Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"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 …

Conceptual Metaphor Usage In Glenn Youngkin’S 2021 Gubernatorial Campaign, Sara Rose Hotaling

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

In “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language,” Lakoff and Johnson suggest that conceptual metaphors pervade everyday language and produce the reality of our world. Conceptual metaphors act similarly within the occupational register of political campaigns in that they both support and construct a set of beliefs that become the reality of politicians, political parties, and constituents. In this language research, the conceptual metaphors employed by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin during his 2021 gubernatorial campaign were identified, analyzed, and categorized. The corpus of this research consists of two gubernatorial debates, three campaign speeches, and one television interview. An example of conceptual metaphor …

S-400s, Disinformation, And Anti-American Sentiment In Turkey, Russell "Alex" Korb, Saltuk Karahan, Gowri Prathap, Ekrem Kaya, Luke Palmieri, Hamdi Kavak, Richard L. Wilson (Ed.), Major Brendan Curran (Ed.)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

As social and political discourse in most countries becomes more polarized, anti-Americanism has risen not only in the Middle East and Latin America but also among the U.S. allies in Europe. Social media is one platform used to disseminate anti-American views in NATO countries, and its effectiveness can be magnified when mass media, public officials, and popular figures adopt these views. Disinformation, in particular, has gained recognition as a cybersecurity issue from 2016 onward, but disinformation can be manufactured domestically in addition to being part of a foreign influence campaign. In this paper, we analyze Turkish tweets using sentiment analysis …

The Dances Of The Presidency, Robert Chapin Poyser

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis will analysis the ideologies of Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, & former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The thesis will focus on the use of feminist critiques of the political rhetoric spoken by all three politicians to argue the discourse in the Obama era, Hillary Clinton’s two Presidential campaigns and President Donald Trump rise as a politician.

Immigrants Or Prostitutes? "White Slavery" Panics And Reform In France, England, And The United States, 1885-1915, Journey Steward

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The late nineteenth century ushered in an era of global moral panic focusing on prostitution, venereal disease, and working-class female immigrants’ sexuality. By the early 1900s, European and American social reformers cooperated with national governments and immigration bureaus to stop “white slavery,” or the forced movement of white European and American women worldwide for purposes of commercial sex. This dissertation focuses on international trafficking in women and the ways in which accompanying moral panics developed from 1885 to 1915. It demonstrates how middle-class and nationalist assumptions about lower class sexuality, prostitution, and migration resulted in bourgeois social reform that influenced …

Dispossessed Again: Paiute Land Allotments In The Mono Basin, 1907-1929, Robert B. Marks

Eastern Sierra History Journal

Like most California Indians, the Kutzadika^a people in the Mono Basin on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains were dispossessed of their land in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, they were not then removed to a reservation. They were left landless with no rights to reclaim their land until the Dawes Act (1887) made land allotments to non-reservation Indians possible. This article explores the history of land allotments in the Mono Basin, and places that story into the broader context of U.S. assimilationist policies but more importantly into the context of local history. Kutzadika …

Copper Sun, Countee Cullen

Zea E-Books Collection

Poet, playwright, novelist, graduate of DeWitt Clinton High, New York University, and Harvard University, Countee Cullen (1903–1946) emerged as a leading literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Copper Sun, his second book of poetry, explores the emotional consequences of being black, Christian, bisexual, and a poet in Jazz Age America—such as in the following “Confession”:

If for a day joy masters me,

Think not my wounds are healed;

Far deeper than the scars you see,

I keep the roots concealed.

They shall bear blossoms with the fall;

I have their word for this,

Who tend my roots with rains of …

One Last Month, Or Clancy's Time-Box, Safiyya Bintali

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

One Last Month is a young adult (YA) novella of roughly forty-three thousand words aimed at readers in middle school and in early high school grades. Structurally, it is an “ensemble Bildungsroman”, wherein all the main characters—rather than just one—embark on journeys of emotional growth and are given significant plot focus. Through the characters, One Last Month focuses on the importance and influence of non-romantic love, specifically through homosocial relationships between the novella’s male characters. It also touches on the process of grief beyond the Kübler-Ross structure and, though more subtly, emotional expression in young men. Through one of the …

Ronald Reagan And War Rhetoric In The 20th Century, Allister Dias

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

This paper contributes to a deeper understanding about the nature of Cold War-era rhetoric and how President Ronald Reagan was able to utilize it to bring about the end of the Soviet era. To analyze this particular topic, I compared various academic explorations into what rhetoric devices defined the Cold War era and how President Reagan was able to craft a unique way to appeal to the people of both West and East Germany. Additionally, I consulted historians in the field of presidential speech to identify any rhetorical constructs employed through the speech. My research points to a positive correlation …

A Tool For Digital Bibliotherapy: Fostering Emotional Resiliency Through A Visual Novel, Joy Cooper

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Suicide rates among children have risen over the last three years. In Clark County specifically, the numbers doubled between 2019 and 2021. The research for this project sought to find the benefits of bibliotherapy and create a tool to be used for early intervention in children displaying signs of developmental emotional and behavioral concerns. Additionally, the research focused on determining the benefits of bibliotherapy across various mediums with a particular aim on the accessibility of digital formats. The research concluded that bibliotherapy in a digital format is not only beneficial but has a tendency to produce higher engagement among children. …

Richard Owen: A Forgotten Icon, Devan Henriott

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Despite being one of the most famous naturalists of the nineteenth century, Richard Owen is an obscure figure today. This paper delves into how such an influential person to the beginnings of paleontology and biology could have been written out of history. Owen worked his way into the world of comparative anatomy by finding work at the Hunterian Museum. From there, Owen earned respect for his exciting lectures on fossil discoveries and for his research interpreting fossils and reconstructing extinct species. Owen utilized his renown to spread his theories on the creations of species, but mostly kept his evolutionary ideas …

Women's Research Institute Of Nevada Newsletter, Women's Research Institute Of Nevada

Newsletters

Director's Message: We began 2023 with our long-anticipated office move. We are now located in the Maryland Administrative Building (MAB1) across Maryland Parkway on Rochelle Avenue. It is a welcome change, with expanded space to adequately meet our staffing needs. Our Veterans' Voices oral history staff members are now able to work together with us in the new office space. We truly feel like a team!

We have also just launched our Barbara Agonia Empowerment Scholarship, recently renamed in honor of our first Community Advisory Board chair. Barbara served with determination and grace during the early years of WRIN's existence. …

The Other Beginning Of Thinking: Heidegger And Neoplatonism, Emile Alexandrov

Theses

This thesis establishes an “other beginning” for thinking by repositioning Plato and Neoplatonism in Heidegger’s history of metaphysics. The thesis achieves this by revising Heidegger’s interpretation of Plato and retrieving Neoplatonist approaches to non-discursive thinking, corresponding to some of Heidegger’s post-turn concerns. The thesis begins by justifying the adoption of Heidegger’s “two beginnings” idea and illustrating what I label the “fundamentals of truth of the first beginning,” which Heidegger used to envision the other beginning of thinking. The fundamentals of truth inform Heidegger’s reading of Hölderlin and the later writings that emerged from the 1950s onwards. The second part re-thinks …

Politics & Religion In Comparative Perspective: Papal Pastoral Visits To Mexico In 1990 & 1993, Kiara Catherine Black

Theses

This research examines the multi-layered agency of Pope John Paul II and the diplomatic relationship between the Holy See and the United States of Mexico from 1990-1993. Specifically, the research aims to examine Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visits to Mexico in 1990 and 1993 and how his activities are shaped by religious mission and statecraft. The pastoral visits of Pope John Paul II to Mexico in 1990 and 1993 are major inflections as the diplomatic relationship changed from one of cold hostility to normalised, and even congenial, in 1992. The research project is established via a detailed description of …

A Guide To Chinese Art Songs From 1970 To 2010, Tingyu Yan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study aims to provide a repertoire guide of Chinese art songs for the pedagogy and research of musicians. The world is becoming more open to accepting and embracing different social and cultural elements, and diverse musical styles and repertoire are now being showcased internationally. There are more opportunities for musicians who wish to perform their homeland's music in public concerts around the world, and repertoires from different languages (e.g., Japanese, Spanish, Russian, and Czech) are more widely seen. However, there is still a lack of repertoires in other languages not very common internationally, and one of them is the …

Unconventional Wisdom In Resonating Echoes Of The Past: A Memoir On The Life And Music Of Royal Hartigan, Joseph Elias Boulos

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Unconventional Wisdom in Resonating Echoes of the Past:

A Memoir on the Life and Music of royal hartigan

Joseph Elias Boulos

Detailed fieldwork achieved by people in the discipline of social/humanistic studies, specifically ethnomusicologists, in any form: book, biography, documentary, etc., have contributed to the strengthening the understanding of any group of people, community, or culture. This research project is a co-authored memoir grounded in oral history and collaborative ethnography on, and with, Dr. royal hartigan. The purpose of this ethnographic research is to fill in the lack of information readily available on royal, from his sole perspective, and to …

Found And Fabricated, Molly S. Davis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

My MFA written thesis addresses work completed and shown in a thesis exhibition at West Virginia University as well as significant influences to my studio process. While my stated focus is sculpture, the work presented in the exhibition consisted of three sculptural pieces and two sets of prints. This thesis, along with the supporting exhibition, addresses my investigations into the physical properties and tendencies of materials and how that information can guide and inform a work of art. Physical characteristics of the materials such as color, texture, shape, and weight are emphasized and guide the creation of the works in …

Epistemological Insecurity In The Anthropocene, Dustin Purvis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation analyzes how increased mainstream awareness of climate change and other complex environmental phenomena transforms some of the basic tools we use to understand the world, including notions of agency, evidence, and causality. More specifically, this project highlights numerous contemporary literary and cultural narratives that formally and thematically depict impromptu systems of action and comprehension developed by humans confronting the unique forms of information overload that result from damaged and rapidly changing environments. Following critics like Ulrich Beck, Rob Nixon, and Stacy Alaimo, I suggest our current era of ecological instability and destructive environmental practices dictate what I refer …