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<p>During the past century, historical-critical scholarship on the reign of Solomon (I Kings 1-11) has advanced the argument that the narrative is a heterogeneous mix of material, originating from diverse socio-historical settings. Reasonably enough, critical research on the Solomon narrative has concentrated on a number of compositional or redactional questions. The result of this research, however, is that the narrative itself is no longer read as a unit or as containing a coherent message. The purpose of this thesis is to try to recover the meaning of the narrative through a holistic reading of I Kings 1-11. In particular, the thesis explores the "narrative tension," or "literary inconsistencies" in the text's portrayal of Solomon. The main problem facing the interpreter is to account for the fact that Solomon is both Israel's ideal and its apostate king. The thesis argues that this narrative tension can be explained through a holistic reading of the text, without recourse to an historical-critical analysis. The holistic approach reveals the structural unity of the text; the two dream theophanies to Solomon (3:4-15; 9:1-10) act as fulcrums which balance the narrative in two sections, one pro-Solomon, the other anti-Solomon. The unifying theme of both sections, it is argued, is Solomon's relationship with Torah and Wisdom. The development of that relationship lends a thematic tension to the narrative as well. By explicating these structural and thematic elements, the thesis demonstrates that the narrative tension in the Solomonic material is purposefully contrived. The investigation as a whole reveals that the narrative has a unit and an integrity of its own, from which a coherent message emerges.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

My dissertation explores how people are persuaded by narratives. The first essay is a review of the literature over the past decade where I develop and then apply an overarching framework to synthesize the empirical work that examine antecedents and consequences of narrative persuasion as well as moderators and mediators that are involved in this process. In the second essay, I adopt a structural equations approach to examine the process through which consumers are persuaded by online consumer reviews, a common form of consumer narrative. A review that reads like a narrative (story) is likely to evoke transportation into that review, which affects persuasion-related outcomes. Across three studies, I explore how variables identified in essay 1 and important to the persuasion-related literature affect this process. In the third essay, I adopt an experimental approach to further explore the process of reflection, which is introduced in essay one. I demonstrate that this process is distinct from transportation, and that mediates the relationship between transportation and persuasion-related outcomes. / Ph. D.

This thesis is an investigation of a tower known only from the ancient works of a discoverer. The discoverer, who holds witness to the wondrous composition of the monument, documents the tower through illustrative and literary terms as a record of the findings for the reader. / Master of Architecture

Identity development, through time, of graduate students is a topic understudied in most disciplines, and completely unstudied in optics and photonics. As a physical science and engineering discipline with blossoming scientific value, optics and photonics is growing a small number of graduate programs. With this growth, a more in depth and detailed understanding of the exposure, recruitment, development and enrollment experiences of those students are needed. Identity-trajectory offers a promising theoretical framework to understand academic and professional development of professionals through time and has been shown to be reliable in many social science and humanities disciplines. The narrative methodology is emerging in use and acceptance within the engineering education research community. The provoking combination of a growing discipline, a theoretical framework with little prior application in physical science and engineering, with a creative methodology were intentionally selected for this study. A semi-structured interview protocol was developed to prompt participants through a reflective description of their academic and professional development. Twenty-five current and recent graduate students from nine degree granting optics and photonics graduate programs participated in the study. In addition to participating in the interview, averaging about forty-five minutes, participants submitted a curriculum vita in advance of the interview. Both the interview and the vita provide the primary data used in this study. Interview transcripts were coded with the theory of identity-trajectory's three strands: intellectual development, institutional influence and network. The findings are grouped into pre-graduate training and graduate development experiences. Considering pre-graduate training, research experience as an undergraduate facilitates future decisions and access to graduate education. For graduate students, the structural experience within the graduate program, specifically related to research, facilitate progress through the program and beyond. The graduate program experience generally prepares students for academic research, but not the broader career pathways that students seek and eventually follow. All of these findings center on the laboratory, as the conduit for developing undergraduates to graduate students, and graduate students to professionals; the experience within the laboratory frames identity-trajectory throughout undergraduate and graduate experiences. These findings were used to provide strategies for departments, faculty and students in these fields, but are applicable in similarly structured disciplines. / Ph. D.