mary Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

This project focuses on how John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (1952) and Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) portray individuals’ interaction with the dominant fiction of the American Dream. At the time of these novels’ publication, the ideology of the American Dream was a prominent feature of America’s culture, encouraging individuals that success is possible if they work hard enough. Steinbeck and Smith challenge this concept as their novels depict scenarios which thwart individual’s opportunities at success and characters whose hard work goes unnoticed. Specifically, I explore how the trauma and adversities characters experience in childhood and adolescence …

The Victorian Crisis Of Faith: Uncertainty, Pessimism, Morality, And Monsters. A Look At Nineteenth-Century British Gothic Horror And The Unassailable Unknown, Jay Schroeder

Dissertations and Theses

This work investigates how Gothic narratives employed negative aesthetics, monstrous bodies, exploded meaning, and an unshakable mood of uncertainty to explore rising fears of dwindling morality and impending human doom during the long nineteenth century. Using Eugene Thacker’s cosmic pessimism, Sianne Ngai’s concept of tone, and Stephen Greenblatt’s theories of resonance and wonder, combined with monster theory, Gothic criticism, biological studies of fear, and nineteenth-century studies in medicine, science, and literature, I investigate how these texts constructed monstrous bodies to create an atmosphere of fear that reflected a culture of pessimism and a crisis of faith to contend, albeit unsuccessfully, …

“I Am Still Dakota”: Assimilation, Education, And Survival On The Lake Traverse Reservation, Katherine Victoria Kemp

Dissertations and Theses

In 1867, the Sisseton Wahpeton signed the Lake Traverse Treaty and settled on the Lake Traverse Reservation in Northeastern South Dakota. As part of the growing westward expansion of settlers, the U.S government confined Indigenous peoples to reservations and tried to destroy their culture. Federal and state governments since then have continued to eliminate, relocate, and assimilate Indigenous people. For Indigenous peoples, the land is life, and assimilation through boarding schools served to sever them from their land and enforce white superiority. In this thesis, I argue that the Sisseton Wahpeton found ways to engage in cultural resilience utilizing Indigenous …

Things Left Behind, Aqeel Ahmad

Dissertations and Theses

Things Left Behind is the story of a family in a small town in Pakistan where both the town and the family are transitioning between their traditional ways of living and Modernity coming from outside the town. Through its various characters, the narrative unfolds the struggles of facing challenges put by technology and colonial projects. The characters long for the safety and familiarity of their rural and traditional backgrounds while becoming part of an urban and modern milieu, creating a conflict. The arrival of Modernity takes place at the cost of the rearrangement and modification of the traditional and familiar …