Luxury goods, used in mediaeval long distance trade ca. AD 900-1250, found an important market among the Iron Age peoples of southern Africa. Indirect evidence of this trade can be seen in the form of archaeological collections of glass beads at sites throughout Africa and Southeast Asia. Thousands of beads have been found at Iron Age sites in the eastern Transvaal Lowveld and at inland sites along the Limpopo Valley and in Botswana. Similar looking types of beads, referred to as small seed beads, were also used in the Muslim mercantile networks and maritime trade in the Indian Ocean, and have been found at coeval sites throughout Southeast Asia, particularly at entrepot ports in India, eastern and western Malaysia and Thailand. At the commencement of the Iron Age occupation of southern African sites, glass beads of any kind were very rare. From ca. AD 900-1000, Islamic influences spread southward along the African east coast. This coincided with the marked increase of glass beads found in southern Africa. Their presence is direct evidence of foreign industry, external trade and contact. The beads are widely believed to have originated in India, and to have been distributed through Arab traders in the Indian Ocean. Exports would have included gold, possibly ivory, and other raw materials. Archaeology has much to contribute towards documenting these activities. The identity and location of the bead sources is important to an understanding of early contact and economic and political developments in southern Africa. The trade connection coincided with the beginning of a critical sequence of events in the cultural history of southern Africa, which culminated in the formation of an incipient state at Great Zimbabwe (AD 1250-1450) from precursors at Mapungubwe and related sites. This period corresponds in time with an important episode in Islamic history, when Muslims conquered Egypt and the Fatimids moved their capital eastwards, in AD 969, from Tunisia to al-Qahira (Cairo) next to the well-established cosmopolitan port entrepot of al- Fustat (now old Cairo). Texts, chronicles, glass weights, scribal notes and receipts confirm that it was already a successful industrial centre with a history of glass-making when the Fatimids gained control of Egypt. In this thesis I have addressed two aspects of research to investigate the trade networks associated with internal and foreign contact: (1) the manufacturing origins of the beads, and, (2) who brought them to southern Africa. Glass material from Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Southeast Asia was used for comparison, and as possible source material. Scientific techniques were used to confirm these operations. The beads were described, classified, and sampled selectively for physical and chemical analysis. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) was used to determine the rare earth elements (REE) composition. The results show that a particular glass, used to make beads in Egypt, is the same as that used to make some of the beads found at sites in the northern and eastern Transvaal. They document the existence of a trade link with the Mediterranean via the Red Sea 1000 years ago. Until now, both the origin of this contact and the extent of indigenous responses were largely unknown. These findings cast a different light on maritime trade along the east coast of Africa from a millennium ago. Bibliography: pages 175-190.

"For Alexander" is an exhibition about masculinity as it is exhibited by Southern "good ole boys". I rely on original and appropriated imagery, as well as memories of loss and humor from my childhood in Alabama. Combining mixed media and sculptural elements has allowed me to investigate the subjects that interest me. I explore and artistically comment on these subjects through a mix of personal and culturally loaded imagery that records what I have either experienced or researched, and which I realize through the ironic use of non-traditional materials, such as sequins and rhinestones. My work examines stereotypes and my own beliefs about Southern good ole boys. I also reflect on elements of Southern hypocrisy, and I question long standing social practices with the help of historical and contemporary media sources. My exhibition is dedicated to my great uncle, who was murdered by his father, a preacher, during the Great Depression.

Grotesque elements in literature are often negatively viewed as an author’s attempt to simply twist reality in an effort to shock or entertain the reader. However, as I explain in my critical introduction, this view disregards the potential of the grotesque. It often has a specific purpose within a plot. It reveals things about characters that would not otherwise be exposed. I discuss this function of the grotesque in the works of Flannery O’Connor, Edgar Allan Poe, Truman Capote, and Brad Watson, and then show how these authors’ uses of the grotesque have influenced my own writing. In my collection of short fiction, each story contains grotesque elements that reveal and emphasize my characters’ hopes and fears.

Knowing and understanding the sapwood and heartwood functions and properties are crucial in pressure-treating southern pine. It is very difficult to penetrate heartwood with chemicals. Therefore, knowing heartwood content before treatment will benefit companies in chemical consumption, treating cycles, and, foremost, cost. In this study, two different assessments were conducted in which lumber and pole heartwood/sapwood data was collected from eight treating plants across five Southeastern states. In both assessments, the data indicated some significant differences between similar products from different vendors, but there was no significant difference in heartwood content between plant locations. The results suggested that the amount of heartwood increases as the size and length of the products increase. These findings can argue that the size of raw materials that vendors use and the products they manufacture have more effect on heartwood content than plant location.

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Over the next few decades, timber harvest levels on the South's non-industrial private forestlands (NIPFs) are projected to increase by 40 percent. These ownerships include 75 percent of the commercial timberland in the South, and account for 64 percent of the timber volume harvested in the region annually. Long-term sustained yield of softwood timber volumes from NIPFs depends on successful reforestation of harvested pine stands and afforestation of marginal agricultural lands. Available technical assistance is regarded as a significant factor in NIPP tree planting accomplishment. This study compares technical assistance available to NIPFs from various sources and attempts to measure response to technical assistance in terms of acres planted. Four sources of technical assistance are considered: state forestry agencies, consulting foresters, industry landowner assistance departments, and industry procurement staffs. Extensive south-wide surveys of technical assistance available from these four sources were conducted to determine the types and degrees of assistance available. Cross-sectional comparisons were made between 29 sub-state zones in 12 southern states to explore variation in NIPF acres planted attributable to variation in technical assistance. The surveys located just under 2,000 foresters having some professional involvement with southern landowners in 1985. The number of consulting foresters operating in the South seems to be growing, while the number of landowners enrolled in industry landowner assistance programs (LAPs) is also increasing. Assistance available to NIPF owners from all sources ranges from advice and recommendations to actual performance of site preparation and tree planting. The types and intensities of technical assistance are variable both within and across forester types. A cross-sectional statistical analysis using multiple linear regression was unable to demonstrate a significant south-wide effect of technical assistance on NIPF tree planting. Within the range of technical assistance presently available, variation in technical assistance did not prove to be a significant predictor of tree planting accomplishment. The results of this study indicate that diversity in the NIPF population, combined with diversity in silvicultural and market potential pine production, prevents quantification of a regional effect of technical assistance. A positive correlation between forester numbers and NIPF tree planting accomplishments was found. But only timber harvest levels and cost share expenditures were significant predictors of acres planted in multiple variable models. / Master of Science

With the success of podcasts like Serial and This American Life's S-Town, the calamity of J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, and the dawning of "Trump's America" as a regional branding, Appalachia has once again found itself laid bare on the national stage. As the romanticization of Appalachia as poor, packing, and white persists, the question becomes: how can Appalachian peoples access these negative images as tools of resistance, reformation, and community making? How does an American gothic find home in Appalachian narratives? This project explores clashes between national othering and local othering in Appalachian identity making as a tangible production of an Appalachian grotesque, a grotesque constructed through the subversion of the modern American gothic as a critical model for exploring Appalachian identity, particularly nationally othered and queered identities. The scope of this project ranges from contemporary, such as the popular memoir Hillbilly Elegy (2016) and the record breaking podcast S-Town (2016), as well as Robert Gipe's debut novel, Trampoline (2015), and their historical counterparts: the 1967 documentary Holy Ghost People and the 1976 documentary Harlan County, U.S.A. Through the lens of contemporary gothic readings of identity that come to form the grotesque, a framework for deconstructing notions of Appalachian fatalism begins to emerge. By specifically looking at ideas of violence, whether economic, cultural, or physical, and theories of erasure through the lens of land distribution and acquisition in Appalachia and its effect on self and community identity built up in the anchoring texts, defining and cultivating an Appalachian grotesque allows for a quantifying of Appalachian persistence within a history of critical thought, for better or for worse, as a way of both critiquing and fortifying the identity of Appalachia. / Master of Arts / The narrative of Appalachia, as white, poor, uneducated, barefoot, etc. that defines conceptions of the grotesque in contemporary media, such as more classic movies like 1972’s Deliverance, the tale of four ‘city boys’ from Atlanta during a bloody trip through the mountains, most famous for its “Dueling Banjos” scene, or more recent movies such as 2017’s Logan Lucky, a heist movie centered around two brothers’ plot to rob a NASCAR race in North Carolina, interacts with concepts of American masculinity and femininity through two prominent categories: hunger and disgust. Through the literary positioning of the body as a site in which hunger and disgust interact/react, as well as the subsequent relationship between sex and desire as defining features of a productive, and reproductive body, southern gothic tropes are encapsulated and reimagined through a grotesque Appalachian lens. It is through this cyclical process of hunger and disgust, and sex, desire, and production, in the social, political, and economic spheres that an Appalachian notion of the grotesque is formed.

Master of Science

This thesis describes the history of the Southern unity movement beginning in the mid nineteenth century, with a focus on the legal and political conflicts that surrounded it.

This dissertation analyses and appraises factors that lead SADCC/SADC to restructure in 1992 and in 1999 respectively. Regime theory is used as an analytical tool of these factors throughout this study. The restructuring of regional organisation in the world is often associated with a decision that is taken by regional leaders, only to hide failures of these organisations to deliver. Studies of this phenomenon, however, frequently fail to research the underlying causes. In the case of SADCC/SADC, apart from the fact that the organisation failed to achieve its intended objectives, such as regional integration, economic independence, regional security, and more, this study argues that there were a lot of elements that influenced the pace and the operations of SADCC/C in achieving regional integration and other objectives. The basic debate in this study thus revolves around the fact that the restructuring exercise in SADCC/SADC was a result of many factors and this argument is supported by the regime theory. / Political Science / M.A. (Political Science)