Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Heritage Without History: The 1960 South Carolina Secession Reenactment And The Desertion Of Historical Authority In Confederate Commemoration, Joshua Whitfield

Theses and Dissertations

In 1960 the South Carolina Confederate War Centennial Commission sponsored a reenactment of the 1860 secession convention as the keystone event for state observances of the Civil War Centennial. Local organizations such as the Richland Country Historical Society and WIS Television produced the reenactment, which featured politicians like Strom Thurmond and George Bell Timmerman in leading roles as secession delegates. The pageant had three live showings, and a televised version of the reenactment aired on WIS-TV, which broadcast the program across the state. Following the production’s open-circuit broadcast, the SC Educational Television Center continued broadcasting it in state public schools …

Black Power In A "Lily-White" School: The Black Campus Movement At Concordia College In Moorhead, Minnesota, Daniel D. Cooley

Theses and Dissertations

Between the mid-1950s and through the 1970s, higher educational institutions throughout the United States underwent reforms in the name of what they termed “integration.” For the colleges and universities in the upper Midwest, these reforms included minority student recruitment and the creation of programs oriented towards diversity. Over time, a number of minority students began to act and react to the actions and attitudes of the various administrations, the campuses, and the community, resulting in a demonstration directly connected to the national phenomenon of “The Black Campus Movement,” (BCM) itself a submovement of the larger United States’ Black Power Movement …

A History Of The Plagal-Amen Cadence, Jason Terry

Theses and Dissertations

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, most hymns in the Anglo-American tradition ended with the congregation singing amen following the original stanzas, almost always framed within a plagal cadence. Helping this tradition take root was Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861), an Anglican hymnal that published the “amen” cadence after every modern hymn. This practice was heavily adopted among other denominational hymnals throughout England and the United States, peaking around the turn of the century. By the middle of the twentieth century, a decline in the number of hymnals including this cadence was noticeable; however, it would take until the end of …

The “Forgotten Man” Of Washington: The Pershing Memorial And The Battle Over Military Memorialization, Andrew S. Walgren

Theses and Dissertations

The current debates over the transformation of Pershing Park in Washington, D.C., into a national World War I memorial have reignited century-old concerns about how to properly memorialize military figures. The park, originally conceived as a memorial to General John Pershing and the men of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, had fallen into disrepair, and many within the federal government wanted to redevelop the park in time for the World War I Centennial in 2018. Popular commentators have pointed to National Park Service budgets cuts and the decline of “great man” memorials as the primary culprits behind …

Deposition, Conjecture, And The Word Of Nod, Victor Vaughn

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis involved mixed medium drawings based on written colonial papers regarding the beginning of a border war between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. To fill in the fragmented historical information, the project incorporated period artifacts as merged and manipulated by contemporary technology and the internet’s ethos.

American Beauty: Nineteenth-Century Landscapes, Katherine Gelshenen Rafferty

Theses and Dissertations

Using Thomas Cole’s 1836 “Essay on American Scenery” as a touchstone, “American Beauty” argues that Cole’s influence on American landscape painting goes well past the second generation of Hudson River artists, to include painters such as George Inness, Alexander Wyant, Edmund Darch Lewis and other late nineteenth-century artists. These artists had different life experiences, different technique and for the most part a different spiritual outlook. Yet the fundamental message of Cole’s essay—that citizens and artists should value American scenery for its pristine wildness—carries through to the end of the century and is evident in their art. Cole’s “Essay” is visionary …

The Lonely Empire, Andrew Valencia

Theses and Dissertations

This creative manuscript contains ten original short stories dealing with themes of alienation, imperialism, and cultural intersectionality. Though they are all influenced, in one way or another, by ideas of cultural and sociopolitical relevance, they are to be read and viewed primarily as stories, i.e., as self-contained exercises in character, plot, and language that can be appreciated for their artistic merits as well as their academic contributions. The diverse settings of the stories, ranging from Ancient Greece to Central California and from Asia to Latin America, are a reflection of the author‘s own diverse cultural experiences. In one story, a …

Reflections On A Collection: Revisiting The Uwm Icons Fifty Years Later, Laura Jean Louise Sims

Theses and Dissertations

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Art Collection is home to a sizable donation of Byzantine and post-medieval icons and liturgical objects. Central to this thesis exhibition catalogue are the thirty-two Greek and Russian icons from this collection and their history with collector Charles Bolles Bolles-Rogers. Reflections on a Collection: Revisiting the UWM Icons Collection Fifty Years Later contextualizes the history of icon collecting in the United States and examines the collecting history of these icons.

By first focusing on icon collecting and scholarship in Greece and Russia towards the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, this catalogue traces …

Recombinant, Ching-In Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The hybrid texts (poems and prose) in the following dissertation investigate female and genderqueer lineage in the context of labor smuggling and trafficking. In this book-length project, I examine the challenges of communal memory by juxtaposing voices from Asian, African and indigenous communities in the Americas. Set in a speculative future, these voices simultaneously inhabit their own spaces and share pathways, a theme developed through manipulation of white space on the page. The narrative speculates about the origins of M. Lao, a snakehead matriarch who has created a business empire from a fictional edu-tainment park, CoolieWorld, which traffics in the …

The Integration History Of Kuwaiti Television From 1957-1990: An Audience-Generated Oral Narrative On The Arrival And Integration Of The Device In The City, Ahmad Hamada

Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to compose an account of television history in Kuwait, one that focuses on its integration into society and is told from the audience's perspective and experience. This study represents a cultural alternative to the overwhelmingly national, institutional, and biographical focus that accompanies television history works in Kuwait and the Arab world.

The narrative is gathered and generated through the individual oral stories of 25 Kuwaitis over the age of 50, who generally represent the six geographical districts of Kuwait. Through their oral stories, the narrators examine the different areas in which television has integrated itself into society …

Crabgrass Piety: The Rise Of Megachurches And The Suburban Social Religion, 1960-2000, Nathan Joseph Saunders

Theses and Dissertations

Although there were less than twenty megachurches (churches averaging over two thousand in weekly attendance) in the United States before 1960, by 2010 there were approximately fifteen hundred. Megachurches are not a homogenous group, but they exist in all parts of the country and they have enough in common to warrant their identification as part of a coherent trend in American evangelical culture. Specifically, most megachurches appeal to an ethos that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s known as the suburban social religion. The suburban social religion combined to differing degrees the American civil religion described by Robert Bellah, meritocratic …

Reality Vs. Perceptions: The Treatment Of Early Modern French Jews In Politics And Literary Culture, Michael Woods

Theses and Dissertations

Although historians have written extensively on both the early modern era and the development of an absolute monarchy, the history of Jewish communities in France and the role they played has been largely ignored. Beginning with the French Wars of Religion, this study analyzes to what extent France’s religious situation affected the growth of absolutism and how this in turn affected the Jews. Taking advantage of the fractured nature of the early French monarchy, Jews began settling in provinces along the border of both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Affected by economic jealousies and cultural perceptions of Jews, the …

The Highland Clearances And The Politics Of Memory, Daniel Guy Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the ways that the Highland Clearances of Scotland have entered into public consciousness through primary and secondary sources. My dissertation argues first that the Highland Clearances fall within the sphere of colonial intervention, and secondly that there exists a robust body of cultural production that reflects the postcolonial nature of the Highlands. This cultural production is the subject of my dissertation, which examines primary and secondary histories, historical novels, drama and public memorials that preserve and reconstruct the memory of the Clearances. The first chapter examines a number of primary and secondary histories of the Highland Clearances. …

Why Do Teachers Hate Ai N'T? Eighteenth-Century Ideologies And Attitudes In Twenty-First-Century Classrooms, Robin Elise Halsey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the impact of various historical events on the development of the English language and its grammar. Specifically, this project highlights how the ideologies about language held by eighteenth-century grammar-writers have influenced the pedagogical approach of teachers of English, persisting into the twenty-first century. Further, the rationale behind these language ideologies is explored in order to gain important insights into the seemingly prescriptive nature of the majority of grammar texts produced in the eighteenth century and beyond.

The origins of four particular points of grammar and usage that are commonly attacked by teachers, grammarians, and others are examined. …

Anabaptist Masculinity In Reformation Europe, Adam Michael Bonikowske

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the connections between the Anabaptist movement during the Protestant Reformation and the alternative masculinities that developed during sixteenth-century Europe. It argues that Anabaptist men challenged traditional gender norms of European society, and through their unique understanding of the Reformation's message of salvation, these men constructed new ideas about masculinity that were at odds with Protestant and Catholic culture. Anabaptist men placed piety and ethics at the center of reform, and argued for the moral improvement of Christians. In separation from Catholics and mainstream Protestants, Anabaptists created a new culture that exhibited behavior often viewed as dangerous. The …

The Wind Chamber Works Of Ernst Toch: A History And Comparative Analysis, C. Nicole Gross

Theses and Dissertations

Ernst Toch (1887-1964) is one of the forgotten composers of the twentieth century. Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, and Kurt Weill were contemporaries, while Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Erich Kleiber championed his early works. Toch lamented his lack of notoriety to Nicolas Slonimsky two years prior to his death. Forgotten or underappreciated were his numerous compositions of art music written in the decades prior to his immigration to the United States and in the final years of his career; remembered only were his lighter works and American film music.

Toch composed one work for military band: Spiel für Blasorchester, Op. 39 (1926), …

James Buchanan's Vision And The Making Of Walnut Grove Plantation, Caroline Vereen Sexton

Theses and Dissertations

In 1961, Walnut Grove manor, an Upcountry South Carolina plantation house built around 1765, was donated to the Spartanburg County Historical Association (SCHA) for preservation and rehabilitation as a museum. James E. 'Buck' Buchanan worked as the plantation's director from 1961 until his death in 1974. Buchanan, with a background as an artist, curated Walnut Grove in a way that reflected his experience as a painter and store-front exhibit designer as well as his interest in the story of early Upcountry South Carolina settlers. Privileging the Upcountry narrative he wished to tell over authenticity, during his tenure as director Buchanan …

Dismemory: On History, The Southern Imaginary, And Abusing The Visual Record, Matthew Pendleton Shelton

Theses and Dissertations

Using the literary device of a fictional interview between the artist and a sympathetic intellectual, I explore concepts relating to subjectivity, pedagogy, memory, “Southernness,” whiteness, the deceptive nature of images, social justice, and 20th century art as they relate to a contemporary artistic practice.

A Comparative Analysis Of Parallel Revisionism In The Plays Rabinal Achí And Zoot Suit, Matthew C. Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

This study draws parallels between the dramatic works Rabinal Achí­, an anonymous ancient Mayan text, and the Luis Valdez masterpiece Zoot Suit. The parallel that I seek to establish is one of the strong trend of historical revisionism in both works as well as a parallel development of plot and characterization. This work does not claim to be representative of revisionism as a whole, nor does it seek to establish a new official history, but it does to demonstrate how both works, even though they are separated by hundreds of years, share a common bond of subversion and …

Unlawful Assembly And The Fredericksburg Mayor's Court Order Books, 1821-1834, Sarah K. Blunkosky

Theses and Dissertations

Unlawful assembly accounts extracted from the Fredericksburg Mayor’s Court Order Books from 1821-1834, reveal rare glimpses of unsupervised, alleged illegal interactions between free and enslaved individuals, many of whom do not appear in other records. Authorities enforced laws banning free blacks and persons of mixed race from interacting with enslaved persons and whites at unlawful assemblies to keep peace in the town, to prevent sexual relationships between white women and free and enslaved black men, and to prevent alliance building between individuals. The complex connections necessary to arrange unlawful assemblies threatened the town’s safety with insurrection if these individuals developed …

Julia Hills Johnson, 1783-1853 My Soul Rejoiced, Linda J. Thayne

Theses and Dissertations

Julia Hills Johnson, the 48-year-old wife of Ezekiel Johnson and mother of sixteen children, found spiritual fulfillment in the doctrines of a new religion called Mormonism. Her baptism in 1831 was a simple act that ultimately led her halfway across the American continent, and strained her marital relationship, yet filled her with a sense of spiritual contentment. Julia's commitment to her faith, her tenacity, self-determination and willingness to take risks to participate in this new religious movement sets her apart from other nineteenth-century farm women in New England and New York. Julia's religiosity was self-determined and tenacious. She chose to …

Interrogating History Or Making History? Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Delillo's Libra, And The Shaping Of Collective Memory, Mark Spencer Mills

Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the post-structuralist skepticism of language and language's ability to represent reality, the philosophy of history has likewise been questioned, since we gain our knowledge and understanding of the past primarily through language—through written and spoken testimony, and through subsequent historiography. Various post-structuralist critics have pointed out that history is never entirely recoverable, but accessible only indirectly through what is written and documented about it. What is written and documented is in turn determined by the contents and the nature of the archive. What we know about history is largely mediated and limited by the problems inherent …

Telling History Through The Stories Of Women: Julia Alvarez's In The Time Of The Butterflies And In The Name Of Salomé, Nicole Marie Carlson

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis discusses the ways in which Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) and In the Name of Salomé (2000) are revolutionary texts contesting traditional, male dominated history and redirecting historical and communal foci to the lives of Dominican women. I employ Walter Benjamin's theories found in his essays "The Storyteller" (1936) and "On the Concept of History" (1940) to assist my exploration of Alvarez's questions concerning the power and effect of storytelling, and the importance of reconstructing various historical voices and images, specifically, the importance of reconstructing female voices in male dominated cultures. I discuss the …

Sandra Cisneros As Chicana Storyteller: Fictional Family (Hi)Stories In Caramelo, Sally Marie Giles

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis discusses the ways in which Sandra Cisneros makes historical claims from a Chicana perspective by telling fictional family stories in Caramelo. Not only have Chicanas traditionally been marginalized ethnically by the Anglo mainstream, they have also suffered disenfranchisement as women in their own male-dominated cultural community. Both elements have contributed to the cultural silencing of Chicanas outside of domestic spaces, and particularly in historical discourse. Cisneros introduces storytelling as a means of empowering Chicanas through language that allows them to speak historically and still signify culturally. By telling stories from the site of the family, she ingeniously utilizes …

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In National Periodicals, 1982-1990, Matthew E. Morrison

Theses and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has continued to receive exposure in national periodicals. This thesis will explore that image from 1982 to 1990. During those years, the church continued to grow in membership and expand its existing programs.

National periodicals can assist in assessing the public image of the Church because they help "mould public attitudes by presenting facts and views on issues in exactly the same way at the same time throughout the entire country." In this manner, they help to form the public opinion about the Church. They also reflect existing opinions because magazine publishers …

The Etoile Du Deseret: Portrait Of The French Mission, 1851-1852, Douglas James Geilman

Theses and Dissertations

One of John Taylor's most significant achievements during his mission to France, 1849-1851, was the publication of a French-language Latter-day Saint periodical, the Etoile du Déséret. Appearing in twelve issues from May 1851 to December 1852, the Etoile served a variety of functions for the earliest missionaries and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France. A study of its historical context and of its contents allows readers a glimpse into the circumstances under which the missionaries labored and into the needs of the growing Church. Furthermore, the Etoile provides a vivid example of John …

An Analysis Of The Newspaper Coverage Of Latter-Day Saint Temples Announced Or Built Within The United States From October 1997 Through December 2004, Kevan L. Gurr

Theses and Dissertations

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the fifteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, excited the membership of the Church by increasing the number of temples available to members. He announced that the Church would construct smaller buildings – as compared with existing temples at the time – thereby allowing for greater numbers of temples to be built. He set a goal to build 50 temples in a two and half-year period: double the number the Church had ever attempted to build in any decade. Thirty-four of these temples were built in the United States, and newspapers – …

Imperial Motherhood: The German Civilizing Mission In Bülow's Im Lande Der Verheißung, Cindy K. Renker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Frieda von Bülow's last and most popular colonial novel. Im Lande der Verheißung, which she wrote in 1899 after she had returned to Germany from her second journey to the German colony of East Africa. In her novel, Bülow manifests her nationalistic ideology and her support for female participation in the colonies in the character of Maleen Dietlas, who believes in and supports the German colonial ambitions. Bülow provides her female protagonist with a role and purpose in the colony. Maleen serves as an imperial mother who sees it as her duty to "civilize" the German men …

Fauxtopia, Raymond William Kampf

Theses and Dissertations

To all who come to this fictitious place:Welcome.Fauxtopia is your land. Here, age relives distorted memories of the past, and here, youth may savor the challenge of trying to understand the present. Fauxtopia is made up of the ideals, the dreams and the fuzzy facts which have re-created reality... with the hope that it will be a source of edutainment for all the world.Ray KampfFauxtopia DedicationApril 1st, 2004

Utah's Plight: A Passage Through The Great Depression, Joseph F. Darowski

Theses and Dissertations

The Great Depression marked a fateful passage in the annals of the American people. President Roosevelt's New Deal, the nation's signature response, proved to be a determined but erratic reaction. Against the backdrop of a nation deeply mired in an unrelenting international depression, dramatic events played themselves out in the lives of the men and women of Utah. Throughout, fidelity to principles of independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency were sorely challenged.

The people of Utah found succor in two almost diametrically opposed responses. The New Deal offered an amalgam of programs and panaceas through which the federal government attempted to deliver …