William Stetson Kennedy (1916-2011), an activist and muckraking journalist, focused on social and economic conditions in the South. In seven decades of activism, he fought for peace, workers’ rights, civil rights, and environmental protections. Kennedy collected oral histories as a folklorist with the Federal Writer’s Project, and he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan and worked to get their state charters revoked. This project breaks new ground by bringing to light a neglected aspect of Stetson Kennedy’s work: his years (1943-1947) as the editorial director for the Political Action Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO-PAC). In this role, Kennedy fought against voting restrictions and informed workers about candidates and voting issues. This dissertation explores several research questions: How are alphabetic, civic, and critical literacies activated and enhanced through labor rhetoric? In what ways are these three literacies connected? What are the implications of interconnected literate praxis in academic spaces and beyond? The writer employs archival research, primary field research, and critical theory. Using critical theory enables the writer to stake new claims about key concepts: the subject, agency, ideology, discourse, rhetoric, and literacy. This project enriches existing scholarship in rhetoric and composition through focusing on literacy programs in labor movements. Although labor unions have long provided instruction in reading, writing, history, and political economy, little work outside of history and sociology has been done on worker education. Literacy building outside the classroom has received some attention in rhetoric and composition, but the role that unions play in this process has been neglected. In addition, this rhetorical biography provides an historical account of a writer who helped educate workers largely through the use of dialect, folklore, and other forms of vernacular/working-class discourse. Vernacular discourse must be recovered in order to rectify the privileging of academic/elite discourse and to end the longstanding silence about socioeconomic class in US society. Furthermore, this project connects rhetorical theory to rhetorical practice, what Paulo Freire called praxis. Ultimately, this project provides a new view of literacy by theorizing how three different literacies interact, as well as the implications of these interactions in classrooms and communities.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to compare the protagonists of two novels which are classified as Southern gothic writings: Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, and The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole. Although the pivotal characters appear dissimilar, the comparison and analysis of the novels might demonstrate common features and motifs. Studying of Southern gothic phenomena constitutes a background for the analysis, and also the initial part of the thesis. It is focused on a basic characteristic of the genre on the basis of the development of Southern literature. There is an introduction of the most important authors, genres, and typical motifs. The analytical part is prefaced by a reference to the life and work of the writers, as their nature and literary production vary. There is more attention paid to the texts by McCarthy because he has published a larger quantity of books in comparison with Toole. Southern gothic elements are therefore observed and compared in the analysed short novels, and also in other McCarthy's texts. The comparison corresponds to the theoretical ground.

The main goal of the thesis was to find out why leaders decide the way they do. Using the example of the Cuban Crisis from 1962 I try to analyze the decision making process of the american president John F. Kennedy and the soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev. The Cuban Crisis was the most dangerous moment since World War II and the world got to the edge of a nuclear war. The lives of thousands of people were in the hands of the two leaders. Their decision making process was influenced by many internal and external factors and in this thesis I am trying to find out which factors and to what extent had the biggest influence on their decisions.

Multimedia learning -- Collaborative authoring of Hypercard stacks -- Student construction of meaning.

For this project the brain-based theory of learning, an eclectic theory that incorporates the cognitive and humanistic views was researched. Multimedia, a technology which supports the principles of brain-based learning, was then selected as the vehicle to present historical materials to students.

No description available.

The presented thesis is an analysis of American foreign policy thinking applying comprehensive analysis of three presidential administrations. The analysis is embedded in the historical context of the Suez Crisis, and provides a picture of the change in US foreign policy after the Suez Crisis comparing the three foreign policy doctrines related to this particular period of history - D. D. Eisenhower, J. F. Kennedy and L. John Johnson. The foreign policy doctrine represents a particular expression, image of foreign policy of a given state. The American political system is known by several historically and politically significant foreign policy doctrines. The thesis describes how the US foreign policy is created and what leads to the process of formulation of the presedential doctrines. An important element in the background of the analysis is the Cold War itself. Besides the theoretical definition, the work also provides the complex features of the administrations of the three presidents submited to analysis. Part of the characteristic is the analysis of individual foreign policy doctrines that points out the difference among administrations derived from the historical moment of the Suez crisis. The results of the comparison will draw conclusions on the similarity as well as possible differences...

Sammanfattning: Det mest märkbara resultatet i studien är att det inte krävs en stor aktör med många följare för att påbörja en stor kampanj, men det är nödvändigt att få hjälp av dem för att nå en viral spridning. De två studerade kampanjerna hade helt olika sätt att kommunicera på, där MeToo hade en allvarsam ton och Ice Bucket Challenge ett humoristiskt och positivt laddat budskap - båda om smärtsamma ämnen. Eftersom de båda blev virala visar resultatet att det viktigaste är ett känslomässigt laddat budskap som påverkar folk, oavsett om det är glada, ilskna eller sorgsna känslor. Det krävs stark känslomässig påverkan för att personer ska känna sig motiverade att sprida vidare ett budskap. Samhällsklimatet och aktuella samhällsfrågor kan hjälpa en kampanj bli viral, men är inte nödvändig. Det finns ingen specifik riktlinje eller mall att följa för att bli viral, men det är viktigt att ha hög spridbarhet på sitt budskap och motivera mottagaren att dela vidare.

The purpose of this study was to describe how gender was portrayed and to determine how gender roles were depicted and defined in a selection of Modern and Postmodern American plays. This study was based on the symbolic interaction theory of gender that suggests that social roles are learned over time and are subject to constant reinforcement. The significance of this study was derived from the broad topic of gender because gender issues are relevant to a variety of fields and exploring the effects of gender in one field contributes to the understanding of gender in another field. The plays in this study were Votes for Women, Robins; Trifles, Glaspell; Our Town, Wilder; Moon for the Misbegotten, O'Neill; The Glass Menagerie, Williams; Death of a Salesman, Miller; A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry; Funnyhouse of a Negro, Kennedy; Uncommon Women and Others, Wasserstein; Fefu and Her Friends, Fornes; spell #7, Shange; Fool for Love, Shepard; Fences, Wilson; Oleanna, Mamet; and How I Learned to Drive, Vogel. Two of the study's research questions explored the types of gender roles and behaviors that the characters presented. Two questions focused on considering if the time period or the sex of the playwright were factors in the presentations of gender. Gender behaviors were divided into four categories: Behavior Characteristics, Communication Patterns, Sources of Power, and Physical Appearance. Using narrative analysis techniques, the plays were analyzed for the specific traits in each category. The majority of the characters were assigned traditional gender roles and displayed traditional gender behavior traits. Based their gender roles and behavior in their roles, characters faced limitations that confined their actions and restricted their choices. Characters experienced consequences for their behaviors, and female characters received harsher punishments for deviant behaviors than male characters. Gender portrayal in Modern plays was more in keeping with traditional patterns than in Postmodern plays. Female playwrights presented more diverse roles for female characters and often explored gender as a major theme in their plays. Where applicable, race, in concert with gender, was an additional factor that governed characters' behaviors by further restricting behavior or possible actions.

No description available.