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- Title
- "TRULY AN AWESOME SPECTACLE": GENDER PERFORMATIVITY AND THE ALIENATION EFFECT IN ANGELS IN AMERICA.
- Creator
-
Gorney, Allen, Campbell, James, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Tony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America uses stereotypical depictions of gay men to deconstruct traditional gender dichotomies. In this thesis, I argue that Kushner has created a continuum of gender performativity to deconstruct these traditional gender dichotomies, thereby empowering the effeminate and disempowering the masculine. I closely examine Kushner's use of Brechtian and Aristotelian tenets in the first Broadway production of the play to demonstrate that Kushner sought to...
Show moreTony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America uses stereotypical depictions of gay men to deconstruct traditional gender dichotomies. In this thesis, I argue that Kushner has created a continuum of gender performativity to deconstruct these traditional gender dichotomies, thereby empowering the effeminate and disempowering the masculine. I closely examine Kushner's use of Brechtian and Aristotelian tenets in the first Broadway production of the play to demonstrate that Kushner sought to induce social awareness of gay male oppression, contingent on the audience's perception of Kushner's deconstruction of the traditional gender dichotomy. I also scrutinize the role of the closet and its implications in the play, primarily analyzed with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theoretical framework, suggesting Kushner's partiality to openly gay men who can actively participate in the cessation of gay male oppression.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- CFE0000901, ucf:46731
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000901
- Title
- WHEN THE CLOCKS STRIKE THIRTEEN: POLITICAL REPRESSION IN MODERN AMERICA (1990-2015).
- Creator
-
Begani, Faiza, Knuckey, Jonathan, Sadri, Houman A., University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Abounding acts of repression committed in democracies have continued to be overlooked and under-analyzed by many researchers and scholars due to "democratic exceptionalism". As the United States enters yet another consecutive year of declining political satisfaction and freedom. It has become pertinent that as conflict study researchers, scholars, and readers alike that there is a basic understanding of coercion including acts that have been committed within our own countries. Countless...
Show moreAbounding acts of repression committed in democracies have continued to be overlooked and under-analyzed by many researchers and scholars due to "democratic exceptionalism". As the United States enters yet another consecutive year of declining political satisfaction and freedom. It has become pertinent that as conflict study researchers, scholars, and readers alike that there is a basic understanding of coercion including acts that have been committed within our own countries. Countless scholars have focused conflict study research on underdeveloped or emerging democracies, yet many have overlooked the seamy side of developed ones. This article aims to explain the relationship between the United States and state-sponsored repression from the 1990s to 2015. In hopes to better understand how variables like economic, social, and political vulnerabilities as well as race and sex influence repressive trends in the United States. In addition, this article hopes to extend the scope of conflict study research by including mass incarceration as a form of repression that has been used to control not only dissent but also satisfy the needs of elites to maintain a present state of affairs. This article tests various hypothesis to understand how repression continues to function in modern American society.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFH2000410, ucf:45899
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000410
- Title
- A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MEDICAL AND LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF SHELL SHOCK, 1914-50.
- Creator
-
Das, Madison, Kane, Louise, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis explores shell shock--a common but misunderstood disorder seen in soldiers of World War One--through a Medical Humanities framework. Chapter 1 conducts a traditional medical review of scientific articles published on the pathology, symptoms, and treatment of shell shock between 1914-50. Chapter 2 builds upon this by offering a literary reading of Rebecca West's novel, The Return of the Soldier, which was published as the war drew to a close in 1918. The reading of West draws upon...
Show moreThis thesis explores shell shock--a common but misunderstood disorder seen in soldiers of World War One--through a Medical Humanities framework. Chapter 1 conducts a traditional medical review of scientific articles published on the pathology, symptoms, and treatment of shell shock between 1914-50. Chapter 2 builds upon this by offering a literary reading of Rebecca West's novel, The Return of the Soldier, which was published as the war drew to a close in 1918. The reading of West draws upon the medical research detailed in Chapter 1 to offer new conclusions about Chris's shell shock. The thesis shows how taking an interdisciplinary approach to shell shock enables the development of new perspectives of and approaches to shell shock, its history and significance, and its links to present-day mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFH2000543, ucf:45655
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000543
- Title
- OPTIMAL INVESTMENT STRATEGIES USING MULTI-PROPERTY COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE: ANALYSIS OF PRE/POST HOUSING BUBBLE.
- Creator
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Kundiger, Kyle, Frye, Melissa, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This paper analyzes theperformance of five commercial real estate property types (office, retail, industrial, apartment, and hotel) between 2000 and 2012 to determine the U.S. housing crisis'simpact on Real Estate investing. Under the concept of Modern Portfolio Theory, the data was analyzed using investment analysis programs to determine correlation, risk/return characteristics, and trade-offs (Sharpe ratio) as well as the optimal allocation among the individual property types. In light of...
Show moreThis paper analyzes theperformance of five commercial real estate property types (office, retail, industrial, apartment, and hotel) between 2000 and 2012 to determine the U.S. housing crisis'simpact on Real Estate investing. Under the concept of Modern Portfolio Theory, the data was analyzed using investment analysis programs to determine correlation, risk/return characteristics, and trade-offs (Sharpe ratio) as well as the optimal allocation among the individual property types. In light of the results, each property type plays a different role in investment strategies in various economic cycles. Some assets are attractive solely based onpotential return, or risk for return tradeoffs; however, through diversification, other property types play valuable roles in hedging risk on investors' target returns.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFH0004296, ucf:44935
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004296
- Title
- Conflict and Modernity in New South Florida's Phosphate Mines, 1900-1930.
- Creator
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Orr, Terrell, Cassanello, Robert, Foster, Amy, Dandrow, Edward, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis places Florida's phosphate industry in the context of the New South and the state's fitful emergence into modernity. Historian Paul Ortiz has identified a long trend of (")Florida exceptionalism(") (-) the idea that Florida has been exempt from the conflicts characteristic of the New South. These conflicts are rooted in racial violence and inconsistent industrialization, which resulted in lagging wages, labor struggles, overproduction crises and sporadic capital investment. These...
Show moreThis thesis places Florida's phosphate industry in the context of the New South and the state's fitful emergence into modernity. Historian Paul Ortiz has identified a long trend of (")Florida exceptionalism(") (-) the idea that Florida has been exempt from the conflicts characteristic of the New South. These conflicts are rooted in racial violence and inconsistent industrialization, which resulted in lagging wages, labor struggles, overproduction crises and sporadic capital investment. These Southern trends are likewise rooted in a national narrative of modernization, despite a tendency to consider the New South as in some sense outside of modernity. I argue that Florida has not been exempt from the conflicts characteristic of the New South or of modernity, and that the phosphate industry between 1900 and 1930 strikingly demonstrates these conflicts. Florida phosphate mining was one of the most capitalized and developed industries in Florida during these years; yet it has received essentially no attention from historians working in the relevant historiographies of labor, race, mining technology and political economy. In placing the industry into these contexts, the thesis proceeds analytically rather than narratively, making the argument by examining the industry from three distinct, but interrelated, perspectives, posed at increasing levels of generality: first, examining labor conflict and interracial organization in the industry; second, examining competitive pressures and technological change and third, examining the industry's vertical integration into the national fertilizer market.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006157, ucf:51126
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006157
- Title
- Sexism and Women: The Implications of Female Gender Resentment.
- Creator
-
Regnier-Bachand, Christine, Pollock, Philip, Vieux, Andrea, Ilderton, Nathan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Do women suffer from a societal Stockholm Syndrome which leads them to display high levels of modern and traditional sexist behavior? Does a woman's level of modern or traditional sexist behavior influence her political choices? Female gender resentment and sexist biases are an understudied area of the extant literature on sexism. Typically the focus is placed on men's sexist attitudes and treatment of women, but is it possible that women also contribute to the subordination of their gender...
Show moreDo women suffer from a societal Stockholm Syndrome which leads them to display high levels of modern and traditional sexist behavior? Does a woman's level of modern or traditional sexist behavior influence her political choices? Female gender resentment and sexist biases are an understudied area of the extant literature on sexism. Typically the focus is placed on men's sexist attitudes and treatment of women, but is it possible that women also contribute to the subordination of their gender through sexist practices? These are questions which this thesis attempts to answer. The findings indicate that working women under the age of 39 are more likely to display modern sexist behavior and that female homemakers under the age of 39 display high levels of traditionally sexist behavior. These attitudes carry over into the political decision making processes and have a negative impact on whether a woman would be likely to support a female presidential candidate.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005873, ucf:50854
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005873
- Title
- POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF MEDICINAL PLANT USE IN RURAL NEPAL: GLOBALIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION, AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION.
- Creator
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Dovydaitis, Emily, Vajravelu, Rani, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Prior to the advent of biomedicine, rural communities in Nepal relied on phytochemically active compounds in medicinal plants as their primary source of medicine; however, ethnobotanical practices have shifted over time due to economic, environmental, and sociocultural stimuli. Findings from 2016 fieldwork conducted in Dumrikharka, Nepal and Tutung, Nepal are compared to existing literature to describe the political ecology of medicinal plants in rural Nepal. Anthropogenic climate change...
Show morePrior to the advent of biomedicine, rural communities in Nepal relied on phytochemically active compounds in medicinal plants as their primary source of medicine; however, ethnobotanical practices have shifted over time due to economic, environmental, and sociocultural stimuli. Findings from 2016 fieldwork conducted in Dumrikharka, Nepal and Tutung, Nepal are compared to existing literature to describe the political ecology of medicinal plants in rural Nepal. Anthropogenic climate change threatens individual plant species and ecosystem biodiversity. Globalized markets unabated by weak conservation programs place increasing demands on medicinal plants. As indigenous plants become overharvested and more difficult to access, Nepalis incorporate non-indigenous plants into the local pharmacopeia. Novel use of non-indigenous plants illustrates both the dynamic, resilient nature of traditional medicine systems and a loss of biodiversity. Social changes, including outmigration to other countries, notions of modernity, and preference for pharmaceutical drugs, reduce potential candidates to learn and preserve ethnobotanical knowledge. Waterborne pathogens caused by inadequate sanitation infrastructure continue to endanger Nepali populations. The dearth of clinical facilities throughout rural areas, when coupled with the decline ethnobotanical knowledge and traditional healers, poses a gap in healthcare jeopardizing vulnerable, marginalized populations. These factors reinforce the unequal distribution of resources in one of the world's poorest countries, buttressing power inequalities and economic inequities.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFH2000240, ucf:46008
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000240
- Title
- HENRY JAMES, VIRGINIA WOOLF, AND FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: INTERIORITY, CONSCIOUSNESS, TIME, AND SPACE IN THE MODERNIST NOVEL AND THE HOME.
- Creator
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Michaelsen, Carol, Smith, Ernest, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
During the Modernist period, generally defined between the years 1890 and 1945, artists were attempting to break away from previous forms and styles. For example, writers like Henry James and Virginia Woolf sought to change the novel by exploring the consciousness of characters, while playing with the ideas of time and space to create the present moment. The thesis explores the modernist techniques used by James and Woolf, but also connects the work of the writers with the architecture of...
Show moreDuring the Modernist period, generally defined between the years 1890 and 1945, artists were attempting to break away from previous forms and styles. For example, writers like Henry James and Virginia Woolf sought to change the novel by exploring the consciousness of characters, while playing with the ideas of time and space to create the present moment. The thesis explores the modernist techniques used by James and Woolf, but also connects the work of the writers with the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Using Joseph Frank's theory of spatial form, my work explores the similarities between Wright's designs of private residences with the design of space in the novel. All three artists, I argue, are working with spatial form, blending interior with exterior, to provide the reader and the dweller with the opportunity to experience an organic unity, which ultimately results in a freezing of the moment. In addition to Frank's theory, I also incorporate Stanley Fish and Reader Response theory and William James's Principles of Psychology. The reader and the dweller must actively engage with the structure, whether a text or the home, to develop and realize the possibilities of spatial form. Also, William James's ideas about the mind and consciousness influenced Henry James and Virginia Woolf, especially in their focus on character, rather than description. I have chosen James's The Turn of the Screw and The Wings of the Dove along with Woolf's To the Lighthouse and The Waves to study with Wright's Prairie and Usonian residences. Each chapter looks at one novel and Wright's corresponding work during approximately the same time period. By connecting literature and architecture, the thesis provides new ways of thinking about the two disciplines, especially concerning interiority and consciousness. James, Woolf, and Wright are all experimenting with time and space to create a unified experience, and the striking parallels between their work deserves more attention.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001280, ucf:46925
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001280
- Title
- GENDERED VIRTUE: A STUDY OF ITS MEANING AND EVOLUTION IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE.
- Creator
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Saad, Mariela, Trinquet du Lys, Charlotte, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Virtue in early modern France was a broad concept considered by clergymen, philosophers, and moralists as an instrument for measuring and implementing human ethics. This unprecedented research seeks to track the development of the notion of virtue from a gendered and dichotomous notion to a unique and undivided term. The word virtue is constantly present in French texts such as manuels de conduite1 , since the medieval period. Thus, it can be regarded as one of the most significant concepts...
Show moreVirtue in early modern France was a broad concept considered by clergymen, philosophers, and moralists as an instrument for measuring and implementing human ethics. This unprecedented research seeks to track the development of the notion of virtue from a gendered and dichotomous notion to a unique and undivided term. The word virtue is constantly present in French texts such as manuels de conduite1 , since the medieval period. Thus, it can be regarded as one of the most significant concepts defining genders in Western civilization. However, it is difficult for modern readers to grasp the complexity of the debate unless it is explained through its socio-historical and cultural implications regarding gender behavior. What is the author referring to when he/she uses the word virtue? Is it chastity for women, strength for men, or just the achievement of the highest moral standard? What are the social implications of virtue? Through an inter and multidisciplinary study involving literature, religion, philosophy, folklore, women and gender studies, and sociology, this cutting-edge research revolves around the literary analysis of conduct manuals, plays, novels and treatises, from the middle ages to the 18th century. Its objective is to map the evolution of the notion of virtue by evidencing social fluctuation of gender differences and conceptualizing our western civilization through the lenses of its moral discourse.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFH2000146, ucf:45983
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000146
- Title
- 'NO HOME HERE': FEMALE SPACE AND THE MODERNIST AESTHETIC IN NELLA LARSEN'S QUICKSAND AND SYLVIA PLATH'S THE BELL JAR.
- Creator
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Cherinka, Julianna N, Mathes, Carmen Faye, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In her 1929 essay "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf famously asserts that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" (4). This concept places an immediate importance on the role of the Modernist female subject as an artist and as an architect, constructing the places and spaces that she exists within. With Woolf's argument as its point of departure, this thesis investigates the theme of female space in two Modernist texts: Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928)...
Show moreIn her 1929 essay "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf famously asserts that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction" (4). This concept places an immediate importance on the role of the Modernist female subject as an artist and as an architect, constructing the places and spaces that she exists within. With Woolf's argument as its point of departure, this thesis investigates the theme of female space in two Modernist texts: Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963). The respective protagonists of Quicksand and The Bell Jar, Helga Crane and Esther Greenwood, each undertake journeys to obtain spaces that are purely their own. However, this thesis positions each space that Helga and Esther occupy as both male-constructed and male-dominated in order to address the inherent gendering of space and its impact on the development of feminine identities. This thesis focuses specifically on the roles of the mother, the muse, and the female mentor, tracking the spaces in which Helga and Esther begin to adhere to these roles. Expanding on Lauren Berlant's theory of cruel optimism, this thesis will use the term "cruel femininity" to support its intervening claim that the respective relationships that Helga and Esther each have with their own feminine identities begin to turn cruel as they internalize the male-dominated spatial structures surrounding them. Overall, this thesis argues that there is no space in existence where Helga and Esther can realize their full potential as human beings, as long as the spatial structures within their communities continue to be controlled by hegemonic, patriarchal beliefs.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFH2000412, ucf:45708
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000412
- Title
- POLITICAL ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY.
- Creator
-
Browne-Michael, Mikellon S, Sadri, Houman A., University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The Middle East is a predominately Islamic region. Islam is not only a religion, it is the Muslim way of life and law. The western world follows a more modern system of government, in the form of democracy. Democracy is not modern, as in new, since it was started by the ancient Greeks, but it is modern, because it is the main system being adopted in contemporary times. Muslims follow the ideals found in the Holy Quran, the book dictated by the prophet Muhammad. The Middle East has had a...
Show moreThe Middle East is a predominately Islamic region. Islam is not only a religion, it is the Muslim way of life and law. The western world follows a more modern system of government, in the form of democracy. Democracy is not modern, as in new, since it was started by the ancient Greeks, but it is modern, because it is the main system being adopted in contemporary times. Muslims follow the ideals found in the Holy Quran, the book dictated by the prophet Muhammad. The Middle East has had a strong Islamic influence since the mid-seventh century. Islam originated in Mecca in 610 C.E. About twelve years later, in 622 C.E., after much persecution in Mecca, Muslims migrated to Medina. This was in 622 C.E. and it marked the start of the Muslim calendar. Soon, by 655 C.E., Islam had begun spreading over the regions along the Mediterranean Sea, Arabian Peninsula, Asia, and Africa. This research will span the political systems from pre-Ottoman, to Ottoman, to the Modern era. The beginning of the modern Middle East is marked by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the end of World War I. Since the end of World War I, much of the Middle Eastern region has been exposed to the western system of government and western culture. The intent of this Thesis is to analyze and draw a conclusion on the possibility of Politically Islamic states having Democracy and following Democratic ideologies. It will examine the ideologies of Islam to determine if democracy, a system of government that includes the citizens of the nation having the right to speak and receiving civil liberties to choose their leaders, is actually present. It will use data from Turkey, Iran, and Egypt, Middle Eastern nations located either in, or bordering, three different continents of the world. In each country the research will examine, the governmental system, the regime type, the leaders past and present, and the policies, including how each country vary according to a specific Islamic sector (Sunni or Shia). This thesis will draw conclusions from the comparative analysis on each case study, on whether it is possible to have democracy in a state where Islamic ideologies are a major factor. From the case study findings, there were clear differences between all the countries studied. Turkey was found to be majority Sunni with a secular republic government but it is showing signs of reverting into the realm of political Islam. Iran was found to be majority Shia with a religious republic government, one that freely allows religion into the law-making body and has emphasized policies that are based on Islamic law. In addition, Iran shows adversity to western democratic bodies, which falls in line with the idea that Islam and democracy are at odds. Finally, Egypt the most revolution-plagued has changed leaders constantly through coups and protests, when the citizens find the leaders as corrupt or not acting in the best interest of the country. Like Turkey, Egypt is a secular republic with the majority of its citizens being from the Sunni Islamic sect it has recently shown an inclination to be the most democratic nation of those studied. The research showed that the Middle East is still having trouble adjusting to the idea of democracy and democratic ideology. The issues were found on various cultural, social, and leadership levels. There were not only civil and regional disputes among the nations of the Middle East, some of the issues have been extended to international levels. The split between Democracy and traditional Islamic values, appeared to only deepen the conflicts of the region.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFH0000238, ucf:44673
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0000238
- Title
- LUCIDITY: A NOVELLA.
- Creator
-
Lancelotta, Rafael, Rodriguez-Milanes, Cecilia, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
"Lucidity" is a novella set in the near future of a man living in a city in the United States as a successful businessman. The novella criticizes the idea of consumerism through Aurora, a character who believes that a drug is being introduced into the water and food supply by the corporate-backed government. Characters find advertising to be almost irresistible, experience strange cravings for things like cheap beer, and are generally preoccupied with the latest products. James Simmons, the...
Show more"Lucidity" is a novella set in the near future of a man living in a city in the United States as a successful businessman. The novella criticizes the idea of consumerism through Aurora, a character who believes that a drug is being introduced into the water and food supply by the corporate-backed government. Characters find advertising to be almost irresistible, experience strange cravings for things like cheap beer, and are generally preoccupied with the latest products. James Simmons, the protagonist of the novella, finds himself in the lap of luxury. He has a job that pays well, a penthouse apartment, a fast car, and women. Even though he has the material riches that society tells him he needs to be happy, he knows that something is missing, something is wrong with the world in which he lives. For reasons unknown to him at the time, James is fired from his job and sets out on a journey to discover why. Over the course of his journey, he is finally able to begin piecing together the nature of deeper questions about himself that he never had a chance to answer.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFH0004337, ucf:45046
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004337
- Title
- THE AMBIVALENCE OF SCIENCE FICTION: SCIENCE FICTION, NEO-IMPERIALISM, AND THE IDEOLOGY OF MODERNITY AS PROGRESS.
- Creator
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Hall, Graham, Campbell, James, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis sets out to examine the relationship between science fiction and its conditions of production, specifically interrogating the genre's articulations of the ideology of modernity as progress. Sf has been characterized variously as a characteristically useful critical engagement with the ideologies of its context and as wholly ideological at the level of form, relying on the authority of a scientific episteme in its "cognitive estrangements," while not obligated to operate within the...
Show moreThis thesis sets out to examine the relationship between science fiction and its conditions of production, specifically interrogating the genre's articulations of the ideology of modernity as progress. Sf has been characterized variously as a characteristically useful critical engagement with the ideologies of its context and as wholly ideological at the level of form, relying on the authority of a scientific episteme in its "cognitive estrangements," while not obligated to operate within the boundaries of this episteme. As such, the genre is unparalleled in its capacity to articulate ideologies under the guise of a putatively neutral science and reason. However, this same formal action places the genre in the unique position of being able to utilize the authority of a scientific episteme to re-evaluate the putative neutrality of that very scientific episteme. As a result, this study concludes that while the genre's reliance on the external authority of science in "cognitively" organizing its estrangements may make it particularly conducive to articulating ideological technoscience and the ideology of modernity as progress, the genre is characteristically ambivalent in this respect, both at the level of form and as a result of the incongruities between form and narrative. To support my thesis I engage a number of science fictional texts, focusing on Golden Age sf of the mid-20th century, while also branching out into explorations of a variety of 20th and 21st century sf texts, including texts from the pulp era, New Wave, cyberpunk, and post-singularity sf. I analyze within the effects of the conceptual mapping of society in terms of the natural sciences in sf, as well as the ambivalent presence of the robot as a megatextual motif, exploring the relationship of these to the ideology of modernity as progress and the post-scarcity fantasy of global mass consumption prosperity.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFH0004471, ucf:45121
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004471
- Title
- SOCIAL WORK STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF LABOR TRAFFICKING.
- Creator
-
Mulhern, Margaret, Leon, Ana, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Human Trafficking in Florida is a growing issue that affects individuals and communities on a micro, mezzo, and macro level. Although legislative efforts and changes in agency policies have raised awareness about this problem, limited awareness and research examines awareness of labor trafficking as one form of human trafficking. This exploratory-descriptive study used a convenience sampling technique to explore the perceptions of 45 Bachelors (BSW) and Masters (MSW) level social work...
Show moreHuman Trafficking in Florida is a growing issue that affects individuals and communities on a micro, mezzo, and macro level. Although legislative efforts and changes in agency policies have raised awareness about this problem, limited awareness and research examines awareness of labor trafficking as one form of human trafficking. This exploratory-descriptive study used a convenience sampling technique to explore the perceptions of 45 Bachelors (BSW) and Masters (MSW) level social work students on the prevalence and nature of labor trafficking. The findings from the research show students have a general idea of labor trafficking and believe in equal access to human rights for victims. However, majority of students were unaware of current legislation to aid victims in Florida, and the prevalence of men as victims. Implications from this study show a need for further education within social work policies that aid labor trafficking victims, and a need for additional research to identify specific ways students can learn about human trafficking.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFH0004581, ucf:45202
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004581
- Title
- "BLOUDY TYGRISSES": MURDEROUS WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA AND POPULAR LITERATURE.
- Creator
-
Hill, Alexandra, Larson, Peter, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This thesis examines artistic and literary images of murderous women in popular print published in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. The construction of murderous women in criminal narratives, published between 1558 and 1625 in pamphlet, ballad, and play form, is examined in the context of contemporary historical records and cultural discourse. Chapter One features a literature review of the topic in recent scholarship. Chapter Two, comprised of two subsections, discusses...
Show moreThis thesis examines artistic and literary images of murderous women in popular print published in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. The construction of murderous women in criminal narratives, published between 1558 and 1625 in pamphlet, ballad, and play form, is examined in the context of contemporary historical records and cultural discourse. Chapter One features a literature review of the topic in recent scholarship. Chapter Two, comprised of two subsections, discusses representations of early modern women in contemporary literature and criminal archives. The subsections in Chapter Two examine early modern treatises, sermons, and essays concerning the nature of women, the roles and responsibilities of wives and mothers, and debates about marriage, as well as a review of women tried for murder in the Middlesex assize courts between 1558 and 1625. Chapter Three, comprised of four subsections, engages in critical readings of approximately 52 pamphlets, ballads, and plays published in the same period. Individual subsections discuss how traitorous wives, murderous mothers, women who murder in their communities, and punishment and redemption are represented in the narratives. Woodcut illustrations printed in these texts are also examined, and their iconographic contributions to the construction of bad women is discussed. Women who murder in these texts are represented as consummately evil creatures capable of inflicting terrible harm to their families and communities, and are consistently discovered, captured, and executed by their communities for their heinous crimes. Murderous women in early modern popular literature also provided a means for contemporary men and women to explore, confront, and share in the depths of sin, while anticipating their own spiritual salvation. Pamphlets, plays, and broadsides related bawdy, graphic, and violent stories that allow modern readers a glimpse of the popular culture and mental world of Renaissance England.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002727, ucf:48160
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002727
- Title
- A Generational Perspective on the Development of the Political History of Modern Iran.
- Creator
-
McDowall, Gregory, Sadri, Houman, Knuckey, Jonathan, Kang, Kyungkook, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Mark Twain once remarked, (")History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.(") If such recurrences happen with some discernible periodicity it would support the view that society develops cyclically. Though still controversial, this perspective has found a home in the long wave cycle theories of economics and international relations. For decades, international relation theorists have argued over which factor has primarily driven the interstate system, but this paradigm transforms that...
Show moreMark Twain once remarked, (")History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.(") If such recurrences happen with some discernible periodicity it would support the view that society develops cyclically. Though still controversial, this perspective has found a home in the long wave cycle theories of economics and international relations. For decades, international relation theorists have argued over which factor has primarily driven the interstate system, but this paradigm transforms that debate into a query over which of them serves as the medium for carrying waves of social change, be it war, trade, class, or gender relations. William Strauss and Neil Howe, however, found that there is no medium. Instead, long wave cycles result from oscillations of the supply and demand for order due to generational turnover. Essentially, it is a method of error correction, of stabilizing society against the forces of disruptive change wrought by modernity. Though it broadly encompasses many long wave cycle theories, it has yet to be applied to study the modern history of a developing country. Iran offers such a case to test the limits of Strauss and Howe's theory, which this study will perform by comparing its history over the last two centuries, particularly since the turn of the twentieth century, to their theory's expectations. Moreover, in accounting for the deviations, this study attempts to extend their theory to include the modernization process itself, and how it relates to the generational cycle.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0006226, ucf:51083
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006226
- Title
- Invisible in Plain Sight: The Troubling Connections Between the National Hockey League and the Russian Mafia.
- Creator
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Ennion, Kayla, Crepeau, Richard, Gannon, Barbara, Walker, Ezekiel, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Professional sports leagues in North America have seen scandals, controversies, and tragedies. There is, however, a forgotten scandal that happened in the 1990s: the Russian Mafia came dangerously close to the National Hockey League. This thesis explores the alleged Mafia connections by examining newspaper and magazine articles and documentaries focused on the issue. The limited public response to allegations of Russian Mafia involvement is contrasted with other professional sports...
Show moreProfessional sports leagues in North America have seen scandals, controversies, and tragedies. There is, however, a forgotten scandal that happened in the 1990s: the Russian Mafia came dangerously close to the National Hockey League. This thesis explores the alleged Mafia connections by examining newspaper and magazine articles and documentaries focused on the issue. The limited public response to allegations of Russian Mafia involvement is contrasted with other professional sports controversies that were met with an immediate response by the leagues and fans. How North Americans viewed Russians during the post-Soviet era is also explored in this paper. This thesis examines why evident Mafia involvement with National Hockey League players did not provoke attention and sanctions by the league nor an outcry from the fans. This study will conclude the League did not react to the allegations because it felt as if the games were not harmed directly. Also, hockey fans did not find the allegations surprising because of the media's constant reports of corruption within Russia's borders, especially involving organized crime. Perhaps the lack of reaction by the National Hockey League and its fans suggests why this particular scandal is forgotten a mere 20 years later.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005488, ucf:50363
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005488
- Title
- Reconciling Order and Progress: Auguste Comte, Gustave Le Bon, (&)#201;mile Durkheim, and the Development of Positivism in France, 1820-1914.
- Creator
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Navarro, Khali, Lyons, Amelia, Walker, Ezekiel, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical...
Show moreThis thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical standards. He viewed the human mind as becoming more rationalized throughout history. In his later career, however, he argued that rationalism was a destructive force and that a new form of secular religion as necessary to establish morality and order. I argue that this transition from science to religion represents an underlying anxiety of the nineteenth century. Intellectuals from different sides of the political spectrum viewed progress as positive, but also limited. They argued that something beyond science, in the realm of the religious, the metaphysical, or the subjective, was necessary for society. They expressed these concerns through the language of gender. Comte argued that women would be at the center of his religion. They would socialize and moralize men, making them part of a new unified, pacifist and orderly social whole.I also discuss two later intellectuals, social psychologist Gustave Le Bon and pioneering sociologist (&)#201;mile Durkheim. Le Bon represented the fin-de-si(&)#232;cle rejection of positivism. He began with positivist principles, but later argued that humanity was irrational and violent. He viewed the modern masses as a powerful force which threatened to destroy civilization. The other figure, Durkheim, rejected Le Bon's form of nationalist right-wing thought and formed theories of social harmony, altruism, and a solidarity. He sought to reconcile egalitarian republican principles with positivist science. Despite their diverging theories, however, Le Bon and Durkheim employed similar assumptions about modernity and gender. Le Bon argued that European men were superior, and that all other groups shared an undeveloped mentality. Durkheim argued that men were social while women were simpler and mentally limited.Their views, far from establishing an unproblematic hierarchy of gender and race, in fact expressed anxieties about the state of modernity. They identified women, the lower classes, and other societies with values of simplicity, unity, and tradition. They identified the modern, Western male individual with the problems of modern society: excessive rationalization, instability, and secularization. This sense of ambivalence about modernity reveals the central importance of positivism to understanding nineteenth century thought. Positivism sought to reconcile seemingly antithetical principles of order with progress, individualism with social unity, and morality with rationalization. In doing so, it established anxieties about the forces of change. Positivists advocated the most modern of principles, and sought to further the progress of civilization, but also identified those rationalized forces as problems in need of control. Positivism thus established its own undoing, which would come at the beginning of the twentieth century. In that era, intellectuals rejected purely scientific visions of the world in favor of subjective thought. I locate the origins of that rejection at the very foundations of positivist theory.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005220, ucf:50644
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005220
- Title
- An Exploratory Study of USA Candidates' and Recent Graduates' Perceptions of Professional Doctorate Supervision.
- Creator
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Whaley, Kari, Taylor, Rosemarye, Vitale, Thomas, Baldwin, Lee, Chase, Susan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This study focused on exploring professional doctorate candidates' and recent graduates' perceptions of their doctoral supervision experience. Candidates from across the United States, in various academic disciplines, were surveyed and 255 total responses were gathered. The literature search focused on doctorate supervisory practices, doctoral supervisors' characteristics, and unique differences of academic disciplines.This was a mixed-methods study. The data were analyzed by quantitative and...
Show moreThis study focused on exploring professional doctorate candidates' and recent graduates' perceptions of their doctoral supervision experience. Candidates from across the United States, in various academic disciplines, were surveyed and 255 total responses were gathered. The literature search focused on doctorate supervisory practices, doctoral supervisors' characteristics, and unique differences of academic disciplines.This was a mixed-methods study. The data were analyzed by quantitative and qualitative analysis. Quantitative data was analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi square test and Kruskal-Wallis test). Qualitative responses were analyzed using Grounded Theory. Respondents identified the most important competencies of a doctoral supervisor as having good communication skills and to understand the doctoral process. The most important ways of supervision were indicated to be honest dialogue and relationship of trust. Five emerging themes developed from the qualitative analysis, including engagement and commitment from supervisor, feedback, emotional support, supervisor experience and expertise, and supervision structure. The results demonstrate the importance of communication and relationship development between supervisor and candidate, as well as setting clear expectations for supervisors to take for an individualized approach to supervision.This study identified the following opportunities that professional doctorate programs and supervisors could focus their efforts on: providing or attending supervisory training and approach supervision with a planned framework, facilitate a coaching and mentorship relationship with advisees, and set clear expectations that are reiterated throughout the entire duration of the doctoral experience.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0007140, ucf:52327
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007140
- Title
- Le Temps des Copains: Youth and the Making of Modern France in the Era of Decolonization, 1958-1968.
- Creator
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Fedorka, Drew, Lyons, Amelia, Nair, Deepa, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This thesis examines the popular y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; phenomenon and its role in articulating a vision of modern France in the aftermath of decolonization. Y(&)#233;-y(&)#233;, a teen-oriented and music-based popular culture that flourished from roughly 1962-1966, was in a unique position to define what it meant to be young in 1960s France. I argue that the y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; popular culture, through its definition of youth, provided an important cultural channel through which to articulate a...
Show moreThis thesis examines the popular y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; phenomenon and its role in articulating a vision of modern France in the aftermath of decolonization. Y(&)#233;-y(&)#233;, a teen-oriented and music-based popular culture that flourished from roughly 1962-1966, was in a unique position to define what it meant to be young in 1960s France. I argue that the y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; popular culture, through its definition of youth, provided an important cultural channel through which to articulate a modern French identity after the Algerian War (1954-1962). Using a combination of advertisements, articles, and sanitized depictions of teenage pop singers, the y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; popular culture constructed an idealized vision of adolescence that coupled a technologically-savvy and consumer-oriented outlook with a distinctly conservative, apolitical, and inclusive social stance. It reflected France's reorientation toward a particular technological and consumer modernity while simultaneously serving to obscure France's recent colonial past and the dubious legacy of imperialism. To contextualize y(&)#233;-y(&)#233;, this thesis begins by examining the blousons noirs (black jackets) and the societal anxieties that surrounded them in the early Fifth Republic (1958-1962). By tracking the abrupt shift from the blousons noirs to y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; in predominant media representations of youth, this thesis provides a unique vantage point with which to interpret dominant discourses of the Gaullist Fifth Republic and its attempt to reinvent France into a modernized and decolonized consumer republic. As the work suggests, it was not a coincidence that the optimistic y(&)#233;-y(&)#233; youth, unburdened by the tribulations of France's recent past, appeared in full force within months following the recognition of Algerian independence in 1962.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005612, ucf:50200
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005612
