Utah prairie dogs (Cynomys parvidens) have been extirpated in 90% of their historical range. Because most of the population occurs on private land, this threatened species is continually in conflict with landowners. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has been relocating prairie dogs from private to public land since the 1970s, but relocations have been largely unsuccessful due to high mortality. Prairie dogs are highly social animals, but they are usually relocated without regard to their family group (coterie). I hypothesized that relocating Utah prairie dogs with their social structure intact may positively affect their survival rates and behavior. Utah prairie dogs were relocated from the golf course in Cedar City, Utah to two prepared sites near Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah in 2010 and 2011. Trapped animals were individually marked, and released at the new sites. Prairie dogs were relocated as coteries, or in a control group as randomly trapped individuals. To compare the two sites, vegetation transects were established at each site to document differences in composition and structure. Two months after relocation, traps were set to recapture released animals. Activity budgets were collected prior to, and following, relocation. Activity data were also collected on wild prairie dog populations for comparison. The best predictor of survival and recapture rate was the animal’s weight at initial capture. Larger animals had higher survival, but lower recapture rates. More research is needed to determine if this is due to better body condition, older animals having more experience, or both. Analysis showed no evidence of an advantage to relocating Utah prairie dogs by coteries. There was no benefit to survival, and no difference in behavior between coterie and control relocation strategies. Relocated animals behaved differently from non-relocated prairie dogs. While still significantly different, relocated individuals behaved more like wild prairie dogs than the animals at the urban source population. The vegetation at the two sites was significantly different. One site had significantly less grass cover, more invasive plant cover, and rockier soils. The sites also had different soil structures, which affect burrowing, and long-term retention rates. More research is needed to determine how site selection influences long-term success of a relocation site.

This paper is an analysis of two poems by the American New York School poet Frank O’Hara. The two poems analysed here are “The Day Lady Died” and “Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul.” Both poems have O’Hara’s distinctive ‘I do this, I do that’ style which is characterised by a conversational tone and a narrative of everyday events in New York City. O’Hara’s poetry has long been criticized by the literary community for being targeted to a coterie circle, specifically to his friends and artists in the New York School in the 1950s and early 1960s. Because these criticisms partly derive from the considerable amount of proper names O’Hara includes in many of his poems, the following analysis will be based on the proper names included in the poems. By using two different theories/typologies to analyse the poems, this paper finds the proper name to be a core part of the narrative of the poems and an important source of information for the context in which the poems were written.

本文主要的研究對象是民國以來上海地區出現的美術團體 。在研究上， 以時間為縱線的探討，從民國元年到二十六年間，就上海地區中、 西美 術社團的發展，依其成立的先後，做一系統的分析。 而對美術團體實質 的活動內容，則針對各個社團的成立宗旨、基本的藝術主張、 會務進展 和社員的動態，以及社團興衰的歷史過程，作進一步的考察。第一章，就 上海地區書畫家結社活動的探源， 分析上海在一八四三年開埠之後文化 、經濟的發展，對書畫家結社活動的影響， 進而考察書畫會之興起，及 書畫會與社會之互動關係。而第二、三章，分別以中、西美術團體的活動 為主體的探討。首就，團體的脈絡與組成的動機而言， 國畫團體仍是延 續晚清書畫會聯誼的雅集形式；西畫團體則以展覽會為主要的活動，旨在 研究與推廣西洋繪畫。 其次，這些團體性質的判別，國畫團體是以聯誼 、展售為主要的職能， 同時以恢復傳統畫學為其責任；西畫社團，除了 展覽會的舉辦外， 並同時開設函授部，或成立繪畫研究所，招收學生。 另外，在藝術主張方面， 這些團體，普遍都呈現出模糊或不明確的現象 ，國畫社團較為保守， 以保存國粹為目標；而西畫團體，其成員中有許 多是在歐、日留學習畫， 因此表現較為開放的態度，希望透過西畫的學 習，作為日後中國畫學復興的助力。第四章，闡述三十年代新興的美術團 體，即現代美術社團決瀾社， 與左翼美術運動的崛起，如左翼美術家聯 盟的成立。 前者強調「為藝術而藝術」，主張純藝術的追求及創造； 後 者則提倡「藝術為民眾服務」的意識型態，認為藝術不僅是為個人創作的 ，更應該是為社會大眾服務的。 而決瀾社對西方現代美術的介紹，無疑 是受到阻礙，並未引起重視。 但另一方面，左翼美術家聯盟雖在活動推 廣時，雖然受到阻礙， 卻往木刻藝術發展，並且在抗戰時期，獲得相當 大的成果。

abstract: This dissertation makes the case to reclaim the typically negative term, coterie, as a poetic method and offers the epithalamium as a valuable object for the study of coterie conditions and values. This examination of the historical poetics of the epithalamium shows how the form was reappropriated by gay postwar poets and those in related social circumstances. This study applies and builds on theories developed by Arthur Marotti (John Donne: Coterie Poet), and Lytle Shaw (Frank O'Hara: The Poetics of Coterie) and subsequent critics to develop a coterie poetics, the markers and terms for which I have arranged here to demonstrate conscious "sociable" poetics. It is thus to our advantage to study coterie conditions and methods to open readers to insights into twentieth-century poets that have deliberately exploited reception among those in private and public spheres, just as their Early-Modern precursors did--often as a matter of survival, but also as formative practice. The key figures in this study wrote significant epithalamia or made major theoretical claims for coterie poetics: John Donne (1572-1631), W. H. Auden (1907-1973), Paul Goodman (1910-1972), and Frank O'Hara (1926-1966). O'Hara's poetry is approached as the apex of coterie poetics; his personal immediacy and obscure personal references should alienate and exclude--yet, they invite. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

This is a study of the emergence of William Wordsworth’s literary reputation during his lifetime. It is constructed as a variety of biography, organized chronologically in order to attempt a fuller sense of the negotiation of public image and reputation that went on between Wordsworth and his audiences. Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism structures the study as a series of “conversations,” interconnected and moving outward from self, to intimate group or coterie, to public, reviewers, and culture at large. The coterie and members of it have a large part to play in Wordsworth’s emerging style. The evidence drawn upon for each “conversation” moves from biography to letters to published poems and prose works to published reviews of those works, again roughly describing a movement outward from self to coterie to culture at large. The “conversations” appeal to two or more different kinds of audience, however, because of a “multi-voiced” feature of Wordsworth’s published collections, especially noticeable in the critical success of the sonnet form. Further, members of the coterie, notably Coleridge, later emerge as important interpreters, advocates, and critics themselves, adding to the critical success of William Wordsworth in the larger cultural conversation. Ultimately, Wordsworth is recognized for his contribution – a triumph of his confidence in his own style, as well as the education of a new kind of reader that now engages with Wordsworth’s poetry at a level of intimacy that makes the reader feel like a member of the coterie.

This thesis proposes two distinct but connected ideas: that John Keats’s idiom of friendship was haunted by “sequestered” longings and that he ultimately valued specific, one-on-one partnerships as a basis for his poetical character. The Introduction places the thesis within its critical context and outlines “paradoxical solitude,” a concept the poet expressed by joining a “kindred spirit” in a wilderness retreat in “O, Solitude.” I begin by examining the evolving role of solitude in Keats’s literary predecessors (Chapter I). I then trace the development of ideas of creativity and solitude from his 1814-1815 verse, including his first association with a coterie and the influence of Wordsworth (Chapter II). Building on these findings, I explore the poet’s introduction to the Hunt circle in 1816, assessing his relationships with its members and their overstated roles in the production of Poems (Chapter III). I then discuss how Keats regarded the composition of Endymion in 1817 as a poetic “test,” specifically tailored to reinforce his identity as a solitary poet (Chapter IV). I contend that Keats engaged in a dialogue of independence with Reynolds, adapted the theories of Hazlitt, and restlessly travelled throughout England as a means of rejecting the highly social periods of 1818 (Chapter V). I then consider the creative gains of his northern expedition with Brown in the summer of 1818. I argue that Keats exaggerated his development into a “post-Wordsworthian” poet, positioning himself outside both the coterie’s sphere and the reach of Blackwood’s criticism, and inspiring the theme of Hyperion (Chapter VI). In closing, I analyze Keats’s advice to Shelley to be a selfish creator of his poetic identity. Only through paradoxical solitude, I argue, was Keats able to construct the poetic identity that led him to compose the poems on which his fame rests in the 1820 volume.