Communication Commons^™

"In Heaven": Christian Couples' Experiences Of Pregnancy Loss, Grace Ellen Peters

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how young, married, heterosexual Christian couples talk about and make sense of pregnancy loss, specifically loss before the twentieth week. Studies of pregnancy loss often focus on individual differences in response to pregnancy loss, but this research engages a shared, relational notion of pregnancy loss. Furthermore, this project focuses on Christianity as a tool for making sense of pregnancy loss, not simply a demographic characteristic. I conducted six open-ended interviews with two couples, with one interview together and an individual follow-up interview with each spouse. Following the interviews, I analyzed and interpreted the interview transcripts for symbols …

Was It Something They Said? Stand-Up Comedy And Progressive Social Change, David M. Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From our earliest origins in every civilization across the globe, comic performances have fulfilled an important social function. Yet stand-up comedy has not attracted the serious academic inquiry one might expect. This dissertation argues that in the absence of public intellectuals stand-up comics are important to how we talk about and negotiate complicated issues like gender and race. These comic texts are sites of cultural critique, public discourse, tools for articulation, a means of persuasion, and serve to galvanize communities.

This dissertation argues that stand-up comedy performances are a vital part of modern American intellectual and social life and are …