Theses and Dissertations | DigiNole

You are here

Permalink: https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:etds

Collection banner image

Pages

: "I Am in the, and Thow Are in Me"; This paper explores the transition of Margery Kempe from a married laywoman to celibate mystic in The Book of Margery Kempe. Margery grapples with three very different and distinct challenges in the course of finding her spiritual niche in the patriarchal-dominated medieval Church. Margery must first deal with overcoming the Church's view that her body was a site of sinfulness and ontological monstrosity. She then chooses to seek the aid of her spiritual predecessors and discover where she fits into the tradition of female mystics. Finally, she must come to terms with the fact that due to the fact that she was functionally illiterate, she must filter her biography through the hand of a scribe. Throughout all of her experiences, she constantly seeks validation from the male clergy, her spiritual foremothers, and other members of society. However, to alleviate her fears and anxieties, Margery must go within herself, get her narrative written and carve her own space within the Catholic Church. By doing this, she effectively makes her place within the Church, the literary canon, and creates the first autobiography in the English language., Submitted Note: A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts., Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2005., Date of Defense: June 29, 2005., Keywords: Female Mysticism, Religion, Gender Studies, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory committee: Nancy Warren, Professor Directing Thesis; David F. Johnson, Committee Member; Eugene Crook, Committee Member.

: "I Am the Conjure"; This thesis focuses on Sharon Bridgforth's performance pieces. Examining Bridgforth's performance texts, a more complicated and--at times-- contradictory way of approaching subjectivity emerges, challenging ideas of cultural authenticity, essentialism, and a self-contained Black aesthetic. I position Bridgforth's performance pieces as points of entry for discussing the U.S. American theatre's misleading categorization of plays by women playwrights of color as plays concerned with race over aesthetics-- an oversimplified system that undercuts the multifaceted, polyphonic plays and performance pieces written, and limits the multiple interpretations possible in these works. I ultimately advocate for reimagining U.S. American theatre's discourse on race and gender, asking spectators to consider ways in which the voices "from the fringe" challenge incomplete binaries of identity and community., Submitted Note: A Thesis submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2012., Date of Defense: April 2, 2012., Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Elizabeth Osborne, Professor Directing Thesis; Mary Karen Dahl, Committee Member; Kris Salata, Committee Member.

: "I Couldn't Help It!"; According to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP), a person is blameworthy for what he did only if he could have avoided doing it. This principle figures importantly in disputes about the relationship between determinism, divine foreknowledge, free will and moral responsibility, and has been the subject of considerable controversy for over forty years now. Proponents of the principle have devoted a good deal of energy and ingenuity to defending it against various objections. Surprisingly, however, they have devoted comparatively little effort to developing positive arguments for it, and, with few exceptions, the arguments they have proposed have received little, if any, critical attention. My dissertation is intended to help fill this gap in the literature on PAP. There are three main arguments for PAP. I critically evaluate each of these arguments, arguing that they are all unsuccessful. Where, then, does that leave PAP? I suggest that, in the absence of any further compelling arguments for or against the principle, debate over it is likely to end in dialectical stalemate. I conclude by highlighting several implications of this suggestion for recent debates about the metaphysics of moral responsibility., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2011., Date of Defense: Date of Defense: August 2, 2013., Keywords: Free will, moral responsibility, alternative possibilities, blameworthiness, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory committee: Alfred Mele, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Kelsay, University Representative; Randolph Clarke, Committee Member; David McNaughton, Committee Member.

: "I Have to Know Who I Am"; ABSTRACT This dissertation explores black female identity in the literature of contemporary Afro-Brazilian writers Miriam Alves, Esmeralda Ribeiro, and Conceição Evaristo. The research approaches Alves poem "Estranho Indagar" (1983), Ribeiro's short fiction work "Ogun," and Evaristo's novel Ponciá Vicêncio utilizing Africana Womanist Theory. It situates Afro- Brazilian female writing within a global Africana Womanist paradigm and focuses on two of the theory's eighteen tenets,self-definer and self-namer to explore the concept of black identity in Afro-Brazilian female writing. Chapter One reviews the socio-cultural origins of the challenges of black female identity. It also proposes Africana Womanism as a methodology for examining black female identity in Brazil. Chapter Two surveys literature on twentieth century Brazilian racial ideology, Afro-Brazilian history, and activism, as well as the marginalization of Afro- Brazilian women from Brazilian history and the literary canon. Chapter Three focuses on the mãe preta and mulata stereotypes as the root cause of black female invisibilization, lack of socio-economic progress, and stifling of black female identity. Moreover, it contrasts currently utilized feminist theories and argues for the use of Africana Womanism as an appropriate global perspective for understanding and analyzing the lives of Afro-Brazilian women. Chapter Four applies the Africana Womanist tenets of self-namer and self-definer to the works "Estranho Indagar", "Ogun," and Ponciá Vicêncio to investigate the relationship between self-naming, self-definition and Afro-Brazilian female identity. Chapter Five summarizes the previous chapters, offers findings from the study, and suggests avenues of new research for future Brazilian and Brazilianist scholars., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the College of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013., Date of Defense: March 29, 2013., Keywords: Africana Womanism, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Hispanic, Brazilian Writers, Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Female Writing, Contemporary Afro-Brazilian literature, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Peggy Sharpe, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kathleen Erndl, University Representative; Delia Poey, Committee Member; Juan Carlos Galeano, Committee Member.

: "I Kinda Just Messed with It"; This dissertation investigates the resources that students use to learn new digital technologies to complete course assignments. This work is particularly important in a time when teachers are assigning more multimodal projects. If students are using and learning digital technologies to complete our assignments, we might argue that we should teach our students how to use the specific technologies they would use for the assignment. Yet, teaching students specific technologies is complicated for several reasons, including limited time and resources, numerous and quickly obsolete software, different levels of expertise for students and teachers, and more. Because of these complications, students may benefit from spending less time with instruction in specific technologies and more time considering practices for learning new digital technologies. This dissertation works to discover practices that teachers can use in the classroom to help their students learn how to learn new digital technologies in order to compose multimodal texts. To do this, I investigate how students are already learning technologies outside of the classroom and use this investigation to identify possible pedagogical directions. To gain a broader understanding of the resources students are using, I surveyed five sections of an upper-level composition course in which students completed at least one digital assignment. Then, to gain a more nuanced and richer description of resource use, I interviewed three of these students. To analyze the data, I used a framework adapted from Jeanette R. Hill and Michael J. Hannafin's components for Resource-Based Learning (RBL). RBL is a pedagogical approach that aims to teach students how to learn and to produce students who are self-directed problem-solvers, able to work both collaboratively and individually. Though RBL is a pedagogical approach, I used its values and parameters as a lens for understanding students' use of resources. RBL (as the name suggests) puts emphasis on the resources students use to facilitate their learning. Given the wide variety of resources and the ways in which they can be used in the classroom, few scholars articulate precisely what RBL may look like more generally. Hill and Hannafin (2010), however, list four components among which RBL can vary: resources, tools, contexts, and scaffolds. In this study, resource is an umbrella term for the tools, contexts, and humans students may use to support their learning. Tools are the non-human objects that students use to learn new technologies. Humans are the people from whom students seek help. Contexts are the rhetorical situations (specifically the audiences and purposes for composing) surrounding the technological learning, the students' past technological experiences, and the physical locations in which students work. An important element of this study is to identify not only what resources students use, but also how they use their resources; scaffolds are how the resources are used. The scaffolds in this study are as follows: conceptual scaffolds – resources help students decide the order in which to complete tasks, understand the affordances and constraints of the technology, and learn the genre conventions of a given text; metacognitive scaffolds – resources help students tap into their prior knowledge; procedural scaffolds – resources provide students with step-by-step instructions for completing tasks or with definitions of vocabulary; and strategic scaffolds – resources encourage students to experiment in order to learn and solve problems they encounter while learning the technology. In addition to addressing what and how students use resources to learn to perform tasks with the technology, I also examined how students used resources to learn the specialized vocabulary of the technology and the technology's affordances and constraints. The study resulted in eight findings about the ways in which students are using resources. These findings were then used to identify three areas for possible strategies teachers might consider to help students use resources to learn new technologies: 1. Helping students effectively choose technologies, which includes assisting them in (a) using resources to identify technology options and learn about the affordances and constraints of the options and (b) using the affordances and constraints, their composing situations, and the available resources to choose the technology that best meets their needs. 2. Helping students effectively use templates, which includes aiding them in (a) using templates to learn about the genres in which they are composing, (b) selecting effective templates, and (c) altering the templates based on their rhetorical situations and preferences. 3. Helping students learn the technology's specialized vocabulary, which includes assisting them in (a) identifying familiar visual and linguistic vocabulary, (b) making educated guesses about unfamiliar vocabulary, and (c) using resources to learn unfamiliar vocabulary., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester 2017., Date of Defense: March 10, 2017., Keywords: Composing Technologies, Composition, Pedagogy, Resource Based Learning, Self-Teaching, Technology, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Michael Neal, Professor Directing Dissertation; Steven McDowell, University Representative; Kathleen Blake Yancey, Committee Member; Kristie Fleckenstein, Committee Member.

: "I'm a Hustler" (or Used to Be); This study concentrates on the misunderstood and maligned figure of the black hustler to re-assess the 1960s constructions of black masculinity as they inform the politics of race and class mobility in the United States during and after the Civil Rights period. Whereas critics such as David Dudley, Lawrence Goodheart, Patrick Daniel Moynihan, and Terri Hume Oliver, amongst others, have read the black street hustler in terms of psychopathology and criminality, I argue that Claude Brown, Malcolm X, and Iceberg Slim enlarge the urban and folkloric roots of the black hustler in order to critique the very foundations of American capitalism itself as well as to challenge the social norms of white middle-class masculinity by mimicking these concepts through hyperbolic performances, which negate both the supposed psychopathology and criminality associated with the black hustler. Although the hustler figure is nearly omnipresent in Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land, Malcolm X's The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Iceberg Slim's Pimp: The Story of My Life, these selected works tend to be read as autobiographies that rely on conventions of social realism, black nationalism, and/or confessional narratives, focusing exclusively on the negative aspects of the black hustler. Instead, this study claims that the selected texts should be privileged as hustler narratives, drawing attention to the function of the hustler as participating in a wider American tradition of upward class mobility. In the process, the black hustler hyperbolically emulates, criticizes, and rejects or restructures such concepts of individual 'rags-to-riches' capitalism and/or middle class respectability in order to achieve his own status and define his own terms for the construction of alternative black masculinities. Chapter One shows how Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land utilizes the presentation of the hustler to destabilize prevalent articulations of the North as Promised Land in migration narratives and rebuilds community through jazz musicianship and the male-centered community that it creates. Chapter Two posits the hustler in The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a developmental stage that articulates or reproduces itself on the streets, in prison, and within the Nation of Islam and leads Malcolm to an emerging Pan-Africanism through his reliance on, and questioning of, unstable male-centered communities. Chapter Three discusses Iceberg Slim's presentation of the hustler in Pimp: The Story of My Life by highlighting the critical similarities between the pimp and the standard managerial capitalist and reveals how false contrition gains him entry into middle-class status. The Epilogue discusses the work of Nathan McCall and the "strained position of the middle class" as seen through the black male figure, which speaks to the ineffectiveness and lack of functionality that traditional capitalist advancement offers for poor urban settings., Submitted Note: A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts., Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2005., Date of Defense: October 21, 2005., Keywords: Black Masculinity, Iceberg Slim, Malcolm X, Claude Brown, Hustler Narratives, Hustlers, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Christopher Shinn, Professor Directing Thesis; Tomeiko Ashford, Committee Member; Maxine Jones, Committee Member.

: "I'm a Product of Everything I've Been Through"; Using Bourdieu's theory of social capital and cultural reproduction as a conceptual framework and narrative inquiry as a methodology, this study explores the role of schooling in the cultural identity development of adolescent females from Bosnian Muslim communities who entered the United States as refugees. The five participants live in a Southeastern city pseudonymously referred to as "Parksburg." Each woman arrived in the U.S. during elementary school years and was either in postsecondary study or nearing high school graduation at the time of the study. The women's personal narratives reveal a common desire to develop bicultural competence in social as well as academic settings. The self-reported degree of success varied, as women who had chosen to socialize primarily within a peer group of other Bosnian refugee youth felt a stronger connection to their Bosnian language and identity as young adults; this cultural self-identification as Bosnian corresponded with a desire to follow Bosnian cultural practices, marry a Bosnian man and make frequent return visits to Bosnia as well as follow Muslim religious observances. Students whose social and academic realms at school included few other Bosnians were much more likely to have constructed cultural identities in which being American or international was primary and a Bosnian cultural heritage was secondary or one of several equal cultural influences. Race played an important role in cultural identity development, as all the students were aware of the pervasiveness of White privilege and the degree to which their adjustment was easier than that of other refugee and immigrant peers because of their "White" appearance. Most of the students felt relief from their ability to blend into mainstream White U.S. culture and placed a high value on being able to "pass" as non-immigrant White. This desire to blend in led to a conscious choice to downplay Bosnian language and Muslim religious heritage in school and social settings. The two students who had attended schools with a majority of African-American students constructed their racial identities in light of their social context in high school; they insisted to their classmates that they were Bosnian and therefore differentiated themselves from the White American students. This public self-identification as "European" rather than "White" extended to linguistic identity development, as one student adopted African-American Vernacular English as the exclusive form of English she used. Racial identity issues reflect many of Bourdieu's concepts including cultural reproduction, symbolic violence, and the social capital associated with race in contemporary U.S. culture. Narrative data also reveals the challenges of the multiple "uprootings" faced by many refugees who are forced to leave their home country for another country where they may live for several years only to be uprooted and resettled yet again in a third permanent country of residence. The concept of a refugee identity and other elements of cultural identity common to many refugees, such as ethnic conflict and the experience of war trauma, are also discussed. Analysis and interpretation also address a number of aspects of cultural identity development revealed as significant in the narrative data. These include the importance of self-selected cultural identity labels as well as the role of the homeland in the development of cultural identity. Ethnic, religious, and linguistic facets of identity are also addressed as portions of participant narrative illustrate the complexity of cultural identity development among these young women who differ in many ways yet share common struggles of developing bicultural or multiple cultural identities in the United States., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2007., Date of Defense: November 13, 2006., Keywords: Biculturalism, Immigration Studies, Narrative Research, Cultural Identity Construction, Refugee Education, Multilingual Development, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Jeffrey A. Milligan, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Victoria-Maria MacDonald, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Deborah Hasson, Outside Committee Member; King Beach, Committee Member; Emanuel Shargel, Committee Member.

: "It's All about the Work"; Farmers markets surged in popularity in the United States over the past two decades. The negative consequences of large-scale, industrialized agriculture and changing consumer interests together stimulated this drive towards alternative farming practices and local, direct-from-producer foods. As a result, farmers markets created the opportunity for new, small-scale producers to enter the marketplace and make a living off the land. The need persists to explore the social aspects of this food phenomenon from the perspective of the farmer. Using in-depth interviews with farmers and fieldwork at several farmers markets, I examine how producers became and remained vendors at farmers markets. In the first empirical analysis (Chapter 4), I use farmers' retrospective accounts to outline the ways farming was discovered and the indirect and lengthy process of becoming a farmers market vendor. Along with market opportunity, I find that this process was dependent on a combination of social support, personal determination and unforeseeable life circumstances. In my second analysis (Chapter 5), I use a combination of interviews, fieldwork, and personal experience as a farmer and vendor to explore the spoken and unspoken requirement for farmers to create an "authentic" farmers market. Farmers' success at the market depended on their ability to create this authentic experience. I find that farmers used strictly enforced market rules and carefully crafted product displays, personal presentations, and social interactions to meet customers' expectations of legitimate farmers and an authentic farmers market. Additionally, I show how these expectations and presentations directly contrasted with the realities of life on the farm. Overall, my research shows how socialized perceptions of farming determined farmers' willingness to adopt the occupation. Once in, farmers sustained their place at the market by meeting customers' expectations and standards of authenticity. Often times this meant farmers had to cover and hide the ugly aspects of their work. These findings show that expectations, meanings, and the social interactions that create and maintain them are import factors to consider in research connecting food production and consumption., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester 2016., Date of Defense: April 11, 2016., Keywords: Farmers Markets, Farming, Food, Identity, Social Construction, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Douglas Schrock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeffrey Broome, University Representative; John Reynolds, Committee Member; Hernan Ramirez, Committee Member.

: "It's Not My Imagination, I've Got a Gun on My Back!"; Despite being the focus of studies in fields such as ethnomusicology, cultural studies, philosophy, and history, punk rock—and American hardcore punk rock in particular—has yet to fall under the analytical gaze of music theorists. In this dissertation I aim to fill this gap by examining some typical stylistic practices in hardcore punk, a repertoire described as aggressive, reflecting energy and intensity, and driven by an impulse toward brevity of song forms. In order to capture these elements, I examine instrument-specific items, such as drum patterns and guitar/bass riffs, as well as how repetitions of these play into creating form. Further, as the primary texts of hardcore are recordings, I also delve into matters of recording attributes. I argue that each of these items is integral in defining hardcore as a musical genre. While the first incarnation of hardcore took place from the late-1970s to the mid-1980s and included a number of bands, I focus on early hardcore (roughly 1978–1983) and on four main bands: Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and the Dead Kennedys. I begin the dissertation by examining previous studies of hardcore music, of which there are very few. Following this, I briefly outline some of the main characteristics of the genre before presenting a history of each main band, via their discography. Chapter Two turns to the construction of drum patterns and what I call "riff schemes": patterns of physical motion on the guitar that form the basis of several types of riffs. Further, this type of kinesthetic focus also informs my examination of common melodic and harmonic features of hardcore riffs, as I engage these patterns on a guitar's fretboard. Chapter Three moves to larger aspects of form and addresses the components of individual formal sections, such as verses and choruses. Previous literature devoted to form in popular music supplies definitions, but many are too restrictive for application to hardcore; thus, I frame my own understandings by seeking out the main elements of each section—as identified by others—and shape them to reflect hardcore practice. Chapter Four examines recording attributes; in particular, I discuss the spatial aspects of recordings, with a brief foray into timbre. Recordings reflect several dimensions, including width (the placement and total spread of instruments on a horizontal plane); depth (the placement and total spread of instruments on a receding plane, as well as their placement in a performance environment); and height (the placement of instruments on a vertical plane, which measures high to low and is based upon frequency spectra). I address each attribute as it is reflected in hardcore before ending the chapter with a discussion of texture, specifically relating the creation of texture to these three dimensions. Chapter Five provides four in-depth analyses that address all of the previous musical elements examined in the dissertation, but also seeks to identify how certain metaphors of hardcore are signified in the music. While aggression is found in rhythmic and textural practices, energy and intensity are reflected in the construction of riffs, their deployment throughout a song, and the tempo at which they are performed. Brevity is present in all musical parameters, from formal constructions to recording attributes. The dissertation ends with a series of conclusions and prospects for future research., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011., Date of Defense: Date of Defense: March 29, 2011., Keywords: Riff Schemes, Drum Patterns, American Hardcore, Punk Rock, Guitar Riffs, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Timbre, Texture, Recording Space, Analysis of Recordings, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory committee: Jane Piper Clendinning, Professor Directing Dissertation; Frank Gunderson, University Representative; Joseph Kraus, Committee Member; Matthew Shaftel, Committee Member.

: "Je Vis dans un Être Double" a Theory of Doubling in Charlotte Delbo's Texts; Most of the research on Charlotte Delbo has remained within the realm of Holocaust studies, and her writing, in particular, has been seen as a means of witnessing and preserving memory. Labeled solely as a "Holocaust survivor" and subsequently overshadowed by male writers of the Holocaust, Charlotte Delbo has not been adequately read and appreciated as a writer of the 20th century. Although her experiences in Auschwitz are one of the main subjects of her writing, I do not focus explicitly on her experiences, but rather on the methods and literary devices that Delbo uses to (re)construct and articulate these experiences. Delbo breaks the traditional template that labels her as a survivor by using a combination of two or more literary genres, known in general as generic hybridity, to create a unique literary form that captures her struggles with the social and cultural demands of post-World War II France. My dissertation will attempt to convey salient aspects of this unique literary form which I will call doubling. In this study, I investigate the various ways that identity, narrative settings, literary characters, time frames, and narrative forms are doubled. Doubling, I believe, is a result of Delbo's gendered experience in the camps and in France after the war. Not only do we witness the experience of Delbo trying to maintain a unified self in the camps as the Nazis relentlessly strip away her humanity, but we also follow Delbo's experiences of trying to understand her own duality as she resettles back in France- homeless, jobless, and a widow. As a woman, writing about women, in a women's camp, Charlotte Delbo gives us a unique perspective, not yet explored, of what is was like for her and the 230 women in her convoy to experience, and for a few- to survive Auschwitz., Submitted Note: A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011., Date of Defense: February 11, 2011., Keywords: French Literature, Holocaust studies, Women's Writing, Charlotte Delbo, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: William J. Cloonan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laurel Fulkerson, University Representative; Aimée Boutin, Committee Member; James Tarpley, Committee Member; Reinier Leushuis, Committee Member.

: "Kiss Me I'm Not Irish, but I Wish I Was"; Ethnomusicological works often examine music as an expression of identity. In these studies, music is seen as the product of culture and ethnicity. This thesis reverses this approach and instead explores how musical experiences, rather than only reflecting identity, can produce identity. Within the context of the United States of America, a multicultural society, the Irish music tradition is generally understood to belong to the community of the Irish diaspora. This music is closely associated with a specific population that is delineated by both a common ethnicity and culture. However, this work considers the resulting impact upon identity construction when individuals from outside of this community participate in its music. This thesis examines how and why individuals in the United States, regardless of their ethnic background, incorporate an Irish-American cultural identity into their personal identity through participation in the Irish-American music-culture. This work demonstrates that membership in the Irish-American music community is determined more by musical participation, personal interactions between individual members, and a respect for the tradition than by an Irish ethnic connection. It also shows how Irish music in an American context is uniquely suited for the construction and reconstruction of identity by its participants., Submitted Note: A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009., Date of Defense: April 8, 2009., Keywords: Irish American Music-Culture, Irish Diaspora, Culture, Ethnicity, Identity American, Participation, Community, Respect, Cultural Adoption, Identity Expression, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Frank Gunderson, Professor Directing Thesis; Benjamin Koen, Committee Member; Charles E. Brewer, Committee Member.

: "Late-Ming Beats" and the Monastic Accommodation in the Early 17th Century Hangzhou; This study is about the formation of elite lay Buddhist societies in late 16th-century and early 17th century Hangzhou. In this era, many classically trained Confucian scholars were not only philosophically inclined to Buddhist doctrines but also financially supportive of monastic construction projects in remote mountains as a deliberate attempt to create an ideal site for their exclusive enjoyment. I heuristically call these Confucian scholars the "Late-Ming Beats"—they were usually either politically frustrated officials or failed civil service examinees. They fantasized about living a reclusive life, retired from politics at a young age, regularly visited and patronized Buddhist monasteries, befriended the monastics, funded the constructions and renovations of the monastic buildings, and practiced meditation under their favorite Buddhist masters. One may entertain the idea that the foundation of Buddhist societies in the late Ming was an analog to the Beat Generation of the last 1950s' in the United States. Despite the different socio-historical contexts, what connects these two social phenomena are their counterreaction against repressive societal norms in which Buddhism became the alterity. The Buddhist society fellows were mostly politically frustrated scholar-officials and continuously failed civil service examinees. Many deliberately forfeited their future political careers due to factionalism and partisanship in officialdom. I use Tu Long 屠隆 (1542-1605) as an example to examine his gradual disenchantment with politics and increasing interest in religious practices. What Buddhism signified was a "spritual" escape from the profanity and meaninglessness of politics. In this study, I give historical details about the formation of lay Buddhist communities and the monastic responses to these laities' presence. I focus on three elite societies—the Society of Fragrant Adornment, the Society of Tranquility, the Society of Vegetable and Bamboo Shoot. The establishment of these societies helped the Late-Ming Beats to conceive an elitist lay Buddhist identity. They believed the literati are the most authentic Buddhists who appreciate the essence of Buddhism and combine Buddhist doctrines with Confucian teachings. I focus on their cultural and financial patronage to the monastery, the society's monthly gathering program and activities, and their literary style and achievement. Their support and furnishing of cultural artifacts in monastic institutions led to the flourishing of Buddhism in the Hanzhou region. Through their literary productions on local monasteries, their historical treatises, and their compilations of gazetteers, the literati constructed their own version of Buddhism. Then, we shift away from the literati construction of Buddhism to the monastic accommodations to their activities. I focus on the guesthouse, tearoom, ritual, and meditation rooms exclusively created for the literati's enjoyment in the monastery—in other words, the physicality of literati's "places of socio-leisure." By comparing earlier canonized monastic codes with later renditions of these codes that circulated in the early 17th century Hangzhou, I identify the emergence of several monastic "hospitality" office posts—such as special chef for the guest and the charity workers. These findings suggest an increase in interaction between the monastic and the elite laity. Catered to attracting more literati, the powerful monasteries in the mountains also expanded their institutional reach by building sub-temples (xiayuan 下院) or branch temples (ziyuan 子院) in the city. For these monasteries in remote areas, the operation of sub-temple and branches overcame their geographical disadvantages. Finally, through this microhistory of Buddhism in the Hangzhou region, I wish to complicate existing scholarship of Buddhism in the late imperial era by suggesting that the "late-Ming Buddhist revival" was a co-creation of the literati's imagination of the Buddhist monastery as an otherworldly place of leisure and the monastic institutional accommodation to their imagined space. In this sense, the flourishing of Buddhist monasticism was predicated on the fantasies of elite lay Buddhist patrons. I argue that it is essential to understand the historical development of Buddhism from both external and internal contingencies of patrons and monastic institutions., A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts., March 25, 2022., Beat Generation, Buddhism, Buddhist history, Chinese Buddhism, Cultural History, Ming History, Includes bibliographical references., Jimmy Yu, Professor Directing Thesis; Bryan Cuevas, Committee Member; Joseph Hellweg, Committee Member.

: "Let Us Try to Make Each Other Happy, and Not Wretched"; "Let us try to make each other happy" tracks a Creek-Georgia frontier as it emerged in the American Revolution and lasted to the turn of the nineteenth century. There multiple groups of Creeks, Americans, and Europeans grappled with ideas of sovereignty and the right of self-determination. The Creek-Georgian frontier, however, embraces conceptualizations of frontiers as places where misunderstanding bred distrust, fear, localized violence, and eventually, racial hatred, challenging older definitions of frontiers as places of accommodation or mutual understanding. Multiple groups faced each other, and what they created was a place of terrible brutality where extremism, not compromise, was the natural way of things."Let us try to make each other happy" blends a New Indian History approach with recent interpretations of frontiers as areas of empire and nation-building. Italso carefully outlines how Creek decisions ordered Georgian lives on the backcountry, and embraces the importance of community-level identity in the study of Early American history. Ultimately, I utilize Creek, Georgian, and European threads to weave a twenty-year narrative of misunderstanding and violence that, as I argue, had tremendous bearing on the development of the southeast., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2013., Date of Defense: October 4, 2013., Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Andrew K. Frank, Professor Directing Dissertation; Dennis Moore, University Representative; Robinson Herrera, Committee Member; Edward G. Gray, 1964-, Committee Member; Frederick Davis, Committee Member.

: "Lyrical Movements of the Soul"; Claude Debussy participated in the world of literature, especially that of French symbolist poetry, throughout his life. His associations with important literary figures, his correspondence, and his music all make clear the significance that literature held for this composer. This study examines two sets of Debussy's songs, the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire and the Ariettes oubliées, and their intersections between music and poetry. An understanding of the evolution of the symbolist movement explains the roles of the two poets concerned, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine, in the development of this new approach to literature. In addition, a consideration of the poems in their own right examines both the stylistic features and meaning of these texts. The study then turns to the music in order to assess the influence of the poetry on the songs themselves. The analysis takes into account not only musical aspects, such as form, motives, and harmony, but also the songs' personae. These figures, who stand behind the music and expand on the songs' texts, also establish the aesthetic positions of the songs, whether romantic, symbolist, realist, or a hybrid aesthetic. In turn, understanding these aesthetic positions allows for a comparison of the musical and textual styles, as well as a consideration of how Debussy's aesthetic compares to that of Baudelaire and Verlaine., Submitted Note: A Dissertation Submitted to the School of Music in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2002., Date of Defense: November 8, 2002., Keywords: Musical Analysis, Claude Debussy, Music, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory committee: Douglass Seaton, Professor Directing Dissertation; Antoine Spacagna, Outside Committee Member; Charles E. Brewer, Committee Member; Denise Von Glahn, Committee Member.

: "Make It Right"; This study addresses the current efforts taking place to rebuild New Orleans, Louisiana and focuses specifically on the 'Make It Right' (MIR) Foundation's model for rebuilding the Lower Ninth Ward with affordable green housing. The primary research question focused on the motivations, design implications, financial implications, advantages, and challenges found in the 'Make It Right' Foundation's housing and community reconstruction project, with the objective of determining the feasibility of implementing the MIR model in other locations. In order to evaluate the model two visits to the MIR site occurred, interviews with MIR employees and residents of the Lower Ninth Ward were conducted, and a questionnaire was sent to MIR homeowners. They were asked questions focusing on the motivations and attitudes surrounding MIR's presence in the Lower Ninth Ward, the advantages and challenges of rebuilding the area, and the reactions and awareness that resulted in MIR's development of affordable green housing. During site visits and the home tours, the sustainable features were noted, and multiple photographs were taken. After gathering the data from the interviews and site visits, the data was organized into emergent themes. One of the main themes that emerged was a sense of distrust that the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward have towards the government. Interviewees made claims that the government did not keep their promises after Katrina, withheld recovery money from them, and that the government wanted Lower Ninth Ward resident's property. Another occurring theme was that MIR has been a guiding force in green innovations and architecture in the area providing education and knowledge to contractors, which has subsequently lowered the cost of building green. This study allowed the researcher to evaluate the current methods being used in building affordable green homes as well as the opinions regarding MIR's efforts in rebuilding and their presence in the Lower Ninth Ward. This study provides information on the innovations being made to help reduce the cost of building green structures. Further research could be conducted to measure the homes affordability over the long-term. Additionally, a future study could be conducted to evaluate how the homeowners interact with the interior spaces of the MIR homes., Submitted Note: A Thesis submitted to the Department of Interior Design in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2010., Date of Defense: March 30, 2010., Keywords: Rebuilding After Hurricane Katrina, Ethical Design, Lower Ninth Ward, Sustainable Design, Green Design, Health Concerns Low-income Housing, Affordable Housing, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Lisa K. Waxman, Professor Directing Thesis; David Butler, Committee Member; Karen Myers, Committee Member.

: "Making It All Click"; One of the most important roles of the online instructor is to insure successful teaching by keeping students' interactions and discussions focused on topic, adding knowledge and expertise, and maintaining group harmony. Therefore, the success of online learning depends on the instructors' ability to acquire new competencies, rather than mastering the technology. Despite the growth in online instructor competency related studies, there is a lack of research regarding the instructors' roles and competencies from the distance learning students' perspective. This study was an attempt to explore distance learning students' perceptions of the roles and competencies defined by experts in the field. A comprehensive list of roles, outputs, and competencies of online instructors were provided to the students in order to rate the importance of each role and competency. It was the purpose of this study to compare the findings of this study with the findings of pervious studies. The population of this study included all distance learning graduate students (n = 328) currently enrolled in the School of Information Studies at Florida State University. Forty-two percent (n = 140) of the original student population of 328, completed and submitted the online survey. Roles and competencies were ranked by their importance; ranking was also achieved by taking the average of competency means across roles and competencies. Results for the top ten competencies in overall importance, based on highest mean rating are: Content Knowledge, Facilitation (discussion) Skills, Organizational Skills, Planning Skills, English Proficiency, Presentation Skills, Interpersonal Communication Skills, Learning Styles and Theory, Teaching Strategies/models, Skills with Internet Tools for Instruction. xiii The findings also determined that when compared to previous competency studies, there was a significant difference between students' perceptions and experts' perceptions regarding the most important online instructor competencies. Experts rated social competencies (interpersonal communication skills) number one in the list of top ten most important online instructor competencies; on the other hand, students rated intellectual competencies (content knowledge) number one in their list of top ten. However, both experts and students concurred regarding managerial competencies, because both rated at least four managerial skills in the list of top ten competencies. Distance learning students' responses indicated that instructors should give careful attention to the development and improvement of their intellectual, social, managerial, and technical roles and competencies. The importance of paying attention to the technical and managerial roles, in addition to intellectual and social competencies of the online instructor, were emphasized as critical factors for the success of discussion and interaction in the online environment. This dissertation has helped bridge the gap between the perceptions of distance education experts and distance learning students by providing a comprehensive list of important online instructors' roles and competencies. Due to the rate of change in technologies used to deliver instruction and related changes in higher education, it is recommended to do another study to identify more roles and competencies. This study should be expanded to include the perceptions of students in different disciplines and other countries., Submitted Note: A Thesis Submitted to the College of Music in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Music., Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2005., Date of Defense: May 22, 2005., Keywords: African Diaspora, Cultural Memory, Communicative Memory, Identity, Memory, Collective Memory, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory committee: Frank Gunderson, Professor Directing Thesis; Dale Olsen, Committee Member; Michael B. Bakan, Committee Member.

: "Malta Is a Magnificent Story"; This thesis examines Malta's symbolic role in the Second World War. Then a British-held colony, the archipelago fell under heavy Axis bombardment from mid 1940 ' early 1943. Incessant Italian and German air raids plagued the islands and the Maltese, making Malta the most heavily bombed area of the entire war. In June 1940, just weeks before the first attack, London's War Cabinet deemed the isles indefensible and withdrew their forces. Despite this initial abandonment, the British permanently returned to their colony just a few months later and expended a considerable amount of manpower and materiel in its defense. Tactical reasons alone cannot explain this drastic reversal in British policy. The missing explanation lies with Malta's role in British propaganda. Whether by choice or ignorance, this crucial aspect of Malta's wartime purpose is absent from the historiography. Through an examination of official papers and popular periodicals, this thesis aims to correct this imbalance. To provide proper context, the work first analyzes Anglo-Maltese relations and the empire's position in the latter half of the 1930s. The subsequent chapters analyze the media's role in the War Cabinet's return, and how Prime Minister Winston Churchill used the gallant tale of Malta to bolster morale at home and elicit the cooperation of the United States. Paired with strategic objectives around the Mediterranean basin, these propagandistic concerns ensured Britain's continued defense of the archipelago. Through the war's end, Malta served as both a physical and ideological bastion for the British Empire., Submitted Note: A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011., Date of Defense: March 28, 2011., Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: James P. Jones, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Creswell, Committee Member; Jennifer Koslow, Committee Member.

: "Malta Is a Magnificent Story"; This thesis examines Malta's symbolic role in the Second World War. Then a Britishheld colony, the archipelago fell under heavy Axis bombardment from mid 1940 – early 1943. Incessant Italian and German air raids plagued the islands and the Maltese, making Malta the most heavily bombed area of the entire war. In June 1940, just weeks before the first attack, London's War Cabinet deemed the isles indefensible and withdrew their forces. Despite this initial abandonment, the British permanently returned to their colony just a few months later and expended a considerable amount of manpower and materiel in its defense. Tactical reasons alone cannot explain this drastic reversal in British policy. The missing explanation lies with Malta's role in British propaganda. Whether by choice or ignorance, this crucial aspect of Malta's wartime purpose is absent from the historiography. Through an examination of official papers and popular periodicals, this thesis aims to correct this imbalance. To provide proper context, the work first analyzes Anglo- Maltese relations and the empire's position in the latter half of the 1930s. The subsequent chapters analyze the media's role in the War Cabinet's return, and how Prime Minister Winston Churchill used the gallant tale of Malta to bolster morale at home and elicit the cooperation of the United States. Paired with strategic objectives around the Mediterranean basin, these propagandistic concerns ensured Britain's continued defense of the archipelago. Through the war's end, Malta served as both a physical and ideological bastion for the British Empire., Submitted Note: A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011., Date of Defense: March 28, 2011., Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: James P. Jones, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Creswell, Committee Member; Jennifer Koslow, Committee Member.

: "Monsters More than Men"; The third quiet revolution to which my title refers is occurring now. In both literature and history, important changes are taking place, with more and more scholars seriously questioning the methods of each discipline, the validity ofthe disciplinary boundaries institutionalized by our universities, the texts (in a broad as well as narrow sense) typically studied, and the ideologies embedded within our various scholarly enterprises. Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word The quotation from Cathy Davidson's Revolution and the Word still rings true after 17 years, as the revolution in academia she describes continues to take place. Scholars are redrawing or simply omitting boundaries, including those of nations and cultures, as well as of forms of literature. For this reason, it is time to consider how, for too long, scholars have remained quarantined within the era in which they have developed their expertise, and that narrowness has hurt literary studies. The following thesis includes a discussion of this very topic, and then sets out to demonstrate by discussing the difficult topic of origins. Where does a literary form or genre 'originate?' Is it an author, a place, an era? I contend that it is all three and neither, and no era may lay claim to any distinct form. Since this is true, compartmentalizing English departments into specialties of eras and forms with such little communication does not allow for the more complex readings necessary for understanding. This complexity of origins is demonstrated thereafter with a discussion of captivity narratives, as they have lately been theorized to be the origins of the English novel. By complicating the history of the captivity narratives as a form, and by tracking some of the influences on the form as a whole, this thesis shows that the captivity narrative as a form also lacks a true origin. Why do we begin to separate history into eras, literature into forms, and therefore, compartmentalize ourselves into titles such as "Early Americanist?" Why do so few Early Americanists attend Renaissance conferences, for example? Reaching as far out and beyond as an MA thesis will allow, my project interrogates the captivity narrative in a transatlantic context by mapping out influences and political agendas, and by breaking the divide between Early America and the Renaissance. An example of surprising information I have found by do so is that the narratives written in the English language have been influenced by Arabic culture as early as Medieval times., Submitted Note: A Thesis Submitted to the Department of English in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts., Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2003., Date of Defense: September 19, 2003., Keywords: Renaissance Captivity, Ottoman Empire, Romans, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory committee: Dennis Moore, Professor Directing Thesis; Daniel Vitkus, Committee Member; Christopher Shinn, Committee Member.

: "More of the Heart than the Brain"; This study examines the reception of Paul's discourse on foolishness in First Corinthians alongside other Pauline christological texts in order better to understand the relationship between theological epistemology, anthropology, and ethics in the biblical exegesis of Desiderius Erasmus and John Calvin. Paul's discourse on the relationship between folly and wisdom has received scant attention in the history of interpretation, despite its potential fertility for giving rise to any number of interesting uses in several areas of philosophy and theology. In the sixteenth century, these texts are of special interest in the context of humanist biblical theology whose practitioners, as a rule, consider themselves to be positing an anti-speculative form of theological method which is at odds with their scholastic forebears. Thus the foolishness of God, which is, according to Paul, wiser than the wisdom of human beings, takes on new significance in the hands of Erasmus and Calvin, who employ Paul's paradoxical constructions in the service of their assault on overly speculative forms of Christian theology that tend toward abstruseness and thereby become inaccessible to the layperson. Moreover, both Erasmus and Calvin spend a great deal of time in their exegetical works on First Corinthians attempting to deal with the problem of Christian eloquence that arises out of Paul's claim that he himself preaches an utterly simple gospel. In this regard, both exegetes argue for a return to a Pauline simplicity of preaching, which is, of course, modeled originally on the humility of Christ. Erasmus' and Calvin's interpretations of this portion of Paul's letter, furthermore, provide for a new way of thinking about the prospects of Erasmus and Calvin embracing a theologia rhetorica--a term coined by the historian of Renaissance philosophy Charles Trinkhaus to describe the trend in (primarily Italian) humanist theology to advocate a kind of theological discourse which seeks to move the heart, so to speak, more than to convince the brain. From this perspective, I argue that Erasmus and Calvin can be situated in the same intellectual milieu, and that their fuller appreciation of Pauline simplicity might be seen as a new stage in the development of theologia rhetorica. Finally, the study analyzes the influence Erasmus--primarily his Annotations on and Paraphrases of the New Testament, but also other of his theological works--had on Calvin's biblical commentaries and his theology more generally. This is a relationship that has been long neglected among Calvin scholars, despite the fact that Calvin is repeatedly explicitly engaged with Erasmus in his NT commentaries, and despite that fact that his "humanism" is widely recognized. Calvin can be seen following Erasmus, not only in certain philological conclusions, but also, as I will try to show, in advocating a particular kind of theological method as it relates to the foolishness of the cross (and not only when considering 1 Cor. 1-4, but also Phil. 2:6f., Submitted Note: A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy., Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2014., Date of Defense: February 17, 2014., Keywords: 1 Corinthians, Christian Philosophy, Erasmus, Folly, John Calvin, Paul, Bibliography Note: Includes bibliographical references., Advisory Committee: Francois Dupuigrenet Desroussilles, Professor Directing Dissertation; Reinier Leushuis, University Representative; John Kelsay, Committee Member; David Levenson, Committee Member.

Pages