Doctor of Musical Arts, The Ohio State University, 2021, Music

Ulysses Kay (1917 – 1995) wrote his “Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra” as a graduate thesis in his last semester at the Eastman School of Music. After the premier performance, the assignment was never published. This prevented the work from becoming publicly available for the oboe players of today's time to study and perform. The purpose of this document is to offer a new, critical edition of Kay's Concerto and expand the available oboe concerto repertoire. Within this document is the history of Kay as a Black neoclassical composer followed by the historical background of the Concerto. An analysis of the Concerto as well as a detailing of the editorial process include the most important elements that were addressed in the preparation of the 2021 edition. This new edition is based on three editions of source material: two sets of unpublished manuscripts obtained from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University and an unpublished oboe part obtained from the Sibley Music Archives at the Eastman School of Music, a branch of the University of Rochester. In a time where diversity, equity, and inclusion are finally receiving the attention they need in the classical music world, resurfacing a work like Kay's oboe concerto is another step towards giving underrepresented composers the attention they deserve.

Committee: Robert Sorton (Advisor); Karen Pierson (Advisor); Caroline Hartig (Committee Member); Marc Ainger (Committee Member) Subjects: Music

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This thesis argues that modernist authors James Joyce and Virginia Woolf experimented with representing both the passage of time and nonhuman materialities and things in their works in order to present a more accurate and complete vision of life at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their literary experiments in representing quotidian life prompted these authors to thoughtfully consider how nonhuman materialities punctuate and structure the flow of modern life. The works of Joyce and Woolf respond to the historical event of the standardization of time in 1884, as local and private experiences of the passage of time continued to be superseded by global standardized time throughout the beginning of the twentieth century. Joyce and Woolf ultimately structure the the temporality of their works around an ecological temporality of things, effectively subverting a standardized structure of temporality, to demonstrate that the passage of time is not experienced uniformly by all materialities. Their works not only advocate for a continued legitimacy and value of alternate human experiences and understandings of the passage of time, but they also illuminate how nonhuman materialities exist and endure through time. Drawing from the work of new materialist scholars, this thesis investigates how Joyce's Ulysses and Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts represent the nonhuman and the material in the modern world, as well as how the nonhuman and the human experience a multiplicity of temporalities.

Committee: Ryan Hediger Ph.D. (Advisor); Kevin Floyd Ph.D. (Committee Member); Tammy Clewell Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Philosophy; Literature

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2014, East Asian Studies

In March 1879, Japan announced the end of the Ryukyu (Liuqiu) Kingdom and the establishment of Okinawa Prefecture in its place. For the previous 250 years, Ryukyu had been a quasi-independent tribute-sending state to Japan and China. Following the arrival of Western imperialism to East Asia in the 19th century, Japan reacted to the changing international situation by adopting Western legal standards and clarifying its borders in frontier areas such as the Ryukyu Islands. China protested Japanese actions in Ryukyu, though Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) leaders were not willing to go to war over the islands. Instead, Qing leaders such as Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) and Prince Gong (1833-1898) sought to resolve the dispute through diplomatic means, including appeals to international law, rousing global public opinion against Japan, and, most significantly, requesting the mediation of the United States and former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885). Initially, China hoped Grant's mediation would lead to a restoration of the previous arrangement of Ryukyu being a dually subordinate kingdom to China and Japan. In later negotiations, China sought a three-way division of the islands among China, Japan, and Ryukyu. Japan was opposed to allowing the Ryukyus to revert to their previous status, but after Grant's involvement proved willing to negotiate a compromise. This thesis argues that Qing China, possessing few other viable diplomatic strategies, looked to the United States and Grant to mediate the Ryukyu dispute because key leaders such as Li Hongzhang and Prince Gong perceived the United States to be a less aggressive, more "friendly" Western power with whom China could possibly align in its effort to stave off the loss of its tributaries on the frontiers of the Qing Empire. In addition to answering why China looked to Grant and the United States as a potentially favorable mediator in the dispute, this thesis also looks at how China approached Grant in requesting as (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher A. Reed PhD (Advisor); Robert McMahon PhD (Committee Member); Ying Zhang PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; History; International Relations

BA, Oberlin College, 1986, English

Between 1922 and 1924, Ezra Pound completed the first sixteen Cantos. He had published three Cantos in 1917, but suspended work on them shortly thereafter. It was not until 1922, after he had moved to Paris that he resumed work on the Cantos, piecing together what now stand as the first sixteen by the summer of 1924. This places the creation of Cantos I-XVI at the same time as the writing of Ulysses and "The Wasteland." Cantos XVII-XXVII were published in 1929. In July of 1922 Pound wrote of the first Cantos in a letter:The first 11 cantos are preparation of the palette. I have to get down all the colours or elements I want for the poem. Some perhaps too enigmatically and abbreviatedly. I hope, heaven help me, to bring them into some sort of design and architecture later. l Because these first cantos represent such a freshly prepared palette, they provide an excellent microcosm in which to examine the elements of Pound's art.Although Canto XVII was written later than the first sixteen, sometime between 1922 and 1928, it adheres so closely to them thematically and stylistically, in many ways tying elements of the first sixteen together, that studying it with I-XVI is helpful in gaining a glimpse of Pound's nascent "design and architecture."

Committee: John Hobbs (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

BA, Oberlin College, 1990, English

To locate Gravity's Rainbow as a postmodern text within modernist discourse is probably sort of an odd thing. Obviously, the books' thematic depictions of linguistic colonialism and discourse of control (capitalism), suggest the inscription of power relations into formulations of truth and rationality, and a postmodern analysis of discursive operations and hierarchies. Yet, I want to stress here the ways in which we have been oriented to access and reproduce the text through modernist discourse.

Committee: Pat Day (Advisor) Subjects: Literature

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2002, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature

This dissertation consists of two parts: a collection of original poetry entitled Home Truths, and a critical essay entitled "Exploring Technical Difficulties: A Reader's Negotiation with the Stylistic Innovations of Ulysses, Episode 12." Home Truths, a four-part sequence of lyric and narrative poems, is based on people and events in the author's family. Part I records the author's memories of conflict between his father and members of his mother's family. Part II, based on letters and photographs, documents the decisions which led to the conflict, while Parts III and IV attempt an imaginative reconstruction of the events themselves, as well as the central characters' responses to them. The principal theme of the poems is the gap between received cultural roles and lived experience - gaps which are filled, not always successfully, by the improvising of new roles and responses. In addition, since the crucial events took place before the author was born, his effort to posit and examine a web of likely (but never verifiable) circumstances, misunderstandings, and emotions, becomes an important subsidiary theme of the sequence. The article, "Experiencing Technical Difficulties," discusses the technical innovations of Ulysses, Episode 12, specifically exploring the implications for the novel (and for its readers) of the alternation between first-person narration and the numerous parodic set-pieces.

Committee: Dr. Don Bogen (Advisor) Subjects: Fine Arts; Literature, Modern

BA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

James Joyce wrote Ulysses during a period when time and history carried political importance, especially in Ireland. This study examines the imposition of Greenwich Mean Time on Dublin, Ireland, and the forces that have controlled Ireland's history, namely England and the Catholic Church. By studying Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, one witnesses the temporal and historical struggles taking place within individual characters in Joyce's 1904 Dublin. While time and history create obstacles for Joyce's characters, Stephen and Bloom use their active memories as creative forces to help regain their autonomy and identity.

Committee: Claire Culleton PhD (Advisor); Kevin Floyd PhD (Committee Member); Valerie McGowan-Doyle PhD (Committee Member); Elizabeth Howard PhD (Committee Member); Victoria Bocchicchio (Other) Subjects: European History; History; Literature; Modern Literature

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2012, English

The “Cyclops” and “Nestor” episodes in James Joyce‟s novel Ulysses are filled with allusions to the First World War. Written shortly after the war ended in 1918, Joyce‟s satiric portrait of Irish society serves as a microcosm of the entire western world before the outbreak of war in 1914. The references to nationalism, militarism, and racism foreshadow how historians would interpret the period. The chapter is a conflict between the irrational forces of society (the citizen) and the rational (Bloom). The debate between the rationale and irrational is an ongoing theme in Ulysses that first appears in "Nestor" in the discussion between Stephen Dedalus and Mr. Deasley. My thesis will go deeper into the text and make connections between the historical allusions in the chapter and later scholarship on the time period. My primary argument is that “Cyclops” is a remarkably accurate window into Europe before the First World War.

Committee: Katy Marre PhD (Committee Chair); John McCombe PhD (Committee Member); Andrew Slade PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Literature