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The present study is concerned with two related but independent problems. First, the study investigates the effects of movie and lecture modes of instruction on factual recall as related to verbal ability and Hidden Figures test scores. Secondly, the study investigates factual recall from film and video media of presentation as related to verbal ability. To investigate these problems jointly, each of mode of instruction, movie and lecture, was recorded both on film and video media.

This thesis examines the intricate relationship between mangroves and humans in Shyamnagar, Bangladesh. Mangroves in Shyamnagar are found both in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest on earth, and in adaptation projects called nature based solutions (NbS), framed by the resilience narrative. The first part offers an introduction to these discourses, including the role of NGOs and governmental institutions, and critically analyzes the ways in which capitalist and modernist worldviews have influenced the establishment of new interaction zones between humans and mangroves through NbS projects, highlighting the omission of power dynamics and histories of dispossession. The second part delves into the nuanced relationships with the mangrove that transcend dominant global and organizational discourses. By emphasizing the agency of the mangrove as an active participant and co-creator of society in Shyamnagar, the boundaries between humans and nature, and communities and non-humans, are blurred. This challenges the notion of human exceptionalism and underscores the interconnectedness of all beings in shaping local landscapes, dynamics, and identities. The final part explores the relationships of care between humans and mangroves, recognizing the significance of care and affect in shaping human subjectivities and relationships with the biophysical environment. This thesis thereby emphasizes the importance of maintaining multispecies care even within practices that introduce anthropocentric, capitalistic, and market-oriented worldviews. By critically examining these dimensions, this thesis offers insights into the complex interactions between mangroves and humans in Shyamnagar, ultimately contributing to a broader understanding of the interplay between nature, society, and resilience.

A poetic examination of the self as well as cycles of trauma and recovery. This manuscript explores poetry's ability to transform one's experiences by re-engaging with them in the realm of the imagination.

Today, science and creative fiction are closer than ever. The current unified theory of physics is bringing parallel worlds and infinite realities into the light of truth, proving that we have the creative power to build worlds with grandiose landscapes, uncanny characters, and miraculous events that exists throughout the vast plane of reality. My life experiences become a skewed alternate reality absorbing all of my thoughts, fears, and fascinations without control. As I glimpse into my own mind, I record the imagery of my imagined worlds and chronicle its events. I am not conceptualizing; I'm not asking what if. I am giving you a looking glass allowing you to see for yourself.

The American Transcendentalists are often equated with Romanticism in nineteenth-century America. This dissertation thoroughly complicates that equation, arguing that a group of "Cautious Romantics" emerged as an alternative and conservative Romantic religious tradition. Drawing on history, art history, philosophy, literature, and theology, this dissertation provides a much fuller picture of the way European Romantic texts and authors functioned in American intellectual, cultural, and religious history by highlighting the contribution of these Cautious Romantics. Taken together, the Cautious Romantics represented a distinct religious discourse. They were American Romantics: relentless and introspective questers who emphasized epistemological intuition, artistic inspiration, and spiritual experience. In fact, some of them were the first Americans to promote European Romantic influences. Nevertheless, the Cautious Romantics continued to embrace Trinitarian Christianity, and they celebrated institutions--colleges and churches--in contrast to the often anti-institutional temperament of the Transcendentalists. Moreover, the Cautious Romantics defied religious categorization among standard antebellum groups. They were neither evangelicals, nor traditional Congregationalists, nor Unitarians. Although many became Episcopalians or Catholics, their Romantic intellectual lineage and historical relationships with one another distinguished them from their denominational kindred. Functioning on two levels, this dissertation resituates several well-known American artists and intellectuals such as Washington Allston, Orestes Brownson, Richard Henry Dana Jr., and Harriet Beecher Stowe by connecting them historically and intellectually with a wider discourse. This dissertation also unearths or re-contextualizes numerous lesser-known religious intellectuals such as Richard Henry Dana Sr., James Marsh, Sophia Dana Ripley, George Allen, Henry Hope Reed, Gulian Verplanck, Leonard Woods Jr., and Isaac Hecker. While conservative, these intellectuals were neither committed to the antebellum American South's unique conservative vision nor did they celebrate the free-market conservatism common in twentieth-century America. Thus, in addition to its contribution to intellectual and religious history, this dissertation contributes to a growing body of literature on cultural conservatism in America. Moreover, although the Cautious Romantics were American, this dissertation highlights the important historical relationships between the Cautious Romantics and Coleridge, Wordsworth, the Roman Catholic Church, and, in Harriet Beecher Stowe's case, transatlantic social reform, thereby demonstrating the transatlantic nature of Romanticism in the nineteenth century.

In the globalized world, border regimes are ambiguous, withdrawn or reinforced based on who approaches them, where and how. Borders are equally the boundaries that permeate spaces of nation-states and cut across them through racialized, gendered, and classed divisions. Following the so called "migration crisis" in Europe of 2015, there has been a wave of research documenting how practices of bordering and othering dehumanize asylum seekers, violating their rights. In this thesis, I proceed from similar observations to see how such practices, together with experiences resulting from them, affect the possibilities of agency and imagination of a common space on behalf of people with migratory background. Employing the idea of hybridity, I maintain that while the responsibility for atrocities related to migration and bordering should always remain on violators, whether official institutions or individuals, their persistence should not be seen as foreclosing agency, imagination, or practices of building a future common space on behalf of people with migratory background. The hybrid position that these people occupy does not necessarily only sustain their disempowerment, but it also equips them with unique possibilities for agency. Neither seems there to be any predefined path from exposure to harsh violations of one's rights to disempowerment. The possibilities for common and welcoming places to which everyone has a right appear through an engaged and equal attention to migrants' own agency, imagination, and capabilities, rather than through an exclusive attention to their vulnerability or a neoliberal celebration of multiculturalism.

During the 1920s, the Midwestern American architect Bruce Goff advanced a unique design approach that would govern his career: "Good architecture for everyone." Following the First World War, this period is considered the end of the Victorian and Edwardian era and "American innocence," and the beginning of the modern era—the 20th century. Goff challenged the predominant views of progressive modernism, the belief that science and technology were to be the "grand solution" to society's weaknesses. In contrast to his contemporaries who employed design methods of standardized building forms, mass production, and technology, which would later lead to societal alienation, Goff viewed his clients as individuals possessing a mind, a body, and a spirit living in a world together with other human beings. He believed that each person is endowed with five or more senses that "always" respond to Nature and its beauty. This dissertation will show that such an experiential and existential attitude is found in Goff's drawings, writings, lectures, and interviews and expressed in a clear commitment to the Bavingers (as clients), to their chosen site, and the architectural experiences designed for the Bavinger House. Informed by Gaston Bachelard's, poetic imagination, three journeys to and through the Bavinger House, reconstructed by generating drawings and bringing together a manifold of experiential methodologies to argue the claim that the Bavinger House is the preeminent paradigmatic example of Goff's work. The goal is to establish that Goff was indeed, a poetic architect who employed an imaginative organicism in his work. / Doctor of Philosophy / During the 1920s, the Midwestern American architect Bruce Goff advanced a unique design approach that would govern his career: "Good architecture for everyone." Following the First World War, this period is considered the end of the Victorian and Edwardian era and "American innocence," and the beginning of the modern era—the 20th century. Goff challenged the predominant views of progressive modernism, the belief that science and technology were to be the "grand solution" to society's weaknesses. In contrast to his contemporaries who employed design methods of standardized building forms, mass production, and technology, which would later lead to societal alienation, Goff viewed his clients as individuals possessing a mind, a body, and a spirit living in a world together with other human beings. He believed that each person is endowed with five or more senses that "always" respond to Nature and its beauty. This dissertation will show that such an experiential and existential attitude is found in Goff's drawings, writings, lectures, and interviews and expressed in a clear commitment to the Bavingers (as clients), to their chosen site, and the architectural experiences designed for the Bavinger House. Informed by Gaston Bachelard's, poetic imagination, three journeys to and through the Bavinger House, reconstructed by generating drawings and bringing together a manifold of experiential methodologies to argue the claim that the Bavinger House is the preeminent paradigmatic example of Goff's work. The goal is to establish that Goff was indeed, a poetic architect who employed an imaginative organicism in his work.

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This dissertation investigates why literary dreams of the West have been categorically dismissed as mythical. Western critics and authors, ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Owen Wister to Patricia Nelson Limerick, have sought to override dreams of the West by representing the western genre as, in Jane Tompkins’ words, a “craving for material reality.” This focus on authenticity betrays an antipathy to the imagination, which is often assumed to be fantastical, escapist, or utopian – groundless, and therefore useless. Such a prejudice, however, has blinded scholars to the value of the dreams of western literary characters. My project argues that the western imagination, far from constituting a withdrawal from reality, is worthy of critical attention because it is grounded in the land itself: the state of the land is directly correlated to a character’s ability to formulate a reliable vision of his setting, and this image can enable or disable agency in that space. By investigating changes in western land practices such as gold-mining, homesteading, and transportation, I show that the ways characters imagine western landscapes not only model historical interpretations of the West but also allow for literary explorations of potential responses to the land’s real social, political, and economic conditions. This act of imagining, premised on Louis Althusser’s explanation of ideology, follows Arjun Appadurai’s conception of the imagination as “social practice.” Ultimately, my dissertation explores geographical visions in western novels across the 20th century in order to demonstrate the imagination’s vital historical function in the creation of the West. / English