Through careful analysis paired with poetry, war memoirs, and novels from the same period, one can break down T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land to recognize the impact of The Great War on the world's modern memory while pondering the possibility of memory as a tool to overcome trauma.

While the Second Vatican Council advocates an inclusive priesthood and unified People of God, exclusion of consecrated Roman Catholic women from ministerial priesthood, official church interpretations of the scriptures, and judgments concerning faith and morals continues. This thesis examines creative tactics of resistance among consecrated women on account of hierarchal and essentialist models found in church traditions, including Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), and contemporary American women associated with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. I analyze aspects of three prophetic critiques and hermeneutical tactics of each, appealing to the critical interpretive methodologies of Elizabeth Bucar and Grace Jantzen. The LCWR are “in good company,” contrary to the representations of male superiors in the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and episcopal hierarchy. The feminist resistance of these women recapitulates forms of what Bucar calls “creative conformity,” which the church has embraced for its forbearers.

The selection of the subject "The effect of European Festivals on American Entertainment" was prompted by an assignment in a College of the Pacific Summer School course, "Supervision in the Elementary School." The project was the planning of a patrictic program in an immigrant community. Each nationality represented in the class was to provide a national impression of the homeland of his ancestors, by means of costume, song, and dance typical of the country. After an hour of very interesting entertainment which gave an introduction to the background of the foreign members of the class, all lustily sang "America," led by the Spirit of Freedom, whose lineage could be traced back to the Fathers of the American Revolution. That imaginary class, composed of many nationalities, was really a miniature of our nation which is referred to as "The melting Pot." In order to keep this thesis within bounds, investigations have been limited to six European countries --- namely, Greece, Rome (and modern Italy), England, Germany, France, and Spain. We in America have a tendency to hold a satisfied opinion of things American, forgetting that the basis for many of our so-called "American" customs comes from distant shores. Therefore it is rather enlightening to take such a universal celebration as Christmas and learn that very little of our "American" Christmas really originated here. In regard to the adaptations of the ancient festivals found in the United States and their influences on both the native and foreign population here, it has been a revelation to me to see how varied and numerous have been the references to them. Without the investigation and study which I have made on the subject, allusions made to its various phases on the radio, in lectures, in conversations, in current literature, and in advertising, would have passed by un-noticed.

<p>The traditional paradigm of causality presupposed by the natural sciences is not equipped to handle the new ways of thinking coming in the wake of what has been called the "interpretive tum" in philosophy and the social sciences. This dissertation initiates a new paradigm of causality, one that seeks to be more adequate to the needs of twenty-first century philosophical and scientific thinking. The dissertation begins by reviewing the central problems of the old paradigm and attempting to indicate precisely how it is inadequate. Next, with the aid of David Hume's deconstruction of causality, this dissertation seeks to ground the proposed paradigm in the meaning of causality as accessible to everyday lived experience (as opposed to basing it upon an a priority idea). Then, the analysis of causality so far achieved is brought within the phenomenological ontology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which provides a non-dualist way of thinking the relationship between subject and object (as well as between objects and between subjects). The discussion seeks to show how a new manner of conceiving such relationships overcomes the intractable difficulties arising from thinking causality in traditional terms. Finally. the dissertation indicates some ways that the new paradigm might be deployed in both human and natural sciences and considers some of the implications of the new paradigm for changes in Scientific thinking.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The Role of Youth Arts: Providing Opportunity and Intervention for At-Risk Populations considers the positive outcomes of arts experiences during childhood and adolescence. The benefits of arts education include cognitive, social, and emotional growth. The arts are also seen to improve student learning, achievement, and engagement on many levels. Childhood arts participation directly affects adult arts engagement in which individuals gain the cultural capital that allows for social ascent. As well as being a means for opportunity, art can be used as a means of intervention for at-risk youth populations. Through art, children and teens find meaning, belonging, and success that they lack in other areas. This work will discuss my role developing an activity for an at-risk youth program called PATROL, that partners Johnson City police officers with children from local housing authorities. The programs teaches positive actions and decision making while offering support and mentorship for the youth participants.

A collaborative process, when implemented for a theatrical production, not only reinforces a design team's ability to tell a story, it supports a artistically unified design that can be communicated easily to all members of a production team regardless of their production role. The information within this thesis is documentation of a collaborative process between the Scenic Designer and the production team for the University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by Rachel Sheinkin with music and lyrics by William Finn. Preliminary design images, model photographs, Autodesk AutoCAD design plates, and Google Sketchup renderings all serve as steps to communicate scenic design ideas to this collaborative process. The musical was performed on the Rand stage in the Fine Arts Center in December of 2010.

The concept of key characteristics deals with the particular moods which different tonalities are believed to provide to music. Discussions regarding their existence and the validity of the phenomena have always been controversial because of a lack of fundamental reasons and explanations for them. Nevertheless, references to key characteristics have appeared in various fields of study and over many centuries: the Greek doctrine of ethos, writings of Guido d’Arezzo, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Traité de l’harmonie, scribbles in Beethoven’s sketches, and several passages in Hermann von Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tones. The attitudes and opinions towards key characteristics have varied in each period of its history. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, the characteristics of modes were discussed among philosophers, namely, Plato, Aristotle, Lucianus and Cassiodorus. They were believed to affect moral development but were also associated with mysticism. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, references to key characteristics can be found in the writings of numerous theorists, including Gioseffo Zarlino, Ramos de Pariea and Heinrich Glarean. The studies and discussions of key characteristics in those periods became so well explored as to result in the first appearance of a list of the characteristics of each mode. In Germany and France especially, the discussion of key characteristics reached its peak in the first half of the eighteenth century, when it was studied as a part of Rhetoric. Theorists and composers equally showed their interest in the elements each key could offer to music and how to use keys advantageously in order to enrich the musical experience of the listener. While key characteristics were studied commonly as a vital subject by composers in the eighteenth century and as a fundamental of musical education by many young musicians in the early nineteenth, this tradition had all but disappeared by the middle of the twentieth. The concept of key characteristics is no longer commonly taught in our musical institutions, and this desertion from such a traditionally significant discipline is ever puzzling and particularly interesting to me. In my thesis, I will focus on writings from the last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth to determine the various paths taken in the study of key characteristics. I will investigate the writings and discussions of three scholarly groups—music theorists, composers and scientists—from late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and discuss how the survival of the study of key characteristics was influenced by aspects of the time: popular aspects and aims in the fields of music theory; cultural and social expectations in the validity of phenomena; pronouncements of composers (Arthur Bliss, Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schoenberg and Vincent D’Indy) in their musical styles; the rise of a naturalistic view of physical reality as a field and changes it brought to music and societies. I will also include a comparative summary of the status of key characteristics in various periods.

This thesis provides an analysis of the cartoons produced by Victor Ekpuk for The Daily Times newspaper of Nigeria from 1989 through 1998 and the artist’s use of ancient nsibidi script to “hide in plain sight” his social commentaries on sociopolitical and economic issues in Nigeria. Victor Ekpuk’s original cartoons within the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art are examined in the context of indigenous masking practices and other indirect methods employed by indigenous comedians to protect themselves. Moreover, the cartoons’ use of caricature and their nsibidi scripts within are argued to provide a connotative and denotative dichotomy which allowed the artist to work more freely during a period of oppression.

My art is a means for investigating the passage of time, the decay of physical things, and the truth of mortality. I explore these concepts through process-oriented sculptures that emphasize ritual and material. The process is communicated with the creation of relics, often existing as drawings or the remains of degenerated sculptures. These relics bear witness to the process. I focus on themes of temporal change and death because they remain central to our metaphysical and physical existence. I see a diminished reverence for the power of death in our culture, and through my work I aim to pay homage to death while offering viewers an experience of “being present,” a deeper awareness of our existence in time. The mindfulness I speak of is an awareness of life’s temporal nature. My intention is to evoke an awareness of mortality giving rise to feelings of gratitude and humility.

This study is an examination of the ideologies present in celebrity substance abuse news stories in The New York Times online from December 2012 to December 2013. I analyzed news stories by employing a critical discourse analysis to determine the dominant discourses in celebrity substance abuse news articles. Drawing from cultivation and framing theories, celebrity substance abuse stories in The New York Times are presented in a limited, individual fashion with relatively little effort when it comes to recovery. Rather than treating substance abuse as a serious social issue and a medical condition, it is presented as an individual, moral problem. Moreover, recovery from substance abuse is presented as a personal choice which involves very little to no assistance and is easy to acquire.