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Creando Las Estrellas: Determining The Quality Of The Dominican And Cuban Player Development Systems, Samuel C. Hearn Dec 2015

Creando Las Estrellas: Determining The Quality Of The Dominican And Cuban Player Development Systems, Samuel C. Hearn

Honors Theses

Recently, there has been a huge rise in the number of Cuban ballplayers, or peloteros, as the baseball playing Latinos are known. Why do Major League Baseball (MLB) teams go to such lengths to sign Cubans, when a heavy presence already exists in Cuba’s Caribbean neighbor, the Dominican Republic? Through the comparison educational systems, statistics of each country’s elite players, and comparative accounts of the Dominican and Cuban player development systems, the contrast between the two systems is evident. Though the Dominican system creates a large return in the investment MLB teams make in the country, the socialized sport system …


The Costs Of Cuba Libre: U.S. Neo-Imperialism, Tourism In Cuba, And The Habana Hilton, Lauren Elizabeth Holt Jan 2015

The Costs Of Cuba Libre: U.S. Neo-Imperialism, Tourism In Cuba, And The Habana Hilton, Lauren Elizabeth Holt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper is an investigation into North American tourism in Cuba between the “Spanish-American War” in 1898 and the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The research it presents was prompted by a set of photographs taken at the grand opening of the Habana Hilton in March 1958, part of the Bern and Franke Keating Collection, held in the Archives and Special Collections at the University of Mississippi. Many of these photos are also included throughout the text of the paper. I begin with an overview of the relationship between Cuba and the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, …


Missouri! Bright Land Of The West: Civil War Memory And Western Identity In Missouri, Amy Fluker Jan 2015

Missouri! Bright Land Of The West: Civil War Memory And Western Identity In Missouri, Amy Fluker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project argues that Missouri’s singular position as a border state not only between the North and South, but also between the East and West shaped the state’s Civil War experience as well as its memory of the conflict. During the Civil War, Missouri was a slaveholding border state on the western frontier and home to a diverse and divided population. Neither wholly Union nor Confederate, Missouri’s Civil War was bitterly divisive. In its aftermath, Missourians struggled to come to terms with what it had been about. They found no place within the national narratives of Civil War commemoration emerging …


English Identity And Muslim Captivity In The Mediterranean, 1580-1640, Joel Gillaspie Jan 2015

English Identity And Muslim Captivity In The Mediterranean, 1580-1640, Joel Gillaspie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the emergence of English identity that captivity and Muslims challenged from 1580-1640 as expressed captivity narratives. The narratives provide numerous insights into the emerging English identity as Englishmen explored and became captives in the Mediterranean in the late Elizabethan and early Stuart period. The captivity narratives are unique in that they portray Englishmen at their weakest and in the most helpless situations as England attempted to spread its trade relations throughout the Mediterranean. Few other genres of literature provide such insight into English identity through the particular experience as captivity. Overall, this can provide one more step …


Transformation Of The American Mafia, 1880-1960, Connor Anthony Hagan Jan 2015

Transformation Of The American Mafia, 1880-1960, Connor Anthony Hagan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to discover how the American Cosa Nostra transformed in the early 20th century. The goal of this project is to show how the American mafia’s interactions with the US government evolved the mafia from a group of discriminated immigrants into consummate insiders who adapted to the American historical landscape. To explore this transformation and evolving relationship, this thesis analyzed numerous sources from US government archives and personal testimonies of American Cosa Nostra members. The American Cosa Nostra operated as a shadowy, yet powerful organization throughout much of the 20th century. During this time, the American mafia influenced …


Please Don't Forget About Me: African American Women, Mississippi, And The History Of Crime And Punishment In Parchman Prison, 1890-1980, Telisha Dionne Bailey Jan 2015

Please Don't Forget About Me: African American Women, Mississippi, And The History Of Crime And Punishment In Parchman Prison, 1890-1980, Telisha Dionne Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the vast amount of research covering incarcerated men in the southern prison system from the beginning of the nineteenth century to present, the incarceration of women has gone almost unexamined. As the forgotten offender, historians, criminologist, and others interested in Mississippi carceral studies have failed to include a historical study that focuses on the incarceration of African American women in Mississippi. To date, there are two major historical works that explore Mississippi penology and its notorious Parchman Penitentiary. David Oshinsky’s, Worse Than Slavery and William Banks Taylor’s, Down on Parchman Farm, are the two pivotal historical works that examine …


Freedom Of Expression And The Enlightenment, Alison Guider Jan 2015

Freedom Of Expression And The Enlightenment, Alison Guider

Honors Theses

This thesis concerns Enlightenment and pre-Enlightenment views of freedom of expression, including topics such as toleration, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. It then looks at how these views shaped some of the ideas that emerged from the American and French Revolution. The conclusions drawn here are drawn from document-based research, both primary and secondary sources. The Enlightenment, although primarily concentrated in the eighteenth century, actually had what one might call precursors in the seventeenth century, including John Locke, Benedict de Spinoza, and Pierre Bayle. These thinkers helped set the stage for Enlightenment thinkers such …


Al-Arabiyyah, Le Français, And The Soul Of Algeria: The Language Tango Between Arabic And French In Algerian Education Policy And Defining Post-Colonial Algerian National Identity, Amir Aziz Jan 2015

Al-Arabiyyah, Le Français, And The Soul Of Algeria: The Language Tango Between Arabic And French In Algerian Education Policy And Defining Post-Colonial Algerian National Identity, Amir Aziz

Honors Theses

In Algeria, Arabic and French are the two most commonly spoken languages, sharing a contentious relationship with one another in relation to national identity. The centrality of French and its continued importance in Algerian society are due to the legacy of French colonialism, discussed in Section 1.1. The centrality of Arabic and its prominence is attributed to the spread of Islam and Arabo-Islamic culture, discussed in Section 1.2. The core of my research inquiry thus focuses exclusively on Arabic and French, due to their high visibility in Algerian society. The Berber language is the third most commonly spoken language, spoken …


To Be, Or Not To Be-Statehood Is The Question: Analyzing The Islamic State In Syria And Iraq, Leigh Anne Zook Jan 2015

To Be, Or Not To Be-Statehood Is The Question: Analyzing The Islamic State In Syria And Iraq, Leigh Anne Zook

Honors Theses

On June 29, 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi officially declared the Islamic State in the Sham (ISIS) as an Islamic Caliphate, and consequently renamed his organization the Islamic State (IS). Over the course of 2014, the IS rose to garner significant international attention, which heightened following direct US military intervention in August 2014 in the form of airstrikes against the IS's targets located in Iraq. Determining if the IS qualifies as a state, from a US perspective, holds significant ramifications for future military and diplomatic interactions with this organization. This analysis brings to light the ongoing issues with appropriately and objectively …


China's 'Leftover' Women Phenomenon: Media Portrayal And 'Leftover' Voices, Mazie Merriman Jan 2015

China's 'Leftover' Women Phenomenon: Media Portrayal And 'Leftover' Voices, Mazie Merriman

Honors Theses

China's shengnü — or leftover women — are a group of highly-educated, single, urban women that the Chinese government has targeted in a scare-mongering media campaign intent on pushing these women to give up their careers or education in order to marry and produce children for the betterment of the state. Since 2007, this group of women has faced highly negative articles and images published both by the All China Women's Federation and other news outlets encouraging shengnü to fix their problems and marry. These highly-educated, unmarried women are seen as violators of traditional gen-der norms and roles, and the …


The Black Death And Its Impact On The Church And Popular Religion, Mclaurine H. Zentner Jan 2015

The Black Death And Its Impact On The Church And Popular Religion, Mclaurine H. Zentner

Honors Theses

This thesis concerns the religious impact of the Black Death, the plague that devastated Europe during the middle of the fourteenth century. It explores the effect of the Black Death on the Catholic Church and the religious movements that emerged in response to it. The conclusions drawn here are based on the research of both primary and secondary sources. The Church played a significant role during the Middle Ages because religion was an important aspect of daily life for European Christians. When the Black Death struck Europe in 1347, the Church struggled to cope with the plague's damaging consequences and …


A War On Women? The Malleus Maleficarum And The Witch-Hunts In Early Modern Europe, Morgan L. Stringer Jan 2015

A War On Women? The Malleus Maleficarum And The Witch-Hunts In Early Modern Europe, Morgan L. Stringer

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the topic of gender and witchcraft, specifically why women were so heavily represented in witchcraft trials. The demonology text, The Malleus Maleficarum was analyzed. Several other demonological texts were also analyzed and then compared to one another regarding their statements about women, men, and witchcraft. Then historiography pertaining to gender and witchcraft were analyzed and critiqued. The Malleus Maleficarum contains a high degree of misogyny, but it presents an extreme misogynistic view that is not present in other demonology texts. The argument that the Early Modern European Witch-Hunts were a war on women fails to account for …


Defining The Revolution: A Study Of Contemporary China's Sexual Transformation, Zackary L. Whitehead Jan 2015

Defining The Revolution: A Study Of Contemporary China's Sexual Transformation, Zackary L. Whitehead

Honors Theses

The use of the word revolution typifies much of the research and media coverage of contemporary shifts in Chinese sexual attitudes and behaviors. I argue that this language, while useful in intimating the extent of social transformation, remains clumsy due to the historical backdrop of Western sexual liberation and China's own cultural history. While the PRC government continues to disapprove and outlaw the proliferation of pornography, rising rates of premarital and extramarital sex and the spread of HIV/AIDS and other developments demonstrate ongoing shifts in Chinese society. Yet, the government's domination of politics and the Chinese people's desire for continued …