Poster / Soc 397a / 2017 Poverty in Tucson Field Workshop

This thesis explores the notion of rurality as a form of constructed identity. Just as feminist and postcolonial studies identify the formation of hierarchies within gender and ethnicity, I argue that the rural is constructed as inferior in opposition to its binary counterpart, the urban. The effect of this is the othering of the rural. This thesis takes Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights as a case study, using a critical approach to explore the ways in which it presents rurality, and to consider its role in the creation and reproduction of rural identity. The case study suggests that the adoption of a ‘rural reading’, in which an awareness of rural othering is fostered, can be a useful and productive strategy in textual analysis and interpretation. The first three chapters of this thesis focus on rural construction generally. Chapter 1 draws on semiotic theory to examine the creation of binaries, and Derridean notions of linguistic hierarchies to suggest reasons for the inferior position of the rural. Chapter 2 considers the historical location of the urban/rural binary in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, within the context of the Enlightenment, the growth of capitalism, industrialisation and rapid urban expansion. Chapter 3 explores rural othering as a feature of contemporary culture, examining the textual presence of idyllic and anti-idyllic versions of the rural. Chapter 4 introduces the methodology of the case study, explaining the relevance of Wuthering Heights to the study of rural othering, providing a précis of the novel and an overview of previous critical responses. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 explore the three themes of nature, deviance and space. These are derived from the examination of rural construction in Chapter 3. In Chapter 5, the representation of nature in Wuthering Heights is explored, and the presence of animals within the novel in particular. In Chapter 6, the depiction of deviance in Wuthering Heights is discussed, with special focus given to the presence of deviant speech patterns, reflecting changing expectations of behavioural norms in the early nineteenth century. Chapter 7’s consideration of the relationship between space and rurality within Brontë’s novel considers her representation of landscape. Chapter 8 argues that a similar rural reading can be applied to other texts, literary and otherwise, opening up a fresh set of perspectives and possibilities for interpretation.

This thesis covers the entire range of British and American film adaptations of Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, as no cumulative study on this larger selection has been done thus far. However this will not be the only objective of this thesis, as I create a link between the author’s life to her novel, between the novel to the early criticism, and the criticism to later adaptations, forming a chain of transformation down the ages, to the original novel. By linking the adaptations to the earlier reception of the novel, a change of social interaction will be uncovered as one of its reasons for surviving. These examples of adaptation will be shown to be just as relevant to popular culture history as its original inspiration. This is the result of an unfolding movement of change and mutation, where each adaptation pushes to connect with the past and future. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Ionospheric scale height is a measure of the topside altitude dependence of electron density and is a key ionospheric parameter due to its intrinsic connection to ionospheric dynamics, plasma temperature, and composition. A longtime problem has been that information on the bottomside ionospheric profile is readily available, but the observation of the topside ionosphere is still challenging. Despite numerous data techniques to characterize the topside ionosphere, the knowledge of the behavior of the topside ionosphere and its subsequent scale heights remains insufficient. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether or not we can characterize the topside ionospheric density and temperature profiles in the event that neither temperature nor electron density are measured by using a cost-effective method. In a simple model, the electron density in the F-region topside decreases exponentially with height. This exponential decay is mainly driven by thermal diffusive equilibrium, but also dependent on the dominant ion species, as well as other drivers during nondiffusive conditions. A scale height based on observations of the temperature can generate topside electron density profiles. While a measure of the electron density profile enables a scale height to be inferred, hence yielding temperature information. We found a new way to represent how much total electron content (TEC) is allotted for the topside ionosphere. We then used this information to successfully determine TEC using ionosonde data containing only bottomside electron density information. For the first time, slab thickness, which is directly proportional to scale height, was found to be correlated to the peak density height and introduced as a new index, k. Ultimately, k relates electron density parameters and can be a very useful tool for describing the topside ionosphere shape and subsequently, scale height. The methodology of using cost-effective, readily available ionosonde bottomside electron density data combined with GPS TEC was discovered to be capable of inferring the topside ionosphere. This was verified by incoherent scatter radar (ISR) data, though major issues surrounding the availability of ionogram data during nighttime hours greatly limited our study, especially during diffusive equilibrium conditions. Also, significant differences were found between ISR and ionosonde-determined peak density parameters, NmF2 and hmF2, and raised concerns in how the instruments were calibrated.

Thesis (D.W.S.)--Institute for Worship Studies, 2005. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-193).

This thesis offers a textual analysis of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights and, to a lesser extent, her poems in an effort to understand fully the complicated relationship of gender to time that characterizes her artistic imagination. The study emphasizes the interplay of religious, psychological and sexual forces inherent in her narrative, and their effect when portraying cyclical and linear concepts of time. Narrators' and characters' interactions serve by themselves and as dyads to represent a concept of mythical or eternal time that manifests itself within historical or chronological time. These time concepts differ and complement each other through aspects of wholeness and differentiation. References to Julia Kristeva's psycholinguistic theory and to C. G. Jung's archetypes give support for a unique space and female concept of time within a male discourse. Kristeva's exemplification of time concepts as linear/chronological for the male gender and cyclical/eternal for the female gender happens to be specially relevant to the 19th century, when the patriarchal socio-symbolic order, inhibited, undermined, and/or circumscribed the participation of the feminine within the social contract. / Graduation date: 1991

Ministry research project (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002. / "May 1, 2002." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 236-237).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard, Ill., 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-177).

There are numerous ways in which cultural heritage can be preserved, such as: physical museums, virtual museums, tours of historic homes, and community meetings. For this project, I participated in and observed heritage preservation activities in two very different communities--- Sulphur Springs and Seminole Heights in Tampa, Florida. My internship appointment was with OSHNA (Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association) under the direction of Dr. Steve Gluckman. My primary focus was assisting heritage preservation committee members in each of the two communities with heritage preservation projects specific to their community needs and interests. One project is the development of a heritage center (physical and/or virtual) that will be used to exhibit the community's cultural and material artifacts. The goal of the heritage center is to educate residents (especially the younger generation and newcomers) about current cultural traditions, achievements, and struggles of residents over time while instilling a sense of identity and belonging in residents by incorporating a diversity of perspectives in the preservation and presentation of the community's history. I was specifically involved in oral history collection; archival data collection and analysis (such as census data and city directory data); and National historic landmark designation analysis and preparation. The internship began in May 2007 and ended in August 2007.

This dissertation examines the Americanization of immigrants as a defining theme in American musical theater. It does so through studies of productions from across the past century about Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, and Latino/a Americans, and in each case, at least one of the creators is a member of the ethnic American group depicted. I contend that these artists found the musical to be a constructive tool for voicing their experiences of the struggle of Americanization and broadening notions of American identity. The resulting narrative expands upon the substantial "golden age"-centered literature on Jewish assimilation and the American musical. Decentralizing the "golden age," I show how the genre has helped write into cultural citizenship a broad range of immigrant groups during fraught periods in which their national belonging was contested. I draw upon a wide range of disciplines - especially immigration history, ethnic studies, and American studies as well as musicology - and diverse methods, including archival research, oral history, textual and musical analysis, reception history, and historically based hermeneutics. / Music