Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, English

A thesis analyzing the patriarchal theology of John Milton's Paradise Lost, especially how it relates to free will and the justification of Milton's God. Milton's argument is that his God is justified in punishing humanity after the Fall because he created Adam and Eve with free will and they chose to disobey his directive. My main argument is that Milton's God is not justified in all his ways, because he declines to grant all of his creatures a truly free will, especially Eve. This thesis also considers the difference between an author's intent with their text and the reader's interpretation. Specifically, I explore deriving meaning from within the text itself, following Milton's intent to justify his God; I show how Milton does this. Then, in chapter 2, I derive meaning from outside of the text; I show that Milton fails in his goal. Ultimately, this thesis explores the dangers of patriarchal theology and the damage it causes, mainly relating to women.

Committee: Beth Quitslund (Advisor) Subjects: Gender; Literature; Religion; Theology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, Geography

Maps are critical tools, useful for place-marketers to frame tourists' perceptions of a place. Using maps to communicate spatial information, place-marketers frame perceptions by controlling the content and design of the map. The experience with maps is particularly crucial for visitors, who do not interact with the place on a daily basis and therefore are not intimately connected and need information to help them be aware of their surroundings. This research project aims to elaborate on how place-marketers limit the discourse surrounding the Las Vegas Strip. Las Vegas draws millions of tourists from around the world each year, with a diverse portfolio of recreational activities. Using discourse analysis, this research analyzed a series of maps to identify extent, scale, and distortion to help identify the tactics place-marketers use. By re-contextualizing the cartographic representations with data compiled by the USGS and the Nevada Gaming Control Board, this project exposes the selectivity techniques employed by place-marketers. The research findings indicate that, despite maps of varying extent and information, the framing of the Las Vegas Strip is spatially limited, feeding partial perspectives about Las Vegas. These limited perceptions reduce a complex and nuanced place to a narrowly-focused tourist environment.

Committee: Damon Scott (Advisor); David Prytherch (Committee Member); Susan Jakubowski (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2018, English

This thesis largely relies on comparative and textual analyses of/between John Milton's Paradise Lost and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, with specific attention paid to Milton's Satan and Nabokov's Humbert Humbert in order to simultaneously argue for the poem's influence on Lolita and to define through example a new satanic archetype or lens through which to read works following Paradise Lost's publication.

Committee: Matthew Stallard PhD (Advisor) Subjects: American Literature; British and Irish Literature

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of the Arts / School of Art

Throughout history, the story of Adam and Eve and the lost land of Eden has played a major role in the West on attitudes towards gender, sexuality, temptation and deceit. Visual spectacles of Adam and Eve could be found in nearly every cathedral by the 15th and 16th centuries across western Europe. The events from Genesis 1-3 were displayed within several illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages and even commissioned narratives for personal art during the latter half of the Renaissance. The works discussed in this thesis span from mosaics, painting, sculpture, and relief, to woodcuts and engravings. The artists and works mentioned have been examined and appropriated to the conventions and exegeses of the early Church fathers as well as the viewpoints of several western theologians. Through careful analysis, this study focuses on the detail, placement, and activeness of Adam, Eve, God and the evil serpent found within the images discussed. By taking a closer look at these powerful images from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the attitudes of the Church, patron and artist can be observed and interpreted.

Committee: Gustav Medicus PhD (Advisor); Diane Scillia PhD (Committee Member); John-Michael Warner PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2015, English

Whether viewed as an attempt from a pious man to rationalize the acts of God or an exploration of free will, Milton's Paradise Lost has cycled through diverging, occasionally contradictory, readings since its publication nearly 400 years ago. A sizeable portion of the poem's complexity lies in the manner in which it chooses to depict God, who is split into the characters of The Father and The Son, and and the Devil. The most notorious figure in Milton's ouvre, Milton's Satan stands apart from former depictions of the Devil in its unapologetic identification with the fallen angel's goals and desires. This, paired with a God that is noticeably less merciful than is traditionally depicted, gives rise to unsettling questions regarding the nature of Christianity and the mind of a poet who would write such a work in a time when, even amongst growing heterodoxy, certain components of Christian faith were considered unshakable truths. The route that I have taken to solve this incongruity is to divorce the text from its source material and view it as something other than just an expression of religious devotion or theological study. Drawing extensively from Milton's life, historical predicament and political tracts, this reading views the text as an expression of political disillusionment, an examination of the act of revolt from a man who had passionately supported a doomed revolution.

Committee: Beth Quitslund (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Literature

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2015, English

In this thesis, I will examine questions of storytelling in two works of contemporary American literature: Toni Morrison's Paradise and Karen Russell's Swamplandia! I will look not only at the power that stories hold over the individual, but also at their ability to transform or restrict a community. Both of these novels focus on isolated communities as microcosms for the politics of the larger country. How do narratives the characters tell about the past shape a community's present? Issues of identity—of race, class, gender, age, and other forms of marginality—necessarily come into play in the ways that these narratives actively shape the dynamics of belonging. How do those on the margins interact with their communities's self-narrative, the story of the group? Are they forever limited by the story their elders offer up, or are they able to create new stories for themselves? And in creating those new stories, should they (or can they) mine and revise old stories, or is it better to begin anew? My thesis suggests that these are pressing questions and that the answers depend on each individual case; however, I hope to show that paying attention to these issues of community construction through narrative forces us to confront our understanding of the work that myths do.

Committee: Thom Dancer (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2014, English

Abstract Paradise Lost and Hamlet are preoccupied with the performance of the self. These works contain deceptive characters, each obsessed with the performance of their ambitions. Milton and Shakespeare are interested in exploring how performance affects an individual consumed by thwarted ambition. Milton and Shakespeare scholars state that the works are allusions to performance. These works are similar because Satan and Hamlet are consumed by thwarted ambition. I argue that these characters perform their ambitions. Their acts reveal that they use carefully crafted performances of the self, as they strive to portray a particular role to fulfill their goals. However, Satan and Hamlet play different roles. Satan acts like a king, performing his desire to defeat the Son by asserting himself as a powerful leader. Hamlet acts like a fool, concealing his ambitious plan of revenge using his antic disposition. The roles Satan and Hamlet play conflict with their sense of self. Satan is not a powerful leader, but an individual consumed by thwarted ambition. Hamlet purposely conceals his sanity using his antic disposition. I provide a close reading of three scenes that analyzes Satan and Hamlet's ambitious acts. Abdiel's confrontation of Satan is similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's questioning of Hamlet. Abdiel challenges Satan's argument by performing his dutiful obedience to God. In turn, his act exposes Satan's ambitious disposition. Hamlet reveals Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's motives as they spy. Further complicating this argument, Satan's performance shifts when he is alone on Mt. Niphates. Satan drops his act, revealing his deep despair. I assert that my reading of these scenes reveals the carefully crafted performances of the self Satan and Hamlet use as they perform their ambitions.

Committee: Andrew Mattison (Advisor); Melissa Gregory (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2006, College-Conservatory of Music : Piano

Martin Bresnick, b. 1946, is Professor of Composition at Yale University. His diverse output includes film music, computer music, chamber compositions, choral scores, and orchestral works. For The Sexes: The Gates of Paradise (1998) is a thirty-one minute piece featuring solo piano in partnership with an identically named William Blake work. Blake featured poetry and his own engravings in his 1818 illustrated book: the modern version weaves piano solo with a DVD adaptation of the Blake works, both visual and literary. Adding a further dimension, Bresnick asks the pianist to double as singer, evoking Blake's untrained voice as he sang his own poetry. This partnership of voice, piano, projection, and poetry follows many other important developments in the field of multi-media composition, dating to Richard Wagner's 1849 conception of “Gesamtkunstwerke,” or “Total art-work.” Since that time Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage, Sergei Prokofiev, and Erich Korngold, among others, have been notable in their fusion of music with other elements including colored light, dance, and film. This document traces the history of multi-media work, paying particular attention to collaborations between music and film. Next, owing a great debt to the work of Nicholas Cook, it establishes a framework for the evaluation of multi-media composition, evoking a linguistic term called the “Metaphor Model” first developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The document then explores the backgrounds of the two chief contributors to the work, William Blake and Martin Bresnick. Next, the document evaluates Martin Bresnick's music, tracing antecedents and influences, finally exploring how the music relates with textual and visual elements.

Committee: Dr. Robert Zierolf (Advisor) Subjects: Music

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, African-American and African Studies

"Towards a New Black Nation: Space, Place, Citizenship and Imagination" is a project dedicated to examining the ways in which race, geography, and politics intersect to create a sovereign space in visual art and popular media for African Americans to imagine full citizenship. By examining black politics and black nation building through these various lenses, I argue that African Americans use popular media and visual art as channels to acquire access to citizenship rights. With the disappearance of a visible black political movement, black Americans have innovatively used these channels to create an alternative space to deploy Black Nationalism and construct a black nation. I call this space the New Black Nation. Particularly, this project focuses on the viability of the Imagined South, a U.S. South that is dehistoricized, southernized, and recreated as a perfect melding of rural and urban culture, as a home for the New Black Nation. "Towards a New Black Nation: Space, Place, Citizenship and Imagination" interrogates black gender politics and the performance of black male sexuality in this New Black Nation located in the Imagined South. In order to engage this New Black Nation, "Towards a New Black Nation: Space, Place,Citizenship and Imagination" weaves together a discursive reading of Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married, the work of Tom Joyner of the nationally syndicated program, the Tom Joyner Morning Show, and various representations of black nonheteronormative bodies that exist (though not wholly) within the black nation.

Committee: Simone Drake PhD (Advisor); Rebecca Wanzo PhD (Committee Member); James Upton PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, English

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how the idea of religious toleration was represented in early modern English polemical prose, poetry, and other literary genres. I argue that religious toleration extends from what is permissible in spiritual practice and belief, to what is permissible in print, and texts on religious toleration encouraged writers to contemplate the status of the discourse to which they contributed. Although the study begins and ends with analysis of two authors whose writings on toleration have received extensive critical attention, this dissertation also applies the latest theoretical framework for understanding religious toleration to writers whose contribution to the literature of toleration has previously been less well documented. Thomas More's Utopia (1516) outlines an ideal state with apparently progressive institutions and social practices, including property shared in common, abolition of the monetary system, and religious toleration. Contrary to the view of previous criticism, however, the image of a tolerant society in More's Utopia is unlike the modern ideal of toleration as a foundational principal of modern pluralism. Although More also argued against toleration of heresy in his later polemical works, he engaged with the concept of toleration to contemplate the efficacy of the dialogue as a persuasive tool. Most importantly, More developed the ideal of polemical toleration, which held that participants in a debate should create a textual space characterized by moderately-toned language and the suspension of judgment for the time it takes to persuade and ultimately convert one's opponent. As this study shows, More's works reveal greater ambivalence towards polemical toleration than they do towards religious toleration of the heretical sects he so despised. This study also analyzes the role of religious toleration in John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563-1583). Foxe's work has traditionally been received as a polarizing sta (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John King PhD (Advisor); Christopher Highley PhD (Committee Member); Luke Wilson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: English literature

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2008, English (Arts and Sciences)

This dissertation mainly consists of a modernized edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost that is abundantly annotated with Biblical references. The editorial preface outlines the methods used for arriving at these annotations, the rationale for editorial decisions, and a discussion of the Biblical translations consulted. Lastly, this work includes a critical essay that engages how Milton's choices between various translations of the Bible and his depiction of the Holy Spirit in Paradise Lost reveal his disposition toward the Trinity doctrine.

Committee: Andrew Escobedo PhD (Committee Chair); Beth Quitslund PhD (Committee Member); Jeremy Webster PhD (Committee Member); Robert Ingram PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Bible; Clergy; English literature; History; Judaic Studies; Language; Language Arts; Literature; Philosophy; Religion; Religious Congregations; Religious Education; Religious History; Theology

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2007, Music Composition

Transcendence toward Paradiseis a thirteen-minute, five-movement piece for mezzo-soprano, flute, harp, and viola. The selected text was excerpted from an Italian sonnet written by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), which was set in its original language. William Wordsworth provided a beautiful poetic translation, which I chose to guide my text setting. Dolce e ben quella in un pudico core, che per cangiar di scorza o d'ora estrema non manca, e qui caparra il paradiso. In chaste hearts uninfluenced by the power of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, that breathes on earth the air of paradise. The text appears in its entirety only in the last movement, with earlier movements exploring a gradual reconstruction of the text from its component parts. To accomplish this, the text was deconstructed into various syllables represented in the score with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The first movement's text contains only the shortest durations of syllables, denoting the highest level of text abstraction. As each subsequent movement progresses, the abstract syllables gradually merge together and expand to form words and phrases of the text. The thematic material for Transcendence toward Paradiseoriginates from the fifth movement of the piece. Salient characteristics from the last movement were shaped into variations based upon these features, which also reflect the evolving characteristics of the text setting. This was accomplished through variation techniques including motivic and rhythmic deconstruction, augmentation, diminution, and registral displacement, among others.

Committee: Elainie Lillios (Advisor) Subjects: Music

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, American Culture Studies/Popular Culture

Academic scholarship traditionally approached disco by establishing its cultural relevance through a mainstream/underground binary that automatically mapped onto connections to LGBT identity politics. Often, these studies failed to adequately explore the embodied experiences of disco dancers within the club environment, focusing instead on textual analyses of music, linear histories of disco's development, or the perspectives of disc-jockeys (DJs) and club owners on disco experience. By exploring the ways in which this binary is constructed, this project argued that both the mainstream/underground binary and the reliance on LGBT identity politics missed the important subcultural elements that constructed unique cultural institutions within urban spaces. These subcultural elements were the relationships between the dancers, the DJ, and the club atmosphere/space. This project applied a secondary textual analysis approach, inspired by phenomenological methodology, to a collection of memories of dancers at the Paradise Garage in order to point towards the important experiential aspects that defined dancing within this specific club, identifying three themes as central to dancer's experience of the Paradise Garage: entering and arriving at the Paradise Garage; dancing and atmosphere; and community. Throughout these three themes, a fourth theme emerged as important to the dancers' experiences: escapism/transcendence. From this point, this project synthesized a variety of theoretical texts in order to point towards a potential queer politics embedded within the experience of dancing at a disco club, drawing on the contradictions inherent to hypermodernity, queer constructions of time, and the liberatory potential of affective escapism.

Committee: Susana Peña PhD (Advisor); Robert Sloane (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Dance; Gender; Glbt Studies; Music