The lyrical content of pop music has rarely been studied, particularly for country music. The lyrics of the top 50 country songs for each year between 1994 and 2013 were coded for violent, sexual and substance use-related content. Violence had increased, as had sexual references, substance use, and substance use associated with sexual activity. Of particular note is the frequency of references to alcohol; 21% of the 1,000-song sampling frame contained alcoholic references, and the average for the final five-year period (2009-2013) was 1.01 references per song. This research should serve as a springboard into further studies about the lyrical content of pop songs as well as longitudinal changes.

Robert Schumann’s compositional work during 1840 stands out as an unexpected turn of events. With relatively no background composing songs, Schumann suddenly produced a plethora of widely successful and monetarily lucrative songs all within one year. Perhaps most fascinating was the amount of detail Schumann placed into each song. This detail can be seen in the sketches which include the composer’s handwritten edits in both the piano and vocal scores. With a focus on Schumann’s song cycle, Frauenliebe und -leben the qualities of Schumann’s songs and the compositional process used to create the songs’ final versions are examined through this study. The origins of the poems and their author, Adelbert von Chamisso, are investigated in addition to the relationship created by Schumann between the poems and vocal lines. Main emphasis is placed on tracing the progression from the rough vocal lines found in the autograph score to the relatively finished copyist’s score and finally to the final published version of the cycle

This dissertation examines the powerful vortex of John Sung's revivals in China and Southeast Asia, which directly influenced ten percent of all Chinese Protestants by the end of the 1930s. It begins in 1926 with his decision to pursue theological education in the United States, and ends with his physical collapse in 1940. But the work is not focused on biographical details; it is primarily concerned with how Sung's ministry evolved. Contrary to the numerous biographies on Sung that circulate in multiple languages, he did not return to China as a newly born-again believer enthusiastic to call the nation to repentance. Instead, this work demonstrates that Sung first floundered in China, spending several years piecing together his conversion narrative, and he adopted the revivalism that made him famous only after joining the Shanghai Bethel Mission in 1931. Once those pieces fit together, however, Sung became the preeminent Chinese evangelist of the twentieth century. The dissertation uses archival material and unrestricted access to Sung's own diaries not only to reconstruct the transformations within Sung's ministry, but also to make new dimensions of his work accessible. Particular attention is given to class, women, and divine healing. Sung's revivals appealed to the xiaoshimin, or China's petty urbanites, who sought a modern spirituality that befit their urban lives, yet wanted a religious system that addressed their traditional concerns. Women appeared at Sung's revivals in disproportionate numbers, because in China and Southeast Asia revivalism and modernity fueled one another, and women could use that combustible mix to cast new places for themselves in local societies--even if it meant challenging Sung's own perception of women. Sung's practice of healing, derived from the holiness movement, temporarily challenged China's medical pluralism, before eventually becoming part of it. Analysis of Sung's ministry suggests that revivalism was a powerful tool for personal and social revitalization. Through it, Sung not only rebuilt his own life and ministry, but he also used revivalism to recreate a distinctively Chinese spirituality, though now Christianized and expressed in ways appropriate to China and Southeast Asia's modernizing cities.

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