Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Music

In March 2015, a jury awarded Marvin Gaye's estate nearly $7.4 million, finding that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams infringed on Gaye's 1977 song, “Got to Give It Up,” with their own 2013 hit, “Blurred Lines.” The highly publicized federal copyright lawsuit has raised concerns about the ramifications of this outcome for the legal protection of music and the future of artistic creativity. The question underlying this case, as in much of federal copyright litigation, involves negotiating the putative similarities and differences between expressive works. Although the court system has developed methods designed to assist triers of fact in such legal analysis, the unpredictable outcomes of these cases illuminate the problematics of this task. Triers of fact may hear testimony from expert witnesses, whose specialized knowledge, skill, and experience is intended to inform the decision-making process. The results of such testimony, however, are not only insistently variable, but they also reflect unsettled debates over how, and by whom, musical identity can best be defined. Given this situation, how should we understand the historical and contemporary role of the musical expert witness in American music copyright litigation? Drawing on research methods from musicological and legal scholarship, the present dissertation examines extant court records and judicial opinions of prominent cases chronologically from their origins in the mid-nineteenth century through to recently-decided lawsuits. In situating the role of the musical expert in the context of the legal similarity inquiry and considering their contributions to it, the study reveals the essential role that experts have historically played. It then recasts contemporary problems with case outcomes as a result of the similarity inquiry itself and looks to expert testimony as one potential area of reform. Such study of musical expertise sheds light on the courtroom as a forum for musical experts, particularly co (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Graeme Boone PhD (Advisor); Charles Atkinson PhD (Committee Member); Guy Rub SJD (Committee Member); Mark Rudoff MM (Committee Member) Subjects: Law; Music

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, History

In the opening decades of the Cold War, West Germans faced a terrifying geo-strategic dilemma. Located on the frontlines of the Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers, they were forced to consider how best to protect their nascent democracy from the possibility of a devastating war fought with weapons of mass destruction. For Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the right-of-center coalition that governed West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s, the answer to the country's dilemma was threefold. Close rapprochement with the West and a strong national military were combined with civil defense—protecting the country's civilian population and its societal and cultural institutions from the worst effects of a future war through a tripartite strategy of mass evacuation, protective shelters, and post-attack rescue and recovery units. This chronologically and topically-organized dissertation examines the origins, evolution, and demise of the West German civil defense program during the Cold War's opening decades. In doing so it presents three major arguments. First, as a result of unique historical and cultural influences West Germany's early-Cold War civil defense program exhibited remarkable conceptual continuity with its Weimar and National Socialist predecessors. Second, the program's political failure in the mid-1960s was due in large part to the inability of West German civil defense planners to make a clean break with the past. Finally, the Federal Republic's early-Cold War civil defense experience provides a new understanding of the process by which West Germans individually and collectively worked to create a new national identity in the post-1945 world. Specifically, in rejecting the highly-centralized program proposed by civil defense proponents West Germans individually and collectively rejected the sacrifice of their democracy called for by Adenauer and his allies. In doing so, the dissertation concludes, West Germans made a momentous decision about the fundamental (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Alan Beyerchen (Advisor) Subjects: History, European

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

In the context of United States (U.S.) education policy, Black erasure refers to a policy tool the racial majority has historically leveraged to preserve the social benefit of education for white people. In this three-article dissertation, I probe the lineage of Black erasure in education policy from the 1600s to the present day to build an understanding of its modern-day implications for the aims of higher education and underrepresented minority (URM) students' perceptions of their success. In the opening chapter, I lay the blueprint for my dissertation, describing the foundation of my research agenda and, as such, my three articles. In the first article, I theorize how Executive Order 13950 and educational gag orders, the modern era of Black erasure in education policy, interferes with the aims of higher education. I argue these aims include providing learning opportunities, preparing individuals to contribute to the workforce, and assisting people in contributing to our democracy. I conclude by discussing how the modern era of Black erasure most weakens the democratic purpose of higher education, endangering academic freedom for faculty, staff, and students. Notably, this article is now published in the Journal of Academic Freedom. In the second article, I theorize and conceptualize how whiteness has historically functioned as a property in U.S. state education policy and weaponized Black erasure as a policy tool. Using critical race theory (CRT) and critical policy analysis, I trace slave codes, anti-literacy laws, Jim Crow Laws, bans on multicultural education, and educational gag orders. Upon examining the origins and rhetoric of the policies, I bring forth a framework for understanding Black erasure in U.S. state education policy and consider implications for policy and advocacy. In the final co-authored article, written by myself, Courtney Gilday, Amy Farley, Ph.D., and Chris Swoboda, Ph.D., we analyze how Black erasure policies in leg (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Amy Farley Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Mark Sulzer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Miriam Raider-Roth Ed.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education Policy

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis examines the effectiveness of judicial review in Japan from a historical perspective by focusing on the progression from the Meiji Constitution, which was designed to prevent further encroachment by Western powers to the 1947 Constitution, which specifically included judicial review to create a separation of powers. Despite this fact, judicial review in Japan has largely been ineffective because of the intrinsic political links between the judiciary and the executive branch, and the fact that the executive branch is responsible for appointing all members of the judiciary. This creates a system of implicit pressure in which judges are encouraged to conform in order to advance their careers.

Committee: Joshua Hill (Advisor); Victoria Lee (Committee Member); Brian Schoen (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Comparative Studies

In 1809, Susanna Cox, a twenty-four year old servant living in Oley, Pennsylvania, was accused, convicted, and executed following the death of her newborn son. Throughout the next two hundred years, Susanna’s story would be transmitted through oral histories and printed and performed broadside ballads. Perhaps the most widely diffused version of the story began in the early 1960s at the Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Festival (now called the Kutztown Folk Festival) when the festival organizers revived her story in the public imagination. Over 50 years later, Cox’s story is still retold at the Kutztown Folk Festival, three times a day for nine days, with the visual addition of a hanging reenactment. This dissertation explores the interplay between history, social memory, and oral tradition as it occurs surrounding the ongoing use of Susanna Cox’s story. I explore the exposition of her story between the discovery of her son’s death and her execution, as well as the legal impact – real or perceived –of the case in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The broadside ballad also maintained currency as it was translated and reprinted in various North American locations throughout the nineteenth century. I go on to discuss the ways that the story has been transmitted and reinterpreted into the 21st century, examining the recorded, published, performed and electronically-disseminated versions and audience responses to them. This project combines textual interpretation, archival research, oral history interviewing, and ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2009 and 2013I explore why various communities – ethnic, gendered, religious, or geographic – chose to claim Cox and redeem her soul, reputation, or memory. Susanna Cox was a woman whose actions went against the legal and moral standards of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In her own time, she provided a focus for public debate over the death penalty and the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dorothy Noyes (Advisor); Richard Green (Committee Member); Margaret Mills (Committee Member); Randolph Roth (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Folklore; History; Legal Studies; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Greek and Latin

Recent scholarship of identity issues in Imperial Rome has focused on the complicated intersections of “Greek” and “Roman” identity, a perfect microcosm in which to examine the issue in the high-stakes world of medical practice where physicians from competing Greek-speaking traditions interacted with wealthy Roman patients. I argue that not only did Roman patients and politicians have a variety of methods at their disposal for neutralizing the perceived threat of foreign physicians, but that the foreign physicians also were given ways to mitigate the substantial dangers involved in treating the Roman elite. I approach the issue from three standpoints: the political rhetoric surrounding foreign medicines, the legislation in place to protect doctors and patients, and the ethical issues debated by physicians and laypeople alike. I show that Roman lawmakers, policy makers, and physicians had a variety of ways by which the physical, political, and financial dangers of foreign doctors and Roman patients posed to one another could be mitigated. The dissertation argues that despite barriers of xenophobia and ethnic identity, physicians practicing in Greek traditions were fairly well integrated into the cultural milieu of imperial Rome, and were accepted (if not always trusted) members of society. Their inclusion into the fabric of Romanitas prefigures the later integration of Roman and Greek identity that was to culminate in the Greek-speaking Romans of the Byzantine Empire.

Committee: Duane W. Roller PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Frank Coulson PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Julia Nelson-Hawkins PhD (Committee Member); Fritz Graf PhD (Committee Member); Douglas Prize PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Classical Studies; Health Care; History