Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Ohio University, 2024, Film

Max Kaplan's thesis explores what it takes to make a standout body horror film, from researching horror's gothic roots to making a compelling and unique horror to the daily tasks of a film director.

Committee: Lindsey Martin (Advisor) Subjects: Film Studies; Fine Arts; Literature; Motion Pictures; Music; Performing Arts; Personal Relationships

Master of Arts in History, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Humanities

The object of this text is to discuss aspects of the intellectual history of the Western civilization that reflects the doctrine of nihilism and how the precept is manifest in the culture of postmodern twenty-first century society. The pith of the essay is to conclude that, nihilism, as an intellectual supposition, hinges on the philosophies of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Nihilism is a worthy discussion because the concept has permeated Western thought at least since the time of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and has become essential to Western culture in the twenty-first century. Nietzsche's pronouncement that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…” in tandem with Dostoevsky's rejoinder “But what will become of men then? ... without God… All things are permitted then, they can do what they like” is a notable definition for nihilism. Nihilism is a philosophical position that reflects a belief in nothingness and/or everything. Nihilism is “the belief that life is meaningless.” “Nietzsche defines nihilism as the situation which obtains when ‘everything is permitted' or when nothing is permitted.” Nihilism occurs as a result of the distrust of the highest value (killing God, which results in a belief in nothing) hence the reception to all eventuality (everything is permissible). In short, nihilism is a collection of ideas that denies generally believed interpretations of the human existence like morality, knowledge and meaning. This text is a discussion of the concept of nihilism and its repercussions on society.

Committee: David Simonelli PhD (Advisor); Brian Bonhomme PhD (Committee Member); Daniel Ayana PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Within Heidegger's work Being and Time, many scholars have argued that Heidegger's account of authenticity undermines elements of his project that were set out in the first division. One common complaint is that Heidegger's account of authenticity undermines his ability to account for Dasein as being-in-the-world. The concern, according to these scholars, is that the establishing normative force of the world gets stripped away through authenticity, which would lead to a worldless subject. My goal is to challenge these interpretations. I argue that authenticity actually brings into focus characteristics of the world like finitude, rather than creating a separation between subject and world. In doing this, I will lay out what exactly an account of authenticity centered on being-in-the-world looks like to show that it doesn't create problems for Heidegger's project.

Committee: Matthew Coate (Advisor); Kim Garchar (Committee Member); Michael Byron (Committee Member); Joanna Trzeciak-Huss (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2023, Foundations of Education

Critical peace education sets forth a process-oriented pedagogy with key tenets that include inquiry, reflection, dialogue, critical value-assessment, and empowerment. Empowerment as tenet is unique because, when viewed comprehensively, it is recognized as an integral element required for the actualization of all other tenets within CPE. Although empowerment may take on many forms within the CPE framework, this work seeks to establish that its foundational component rests upon three distinct elements which include: the ability to establish and maintain authentic inner unification with peace (through the development of an integrated state of nonviolence), the ability to offer valid normative justifications for one's claims, and an ongoing commitment and willingness to reconstruct the conception of peace in pursuit of justice and fairness in a diverse biosphere. The prevalence of violence (specifically structural violence experienced as dehumanization, marginalization, and oppression) coupled with the rise of societal polarization, ingroup bias, and groupthink, highlight the need for a greater focus on and understanding of empowerment in CPE. This work seeks to emphasize that empowerment is a matter of justice which necessitates normative presuppositions for the validation of claims as well as ongoing reflection and praxis in the pursuit of justice as peace; however, without authentic commitment to external as well as internal obligations to peace, empowerment efforts in all forms will remain insufficient. This assertion underscores the need for a three angle approach to dynamic empowerment in CPE.

Committee: Dale Snauwaert (Committee Chair); Florain Feucht (Committee Member); Jeffery Warnke (Committee Member); Edward Janak (Committee Member) Subjects: Education Philosophy; Environmental Education; Higher Education; Peace Studies; Philosophy; Teacher Education

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

Rain & Otherwise is a poetry compilation that examines intimacy through various modes of the human experience. Among these experiences are themes of grief, existentialism, gender and sexuality, weather and global warming, space (micro v. macro), and familial lineage. This project aims to push the bounds of meaning and form through understatement, fragmentation of punctuation and space, and primarily sound as it relates literally to the ear and figuratively through interpreted meanings. This project is a result of the times we all find ourselves in, and ultimately strives to comfort the anxious souls of the era.

Committee: Caryl Pagel (Advisor); Chris Barzak (Committee Member); Catherine Wing (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, 2022, English

Gregor Samsa is changing. Expelled from the Army, disoriented by the stresses undergone during treatment at a sanatorium, and pressured into a job he loathes, Gregor clings to writing as a source of identity. In his diaries and notebooks, Gregor struggles to make sense of the world, his body, his relationships with others, and the workings of his own mind. As he contends with his inner dualism—the urge to create and the impulse to self-destruct—the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur. In this reimagining of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Gregor's human past is revealed through written forms such as diary entries, letters, interviews, and telegrams. As readers encounter a variety of narrative structures, gaps in recorded history, and a chorus of unreliable narrators, they are invited to take part in puzzling together the story of a life on the verge of an extraordinary transformation.

Committee: Brian Roley (Advisor); Daisy Hernandez (Committee Member); Joseph Bates (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

MA, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Iain Thomson (2013) writes that no scholar has methodically thematized and addressed Heidegger's treatment of existential Angst about the global collapse of Dasein's identity-defining projects called death. This lack of attention has resulted in a tradition of conflating death and demise. This thesis revisits, in the spirit of the method of formal indication, what Heidegger meant by death as a way of being Dasein. I contend that equal consideration of underlying existential Angst can offer aid in the way of understanding not only the distinction between death and demise, but also the kind of entity Dasein is. This analysis will be followed by an examination of how these contentious notions of death and anxiety were taken up by Heidegger's first existential phenomenologist audience.

Committee: Kim Garchar (Advisor); Anthony Fernandez (Committee Member); Polycarp Ikuenobe (Committee Member); Mark Bracher (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2021, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

This qualitative study aims to explore and explain the existential underpinnings of learning about climate change and potential emotional responses to climate change learning. Undergraduate students in environmental sciences and studies classes at the University of Washington on in Seattle, WA participated in semi-structured interviews. Participants were asked about their experiences learning about climate change and how they responded emotionally to the learning. This dissertation examines the responses from those interviews and builds a theory out of the data analyzed. Constructivist Grounded theory as outlined by Kathy Charmaz (2014) was used to analyze the interviews. Codes were created and linked together to generate themes that undergird the theory that emerged out of the data. Analysis revealed strong themes of grief, values, and resilience that were then examined through the lens of existential psychological and philosophical concepts. The emergent theory was subsequently framed from this stance and shows a need to address the existential impacts of the climate change grief experience in undergraduate learners of the topic. Education, community, and connection to other learners of climate change played key roles in building resilience to existential nihilism while learning about climate change.

Committee: Alejandra Suarez PhD. (Committee Chair); William Heusler PsyD. (Committee Member); Diana Knauf PhD. (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; Climate Change; Conservation; Counseling Psychology; Earth; Ecology; Education; Education Philosophy; Educational Psychology; Environmental Philosophy; Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Health Care; Higher Education; Mental Health; Philosophy; Psychology; Psychotherapy; Public Health; Public Health Education; Science Education; Social Psychology; Sustainability; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, History (Arts and Sciences)

Betty Friedan and her landmark manifesto, "The Feminine Mystique," have a complex and challenging history. In 1963, the book roused countless women from domestic slumber, leading to the transformation of the social fabric of the United States. Despite the book's influence, much of Friedan's intellectual legacy, the core of which is identity, grounded in liberal, mid-century values, has been lost or forgotten. Fully understanding Friedan's ideas requires a fresh look at the historical and intellectual forces that shaped her thinking. Sigmund Freud, existentialism, humanist psychology, and mid-century liberalism all influenced Friedan and her vision for women's liberation from the “mystique.” Modern feminism, however, differs significantly from Friedan's original vision, detailed in "The Feminine Mystique." The feminist pursuit of identity eclipsed Friedan's liberal vision and prescription for gender equality, leading to divisive and illiberal consequences. "The Lost Legacy of Liberal Feminism" traces this development, following the thread of identity from the intellectuals who influenced Friedan, to the message of "The Feminine Mystique," to the birth of identity politics. Despite having begun as a movement intended to bridge gaps in the liberal democratic promise, by the end of the 1960s the women's movement took a troubling turn, contributing to the current state of identity politics that threatens the gender equality Friedan sought to achieve.

Committee: Kevin Mattson (Advisor); Chester Pach (Committee Member); Katherine Jellison (Committee Member); Julie White (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; History; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2020, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

This dissertation explores the writings of three authors associated with the philosophical and literary approach known as Africana existentialism (AE). There are two main exigencies which this study addresses: 1) What insights can rhetoric and writing scholars obtain from analyzing the work(s) of Africana existentialism regarding the concept of embodiment? 2) How might these insights impact our conceptual understanding of embodied practice and our ability to teach in a diverse classroom setting? Through a hermeneutic analysis of three AE works, The Bluest Eye, The Fire Next Time, and Black Skin, White Masks, three key features of black embodiment were found. The three key features of black embodiment are as follows: 1) There is a context in which blackness exists as opposition or in contrast to the theory and glorification of whiteness. 2) Cultural products, narratives, and symbols put forth by Western mass culture can negatively impact many people who exist in/as black bodies. These products, symbols, and narratives can have an onerous psychological impact on black people. 3) There is an importance and irreducibility to black experiential facticity—a phenomenological knowledge gained from being in the world as a black body—and claims about experiential facticity go beyond typical academic arguments and discussions about the constructed nature of blackness. This emphasis on experiential facticity uncovers issues of divergent epistemologies and ideologies, and such divergences may spring from cultural positionality. My research sets forth three possible paths which might alleviate some of the problems that arise from divergent epistemologies and ideologies. First, it is extremely important for teachers to check their own ideological blind spots for beliefs and approaches which may stifle views which sound different than their own. Next, teachers should use rhetorical listening in order to improve cross-cultural communication. Lastly, teachers can develop and use heur (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sue Carter Wood Ph.D. (Advisor); Nermis Susana Mieses D.M.A. (Other); Raymond A. Craig Ph.D. (Committee Member); Lee Nickoson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; Composition; Philosophy

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Meliorism is the belief in the possibility of progress—a possibility whose actualization is dependent on, but not guaranteed by, both our efforts and our belief regarding the possibility of the success of those efforts. In this thesis, I have two joint goals: first, to explicate the philosophy of meliorism and its justifications; and second, through this elucidation, to demonstrate why and how one is to become a meliorist. To this end, I undertake the development of the intellectual, moral, and existential organization of meliorism. In the first chapter, concerning meliorism's intellectual organization, I develop and justify the definition of meliorism as the belief in progress. In the second chapter, I extend this to meliorism's moral organization—the issue of what counts as “progress” or “betterment”—by expounding John Dewey's ethics. In the third chapter, in regard to meliorism's existential organization, I attempt to estimate what I call the existential weight of meliorism and sketch out ways in which meliorists can go about managing this weight. Throughout this undertaking I relate the various aspects of meliorism to the issues of our contemporary society to establish a concrete sense of the ways in which I believe this philosophy can help us in our lives as we grapple with challenges such as climate change, corruption in politics, and navigating competing ideals and values in political discourse.

Committee: Frank Ryan (Advisor) Subjects: Philosophy

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Youngstown State University, 2019, Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing)

The following experimental project in creative nonfiction aims at exploring identity. It attempts to uncover, between recovery and discovery, a space for selfhood. The quest for this meaningful space relies on multiple narrators, narratives, and structural devices. Though akin to a memoir, the experimental nature of the work organically challenges categorization. It engages in a necessary encounter with language, historicity, and time. Furthermore, it intentionally undertakes the dynamic of various binaries and frameworks. Finally, while governed by a varying form, the content invariably moves throughout the effort toward personal meaning. The results or overall impact of this movement may be beyond objective measurement, but the project's success can be assessed by the reader's impression and interest in inhabiting the manuscript.

Committee: David Giffels MA (Advisor); Robert Pope MFA (Committee Member); Steven Reese PhD (Committee Member); Eric Wasserman MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Language; Psychology; Religion

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

An analysis of three major works by Sartre and their role on the evolution of humanism as coined by the philosopher in 1945.

Committee: Lois Vines (Committee Chair); Chris Coski (Advisor); Betsy Partyka (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2018, Educational Leadership

Due to the limitations of meaning-making theory that absolve history of its dynamic and lasting effects on minoritized existence in the present and rely on an organizing principle that formulates the subject-object relationship as synonymous with a more complex and evolving self (a trajectory that leads to self-authorship), this research study proposed that educators consider an alternative approach to theory construction. What would happen if educators and researchers squarely centered the [Black] body in a sociopolitical (Okello, 2018) context that considers the historical, social, political, affective, and physiological tenets of one's existence? I deployed a Black feminist literary criticism to analyze four decades of Black existentialism and three critical scenes in the development of my artistry. This methodology enabled me to clarify what Lisa Anderson (2008) calls a Black feminist aesthetic, or “the elements of the text/performance that invoke a particular history, politics, or philosophy of a `community' (broadly construed)” (p. 115). Moreover, this methodology instructs my analysis to key into themes and strategies theorized through Joy James' (1999) concept of limbos, which considers the various ways Black bodies progressively move forward despite the vulnerability of their positions. This approach responds directly to my purpose and research questions that seek to discern how Black bodies make meaning and decisions inside their social worlds, given the precarity of their allotment by asking two guiding research questions: How has the [Black] body been schooled?; and How might examining the present-day condition of Black bodies in conversation with literary records of Black existentialism contribute to the deconstruction and reconstruction of self-authorship theory? Situating the present day Black body in conversation with classical theorists—classical by definition, “relates to the most highly developed stage of an earlier civilization and its cultur (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Stephen Quaye (Committee Chair); David Pérez II (Committee Member); Elisa Abes (Committee Member); Durell Callier (Committee Member); Tammy Brown (Committee Member) Subjects: Black History; Black Studies; Developmental Psychology; Educational Leadership; Epistemology; Higher Education

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2018, Psychology, General

The present study aims to examine two conceptions of what it means to live authentically. Research in psychology suggests a divide between essentialist and existentialist perspectives of what it means to be authentic. The present studies find support for this two-factor model of authenticity, with a newly designed measure finding a two-factor structure as well as convergent and discriminant validity. An essentialist perspective of authenticity, or the belief that the “true self” is indelible and must be discovered, is based on different conceptions of the self than an existentialist perspective of authenticity, in which one chooses who they wish to be after critical examination. In previous literature, authenticity has been considered a significant predictor of maturity, prosocial behavior, and well-being. This new measure will help further understanding of how authenticity predicts positive outcomes, and which beliefs promote human flourishing.

Committee: Jack Bauer Ph.D. (Advisor); Erin O'Mara Ph.D. (Committee Member); R. Matthew Montoya Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Social Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1952, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Literature

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, East Asian Studies

Abstract This thesis investigates the Mind-Thing relation in Wang Yangming's philosophy from an existential-phenomenological perspective. As is well known, a critical step for Wang Yangming in detaching from Zhu Xi's system is his revision and reinterpretation of the Great Learning. Things, in Wang Yangming's hermeneutics, refer to the objects upon which the subjective intentionality dwells and discloses itself. In light of the resemblances between Wang Yangming's yi and Edmund Husserl's “intentionality,” this thesis scrutinizes Wang Yangming's renowned proposition that “nothing exists outside of Mind” and the metaphor of the quiescent flower in the mountain. It further analyzes Wang Yangming's position on the ontological relation between Mind and Thing “prior to” their synthesis based on the thought of Sartre and Heidegger. Drawing upon the renowned claims of Wang Yangming's that “Mind is Principle” and “unification of consciousness and action,” this thesis then provides an analysis of the ethical meaning of Wang Yangming's Mind-Thing relation, arguing that it can be better understood in light of existentialist notions such as possibility, ektasis and action.

Committee: Melissa Curley (Committee Chair); Ying Zhang (Committee Co-Chair); Tamar Rudavsky (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Comparative; Philosophy