"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)

This study analyses the evolution of social assistance in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, and closely examines the four countries’ different experiences with Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) schemes. A process-tracing methodology uses data from secondary sources, archival material, and 46 interviews to construct an actor-centred model and pursue a multiple-causality, historical approach. Outcomes are shown to result from interactions among central governments, religious organizations, secular organizations and territorial actors; and also from destabilizing forces. It is assumed that social assistance beneficiaries are forced to rely on these actors, whose attitudes are found to vary significantly due to their different interests, subjective perceptions of fairness, and preferences. Case histories of the four countries show that the periods prior to the 1970s were marked by minimal central government interest; indifferent, hostile, and/or divided secular organizations; and governmental partnerships with religious organizations. In the post-1970s periods, destabilizing forces co-occurring with centre-left governments resulted in new policies and changes, with relevant actors/organizations gradually welcoming pluralistic social assistance systems. The existence and extent of GMI schemes has been the principal factor differentiating social assistance developments among the four countries in more recent decades: Portugal is the only country with a national GMI, Italy and Spain have solely regional schemes, and Greece has no GMI at all. Because GMIs cut across traditional social assistance categories and are often linked with overall welfare system restructuring, establishment of GMIs and their subsequent maintenance require the co-occurrence of destabilizing forces and strong pro-GMI coalitions. Portugal exhibits the highest level of pro-GMI consensus nationwide, Greece the lowest,while Italy and Spain occupy intermediate positions. The institutional empowerment of territorial actors in the latter two countries was a precondition to emergence of local schemes, while destabilizing forces and strong local pro-GMI coalitions greatly increased the odds for establishing and maintaining them.