Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2023, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

The cities of Americana, Santa Barbara d'Oeste and Piracicaba in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, received a wave of emigrants from the southern United States following the Civil War. Employing mixed methods and field observations, this thesis analyzes the continued memorialization of the Confederacy in the interior of Sao Paulo state, particularly in a cemetery known as the Cemiterio do Campo located in Santa Barbara d'Oeste. Through interviews with descendants of Confederates (known as Confederados), museum curators, festival participants, academic experts, and a landscape analysis of local museums and the Cemiterio do Campo, the thesis argues that efforts to maintain cultural identity and memorialize the past persist, primarily through the continued maintenance and preservation of the cemetery and its associated material culture artifacts.

Committee: Timothy Anderson (Advisor); Brad Jokisch (Committee Member); Risa Whitson (Committee Member) Subjects: Folklore; Geography

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

The nomination of Iraqi marshes and the cities of Uruk, Ur, and Eridu as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in July 2016 is an opportunity to reflect on the success and shortcomings of conservation in Iraq. Although there is an increased interest in the cultural heritage and conservation of many important historical sites in Iraq, this dissertation argues that there is insufficient knowledge for preparing the UNESCO nomination dossier according to regulations and criteria. This dissertation focuses on a rare historical photographic collection at Penn Museum that John Henry Haynes captured during his tenure at the Pennsylvania Excavation campaigns from 1889 to 1900 which examines the area of Nippur, Iraq and its surrounding marshes. Through this inquiry it is evident that, even with the submission of Nippur for the designation of UNESCO World Heritage, and its subsequent placement on the tentative approval list, the archival material and Haynes's photographs at the Penn Museum have not been used as evidence for the dossier submitted to UNESCO. These photographs are the earliest documentation showing that the Nippur area and the surrounding marshlands were previously more extensive and also include the life of its inhabitants. This research presents the significance of Haynes's photos, and critiques what has been excluded from the UNESCO designation, specifically the vernacular reed architecture and the intangible cultural values of the region. It argues that the importance of the Iraqi marshlands is not only because the region is environmentally endangered due to the rapid disappearance of the marshes, but it is also endangered due to the disappearance of the cultural landscape, and the loss of socio-cultural values of the indigenous people of these regions. This research revisits and re-constructs tangible and intangible aspects of the cultural landscape of Nippur and the Iraqi marshes in general, through the lens of John Henry Haynes's photographic catalog. The stud (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Aarati Kanekar Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Edson Roy Cabalfin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Patrick Snadon Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jeffrey Tilman Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2015, Anthropology

This dissertation examines and explores the popular health landscape, or lay health beliefs and models, held by Maasai people in the Siana Plains of Southern Narok. Specifically it is an investigation of the most common illnesses identified by community members and how these illnesses and the accompanying practices and beliefs reflect and illustrate the community's perspectives on hygiene, or the practice of being and staying healthy. Local hygienic ideas of illness prevention and avoidance, represented in the way Maasai talk about common and significant health problems, are found to be shaped by the cosmological underpinnings of Maasai society through superficially inchoate “common sense” perspectives that embody the foundational premises shared across much of Maasai society. This dissertation employs ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured, open-ended questions, agreement surveys, and free listing in four series of interviews. These interviews were conducted with 107 people in 76 interviews. Response frequency tables were generated from the 27 interviews with Maasai in the series that employed free listing. Findings demonstrate that the relationship the Maasai have with Enkai, the creator god, is both represented and reified in the language of the popular health sector through the metonymic symbols of olari, the rainy season, enkijebe, the cold wind, and with the specific disavowal of metaphysical presumption, which I refer to as “etiological agnosticism”. The explanatory model that emerges from this analysis is not merely descriptive, but represents a significant re-presentation of Maasai understandings of health and illness. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the influence cosmological premises have on everyday perspectives that form a community's shared “common sense”, particularly in the sector of popular health. It contributes more broadly to development studies, African studies, and the ethnog (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Atwood Gaines PhD, MPH (Committee Chair); Lee Hoffer PhD (Committee Member); Vanessa Hildebrand PhD (Committee Member); Jonathan Sadowsky PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Studies; Health; Public Health; Religion; Sanitation

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2019, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

Johnson Town is a residential district in Iruma City, Saitama, in Japan. Known for having American-styled houses called bei-gun houses, the town is sometimes perceived as an American village. This thesis examines how this “American” landscape is constructed. As Moore (2000, 685) argues that “a landscape is open to alternative readings of the same text,” a cultural landscape becomes meaningful when people signify its material form and attach meanings to it through acts of reading it and doing things in it. Situating within such a post-structuralist understanding of the cultural landscape, this thesis explores how people in Johnson Town construct its cultural landscape by interpreting, engaging in, and/or challenging it in multiple ways. This analysis is realized by means of a combination of research methodologies, including qualitative methods (interviews), participant observation, and textual analysis of the town's official website. In particular, I will focus on two main research questions. First, I am interested in examining how people in the town adopt or challenge the perception that the town is an American village because of its distinctive built environment. Second, I will ask how people commemorate (or how they do not commemorate) the past relating to the era of American residency in constructing the cultural landscape of Johnson Town.

Committee: Timothy Anderson (Committee Chair); Risa Whitson (Committee Member); Amy Lynch (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

PHD, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

This dissertation investigates how large organization inscribe their institutional message on the physical landscape creating a unique place. In northern New Mexico is a 137,000 acre ranch that was donated to the Boy Scouts of America between 1938 and 1942 by Mr. and Mrs. Waite Phillips, an Oklahoma oilman. This land was to be used to forge leaders in a wilderness setting. Philmont Boy Scout Ranch is primarily a backpacking destination with high adventure, and team building activities. By using archival research, corporate interview techniques, and participant observations I was able to find out what activities occur at Philmont and why these activities are important to a distinct sense of place. Philmont must get information about the location out to the end consumer, the Scouts, and the market the place through word of mouth marketing and the use of the Boy Scouts of America's publications Boys' Life and Scouting. I was able to identify how Philmont markets the place to the end consumers. A sense of place is fluid and changes over time. The managers of Philmont must walk a tight rope maintaining a sense of history while staying current to the lives of their consumers. I identified an undercurrent of preservation that pervades activities that occur at the ranch. Through the creation, marketing and preservation Philmont Boy Scout Ranch and the Boy Scouts of America have created and maintained a unique place.

Committee: James Tyner Ph.D (Advisor) Subjects: Geography

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

In this dissertation, I will apply the scholarly, creative, and descriptive traits of rephotography to document the city of Pittsburgh's cultural landscape. Starting with images of W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project as my exemplar, I will conduct my own rephotographic survey and identify changes in the cultural landscape of Pittsburgh between 1955 and 2014. I will also continue and contribute to the transdisciplinary nature of rephotography by viewing Smith's project and my rephotography through the lenses of tourism, palimpsest, and performance. Used individually, these three lenses provide a better understanding of rephotography—used together in concert; they create a conceptual framework for the uses and study of rephotography in the future. My receptiveness to the relationship between these three topics to photography and rephotography will promote approaches to the study of photography that expand surveys pertaining to the photo-mechanical nature, subject matter, or formalist properties of the medium. The Pittsburgh scenes including birds-eye views of the city, individual buildings, and even street signs provide a broad overview of the city on both a macro and a micro-scale. Through more than twenty examples, I suggest that photography as utilized by Smith, exposes Pittsburgh as seen by an outsider, while rephotography reveals Pittsburgh as insiders have transformed it. The themes of tourism, palimpsest, and performance organize my study of rephotography and situate my rephotographic survey in terms of Smith's Pittsburgh Project. They are the threads that connect the photographer Smith, rephotography as methodology and subject, and my own survey of Pittsburgh's cultural landscape together.

Committee: Marina Peterson (Committee Chair); Jennie Klein (Committee Co-Chair); Condee William (Committee Member); Tim Anderson (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Fine Arts; Geography

MA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

STUBBS, GLENN EUGENE, M.A. MAY 2015 GEOGRAPHY REMEMBERING A WORKPLACE DISASTER: DIFFERENT LANDSCAPES, DIFFERENT NARRATIVES? Thesis Advisor: Christopher W. Post Cultural landscapes, those altered by human activity, convey narratives of those who created, as well as altered, them. Such landscapes are often the result of day-to-day activities. However, purposeful use of the landscape to memorialize important events opens windows into a community's values and emotions. Selected memorial sites, sanctified by monuments and services, retell a consensus history. At the same time, other local landscapes may relate different, and frequently conflicting, narratives of a remembered incident. My study area, the small, rural southeastern Ohio town of Millfield, is one such place. On November 5 1930, this company town for a coal mine suffered Ohio's worst mining accident when an explosion killed 82. Even though the mine closed 69 years ago, the community still exists under the shadow of the mine and its infamous accident. For this community the desire to remember the explosion and its victims was immediate but memorialization on the landscape proved to be an arduous process. Two landscapes, the site of the mine and the site of a monument, now represent the history of the mine explosion. At a first glance, these two landscapes tell contrasting narratives. However, deeper examination reveals a bond between the two that expresses the uniformity of Millfield's connection to its past. By juxtaposing those landscapes, I consider the historic narratives this community believes important portray about its past to the present and into the future.

Committee: Christopher Post Ph.D. (Advisor); Thomas Schmidlin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Mapes Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2005, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

“God lies in the detail” stated Mies van der Rohe… …“The detail is in the adoration of Nature” stated Louis I. Kahn… …for decades, even centuries, architects have been theorizing, designing and constructing details, in search for the perfect answer – the perfect story – to their particular design. This thesis is an exploration on exactly that – the architectural detail, and how it can inform and enhance the overall design. Instead of analyzing the details contained within a particular architectural movement and how they have changed design, this thesis looks at the details created by the common man – the builder of rural vernacular architecture. These structures contain basic joinery, materiality and detailing, passed down through history and heritage, as common building knowledge. How can these rural vernacular details educate an architect on a current design? This thesis explores the threat to historic cultural landscapes and the various preservation techniques, analyzes various theories on detailing, looks at numerous architect and program precedents, studies the history, style, and construction of the dilapidated buildings on site, and finally creates an adaptive-reuse solution. Furthermore, it is a critical analysis of the term “detail”. How does the old structure inform the new design? The building additions are treated with a continuity-to-contrast approach as you move deeper within the site. The project site is located in Oconee County, South Carolina, and contains an interesting history. This 300+ acre farm was once owned by Silas Butts, who among many things used his grist mill to produce moonshine - the profits of which supported an orphanage and schoolhouse.

Committee: Jeff Tilman (Advisor) Subjects: Architecture

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2011, Journalism (Communication)

As one of America's most popular national news magazines, Life magazine played an integral part in bringing the fight for civil rights into the public discourse. It helped to educate and inform the nation with regards to visual imagery and the events of the times. This study, beginning in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, and ending in 1965, the year that Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, examined every issue of Life for civil rights-related articles. By applying the concepts of geography and discussing images and events with regard to space, this study discussed race and the conflict between African Americans and racist white citizens in the fight for equal rights. This dissertation found that the Life magazine was both a leader and follower in the debate for equal rights, publishing photographs that intimately recorded the battle for space on a variety of levels including: a physical, a metaphorical, and a symbolic level. The significance of this study is that there are new and deeper ways to examine media texts, their frames, and the issues involved. On the surface, Life portrayed a street-level battle for fixing historic injustices. But, on another level, which spatial and geographic theory helps us to understand, Life magazine revealed a much deeper, ongoing debate over the rightful place of the African American in American society.

Committee: Patrick Washburn Dr. (Committee Chair); Joseph Bernt Dr. (Committee Member); Terry Eiler Prof. (Committee Member); Timothy Anderson Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; Black Studies; Communication; Geography; Journalism; Mass Media; Modern History

BA, Oberlin College, 2012, Archeological Studies

This study examines the role of agricultural terracing in the archaeological landscape of Monte Pallano, in the Sangro river valley of Abruzzo, Italy. This area is the research focus of the Sangro Valley Project, an ongoing archaeological project whose mission is to investigate and characterize long-term dynamics of human settlement and land use in this region. The project's 2010 and 2011 field seasons incorporated a program of mapping and reconnaissance survey and experimental excavation of abandoned agricultural terraces on the upper slopes of Monte Pallano. The survey was designed to assess the spatial distribution of agricultural terraces in the study area and to describe major patterns of form, construction style, and degradation. Test excavations of selected terraces sought to characterize the sedimentary profile of the terrace fill and gather botanical and sediment samples that might date the period of the terrace's construction and use. The survey found important stylistic and typological variations in terrace form across the study area, and identified distinct systems of terracing on the eastern, western, and southern flanks of Monte Pallano. Excavations within a small area on the west flank clarified aspects of terrace construction, though an effective program of sampling requires further development. Comparative studies from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, and the limited evidence from the terraces themselves, suggest that the majority of the extant terraces on Pallano are the product of early modern (18th-19th century) agricultural intensification. Terrace systems particularly on the southern flank may be ancient constructions based on stylistic distinctions and their close association with archaeological sites. Excavations in the Sangro Valley and elsewhere have indicated that terracing was a technology used to a certain extent in antiquity. The findings of previous survey, excavation, and palaeoethnobotanical investigations in the region point to pha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susan Kane PhD (Advisor); Kirk Ormand PhD (Committee Member); Allison Davis PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Archaeology; Geography

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2008, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

This study is an exploration of the people and the landscape of the well-known Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. Although there are many routes that make up the entirety of the pilgrimage, this research is specifically focused on the landscape of the Camino Frances, or French Route, in northern Spain. The path has been written about in many ways and for a myriad of reasons since it became affiliated with the Christian tradition in the early ninth century. This research, however, is different. By way of an environmental history and hermeneutic approach, an investigation of the interrelated and overlapping human actions of dwelling, movement, and service that stem from the pilgrimage tradition on the Camino de Santiago is conducted. Unlike other studies of this pilgrimage path, both pilgrim and resident receive equal attention, and the landscape emerges as central to the research. This study provides: an integrated evaluation of the ancient pre-Christian and medieval Christian histories and perceptions of the path; a description of the physical landscape; an in-depth assessment of conventional landscape and cultural heritage strategies for preservation; and a linguistic, social, and philosophical discussion of the correlations among dwelling, walking, serving, and preserving that are apparent on the landscape. Embedded within this examination of the Camino de Santiago landscape is a return to the essence and origin of the ideal of preservation itself. This analysis of landscape preservation is specifically centered on traditionally peopled landscapes and cultural landscapes, i.e., those with a deep history and presence of people. This study proposes that the Camino de Santiago landscape serves as a model for the preservation of tradition, history, culture, and nature. Moreover, it contends that the landscape is an exemplar of what I have termed organic preservation precisely because the people evolved in a reciprocal relationship with each other and the la (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alesia Maltz Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Heidi Watts Ph.D. (Committee Member); William Klink Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; Ancient Civilizations; Cultural Anthropology; Earth; Ecology; Environmental Science; European History; Folklore; Geography; History; Linguistics; Management; Middle Ages; Philosophy; Religious History