Master of Arts / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders / On September 13, 1950, in a culmination of three years of efforts by organizations and individuals inside and outside the Harry S. Truman administration, 69 captured battle flags from the Mexican-American War were formally returned to the Mexican government at a ceremony in Mexico City. The events surrounding the return of flags to Mexico occurred in two distinct phases. The first was a small, secretive, and largely symbolic return of three flags conceived and carried out by high-ranking U.S. government officials in June 1947. The second large-scale, public return of the remaining flags in the custody of the War Department was initiated by the American Legion and enacted by the United States Congress. Despite their differences, both returns were heavily influenced by contemporary events, primarily the presidential election of 1948 and the escalation of the Cold War. Also, although the second return was much more extensive than the President originally intended, it was only through his full support that either return was accomplished. In the decades since 1950, historians have either ignored the return of Mexican battle flags or focused instead on Truman’s wreath laying at the monument to the niños héroes in Mexico City in March 1947. This study, for the first time, provides an in-depth description of the efforts to return captured Mexican battle flags and explains why these war trophies were returned while others have remained in the United States. The goal of this investigation is to present the efforts of the Truman administration for what they truly were: an unprecedented act of international friendship. Although the actions of the U.S. government and private organizations were partially influenced by self-interest and Cold War fears, their primary motivation was a sincere desire to erase the painful memories surrounding the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 in an effort to improve future relations between the two countries. Many historians point to the Truman administration as the end of the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America. This study, however, argues that the return of captured Mexican battle flags represents the true pinnacle of the United States’ Good Neighbor Policy toward its southern neighbor.

<p>The literature on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is prolific. People have written on various topics dealing with issues such as translation, etymology and diverse areas concerning the language. In this essay, I examine whether linguistic features such as reporting verbs, adverbs of manner and adjectives contribute to the depiction of heroic and villainous characters. Before conducting this research, my assumptions were that there would be a great difference in the value of the words depending on the character they were associated with. I wanted to see if the heroic characters used verbs and adverbs with positive connotations, and the villainous characters verbs and adverbs with negative connotations. I also wanted to know if the adjectives describing the characters could, in themselves, clearly indicate whether a character was a hero or a villain.</p><p>The results of my research suggested that the choice of particular verbs and adverbs contributed only indirectly to the depiction of the characters. Without context, it was not possible to know if the character was a hero or a villain simply by identifying the verbs and adverbs used to describe their speech. By contrast, the choice of particular adjectives did appear to indicate more clearly whether a character was hero or villain. Finally, the results of my research indicated that context, rather than the use of particular linguistic features was often the most important factor in contributing to the portrayal of characters in the novel.</p>

Without knowing it, a professor of mine, Dr. Emma Lou Thornbrough, stimulated my interest in President Truman when she stated in a freshman history course that Harry S. Truman would go down in history as one of the greatest American Presidents if not the greatest because of his ingenuity in foreign policy. The exact purporse of this paper is to examine these programs.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the actor's process in tackling the roles of Harry Dalton in Equus by Peter Shaffer, Duke Senior in As You Like It by William Shakespeare, and Dionysus in The Bacchae by Euripedes. Each production is assigned its own chapter, respectively. The chapters explore each role vocally, psychologically, and physically, including the examination of the Alexander Technique. Reflection on the experience of portraying the character and an evaluation of the actor's growth also transpires. The fourth chapter, Finding My Light, summarizes related observations and analysis as a result of performing all three roles. Finally, the fifth chapter, Curtain Call: A Tableau of Contemplation, deliberates on three years of graduate education. It features the benefits and shortcomings realized as a result of participating as one of the first students the Professional Studio Acting Track of Virginia Commonwealth University.

In the field of research within film studies which consider how aspects such as gender or race affect the portrayal of a character, the aspect of characters' body sizes are not always taken into account. By analysing the fat characters in the popular children's and young adult film series about Harry Potter, I bring attention to the fact that the use of stereotypes is significant in these characterisations, and further contributes to the marginalisation of this particular group of people. I looked specifically at what the characters had in common with each other, and if they adhered to already established stereotypes concerning fat people, and found that the one thing they all share is a lack of academic or intellectual skill to varying degrees, which is in line with the common stereotypes of fat people as dumb. I further analysed the differences between the fat men and fat women in the series, and found that fat men were a far more common occurrence than fat women, and that fat girls did not even exist in these stories. This is not surprising, as the exclusion of fat women and girls is abundant in mainstream culture.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-14T13:38:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 429729.pdf: 821152 bytes, checksum: c52a3d49f79f31c9eb048fe2b15635c0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-01-10 / Esse estudo tem por objetivo discutir a relev?ncia da leitura da literatura na forma??o humana, bem como a import?ncia de se abordar textos liter?rios no ambiente escolar atrav?s de um trabalho diferenciado e significativo. Assim, busca uma proposta que, partindo dos interesses de leitura dos alunos, possa lev?-los a se desenvolverem intelectualmente e virem a ler textos mais complexos. Nesse sentido, analisa o caso da s?rie Harry Potter, considerando caracter?sticas, aspectos e motivos principais dessa obra, pass?veis de provocar identifica??o do p?blico pr?-adolescente e adolescente. Al?m disso, discute o benef?cio da leitura de textos can?nicos e a possibilidade de utilizar a s?rie como meio de introduzi-los. Na sequ?ncia, apresenta uma proposta de trabalho com sugest?es de atividades e discuss?es para cada um dos sete volumes da s?rie que possibilitem aos alunos lidarem com uma variada gama de temas e estrat?gias comunicativas, culminando com o desenvolvimento detalhado de duas das propostas.

This thesis focuses specifically on what was taught in schools in South Australia in the context of art and design education. The period covered by the study extends from the 1880s, when a Central Educational Authority was established in South Australia, to the late 1920s, when significant changes to art and design philosophies and course designs became identifiable. The nature and content of the art and design courses designed and used in South Australia is examined against an historical background of influences such as the South Kensington System of drawing and that devised by Walter Smith for the Massachusetts educational system in the United States of America. The significant contribution of Harry Pelling Gill to the teaching of art and design in schools is closely examined. It is posited that his single influence affected the teaching of art and design in South Australian schools until well into the twentieth century. The process of the study looks in detail at the overall philosophies behind the teaching of art and design, the methodologies employed and the classroom practice which pupils and teachers undertook in the pursuit of courses outlined. Issues such as methods of teacher training, correspondence courses, examinations and exhibitions are considered as these relate to the central theme of the study. The study concludes in the late 1920s, with the advent of a revised course of instruction for public elementary schools, which heralded significant changes in both the content and methodology of art and design teaching in South Australian schools.

<p>My intentions with this essay has been to examine the World in which the story of J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter takes place, the structure, narrative and restrictions, in order to place the suite of novels in the tradition of the Fantasy genre. Since the release of the first book Harry Potter has become a household name, possibly more than any other contemporary literature written for children. Various readings concerning gender, etymological, linguistic aspects and so forth have been done, and in most cases the books are placed in the genre of Fantasy without distinguishing what in fact makes the novels Fantasy. I wanted to see which specific sectors of the books that place them in the genre, and, assuming that it would in fact fit into the Fantasy genre, in which ways it diverges from the tradition of the genre in means of the structure of the world/s of the story. I also looked at the faults in the logic within the novels to see if the inconsistencies in the rules of the world have an impact on the agency of the story.</p><p>I found the novels to be a part of the fantasy tradition, not only by having many intertextual relations and similar features to other fantasy-novels but also in the fundament of the story, its basic conditions such as the supernatural elements and the hidden places in the world of the books. The minor inconstancies that I found where to small to disrupt the narrative, and the fact that some of the aspects of the books drift slightly away from the logic of the world within the story have reasonable explanations such as making the story easier to relate to.</p>

My intentions with this essay has been to examine the World in which the story of J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter takes place, the structure, narrative and restrictions, in order to place the suite of novels in the tradition of the Fantasy genre. Since the release of the first book Harry Potter has become a household name, possibly more than any other contemporary literature written for children. Various readings concerning gender, etymological, linguistic aspects and so forth have been done, and in most cases the books are placed in the genre of Fantasy without distinguishing what in fact makes the novels Fantasy. I wanted to see which specific sectors of the books that place them in the genre, and, assuming that it would in fact fit into the Fantasy genre, in which ways it diverges from the tradition of the genre in means of the structure of the world/s of the story. I also looked at the faults in the logic within the novels to see if the inconsistencies in the rules of the world have an impact on the agency of the story. I found the novels to be a part of the fantasy tradition, not only by having many intertextual relations and similar features to other fantasy-novels but also in the fundament of the story, its basic conditions such as the supernatural elements and the hidden places in the world of the books. The minor inconstancies that I found where to small to disrupt the narrative, and the fact that some of the aspects of the books drift slightly away from the logic of the world within the story have reasonable explanations such as making the story easier to relate to.

Using a number of structurally innovative novels from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as a basis for study, this dissertation examines the representation of communities in postmodernist American fiction. While novels have often been critically studied from the standpoint of the individual and society, here the often neglected category of community is put under scrutiny. Yet rather than considering it from a sociological point of view, which can potentially favour historical, economic or political grounds for community, this study focuses on the ontological binds formed between individual and community. On one level this study connects formal qualities of postmodernist novels to a representation of community – especially literary conventions from the past that are foregrounded in the present texts. On another level it interrogates the limits of the individual in relation to others – how we emerge from others, how we are discrete from others, how much we can actually share with others, at what cost we stay or break with the others who have most influenced us. The primary novels studied here, each of which is deeply invested in the community as a locus for ontological interrogation, are Robert Coover’s "Gerald’s Party" (1985) and "John’s Wife" (1996), Gilbert Sorrentino’s "Crystal Vision" (1981) and "Odd Number" (1985), Harry Mathews’s "Cigarettes" (1987), Joseph McElroy’s "Women and Men" (1987), and Toni Morrison’s "Paradise" (1997). Despite their varied representations of and attitudes toward the individual in community, these texts share a common spectre of American Romanticism that inflects how we read the possibility of community in the postmodernist period.