ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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Description
Este trabajo examina la producción literaria y cultural chicana/méxicosudoesteña de las distintas épocas coloniales del sudoeste: la época colonial española (1521-1821), la época colonial angloamericana (1848-1965) y la época poscolonial (1965-presente) para ver hasta qué punto siguen vigentes los legados coloniales dentro de un contexto contemporáneo. Avanzamos la hipótesis que, de la larga residencia histórica y geográfica de las personas hispanomexicanas en el sudoeste, se han producidos textos simbólicos donde se registran dos o más discursos residuos cuyo origen es una ideología dominante. El capítulo 1 plantea y detalla la hipótesis, reseña los numerosos estudios existentes, describe el marco teórico y da la división en capítulos. En el capítulo 2, se da de manera detallada el método crítico: la definición del colonialismo clásico según la teoría de Mario Barrera, la relación colonizador/colonizado aportada por Albert Memmi y los conceptos del tercer espacio híbrido, el mestizaje y el imaginario decolonial asociados con la época poscolonial como ofrecidos respectivamente por Homi Bhabha, Rafael Pérez-Torres y Emma Pérez. El capítulo 3 ofrece un análisis de la época colonial española vía dos obras nuevomexicanas: el poema épico Historia de la Nueva México (1610) de Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá y el drama Los comanches (c.1779) de anónimo. El capítulo 4 trata la colonización angloamericana en las obras The Squatter and the Don (1885) de María Amparo Ruiz de Burton y Dew on the Thorn (escrita en los 1940; publicada en 1997) de Jovita González de Mireles. El capítulo 5 examina la época poscolonial vía la obra Los muertos también cuentan (1995) de Miguel Méndez. Una lectura de la literatura chicana/méxicosudoesteña revela la presencia de varios personajes típicos asociados cada uno a una diferente época histórica desde el conquistador español hasta un mexicano recién inmigrado, quienes no han podido evadir la correspondiente presencia de un grupo dominante u colonizador. Con base en una investigación de las cinco obras seleccionadas, se muestra cómo las relaciones coloniales se forman y se transforman y luego se manifiestan en un contexto contemporáneo, desplazando por ende nuestro entendimiento de las relaciones coloniales como un simple proyecto binario de dominación y subordinación.
ContributorsFonseca, Vanessa (Author) / Hernández-G., Manuel De Jesús (Thesis advisor) / Rosales, Jesus (Committee member) / García-Fernández, Carlos Javier (Committee member) / Volek, Emil (Committee member) / Horan, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Set in the former Yugoslavia, contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Midwest America, the collection of short stories follows the complicated trajectory of war-survivor to refugee and, then, immigrant. These stories---about religious prisoners who are not at all religious, about young, philosophizing boys tempting the bullets of snipers, about men retracing their fathers' steps over bridges that no longer exist---grapple with memory, imagination, and the nature of art, and explore the notion of writer as witness.
ContributorsHusić, Vedran (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Turchi, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes and opinions of Navajo students toward the Navajo language and culture programs within the schools they were attending. Although in the final year of the No Child Left Behind, a majority of the 265 schools on and near the Navajo reservation have not been making Adequate Yearly Progress, a concern for the parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, and the Navajo Nation. The study entailed conducting a survey at five schools; three of which were not meeting the requirements of the No Child Left Behind. The purpose of the survey instrument (27 questions) administered to the students at the five schools was to examine their attitudes and opinions as to participating in Navajo language and culture programs, to determine if the programs assisted them in their academic achievements, and to examine whether these programs actually made a difference for schools in their Adequate Yearly Progress requirement Approximately 87% of 99 Navajo students, 55 boys and 58 girls, ages 9 through 14, Grades 3 through 8, who lived off the reservation in Flagstaff, Arizona and Gallup, New Mexico, and took the survey knew and spoke Navajo, but less fluently and not to a great extent. However, the students endorsed learning Navajo and strongly agreed that the Navajo language and culture should be part of the curriculum. Historically there have been schools such as the Rock Point Community School, Rough Rock Demonstration School, Borrego Pass Community School, and Ramah Community School that have been successful in their implementation of bilingual programs. The question presently facing Navajo educators is what type of programs would be successful within the context of the No Child Left Behind federal legislation. Can there be replications of successful Navajo language and culture programs into schools that are not making Adequate Yearly Progress?
ContributorsTsosie, David J (Author) / Spencer, Dee A. (Thesis advisor) / Appleton, Nicholas A. (Committee member) / Koerperich, Robbie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
A simple passion for reading compels many to enter the university literature classroom. What happens once they arrive may fuel that passion, or possibly destroy it. A romanticized relationship with literature proves to be an obstacle that hinders a deeper and richer engagement with texts. Primary research consisting of personal interviews, observations, and surveys, form the source of data for this dissertation project which was designed to examine how literature teachers engage their students with texts, discussion, and assignments in the university setting. Traditionally text centered and resolute, literature courses will need refashioning if they are to advance beyond erstwhile conventions. The goal of this study is to create space for a dialogue about the need for a pedagogy of literature.
ContributorsSanchez, Shillana (Author) / Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Tobin, Beth (Thesis advisor) / Rose, Shirley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
En el siglo XXI nuestra vida se está cruzando constantemente con la tecnología, tanto que algunos declaran que nuestro mundo se ha hecho posthumano, ya que no se puede separar al ser humano de la máquina. Aunque algunos se sientan amenazados por estas tecnologías, otros están abrazando la Red Mundial, aprovechándose de las infinitas oportunidades que ofrece. Uno de estos elementos fundamentales que internet posibilita es la capacidad de comunicarse directamente con otras personas. El blog por ejemplo, o bitácora en español, permite que los usuarios se proyecten a sí mismos o a sus pseudo-identidades, sus pensamientos e ideas a través del texto que escriben en internet. También sus lectores pueden responder a estos autores inmediatamente. Los posts publicados--entradas en una página web--, aunque aparecen cronológicamente, son episodios fragmentados. Pero el blog no se limita a la producción de un texto sino que el autor puede también "jugar" con el cuerpo del texto para añadir hipervínculos y multimedia. Esta forma de escribir está cambiando lo que se considera "válido" como texto, incluso lo que se considera literatura. El objetivo de este trabajo no es estudiar la literatura digital en su totalidad, sino específicamente en algunas obras escritas por mujeres en internet. Si se considera la escritura digital como una forma de arte marginalizada, se podría decir que la escritura realizada por mujeres en internet experimenta una doble-marginalidad debido al hecho de que la literatura de mujeres siempre ha sido marginal al canon. Este estudio tomará un punto de vista transatlántico, incluyendo en el mismo a varias escritoras hispanohablantes de diferentes edades, experiencias y con variados motivos en su trabajo que publican sus obras en internet. Estas autoras incluyen las blogueras Almudena Montero (española) yMaría Amelia López Soliño (española); la periodista ciudadana Yoanis Sánchez (cubana); y la poeta digital/crítica Belén Gache (española-argentina). En esta tesis he explorado y considerado la noción de que el internet sirve como un medio de democratización puesto que, hasta cierto punto, las fronteras de género y nacionalidad desaparecen. Por esta razón, este trabajo va a considerar varias teorías tales como el postmodernismo, las teorías sobre la escritura de mujeres y teorías sobre la democratización de la tecnología para analizar la literatura que se encuentra en la red. Aunque las escritoras analizadas en este proyecto son distintas, y usan la tecnología de maneras diferentes, tienen una misma meta: expresarse libremente y comunicarse directamente con sus lectores al conectarse a internet. Mi hipótesis de trabajo consiste en que estas mujeres escriben de una manera particular--es decir, que no escriben igual a los hombres que escriben en internet--y que la red ofrece una plataforma única a las mujeres: en este espacio ellas son más activas--en oposición a la literatura tradicional-- en cuanto a compartir y publicar su propio trabajo e ideas.
ContributorsByron, Jennifer E. (Author) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / García-Fernández, Carlos Javier (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In order to adapt to a new culture and new language, children of immigrant families are faced daily with the responsibility of being the intermediaries between the family and the host culture through their language proficiency (Weisskirch & Alva, 2002). This thesis looks into the experiences of English-Spanish bilingual children as they bridge the gap between the family and the non-Spanish speaking community through their interpreting/translating skills. With an emphasis on children of Mexican-origin, the goal is to further understand and illuminate how these children manage this communication in an adult society, their feelings and thoughts about their experiences, and the child's perceptions about the influence that this experience may or may not have on their future. A sample of seventeen children agreed to participate in a semi-structured face-to-face interview to share their experiences. The data from these interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006). A priori themes of circumstantial bilingual and adaptive parentification were the initial focus of the research while being open to emerging themes. The children's accounts of their experiences indicated primarily that the Mexican-origin values of familism and respeto (respect) were a significant influence on them when they interpreted/translated for their family. With these traditional cultural values and norms as the groundwork, the sub-themes of normalcy and stress emerged as supportive elements of the circumstantial bilingual experience. Furthermore, the theme of adaptive parentification and the sub-themes of choice, expectation/responsibility to assist, and equality to parents offered further insight on how adaptive parentification can result as the roles of these children change. There was an emergent theme, identity negotiation, which increases our understanding of what the circumstantial bilingual child encounters as the attempt is made to negotiate his identity as an individual who has to mediate language between two opposing cultures. Due to the language brokering responsibility that are bestowed upon these children, it is concluded that communicative support by the parents is a necessary component of the parent-child relationship in order to nurture and develop these children as they negotiate and create their identity to become the successful leaders of tomorrow.
ContributorsCayetano, Catalina (Author) / Mean, Lindsey (Thesis advisor) / Waldron, Vincent (Committee member) / Gaffney, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation considers the literary and cultural response of the labor-class poets to the emerging forces of Foucauldian biopolitics in early modern Britain to shed new light on the cultural impacts of biopower upon the rural community in early modern Britain. The analysis demonstrates how the labor class literary response is characterized by an exterior experience with the nonhuman in an alternative mode to the Wordsworthian experience of the interior. I then use labor-class poets to counter Wordsworthian notions of the immaterial State population through a critical expose of state-Subject, subject-object, and human nonhuman exterior relations as they are depicted in the labor-class poetry of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain. Employing an object-ontological reading of community, I explore how the effects of biopower were inscribed in the literary artifacts of the labor-class. As a final consideration, I explore the response to postcolonial biopolitics in J.M. Coetzee's 1999 novel, Disgrace. The research takes a focused historical view, surveying a range of literary, political, and historical texts between 1760-1840 to offer new readings of Robert Bloomfield, Robert Burns, John Clare, William Cobbett, Ebenezer Elliott, Olivier Goldsmith, James Hogg, and William Wordsworth. In complement, the research offers a new reading of postcolonial biopolitics in the contemporary work of J.M Coetzee.
ContributorsBisnoff, Robert W (Author) / Lussier, Mark S. (Thesis advisor) / Bixby, Patrick (Committee member) / Broglio, Ron (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this study is to investigate the literacy practices of three members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and to explore how they use these practices to support and maintain their recovery in their lives. This study also aims to examine how each participant used specialist language, enacted certain identities and acquired the secondary Discourse in A.A. through literacy use. This dissertation study is the result of in-depth interviewing in which each participant was interviewed three times for 90-minutes. These interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using discourse analysis. Study results are presented in three chapters, each one designated to one of the participants. Within these chapters is a life history (chronology) of the participant leading up to the point in which they got sober. The chapters also include a thematic discourse analysis of the interview transcripts across themes of literacy practice and topics in A.A. A conclusion is then presented to investigate how literacy was used from a sociocultural perspective in the study. Due to the emotionally charged nature of this dissertation, it has been formatted to present the stories of the participants first, leaving the theoretical framework, literature review and research methods to be included as appendices to the main text.
ContributorsClausen, Jennifer Ann (Author) / Marsh, Josephine (Thesis advisor) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Serafini, Frank (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this collection of stories, people find themselves face to face with great trouble: a house lost to flood, a brother lost to the river, a girl on the edge of an adulthood she can't possibly survive. Set in Northern California along the banks of the Sacramento and American Rivers, the stories feature characters who live below the radar of the middle-class. Central to the narratives are notions of loss, lust, pleasure, and struggle.
ContributorsFowler, Courtney (Author) / Mcnally, T.M. (Thesis advisor) / Turchi, Peter (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Chris Miller's Souvenirs of Sleep is as serious as it is whimsical, if this is a possibility. The "Museum of the Zoo-real" may be an equally appropriate title as animals are often in performance. In this visual and spiritual investigation, childhood, dream, and the loss of a mother to suicide are the currents. Miller's work is informed by the cinema of Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson and beyond. Miller believes in the power of implication. The poems begin with intense focus, but are often in the business of expansion. Souvenirs of Sleep is a journey toward sense-making, a search for language that might allow it.
ContributorsMiller, Christopher (Author) / Dubie, Norman (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013