Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Greek and Latin

In the first portion of this project, I analyze the myths of the Homeric Hymns from a divine vantage point, exploring the ways in which their narrators ask the divine to “delight” in their work. Unsurprisingly, deities enjoy hearing of their own superiority, and I argue that the Hymns' mythic scenes of epiphany efficiently crystallize that superiority into narrative form. Because epiphany forces a direct confrontation between god and human, it provides an opportunity for the poet to juxtapose god with mortal, efficiently revealing their insurmountable differences. In particular, by way of the epiphanic scene, the poet, in order that his divine audience might “delight in him the most,” communicates to his titular divinity the total insufficiency of human beings to interact with the divine. I focus, however, on the context in which these epiphanic scenes are deployed, and I ask how that context might affect the entire mythic narrative's appeal, especially to mortal audiences. In the second piece of this project, I delve into the poems' appeal to mortal audiences, and examine how the Hymns' poets use dramatic irony, framing devices, and humor to “delight” the human beings listening to their compositions. I argue that the poets seek to flatter their mortal audiences by providing them with information deliberately withheld from mortal characters. Even further, the Hymns' narrators reveal to their mortal listeners information withheld from divine characters as well. The singer of one of the myths incorporated into Hymn to Apollo, for example, lets his audience know the trick about to be played on Apollo, thus allowing the usually terrifying god to be humiliated—much to the mortal audience's “delight.” I hone in especially on the Hymn to Hermes and argue that its poet subverts the type-casting deployed in the other Hymns' mythic scenes of epiphany at divine expense. I show how the narrator of the myth relayed in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, rather than leverage the type- (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2016, Sociology (Arts and Sciences)

This research draws on survey data gathered from 234 undergraduate students to understand if rape myths are still endorsed. Previous research shows that students in general are prone to endorse rape myths. The current study uses the theoretical framework of radical feminist theory to evaluate the extent to which students, both women and men, endorse rape myths, as well as to see if fraternity members and male intercollegiate athletes have higher endorsement rates of rape myth acceptance. The findings indicate that there is an overall disagreement with rape myths, but certain subscales and myths were more likely to be endorsed than others. Additionally, men were prone to higher endorsement rates than women. However, there was no significant difference in fraternity members' rape myth acceptance rates when compared to men who weren't fraternity members. Furthermore, there was not large enough of a sample to make a conclusion comparing male college athletes' myth acceptance rates to male non-athletes.

Master of Science in Criminal Justice, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Criminal Justice and Consumer Sciences

This study investigates the relationship between rape myth acceptance and demographic factors such as age, race, and gender among university students. A survey including the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance –Subtle Version Scale (IRMA-S) was administered to 144 students. Independent samples T-tests revealed some significant demographic differences. The findings highlight how rape myth acceptance varies across demographic groups based on gender, race, and age. These findings underscore the need for addressing the prevalence and predictors of rape myth acceptance among university students, which can contribute to the development of more effective interventions and support services for sexual assault victims on college campuses.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Classics

This work explores current scholarship on Christianity's role in shaping hierarchy, race, and science. Myth is used as a way of understanding how oppressive structures took root within the West, and helped create the concept of "the West." Finally, mermaids are introduced as a new figure of study within religion and the humanities. Mermaids, as they appear within the Christian West, reveal how the body is tied to humanity, and thus exemplify Christianity's role in creating race within the Western imagination.

Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, 2024, Journalism

Football is a fickle game. Men throw pads on and hit each other, for hours at a time. However, when you take the game away from the communities in Southeast Ohio, you see that football means much more than just a "game". When you strip away the game, you get stories of a man who rose from the 740 to national prominence, a story of a legacy forged on skulls, and coaching greatness passed down from father to son. That is the tale of Friday Night Legacies.

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 0, Psychology

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States and report experiencing high rates of discrimination. However, Asian Americans are inaccurately often considered to be “model minorities”. The combination of the model minority experience and associated cultural values of avoiding discord may be associated with variations in the ethnic-racial socialization of parents with their children. We recruited a sample of Asian American parents of children between the ages of 8 and 17 (N = 90) who completed questionnaires online. Results indicated that parental experience of racial microaggressions were positively associated with Preparation for Bias and Promotion of Mistrust of their child. Parental internalized model minority beliefs and internalizing symptoms were positively associated with child's Preparation for Bias and Cultural Socialization. Findings from this study suggest that the messages communicated to Asian American children through socialization play a role in the child's experiences of internalizing symptoms.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1965, English

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1958, English

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1958, English

PHD, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

The origination and application of a textual analysis of identity, identity formation, and perception of the self and the individual is, as a part of a specific time and space, something that is sociological in nature. The anthropological links between fiction and its sociological aspects highlight symbols of identity and interactions between the self, the other, and the individual. The end goal of this project's articulated theoretical model is to contribute to readings and analysis of the self and identity in different, othered spaces. This project works towards locating patterns and understanding that make the text and its underlying archetypal and mythological structures work so well with contemporary readers. It is grounded in the serious nature of contemporary storytelling as a part of the self, individual identity, and its place in society and culture. There is no shortage of specific work in literary analysis that relies on aspects of the hero's journey, the archetypes, and identity. This theoretical model of analysis adapts myth and C.G. Jung to incorporate much of this material into something cohesive and applicable to contemporary genre fiction. Because of this, this project necessitates the introduction of a definition of myth that situates contemporary genre texts as uniquely anthropological artifacts and as items worth analyzing and containing content capable of explicating overarching themes of the individual, the self, and the other in relation to identity formation in opposition. This new and adapted terminology from both myth and Jung assists in reorganizing a vocabulary that allows the analysis to delve into discussions on the creative representation of self, other, gender, sexual identity, the mind and body, transhumanism, and trans(inter)national identity, as well as help highlight how these representations are internalized or externalized by those who read these works of contemporary genre fiction and how these representations and internalizati (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

In this dissertation, A Black (Human)ist Homiletic: A Literary Exegetical Response and Hermeneutic Case Study about the Life and Experience of Prince Kaboo as Samuel Morris; the Angel Ebony, I courageously excavate the literary art of texts written about Samuel Morris through a series of exegetical tools in order to uncover extortion, exploitation, and the cunning sacrilegious exhibition that deprived Morris of his cultural identity behind a veil of Christianization. In this dissertation, I seek to affirm the "human worth and dignity" of Morris without a codependency on theism and provide viable evidence to reveal the mythomaniacal acts of white Christian antics. I argue that a decolonial humanist approach to the literary arts pertaining to the life of Samuel Morris, both material and metaphorical, (Pinn, 2010, p. 11)restores Morris from a TransAtlantic narrative under racial-religious identity that eradicates his human nature and intuitive rationality and reconciles his appropriate Black cultural property (Weisenfeld,2018, p. 5). The depiction of Morris in these synoptic compositions is a theological-aesthetic application interwoven with social and political ingenuity in order to respond to the time in which each text was born.

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

The responsive nature of architectural storytelling has equipped the built environment to mesh with its surroundings and to serve the current socio-cultural needs of the community that it is a part of. However, the story being told through the architecture is often the same story already being told through the culture, making it redundant and deprived of the imaginative qualities that such a monumental art form should have. Architecture needs to fit into the community, so we assign it a style. Architecture needs to be green, so we put a green roof and some solar panels on it. Architecture should be safe and accessible, so we govern it with code books. Culture calls and architecture responds.

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, 2019, Creative Writing/Poetry

Tender Alchemy is an exploration of how things can transform and rearrange themselves into something new. Within a series of poems, there is the re-telling, interrogation, and subversion of folklore that heavily relies on the vilification or submission of female spirits. Male imposition and female agency are seen through a lens of inhuman creatures depicted in human ways. Usually depicted as fickle, seductive, and malevolent, this collection offers a more nuanced look at aspects of these myths in hopes to provide a reprieve and defense of these creatures. Concerns for the natural world, working within Anthropocene philosophy, also makes notes on the inclusion and exclusion of humanity with nature while moving away from inherited language and romanticized scenes. The persona poems are utilized in a way to reclaim or re-imagine stories. The poetic exposition of this manuscript relies on a density of imagery, a clarity of voice, and, at times, an economic use of syntax. Unpunctuated poems allow negative capability to thrive as well as contributes delightful confusion and momentum. The variation of lineated and prose poems guides readers through tonal and thematic shifts along with hinting at a progression of emerging style. This collection takes notes from the alchemical representation of a person in three parts: Salt which represents the body, Mercury which represents the mind, and Sulfur which represents the spirit. The manuscript is organized in a way that poems are cohesive while maintaining relief from each other and providing a variety of effective styles. Salt contains poems that are concerned with the body and all of its joys and failings. Mercury, intentionally, boasts the most heavily concentrated amount of water poems and sees water not only as a shaping force of life but also a destructive power. It can wash away as easily as it can fall gently on a garden. Finally, Sulfur deals with the spirit. Sulfur addresses the themes stated above with additions of p (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2018, History

Through the analysis of the primary sources of Saint Patrick, Gildas, and Bede I will show how the different communities living within the British Isles utilized Christianity, as well as their Roman pasts, to formulate ethnic and cultural identities during the early Middle Ages for the purposes of differentiation and unification.

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, 2018, English

This thesis is comprised of short fiction ranging from four to eighty pages, inhabiting worlds as familiar to the reader as a suburban home and as alien as a magical, spirit-filled wasteland. I assembled this collection along three key thematic lines, the first being feelings of ambivalent motherhood. Characters in this collection come to terms with their pregnancy or reject it; they leave their families wondering if they should have had children at all; and they live in a liminal space where love is expected of them but not easy to procure. The second thematic concern present in many of these stories is grappling with mythology. In “Ithaca”, a young woman is introduced to a cosmic mythology by her aging employer. In “Investigation No. 5,” a family mythology is investigated as if it holds as much importance as one of the major world religions. Disillusionment with Judeo-Christian mythology is portrayed in “In the Pool,” and “Shoulder, Midrib, Neck” deals with the retelling of a Scottish myth. The final theme running through these stories is that of generational legacy: what a parent bequeaths to their children far beyond physical possessions. How is that legacy corrupted by the actions of the parent? How can a child fit themselves into the world, bearing these often-sordid gifts? Characters struggle with these questions in “Nomads,” “Shoulder, Midrib, Neck,” and the novella that ends the collection, “The Ballad of Baby MacCrae.” The novella is the story where all of these themes come back and braid together. The solitary narrator must grapple with the worldview she's been indoctrinated into by her aunt: pagan Celtic beliefs, Old Testament Christianity, and blood rituals. This novella concerns how a woman can bring a private mythology into the public world, and how she can make peace with the legacies that have been left to her.

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences

The purpose of this study was to examine whether scores of attitudes based on labels as measured by the Attitudes Toward Prostitutes and Prostitutions Scale (APPS) and the Attitudes Toward Trafficked Women and Sex Trafficking Scale (ATTS) and counselor attributes predicted scores of empathy on the Empathy Assessment Index (EAI) and scores of rape myth acceptance on the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale Short Form (IRMA-SF) in counselors. The participants in this study (N = 396) included licensed professional counselors (LPCs) and licensed professional clinical counselors (LPCCs) in Ohio. The results of this study found a difference on attitudes depending on whether "prostitute" or "sex trafficking" labels were used. The study also confirmed how attitudes based on labels and counselor demographics predicted empathy scores on the EAI and scores of rape myth acceptance on the IRMA. Within both APPS and ATTS groups, male counselors were more likely to accept rape myths compared to female counselors. The significance of this study's results illuminate the importance of avoiding stigmatizing labels within counseling, counselor education, and counselor supervision settings.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, East Asian Studies

Japan's eighth-century mythic texts, the Kojiki (712 CE) and the Nihon shoki (720 CE), share enough with other world myth systems and warrant their discussion in a broader theoretical context. Japanese myth, which cannot be limited to its religious, political, literary, or any other single intellectual or academic dimension, requires an interdisciplinary approach. Also, the significance of Japanese myth neither exists in the hypothetical mythic past nor is it restricted to the eighth century contexts of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. Its meaning extends from the past to the present in patterns of both continuity and change. People continue to invent, maintain, or deny Japanese myth's potential significances and perpetuate its authority as a form of discourse. Through analysis of recent scholarship on the myths of the goddess Ame no Uzume no Mikoto, as well as a detailed look at the eighth-century mythic texts, this thesis seeks to describe a microcosm of mythology in 21st century Japan that is unique and yet representative of modern myth scholarship. We find strong themes of resistance to Japan's wartime nationalism, sometimes contrasted with efforts to use myth in constructing a new Japanese identity – one that is either unique or situated it in its global context. These myths are especially associated with Japanese traditions and contain thematic elements that allow for speculation about notions of spirituality, sexuality, and gender. Now, as in most of history, the myths are an authoritative base from which scholars attempt to make statements about Japan historically and in the present.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Greek and Latin

This dissertation explores Euripides' use of the deus ex machina device in his extant plays. While many scholars have discussed aspects of the deus ex machina my project explores the overall function not only of the deus ex machina within its play but also the function of two other aspects common to deus ex machina speeches: aitia and prophecy. I argue that deus ex machina interventions are not motivated by a problem in the plot that they must solve but instead they are used to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience through use of cult aitia and prophecy. In Chapter 1, I provide an analysis of Euripides' deus ex machina scenes in the Hippolytus, Andromache, Suppliants, Electra, Ion, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, Orestes, Bacchae, and Medea. I argue that in all but the Orestes the intervention does not have a major effect on the plot or characters and I identify certain trends in the function of deus ex machina scenes such as consolation, enhancing Athenian pride, and increasing experimentation in the deus ex machina's role in respect to the plot of the play and the wider world of myth. In Chapter 2, I examine cult aitia in Euripides' Hippolytus and Iphigenia in Tauris and argue that Euripides uses cult aitia in plays with strong religious or cultic themes in order to connect the world of the play with the world of the audience through ritual. I also argue against the idea that there is perfect correspondence between the aitia represented in Euripides and real life cult practice instead contending that differences between the aitia in Euripides and our evidence for real cult practice may stem from Euripides referencing real cults but modifying certain aspects in order to better suit his literary motives. In Chapter 3, I examine Euripides' use of prophecy in his Electra, Helen, and Orestes. Using intertextuality and concepts from media studies I argue that Euripides uses prophecy to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Modernist literary movement was moving into what was arguably its peak, and authors we would now unquestioningly consider part of the Western literary canon were creating some of their greatest works. Coinciding with the more mainstream Modernist movement, there emerged a unique sub- genre of fiction on the pages of magazines with titles like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories. While modernist writers; including Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and T.S. Elliot – among others – were achieving acclaim for their works; in the small corner of unique weird fiction there was one eccentric, bookish writer who rose above his own peers: Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I would argue that within the works of Lovecraft there are glimpses of modernism. Lovecraft was aware of and wrote with an understanding of the concerns of the more mainstream literature of the Modernists, and he situated his narratives and stories within a modernist framework that reflected this. Most importantly, it is the way in which Lovecraft used science and religion, and blended myth with material culture, that Lovecraft most reflects modernist leanings. It's important to make the distinction that he is not part and parcel a Modernist, but he was influenced by, interacted with, and showed modernist tendencies. There is a subtlety to the argument being made here in that Lovecraft was not Joyce, he was not Elliot, he was most definitely not Hemingway, and his fiction was by no means what we would consider traditionally modernist. In 2005 he received inclusion in the Library of America series and, although this isn't an indicator or guarantee of inclusion in a large canon, the argument that he in no way had a discourse, awareness, or did not contribute to what would be more properly termed `Modernist' warrants consideration when properly situating Lovecraft within early-twentieth century lite (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Humanities (MHum), Wright State University, 2017, Humanities

This thesis is a survey of contemporary horror films from the perspective of fundamentalist American audiences. Using Judith Butler's work on gender performativity and religious studies scholarship as framework, I investigate how five visual texts perpetuate patriarchal family structures. The five texts I explore are The Last Exorcism (2010), The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring 2 (2016), The Witch: A New England Folk Tale (2015), and The Exorcist television series (2016). In each chapter, I analyze a key family member per patriarchal norms, and how violations of these norms contribute to the family's supernatural crisis. The figures I analyze for each text is The Weak Father, The Bad Mother, and The Unstable Daughter. The texts' shared, repetitious message implies that societal order can be (re)established once individuals adhere to fundamentalist patriarchal standards, reinforcing many scholars' conclusions that fundamentalist Christianity continues to be a pervasive, dominant force in American culture.