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Full Issue, No Author

Verbum

This is the full issue of Volume 12, Issue 2 of Verbum, published in Spring 2015 by the REST Club at St. John Fisher College. Articles from this issue are available as separate PDFs at http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/verbum/vol12/iss2/

The Peculiar Status Of Puerto Rico: Neither A State, Nor An Independent Nation, Gyula Tihanyi

Theses - ALL

"The Peculiar Status of Puerto Rico: Neither a State, nor an Independent Nation" is a study of the creation of the peculiar status of Puerto Rico. The research traces the steps from the American acquisition of Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898 to the granting of US citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917, cementing the ambiguous status of the island.

The burgeoning industrial and agrarian economy of the late-nineteenth century United States generated an overproduction of goods without sufficient domestic and foreign markets. At the same time the closing of the frontier halted continental expansion, thus limiting the available free …

From Spiritualists To Neopagans: Complicating American Religious Pluralism, Clara Marie Schoonmaker

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores the relationship between minority religions and American religious pluralism, an ideology which supports religious equality and functions through social norms and legal mechanisms. Examining American religious pluralism’s responses to efforts by nineteenth-century Spiritualists and contemporary Pagans to gain social recognition and political rights produces new insights into the nature of American religious pluralism. I argue that conceiving of American religious pluralism as a project with inherently Protestant Christian investments challenges its ability to support religious equality and exposes the ways in which it actively works to marginalize minority religions due to their inconsistency with the beliefs and …

Making “An Unknown God” Known: A Narratne-Critical Reading Of Paul’S Areopagus Speech (Acts 17:16-34) In Light Of The “Ignorance-Knowledge” Theme Of Luke-Acts, Hyo-Jong Kim

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Kim, Hyo-Jong. "Making 'An Unknown God' Known: A Narrative-Critical Reading of Paul's Areopagus Speech (Acts 17: 16-34) in Light of the 'Ignorance-Knowledge' Theme of Luke-Acts." Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2015. 324 pp.

This dissertation argues that a reading of Paul's speech in Athens (Acts 17:16-34) through narrative-critical analysis helps the reader see how Lukan narration of Paul's "new teaching" to make "an unknown god" known to the pagan philosophers marks a pivotal point for Lukan presentation of the "ignorance-knowledge" theme in Luke-Acts. This study examines how the speech, in its unique narrative setting and with its subtle rhetorical critique of …

(Re)Constructing The Hybrid: Negotiating Transcultural South Asian Women's Subjectivity, Zoya Haroon

English Honors Projects

My project explores the transcultural South Asian woman as postcolonial hybrid subject. I do so by comparing two novels by transnational South Asian feminist authors (Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee and Anita and Me by Meera Syal) and using ethnographic work to complement my literary analysis of hybridity with the lived experience of South Asian women at Macalester. I contextualize my project within postcolonial and women of color feminist theory. Ultimately, I seek to contribute to the existing literature on transcultural South Asian women’s subjectivity and to place their experience alongside that of other women of color.

Honors project in English …

In The Shadows Of Dominion: Anthropocentrism And The Continuance Of A Culture Of Oppression, Christopher A. Shields

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The oppression of nonhuman animals in Western culture observed in societal institutions and practices such as the factory farm, hunting, and vivisection, exhibits alarming linkages and parallels to some episodes of the oppression of human animals. This work traces the foundations of anthropocentrism in Western philosophy and connects them to the oppressions of racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. In outlining a uniform theory of oppression detailed through the marginalization, isolation, and exploitation of human and nonhuman animals alike, parallels among the groups emerge as the fused oppression of each exhibits a commonality among them. The analysis conducted within this work highlights …

The Process Of Musical Acquisition For Traditional String Musicians In The Homeschool Environment, Keith R. Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined how three accomplished traditional string musicians learned music in their homeschool environments. Data were derived from formal interviews of the three musicians. The research framework for this qualitative study is based upon the socio-educational model of second language learning motivation developed by R. C. Gardner (1959, 1985, 2004, 2010) and applied to the study of instrumental music learning motivation by P. D. MacIntyre (2012). Structured interview questions, triangulated by additional informal dialogues, field observations, externally documented sources, and collaboration with an expert review panel were the data collection activities utilized in the research. Five overarching themes …

Stressed Syllables In Argentine Spanish In Queens, Nyc: Lengthening And F0 Early Peak Alignment, Giselle Gimenez Meiling

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the intonation of Argentine Spanish in Queens, NYC, with the goal of verifying if the unique prosody of producing early peak alignments in the F0 of Argentine Spanish, specifically of Porteños (those from Buenos Aires), is maintained among the intense contact influences with other varieties of Spanish in the area. Previous studies have reported this early peak alignment phenomenon in the Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires, and this paper strives to see if this still occurs among Argentine Spanish speakers in New York City. The Buenos Aires speakers were compared with other native Argentine Spanish speakers in …

50th International Congress On Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University

International Congress on Medieval Studies Archive

The printed program of the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 14-17, 2015), including the Corrigenda.

The Tools Of One-Handed Zen : Hakuin Ekaku's Technological And Artistic Charisma., Brandon James Harwood 1982-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When people think of a Zen kōan, they probably think of Hakuin’s “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” This is appropriate as Hakuin’s ministry has become such an important part of Rinzai Zen that all current masters trace their lineage to him. In this paper, I hope to illuminate one of the reasons that Hakuin became so influential in his time and in the history of Japanese Zen. I argue that Hakuin was a charismatic teacher that used the technological innovations of woodblock printing and the wealth of some of his students to duplicate and disseminate his paintings …

A Journey Of Tears: What They Don't Tell You About America, A Memoir, Nilufer Gokmen

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

This capstone project explores different themes ranging from bureaucracy to suburban life, from popularity of guns in the South to suburban life and metal fandom, both borrowing ideas from scholars who have done research on these subjects before as well as employing different experiences of mine as an international student, trying to survive in a country where international students are not much welcomed in practise. Comparing my own experiences with other people's experiences, especially with those who are from other Middle Eastern countries, this project aims to show how life can be hard for foreign students, and how little Americans …

All The King’S Men: British Codebreaking Operations: 1938-43, Andrew J. Avery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Enigma code was one of the most dangerous and effective weapons the Germans wielded at the outbreak of the Second World War. The Enigma machine was capable of encrypting radio messages that seemed virtually unbreakable. In fact, there were 158,900, 000,000,000 possible combinations in any given message transmitted. On the eve of the war’s outbreak, the British had recently learned that the Poles had made significant progress against this intimidating cipher in the early 1930s. Incensed and with little help, the British Government Code & Cipher School began the war searching for a solution. Drawing from their experiences from …

Jess's Search For An Understanding Of Truth In Fred Chappell's Kirkman Tetralogy, Alex L. Blumenstock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Fred Chappell’s Kirkman tetralogy, narrator Jess Kirkman synthesizes a multiplicity of perspectives for understanding the nature of truth. Blurring the distinction between art and life, Jess's narrative structure mirrors the imaginative reconstruction of experience; the novels are largely non-chronological emotive interactions with and reflections of his most salient memories and imaginings. Synthesizing an impressive cacophony of voices, Jess's stories both describe and apply the wisdom and tales Jess acquires from and with his family members. Each story informs the prior and the next, and the rhizomatic interaction between language, narrative, and reader explores Jess's numerous identities and understandings as …

Themes Of Self-Laceration Towards A Modicum Of Control In Nineteenth Century Russia As Expressed By Dostoevsky In The Brothers Karamazov, Jonathan Ball

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The majority of the academic discourse surrounding Dostoevsky and his epic, The Brothers Karamazov, has been directed toward the philosophic and religious implications of his characters. Largely overlooked, however, is the theme of laceration. In the greater scope of laceration stands the topic of self-laceration. Self-laceration refers to the practice of causing harm to the self in a premeditated and specifically emotionally destructive fashion. The cause of this experience is varied and expressed in as many ways as there are individuals. The struggle in the Russian psyche between viewing the world as fatalistic or as more of an existential …

Under The Shadow Of The Awful Gallows-Tree: The Murder Trials Of Thomas Dula And Ann Melton As A Case Study In Gender And Power In Reconstruction Era Western North Carolina, Heather L. Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a micro-history that explores everyday life on a small scale by tracing the common, if elusive lives of Thomas Dula, Ann Melton, and Laura Foster, and the communities they lived in, to explore the culture in which they lived—and died. Reactions to the murder unleashed an outpouring of discourse embedded in broader, national debates concerning gender roles. The dominant cultural theme that emerged from the murder trials as reflected in middle-class newspapers maintained that true women did not kill and real men acted as gentlemen and defenders of women’s honor. The project mines a wealth of primary source …

Nowhere, Danielle N. Winger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The artist discusses her Masters of Fine Arts exhibition, Nowhere, held at the Tipton Gallery located in downtown Johnson City from March 30 through April 9, 2015. The works included in the exhibition consist of a collection of oil paintings on both canvas and panel, and a series of mixed media collage paintings that explore how time and memory affect her personal connection to spaces she has inhabited.

Ideas discussed include painting, process, cropping, memory, selective memory, forged memory, false memory, fragmenting, dreams, childhood, mnemic image, time, simulacra, simulation, home, beds, bedrooms, bathrooms, abstracting imagery, landscape, Freud, Lacan, Gaston Bachelard, …

Absence Of Memory, Jordan Lienhoop

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Absence of Memory (2013) 35mm film, digital scan

Genesis, Pui Yee (Yupee) Yiu

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Genesis (2014) Mixed media 34.5 X 24.5 inches

September 24. 2014, Taylor Zartman

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

September 24. 2014 (2015) Collaged newspaper on canvas 11X 14 inches

Dog-Manual, Emma Baldwin

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Dog-Manual (2014) 35mm film

Lineage, Pui Yee (Yupee) Yiu

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Lineage (2014) Mixed media 34 X 34 inches

Abiquiu, New Mexico, Jordan Lienhoop

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Abiquiu, New Mexico (2014) 35mm film, digital scan

Life, Death, And Careful Routine Fill The Day: Part 8, Taylor Zartman

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

B&Wfilm 11 X 14 inches

More Than A Game, Jake A. Miller

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Pencil, black pen and ink 18 X 24 inches

Looker: Stories, George Robert Hargett

Master's Theses

The following stories, completed by the author between August 2013 and February 2015, deal with love, obscurity, isolation, failure, vulnerability and insecurity, looking and losing, the fears tied up in all these, and, once in a while, gaining.

Emotional Responses To Musical Dissonance In Musicians And Nonmusicians, Rebecca Joan Bumgarner

Masters Theses

The purpose of this project was to investigate the influence of music education on individuals’ subjective and physiological responses to consonant and dissonant excerpts. Participants were categorized as having high experience (HE) or low experience (LE) in music education. Participants listened to 40 randomized excerpts of music, half of which were consonant, the other half dissonant. Electrodermal Activity (EDA) and Facial Electromyography (EMG) data were collected for each participant, as well as self-reports of perceived pleasantness for each excerpt. It was expected that HE participants “learned” dissonance through music education, and therefore would respond more strongly to dissonant excerpts. As …

A Comparison Study Of Diagnostic Outcomes Between The Music Therapy Assessment Tool For Awareness In Disorders Of Consciousness (Matadoc) And The Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (Crs-R), Caitlyn E. Bodine

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore preliminary external validation of a standardized music therapy assessment tool used in the detection of awareness with the DOC patient population with an external reference standard. Eight subjects were administered both the MATADOC and the CRS-R within five days of one another, and results were compared on the levels of overall diagnosis, analogous domain subscales, and intra-assessment relationships between individual domains and overall diagnosis. Results indicated a very strong level of agreement for overall diagnosis (r_s = .85, p < .01), very strong relationships between the auditory and visual components of the two assessments (r_s = .76, p < .05, and r_s = .81, p < .05, respectively), and a strong, but non-significant relationship between arousal scores on the two assessments (r …