Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“You Must Live, And Show To The World What They Have Been Doing Here”: The Survival Of The “Rabbits” Of Ravensbrück, Regina Coffey

Master's Theses

The Polish women who would later come to be known as the kroliki or “rabbits” arrived at Ravensbrück with a death sentence. As a result of their work for underground organizations back in Poland, the camp administration planned to execute them within a few years. Because the women were already intended to die, they were chosen as the subjects of experimental operations in which muscles and bones in their legs were mutilated and many of them were injected with various diseases and bacteria. Most of the rabbits survived the experiments, though many were permanently crippled, and several suffered from additional …

A Major Motion Picture Or Just A Picture? An Analysis In Movie Tie-Ins Vs. Original Cover Art, Vivian Nguyen

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

It has been believed that the needs of consumers who are primarily readers versus moviegoers greatly differ; those who are readers are more likely to purchase a book that features the original cover art, while those who are mostly moviegoers gravitate toward movie tie-in covers. This paper examines the accuracy behind that belief by calculating the number of book sales from NPD BookScan, as well as collecting survey data from participants across all reading activity levels.

Analysis revealed that though there is a slight difference in amount of preference based on reading group, overall participants overwhelmingly preferred the original cover …

The Criterion Collection, Mackenna Finley

Honors Projects

The Criterion Collection is an examination of truth in fiction and poetry. The goal of this project is not to create truth that is absolute, but instead to allow for the experience of its subjectivity. The interplay between fiction and poetry, reader and author illuminates the subtle warping of truth through human experience.

An Exploration Of Procedural Methods For Motion Design, David Hamilton

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research aims to apply procedural techniques, similar to those employed in node-based modeling or compositing software packages, to the motion design workflow in Adobe After Effects. The purpose is to increase efficiency in the motion design process between pre-production and production stages. Systems Theory is referenced as a basis for breaking down problems in terms of inputs and outputs. All of this takes place within the context of a larger motion design project.

The Moral Agency Of The State: What Does A Virtuous State Look Like And Is Allowing Capitalism Virtuous?, Austin Cable

Undergraduate Honors Theses

It has become quite noticeable that modern world politics across the globe has lacked a guiding morality in which we can hold states morally accountable in both the international and domestic spheres. This can be seen in the never-ending wars and occupations across the Middle East, South-East Asia, and many other places around the world. Now, attempting to implement such guiding moral principles seems to be an impossible task mainly because of the massive difficulties that one would face in trying to get the 195 countries around the world to agree on such principles. Because of this, most will probably …

Menstruation Regulation: A Feminist Critique Of Menstrual Product Brands On Instagram, Max Faust

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Much research about advertisements for menstrual products reveals the ways in which such advertising perpetuates shame and reinforces unrealistic ideals of femininity and womanhood. This study aims to examine the content of Instagram posts by four different menstrual product brands in hopes of understanding how these functions may or may not be carried out by social media posts by these brands as well. Building on the body of research about menstrual shame and advertising, I specifically ask: How do the Instagram pages for four menstrual product brands dissuade individuality; how do they prescribe femininity; and how do these functions differ …

Conduct Becoming: Good Wives And Husbands In The Later Middle Ages, Tovah Bender

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Imperial Ladies Of The Ottonian Dynasty: Women And Rule In Tenth-Century Germany, Janna Bianchini

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Fragments For A History Of Vanishing Humanism, Heather Blatt

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Her Father's Daughter: Gender, Power, And Religion In The Early Spanish Kingdoms, Jessica A. Boon

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Imagined Communities: Constructing Collective Identities In Medieval Europe, Charles-Louis Morand-Metivier

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

"Le Bone Florence Of Rome": A Critical Edition And Facing Translation Of A Middle English Romance Analogous To Chaucer's "Man Of Law's Tale", Brendan O'Connell

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Royal And Elite Households In Medieval And Early Modern Europe: More Than Just A Castle, Elena Woodacre

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Politically Correct Language In George Carlin, Alan Schultz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

American stand-up comedian George Carlin is notable for his long-standing popularity from the early 60s up until his death in 2008. In this paper, I examine George Carlin’s stance on politically correct language. Focusing on his three books Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty, and When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, I show how his attempts to remove himself from a politically correct system ultimately fail as he adheres to his own ideals of language and morality. Using his texts and various work from Stanley Fish to support these claims, I show how Carlin ridicules the redundancies and hypocrisies …

Tension Within Immigrant Identity In South Asian And Asian Characters In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Everything I Never Told You, And Disgraced, Dania Abdelsalam

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines the ways American fiction in the past two decades marked a renewal of the study of the immigrant experience. By examining this renewal, I argue that the conversation is no longer focused on the treatment of assimilation but moves into the psychological shock that transpires after assimilation is achieved. This shock is a critical condition of belonging to two opposing identities. Using Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You (2014) and Ayad Akhtar’s play Disgraced (2012), I clarify that these works present protagonists from South Asian and East Asian …

“Life Swarms With Innocent Monsters” : The Monstrosity Of Gender Inversion In Bram Stoker’S Dracula, Natalie Diane Cottrill

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) has elicited a range of different interpretations from critics over the years. Readings range from covering issues of race and colonization to science and religion, and everything in between. These interpretations all feature different anxieties relevant to fin de siecle culture, a title given to the period of transition at the end of the nineteenth century wrought with anxiety and conspiracy about what might come next. One of the sources of this unease stemmed from the rapid change in what constituted women's social roles, as well as developing definitions of gender and sexuality. This socio-cultural concern …

Anti-Semitism In American Realist Literature: Edith Wharton’S Sim Rosedale - A Thorn In American Identity, Elizabeth Pantirer

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

How does canonical American literature from the early twentieth century reflect the American Jew and anti-Semitic sentiments? How do these novels portray the American Jew as a threat to American identity? In this thesis, I answer these questions and argue how American literature is a product of its culture demonstrating and reproducing fears and accepted ideologies. These fears perpetuated and solidified anti-Semitic stereotypes and alienated Jews from society. In my research, I examine how literature acts as a cultural product specifically homing in on particular anti-Semitic stereotypes which represent a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant fear of "otherness." This analysis will draw …

Stellar Transfigurations Of Disabled Bodies : Wangechi Mutu And Afrofuturism, Addys Lorenzo Gonzalez

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Stellar Transformations of Disabled Bodies: Wangechi Mutu and Afrofuturism will examine how Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu (b. 1972) depicts futuristic black bodies. Utilizing three of her collages, Untitled (Leopard woman reclining) (2010), My Strength Lies (2006), and Homeward Bound (2010), I will analyze Mutu’s themes of Afrofuturistic alienation and the grotesque. I will use Afrofuturism and Mutu’s renderings to reveal a future visibility for the black female body.

Mutu collages images from fashion magazines, car manuals, National Geographic , and catalogs to construct bodies with missing limbs and severed appendages. Critics have called these bodies “grotesque”, whereas Mutu has called …

Manuel Puig Y Los Espacios Queer : Una Tercera Lectura De La Realidad, Matthew Berg

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Manuel Puig es una de las figuras más importantes de la literatura latinoamericana. Si bien comparte la capacidad de capturar la realidad latinoamericana con sus contemporáneos, Puig es único en su interpretación del mundo a su alrededor desde la perspectiva queer, como corresponde a su estatus de hombre gay. Además, el tejido de referencias populares en sus novelas para representar la realidad, los personajes y sus vidas demuestra una práctica de la comunidad queer de tomar elementos populares y aplicarlas a la vida nuestra, haciendo una lectura queer de estas obras y haciéndolas aplicar a nuestra realidad. De esta manera, …

“Mutually Exclusive” : Exploring Gender And Sexuality In Shakespeare’S Twelfth Night, Caitlin Moran Casey

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The thesis explores the treatment of gender and sexuality in William Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, or What You Will. By examining Shakespeare’s exploration of gender identity and sexual fluidity, this thesis investigates the nature of these elements in relation to the overall theme of the text. While traditionally thought of as mutually exclusive elements, sexuality and gender are juxtaposed throughout the text, causing characters to reflect on their own identities.

Empire Rules: Cultures Of U.S. Imperialism In Multi-Ethnic Literature Of The U.S., Luis Paganelli Marin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation concerns contemporary multi-ethnic literature of the U.S. (MELUS) and empire. Namely, contemporary MELUS invites a reckoning with U.S. Empire, an amalgamation of settler colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, which works through ahistorical and transhistorical cultural narratives. In turn, contemporary multi-ethnic writers uncover our obscured colonial and imperial histories and legacies that racialize, criminalize, and otherize people of color in the U.S within our present moment. This dissertation, then, analyzes recent novels and poetry collections by African American, Native American, Latinx, and African diasporic writers to unmask the efforts of empire-building with the material effects on colonized, marginalized peoples. Reckoning …

Perceptual Characterization: On Perceptual Learning And Perspectival Sedimentation, Anthony Holdier

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In her analysis of perspectival effects on perception, Susanna Siegel has argued that perceptual experience is directly rationally assessable and can thereby justify perceptual beliefs, save for in cases of epistemic downgrade or perceptual hijacking; I contend that the recalcitrance of known illusions poses an insurmountable problem for Siegel’s thesis. In its place, I argue that a model of perceptual learning informed by the dual-aspect framework of base-level cognitive architecture proposed by Elisabeth Camp successfully answers the questions motivating Siegel’s project in a manner that avoids such issues.

The Blue Mesa At The Painted Desert, Christopher Barnett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Blue Mesa is located at the Painted Desert in Arizona. It overlooks a beautiful vast landscape of naturally created hills of cool-toned sand art that has been shaped by the forces of nature. The multiple layers of colored sand are stunning. Some hills act as if they are melting away and still being shaped. This piece is inspired by this location and an attempt to capture the unique beauty, wonder, and danger through a snapshot of its creation by the forces of nature.

Associations Of Sex, Gender, And Gender Role Beliefs With Mental Health Attitudes, Ariel Erazo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mental health stigma is a strong deterrent for individual with mental illness utilizing mental healthcare. Individuals living with a mental illness experience shame and marginalization due to stigma. Stigma is perpetuated through stereotypes created and used by people in the majority. Studies have been done to assess individual’s attitudes toward mental healthcare seeking in regards to gender, age, race, and profession. This study aimed to look at traditional gender role beliefs, sex, and gender expression as predictors of individual’s mental health attitudes and individual’s views of mental health norms. Using a cross-sectional survey, 392 participants completed scales that included the …

'The Once Peaceful Little Town:' Edmondson, Arkansas, And The Decline Of African American Landownership, Samuel Morris Ownbey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the systematic dispossession of African American property by white planters in the Arkansas Delta. It argues white planters, backed by a legal system favorable to their interests, expropriated the black land in the once flourishing community of Edmondson, Arkansas. Founded in 1902 by African American business and political leaders, the Edmondson Home and Improvement Company purchased farmland and town lots and began to sell or rent the land to African Americans coming to the area. Located in Crittenden County, Edmondson represented black defiance in the face of Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. The town consisted of …

Arkansas Aprons: Food Power And Women In Arkansas, 1857 To 1891, Robyn Shahan Spears

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Arkansas foodways in the late nineteenth century were defined by times of plenty and scarcity, need and connection, traditions and innovations. These components created a unique culture in which women through food exchange, were able to improve their standard of living. The years of plenty established in the antebellum era lay in stark contrast to the scarcity during the Civil War. What followed during the Progressive Era are fascinating histories of women employing their agency to empower and improve not only their lives but also future generations. I argue that these women utilized their agency to engage in “food power,” …

Hello Girls On Strike: Telephone Operators, The Fort Smith General Strike And The Struggle For Democracy In Great War Arkansas, Kyra Schmidt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In September 1917, Fort Smith telephone operators formed a local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Soon after, company leaders dismissed two of the women who were instrumental in the formation of the union. After many attempts to meet and negotiate with the company leaders, the remaining operators walked out and began striking on September 19. This strike lasted almost four months and brought chaos into the city including the indictments, trials, and convictions of the mayor, J. H. Wright, and chief of police, Jim Fernandez. The election after Wright’s conviction saw the first female votes in Arkansas history. …

The Authenticity And Messianic Interpretation Of The Prophecies Of Isaiah, Vindicated In A Course Of Sermons Preached Before The University Of Oxford., Robert Payne Smith

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Women In Leadership: A Narrative Study On The Elements That Manifest Barriers And Opportunities, Misty Sweat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this narrative inquiry study is to explore the barriers and opportunities women in K-12 leadership face, particularly with how they navigate conflicts in their work-life balance and in what ways they have been afforded opportunities. Work-life balance will be generally defined as the reconciliation of the conflicting demands and obligations between a women’s professional requirements and her personal life. Opportunities will be defined as events that lead to a woman’s career advancements and accomplishments. The study was designed to identify perceived barriers and opportunities during both the ascension to and experience of holding a public K-12 educational …

“If I Could Only Win Your Love”: Lyrical Analysis Of The Sacred And Secular Songs Of The Louvin Brothers, Aynsley Porchak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I demonstrate how analysis through literary criticism can provide a commentary on Appalachian song. While literary analysis of both sacred and secular song lyrics is an approach that is largely overlooked in this region’s traditional music, it nonetheless provides insightful perspective on the art form itself. As I argue, one particular duo of Appalachian musicians, the Louvin Brothers, are uniquely suited to this inquiry. I propose that themes that are found in many of the Louvin Brothers’ songs, such as love, acceptance, and rejection, create a bridge between the historically documented theoretical gap between bluegrass and country …