This thesis discusses Derrida's theory of Hauntology, establishes a theoretical framework for an analysis of the hauntological aesthetic in recorded music, and explores the hauntological aesthetic in reference to Victorian spirit photography and contemporary recorded music of producer-musicians such as Greg Ashley, Jason Quever, Tim Presley, and Ariel Pink. By describing and analyzing the recorded music of said producer-musicians, this thesis reveals how aesthetically hauntological recorded music expresses American anxieties concerning the effects of changing technologies and cultural transitions. In effect, this thesis shows how American ideologies operate as "ghosts," and how one can better interpret and understand these core values by combining aesthetics and history through the medium of recorded music. / A Thesis submitted to the American and Florida Studies Program in the Department of Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2012. / November 5, 2012. / Hauntology, Phonograph, Political Theory, Recorded Music, Sound, Spirit Photography / Includes bibliographical references. / Barry J. Faulk, Professor Directing Thesis; Neil Jumonville, Committee Member; Jerrilyn McGregory, Committee Member.

In response to a heightening concern for international justice, in the late 1990`s in Rome, Italy over 160 countries deliberated on the most suitable approach to an international standard dealing with war crimes, crimes of aggression, crimes against humanity and genocide. In reference to the International Criminal Court`s jurisdiction, these four crimes have come to be termed ―core crimes.‖ Although the culmination was the establishment of the ICC a variety of countries stood against such an establishment and fought to weaken the Court`s jurisdictional reach. The United States of America took center stage during the deliberations in Rome as one of these countries, voting against the Court with such infamous human rights abusers as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran, among others. Determined to undermine the Court`s ability to threaten national sovereignty the U.S. even went so far as to pass legislation enabling it to invade The Hague upon the possible arrest of any U.S. military representative. Despite U.S. objections though, the Court operates as a new standard for international justice and labors to hold war criminals accountable. Further, among the various movements, standards and ad hoc tribunals, the ICC stands alone as the first permanent international judicial composition with universal jurisdiction over core crimes. With the Court having a direct affect on international human rights standards and accountability, as well as being an important leader through its role on the global stage, this paper will detail the history of the aforementioned movements as well as their influence on the ICC`s creation. Further, the U.S. objections and reaction to the Court will be summarized and responded to with the conclusion that U.S. interests would be served by both signing and ratifying the Rome Treaty. Whereas a denial of ICC jurisdiction over core crimes seemingly protects national sovereignty, the same denial undermines the U.S. position of leadership in the world theatre. Finally, although more difficult to quantify, undermining the position of U.S. leadership in this manner invariably creates a far more dangerous threat to U.S. national sovereignty than does allowing the ICC to exercise complementary jurisdiction over the core crimes. / A Thesis submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2011. / July 14, 2010. / Foreign Policy, International Criminal Court, Judicial Systems / Includes bibliographical references. / Terry Coonan, Professor Directing Thesis; Talbot (Sandy) D'Alemberte, Committee Member; Neil Jumonville, Committee Member.

Land use in Florida has seen many changes since it became an American territory in 1821. But while land use can be a categorical term for classifying property, it can also take on a more valuable meaning. When the land was originally opened up for frontier settlers and wealthy planters to farm in the early years, it usually meant family and freedom as individuals and large kinship networks migrated south to establish homesteads and plantations. This population was mostly concentrated in Middle Florida or the northern part of the state. Leading up to the Civil War, cotton was obviously a royal crop and a manufacturing movement emerged to support the momentum toward Southern independence. However, the aftermath of the Civil War seems to be a turning point for the dominantly agrarian region as timber, railroads, and tourism changed the way residents used the land. While Northwest Florida retained agriculture as a major part of the economy, the peninsula became more developed and populated, mostly with wealthy Northern tourists, and in effect, the state transformed into two distinct regions with very different environments and cultures. Comparisons between the two sections are made throughout the study to illustrate lessons that can be learned from one to the other. Sprawl, congestion, and overdevelopment's assault on the environment are common concerns. My focus for this study is to show how land use and essentially rural life changed for those individuals who were accustomed to subsistence farming in Northwest Florida. Land prices, a decline in farm acreage, population distribution, and suburbanization exhibit this transformation. In addition, the intention is to show the assets of the Panhandle through its environment, rural character, and agrarian heritage which equates into a revered quality of life. The rural places of Northwest Florida deserve protection from inappropriate and misplaced development using rural land conservation and land-use planning techniques while revitalizing towns and cities that have already been developed and preserving the region's vast historical resources for future generations. / A Thesis submitted to the American and Florida Studies Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2013. / April 1, 2013. / Agrarian, Conservation, Development, Growth Management, Panhandle, Rural / Includes bibliographical references. / Neil Jumonville, Professor Directing Thesis; Frederick Davis, Committee Member; Jennifer Koslow, Committee Member.

This thesis identifies and examines the trope of barbershop violence in American literature. Drawing on a wide range of literary, scholarly, and historical documents, I explore the way that certain authors subvert traditional ideas about barbershop discourse and use the quintessential American setting as a stage for failed nostalgia, tragic miscommunication, and outbursts of irrational violence in order to craft fictions that call on readers to strive for a more authentic and humanistic identification with their fellow man. In the first chapter I take a close look at Herman Melville's tableau of barbering in the 1855 novella Benito Cereno within a socio-historic context and then trace allusions to this seminal barbering scene in a number of works to show how many authors depict barbershop miscommunication and violence in order to highlight the racial disparities at the heart of American society. In Chapter Two I borrow the sophisticated methodology of James Joyce scholar Cheryl Temple Herr to examine contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo's numerous depictions of the barbershop through the prism of Heideggerian ontology. / A Thesis Submitted to the Program in American & Florida Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2008. / March 24, 2008. / Martin Heidegger, Razor, Don Delillo, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, Babo, Benito Cereno, Barber, Barbershop, Shaving, Shave, Cheryl Herr / Includes bibliographical references. / Dennis Moore, Professor Directing Thesis; John Fenstermaker, Committee Member; Timothy Parrish, Committee Member.

Comic books printed during the 1930s and 40s contained stories and characters that supported the New Deal and America's entry into World War II. Though comic books are typically seen solely as reflections of the decades; the comic books, in actuality, were propaganda for political stances. Moreover, these were the political stances of the Jewish Americans who built the comic book industry. While much of corporate America was terrified by FDR's New Deal policies, comic books supported the President. When war loomed on the horizon, comic book writers and artists sent patriotic superheroes to war long before the country became mobilized. Finally, the political dialogue taking place in comic books resonated with the American public because they were created in a time when patriotism was synonymous with sacrifice. / A Thesis Submitted to the Program in American & Florida Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2008. / March 31, 2008. / Captain America, Heroes, FDR, New Deal, World War II, Jews, Jewish, Comic Book, Comic Books, Superman, Nazi, Hitler, War / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Thesis; Barry Faulk, Committee Member; Ned Stuckey-French, Committee Member.

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, 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. / A Thesis Submitted to the Program in American and Florida Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2005. / March 23, 2005. / Transcendentalism, Woman's Rights, Patriarchy, Domesticity, Domestic Feminism, Women Artists / Includes bibliographical references. / Dennis Moore, Professor Directing Dissertation; Leigh Edwards, Committee Member; John Fenstermaker, Committee Member.

This thesis examines extinct or vanishing towns along Florida's northwest coast, specifically communities in Wakulla and Levy Counties, that experienced a boom to bust phenomena between Florida's territorial period and the early twentieth century. The exceptional growth of the selected areas prospered largely due to an abundance of seemingly inexhaustible natural resources. The towns withered and disappeared when industrialization depleted the natural resources or when populations shifted according to changes in land availability and mandated land use. Lumberyards sometimes demanded specific wood for manufacture and harvested a species to decimation within a geographical area. Sawmill owners bought non-contiguous land or leased other nearby lands to meet the increasing need for production. Early Gulf Coast railroads tended to follow the path of high-yield lumber mills and commodified natural products. Newly implemented laws often changed the methods of available collection, and consumption of resources and became another factor in whether a town thrived or died. Small, independent commercial fishermen abandoned their livelihoods when new net bans challenged their authority. Hunting resorts closed in consequence of federal land purchases. The Civil War changed forever the labor force behind cotton production. Southerners who viewed slaves as just another limitless resource had to reevaluate their lifestyles. Even the old planters and slave owners who could readjust morally and socially were unable to realign themselves financially and the death of their beneficent town soon followed. Freedmen left their master's land when and if opportunity arose in favor of newer or black-cultured communities. An out-migration of freedmen could lead to the death of post Civil War towns. The demise of many southern ghost towns is often attributed to technological advances and progress bypassing the sleepier little villages, but this theory diminishes, if not totally dismisses the agency of a single person, or a select group of people, to make or challenge decisions contributing to the boom or bust of a particular settlement. It is true that the areas studied often witnessed a loss of transportation services and outward migration in favor of larger or newer sites, but a breach usually appeared in the town's power-structure long before population loss. Larger political, social, and economic forces working outside of the geographical area of a future ghost town were not truly as powerful as might be expected. Instead, the decisions of a relatively small group of citizens, who often had contacts with people connected to larger government forces, made decisions independently of a town council and greatly contributed to the sometimes gradual and sometimes swift extinction of their own districts. The town's lack of a powerful force could be equally devastating if the area received no external representation. / A Thesis Submitted to the Program in American and Florida Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2005. / November 4, 2005. / Richard Keith Call, Florida History, Ghost Towns, Extinct Towns, Wakulla County, Levy County, Magnolia, Port Leon, Newport, Arran, East Goose Creek, Wakulla Beach, West Goose Creek, Cedar Key, Rosewood, Turpentine, Naval Stores, Lumberyards, Seine Fishing, Florida Railroad, George Hamlin, Augustus Steele, David Levy Yulee, Henry Walker Sr., Civil War, Slaves, Hurricanes, Hunting Resorts / Includes bibliographical references. / Frederick Davis, Professor Directing Thesis; John Fenstermaker, Committee Member; Bruce Bickley, Committee Member.

Louis John Witte is a man whose name is lost to time and whose work is overshadowed by flashier modern-day computerized advancements in movie wizardry. Nevertheless, he remains a cornerstone upon which a thriving scientific discipline has been built. Although he and his creations existed well before the advent of computer technology, he is credited with inventing devices that advanced the art of faking realism by replacing state-of-the-art crude facsimiles and dangerous replications with safer, hyper-realistic models. Witte's inventions erased the boundary separating audiences from the bona fide. His contribution to the science of entertainment coincided with the historic period 1896-1946, in which "movies were the most popular and influential medium of culture in the United States" (Sklar 3). Not only did Witte give his valuable civilian expertise to his country, but he also was a veteran of WWI, when during a "long lonely and dangerous mission," he was wounded (Leavell Appendix II). "Sergeant Louis J. Witte," a telegram written to his mother reads, "was wound [sic] in the Meuse-Argonne operation, on the night of Oct. 2nd., 1918, by an air bomb, and was evacuated to the hospital" (Leavell Appendix II). Witte's service and injury earned him the Purple Heart commendation for his involvement in that battle. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Humanities (American Studies Program) in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2011. / January 31, 2011. / Special Effects, Film Industry, Twentieth Century Fox Films, Film Industry, Flare Machine Patent, Wave Machine Patent, Sound Machine Patent, Witte / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Thesis; Dennis Moore, Committee Member; Timothy Parrish, Committee Member.

This thesis addresses the major activist and radical issues of the 1960s and early 1970s and illustrates the myriad shifts that take place within each of these social movements as depicted in the alternative press of the era. These movements serve as reflections of the shift of the collective American character throughout the 1960s, and while they propel America to adjust to new mindsets, they also reflect the desires – and fears – of a nation thrust into a chaotic postwar period. But despite their differences in goals and ideologies, the major movements of the era – the struggles for civil rights, women's rights, and peace in the face of war – bring with them many similarities, more than many historians are wont to depict. So often, such historians focus solely on one of the activist movements of the 1960s, seemingly overlooking other events of the decades that could perhaps be catalysts or results of a particular movement's actions. But the groups that formed and the events that took place within the decade did so with a high degree of interconnectedness, even in ways that are not readily apparent initially. This mentality is illustrated quite clearly within the alternative newspapers of the era. Specifically, the bylines and subjects showing up in a forum for one activist movement often echo those from other publications and other movements. More generally, the motives, tactics, and even slogans made successful by one movement often were employed by activists in other realms, adding much to the collective ideological shifts of the era. Through the alternative press, it is easy to see the tendencies toward chaos even within the movements themselves; rarely does a neat and tidy chronology of progression exist. These newspapers chronicled the transformations taking place with the times – indeed, a shift from semantics to activism, from a more passive ideology to one that was vibrant with action. But such shifts are not easily decipherable and are nestled among shades of gray rather than being decidedly black and white. And it is those gray areas, those areas of confusion, tension, frustration, and joy, that this thesis analyzes. / A Thesis submitted to the Program in American and Florida Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2004. / March 31, 2004. / Civil Rights, 1960s, Underground Press, Alternative Newspapers, Women's Liberation, Antiwar / Includes bibliographical references. / Neil Jumonville, Professor Directing Thesis; John Fenstermaker, Committee Member; Deborah Coxwell-Teague, Committee Member.

Recently museums have begun to feature public programming that engages new audiences, they partner with a number of diverse community organizations, and they put the focus of their efforts on education. With these new focuses they have changed from didactic institutions to places where the visitor may confirm his experience, and at times may add his own voice to the discussion. This shift in focus has been swift, and scholarship is only beginning to catch up with the values being expressed in the profession. It is my intention to offer a history of educational philosophy that is relevant and useful for museum professionals by closely examining two historical lines of thought. Progressive education provides a framework that museums can use to model their educational programming. Creating hands-on programming, and focusing on the individuality of the learner are important aspects of progressive educations that museum professionals can use for their own programming. The idea of the community school focuses on partnerships, the use of the physical building, and bringing a number of resources together in one place. This set of ideas follows the paths that museums use to receive funding and strengthen their relationships within their local community. Local history museums have begun to use these all ideas, and focusing their attention on similar work done in the past is an important step for the profession. Therefore these two concepts provide a historically relevant and important background for present day museum programming. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of American and Florida Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2008. / March 31, 2008. / Constructivism, Educational History, Community School, Progressive Education, Museum Education / Includes bibliographical references. / Neil Jumonville, Professor Directing Thesis; Wayne Wiegand, Committee Member; Jennifer Koslow, Committee Member.