"Being" a Stickist:  A Phenomenological Consideration of "Dwelling" in a Virtual Music Scene (open access)

"Being" a Stickist: A Phenomenological Consideration of "Dwelling" in a Virtual Music Scene

Musical instruments are not static, unchanging objects. They are, instead, things that materially evolve in symmetry with human practices. Alterations to an instrument's design often attend to its ergonomic or expressive capacity, but sometimes an innovator causes an entirely new instrument to arise. One such instrument is the Chapman Stick. This instrument's history is closely intertwined with global currents that have evolved into virtual, online scenes. Virtuality obfuscates embodiment, but the Stick's world, like any instrument's, is optimally related in intercorporeal exchanges. Stickists circumvent real and virtual obstacles to engage the Stick world. Using an organology informed by the work of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, this study examines how the Chapman Stick, as a material "thing," speaks in and through a virtual, representational environment.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Hodges, Jeff
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Virtual Entrepreneurship: Explicating the Antecedents of Firm Performance (open access)

Virtual Entrepreneurship: Explicating the Antecedents of Firm Performance

Prior research has examined entrepreneurial businesses spatially located in the physical or offline context; however, recent radical information and technological breakthroughs allow entrepreneurs to launch their businesses completely online. The growth of the online business industry has been phenomenal. Predictions for worldwide online sales estimate it to reach $2 trillion in 2016. Virtual entrepreneurship refers to the pursuit and exploitation of opportunities via virtual platforms. Web 2.0 cybermediaries offer web-based platforms that function similarly to traditional intermediaries in a virtual setting and minimize barriers to entry for virtual entrepreneurial firms. The use of such cybermediaries with increasing success suggests an implicit shift in the dominant logic that typically underpins the functioning of entrepreneurial firms operating in the physical world. In this relatively uncharted territory, marked by a focus on profit, cooperation, collaboration and community, three ideal-type institutional logics i.e. Market, Corporation and Community, blend together. It is posited that a Virtual Entrepreneurial Logic guides the norms, behaviors, and practices of entrepreneurial firms operating via these virtual platforms. This raises the question whether the blending of three ideal-type logics leads to the existence of different antecedents of performance. A business model antecedent addressing the economic dimension, a community antecedent addressing the …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Chandna, Vallari
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The UNT Music Library at 75: Selections from Its Special Collections (open access)

The UNT Music Library at 75: Selections from Its Special Collections

The UNT Music Library boasts an interesting and vastly varied assortment of musical treasures in its special collections. This commemorative volume celebrates its 75th anniversary with a brief history of the Music Library and a selection of items from its unique collections.
Date: 2016
Creator: McKnight, Mark
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Extending the Apprenticeship through Informal Learning on Facebook: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Music Faculty (open access)

Extending the Apprenticeship through Informal Learning on Facebook: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Music Faculty

Facebook studio groups/pages are commonly used by applied music faculty to communicate with current students, recruit new students, share students' activities, and promote faculty members' professional performances and academic endeavors. However, the blurred lines between academic, professional performance, and social activities in the field have led to a wide variety of approaches to Facebook use by music faculty. This dissertation documents the first generation of music faculty social media users and investigates the beliefs, intent, and lived experiences of music faculty who use Facebook studio groups/pages to communicate with their students. Four music faculty were interviewed and a semester's Facebook studio group/page data collected for each faculty member. Interviews and Facebook data were analyzed using Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to identify emergent, and ultimately super-ordinate, themes from the data. The three super-ordinate themes that emerged were: Impact of Social Media on Studio Teaching and Learning, Learning through Enculturation, and Faculty Lived Experiences with Facebook Studio Groups/Pages. Findings of the study included: faculty concerns about personal and professional risk; the observation that teaching and learning are occurring through these Facebook studio groups/pages by way of the process of enculturation, but without evidence of a Virtual Community of Practice; and, a multitude …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Meredith, Tamara R.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analytical Study of Paradox and Structural Dualism in the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven (open access)

An Analytical Study of Paradox and Structural Dualism in the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven's rich compositional language evokes unique problems that have fueled scholarly dialogue for many years. My analyses focus on two types of paradoxes as central compositional problems in some of Beethoven's symphonic pieces and piano sonatas. My readings of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 27 (Op. 90), Symphony No. 4 (Op. 60), and Symphony No. 8 (Op. 93) explore the nature and significance of paradoxical unresolved six-four chords and their impact on tonal structure. I consider formal-tonal paradoxes in Beethoven's Tempest Sonata (Op. 31, No. 2), Ninth Symphony (Op. 125), and Overture die Weihe des Hauses (Op. 124). Movements that evoke formal-tonal paradoxes retain the structural framework of a paradigmatic interrupted structure, but contain unique voice-leading features that superimpose an undivided structure on top of the "residual" interrupted structure. Carl Schachter's observations about "genuine double meaning" and his arguments about the interplay between design and tonal structure in "Either/Or" establish the foundation for my analytical approach to paradox. Timothy Jackson's reading of Brahms' "Immer leiser word meine Schlummer" (Op. 105, No. 2) and Stephen Slottow's "Von einem Kunstler: Shapes in the Clouds" both clarify the methodology employed here. My interpretation of paradox involves more than just a slight contradiction between two …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Graf, Benjamin
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Information Structures in Notated Music: Statistical Explorations of Composers' Performance Marks in Solo Piano Scores (open access)

Information Structures in Notated Music: Statistical Explorations of Composers' Performance Marks in Solo Piano Scores

Written notation has a long history in many musical traditions and has been particularly important in the composition and performance of Western art music. This study adopted the conceptual view that a musical score consists of two coordinated but separate communication channels: the musical text and a collection of composer-selected performance marks that serve as an interpretive gloss on that text. Structurally, these channels are defined by largely disjoint vocabularies of symbols and words. While the sound structures represented by musical texts are well studied in music theory and analysis, the stylistic patterns of performance marks and how they acquire contextual meaning in performance is an area with fewer theoretical foundations. This quantitative research explored the possibility that composers exhibit recurring patterns in their use of performance marks. Seventeen solo piano sonatas written between 1798 and 1913 by five major composers were analyzed from modern editions by tokenizing and tabulating the types and usage frequencies of their individual performance marks without regard to the associated musical texts. Using analytic methods common in information science, the results demonstrated persistent statistical similarities among the works of each composer and differences among the work groups of different composers. Although based on a small …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Buchanan, J. Paul
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Intellectual Property: Law & the Information Society—Cases and Materials (open access)

Intellectual Property: Law & the Information Society—Cases and Materials

This book is an introduction to intellectual property law, the set of private legal rights that allows individuals and corporations to control intangible creations and marks—from logos to novels to drug formulae—and the exceptions and limitations that define those rights. It focuses on the three graphmain forms of US federal intellectual property—trademark, copyright and patent—but many of the ideas discussed here apply far beyond those legal areas and far beyond the law of the United States. The book is intended to be a textbook for the basic Intellectual Property class, but because it is an open coursebook, which can be freely edited and customized, it is also suitable for an undergraduate class, or for a business, library studies, communications or other graduate school class. Each chapter contains cases and secondary readings and a set of problems or role-playing exercises involving the material. The problems range from a video of the Napster oral argument to counseling clients about search engines and trademarks, applying the First Amendment to digital rights management and copyright or commenting on the Supreme Court’s new rulings on gene patents.
Date: August 2014
Creator: Boyle, James & Jenkins, Jennifer
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sing Rāga, Embody Bhāva: The Way of Being Rasa (open access)

Sing Rāga, Embody Bhāva: The Way of Being Rasa

The rasa theory of Indian aesthetics is concerned with the nature of the genesis of emotions and their corresponding experiences, as well as the condition of being in and experiencing the aesthetic world. According to the Indian aesthetic theory, rasa ("juice" or "essence," something that is savored, that is tasted) is an embodied aesthetic experienced through an artistic performance. In this thesis, I have investigated how the aesthetics of rasa philosophy account for creative presence and its experiences in Karnatik vocal performances. Beyond the facets of grammar, Karnatik rāga performance signifies a deeper ontological meaning as a way to experience rasa, idiomatically termed as rāga-rasa by South Indian rāga practitioners. A vocal performance of a rāga ideally depends on a singer's embodied experience of rāga and rāga-bhāva (emotive expression of rāga), as much as it does on his/her theoretical knowledge and skillset of a rāga's svaras (scale degrees), gamakas (ornamentation), lakṣhaṇās (emblematic phrases), and so on. Reflecting on my own experience of being a Karnatik student and performer for the last two decades, participant observation, interviews, and analysis of Indian aesthetic theory of rasa, I propose a way of understanding that to sing rāga is to embody bhāva opening the …
Date: May 2019
Creator: Krishnamurthy, Thanmayee
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Singing the Republic: Polychoral Culture at San Marco in Venice (1550-1615) (open access)

Singing the Republic: Polychoral Culture at San Marco in Venice (1550-1615)

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Venetian society and politics could be considered as a "polychoral culture." The imagination of the republic rested upon a shared set of social attitudes and beliefs. The political structure included several social groups that functioned as identifiable entities; republican ideologies construed them together as parts of a single harmonious whole. Venice furthermore employed notions of the republic to bolster political and religious independence, in particular from Rome. As is well known, music often contributes to the production and transmission of ideology, and polychoral music in Venice was no exception. Multi-choir music often accompanied religious and civic celebrations in the basilica of San Marco and elsewhere that emphasized the so-called "myth of Venice," the city's complex of religious beliefs and historical heritage. These myths were shared among Venetians and transformed through annual rituals into communal knowledge of the republic. Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and other Venetian composers wrote polychoral pieces that were structurally homologous with the imagination of the republic. Through its internal structures, polychoral music projected the local ideology of group harmony. Pieces used interaction among hierarchical choirs - their alternation in dialogue and repetition - as rhetorical means, first to create …
Date: December 2010
Creator: Yoshioka, Masataka
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Motivic Analysis and Performance Practices of "Akrodha" (1998) by Kevin Volans, including Comparative Analyses of "She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket" (1985) and "Asanga" (1997) (open access)

A Motivic Analysis and Performance Practices of "Akrodha" (1998) by Kevin Volans, including Comparative Analyses of "She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket" (1985) and "Asanga" (1997)

This dissertation presents an analysis of Akrodha (1998), a multiple percussion solo in two movements, composed by Kevin Volans. The analysis is focused on the motivic content and subsequent iterations written within the tempos that provide the structural form of the piece. The structural tempos are supported by the presence of various motifs that serve as the tempos' characteristic traits, thereby giving the tempos more tangibility. As the work develops, these motifs reappear either as note-for-note reiterations or as variations that still maintain the unique qualities of the motifs. For comparison, similar analyses of Mr. Volans' other multiple percussion solos, She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket (1985) and Asanga (1997), are also presented to further explore Mr. Volans' use of motifs as they relate to structural tempos. In addition, a comprehensive performance practice of Akrodha is presented based on a synthesis of considerations and methods from individuals involved in the piece's development and early performances. These include Dr. Volans himself, Jonny Axelsson (for whom Akrodha was written), and Robyn Schulkowsky (for whom She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket and Asanga were written), as well as the author's personal experiences. This dissertation provides a deeper understanding of Akrodha for …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Feerst, Timothy A.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Introduction to Data Science (open access)

An Introduction to Data Science

This book provides non-technical readers with a gentle introduction to essential concepts and activities of data science. For more technical readers, the book provides explanations and code for a range of interesting applications using the open source R language for statistical computing and graphics"--Resource home page.
Date: 2012
Creator: Stanton, Jeffrey M.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Enemies Within: The Cold War and the AIDS Crisis in Literature, Film, and Culture (open access)

Enemies Within: The Cold War and the AIDS Crisis in Literature, Film, and Culture

Book discussing the literature and film of the Cold War and AIDS eras in an effort to link the two with the fear they created; "not only the political and biological illnesses...but also the fear and panic they engender." Index starts on page 235.
Date: 2017
Creator: Foertsch, Jacqueline, 1964-
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Networking, Workplace, and Entertainment Literacies: the Out-of-school Literate Lives of Newcomer Latina/o Adolescents (open access)

Social Networking, Workplace, and Entertainment Literacies: the Out-of-school Literate Lives of Newcomer Latina/o Adolescents

Studies indicate that Latina/o immigrant youth engage in a wide range of sophisticated literacy practices outside of school that are often transnational, crossing various linguistic, cultural, and social spaces. Technology has further afforded immigrant youth the opportunity to develop transnational capabilities which are rare in the mainstream population, yet needed in the 21st century of global connectedness. However, Latino immigrant youth drop out of school at disproportional rates, suggesting that their literacy practices are not recognized or valued by the educational system. Using a New Literacy Studies perspective that recognizes multiple literacies that are meaningful within their sociocultural traditions, this collective case study investigated the range, form, and purpose of the out-of-school literacies of four Latina/o adolescent English Learners who are new arrivals. The qualitative methodology employed constructivist interviews, digital and actual artifacts, and observations. Findings demonstrated that the most prevalent out-of-school literacies the participants practice take place on the social networking site of Facebook, in their workplaces, and through the entertainment media sources of music and television. A cross-case analysis suggests that the literacy practices in these spaces have unique and purposeful roles for the individuals that allow them to connect to their home countries and maintain their Latina/o …
Date: August 2012
Creator: Stewart, Mary Amanda
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Melville's Major Fiction: Politics, Theology, and Imagination (open access)

Melville's Major Fiction: Politics, Theology, and Imagination

Book analyzing the popular works of Herman Melville and his motives for writing such stories such as: "Pierre," "The Confidence-Man," and "Billy Budd." Index starts on page 258.
Date: 2017
Creator: Duban, James
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Nature of True Virtue: Theology, Psychology, and Politics in the Writings of Henry James, Sr., Henry James Jr., and William James (open access)

The Nature of True Virtue: Theology, Psychology, and Politics in the Writings of Henry James, Sr., Henry James Jr., and William James

Book analyzing the writings and philosophies of 19th century American writers Henry James, Sr. and his sons William James and Henry James Jr. Index starts on page 249.
Date: 2019
Creator: Duban, James, 1951-
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Oral Literature in Africa (open access)

Oral Literature in Africa

This revised edition makes Finnegan’s ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language” and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. This volume is complemented by original recordings of stories and songs from the Limba country (Sierra Leone), collected by Finnegan during her fieldwork in the late 1960s,
Date: 2012
Creator: Finnegan, Ruth H.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Net.Lang : Towards the Multilingual Cyberspace (open access)

Net.Lang : Towards the Multilingual Cyberspace

This publication is an educational, political and practical guide to policy and practice to understand key issues of multilingualism in cyberspace. Multilingualism is the new frontier of the digital network. This book presents the issues, and provides suggestions for a cyber-presence This publication, supported by UNESCO, will contribute to interdisciplinary dialogue among various stakeholders, open up new horizons for better understanding the importance of linguistic diversity, raise awareness about new developments linked to the Internet, and most importantly, convey the message that multilingualism contributes to wealth creation, social transformation and human development.
Date: 2012
Creator: Vannini, Laurent & Le Crosnier, Hervé
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
War in the Pacific: A Chronology January 1, 1941 through September 30, 1945 (open access)

War in the Pacific: A Chronology January 1, 1941 through September 30, 1945

Text outlining major events in the Pacific Theater throughout World War II, organized by date. It also includes text for the Instrument of Surrender, appendices containing military and war data, a bibliography, and list of related Web sites.
Date: March 2014
Creator: Hyland, George O., III
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
2019 Web Almanac: HTTP Archive's Annual State of the Web Report (open access)

2019 Web Almanac: HTTP Archive's Annual State of the Web Report

The Web Almanac is an annual state of the web report combining the expertise of the web community with the data and trends of the HTTP Archive. The Web Almanac is a project organized by HTTP Archive. HTTP Archive was started in 2010 by Steve Souders with the mission to track how the web is built. It evaluates the composition of millions of web pages on a monthly basis and makes its terabytes of metadata available for analysis on BigQuery48.
Date: 2019
Creator: Pollard, Barry
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
“Sounds for Adventurous Listeners”: Willis Conover, the Voice of America, and the International Reception of Avant-garde Jazz in the 1960S (open access)

“Sounds for Adventurous Listeners”: Willis Conover, the Voice of America, and the International Reception of Avant-garde Jazz in the 1960S

In “Sounds for Adventurous Listeners,” I argue that Conover’s role in the dissemination of jazz through the Music USA Jazz Hour was more influential on an educational level than what literature on Conover currently provides. Chapter 2 begins with an examination of current studies regarding the role of jazz in Cold War diplomacy, the sociopolitical implications of avant-garde jazz and race, the convergence of fandom and propaganda, the promoter as facilitator of musical trends, and the influence of international radio during the Cold War. In chapter 3 I introduce the Friends of Music USA Newsletter and explain its function as a record of overseas jazz reception and a document that cohered a global network of fans. I then focus on avant-garde debates of the 1960s and discuss Conover’s role overseas and in the United States. Chapter 4 engages social purpose and jazz criticism in the 1960s. I discuss Conover’s philosophy on social responsibility, and how his contributions intersected with other relevant discourses on race on the eve of the civil rights movement. I argue that Conover embodied two personas: one as jazz critic and promoter in the United States, and the other as an international intermediary. In chapter 5 I …
Date: August 2012
Creator: Breckenridge, Mark A.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi (open access)

Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi

This thesis examines the life of James Wesley Silver, a professor of history at the University of Mississippi for twenty-six years and author of Mississippi: The Closed Society, a scathing attack on the Magnolia State's history of racial oppression. In 1962, Silver witnessed the campus riot resulting from James Meredith's enrollment as the first black student at the state's hallowed public university and claims this was the catalyst for writing his book. However, by examining James Silver's personal and professional activities and comparing them with the political, cultural, and social events taking place concurrently, this paper demonstrates that his entire life, the gamut of his experiences, culminated in the creation of his own rebel yell, Mississippi: The Closed Society. Chapter 1 establishes Silver's environment by exploring the history and sociology of the South during the years of his residency. Chapter 2 discusses Silver's background and early years, culminating with his appointment as a faculty member of the University of Mississippi in 1936. Chapter 3 reveals Silver's personal and professional life during the 1940s, as well as the era's notable historical events. The decade of the 1950s is discussed in chapter 4, particularly the civil rights movement, Silver's response to these …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Fox, Lisa Ann
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries (open access)

Appraising our Digital Investment: Sustainability of Digitized Special Collections in ARL Libraries

Sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and conducted by Ithaka S+R, this study provides insight into how ARL libraries are managing and funding the hundreds of digitized special collections they have created and that they believe to be critical to their futures. This is the first survey of ARL institutions that specifically attempts to understand and benchmark the activities and costs of supporting these collections after they are created. By looking at questions of management, costs, funding sources, impact, and outreach, the survey offers data that will deliver insight to all those engaged in sustaining digitized special collections.
Date: February 2013
Creator: Maron, Nancy & Pickle, Sarah
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Connecting Soul, Spirit, Mind, and Body: A Collection of Spiritual and Religious Perspectives and Practices in Counseling (open access)

Connecting Soul, Spirit, Mind, and Body: A Collection of Spiritual and Religious Perspectives and Practices in Counseling

This edited volume presents spiritual and religious perspectives and practices that can be integrated into counseling, written by experts in the field. Included are topics such as transpersonal experiences, prayer, meditation, and non-traditional spiritual approaches.
Date: January 2017
Creator: Foster, Ryan D. & Holden, Janice Miner
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
Access to knowledge for consumers: Reports of Campaigns and Research 2008-2010 (open access)

Access to knowledge for consumers: Reports of Campaigns and Research 2008-2010

According to the back cover, this book reports the results of a global survey of consumers, revealing barriers to access and use of copyright materials, research on copyright law reform, and advocacy focused on improving knowledge access in several developing countries.
Date: 2010
Creator: Consumers International
Object Type: Text
System: The UNT Digital Library