History Commons^™

Little Cricket On The Hearth: The Quiet Feminism Of _Little Women_, Caroline Anderson Klein

Honors Theses

Since the advent of the cult of domesticity, the stakes for female characters in domestic literature have been notoriously high. There was no room for flaws, rebellious decisions, and certainly no room for mistakes—whether of the woman’s own accord, or simply as collateral damage of a male character’s immorality. In this shallowly Calvinist domain, women were never more than one broken guardrail away from social ruin or death. In writing Little Women, Louisa May Alcott breaks these molds through unflinching kindness to her female characters from childhood to adulthood, even unto death. Alcott achieves this quietly feminist feat by …

The Controlled Narrative Of “Jane Roe:” Norma Mccorvey’S Life Beyond The 1973 Trial, Eleanor G. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, 1973, wrote two memoirs twenty years after the Supreme Court trial that surrounded her third pregnancy. These memoirs (I Am Roe, 1994, and Won by Love, 1997), along with the recent documentary AKA Jane Roe (2020), provide an insight into McCorvey’s life and how she was used by politicians and civilians during and after the influential trial. McCorvey lived a complicated life and was constantly being pulled in different directions spiritually, politically, and personally. This thesis shows how McCorvey attempted to re-write the narrative of her life using …

"Female Faithfulness Encouraged": Gendered Piety In Early American Print, Kadienne Sizemore

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Following the American Revolution, membership in Baptist churches grew exponentially and the influence of the Baptist persuasion was significant. As one of the fastest-growing Protestant denominations in early America, Baptists and their interests were often indicative of larger trends in religiosity. Conceptions of piety, including beliefs surrounding submission, faithfulness, and duty, were central to the structure of Baptist congregations and their proximate communities. This paper explores the role of gender in the discussion, presentation, and justification of Baptist notions of piety in their publications during the Early American Republic. To build on the work of historians exploring female autonomy in …

The Divine Comedy: A Work Of Medieval Mythology, Jamie Alexander

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Prior to The Divine Comedy (1308-1321), ideas about Purgatory were in the early stages of development. Purgatory had loose rituals surrounding its existence and it lacked depiction in written works. Yet in the following centuries, the fear of Purgatory and the practices of penance and indulgences reached a fever pitch, ultimately leading to the Protestant Reformation. Purgatory as a celestial location, and not just the “purgatorial fires” of the Bible, only began to develop in the twelfth century, but its fearful description and imagery in The Divine Comedy not only solidified previously nebulous understandings of Purgatory, but also increased anxiety …

Bedeviled Beauty: My Journey Through White American Theater Institutions, J'Aila C. Price

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Game console: Oculus Quest

World: American Theater Institutions

Player: Minority

Place: United States

Level: “Ain’t no way.”

This thesis explores the contrast between the Westernized philosophies ingrained in my education and my identity as a Black female artist. It sheds light on the difficulties of pursuing higher education in the arts and the gaps that arise from limited exposure to culturally diverse Black resources, revealing the systemic issues in Western performance education. The paper also discusses the insights gained from my journey as a Black female artist, focusing on my thesis performance of Blood at the Root, which is …

Houses Built For Gods: Articulations Of Urban Hokora In Kyoto, Steele Engelmann

Anthropology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Amidst the urban landscape of Kyoto, Japan, there are thousands of hokora, small neighborhood shrines. This study uses social theories of pilgrimage and space to examine the articulation of hokora, community, and personal desire. As sites of local pilgrimage, hokora form networks of communal, but also individual, aspirations across the urban spiritual landscape of the city. This thesis argues that communities are connected to the larger social structures of Kyoto through hokora. As such, neighborhoods are reproduced and displayed through their hokora’s entanglements with the urban, social, and religious landscapes of Kyoto. Therefore, this study deploys an ethnographic approach to …

The Consequences Of Homophobia: Analysis Of Discriminatory Medical And Legislative Policies And Their Influence On Health Disparities, Kaiden J. Fandel

Honors Thesis

Are there specific roots that influence the introduction and incorporation of discriminatory medical policies? What are the sources of such stigma, discrimination, and prejudice, in what forms does such discrimination take place, and what negative impacts does such hatred have on health outcomes, quality of care, and health disparities? Through a review of existing literature on this topic, intertwining the examination of the evolution of discriminatory policies and other explanatory literature in the United States, this thesis aims to answer the questions above, and explain the roots of such homophobic discrimination and its prevalence in the United States. Through the …

“They Can’T Just Stamp Out This Faith”: Cold War Anti-Communism And International Evangelism At The Appalachian Preaching Mission, Braden Lay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Appalachian Preaching Missions (1955-1981) occurred annually in Northeast Tennessee, with their predecessor, the Bristol Preaching Mission, dating back to at least 1949. Local churches, primarily Protestant, organized and convened these annual ecumenical gatherings. Nationally known clergy and laypeople from various denominations spoke, with up to several thousand congregants attending each mission. These individuals provided sermons and speeches on spiritual, domestic, and international issues. Among the most consistently repeated sermon themes was Christianity’s spiritual conflict with atheistic communism. This work addresses the missions’ origins and how the speakers spoke on international Christian missions in decolonized or developing nations as threatened …

The Affable Raphael: Milton's Surrogate Instructor In Paradise Lost., Beau Kilpatrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) is a beautifully written epic that continues to be a stalwart text in the English literary canon, with unlimited potential for interpretation. In this dissertation I propose that Paradise Lost can be read as a pedagogical lesson for Milton’s “fit audience,” where the author implements his views on education in the context of heaven, hell, and Paradise. In the poem, Milton presents three pedagogical methodologies: first, the wrong way to knowledge is presented through Satan’s manipulations of the fallen angels and Eve; second, the divine way to knowledge is illustrated via Michael’s prophecy to Adam …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Geraldo The Fearless: The Unsung Hero Of Portugal, Jacob Badal

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

It is well known that Western Europe has enjoyed a longstanding fascination among scholars and students. So much so that calls to move beyond the region towards a global focus in academia are increasing daily. Yet, much of Western Europe's history beyond England, France, and Germany remains unexplored. Spain, as of late, has enjoyed a resurgence of interest, but Portugal has largely been ignored. Indeed, many do not even consider the two Iberian nations and their entangled histories with Islam and North Africa as part of Europe proper, despite the many advancements contributed by both nations to science, cartography, navigation, …

Binding Interdependence: The Necessity Of Marriage In The Stonor Letters, Sarah Emmett

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Upon her Mattiage to William Stonor in 1475, Elizabeth Stonor, nee Croke, was no wedding amateur. Twice before, she had stood on the steps of the church, as was the custom, and promised to share her wealth and her body with her husband. Twice before, her husband had promised to provide for her and leave her a dower portion upon his death. Both grooms had offered Elizabeth gold and silver coins and a ring to seal their union, and both times, Elizabeth and her husband had prostrated themselves before the altar of the church and heard mass among their family, …

The Jewish Assimilation Of Europe, Noah Allen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians consistently freamed Jewish crises a conflict between the forces of assimilation and preservation, or in some cases liberalism and orthodoxy. Israeli scholars like Katz helped reinforce this frame in volumes like Tradition and Crisis, describing rationalist trends in modern Jusdaism like the Haskalah movement as an assimilation reaction to the liberalizing force of the European Enlightenment. Szajkowski extended this narriative to the French Revolution, asserting that French Jewry was faced with a choice between the defense of ancient tradition and absorption into a radical new movement that was unappreciative of the …

The Becket Family Of Salem, Massachusetts, Kaitlyn Richardson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Though Notorious for the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s, history moved on in Salem after the trials. During the eighteenth century, Salem grew increasingly prominent in the seafaring trade, and by 1800 had a population of 9,400, making it the sixth-largest city in the United States and the second-busiest port in Massachusetts. Indeed, Salem and her trade contacts are considered by historians co be integral in the beginnings of United Scares international relations during the early nineteenth century. This port town had contacts with such far-flung places as other North American Colonies, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, and the West …

Rivalries At Red Cliff: Recasting Historical Figures In Modern Chinese Film And Television, Jackson Keys

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

When accomplished strategist Zhuge Liang visits the funeral of his bitter rival Zhou Yu, he does something no one expects. Mose of the attendees are loyal to Sun Quan , Zhou Yu's lord who controls China's southernmost provinces, and are well aware of the incense power struggle chat ensued between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang as che two cooperated in repelling Cao Cao's advances at Red Cliff. Zou Yu attempted multiple times before and after the battle to have Zhuge Liang killed, and each time Liu Bei's brilliant strategist was one step ahead of him. Zhou Yu's deathbed message, penned …

The Politics Of Removing Politics From The Bench: The Development Of Missouri's Nonpartisan Court Plan, Grant Baldwin

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Today, the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan-known informally as the "Missouri Plan"-informs the judicial selection processes in 38 of the 50 states. Put simply, the Plan operates through a nonpartisan commission that produces a list of potential judges to fill judicial vacancies. The state's governor then selects from the commission's list when making judicial appointments. After one year of service, the judges' names are then placed on a nonpartisan and noncompetitive retention ballot, in which the voters simply select whether the judge will retain his or her position or be removed. Despite its ubiquity, scholars have paid very little attention to …

Two Murder Confessions And The Struggle For Black Authority In Early 19th Century Philadelphia, Garrett Gaither

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

As Richard Allen Headed to the prision to help facilitate the confessions of a murder that shook the city of Philadelphia, he let his mind wander. It felt just like yesterday that he arrived in the city and started preaching and helping his Black brothers and sisters. They had made so much progress over his few decades in Philadelphia: an independent church they were still fighting to hold onto, the new law against the Atlantic slave trade, and a large Black community that was active in his church. Despite all of this success, racial tensions were rising in the city. …

Atatiirk's Reforms And Legacy: Exploring A Female Novelist's Critique, David Patton

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On May 19, 1919, in the post-World War I Ottoman Empire an Ottoman military officer named Mustafa Kemal Pasha abandoned his pose after he was sent to Samsun on the Black Sea coast to inspect the Ninth Army of the Ottoman Empire, taking up leadership of the Turkish Nationalist Movement against the Entente powers, Britain and France. This marked the commencement of the Turkish War of Independence, a conflict that lasted until the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which officially drove out the Western powers from Anatolia, the Turkish heartland. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, the …

Forgotten Fallout: The Missing Impact Of The Sl-1 Disaster, Darren Bradley

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Nuclear Energy has long been a volatile subject in American history and public discourse. Reactor accidents, domestic and foreign, such as the meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the disaster at the Chernobyl plane in Pripyac, Ukraine have been major milestones in shaping public opinion of nuclear energy in the United Scares. While these events have remained atomic milestones of sores, due to the fact chat nearly everyone has heard of chem, the 1961 explosion of the SL-I reactor at the Nuclear Reactor Test Site in Idaho, the first in the world to inflict casualties, has never held …

Ussr Influence On The Antiapartheid Movements Of South Africa, Brooke England

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On 21 March 1960, the Pan Africanist Congress urged people to join together to protest passes-identifying documents required to be carried at all times by black Africans-by surrendering themselves without the passes for arrest in defiance of the discriminatory law. Thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Sharpeville police station. After hours of singing and peaceful protest, a policeman was accidentally knocked down and the crowd rushed forward to investigate. Terror ensued when the policemen opened fire on the crowd. Humphrey Tyler, the assistant editor of Drum magazine, witnessed the chaos firsthand. He recounts chat after a cheerful and …

All Those Who Shall Pass An Italian's Resistance & Nazi Occupation, Alexander Willis

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The song "Bella Ciao" was originally written as an anthem for the struggles of the 19th century Italian working class. Amidst the beginning of Italy's monumental wrestle against fascism (both from Italy's own government and Nazi forces), the words were changed to reflect the struggle of the resistance fighters, known as partisans. "Bella Ciao" was now a song mourning the loss of their beautiful Italy. It was not just a song of grief, but also a song of belligerent determination to resist.

Editor's Preface, Travis Meyer

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Every historical journal has a focus. Some journals center on a geographic region, others on the time period, and yet other on paterns common to every civilization. At first glace at this journal, however, there seems to be little thematic continuity between the articles. Topics range from medieval Portuguese legends to Missouri judicial politics. Despite varied subject matter, however, this journal's selections reflect important emphases on historical practice itself. First, the geographic, chronological, and thematic diversiry of this journal serves to express the value of all kinds of history. The articles represented here feature inquiry into the history of Asia, …

Front Matter

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Charge The Cockpit Or Die: An Anatomy Of Fear-Driven Political Rhetoric In American Conservatism, Daniel Hostetter

Senior Honors Theses

Subthreshold negative emotions have superseded conscious reason as the initial and strongest motivators of political behavior. Political neuroscience uses the concepts of negativity bias and terror management theory to explore why fear-driven rhetoric plays such an outsized role in determining human political actions. These mechanisms of human anthropology are explored by competing explanations from biblical and evolutionary scholars who attempt to understand their contribution to human vulnerabilities to fear. When these mechanisms are observed in fear-driven political rhetoric, three common characteristics emerge: exaggerated threat, tribal combat, and religious apocalypse, which provide a new framework for explaining how modern populist leaders …

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Human Nature And The Integration Of Faith And Reason, Bradley Kime

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In his 1838 Divinity School address, Ralph Waldo Emerson said that "every man is an inlet into the deeps of Reason." Heavily influenced by Hindu Monism, Emerson believed human beings were one with the universal soul the immanent divinity of the natural universe. Because of humanity's divine nature, Emerson saw reason as an intuitive revelation springing from within every individual, while faith was simply a recognition of one's innate intuition. Faith and reason were two sides of the same coin. Emerson's Transcendentalism illustrates how conceptions of faith, reason, and their relationship often rest on underlying beliefs about human nature.

Reading Disasters: Science, Literary Devices, And The Culture Of Reassurance In Children's Nonfiction Literature On Natural Disasters, Emily Willis

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

September 21, 1938, dawned chilly but calm on the Northeast coast of the United States. Weather forecasts indicated the possibility for rain and high tides from a storm brewing somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, but nothing prepared Northeasterners for the nightmare that would be upon them that afternoon. By three o'clock p.m., the "Long Island Express," a category three hurricane, barreled across New York and other parts of the New England coast, causing nea rly $400 million in damages. "While forecasters attempted to stay one step ahead of the storm, they were caught off-guard," states Sean Potter in a vignette …

The Men Who Could Speak Japanese: The Navy Japanese Language School At Boulder, Colorado (1942-1946) And The Legacy Of World War Ii Japanese-Language Officers, Katherine White

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On their last day of class at the US Navy Japanese Language School (USNJLS or JLS), Captain Roger Pineau and his fellow classmates waited in a room on the second floor of the University of Colorado library. They had spent the last eleven months immersed in a rigorous study of the Japanese language, and today their teachers had promised a sample of what they would experience as Japanese-language officers in the Pacific War. The six students sat intently as their conversation sensei (teacher) entered the classroom, removed a Japanese newspaper from his briefcase, placed his pocket watch on the table, …

"Take Every Good": A Study Of The Hidden Trends In The Latter--Day Saint Indian Placement Program, Annie Penrod Walker

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The Latter-day Saint Indian Placement Program unofficially started in 1947 when a seventeen-year-old Navajo girl named Helen John was harvesting sugar beets with her family in Richfield, Utah. Helen had been attending school on the Navajo reservation in Arizona for years, but that summer her father told her that once they returned to the reservation she would have to stay home and work, allowing her younger siblings to have a turn at school. Upset and disappointed, Helen ran off in tears and was overheard by Amy Avery, the wife of the farmer Helen's family was working for. Helen revealed her …

An Enduring Force: The Photography Of Laura Gilpin Among The Twentieth-Century Navajo, Carlyle Schmollinger

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

While some artisits travel the world in search of inspiration, Laura

Gilpin found hers in the arid, desert landscape of the southwestern United States. Gilpin had an affinity for the Navajo. In 1968, eleven years before her death, she published the first edition of her seminal work, The Enduring Navajo. A feat in its own right, the collection of photographs and accompanying text was the product of many years spent among the peoples located in the Southwest region of the United States. In the epilogue to her book, Gilpin boldly proclaims her love of the Navajo when talking about the …