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The reentry process post incarceration has been identified to be difficult in the most ideal of situations and family support has been shown to be nearly essential to avoid re-incarceration (Bahr, Armstrong, Gibbs, Harris and Fisher, 2005; Visher and Travis, 2003). This study is a first attempt to delve into the nature of relationships between women in Appalachia specifically, and their male relative who is a formerly incarcerated person. Informed by an intersectional feminist framework and symbolic interactionism, this study interviews eight women who reported maintaining a relationship with a male relative who had been incarcerated and reported assisting in his reentry process, in effort to extract the essence of daily lived experience in the context of multiple identities and social locations. A feminist phenomenological approach based on Husserl's philosophy and van Manen's method was utilized, whereby the researcher employed bracketing prior to further data investigation and analysis, in attempt to distill the distinct experiences of these unheard women. Key findings included two prominent themes, and one overall essence of the lived experience of women interviewed. The essence of women's lived experience in Appalachia within the context of reentry is that family is everything, and exists at the center and above all else. Subsumed within this lived experience were the themes of family traditions, or how things are done in Appalachia, and the meaning of incarceration to these women. / Doctor of Philosophy / The reentry process post incarceration has been identified to be difficult in the most ideal of situations and family support has been shown to be nearly essential to avoid re-incarceration (Bahr et al., 2005; Visher & Travis, 2003). This study is a first attempt to delve into the nature of relationships between women in Appalachia specifically, and their male relative who is a formerly incarcerated person. Informed by feminist and family theories, this study interviews eight women who reported maintaining a relationship with a male relative who had been incarcerated and reported assisting in his reentry process, in effort to identify the essence of daily lived experience in the context of multiple identities and social locations. Essential to the analytic process was identification of how the researcher’s identities may intersect with the research process and participants themselves. Key findings included two prominent themes, and one overall essence of the lived experience of women interviewed. The essence of women’s lived experience in Appalachia within the context of reentry is that family is everything, and exists at the center and above all else. Subsumed within this lived experience were the themes of family traditions, or how things are done in Appalachia, and the meaning of incarceration to these women.

The purpose for this thesis, "A Pavilion for Time", is to allow an unhindered exploration of phenomenological time. It is to go beyond, to transcend a convention towards empiricism. The result is an uncritical state, unhindered, uncluttered, a place of pure perception, an existential autoclave. As a phenomenological exploration with architecture as the vehicle, this project investigates time as experienced. It is a heuristic excercise. Its goal is to encourage or rather enhance an understanding of phenomenological time. This thesis does not attempt to answer the question "What is time?" but rather, with architecture, examines the question "How do we, as cognizant human beings, exist with time?" / Master of Architecture

I wanted to devote a year of my life toward creating a building and participating in a body of research that was meaningful. My goal proved to be much more complex than originally thought, for meaning itself is ambiguous. Although ambiguous, meaning is not without definition: it is bounded by the contingency of our "cogito" or horizons of experience. And so I argue that if we assign meaning through a function of self reflection, than perhaps a shared experience may transcend the self and reflect community. In an attempt to fertilize community through the built environment, I designed a Charter School on the abandoned 1400 block of Walnut Street in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. / Master of Architecture

Through introspection we may gain insight into phenomenology and thereby learn about our own mental lives. One aspect of our phenomenology that we might wish to introspect is our experience of selfhood. In particular, Galen Strawson views phenomenology as particularly useful for reasoning about the self. He expresses this in what he calls the Equivalence Thesis, which states that there are selves if and only if there is something that has properties attributed to the self in every instance of self-experience, where self-experience refers to a phenomenological experience of selfhood. In order to arrive at a phenomenological characterization, any set of properties that characterizes the self via the Equivalence Thesis, one must examine the phenomenology of self-experience through introspection. The Equivalence Thesis can run into difficulties in at least two ways with respect to its reliance on introspection. If introspection is unreliable then the Equivalence Thesis fails as we cannot accurately examine our phenomenology. While some of the consequences of such unreliability will be explored this will not be the main focus. Instead I call into question whether or not introspection provides the information that Strawson says it does. The Equivalence Thesis depends on the ability of introspection to provide us with information about so called mental elements, which give structure to our overall phenomenology. However, this is implausible. When we introspect we can learn directly about the kind of experience we are having, but it will not allow us to form an acceptable phenomenological characterization. / Master of Arts / Throughout life we all have various phenomenological experiences. One may feel happy, see a familiar face, or think about solutions to a problem. Each one of these experiences has a first personal element to it. That is we perceive these as belonging to a singular entity, a self. In fact, we often think of ourselves as selves due at least in part to the fact that we are conscious. Some of our conscious experiences even contribute to the way we think about selves. Galen Strawson argues that these experiences, which he calls self-experiences, provide a suitable foundation for our metaphysical reasoning about the self in the Equivalence Thesis. I argue, however, that our phenomenological experiences should not be used to provide such a foundation.

Much of the walking that we do in our daily lives is dull, but sometimes, unexpectedly, it can be revelatory. During these moments, through what phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls the "lived perspective" of walking, we experience a merging of our inner and outer worlds and achieve greater self-awareness. Although most of our experience in the landscape is through movement, we rarely design for such spaces. Using the hypothesis that terrorist threats and an aging infrastructure may lead to the rerouting of the CSX Railway south of Washington, D.C., shutting down the existing line, I propose to convert the CSX Railway bridge that crosses the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington to an open public space. While other portions of the track may be demolished and returned to the wide avenues envisioned by L'Enfant or renovated as trolley tracks, the CSX bridge could be renovated to provide a link between the neighborhood of Capitol Hill and the Anacostia River through a pedestrian walkway. The methodology I use to explore this thesis is two-fold. I study several environments, from site-specific artworks to monuments to large urban parks. I also study fields that explore the experiential nature of perception such as art and philosophy, and use the freedom of expression that drawing allows as a tool to inform the design of spaces that can enable us to experience a state in which our mind, body, and vision are intertwined. / Master of Landscape Architecture

This study examines the phenomenon of contemporary a cappella music making found in high school settings as curricular and extra-curricular offerings. Past music and music education literature has focused exclusively on contemporary a cappella at the collegiate level. Through application of a descriptive phenomenological method and incorporation an educational-sociological lens, this study advances an understanding of the educational benefit and social value of membership in contemporary a cappella at the high school level. Six recent members from three regions of the United States provided data through individual open-form interviews in which questions were derived from the participants’ own speech. I incorporated phenomenological reductions and processes to negate researcher bias during data collection, analysis, and the formation of a general structure and constituent meanings of membership in high school contemporary a cappella. Participants utilized traditional music skills, individual talents, conceptions of popular culture and music, and in-group socialization to facilitate music making and reify membership. Expressing the value of group membership, individuals acted to benefit the group by cultivating social bonds, developing and fostering personal/shared connections to songs, identifying and purposing individual talents and skills, and gaining an understanding of each members’ unique contribution to membership. Discussion includes implications for music education and suggestions for future research.