PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

The dissertation focuses on neglected aspects of the history of immigration in the United States during the turn of the twentieth century. Reviving the writings of Edward Steiner, the dissertation also explores the representations of immigration in his fictional works, The Mediator: A Tale of the Old World and the New (1907) and The Broken Wall Stories of the Mingling Folk (1911) as well as his nonfiction book, On the Trail of the Immigrant (1906). In these works, Steiner interweaves his immigration experiences with those of his fellow immigrants. His first novel, The Mediator, shows that both the hybridity of religion and the combined role of ghettoization and other community structures in their hometown and New York's Lower East Side shaped the experiences of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Relatedly, Steiner's short story collection, The Broken Wall, challenges assumptions about the turn-of-the-century immigrants' reactions to assimilation. Exploring what Steiner termed as “mingling,” the second chapter of this dissertation demonstrates that he envisioned the incorporation of immigrants into mainstream America as an individual, selective process tailored to the immigrants' choices and needs to adapt to their new home country. Examining On the Trail of the Immigrant, the third chapter contextualizes Steiner's critiques of and experiences with the immigration journey. This chapter reflects on Steiner's criticisms of the steamship lines' handling of the third-class travelers (commonly referred to as steerage), the admission process at Ellis Island, and his counterattacks on the Immigration Restriction League. This chapter also shows that Steiner's views of the turn of twentieth-century immigration lodged East European immigrants' experiences in the heart of America's race saga.

Committee: Babacar M'Baye (Advisor); Ryan Hediger (Committee Member); Rebecca Catto (Committee Member); Wesley Raabe (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Literature; American Studies; East European Studies; Ethnic Studies; Language; Literature; Religion; Sociology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, History of Art

In a 1960 article entitled “Younger American Painters,” William Rubin accused Rauschenberg's Combines of rendering the “inherently biographical style of Abstract Expressionism… even more personal, more particular, and sometimes almost embarrassingly private.” Rubin's choice of the word “embarrassingly” is telling; the Combines are not just private, but embarrassingly so; that is, the problem the Combines present is that they are not private when good sense/taste tells us they should be. This spilling over of the supposed-to-be-private into the embarrassingly deviant public has been read as an insistence on the work of art as both in its environment and in communication with it, as a valorization of the femininity associated with the interior/personal and relatedly, as a refusal of heteronormative subjectivity as dictated in the Cold War era. This paper suggests another reading—not as an alternative, but as a supplement to these: a reading of Rauschenberg's Combines through the lens of disability theory. If Rauschenberg's Combines are debased (and there seems to be some agreement that they are), and if one's experience of them is bodily (and this experience seems if not universal, then nearly so), then their association with the debased/abject body demands inquiry. Made up of disparate parts that insist upon their discrete, adjunctive identities and former lives, the Combines might be best understood as Frankensteins—disabled bodies that refuse to comply and in so doing inscribe new ways of being (corporeally) in the world.

Committee: Lisa Florman (Advisor); Erica Levin (Committee Member); J.T. Richardson Eisenhauer (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art History; Ethics; Fine Arts; Minority and Ethnic Groups

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2023, Journalism (Communication)

This thesis examines the asylum expose genre that emerged in the latter half of the 19th century for early signifiers of the ethical standards that developed in the 20th century. With a review of codes of ethics from contemporary newsrooms, media organizations, and media ethicists as a framework, this thesis found six major ethical principles that apply to the undercover reporting process—exhausting alternative measures, public interest, transparency, minimizing harm, verification, and legality. These principles created a framework for analyzing this specific genre of 19th century journalism for early evidence of the ethical standards that emerged in the following century. An analysis of the asylum expose reveals that certain ethical principles, such as serving the public interest, transparency, and minimizing harm, were already in practice by the end of the 19th century. Other ethical principles, like exhausting alternative methods, verification, and legality were present in some, but not all, asylum exposes, suggesting that these standards were emerging at the end of the 19th century, though not adopted by all reporters of the asylum expose.

Committee: Aimee Edmondson (Advisor); Kelly Ferguson (Committee Chair); Bernhard Debatin (Committee Chair) Subjects: Journalism

Bachelor of Arts, Walsh University, 2022, Honors

This thesis examines the process of genocide and mass atrocities in the 20th and 21st centuries. In particular, the author examines five cases of 20th century genocides (The Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, Cambodian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, and the Srebrenica Genocide) that scholars and experts have determined to be genocides under the UN international legal definition of the crime. Through research, six key variables have been found to be common elements in and between the 20th century cases. Then, the thesis examines the 21st century cases of mass atrocities (Darfur Sudan, Xinjiang China, Northwestern Yemen, Rakhine Myanmar, and Tigray Ethiopia), most of which are still on-going. While all of them have potential factors of genocide, all are shown to be ambiguous as to their exact nature. This is because none of them have been designated by the international community to be genocides at the time of this writing. Thus, this study employs the fuzzy-set qualitative method of analysis in order to perform a comparative analysis between the 20th century cases of genocide and the 21st century cases of mass atrocities. Through comparison of the selected variables, the author shows how the 21st century cases align closely with the 20th century cases both with individual and total scores. The similar numbers between the various cases indicate that genocides are still occurring in the 21st century and the author notes the lessons learned that can be learned from the study.

Committee: Rachel Constance (Advisor) Subjects: History; Holocaust Studies; Political Science

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2020, English

1950's author, Shirley Jackson, wrote of the daily housewoman's life with a Gothic turn. Beginning with domestic life magazines and later extending her works to the international press, Jackson wrote of the familiar and sometimes welcoming image of domesticity in a way that demonstrates the complex and ambiguous relationship women hold with their domestic roles. Though for some her writing inspired the breaking away from the housewife image, for many it brought a desire to embrace the housewife identity with writings that shared their experiences and made light of their domestic roles. Feminist readers debated whether women could truly be happy in these domestic roles or if the attempt to make light of the household duties was a denial of the limitations placed on them by a patriarchy. In Jackson's writing, there is a combination of support for the agentic housewife and the belief that domesticity brought personal destruction. Through this essay, it is shown how Jackson's literature, including her penultimate work, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, provides insight into the historical questioning behind the domestic woman, simultaneously showing the positive and negative components of domestic life.

Committee: Unknown (Advisor) Subjects: American Literature; Gender Studies; Literature; Modern Literature; Womens Studies

Doctor of Musical Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, Music

Much research has been done on the history and development of the clarinet, including the lives and works of early clarinetists in Europe and America. For mostly sociocultural reasons, the majority of early clarinetists were men. While the possibility exists that there may have been more women clarinetists during early time period, current research has identified only a handful. The underrepresentation of women in the standard clarinet history stems both from restrictions on their participation as well as poor documentation of their activities. Given the lack of diversity in clarinet history, the purpose of this research is to promote awareness of the roles, experiences, and achievements of the women involved in the clarinet history during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, many of whom may have unfortunately gone unrecognized, been discounted, or forgotten. This research first provides a historical overview of the clarinet and its players, as well as history of women in music and their relationships with orchestral instruments. There are four chapters, which present biographies of women clarinetists who were active as soloists, orchestral players, teachers, and composers. This document also includes research regarding the all-women orchestras in Europe and America, and provides information focusing on the clarinetists of the American all-women orchestras. There are three appendices. Appendix A contains a compendium of selected women clarinetists and their contributions from the earliest documented to present, including, where applicable first name, maiden name, married name, published name or pseudonyms, dates, regions, achievements and contributions such as compositions, commissions, dedications, publications, discographies. Appendix B contains an all-inclusive chronology of clarinet history including both men and women discussed in this research. Appendix C contains portraits and photographs of women clarinetists discussed in this researc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Caroline Hartig (Advisor); Daryl Kinney (Committee Member); Russel Mikkelson (Committee Member); Karen Pierson (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

BA, Oberlin College, 2016, History

In 1948, the composer Benjamin Britten inaugurated the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts in the provincial British town of Aldeburgh. My research explores Britten's attempt through the Festival to democratize culture and combat the alienation and consumerism of modernity by creating a vividly human community based upon shared, localized musical experience. Through amateur participation and interpersonal connection, Britten sought to affirm the social value of art in the modern era and make it available to all people, enacting the social ideals of the time in the realm of culture.

Committee: Annemarie Sammartino (Advisor) Subjects: History; Music

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2012, College-Conservatory of Music: Piano

The document presents a comprehensive survey of the solo piano works by an eminent contemporary woman composer Emma Lou Diemer, who is still alive and active as a musician of various roles, such as a composer, teacher, performer, and church musician. By keying into her representative solo piano works including her most recent output, the document's primary goal is to guide performers and piano teachers for understanding and playing the composer's piano works. Selected pedagogical and concert works will be given detailed analysis such as comparisons of styles, structures, and sonorities. In light of her collective output for piano literature, the significance of the composer's contribution to the 20th- and 21st-Century music making, especially for the history of piano literature, is examined, in the context of current musical culture and trend.

Committee: Jeongwon Joe PhD (Committee Chair); Michael Chertock MM (Committee Member); Elizabeth Pridonoff MM (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2006, College-Conservatory of Music : Conducting, Choral Emphasis

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) composed several significant choral works that deserve recognition in the choral canon. Best known for her Vieille priere bouddhique and psalm settings, Boulanger composed some of her greatest works between bouts of chronic suffering from a variety of intestinal complications now known as Crohn's disease, yet still became the first female composer to win the illustrious Grand Prix de Rome (1913). By addressing these works in a comprehensive manner including formal musical techniques and language solutions, I hope to provide an essential guide for conductors interested in the works of Lili Boulanger. The Conductor's Guide discusses the following items related to each work: text sources, manuscript information, and dedication data; formal stylistic analysis of treatment of harmony, melody, texture, and motivic usage; performance history including discography, and a detailed description of rehearsal and performance issues. I also offer language assistance in a thorough IPA pronunciation guide and an accompanying pronunciation CD or embedded wave files for those reading the electronic version. The works addressed in this guide are: Hymne au soleil, Pendant la tempete, Pour les funerailles d'un soldat, Psaume 24, Psaume 129, Renouveau/, Les sirenes, Soir sur la plaine, Soleils de septembre, Sous-bois, and Vieille priere bouddhique. Deriving conclusions from my analysis of these choral works by Lili Boulanger, I provide a comprehensive Conductor's Guide to assist future interpreters of her works and enable the conductor to make informed decisions regarding interpretation, style and rehearsal procedure.

Committee: Dr. Earl Rivers (Advisor) Subjects: Music

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2007, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

Why does NATO remain a cohesive alliance in the post-Cold War era? This question, which has bewildered international relations scholars for years, can tell us a lot about institutional dynamics of alliances. Since traditional alliance theory indicates alliances form to counter threat or power, it is challenging to understand how and why NATO continues to exist after its founding threat and power – communism and the USSR – no longer exist. The fluctuation of cohesion in NATO since the end of the Cold War will be examined to determine how cohesion is forged and maintained. To achieve this, alliance theories will be fused into a clear and understandable model to measure cohesion.

Committee: Patricia Weitsman (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2024, English

Modernist artist novels by and about women complicate traditional understandings of the kunstlerroman genre by challenging the definition and status of the “artist” and presenting a broader range of options for women interested in the arts. Beginning with Wyndham Lewis's Tarr and with specific attention to the character of Bertha Lunken, an art student, and continuing with readings of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Mina Loy's Insel, and Jessie Fauset's Plum Bun, the dissertation analyzes representations of the female artist. Through their artist protagonists, these authors explore their ambivalence regarding the importance of talent, vision, and marketability. Their portrayals of amateur artists, students, and models focus on the social and material conditions that women in the period had to navigate in order to come to their own understanding of artistic success. Such portrayals also speak to the ways women participated in various modernist movements, both as visual artists and as writers. Ultimately, a reexamination of the female artist figure in these novels allows for an expanded definition of modernism by finding continuities between the Modernist period and the late Victorian period, interrogating regionalist specificity and transatlantic communication, and considering ways that high modernist experimental fiction relates to a commonly feminized and dismissed mass-market literature.

Committee: Keith Tuma (Committee Chair); Erin Edwards (Committee Member); Elisabeth Hodges (Committee Member); Madelyn Detloff (Committee Member); Mary Jean Corbett (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, History

This project examines the life, career, and controversies surrounding Mexican playwright Rodolfo Usigli and his play El gesticulador, a tragicomedy that satirized the hypocrisies of rule in Mexico following the revolution of 1910. Usigli emerged as one of the leading, if controversial, voices within Mexican theater during the 1930s and 1940s, writing politically critical plays based in his particular vision for a national theater tradition in Mexico. The height of the playwright's dramaturgical output corresponded with an elite class in the process of consolidating an institutionalized, “official” culture, homogenized revolutionary history, and political system dominated by an effectively single-party state. Censored for almost a decade, Usigli's El gesticulador premiered on the stage of Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes under high praise and intense scandal, both reflecting and contributing to renewed debates concerning Mexico's political system, freedom of expression, and the changing “institutional” revolution. Following the play's staging, Usigli would ultimately go on to act as a coopted intellectual in the service of the state. Thus, I track Usigli's evolution alongside that of the single-party state, arguing that the playwright acts as an insightful example of the power dynamics informing the relationships between political and cultural elites in postrevolutionary Mexico.

Committee: Elena Albarrán (Advisor); José Amador (Committee Member); Andrew Offenburger (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Latin American History; Theater History

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2023, History

This thesis explores the complex and politically significant history of America's Religious Right. From the 1940s to the end of the 20th century, the Religious Right built upon public fear and unease, shaping their social and political positions for political, not theological, impact. As a political group, the Religious Right necessarily included a more social perspective to their political actions with the notion that certain elements of American society were morally dangerous and looking to the government to correct these flaws. By personalizing politics and emphasizing divisive wedge issues, they built a network of dedicated supporters who propelled their rise to power. This approach revitalized economic principles and introduced new wedge issues to direct public debate to follow the path they chose. The underpinnings of the Religious Right began to emerge in the 1940s and 1950s as World War II dramatically changed the character of life in the United States. Televangelists began to become major household names with reach and sway as economic and technologic effects of the war created a new market of television viewers. At the same time, the Civil Rights Movement started to threaten the stability of the racial hierarchies that the social order was based upon to a large extent. All the while, communism loomed as a dark specter over the nation. By the late 1980s and 1990s, the Religious Right had firmly entrenched itself as a political and social landscape of the United States. This achievement was the result of calculated political maneuvering over multiple generations, utilizing personal matters to unite a passionate and determined political base. Notably, the Religious Right's causes were manifestations of the public fears of their time. The dangerous element invoked by these fears evolved from communism to civil rights activists to LGBTQ+ individuals who bucked the roles society established for them. For the Religious Right, the theological backing for their cau (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Scott Rosenberg (Advisor); Travis Proctor (Committee Member); Thomas Taylor (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; History; Political Science; Religion; Religious History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1960, History

Committee: William R. Rock (Advisor) Subjects: History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1960, Art/2-D Studio Art (Painting, Drawing, Prints, Photography)

Committee: Paul D. Running (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1958, Art/2-D Studio Art (Painting, Drawing, Prints, Photography)

Committee: Paul D. Running (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1953, Theatre

Committee: F. Lee Miesle (Advisor) Subjects: Theater

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1960, Art/2-D Studio Art (Painting, Drawing, Prints, Photography)

Committee: Paul D. Running (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1960, History

Committee: William R. Rock (Advisor) Subjects: History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1958, Art/2-D Studio Art (Painting, Drawing, Prints, Photography)

Committee: Paul D. Running (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts