Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Historiography And Hierotopy: Palestinian Hagiography In The Sixth Century A.D., Rod M. Stearn

Theses and Dissertations--History

Judean hagiographies are unusual. Some are unexpectedly structured: a saint’s life in the form of a history text. Others offer surprising content. Expected hagiographic stylizations, for example, often depict moments in which the saint is offered money for a miracle. In such cases the saint invariably refuses. Judean saints, however, accept gratitude willingly – often with cash amounts recorded.

The peculiarities of these works have regularly been examined on literary and theological grounds. In this dissertation I propose a different approach: socio-economic context. The monasteries that produced these texts were utterly dominated by the environment of Christian Jerusalem. Although often …

A Stubborn Courage: Mean And Ornery Journalists In Eastern Kentucky, William Farley

Theses and Dissertations--History

In most ways, The Mountain Eagle is an ordinary community oriented weekly newspaper, and indeed, a close examination of the paper will reveal that it focuses mostly on community news in Letcher County Kentucky, a small county in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. It carries holiday recipes, neighborhood news, and coverage of local government, school boards and sporting events. But a closer examination of the paper and its history reveals a different kind of community weekly. The Mountain Eagle is one of the most recognized, commented upon, and decorated community newspapers in the United States. Since Tom and Pat Gish …

Making Religion Acceptable In Communist Romania And The Soviet Union, 1943-1989, Ryan J. Voogt

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation focuses on religious gatherings in communist Romania and the Soviet Union, 1943-1989. Church was one of the few opportunities for voluntary associational life and is invaluable for the study of power, ideology, and belonging in an everyday social setting. This project is based on archival documents and memoirs, uncovering how state officials and religious representatives struggled to establish religious practice that would be acceptable to all. Although ideologically atheist, state officials regarded some religious gatherings as acceptable and others unacceptable, but not due to utterances of beliefs or performance of traditional sacraments, but because of social aspects: how …

The Metaphysics Of Personhood In Plato's Dialogues, Daniel T. Sheffler

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

While most scholars know, or think they know, what Plato says about the soul, there is less certainty regarding what he says about the self. Some scholars even assert that the ancient Greeks did not possess the concepts of self or person. This dissertation sets out to examine those passages throughout Plato's dialogues that most clearly require some notion of the self or the person, and by doing so to clarify the logical lineaments of these concepts as they existed in fourth century Athens. Because Plato wrote dialogues, I restrict myself to analyzing the concepts of self and person as …

Nihilist Perdurantism: A New Ontology Of Material Objects, Brian Matthew Carlson

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Ordinary material objects, such as guitars and houses, do not seem to pose any serious philosophical problems. However, the nature of the material objects and their part-whole relation raises serious questions about fundamental ontologies. Furthermore, part-whole relations are not necessarily spatial; they can be temporal as well.

My dissertation investigates the problems posed by ordinary material objects, and the different ontological views that attempt to provide answers to these problems. I then present a new and radical view, which I call Nihilist Perdurantism (NP). NP claims that objects have temporal parts, but not spatial parts. I arrive at this view …

On Supposing, Imagining, And Resisting, Eric M. Peterson

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

My research focuses on the philosophy of imagination. Within the analytic tradition, there recently has been a growing interest in imagination. The current research lies at the crossroads of various sub-disciplines of philosophy, including aesthetics, moral psychology, ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. My work joins this choir as a voice from within philosophy of mind.

My dissertation addresses two questions within philosophy of imagination. What I call the Relation Question asks what is the proper relation between supposition and imagination, and what I call the Unification Question asks what is the imagination. With regards to the Relation Question, …

Motivation And The Primacy Of Perception, Peter A. Antich

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

In this dissertation, I provide an interpretation and defense of Merleau-Ponty's thesis of the primacy of perception, namely, the thesis that all knowledge is founded on perceptual experience. I take as an interpretative and argumentative key Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological conception of motivation. Whereas epistemology has traditionally accepted a dichotomy between reason and natural causality, I show that this dichotomy is not exhaustive of the forms of epistemic grounding. There is a third type of grounding, the one characteristic of the grounding relations found in perception: motivation. I argue that introducing motivation as a form of epistemic grounding allows us to see …

On Making A Difference: How Photography And Narrative Produce The Short-Term Missions Experience, Joshua Kerby Jennings

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Short-term missions participants encounter difference in purportedly captivating ways. Current research, however, indicates the practice does not lead to long-lasting, positive change. Brian M. Howell (2012) argues the short-term missions experience is confined to the limitations of the short-term missions narrative. People who engage in short-term missions build assumptions, seek experiences, understand difference, and convey meaning, as a result of this narrative. The process of telling and retelling travel stories is integral to the short-term missions experience. Drawing upon literature on tourism, narrative, development, and photography, this study intends to evaluate the inefficacy of short-term missions through the stories which …

Modeling Deponency In Germanic Preterite-Present Verbs Using Datr, Marie G. Bourgerie Hunter

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

In certain Germanic languages, there is a group of verbs called preterite-present verbs that are often viewed as irregular, but in fact behave very predictably. They exhibit a morphological phenomenon called deponency, often in conjunction with another morphological phenomenon called heteroclisis. I examine the preterite-present verbs of three different languages: Old Norse, Modern Icelandic, and Modern German. Initially, I approach them from a historical perspective and then seek to reconcile their morphology with the modern perspective. A criteria is established for a canonical preterite-present verb, and then using a lexical programming language called DATR, I create code that generates the …

The Semantic Nature Of Tense Ambiguity: Resolving Tense And Aspect In Japanese Phrasal Constructions, Annabelle T. Bruno

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

The nature of tense in classical Japanese is vague and uncertain, sometimes appearing to be interpretable by combinations of particular verbs with specific verbal auxiliaries and sometimes appearing to be absent altogether. The present study introduces a series of these so-called tense-bearing auxiliaries in classical Japanese while attempting to show that their use can be ambiguous based on the contexts in which they appear. The notions of context driven semantic formalism are explored as a possible means to derive truth from these utterances that seem otherwise tenseless when taken out of context. To accomplish this, time and tense are given …

From Blues To The Ny Dolls: The Rolling Stones And Performance Of Authenticity, Mariia Spirina

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

Rock’n’roll has specific aesthetic — a set of invisible rules that each young rock musician accepts as a given. If one examines the history of rock’n’roll starting from 1950s, one will notice that there was a clear division in rock that separates the rock’n’roll of 1950s from rock of the second half of the 1960s and beyond—the rock that we know today. This thesis investigates how the visual aesthetic of rock’n’roll evolved from its origins in the 1950s blues tradition, how it was formed in the second half of the 1960s, and how it was modified in the first half …

Hayashi Yasuo And Yagi Kazuo In Postwar Japanese Ceramics: The Effects Of Intramural Politics And Rivalry For Rank On A Ceramic Artist’S Career, Marilyn Rose Swan

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

The use and firing of clay to make art instead of vessels was a revolutionary concept in Japan when it first was introduced by Hayashi Yasuo in 1948 with Cloud, and expanded upon by Yagi Kazuo in 1954 with Mr. Samsa’s Walk. Although both avant-garde artists were major forces in the advancement of abstract, nonfunctional ceramics, Yagi is usually given sole credit and occupies a prominent place in the literature, while Hayashi’s name can scarcely be found, despite his numerous international awards, large body of work and career spanning seven decades. This thesis seeks to identify the factors …

An Evaluation Of The Quality Of Mens 100% Cotton Jersey Knit T-Shirts Representing Three Retail Categories, Jeanne Oakes Badgett

Theses and Dissertations--Retailing and Tourism Management

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the quality of design, materials, construction, appearance, and performance of mens 100% cotton jersey knit t-shirts from three retail categories: mass merchant, fast fashion, and better. These retail categories were represented by brands Fruit of the Loom, H&M, and Brooks Brothers, respectively. A convenience sample was comprised of 78 t-shirts. 13 white and 13 navy t-shirts from each brand were used for testing according to ASTM and AATCC standards and specifications. Evaluations and measurements were conducted before washing, and after one, five, ten, and twenty laundry cycles. The t-shirts were evaluated for …

Body Image And Sex: How Women's Body Image Influences And Impacts Sexual Experiences, Sarah E. Christian

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

Body image, the subjective view about one’s own body and how others perceive it, has been shown to have numerous impacts on women in multiple facets of their lives, including sexual experiences. This study seeks to examine the specific impact that body image has on women using sexual relationships for self-validation. Findings suggest that the more likely a woman is to perceive herself as overweight, the higher the chance that she seeks out sex in order to validate her feelings with regards to her body. Parental involvement and comments about the participant’s body were also shown with the woman seeking …

Dancing In Time, Aili W. Bresnahan

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This chapter will analyze the experience and, in particular the conscious experience, of dancing in time from the perspective of the trained dancer while performing. The focus is thus on the experience and consciousness of a dancer who is moving her body in time rather than on the experience of a seated audience member or dance appreciator who is watching a dancer move. The question of how temporality is experienced in dance by the appreciator will therefore not be addressed here.

The primary kind of “experience” that will be the focus of my discussion of temporal experience comes from classical …

[Not] Buying It: Prostitution As Unwanted Sex, Rebecca Whisnant

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Noting the relative invisibility of prostitution buyers, or Johns, in discussions of the morality of prostitution, this article criticizes Johns’ behavior on the grounds that they are culpably involved in causing the typical harms of prostitution in the lives of the women whom they pay for sex. Those harms are, at bottom, the result of being habitually subjected to unwanted sex, and they are exacerbated rather than mitigated by such sex being bought and paid for. Efforts to normalize and legalize sex-buying should therefore be resisted.

Appreciating Dance: The View From The Audience, Aili W. Bresnahan

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Dance can be appreciated from all sorts of perspectives: For instance, by the dancer while dancing, by the choreographer while watching in the wings, by the musician in the orchestra pit who accompanies the dance, or by the loved-one of a dancer who watches while hoping that the dancer performs well and avoids injury. This essay will consider what it takes to appreciate dance from the perspective of a seated, non-moving audience member. A dance appreciator in this position is typically someone who can hear and see, who can feel vibrations of sound through their skin, and who can have …

Forsaken Trust, Meredith Doench

English Faculty Publications

Book 2 in the Luce Hansen Thriller series. Third book forthcoming.

Description from the publisher:

Wallace Lake, Ohio, takes care of their own. Unwelcoming of outsiders, the community closes ranks when four women are found murdered along the water’s edge. Agent Luce Hansen of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation must find a way in before another woman loses her life to the ruthless serial killer.

With the help of her new team—a hot rookie and a smart, beautiful medical examiner—Luce uncovers a ring of devotion surrounding the prime suspect. As Luce works to unearth the dark secrets of this …

Feminist Futures, Julia Nicole Court

Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Ursinus Magazine, Winter 2017, Brock Blomberg, Wendy Greenberg, Ellen Labrecque, Ed Moorhouse, Bill Doherty, Edward Onaci, Deborah Barkun

Ursinus Magazine, 1995–Present

Staying ahead of the class • Transitions • Hoop history • Birthday boxes • Commencement 2017 • Pacific time • Bears make history • Bears write history • Lost and found: March Madness basketball training rules from the 1950s • The curator: Making art accessible • Academic centers connecting students to the world • Melrose Center: Global citizens and next generation 'Mr. Fix-its' • Bears wanted: How can a liberal arts college prepare the next workforce? • Externships: A window on the changing marketplace • Generation first: Sharing stories of changing family histories • On the same wavelength • Burning …

The Effects Of Trauma On Adjustment To College For Children Of Missionaries, Melissa J. Winfield

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Missionary Kids (MKs) encounter challenges in adjusting to college due to cross-cultural transitions and unique experiences related to missionary life. Though trauma is more common among missionaries than for the general American population, little is known regarding the impact of past trauma on missionary kids as they adjust to college. This study compared adjustment to college and psychological well-being of missionary kids and students who are not children of missionaries. The extent to which students have experienced trauma was used as a covariate in the study. MK students were recruited through college organizations and missions’ agencies. They were asked to …

Celebrating Diversity In Christian Schools With Differentiation, Patricia C. Kornelis

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Does it matter if some of your students are lost and have no idea how to connect with you and with learning? Does it matter if some of your students are consistently ahead and are spending considerable time waiting for the rest of us to catch up?

Who Needs Men? Titania’S World And Shakespeare’S Argument For Marriage In A Midsummer Night’S Dream, Bob De Smith

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

What is the best context for understanding and enjoying Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The play was probably written in 1594-95, then just before or after Romeo and Juliet. With its farce of tragic love in the play of Pyramus and Thisby (“‘very tragical mirth’” 5.1.57), is the play a witty rejoinder to that of the star-crossed lovers, making the pair of plays an exercise in the range of romantic genres?

The Typology Of Community: A Case Study Analysis Of Three Intentional Communities, Caleb Kalinowski

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Typological schemes like those produced by Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies have been used to classify human groups in an evolutionary spectrum ranging from the simple to the complex. Though the typological approach was foundational to further development of the western social sciences it is seldom used to examine what might be termed "simple" societies in the modern day. This study aims to apply the contributions of the two theorists listed above to the concept of the modern intentional community. Although these communities comprise an eclectic and diverse social phenomenon, their characteristic small populations and other features make them intriguing …

Drag Performance And Femininity: Redefining Drag Culture Through Identity Performance Of Transgender Women Drag Queens, Cristy Dougherty

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Viewing gender as a performance reveals how gender identity is shaped and formed. There is currently tensions associated with drag queen performance as an act of subversion and transgression from the heteronormative definition of gender and drag as a perpetuation of heteronormative definitions of gender. There is also a tension between the affirmation of femininity and transgression from gender binaries of womanhood. In order to address these tensions, this thesis project examined the reasoning behind how transgender women and gay men drag queen performers navigate the world of femininity. Specifically, this study explored the varied reasons behind performing femininity through …

How The Willowbrook Consent Decree Has Influenced Contemporary Advocacy Of Individuals With Disabilities, Kristen S. Addessi

Student Theses

The existence of the Willowbrook State School was a culmination, of over a one-hundred-year history of Western society’s attempts to provide adequate care, and treatment for individuals with disabilities. The residents housed there, suffered violations of their human and civil rights in various forms of severe abuse, neglect, and violence. Following a three-year legal battle in 1975, as a result of the travesties that occurred, the legal doctrine known as the Willowbrook Consent Decree was written. The Consent Decree was implemented to ensure that the residents’ human and civil rights are met and protected. The Willowbrook State School and the …

Increasing The Vocabulary Acquisition Rate For Third Grade English Language Learners, Jennifer Dawn Pendergrass

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Given the ongoing demographic transformations of U.S classrooms, knowledge of the strategies teachers use to address the vocabulary needs of English language learners (ELLs) is central for improving student outcomes. The problem in a Georgia school system was that ELLs were not building grade-level appropriate vocabulary at a pace comparable to that of their peers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify strategies that increase the rate of vocabulary acquisition for ELLs. In this study, 10 third grade teachers were asked about their understanding of the second language vocabulary acquisition process, which vocabulary strategies they were using to …

Successful Ethical Decision-Making Practices From The Professional Accountants' Perspective, Tammy Tanner Webster

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Unethical behavior includes all decisions and actions counterproductive to an organization's mission and can cause irrevocable damage to the organization's professional reputation. The Securities and Exchange Commission reported 807 ethical violations in 2015. This study was underpinned by the ethical leadership theory, which emphasizes leadership decision making based on fair and just practices, for all involved parties. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore the ethical decision-making best practices that not-for-profit accounting managers in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area needed to strengthen the ethical decision-making process in their organizations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews from 5 …

Tier 2 Interventions For Students In Grades 1-3 Identified As At-Risk In Reading, Jennifer S. Ray

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The majority of Grade 4 students in the United States do not read at the proficient level. In response to this problem, which has persisted for decades, the United States Congress in 2004 mandated response to intervention as a multitiered classroom support system designed to improve reading skills for students in K-12 public schools. However, little research has been conducted about how classroom teachers use diagnostic assessments, provide small group instruction, and monitor progress in reading interventions. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how teachers used assessments and instruction in reading interventions for students in Grades 1-3 …

Preschool Teachers' Views Of Literacy Instruction, Michelle Kimmy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students in Pennsylvania are falling behind in reading proficiency. Early literacy skills are the foundation for future reading success and students who have not learned to read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade have an increased chance of failing to achieve academic success. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to investigate the relationship between preschool teachers' perceived self-efficacy for literacy instruction and preschool literacy assessment scores of students at local private preschool classrooms. The research question focused on the relationship between preschool teacher self-efficacy for literacy instruction and student literacy achievement. Bandura's self-efficacy theory served as the …