This dissertation provides a critical examination of how children experienced concussion as a social phenomenon. Oriented by the post-structuralist theory of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), namely concepts of discourse, power/knowledge, and the subject, I explored how children resp…
As a historically racialized utterance, nigger has been a contested and despised word since the late 17th Century. Now, in the 21st Century, nigga is still considered one of the most impactful words in the English lexicon. This dissertation provides one situated and contingent a…
Through the intersection of discourse analysis and plot analysis a proposed microplot for Genesis is developed from the formal structure of the narrative. The macrostructure of Genesis is determined to consist of eleven sections marked by transitional toledot headings. These hea…
The Ben-Hur films were some of the most popular, controversial, and financially successful films of the 20th century. As a result, Hollywood mindset and practices were heavily influenced by the marketing strategies and discourse surrounding these films, as many studios and filmm…
This thesis focuses on the experiences of high school history teachers discussing race within the classroom. Race has been at the forefront of the sociopolitical context of 2020, as the Black Lives Matter movement has brought attention to the racialized history of the United Sta…
The development of television in postwar Japan synchronized with both Japan’s nation building project after World War II and its geopolitical positionality within the global Cold War. While much of the previous scholarship has been dedicated to postwar Japan and its political an…
Research continues to find discussions in history classrooms to be rather short in length and simplistic in nature, despite the higher aims of historical and critical thinking. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the phenomenon of historical thinking and dialogi…
This dissertation seeks to explain the discursive origin, development, and transformation of “Republican anticommunism,” and how and why this state-originated ideology continues to shape Vietnamese exile communities today. The dissertation focuses on examining mechanisms that al…
Regionalism in Latin America has historical roots dating back to the early 19th century through the post-Cold War period. This unique character has fostered a breadth of regionalist projects, with many succeeding, reimagining, overlapping, or competing with other projects within…
This dissertation examines the ways in which educators that self-identify as religious produce themselves as ethical subjects within the pseudo-secular space of public schools. This inquiry has its foundations in poststructuralist theories such as Derrida’s deconstruction (deepl…
Practical insights regarding the intersection of feminism and Evangelical Christianity has largely been ignored within academia despite the simultaneous rise of the women’s movement and the continuous stronghold that Evangelical Christianity maintains within the United States. A…
The education system in Haiti has experienced numerous challenges, both current and historical, and has been uniquely affected by the impact of colonialism, greed, and corruption. As one of several interacting systems—along with the political, economic, environmental, sociocultu…
Once I Believed: Evangelical Sexuality, Critical Thinking, and the Process of Change questions the boundaries of literacy studies scholarship on home discourse communities, using religious students as a case study for groups that may or may not sit outside the boundaries of incl…
This study analyzes policy-oriented approaches to addressing poverty on a municipal, provincial, and national level. Pairing the Foucauldian governmentality framework with the new sociology of childhood, I explore how neoliberal subjectivities are reinforced through Poverty Redu…
What keeps American political society from recognizing the Mad (commonly called "people with mental illness" or "the mentally ill") as a collective with unique political claims? My answer emerges in what I call a foundational politics of madness–an account of the existing discur…
Through extensive archival research, oral history and ethnography, this dissertation examines the coal mining photographs of photojournalist Jack Corn, repositioning his work alongside the work of noted social documentarian Milton Rogovin as being important in reshaping the visu…