"20th Century Frontierswoman": A Rhetorical Biography of Almena Davis Lomax, Journalist.
Snell, Chandra, Houck, Davis, Jones, Maxine, Nudd, Donna Marie, Jordan-Jackson, Felecia, McDowell, Stephen, School of Communication, Florida State University
This purpose of this dissertation is to identify how journalist and newspaper publisher Almena Davis Lomax (1915-2011) attempted to persuade her Los Angeles Tribune readers to accept her vision of a better United States through her editorials and columns. Utilizing African American women's rhetorical theory and grounded theory, this rhetorical biography examined selected Tribune editorials and columns obtained primarily from the online database "African American Newspapers, 1827-1998,"...
Show moreThis purpose of this dissertation is to identify how journalist and newspaper publisher Almena Davis Lomax (1915-2011) attempted to persuade her Los Angeles Tribune readers to accept her vision of a better United States through her editorials and columns. Utilizing African American women's rhetorical theory and grounded theory, this rhetorical biography examined selected Tribune editorials and columns obtained primarily from the online database "African American Newspapers, 1827-1998," accessed through the Florida State University and Florida A&M University libraries. This database included 150 issues of the Tribune, from Sept. 6, 1943 to April 22, 1960. Specific years included were 1943, 1944, 1946, 1958, 1959, and 1960. Although the database did not include all issues, the available editions spanned the approximate length of the newspaper's publication (1941-1960). I supplemented the database's editions with several issues from 1945, 1955, and 1956 available from the Almena Lomax Papers at Emory University Library's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. I thus conducted a convenience sample of extant editorials and columns in my analysis. Additional primary sources, which help shed light on Lomax's life, were obtained from the California State University-Fullerton Oral History Program (oral history of Lomax) and MARBL (interviews with Lomax and non-Tribune writings of Lomax's). From the online database and MARBL, I analyzed Tribune editorials written by Lomax labeled "Editorial What-Not," "More Editorial What-Not," "Political What-Not," "More Political What-Not," and "How 'Bout This." For each of the selected writings, I completed a data sheet based on Tippens' (2001) general guidelines, with modifications: 1. Column name, date, and page number; 2. Main topic; 3. Main theme; 4. Subtheme(s) (if any); 5. Argument/Claim; 6. Specific rhetorical tools. Once a data sheet was recorded for each editorial/column, all writings were then grouped chronologically. Within each of these time periods, I used the grounded theory approach and close reading to identify any themes and subthemes common in Lomax's available writings during the time period. Within each theme/subtheme, I then identified the most frequently occurring rhetorical tools, the best examples of Lomax's use of each tool, and my own argument as to how these tools functioned within that theme/subtheme(s). Each analysis chapter also included a critical argument I suggested as to how Lomax's rhetorical tools may have functioned within the time period under consideration to advance her arguments/claims within her Tribune editorials/columns. 1943-1956 During the Tribune's beginning and middle years, based on available editorials/columns, Lomax was primarily concerned with sociocultural issues and politics/civil rights. When addressing sociocultural issues, Lomax mainly employed self-disclosure and personal anecdote as rhetorical tools; when dealing with politics/civil rights, she engaged a variety of rhetorical means in her attempts to convince her Tribune readers. According to Kohrs Campbell (1986), Lomax's "authoritative," confrontational tone and style would have constituted a "masculine" form of discourse, though with some "feminine" elements (namely the privileging of personal experience, metaphorical language, and narrative modes of development); I suggest, however, that Lomax, as an African American woman, embodied a distinct rhetorical tradition whose features should not be evaluated in relation to an alien, superimposed standard of femininity, but should instead be assessed by its own merits as an entity unto itself (Royster, 2000; Davis & Houston, 2002). 1958 In 1958, Lomax appeared to be mainly preoccupied with politics/civil rights, but also sociocultural and personal concerns. Her Tribune editorials/columns dealing with politics/civil rights were largely characterized by name calling and/or inventive, as well as a sarcastic, cynical, and/or patronizing tone. Those addressing sociocultural issues featured mainly ethos as the primary rhetorical tool, and those concerned with personal issues most frequently utilized personal appeals, personal anecdotes, and ethos in her efforts to influence readers. Overall, her efforts to persuade her readers at this time through these means may have functioned rhetorically as her attempt to reinforce her desired persona as not only a knowledgeable and independent-minded journalist, but also as a worthwhile human being, despite her mental and emotional struggles. 1959-1960 In 1959-1960, Lomax appeared primarily concerned with issues of political leadership, and, to a lesser extent, politics/civic rights and personal issues. Although Lomax once again primarily utilized her favored rhetorical tool of cynicism in her available editorials/columns of 1959-1960, she also used whatever rhetorical means she found appropriate to meet her aims, especially when addressing politics/civil rights or personal issues. This variety of tools arguably functioned rhetorically to advance Lomax's stance as a capable, wise (especially in light of her eminent contested move South), and knowledgeable journalist, mother, and human being.
Bendeck, Whitney T., Creswell, Michael, Souva, Mark, Garretson, Peter, McMahon, Darrin, Singh, Bawa, Department of History, Florida State University
Following the devastation of the First World War, the British utterly rejected the idea of fighting another major war in their near future. As a result, the country's interwar policies were not geared towards maintaining a powerful military. When the Second World War erupted, the British found themselves completely unprepared. The situation was particularly dire in the Middle East where British forces faced a numerically superior Italian army. Because Cairo and the Suez Canal were vital to...
"According to Their Capacities and Talents": Frontier Attorneys in Tallahassee during the Territorial Period.
Maynard, Jackson Wilder, Hadden, Sally, Jones, Jim, Strait, Paul, Department of History, Florida State University
The thesis identifies and describes the practice of attorneys in frontier Tallahassee during the Territorial Period. The thesis will also address dichotomies posed by past historians regarding the nature of the practice of law during the early- to mid-nineteenth centuries. The first, propounded by historian Roscoe Pound, maintains that this era was a period of decline in the legal profession, but also a "Golden Age." The second, posed by historian Jerold Auerbach, maintains that lawyers...
Show moreThe thesis identifies and describes the practice of attorneys in frontier Tallahassee during the Territorial Period. The thesis will also address dichotomies posed by past historians regarding the nature of the practice of law during the early- to mid-nineteenth centuries. The first, propounded by historian Roscoe Pound, maintains that this era was a period of decline in the legal profession, but also a "Golden Age." The second, posed by historian Jerold Auerbach, maintains that lawyers during this period were "country lawyers" (in the model of Abraham Lincoln or Daniel Webster) or aristocrats. The thesis argues that attorneys practicing in frontier Tallahassee during this period were professional and quite competent; their actions do not give rise to the idea that this was a period of decline for the practice of law. The thesis also maintains that lawyers during this period were more in the model of aristocrats. The thesis also contains an appendix listing all those identified as have practiced in and about Tallahassee from 1824-1845 along with some brief biographical notes.
Show moreThis thesis is a discursive analysis of the daily Guatemalan newspaper, El Imparcial. It is a cultural study of attitudes toward the illegitimate militarized state, the role of ethnicity and class, and modernization as a shared goal between traditional elites and the burgeoning class of military officers turned economic elites. Based on an examination of hundreds of pages of Guatemalan newspapers, spanning nearly a decade, and housed in special collections in the Latin American Libraries of the University of Florida and Tulane University, the thesis treats topics such as how elites chose to make sense of a rapidly changing and uncertain world. The thesis focuses on three central elements: violence reporting, consumer and political advertising, and reporting of national development. I argue that El Imparcial, as a supposed elite vehicle within the militarized state, presents many contradictory messages for its readers. El Imparcial wavered in its political support for the state as demonstrated by the trends in violence reporting; the paper's consumer and political ads that sent similar contradictory messages of the state. Conversely, the adverts did send a consistent message of rigid social hierarchies promoted by a limited consumption style. El Imparcial's coverage of developmental projects reveals the paper's closest marriage to the militarized state. Development strategies served both civilian elites and the militarized state in mutually self-interested ways. Taken together, these elements reveal a complex cultural artifact with many opportunities for complicit and dissenting voices. It also shows how newspapers contributed to making the perception of violence into an unremarkable quotidian reality and how they encouraged the virulent dehumanization of Native peoples. The thesis shows the necessity of cultural history to explore the complexities of a contested history during a key transitional period in Guatemala's history, from a state dominated by elites and protected by the military, into a full fledged militarized state where military officers became coequals with traditional elites.
MacKey, Ressa, Nasgaard, Roald, Bearor, Karen, Carrasco, Michael, Department of Art History, Florida State University
The annual Junkanoo festival in the Bahamas is regarded as "the ultimate national symbol," representative of Bahamian sovereignty and culture. A festival that originated from Bahamian slaves, Junkanoo has evolved into a popular commercial and cultural event that features extravagant, crépe-paper costumes. This paper analyzes the role of the commodified Junkanoo costume in constructing a Bahamian national and cultural identity. Specifically, it analyzes the history and policies of the National...
Show moreThe annual Junkanoo festival in the Bahamas is regarded as "the ultimate national symbol," representative of Bahamian sovereignty and culture. A festival that originated from Bahamian slaves, Junkanoo has evolved into a popular commercial and cultural event that features extravagant, crépe-paper costumes. This paper analyzes the role of the commodified Junkanoo costume in constructing a Bahamian national and cultural identity. Specifically, it analyzes the history and policies of the National Junkanoo Museum, the first institution to display the costumes outside their performative context. Through a interdisciplinary approach that incorporates methodologies from art history, sociology, and museum studies, I argue that Junkanoo serves a commercial purpose, which the National Junkanoo Museum perpetuates by displaying the costumes for touristic consumption. My thesis is based on three separate grounds of analysis. First, I examine the festival's hybrid and dynamic nature by analyzing external factors that influenced Junkanoo's development. Notably, I consider the Ministry of Tourism and the Bahamian Development Board's involvement and administration of the parade, which significantly impacted the costumes' iconography, materiality, and ephemerality. Next, I view the National Junkanoo Museum within the context of other Caribbean Museums to conclude that the institution encounters similar challenges to its neighbors, which include reconciling the museum's nationalistic intentions with its objectives to bolster cultural tourism. Finally, I demonstrate how the National Junkanoo Museum diverges from standard museum practice in order to augment the country's fledging heritage industry. Instead of assembling a permanent collection, the museum operates as a non-collecting institution by exhibiting the costumes only on an annual basis and then returning the objects to the Junkanoo artists who proceed to dismantle and recycle their costumes. The museum's exhibition policy reflects the artists' habit of abandoning their costumes immediately following the parade. However, I contend that the National Junkanoo Museum's use of nostalgia as a museum epistemology is less about an effort to restore the costumes' traditional ephemerality, than it is an indication of the pervasiveness of the tourism industry in formulating a Bahamian national and cultural identity. Junkanoo's economic potential is dependent on the perception of the festival as an identifiable, authentic Bahamian product, which the government facilitates by promoting the costumes as national symbols of Bahamian culture and appropriating them into a national museum system.
"And They'll March with Their Brothers to Freedom": Cumann na Mban, Nationalism, and Women's Rights in Ireland, 1900-1923.
McCallum, Christi, Upchurch, Charles, Sinke, Suzanne, Grant, Jonathan, Department of History, Florida State University
Show moreBetween the years 1900 and 1923, women in Ireland played an integral role in the nationalist movement. While several nationalist groups had female members, the women also founded their own nationalist organizations, Inghindhe na hEireann (Daughters of Ireland) and Cumann na mBan (Council of Women). These two groups indicated two different phases of the nationalist movement: Inghinidhe embodied the political and cultural aspects of women's participation in the move for Irish freedom, but Cumann na mBan, which had been organized as an auxiliary to the Irish Volunteers (later the IRA), added military activities to their agenda. Some Irish suffragists disliked nationalist women's groups because they felt that these drew recruits away from their ranks. At the same time, nationalist women ran their own suffrage campaign by helping the men in their revolutionary activity, which ultimately ended in women's equal citizenship in the first year of the Free State. Guerilla warfare, in particular, caused an expansion of women's roles and allowed them to transgress gendered boundaries. After the war women were not simply sent back to home, they continued their political work and agitated against new anti-feminist legislation. This thesis argues against many historians of Cumann na mBan who focus on the losses, rather than the achievements by the organization and its impact on women's roles in Ireland; women were agents of change who left a permanent impact on their political environment
Show moreThis work describes a simple route for the production of carbon nanotube mats without high pressure processing or irradiation techniques that are generally used to produce Buckypaper. The Michael addition pathway was used to covalently cross-link thiol functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes with benzoquinone to produce high content nanotube mats of various thicknesses and diameters. The mats were characterized by a variety of techniques including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, tensile strength measurements as well as qualitative structural analysis through scanning electron microscopy. It was found that the weight ratio for optimum cross-linking to be ca. 5:1 (benzoquinone:MWCNT-SH) and that the mat surface can be further functionalized with nanoparticles to form advanced carbon composite materials.
Wester, Bethany S., Moore, Dennis, Edwards, Leigh, Fenstermaker, John, Program in American and Florida Studies, Florida State University
For 136 years, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women has remained a classic in American children's literature. Although Alcott originally wrote the novel as a book for young girls, deeper issues run beneath the surface story of the March family. This thesis explores a few of these issues. Chapter One examines the roles of patriarchy and domesticity in Alcott's private life and in Little Women. Chapter Two emphasizes the Transcendentalist thinking that surrounded Alcott in her childhood, her own,...
Show moreFor 136 years, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women has remained a classic in American children's literature. Although Alcott originally wrote the novel as a book for young girls, deeper issues run beneath the surface story of the March family. This thesis explores a few of these issues. Chapter One examines the roles of patriarchy and domesticity in Alcott's private life and in Little Women. Chapter Two emphasizes the Transcendentalist thinking that surrounded Alcott in her childhood, her own, feminized Transcendentalist philosophy, and how it subsequently infiltrates the novel. Chapter Three explores the role of the struggling female artist in Little Women, as portrayed by the March sisters, especially Jo and Amy March, and how the fictional characters' struggles reflect Alcott's own problems as a female writer in a patriarchal society. Chapter Four discusses Alcott's reformist ideas and the reformist issues that surface in Little Women. Domestic feminism--the idea that a reformed family, in which men and women equally participate in domestic matters, would lead to a reformed society--emerges as the predominant reformist issue in Little Women. Alcott believed that women should be able to choose the course of their adult lives, whether that included marriage, a professional career, or otherwise, without the threat of being ostracized from society. In Little Women, the March family serves as an example of a reformed, egalitarian family in which women exercise self-reliance, employ their non-domestic talents, and still maintain femininity.
"At Least Eight or Ten Children": The Paradox of Post-Resettlement Fertility Among African Refugees in Central Massachusetts.
Sarkis, Marianne, Doran, Glen, Ward, Cheryl, Garretson, Peter, Schmidt, Heike, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University
This study situates African women's fertility at the crossroads of historical trends and current politico-economic realities of gender and migration from developing to developed nations since 1991. It examines fertility as a site of conjuncture between the resettlement process and cultural, educational, and economic constraints. The research demonstrates that post-immigration fertility is dynamic and undergoes constant evaluation and change to accommodate new realities. African women modify...
Show moreThis study situates African women's fertility at the crossroads of historical trends and current politico-economic realities of gender and migration from developing to developed nations since 1991. It examines fertility as a site of conjuncture between the resettlement process and cultural, educational, and economic constraints. The research demonstrates that post-immigration fertility is dynamic and undergoes constant evaluation and change to accommodate new realities. African women modify their beliefs, practices, and strategies regarding reproduction with increased access to economic, educational, and health opportunities in a host culture. A mixed methods approach guides the design of this study that took place in Central Massachusetts over 11 months. The ethnographic component includes participant observation in a Somali refugee community and in-depth interviews with eleven women from Somalia, Liberia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. The quantitative approach includes analysis of the Current Population Survey (CPS) 2007 and 2009 March and June Supplements, the American Community Survey (ACS) 2009 3-year Population Estimates, and immigration data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The ethnography that guides this research took place between November 2008 and September 2009. Unlike previous research that analyzes immigrant fertility in terms of an African/non-African cohort, this study examines African inter-group variances by country of origin, method of immigration and generation. The results point to significant differences in fertility between voluntary and involuntary immigrants, between East and West Africans, and among generations. In all cases, education emerges as a significant predictor of fertility rates, but only up to a certain income level. This study informs the field of anthropological demographics and refugee studies with applications to population and resettlement policies.
Sophia Sawyer (1792-1853) was born and educated in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. She was a strong-willed and independent woman who turned to teaching as a means of support after the death of her parents. At age thirty-one, she joined the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions and was stationed at the Brainerd Mission in Tennessee. Sawyer exemplifies the first generation of women to receive an academy education and become teachers themselves. This dissertation will examine the...
"Between Grand Strategy and Grandiose Stupidity": The Marine Crops and Pacification in Vietnam.
Weinstein, Adam, Creswell, Michael, Friedman, Max Paul, Souva, Mark, Program in International Affairs, Florida State University
Only a fraction of armed forces in Vietnam made the "other war" â the war for hearts and minds â their primary struggle. These were the U.S. Marines comprising the Combined Action Platoons, who lived and worked in individual hamlets, trained local security forces, made civic improvements, and sought to secure the war's objectives on the lowest community level. The program's scope and achievements were limited; while 85,000 Marines occupied Vietnam at the conflict's apogee, CAP Marines...
Show moreOnly a fraction of armed forces in Vietnam made the "other war" â the war for hearts and minds â their primary struggle. These were the U.S. Marines comprising the Combined Action Platoons, who lived and worked in individual hamlets, trained local security forces, made civic improvements, and sought to secure the war's objectives on the lowest community level. The program's scope and achievements were limited; while 85,000 Marines occupied Vietnam at the conflict's apogee, CAP Marines never numbered more than 2,500. However, in an age of renewed interest in "small wars" and pacification, the CAP program is a remarkable subject of study. This study re-examines the CAP program with two basic goals. First, it argues that the program represented a departure from the U.S. government's conventional wisdom regarding pacification and counterinsurgency operations, and this departure was consistent with the Marines' institutional traditions of flexibility, non-conformity and strategic innovation. The Marine Corps' identity as an army-navy hybrid gave it a starring role in America's so-called "small wars" of pacification abroad; its diminutive size allowed members to put a premium on open thought and political involvement that is rare in most military institutions. Grounded in these Marine traditions, the CAP program originated as an act of insubordination â as military innovation almost always does. Second, this study examines the CAP program's potential exportability, its resemblance to modern counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its grand strategic implications. The Marines' experience in Vietnam suggests that while the CAP concept marks a significant advance in counterinsurgent theory, it still assumes a long, expensive occupation that carries numerous caveats as well as large â and largely predictable â risks. These risks limit the usefulness of combined action to selected political and geographical ground states: it is useful in an Afghanistan, but probably not in an Iraq. An empirically honest understanding of pacification and its hazards can help policymakers distinguish between justifiable future missions and imprudent, costly gambles. They will recognize the difference, as B. H. Liddell Hart put it, "between grand strategy and grandiose stupidity."
"But where is his voice?: " The Debate of Pope Pius XII's Silence During the Holocaust.
Whitman, Kayleigh, Department of History
Show moreFor the past sixty years the question of whether or not Pope Pius XII did all that he could to help the victims of the Holocaust has plagued the reputation and memory of his papacy. As the Vatican and Pope Francis continue proceedings towards the canonization of Pius, the question of what judgment can be placed against the pope becomes ever more pressing. My project examines the path that the debate has taken over the past six decades through the work of both the critics and defenders of His Holiness. While this thesis does not deliver a verdict against Pius, it does address the important question of how the contemporary reader can understand what has been written and the evolution of the charges that have been placed against him. In this paper Rolf Hochhuth serves as the leading example for the critics and Father Robert Graham S.J. serves as his defense counterpart. Beginning with these two men and their arguments, I examine the charges and responses of both the defenders and the critics during the controversial years of the 1960s and 1990s. Through this study I have found that though the Vatican's records remain sealed limiting the pool of information for researchers, the debate has continued to thrive because of the difference in perception of the two sides. The critics place their emphasis on the moral responsibility of the pope and the defenders focus their arguments on the political responsibility and implications of the pope's actions during this uncertain time.
"By the Noble Daring of Her Sons": The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee.
Sheppard, Jonathan C., Jones, James P., Stallins, J. Anthony, Richardson, Joe M., Garretson, Peter, Creswell, Michael, Department of History, Florida State University
Between 1861 and 1862, Floridians flocked to join the six regiments that eventually constituted the Florida Brigade of the West. As the fragile remains of the 1st and 3rd Florida's Battle Flag attests, portions of the brigade saw action in every major campaign of the Western Theater, save Iuka and Corinth. Until November 1863, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Infantry Regiments and the dismounted 1st Cavalry Regiment, served in separate brigades in different areas of the west. While the 1st,...
Show moreBetween 1861 and 1862, Floridians flocked to join the six regiments that eventually constituted the Florida Brigade of the West. As the fragile remains of the 1st and 3rd Florida's Battle Flag attests, portions of the brigade saw action in every major campaign of the Western Theater, save Iuka and Corinth. Until November 1863, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Infantry Regiments and the dismounted 1st Cavalry Regiment, served in separate brigades in different areas of the west. While the 1st, 3rd, and 4th soldiered with the Army of Tennessee in major campaigns, the others protected the important Virginia-Tennessee railine against East Tennessee Unionists. Following the Florida Brigade's organization in November 1863, it became the epitome of the hardluck Army of Tennessee. Below strength, poorly armed, and shoddily equipped, the soldiers of the brigade followed their commanders through some of the hardest fighting of the war. From Missionary Ridge to Nashville, attrition whittled away at the small units. While many fell in battle, wounds incapacitated others, and still more wasted away in Northern prison camps. At the time of the surrender at Bennett Place, just over four hundred veterans remained with the brigade. Through "By The Noble Daring Of Her Sons," the story of these regiments, from their inceptions to their surrenders, will be told. While this dissertation seeks to describe the Florida Brigade's military campaign, that is not its sole purpose. Rather, "By The Noble Daring Of Her Sons" uses the context of the Florida Brigade to allow the reader to experience various aspects of the war, including important but little-known facets. Furthermore, this dissertation proposes that Florida, before the war was a fractured state, with citizens maintaining regional allegiances. The overarching theme of this study is to establish that the Floridians' service during the Civil War helped to create a state identity.
"Can't Knock the Hustle": Hustler Masculinity in African American Culture.
Garnes, Lamar J. (Lamar Jordan), McGregory, Jerrilyn, Shinn, Christopher, Jones, Maxine, Montgomery, Maxine, Department of English, Florida State University
Show more"Can't Knock the Hustle": Performances of Black Hustler Masculinity in African American Literature and Culture, reinterprets the African American social movements of the mid-to-late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasizing how the controversial performances of black men as black hustlers contributed to them. Reading the Black Power movement as a youth-driven reaction not only to the elders in the Civil Rights movement but also to the 1965 Moynihan Report that defined black men in terms of criminal deviance, I demonstrate how young black men sought to retain the masculinity, which they felt their elders had been stripped of, by becoming hustlers themselves. This study also 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 reconnects the black hustler to the badman, a hero in the African American folk tradition, and interrogates how the federal government and the film industry respectively demonized and commodified it. Chapters Two and Three illustrate how hustler masculinity in Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and Malcolm X's The Autobiography serves as a social critique of race and class in the inner-city and argue that the (re)establishment of cultural, political, and/or spiritual communities are necessary for black males performers to transcend hustler masculinity. Chapter Four examines Elaine Brown's A Taste of Power and discusses how and to what extent she could lead the Black Panther Party when hustler masculinity plays a large role in the organization and function of relationships in the party. Chapter Five demonstrate how the commodification of the black hustler in the semi- autobiographical and fictional narratives of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines along with the presentation of the hustler figure in Blaxploitation films contributed its present denigration and sensationalism. The Epilogue addresses how hip hop performers such as Ice Cube, NWA, Nas, Jay-Z, and 50 cent, amongst others, are recovering and recuperating the figure of the black hustler to its representation prior to the early 1970s. Such work is needed because it assists in developing an understanding of how young black men learn to perform masculinity in particular kinds of urban communities and also to complicate how we understand black masculinity in terms of what Michael Eric Dyson called the "politics of respectability."
Show moreSome of the greatest names in medieval literature, Chretien de Troyes, Jean de Meun, Brunetto Latini, and Chaucer, to name a few, proudly include their vernacular adaptations of popular Latin sources within the corpus of their literary work. Yet, as Peter Dembowski points out, critics have paid little attention to the actual mechanics involved in the vernacularization practices. While the common medieval literary processes of auctoritas, translatio, and conjointure linked by Karl D. Uitti to the development of courtly vernacular literature are known to function in the transference of source texts to the vernacular, the role of rhetoric, an aspect of the conjointure process, has as yet remained unexplored., Taking as its study the popular Latin tale collection, the Disciplina clericalis which appeared as a common source in almost all the vernacular literatures of Western Europe and which enjoyed a tremendous popularity throughout the Middle Ages, this study analyzes how one French vernacularized tale collection, the anonymous thirteenth-century Chastoiement d'un pere a son fils and the Decameron recast through rhetorical manipulation three of the tales found in the Disciplina., The two prologues of the vernacularizations reveal the outline of a specific rhetorical scheme employed by the vernacularizer in the "adaptation" of the individual tales. Each of the clerks chooses the rhetorical method of argumentation best suited to his purpose. The tales present themselves as the elaborations of one part of the particular rhetorical scheme chosen by the clerk. Thus, rhetorical training not only aides the medieval clerk in the embellishment of the material but also serves him in the "translation" of the material to the new audience. Just as the development of courtly literature depended on the scholastic practices of the interdependent literary processes of auctoritas, translatio, and conjointure, so too the establishment of "bourgeois" literature relied on these same procedures as exercised by the clerks of the courtly tradition. Through these processes and rhetorical techniques, the clerks produced works in the vernacular that took their place next to the source texts.
"Choosing my Religion": Performing "Spiritual but not Religious" in Contemporary America.
Burnside, Timothy
This thesis explores the category and performance of the "spiritual but not religious" in contemporary America, namely the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This thesis seeks to illuminate how a specific notion of self is formed through therapeutic and popular culture, and what irreligious spirituality enables that self to do.
"Chosen Race": Baptist Missions and Mission Churches in the East and West Indies, 1795-1875.
Elliott, Kelly R. (Kelly Rebecca), Upchurch, Charles, Irving, Sarah, Singh, Bawa, McMahon, Darrin, Childs, Matt, Department of History, Florida State University
Show moreIn 1792, a group of preachers and artisans from the north of England responded to contemporary currents of revivalist religion by founding the Baptist Missionary Society to preach the gospel to the "heathen" abroad. These young Baptists, whose identity was deeply marked by a persecuted past and an ambivalent relationship with state power, carried their free church tradition with them into the mission field, where their belief in divine providence and their commitment to biblical primitivism deeply informed their work. Baptist identity and approach to missions changed over the nineteenth century as Dissenters gained socioeconomic status and political power, and independent voluntarism gave way to the organization and bureaucracy of the modern humanitarian movement. These shifts affected missionary identity and approaches, as well as the way the society leadership and its missionaries viewed converts and the possibility of independent mission churches. In South Asia and the Caribbean, secular colonials and officials viewed mission work warily, suspecting with reason that proselytization would undermine the racial and social hierarchies necessary to imperial success. Missionaries therefore faced significant political persecution in both spheres of empire, where they were viewed as subversive and undermining of colonial authority. Indigenous peoples in South Asia, particularly Bengali brahmans, also often looked upon missionaries with hostility; some, such as Brahmo Somaj founder Rammohun Roy, altered the Christianity they preached to serve their own needs and purposes. Converts lost caste as well as employment, and were often forced to cut all social ties upon professing Christ. Evangelism was more successful in the Caribbean, where slaves who converted often gained literacy, political advocacy, and a sense of community. Overall, convert decisions and experiences show that when colonized peoples chose to adopt Christianity, they built distinctly Asian or West Indian Christian communities which they increasingly led and supported themselves. Despite the fracturing and self-examination occasioned by changes within Baptist identity over the course of the century, the missionary society's commitment to a family of Christ that razed the boundaries of race, caste, and nation did make independent indigenous churches possible. Current historiography frequently links British missions to imperialism, viewing missionaries as importers—and constructors—of Englishness and converts as passive receivers of a colonizing Christianity. I hope to redirect our understanding of the missionary enterprise towards a greater sensitivity to the multivalent nature of missionary identity and, most importantly, the crucial contributions of indigenous converts and the communities they forged in the Empire. Baptist emphasis on native Christian church leadership and involvement, as well as missionary children's intermarriage with converts, help underline that, for the Baptists, the "chosen race" referred not to skin color or the burden of empire, but to election and sanctification by God.
Show moreFlorida's child welfare movement, a broad coalition of clubwomen, legislators, labor activists, and civic reformers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the right to a protected childhood was guaranteed to all of Florida's future citizens. These Progressive reformers, embracing new ideas about charity, the causes of poverty, and family life, turned to legislation to protect children when society could not, and their efforts culminated in the passage of Florida's comprehensive Child Labor Law in 1913. Florida's child labor campaign was part of both a regional and a national movement to eradicate the practice of manipulating children in industry and the street trades. Despite its inclusion in this broader movement, Florida's anti-child labor coalition was unique. Unlike their Southern neighbors, Floridians shied away from the rhetoric of 'race suicide.' Speaking on behalf of child labor legislation, they emphasized the social and moral disadvantages of child labor rather than its repercussions for race relations. This grew out of Florida's distinct pattern of economic development: Florida was among the last Southern states to industrialize, and that industrial sector did not include the textile mills notorious for child labor abuses across the South. Florida's child laborers primarily consisted of African Americans and Southern and Eastern European immigrants working in canneries along the Gulf Coast and Cuban and Italian immigrants laboring in the cigar industry of South Florida. Both of these industries employed a much smaller number of child workers than manufacturers in Florida's neighboring states. Florida's child labor legislation thus served two distinct purposes: it was both a preventative measure designed to protect Florida's children from the kinds of exploitation taking place in neighboring states and a means of pressuring those states to pass similar legislation. This thesis, an examination of the politics of Florida's child labor movement, highlights the ways in which the national child labor platform could be adapted to succeed in different states, while it reaffirms the diversity of both Progressive reform and Progressive reformers in the early twentieth-century South.
Show moreFlorida's child welfare movement, a broad coalition of clubwomen, legislators, labor activists, and civic reformers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the right to a protected childhood was guaranteed to all of Florida's future citizens. These Progressive reformers, embracing new ideas about charity, the causes of poverty, and family life, turned to legislation to protect children when society could not, and their efforts culminated in the passage of Florida's comprehensive Child Labor Law in 1913. Florida's child labor campaign was part of both a regional and a national movement to eradicate the practice of manipulating children in industry and the street trades. Despite its inclusion in this broader movement, Florida's anti-child labor coalition was unique. Unlike their Southern neighbors, Floridians shied away from the rhetoric of "race suicide." Speaking on behalf of child labor legislation, they emphasized the social and moral disadvantages of child labor rather than its repercussions for race relations. This grew out of Florida's distinct pattern of economic development: Florida was among the last Southern states to industrialize, and that industrial sector did not include the textile mills notorious for child labor abuses across the South. Florida's child laborers primarily consisted of African Americans and Southern and Eastern European immigrants working in canneries along the Gulf Coast and Cuban and Italian immigrants laboring in the cigar industry of South Florida. Both of these industries employed a much smaller number of child workers than manufacturers in Florida's neighboring states. Florida's child labor legislation thus served two distinct purposes: it was both a preventative measure designed to protect Florida's children from the kinds of exploitation taking place in neighboring states and a means of pressuring those states to pass similar legislation. This thesis, an examination of the politics of Florida's child labor movement, highlights the ways in which the national child labor platform could be adapted to succeed in different states, while it reaffirms the diversity of both Progressive reform and Progressive reformers in the early twentieth-century South.
The "Demand Side" of General Education - A Review of the Literature: Technical Report Number 11.
Reardon, Robert C, Lenz, Janet G, Sampson, James P, Johnston, Joseph S, Kramer, Gary L
Much of the literature in general education is focused on the design or contents of the program, or the "supply side," while little attention has been given to students' understandings of and attitudes toward general education, the "demand side." This paper reviews literature on the "demand side" of general education by first providing a brief synopsis of the notion of general education and recent recommendations for reform, and next summarizing research on student knowledge of and attitudes...
Show moreMuch of the literature in general education is focused on the design or contents of the program, or the "supply side," while little attention has been given to students' understandings of and attitudes toward general education, the "demand side." This paper reviews literature on the "demand side" of general education by first providing a brief synopsis of the notion of general education and recent recommendations for reform, and next summarizing research on student knowledge of and attitudes toward higher education and general education. Because of the paucity of "demand side" research, the paper shifts focus to processes used in higher education to affect demand side questions, including teaching, recruitment and admissions, orientation, academic and career advising, and course scheduling. The paper ends with conclusions on the importance of attending to "demand side" issues in the improvement of general education programs.
While marriage may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), marital stress has been shown to evoke greater cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), increasing the risk of CVD. One possible context for experiencing marital stress is discussion of conflict within the relationship. The present study sought to attenuate the CVR experienced during marital conflict discussion through partner-focused prayer prior to discussion. Praying for one's partner has been linked to increased relationship...
Show moreWhile marriage may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), marital stress has been shown to evoke greater cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), increasing the risk of CVD. One possible context for experiencing marital stress is discussion of conflict within the relationship. The present study sought to attenuate the CVR experienced during marital conflict discussion through partner-focused prayer prior to discussion. Praying for one's partner has been linked to increased relationship satisfaction, more tendency to forgive, greater gratitude, and less likelihood of infidelity. It has also been reported to have a softening effect on conflict. To examine the attenuation effects of partner-focused prayer on CVR in martial stress, 90 married couples completed both a conflict discussion and control discussion (typical daily routines). Females were randomly assigned to either partner-focused prayer, thinking about God or religion, or mental activity intervention conditions. While overall means indicated greater CVR during the conflict discussion and less recovery afterward compared to the control discussion for systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), these differences were not significant. Similarly, mean differences between intervention groups for SBP and DBP during conflict discussion and for SBP, DBP, nLF, nHF, and LFSBP after conflict discussion trend toward an attenuation effect of partner-focused prayer, compared to a mental thinking task control, when controlling for relationship satisfaction, regularly praying for one's partner, and religiosity; however, these results are also not statistically significant. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Show moreNatural resources, the environment, and conservation movements all played an important part in Florida's past, particularly within the last half of the twentieth century. As development of the built environment within Florida and the population increased, Floridians experienced a culture change that altered the ways that they viewed the environment and the accompanying natural elements. Numerous conservation movements emerged, and individuals became more aware of the effects of these developmental changes. From this ideological transformation, writers and artists used Florida's natural features as inspiration for works that reflect sentimentally on a more natural past and also attempted to invoke feelings of indignation at the detrimental changes happening around them. Each set of artistic works analyzed in this thesis are the products of this influence. The twentieth-century landscape paintings of Martin Johnson Heade and the mass-produced works of the Highwaymen both highlight the struggle that has plagued Florida since the beginning of its widespread development: the conflict between the desire to live somewhere that is exotic and natural and the need to civilize this place in order to make it inhabitable. Heade, a Hudson River School painter, moved to Florida in 1883 to take advantage of the landscapes and scenery that Florida had to offer. His scenes contained features such as conflicts between the civilized and wild and were more vibrant than his earlier works, suggesting that Florida was to be viewed differently from other parts of the country. The Highwaymen, a group of south Florida African American painters, act as a comparison group for Heade's works. Because one of the founders of the group, Alfred Hair, was trained by A. E. Backus, a white painter who was classically trained in the Hudson River School style, influences of this style can be found in the Highwaymen's paintings. Regardless of the similarities, the Highwaymen paintings were unique to specialized mass-production techniques. Both Heade and the Highwaymen were influenced an emerging tourism culture that enveloped Florida in the early and mid-twentieth century, and close examinations of their paintings reveal these nuances. Participants in the 1985 Florida license plate contest convey similar ecological themes in their entries. The results of the contest, over 3,500 images and letters, reveal Floridians' contemporary concerns. In addition, these entries reflect the increasing influence and continuity of a cohesive Florida image that highlights the natural characteristics of the state. Other issues discussed in that chapter will include people's perception of government process, the increasing awareness about conservation and environmental movements in Florida, and the ways that Floridians felt about their state in the 1980s. When the state of Florida's 2004 state quarter was minted with the images of a Sabal Palm, a Spanish galleon, and a launched space shuttle on its face, the long-standing developmental discourse was again reinforced through the images that were selected to represent Florida nationwide. The state quarter contest, and the chapter devoted to it, serves as an addendum to the 1985 license plate contest. The finalist selections were analyzed to reveal the narrowing focus of the Florida brand at a national level, to compare the images chosen with those submitted in the 1985, and to evaluate the differences and similarities between the conduct of the 1985 and 2002 contests. Ultimately, the outcome of the quarter contest shows that themes such as ecology, history, and recreation constitute Floridians' opinions of the state. Taken together, these three groups of artistic works show how pervasive and cohesive the Florida myth has become. In the conclusion, a brief analysis of a new ad campaign produced by VISIT FLORIDA, the state's official tourism advocacy organization, will show that with each passing year, these images of Florida became inherent to Floridian culture and identity as representative of the 'real' Florida.
Berk, Paul William, Jumonville, Neil, Crew, Robert E., Anderson, Rodney D., Jones, James P., Jones, Maxine D., Department of History, Florida State University
The difficulties inherent in transferring control of educational responsibilities to the state and the antipathy it created within Florida have not been fully explored in previous scholarship, and a study of the drive toward centralization, replete with race and class issues, provides insight into both the nature of progressivism and education in Florida. This study serves to address that missing scholarship. This project examines the course of Progressive Era reforms in statewide education...
Show moreThe difficulties inherent in transferring control of educational responsibilities to the state and the antipathy it created within Florida have not been fully explored in previous scholarship, and a study of the drive toward centralization, replete with race and class issues, provides insight into both the nature of progressivism and education in Florida. This study serves to address that missing scholarship. This project examines the course of Progressive Era reforms in statewide education in Florida's primary and secondary schools (that is, first through twelfth grades). Specifically, it focuses on both the theories behind reforms as well as the application of those theories. Included in this is an examination of the impact of race and class on proposed and implemented reforms. Special attention is paid to vocational education.
"Don't Strip Tease for Anophlese": A History of Malaria Protocols during World War II.
Wacks, Rachel Elise, Piehler, G. Kurt, Koslow, Jennifer L., Mizelle, Richard, Department of History, Florida State University
This study focuses on the American anti-malaria campaign beginning in 1939. Despite the seemingly endless scholarship on World War II in the past seventy years, little has been written on the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal. Through extensive archival research, the breadth of the anti-malaria campaign throughout the Pacific is explored as a positive side effect of the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal in 1942-1943. While most scholars of the Pacific war mention the devastating effects of...
"Doulce Chose Est Que Mariage": Exemplarity and Advice in the Works of Christine De Pizan.
West, Anne Marie, Walters, Lori J., Coldiron, Anne E. B., Leushuis, Reinier, Warren, Nancy, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Florida State University
In this study, I explore how Christine de Pizan challenges misogamist thought through the use of exemplarity in her works. Christine's defense of women in the late medieval period has been well-documented by scholars. Yet, she also addresses the criticisms of marriage prevalent in contemporary literature, which are founded on the principle that women are inherently immoral. In keeping with Christine's stated belief in the moral responsibility of authors, she directly condemns misogamist...
Show moreIn this study, I explore how Christine de Pizan challenges misogamist thought through the use of exemplarity in her works. Christine's defense of women in the late medieval period has been well-documented by scholars. Yet, she also addresses the criticisms of marriage prevalent in contemporary literature, which are founded on the principle that women are inherently immoral. In keeping with Christine's stated belief in the moral responsibility of authors, she directly condemns misogamist authors and their works that appeal to medieval readers. During approximately the same time frame that Christine records her opinions as a literary critic of these works, she features positive marital exemplars in her own writings that support her point of view. I first examine the autobiographical elements of Christine's works that highlight her personal marital experience. Christine draws authority from her first-hand knowledge of marriage, which supersedes the flawed assumptions of scholars lacking this life experience. She creates an intertextual memorial to her late husband's good character and recounts her story as a wife and widow. Christine's exemplary narrative promotes the idea of a perfect friendship in marriage, a notion that upholds marriage as a religious and natural union. Furthermore, her close marital relationship contests the veneration of extramarital affairs as seen in the renewed interest in courtly love literature. To further substantiate her views on marriage, Christine recalls the exemplary stories of legendary wives and widows from France's cultural memory. Through these exemplars, Christine promotes the communal benefits of marriage. In particular, I analyze the advantageous impact of marriage in political, domestic, and spiritual contexts.
"Ears and Eyes and Mouth and Heart… His Soul and His Senses": The Visual St. Stephen Narrative as the Essence of Ecclesiastical Authority.
Narrative cycles of St. Stephen, proto-martyr, are common, frequently found on ecclesiastical monuments of thirteenth-century France. The cathedrals of Bourges, Chartres, and Paris, to name only a few, support visual imagery inspired by the legend of Stephen. Ordained by the apostles, ostensibly to aid the widows and orphans of the congregation, Stephen quickly shows himself "full of grace and fortitude" (Acts 6:8). His inspired, vitriolic sermon incurs the wrath of the Jews who lead him from...
Show moreNarrative cycles of St. Stephen, proto-martyr, are common, frequently found on ecclesiastical monuments of thirteenth-century France. The cathedrals of Bourges, Chartres, and Paris, to name only a few, support visual imagery inspired by the legend of Stephen. Ordained by the apostles, ostensibly to aid the widows and orphans of the congregation, Stephen quickly shows himself "full of grace and fortitude" (Acts 6:8). His inspired, vitriolic sermon incurs the wrath of the Jews who lead him from the city of Jerusalem and stone him. The prevalence of Stephen's cult in the Gothic cathedrals of medieval France has been recognized by scholars; however, little attention has been devoted to the bishops' development and use of the cult, or the churches' production or interpretation of visual imagery. Explanations of the extant images have been driven by text based, iconographic models, which have often obfuscated the relevance of intricate compositional elements and relationships that are key to a more artistically and historically relevant understanding of the compositions. The intricately sculpted Stephen cycles in thirteenth-century France and the historic circumstances that informed their conceptions and receptions are the subjects of this dissertation. Drawing from a survey of the extant, architectural, sculptural narratives and relevant historical resources, this dissertation begins with a discussion of the establishment and dissemination of Stephen's cult in France. The following chapters focus specifically on the thirteenth-century images at the cathedrals of Rouen, Arles, Paris and Bourges chosen for their intricacy and unique compositional formulations. Ultimately, I propose the retelling of the Jewish/Christian debate at the root of Stephen's story was subtly reconstructed by ecclesiastical officials and articulated by artists to reference and comment on contemporary anti-Jewish conflict and ideologies in the mind of the medieval, Christian viewer. I continue to argue that St. Stephen was an exemplar of ecclesiastical succession and an idealized manifestation of the extension of the bishop's power within the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In addition to situating the proto-martyr's imagery in social and political context, this endeavor also contributes to the broader understanding of the construction and function of pictorial, hagiographic narrative.
The "Endless Space Between": Exploring Film's Architectural Spaces, Places, Gender, and Genre.
Page, Sarah, Department of English
Architectural spaces and places within films often work to represent larger themes of the films' stories. This paper explores how films from three different genres, horror, science fiction, and romance, utilize architectural places and space on screen to represent gender. Films explored include Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Ridley Scott's Alien, and Spike Jonze's Her.
"England's Giorgione": Charles H. Shannon and Venetianism in Late Victorian Art.
McKeown, William Carlisle, Weingarden, Lauren S., Gontarski, Stanley E., Barclay, Michael, Neuman, Robert, Jolles, Adam, Department of Art History, Florida State University
Show moreThis dissertation studies the paintings and lithographs of Charles Hazelwood Shannon within the context of British Venetianism. Shannon clearly derived many stylistic elements and figurative motifs from Venetian Renaissance art. By doing so, he was at once following a British tradition of Venetianism, and reformulating it for a modern era. The history of British Venetianism has not been a smooth or consistent one. Within Charles I's court and through the intermediary of Anthony Van Dyck's paintings, the Venetian style became closely associated with royalist concepts and aristocratic privileges in seventeeth-century Britain. By contrast, much of the Venetianist discourse of the eighteenth century can be characterized as anti-Venetianist. In eighteenth-century British texts, Venetian art is repeatedly conflated with Venetian society, and both are condemned for a perceived licentiousness. This literary reprobation of Venetianism stands in strong contrast to the continued collecting of Venetian paintings by aristocrats, and to the painting practices of British artists like Sir Joshua Reynolds. Throughout the nineteenth century, Venetianism is reevaluated. Nevertheless, Victorian Venetianism encompasses many contradictory points of view inherited from earlier periods. These contradictions are well-represented by the critics John Ruskin and Walter Pater. While the former critic emphasized the moral role of honest labor in the creation of art, the latter stressed the distinction between the prosaic realm of morality and the purposeless beauty of the aesthetic world. However, both critics would use Venetian art to advance their arguments, and they both believed that art was of the highest importance for modern British culture. In his artwork, Shannon would engaged with all of these previous forms of Venetianism. He patterned many of his portraits after the example of Van Dyck and Titian; he countered the vestiges of anti-Venetianism with his sensual depictions of nudes based on Venetian and Hellenistic prototypes; he infused his work with a Ruskinian sense of craftsmanship, as is particularly evident in his finely-made lithographs; and he evokes Paterian aesthetics in painting beautiful figures removed from any obvious narrative action. Shannon's Venetianism was recognized as progressive from the 1890s through the first decade of the twentieth century. Contemporary art historians and critics emphasized the continuity between Venetian Renaissance painting and modern European art, and Shannon's work was understood as part of this continuum. Shannon's progressive credentials can be measured by the avant-garde groups with whom he exhibited, and by the collectors who sought after his work. Nevertheless, his work was ultimately incompatible with the rising scene of modernist art. Modernist art in Britain, and the formalist theories which supported it, was largely born out of Paterian Venetianism. However, the modernist disavowal of European traditions of painting would spell the end for Shannon's particular version of Venetianism.
Brown, Sara, Bakan, Michael, Erndl, Kathleen, Gunderson, Frank, Van Glahn, Denise, College of Music, Florida State University
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement, offers a highly accessible approach to Indian spirituality in contemporary American culture. Among the most intriguing facets of Hare Krishna practice are the prevalence of celebration and the use of activities such as singing, dancing, and feasting as expressions of faith. The dominant musical practice of the Hare Krishna movement is kirtan, the call-and-response performance of sacred devotional...
"Everyday Soldiers": The Florida Brigade of the West, 1861-1862.
Sheppard, Jonathan C., Jones, James P., Wynot, Edward D., Gray, Edward G., Department of History, Florida State University
Between 1861 and 1865 Florida placed 15,000 of its citizens under the Confederate banner. Nearly 6,000 of these civilians-turned-soldiers, in six regiments, would see service in the Western theater, or the area encompassing the lands between the Appalachian Mountains in the East and the Mississippi River in the West. Other than Fort Donelson, Florida troops were present in every campaign fought by the Army of Tennessee, the most well-known Confederate Army in the theater. Through casualties,...
Show moreBetween 1861 and 1865 Florida placed 15,000 of its citizens under the Confederate banner. Nearly 6,000 of these civilians-turned-soldiers, in six regiments, would see service in the Western theater, or the area encompassing the lands between the Appalachian Mountains in the East and the Mississippi River in the West. Other than Fort Donelson, Florida troops were present in every campaign fought by the Army of Tennessee, the most well-known Confederate Army in the theater. Through casualties, sickness, and desertion, the brigade's number declined and at the surrender of the Army in 1865, little more than 350 remained to follow the colors. Through "Everyday Soldiers," the story of these regiments will be told, from their inceptions in Florida in the first year and a half of the conflict, through the disastrous Confederate campaign into Kentucky in the late summer and early fall of 1862. Few other theses have dealt with this unit, and in the instances that some did, few pages were devoted to their activities. This thesis will eventually become apart of the first complete history of the "Florida Brigade." Furthermore, through the letters, diaries, and memoirs of these soldiers from Florida, the lives of the soldier of the western theater can be discovered.
Cox, Nicole B., Proffitt, Jennifer M., Edwards, Leigh H., Nudd, Donna M., McDowell, Stephen, School of Communication, Florida State University
As a programming powerhouse that has survived five years, more than 200 episodes, and seven series locations, Bravo's The Real Housewives franchise has become a formidable force in cable TV. With viewers in the millions, spin-off shows, merchandise, and cast appearances that extend far beyond Bravo, the presence of the franchise and its "ladies who lunch" cannot be missed in the realm of popular culture. Because of its success and its cultural position as a female-oriented reality TV program,...
Show moreAs a programming powerhouse that has survived five years, more than 200 episodes, and seven series locations, Bravo's The Real Housewives franchise has become a formidable force in cable TV. With viewers in the millions, spin-off shows, merchandise, and cast appearances that extend far beyond Bravo, the presence of the franchise and its "ladies who lunch" cannot be missed in the realm of popular culture. Because of its success and its cultural position as a female-oriented reality TV program, this study examines Bravo's The Real Housewives franchise through the lens of feminist political economy. Exploring the franchise through Kellner's (1995) critical cultural model, this study moves the franchise through the stages of production, text, and reception to understand not only how the franchise is guided by commercial motives, but also how the series upholds elements of capitalism and patriarchy that are problematic for its target audience: females. Through the circuit of production, text, and reception, this research uses critical, ideological textual analysis to unmask the motivations behind The Real Housewives production, the messages regarding gender, race, class, and sexuality found within programming, and the ways in which audiences are making sense of--and responding to--those messages themselves. Concluding that the franchise targets the female audience through intense marketing and interactivity, perpetuates stereotypical gender norms in programming via use of Bravo's infamous "wink," and is textually read by fans largely in line with programming intent, I argue that The Real Housewives franchise targets and exploits the female audience, selling them "images" of themselves that are deeply problematic and indicative of the contemporary epoch of postfeminist media culture. And while fans are responding to the series' messages of gender, race, class, and sexuality in a variety of ways, analysis suggests that they are likewise perpetuating the problematic portrayals in their own online interaction.
Yaun, Katherine, Walker, Eric, Faulk, Barry, Warren, Nancy, Department of English, Florida State University
This thesis examines the employment choices available to single women on a typical 19th-century Georgian estate, represented by Barton Park in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. The word "employment" appears more than 65 times in her six novels, with approximately 13 references in Sense and Sensibility. Although "employment" signifies a variety of meanings throughout Austen's work, in this study I analyze the word's significations of a single concept, a concentrated activity contributing to...
Show moreThis thesis examines the employment choices available to single women on a typical 19th-century Georgian estate, represented by Barton Park in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. The word "employment" appears more than 65 times in her six novels, with approximately 13 references in Sense and Sensibility. Although "employment" signifies a variety of meanings throughout Austen's work, in this study I analyze the word's significations of a single concept, a concentrated activity contributing to a larger, individually-motivated project. Austen's repeated usage of "employment," coupled with her satiric exposure of Lady Middleton, indicate an underlying consciousness of the tensions associated with the landed gentry's elite status as a leisure class and the culture of boredom that permeated the estate, precluding the normalization of employment. In this work, I focus on a particular slice of the traditional private/public scholarship on 19th century British literature and argue that both male and female estate residents locate themselves in multiple positions along the continuum between boredom and employment. I analyze the characters of Lady Middleton, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and Edward Ferrars in order to understand the variety of possible cultural responses to this continuum that Austen offers her audience. Sense and Sensibility, Austen's first published novel, tangibly exemplifies an employment choice available to single women of the landed gentry – reading and writing satire – and thus revises the intangible "nothingness" of Lady Middleton's boredom satirized in the novel.
"Fortify the City with Your Tempered Pen": Building Agency in the "City of Ladies" Through Text, Paratext, and Media.
In an effort to enhance disciplinary understanding of agency especially for women, recover evidence of women exercising agency historically, and shed light on current debates concerning the interaction between word and image in rhetoric, I explore the extent to which Christine de Pizan, a medieval woman writer, invented and articulated her rhetorical agency. For Christine, the text, the image, and the medium of the manuscript are significant in the development of rhetorical agency; the focus...
Show moreIn an effort to enhance disciplinary understanding of agency especially for women, recover evidence of women exercising agency historically, and shed light on current debates concerning the interaction between word and image in rhetoric, I explore the extent to which Christine de Pizan, a medieval woman writer, invented and articulated her rhetorical agency. For Christine, the text, the image, and the medium of the manuscript are significant in the development of rhetorical agency; the focus of this thesis is on the nature of that agency, particularly how rhetorical agency is invented within the "City of Ladies" folios from her collected works in Harley Ms. 4431. I frame my study of Christine de Pizan and rhetorical agency with Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's work on agency, a particularly powerful construct for my project, because it provides space for both text and paratext and it grapples with the postmodern moment while simultaneously retaining its applicability for historical studies. I begin by examining how Christine's agency emerged through the dialogic between conventions of textual forms. In particular, I consider Campbell's definition that rhetorical agency occurs in texts, because "texts have agency" and are "effected through form" (Campbell 3). Rhetorical agency emerges as Christine complies with cultural expectations concerning the different conventions of form and then subsequently subverts those same conventions to create a space of resistance for women. I explore how Christine reveals her artistry or rhetorical skills when she manipulates the visual aspects of the manuscript page or paratexts, the incidentals and the miniatures, so that they demonstrate her agency. According to Campbell, artistry occurs when "heuristic skills" respond to contingencies" for which there are no precise or universal precepts, although skilled practitioners are alert to recurring patterns" (Campbell 12). Christine complies with the traditional patterns of the paratext, but subverts those patterns, when she repeats traditional paratext with differences. These differences gesture to the text, other elements of the page, and beyond and, in the process, layer new meaning into the manuscript. I then follow with an examination of the manuscript as a medium, where text and paratext function together to communicate meaning. Though both text and paratext have their own rhetorical agency, Christine invents her agency as the "point[s] of articulation" for the manuscript (Campbell 3). Christine executed a great deal of control over the production of her manuscript, which means her rhetorical agency occurs when she articulates her meaning through her authority and negotiation of the materiality and cultural significance of the medium. Because Christine's rhetorical agency emerges from the text, paratext, and manuscript, an examination of Christine's manuscript, Harley Ms. 4431, provides a new look at postmodern agency and the rhetorical agency of medieval manuscripts. Interestingly, Christine wrote at a significant transitional period for ideology and technology and instead of articulating a traditional historical or humanist theory of agency, she performs a complex agency, which is reminiscent of postmodern agency and raises some questions regarding the nature of agency during the medieval era. In addition, the complicated agency created within medieval manuscripts as the verbal and visual texts came together within the medium will contribute to questions of agency and media.
Vandegrift, Micah, Bolick, Josh
There is a significant and important responsibility as libraries move into the role of publishing to retain our heritage of "access for all." Connecting and collaborating with colleagues in the publishing industry is essential, but should come with the understanding that the library as an organization is access-prone. This article discusses the complexities of navigating that relationship, and calls for libraries and publishers to embrace and respect the position from which we begin. Finally,...
Show moreThere is a significant and important responsibility as libraries move into the role of publishing to retain our heritage of "access for all." Connecting and collaborating with colleagues in the publishing industry is essential, but should come with the understanding that the library as an organization is access-prone. This article discusses the complexities of navigating that relationship, and calls for libraries and publishers to embrace and respect the position from which we begin. Finally, the article forecasts several possible characteristics of what "publishing" might look like if libraries press the principle of access in this growing area.
FSU_migr_library_faculty_publications-0011, 10.6084/m9.figshare.1088945
The "FSU Lives" Digitization Project.
Morris, Sammie, Smith, Plato
FSU Libraries Special Collections and Digital Library Center collaborated on development this presentation highlighting FSU Lives Class of 1955 digitization project along with digital preservation of faculty research as part of a guest lecture for Florida State University College of Communication & Information Spring 2011 Digital Libraries course (LIS5472) taught by Dr. Sanghee Oh.
FSU_migr_digital_lib-0013
"Gimme Shelter"™: The Hidden Causes and Consequences of Internal Displacement.
What are the causes and consequences of internal displacement during civil conflicts? This project makes two general claims: First, internal displacement is often the intentional byproduct of territorial consolidation during civil wars. Second, internal displacement can create an unfortunate and heretofore undiscovered feedback loop: wide-scale displacement leads to increases in civil war duration as well as intensity, which thereby leads to increased displacement. This project examines these...
Show moreWhat are the causes and consequences of internal displacement during civil conflicts? This project makes two general claims: First, internal displacement is often the intentional byproduct of territorial consolidation during civil wars. Second, internal displacement can create an unfortunate and heretofore undiscovered feedback loop: wide-scale displacement leads to increases in civil war duration as well as intensity, which thereby leads to increased displacement. This project examines these claims through the use of unique micro-level data on the Colombian Civil War as well as cross-national investigations of internal displacement and civil war duration.
The "God Bearing" Patriarch: Hagia Sophia's Apse Mosaic in Ninth-Century Byzantine Politics.
Simmons, Sarah C., Jones, Lynn, Gerson, Paula, Bearor, Karen, Department of Art History, Florida State University
In this paper, I suggest that the Byzantine Patriarch Photios (r. 858-867, 877-886) used the composition of the apse mosaic of the Theotokos and Christ-Child and its relationship to the light within Hagia Sophia to his political advantage. I propose that on Holy Saturday, 867, Photios attempted to counteract political threats through his Homily 17, which dedicated the apse mosaic, the first figural image installed in Hagia Sophia after the end of Iconoclasm. In Byzantine liturgy, the emperor...
Show moreIn this paper, I suggest that the Byzantine Patriarch Photios (r. 858-867, 877-886) used the composition of the apse mosaic of the Theotokos and Christ-Child and its relationship to the light within Hagia Sophia to his political advantage. I propose that on Holy Saturday, 867, Photios attempted to counteract political threats through his Homily 17, which dedicated the apse mosaic, the first figural image installed in Hagia Sophia after the end of Iconoclasm. In Byzantine liturgy, the emperor played a ceremonial role as the embodiment of Christ, an idea that was widely propagated, for example, by images of Christ on imperial coins. I argue that Photios emphasized his own ceremonial role as a "God Bearer" and appropriated the image of the Theotokos as his own opposing political symbol. With the dedication of the Theotokos image, Photios garnered the visual language needed to oppose imperial authority and created an opportunity to assert his Iconophile polemic. Homily 17 is a result of the continuation of the Iconoclast controversy that persisted since the so-called Truimph of Orthodoxy in 843. Through Photios's dedication of the apse image and its relationship to Hagia Sophia's liturgy, the apse mosaic became a performative image. The activation of the apse mosaic as a performative image is due in part to the effect of light caused by the reflection of the sun off of the gold and glass tesserae. Rico Franses discusses how this light effect creates visual layers of bright golden reflections and dark areas of matte glass in the mosaic's composition. He suggests that these layers convey Orthodox theology to the church's congregation. He explains that the changing light in Hagia Sophia, as the sun rises and lowers, and the effect of the reflected light on the gold tessarae illuminate either the Theotokos or the Christ Child. I propose that Photios took advantage of Hagia Sophia's unique light effect in order to emphasize the Theotokos and his own ceremonial role as a "God Bearer" over the Christ-Child in the political rhetoric of Homily 17 and the liturgy of Hagia Sophia.
Show moreSir Tristrem is the earliest English versions of the Tristan and Isolde story, and it is the only rendition that presents its protagonist as an English hero. The romance's many markers of Englishness become even more legible in the manuscript context of the poem. With its singular appearance in the Auchinleck Manuscript, National Library of Scotland, Advocates' MS.19.2.1 (c.1330), Sir Tristrem and the deeds of its eponymous hero become inscribed in the Matter of England. Because this is the only medieval instance of the poem, this study of national identity in Sir Tristrem must be contextualized within its literary tradition and its manuscript context. When judged against the courtly standards as represented in Thomas' Tristran and Gottfried's Tristan, the Middle English Sir Tristrem pales in comparison. But this comparison assumes that the anonymous Middle English poet was participating in the same courtly narrative tradition as Thomas and Gottfried. In my study of the poem, I argue that the Tristrem poet purposefully rejects the courtly tradition. In reducing the emphasis on emotional responses and focusing instead on land rights and public performance, Sir Tristrem blends the courtly Tristan narratives with the tales of English heroes. Tristrem travels to Ermonie to win back his heritage. In avenging the death of his father, Tristrem behaves like the famous English heroes Havelok, Guy, and Boeve, but his story differs from theirs because of Tristrem's inability to settle down and establish a dynasty. The only way to secure an inheritance is by transmitting it to the next generation. Despite his marriage to Ysonde of the White Hands, Tristrem never fathers any children. His only recourse is to establish a new dynasty, one not related to him by blood: the dynasty of his foster father Rohand and his sons. This argument that Sir Tristrem participates in the English hero tradition finds support in the manuscript evidence of the Auchinleck MS. The manuscript compiler has selected five English hero romances—Guy of Warwick (couplets), Guy of Warwick (stanzas), Reinbroun (the romance of Guy's son), Sir Beues of Hamtoun, and Horn Childe and Maiden Rimnild—and may have selected Sir Tristrem because of its narrative similarities to them. The manuscript context of Sir Tristrem helps its eponymous hero gain recognition as a tragic exiled-and-returned English hero. The Auchinleck manuscript appropriates Sir Tristrem into the Matter of England romances—tales that narrate a history of the nation and were read by fourteenth-century audiences as history or glimpses into the past.
A "Good Report of England": Narratives of Production and National Identity in Early Modern Print (1473-1625).
Brown, Meaghan Jane, Coldiron, Anne E. B., Leushuis, Reinier, Taylor, Gary, Gants, David, Department of English, Florida State University
"A 'Good Report of England'" explores the relationship between nascent conceptions of English nationhood and the development of printers' personas in early modern texts. Although the invention of the printing press is widely understood to have influenced the formation of early modern national identities, the idea that print itself has a history of textual representation has not been factored heavily into that understanding. By examining printers' self-representations and textual narratives of...
Show more"A 'Good Report of England'" explores the relationship between nascent conceptions of English nationhood and the development of printers' personas in early modern texts. Although the invention of the printing press is widely understood to have influenced the formation of early modern national identities, the idea that print itself has a history of textual representation has not been factored heavily into that understanding. By examining printers' self-representations and textual narratives of print-production, this dissertation explores how generic conventions for representing the act of printing develop over the first 150 years of the technology's existence, and in doing so, investigates the relationship between these developing representations and what Richard Helgerson calls the "discursive forms of nationhood." This study draws on close bibliographic study of printed sources as well as manuscript correspondence, Stationers' Company records and legal documents to question the narratives of production told by specific printers within their publications and to problematize the relationship between such narratives and the texts they accompany. Jürgen Habermas's proposed "literary precursor" to the public sphere and Benedict Anderson's "imagined communities" both suppose that a political discourse eventually emerged from print's capacity to engage readers in a discursive community - a community defined by their own engagement with texts. This dissertation argues that printers' epistles manipulated both the concept of community and the concept of readers' engagement as they actively negotiated the terms of print's place in the political landscape. This dissertation focuses on printed texts related to English history and contemporary news events - from verse exemplars of good governance and hagiographies of national heroes, to history plays and polemical news pamphlets - that occurred in multiple editions, either synchronically produced through translation or diachronically reprinted over the period in question. Focusing on often-reprinted texts allows me to examine the adaptations and nuances of paratextual elements, primarily "Printer to the Reader" epistles and frame narratives, and to historicize these elements as they guide the readings of a variety of historical texts. My project asks why an inscribed-printer - often, but not always, authored by the historical printer of a given work - was created to contribute narrative to such works and what the uses of such personae can tell us about the political capital of early modern print.
The nobility of the Renaissance era enjoyed an elaborate form of hunting, called par force, which involved many horses, dogs, and huntsmen and offered many opportunities for social display. Par force hunting came with a set of ritualized actions and its own unique vocabulary. English monarchs, especially James I, instituted regulations on who could participate based on social status. As the higher social echelons became more permeable, and hunting remained the recreation of choice for those...
Show moreThe nobility of the Renaissance era enjoyed an elaborate form of hunting, called par force, which involved many horses, dogs, and huntsmen and offered many opportunities for social display. Par force hunting came with a set of ritualized actions and its own unique vocabulary. English monarchs, especially James I, instituted regulations on who could participate based on social status. As the higher social echelons became more permeable, and hunting remained the recreation of choice for those of elevated status, this turned the sport into a skill necessary for those new to the court. This study looks at early modern English hunting manuals to examine how they functioned as courtesy literature for those newly admitted to higher levels of society, examining the rhetorical and instructional techniques employed in early modern English hunting treatises to ascertain similarities between to two types of books.
There are many examples of small communities where members of the population took action to fill a cultural void; one is Charleston, West Virginia. A critical figure in the development of Charleston's active performing community was William Sandheger Mason (1873-1941), founder of the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts. Both through the influence of his school and his own performing and conducting in the 1910s and 1920s, Mason established a taste for European art music in the rapidly growing...
Show moreThere are many examples of small communities where members of the population took action to fill a cultural void; one is Charleston, West Virginia. A critical figure in the development of Charleston's active performing community was William Sandheger Mason (1873-1941), founder of the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts. Both through the influence of his school and his own performing and conducting in the 1910s and 1920s, Mason established a taste for European art music in the rapidly growing city. Although most of the organizations he founded failed during the Great Depression, Mason's school continued to influence the area well after his death. Additionally, Mason facilitated the successes of the organizations that serve the area today by establishing a base of both performers and concertgoers.
"Her Body Is Her Own": Victorian Feminists, Sexual Violence, and Political Subjectivity.
Trumble, Kelly Lynn, Standley, Fred, Boutin, Aimee, Burke, Helen, Faulk, Barry, Department of English, Florida State University
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, women publicly confronted the issue of sexual violence for the first time. Feminists campaigned against the state-sanctioned "instrumental rape" perpetrated on women under the Contagious Diseases Acts, demanded access to medical knowledge in order to free themselves from the hands of male doctors, and attacked the marital exemption in rape law, an effort which paved the way for a married woman's legal right to her own body. This dissertation...
Show moreDuring the latter half of the nineteenth century, women publicly confronted the issue of sexual violence for the first time. Feminists campaigned against the state-sanctioned "instrumental rape" perpetrated on women under the Contagious Diseases Acts, demanded access to medical knowledge in order to free themselves from the hands of male doctors, and attacked the marital exemption in rape law, an effort which paved the way for a married woman's legal right to her own body. This dissertation traces the journey of selected Victorian feminists toward political subjectivity by exploring how their discussions of and resistance against sexual violence served as a key portal through which they began to construct themselves as "subjects" with a natural right to bodily integrity. Making use of feminist narratological theories, I analyze the rhetorical strategies emerging from women's non-fictional texts to argue that their resistance against the myriad forms of sexual violence became indistinguishable from the struggle for political subjectivity, the liberties that women believed they held as politically equal individuals. Feminists struck at the heart of liberal political theory, exposing the falsity of the public/private distinction which effectively disqualified women from consideration as civil individuals capable of making choices concerning their own lives and bodies. They appropriated liberalism's theory of liberty and equality, including themselves in that liberal definition to argue that all people, not just men, were created as free and equal individuals with the concomitant right to bodily inviolability. By ignoring the gender discrimination upon which the English constitutional system rested and positioning themselves as political subjects whose freedom of self-ownership was being infringed upon, feminists were, I would suggest, shifting the prevailing assumption of women's rights through ideological change. If women were perceived as civil subjects with all the measures of political freedom granted to them, they could end sexual abuse by affecting the laws that made that abuse possible. However, once women discovered that an ideological shift alone would not prompt male legislators to act on their behalf, they transferred their energies into lobbying for female suffrage, the only means by which they might protect themselves and their own interests.
Catholic Welfare Bureau (Miami, Fla.) (1) + -
Best American short stories ... and the yearbook of the American short story. (1) + -
Best short stories of ... and the yearbook of the American short story. (1) + -
Best short stories. (1) + -
First book. (1) + -
Flair (New York, N.Y. : 1950). (1) + -
Gone with the wind (Mitchell, Margaret). (1) + -
Land of the free series. (1) + -
Landmark books. (1) + -
Nach Mitternacht (Keun, Irmgard). (1) + -
Rivers of America. (1) + -
Southern review (Baton Rouge, La.). (1) + -
Winston adventure books. (1) + -
World landmark books. (1) + -
Yale series of younger poets. (1) + -
Europe (25) + -
Southern States (12) + -
Tallahassee (7) + -
Africa (6) + -
Mississippi (6) + -
Islamic countries (4) + -
North America (4) + -
Alabama (3) + -
Europe, Eastern (3) + -
Jacksonville (3) + -
Pinellas County (3) + -
Saint Petersburg (3) + -
Coral Gables (2) + -
East Asia (2) + -
Jackson County (2) + -
Maryland (2) + -
Panama City (2) + -
Slavic countries (2) + -
1900 - 1999 (53) + -
1600 - 1775 (1) + -
Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 (1) + -
Since 1945 (1) + -
Bio-bibliography (2) + -
Book reviews (2) + -
Handbooks, manuals, etc (2) + -
Fiction (1) + -
Illustrations (1) + -
Studies and exercises (1) + -
Surveys (1) + -
journal article (1889) + -
doctoral thesis (515) + -
utility (462) + -
bachelor thesis (309) + -
master thesis (166) + -
Records (Documents) (80) + -
technical report (63) + -
research report (33) + -
other (9) + -
working paper (8) + -
conference poster (7) + -
policy report (4) + -
video (4) + -
design (3) + -
book review (2) + -
dataset (2) + -
Sheet Music (1) + -
conference object (1) + -
conference paper (1) + -
dissertation (1) + -
graduate study for the m.s.w. degree (1) + -
moving image (8) + -
notated music (2) + -
three dimensional object (2) + -
Jain, Sh (213) + -
Liu, H. (212) + -
Sun, J. (212) + -
Lee, S. (211) + -
Alexander, J. (208) + -
Thesis (10242) + -
Citation (4272) + -
Set of related objects (94) + -
E-book (5) + -
Dissertation Abstracts International (9219) + -
Physical Review B (103) + -
Deep-C Consortium Records, 2011-2015 (80) + -
Journal of High Energy Physics (73) + -
Physical Review Letters (55) + -
Physics Letters B (54) + -
Physical Review C (52) + -
Scientific Reports (52) + -
Physical Review D (48) + -
PloS one (47) + -
Evidence Based Practice (37) + -
Nature Communications (35) + -
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (35) + -
European Physical Journal C (30) + -
New Frontiers in Operational Oceanography (30) + -
Astrophysical Journal (25) + -
Reading and writing (24) + -
The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields (24) + -
Masters Abstracts International (23) + -
Florida's Climate: Changes, Variations, & Impacts (20) + -
Journal of learning disabilities (19) + -
Frontiers in Psychology (17) + -
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (15) + -
Journal of Criminal Justice (14) + -
Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans (14) + -
The Journal of biological chemistry (14) + -
Journal of educational psychology (13) + -
Heritage Protocol & University Archives, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, FL. (80) + -
FTaSU FSUER (16) + -
Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida. (4) + -
Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Fla. (1) + -
FSU (26426) + -