Degree Level

Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, Comte De Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée (open access)

Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, Comte De Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée

Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert (1743-1790) dedicated his life and career to creating a new doctrine for the French army. Little about this doctrine was revolutionary. Indeed, Guibert openly decried the anarchy of popular participation in government and looked askance at the early days of the Revolution. Rather, Guibert’s doctrine marked the culmination of an evolutionary process that commenced decades before his time and reached fruition in the Réglement of 1791, which remained in force until the 1830s. Not content with military reform, Guibert demanded a political and social constitution to match. His reforms required these changes, demanding a disciplined, service-oriented society and a functional, rational government to assist his reformed military. He delved deeply, like no other contemporary writer, into the linkages between society, politics, and the military throughout his career and his writings. Guibert exerted an overwhelming influence on military thought across Europe for the next fifty years. His military theories provided the foundation for military reform during the twilight of the Old Regime. The Revolution, which adopted most of Guibert’s doctrine in 1791, continued his work. A new army and way of war based on Guibert’s reforms emerged to defeat France’s major enemies. In Napoleon’s hands, Guibert’s army …
Date: August 2014
Creator: Abel, Jonathan, 1985-
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Conversational Use of Photographic Images on Facebook: Modeling Visual Thinking on Social Media (open access)

Conversational Use of Photographic Images on Facebook: Modeling Visual Thinking on Social Media

Modeling the "thick description" of photographs began at the intersection of personal and institutional descriptions. Comparing institutional descriptions of particular photos that were also used in personal online conversations was the initial phase. Analyzing conversations that started with a photographic image from the collection of the Library of Congress (LC) or the collection of the Manchester Historic Association (MHA) provided insights into how cultural heritage institutions could enrich the description of photographs by using informal descriptions such as those applied by Facebook users. Taking photos of family members, friends, places, and interesting objects is something people do often in their daily lives. Some photographic images are stored, and some are shared with others in gatherings, occasions, and holidays. Face-to-face conversations about remembering some of the details of photographs and the event they record are themselves rarely recorded. Digital cameras make it easy to share personal photos in Web conversations and to duplicate old photos and share them on the Internet. The World Wide Web even makes it simple to insert images from cultural heritage institutions in order to enhance conversations. Images have been used as tokens within conversations along with the sharing of information and background knowledge about them. The …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Albannai, Talal N.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mail Order Music: the Hinners Organ Company in the Dakotas, 1879-1936 (open access)

Mail Order Music: the Hinners Organ Company in the Dakotas, 1879-1936

Founded in 1879 by John L. Hinners, the Hinners Organ Company developed a number of stock models of small mechanical-action instruments that were advertised throughout the Midwest. Operating without outside salesmen, the company was one of the first to conduct all of its affairs by mail, including the financial arrangements, selection of the basic design, and custom alterations where required. Buyers first met a company representative when he arrived by train to set up the crated instrument that had been shipped ahead of him. Tracker organs with hand-operated bellows were easily repaired by local craftsmen, and were suited to an area that, for the most part, lacked electricity. In all, the company constructed nearly three thousand pipe organs during its sixty years of operation. Rapid decline of the firm began in the decade prior to 1936 during which the company sold fewer than one hundred instruments, and closed in that year when John's son Arthur found himself without sufficient financial resources to weather the lengthy depression. The studies of the original-condition Hinners organs in the Dakotas include extensive photographs and measurements, and provide an excellent cross section of the smaller instruments produced by the company. They are loud, excellently crafted, …
Date: August 1997
Creator: Alcorn-Oppedahl, Allison A. (Allison Ann)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Choral-Orchestral Works of Hector Berlioz (open access)

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Hector Berlioz

In this study the choral-orchestral compositions produced by Hector Berlioz are examined in detail for characteristics of musical form, textual setting, and methods of scoring for chorus and orchestra. Reasons for the preponderance of the choral-orchestral medium in Berlioz' output are examined in two introductory chapters. The initial chapter concerns Berlioz' personal experiences as an observer, conductor, and critic of choral music, while the second is devoted to Parisian customs in regard to the choral-orchestral medium during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Included in the historical chapter is a discussion of the haute-contre (high tenor or countertenor) voice preferred in French choruses of that period plus a short review of French orchestral practices, operatic choruses, the French Chapel, Parisian concert societies, and the Paris Conservatory. Especially important is the segment on revolutionary musical fetes which fostered grandiose compositions for chorus and instruments of extremely simple structure. Berlioz' sense of form was governed by his Gallic heritage and for this reason many critics have accused him of formlessness, when in fact his compositions invaribly revolve around a succinct formal plan, admirably executed. Berlioz added to the conservative French tradition which favored the strophe and the Rondeau (an unvarying refrain following …
Date: May 1978
Creator: Alexander, Metche Franke
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Gender Differences, Age Differences, and the Relationship between Time Spent Playing Video Games and Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Engagement (open access)

Gender Differences, Age Differences, and the Relationship between Time Spent Playing Video Games and Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Engagement

This study quantitatively and qualitatively measured gender and age differences in cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement while playing video games among the University of North Texas (UNT) undergraduate students. Also, it examined the relationship between time spent playing video games and the three engagement states. For the quantitative method, the data of this study was collected via an online survey, the Consumer Video Game Engagement Scale (CVGES), distributed at UNT (N = 140). The qualitative method involved asking open-ended questions at the end of the survey. The CVGES uses a 5-point Likert scale that encompasses three subscales: (a) Cognitive Engagement, (b) Affective Engagement, and (c) Behavioral Engagement. A series of analyses were conducted to analyze the quantitative data via SPSS. Also, the open-ended questions' responses were analyzed by using an inductive analysis approach. The main findings of this study were: (a) there were significant differences between males and females in cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement, (b) there were no significant differences between age groups in the three engagement states, and (c) there is a positive relationship between the time spent playing a video game and the three engagement states. Also, the game elements, such as characters, storytelling, content, the objective …
Date: December 2022
Creator: Almazyad, Reem Ali
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Examining the Influence of Visual Culture on a Saudi Arabian Child's Drawings (open access)

Examining the Influence of Visual Culture on a Saudi Arabian Child's Drawings

This study examines the ways visual culture influences a child's drawings. The child is my 9-year-old daughter Nada, who was born in Saudi Arabia and is a fourth-grade student temporarily living in the United States. The study uses qualitative methods of data collection and exploratory case study research design as a methodology. The data were analyzed in light of Althusser's theory of ideology, specifically the notion of interpellation, along with visual culture theories. In addition, gender performativity theory, specifically the work of Judith Butler, was used to consider gender issues when these concerns emerged from the study. Nada has been exposed to two diverse cultures, those of Saudi Arabia and the United States. Both cultures may impact Nada's interpretations of her visual surroundings in various ways. Therefore, recognizing and examining how she interacts with US visual culture might help to uncover how such interactions constitute the basis of her perceptions, identities, and critical thinking. Drawing is not only a means of self-expression but also an important function of communication, identity formation, and represents possible ways of being in the world that are related to culture, community, and society as a whole. The study begins with the premise that there is …
Date: December 2017
Creator: Alshaie, Fouzi Salem
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Use of Technology in Early Childhood Schools and Homes and Its Impact on the Social and Language Development of Children: Perspectives of Parents and Teachers in Kuwait (open access)

The Use of Technology in Early Childhood Schools and Homes and Its Impact on the Social and Language Development of Children: Perspectives of Parents and Teachers in Kuwait

This study was aimed at understanding the use of technology in early childhood school and home settings as well as its impact on students' social and language development, specifically with children aged four to seven from two schools (Kindergarten and elementary) in Kuwait. The study followed a qualitative design in which the interpretative approach was applied. Non-participant observations were conducted to gather data concerning the actual use of technology in the classrooms, they were followed by interviews with teachers and a group of parents from each classroom. The study used Vygotsky's social development theory as a framework for the analysis of data. The analysis showed limitations in the use of technology in the classroom; teachers identified a need for training to increase their knowledge about how to integrate technology into instruction. Also, the limited availability of up-to-date technology was viewed as a challenge. Teachers and parents agreed that the use of technology may foster social and language development for most students, on the condition that their use is supervised and guided by an adult. However, they also perceived that technology could have a negative impact on the development of students' social development, an area that requires further investigation.
Date: August 2018
Creator: Alsuhail, Saffa Z A J Zaid
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Contributions of George S. Benson to Christian Education (open access)

The Contributions of George S. Benson to Christian Education

The problem is to examine the contributions of George S. Benson to Christian education. The study presents data obtained by personal interviews with George Benson and people who have been close to him, excerpts from letters written by former students, teachers, and board members, minutes of the Board of Trustees of Harding College, books, articles, speeches and newspapers.
Date: December 1971
Creator: Altman, Ted M.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Quantitative Approach to the History of Music Binder's Volumes (1820–1900) (open access)

A Quantitative Approach to the History of Music Binder's Volumes (1820–1900)

Music binder's volumes, or collections of sheet music typically bound by women in the nineteenth century, constitute an informative and underutilized set of historical artifacts. Each binder's volume can be viewed as a Spotify playlist frozen in time. An individual volume contains more than just the volume's individual pieces; it also holds the marginalia, the choices women made on what to include in a binder, and information on where and how music was produced. This dissertation examines music binder's volumes quantitatively, processing information found in binder's volumes by using the MARC and other cataloguing data to construct a relational database. I engage with broad questions of music publishing and consumption and provide a method to contextualize qualitative results on a larger scale. In doing so, I make two distinct contributions to music research and the digital humanities. First, this project offers a clear path for engaging with music binder's volumes and material history of nineteenth-century America in ways that scholars have rarely engaged in prior to this point. I highlight how data analysis provides new framings for binder's volumes and for sheet music consumption both at the song-level and at larger levels of the data. Second, and more broadly, this …
Date: December 2022
Creator: Anderson, Brian K
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Mapping the Feminist Movement in Pakistani Literature: Towards a Feminist Future

In this work, I examine and analyze women representation and themes in Pakistani literature in order to explore the emergence and development of feminist thought as reflected within it, from pre-independence to present day Pakistan. One of my central arguments is that the theorization of a workable feminism in the conflictual Pakistani state depends on understanding and accounting for the socio-political, religious, and economic milieu of the country under which women live. In the following chapters, I delineate the challenges feminism in Pakistan faces in conjunction with the analysis of selected literary works to highlight the way the figure of the woman emerges in public discourse. It is through this engagement, that I demonstrate, the complexity of Pakistani feminism and its negotiations with nationalism, religion, and patriarchy to create the basis for theorizing a workable Pakistani feminist politics. Following Dipesh Chakraborty's theorization of historicism in his book, Provincializing Europe, the basic premise of this dissertation is to explore the emergence of feminist thought in Pakistani literature while keeping the changing religio-political and socio-economic realities of the country at the forefront to establish an analysis grounded in worldliness of these texts. The goal of this exploration is to theorize a feminism …
Date: December 2022
Creator: Aziz, Anum
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
"The Other Half is Mine": Charlotte Moorman as an Architect of the Avant-Garde (open access)

"The Other Half is Mine": Charlotte Moorman as an Architect of the Avant-Garde

Charlotte Moorman (1933–1991) was a Juilliard-trained cellist whose life and work made an indelible mark on the development of the American avant-garde. In her career, Moorman acted as a performer, collaborator, composer, administrator and muse. She solely founded the inaugural New York Avant Garde Festival, and subsequently directed fifteen of these festivals between 1963 and 1980, the feat for which she is most widely acknowledged today. Yet, her revolutionary performance practice, which blurred the lines between her life, her body, and her work, and brought into focus the dynamics of corporeality, the feminine body, female nudity and sexuality, and gendered politics within the contexts of musical performance, has so far escaped serious consideration in the written histories of the American avant-garde. This dissertation describes the nature of Moorman's practice as one that evolved to become inherently and irrevocably embodied, explores how this approach fell at odds with the pervasive avant-garde philosophies of music, and illustrates how her work troubles even a feminist musicological analysis. Further, through a contemporary critique of Moorman's oeuvre which centralizes the social, cultural, and political implications of her body in performance as integral to the work, this project offers a retrospective visibility to the artist which …
Date: August 2021
Creator: Balkcom, Brittney M.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Visual Culture in the Context of Turkey: Perceptions of Visual Culture in Turkish Pre-Service Art Teacher Preparation (open access)

Visual Culture in the Context of Turkey: Perceptions of Visual Culture in Turkish Pre-Service Art Teacher Preparation

This study explored the state of art education in Turkey as revealed by pre-service art education university instructors, and the potential of incorporating visual culture studies in pre-service art education in Turkey. The instructors' ideas about visual culture, and popular culture, the impact it might have, the content (objects), and the practices within the context of Turkey were examined. Visual culture was examined from an art education perspective that focuses on a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the perception and critique of popular culture and everyday cultural experiences, and the analysis of media including television programs, computer games, Internet sites, and advertisements. A phenomenological human science approach was employed in order to develop a description of the perception of visual culture in pre-service art education in Turkey as lived by the participants. In-person interviews were used to collect the data from a purposive sample of 8 faculty members who offered undergraduate and graduate art education pedagogy, art history, and studio courses within four-year public universities. This empirical approach sought to obtain comprehensive descriptions of an experience through semi-structural interviews. These interviews employed open-ended questions to gather information about the following: their educational and professional background; their definitions of art education and …
Date: May 2009
Creator: Balkir, Nur
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
How Does It Feel to be Creative? A Phenomenological Investigation of the Creative Experience in Kinetic Places (open access)

How Does It Feel to be Creative? A Phenomenological Investigation of the Creative Experience in Kinetic Places

How does it feel to be creative? Such a question, when approached from a phenomenological perspective, reveals new understandings about the embodied experience of creativity, and how it feels as it is being lived. This investigation begins with a provocative contrast of two environments where creativity is thought to manifest itself: school art classrooms, where creativity is often legislated from an authority figure, and New Orleans Second Line parades, where creativity is organically and kinetically expressed. A thorough review of the literature on creativity focuses on education, arts education, creative economies, psychology, and critical theorists, collectively revealing a cognitive bias and striking lack of consideration for community, freedom, and the lived experience of being creative. Further discussions in the literature also neglect sites of creativity, and the impact that place (such as a school classroom) can have upon creativity. The phenomenological perspectives of Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Bachelard, and Trigg support a methodological lens to grasp embodied knowledge, perceptions of placedness on creativity, and the interdependent frictions between freedom, authenticity, movement and belonging. The research method includes investigations in New Orleans in archives, examination of visual and material culture, participation in cultural practice, and formal and informal interviews. Further, the phenomena of …
Date: December 2017
Creator: Bartholomee, Lucy
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Wayfinding tools in public library buildings: A multiple case study.

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Wayfinding is the process of using one or more tools to move from one location to another in order to accomplish a task or to achieve a goal. This qualitative study explores the process of wayfinding as it applies to locating information in a public library. A group of volunteers were asked to find a selection of items in three types of libraries-traditional, contemporary, and modern. The retrieval process was timed and the reactions of the volunteers were recorded, documented, and analyzed. The impact of various wayfinding tools-architecture, layout, color, signage, computer support, collection organization-on the retrieval process was also identified. The study revealed that many of the wayfinding tools currently available in libraries do not facilitate item retrieval. Inconsistencies, ambiguities, obstructions, disparities, and operational deficiencies all contributed to end-user frustration and retrieval failure. The study suggests that failing to address these issues may prompt library patrons-end users who are increasingly interested in finding information with minimal expenditures of time and effort-may turn to other information-retrieval strategies and abandon a system that they find confusing and frustrating.
Date: May 2004
Creator: Beecher, Ann B.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Occupational Stress and Burnout among American Pastoral Musicians

Occupational burnout is a concern to the health and longevity of clergy and musician careers. However, no known study has assessed occupational burnout among pastoral musicians. A literature review revealed pastoral musicians anecdotally experienced multi-tasking, workplace politics, inequality of workload, competing liturgical styles, lack of job security, lack of financial security, and lack of rest, among other indicators of burnout. Therefore, the aims of this paper were to: (1) describe pastoral musicians as a population; (2) identify the prevalence rate of burnout among pastoral musicians; (3) investigate the relationship between pastoral musicians' burnout and religious coping; and (4) investigate the relationships between pastoral musicians' burnout and depression, anxiety, and stress. In 2021, an online questionnaire was designed to assess burnout among pastoral musicians. Dissemination techniques included emails to members of the Hymn Society of North America and via social media to collect data from pastoral music directors in the United States of America. The survey yielded n = 1,050 respondents: 83.8% experienced one or more symptoms of burnout (41.3% with low efficacy; 12.4% with high emotional exhaustion; 21.3% with high cynicism; 8.8% with burnout). Ineffectiveness was positively correlated with negative religious coping. Emotional exhaustion and cynicism were positively correlated with …
Date: August 2022
Creator: Behel, Kensley Anne
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Doctoral Lecture Recital: 2010-04-12 – Brad Bennight, harpsichord transcript

Doctoral Lecture Recital: 2010-04-12 – Brad Bennight, harpsichord

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Organ Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.
Date: April 12, 2010
Creator: Bennight, Brad
Object Type: Sound
System: The UNT Digital Library
Centonization and Concordance in the American Southern Uplands Folksong Melody: A Study of the Musical Generative and Transmittive Processes of an Oral Tradition (open access)

Centonization and Concordance in the American Southern Uplands Folksong Melody: A Study of the Musical Generative and Transmittive Processes of an Oral Tradition

This study presents a theory of melodic creation, transmission, memory, and recall within the Anglo- and Celtic-American culture of lower Appalachia, from the time of the earliest European settlers until the present. This theory and its attendant hypotheses draw upon earlier published ideas, current theories of memory and recall, and the results of applying a computer-supported analytical system developed by the author. Sources include previous studies of folksong melody, song collections, and earlier investigations of the psychology of memory. Also important are portions of an anonymous treatise on traditional Celtic musical scales and an authoritative, modern interpretation of this document. A final body of sources is a small group of sound-recordings.
Date: August 1984
Creator: Bevil, J. Marshall (Jack Marshall)
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Response to Regulation of Technology: A Multi-Industry Perspective

Overall my dissertation work tries to capture a holistic view of the various complex interactions that occur in technology development, implementation, adoption and diffusion, in the context of three industries by examining issues that arise due to regulation of technology. Essay 1 focuses on the social media industry, which is in the early stage of the industrial life cycle, and is the foci of government attention for its ill effect on society. Results from the study (N= 647 employed adults in the US) supported hypotheses related to the antecedents and outcomes of platform utilization in the context of the three regulation dimensions. Essay 2 focuses on the automotive industry, which is in the growth stage of the industrial life cycle. Here the focus is on electric vehicles (EV) transitioning from the niches to the main market. Results from the longitudinal study (N = 429) support the moderating role of political activism on innovation capability of manufacturers and presence of ancillary services in the diffusion of different types of electric vehicles in the US market. Essay 3 focuses on the US healthcare industry, reflecting mature stage of industrial life cycle, yet also characterized with high cost and fragmentation of service. The …
Date: August 2022
Creator: Bhawal, Shalini
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Sexual Orientation and the Advanced Placement Art History Survey (open access)

Sexual Orientation and the Advanced Placement Art History Survey

This two-part study included a content analysis of an AP art history text and a survey together with interviews with AP art history teachers that embraced both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. The first phase of the study examined one of the more popular art history survey texts in the AP art history program, Gardner’s Art through the Ages, in terms of how inclusive it is in addressing issues of sexual orientation and, particularly, same-sex perspectives. In addition, the text was examined for evidence of sexual orientation ignored – particularly same-sex perspectives ignored and for heteronormative hegemonies. The second phase investigated the understandings and opinions of AP art history teachers toward the inclusion of sexual orientation and same-sex perspectives in their curriculums and classrooms. Recent recognition of gay, lesbian, and same-sex perspectives in the study of art history has challenged art educators and art historians to begin to consider opening up their curriculums and writings to include these perspectives. These ignored perspectives produce important understandings that enrich and deepen the discourse of art history. The inclusion of gay and lesbian content and same-sex perspectives to the study of AP art history, not only effectively serves the needs of AP art …
Date: December 2014
Creator: Bond, Richard P.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Muse of Fire: Liberty and War Songs as a Source of American History (open access)

The Muse of Fire: Liberty and War Songs as a Source of American History

The development of American liberty and war songs from a few themes during the pre-Revolutionary period to a distinct form of American popular music in the Civil War period reflects the growth of many aspects of American culture and thought. This study therefore treats as historical documents the songs published in newspapers, broadsides, and songbooks during the period from 1765 to 1865. Chapter One briefly summarizes the development of American popular music before 1765 and provides other introductory material. Chapter Two examines the origin and development of the first liberty-song themes in the period from 1765 to 1775. Chapters Three and Four cover songs written during the American Revolution. Chapter Three describes battle songs, emphasizing the use of humor, and Chapter Four examines the figures treated in the war song. Chapter Five covers the War of 1812, concentrating on the naval song, and describes the first use of dialect in the American war song. Chapter Six covers the Mexican War (1846-1848) and includes discussion of the aggressive American attitude toward the war as evidenced in song. Chapter Six also examines the first antiwar songs. Chapters Seven and Eight deal with the Civil War. Chapter Seven treats derivative war songs, including …
Date: August 1984
Creator: Bowman, Kent A. (Kent Adam), 1947-
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
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
Anne Tyler's Treatment of Managing Women (open access)

Anne Tyler's Treatment of Managing Women

Among the most important characters in contemporary writer Anne Tyler's nine novels of modern American life are her skillfully-drawn managing women who choose the family circle as the arena in which to use their skills and exert their influence. Strong, competent, independent, capable of caring for themselves, their husbands, their children, and others, too, as well as holding outside jobs, these women are the linchpins of their families. Among their most outstanding qualities are their abilities to endure hardships with heads high and skills unhampered. Within this broad category of managing women, Tyler clearly delineates two types of managers: the regenerative managing woman and the rigid managing woman. A major character in every novel, the regenerative managing woman not only endures, she also adapts. The key to her development and her strength is her capacity for trying again, renewing herself, and her family relationships. The evolution of a vital regenerative woman from a lonely childhood through the beginning of her vibrant womanhood is a key element in every Tyler novel. This development always includes an escape from her original family? an attempt to establish her own family; at least one major hardship that often sends her reeling home; and finally, …
Date: August 1985
Creator: Brock, Dorothy Faye Sala
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Black Political Leadership During Reconstruction (open access)

Black Political Leadership During Reconstruction

The key to Reconstruction for both blacks and whites was black suffrage. On one hand this vote made possible the elevation of black political leaders to positions of prominence in the reorganization of the South after the Civil War. For southern whites, on the other hand, black participation in the Reconstruction governments discredited the positive accomplishments of those regimes and led to the evolution of a systematized white rejection of the black as a positive force in southern politics. For white contemporaries and subsequent historians, the black political leader became the exemplar of all that was reprehensible about the period. Stereotyped patterns, developed to eliminate black influence, prevented any examination of the actual role played by these men in the reconstruction process. This study is partially a synthesis of recent scholarly research on specific aspects of the black political role and the careers of individual political leaders. Additional research included examination of a number of manuscript collections in the Library of Congress and the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, state and federal government documents, and contemporary newspapers. On the basis of all these sources, this study evaluates the nature of black political leadership and its impact …
Date: August 1974
Creator: Brock, Euline Williams
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Unity, Ecstasy, Communion: The Tragic Perspective of W.B. Yeats (open access)

Unity, Ecstasy, Communion: The Tragic Perspective of W.B. Yeats

As a young man of twenty-one in 1886, William Butler Yeats announced his ambition to unify Ireland through heroic poetry. But this prophetic urge lacked structure. Yeats had only some callow notions about needing self-possession and appropriate control of his imagery. As a result, his search for essential knowledge and experience soon led him into occult and symbolist vagueness. Yeats' mind grew flaccid, and his art languished in preciosity for over a decade. Lotos-eating had replaced prophetic fervor. However, early in the new century, as Yeats neared middle age and permanent mediocrity, he recovered his early zeal and finally found the means to give it artistic shape. Through daily theatre work he had discovered tragedy. And through personal trials he had developed a tragic sense. Hence, an entire tragic perspective was born, one that would dominate Yeats' mind and art the rest of his life. Locating the contours of Yeats' shift in-viewpoint, then, provides the key to understanding the man and his mature work. The present study does just that, tracing the origin, development, and elaboration of Yeats' tragic perspective, from its theoretical underpinnings to its poetic triumphs. Above all, this study supplies the basic context of Yeats* careers why …
Date: May 1988
Creator: Brooks, John C.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library