Theses and dissertations

This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students. 

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Race, Color, and Enslaveability: An Analysis of Slave Buying Manuals in the Medieval Islamic World

Description

This project is focused on slavery in the medieval Islamic world. The aim of the study is to understand in more depth the way in which race and color were incorporated into understandings of slavery by medieval Islamic writers, and also who was able to be enslaved from their perspective.…

This project is focused on slavery in the medieval Islamic world. The aim of the study is to understand in more depth the way in which race and color were incorporated into understandings of slavery by medieval Islamic writers, and also who was able to be enslaved from their perspective. A genre of slave buying manuals will be analyzed in order to gain a greater understanding of these concepts. Research focused primarily on three authors. These authors were Ibn Al-Akfani who lived most of his life in Cairo during the 14th century, Ibn Butlan who lived in the 11th century in Baghdad, and Al-Saqati who lived in the 13th century in Málaga. I argue that there are clearly ideas of race and racial constructions within the medieval Islamic context as evidenced by these texts, but that there is not enough evidence to support a connection between these ideas of race and ideas of color or enslaveability. Additionally, I argue that there is no connection between color and enslaveability during this period as reflected in these texts.
ContributorsRobinaugh, Joshua D (Author) / Barker, Hannah (Thesis director) / El Hamel, Chouki (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
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The Not-So-Lost Cause: Neo-Confederates, Confederados, and the Empowerment of Mythic White Heritage

Description
The Confederate States of America folded as a political project in 1865, but ex-Confederates refused to surrender the ideological cornerstones of a culture of white supremacy. That Lost Cause was a Confederacy of ideas that seized the imaginations of those who claimed a stake in the failed republic. But a…

The Confederate States of America folded as a political project in 1865, but ex-Confederates refused to surrender the ideological cornerstones of a culture of white supremacy. That Lost Cause was a Confederacy of ideas that seized the imaginations of those who claimed a stake in the failed republic. But a curious thing happened to a backwards-looking mythos that idealized local democracy over distant tyranny, white over black, and agrarian manhood over industrial mechanization. Like the ex-Confederate leaders who fled the United States after defeat, the Lost Cause migrated from the vanquished South to South America, finding fertile soil in Brazil, a nation with a deep history of analogous conflicts over race, power, and the allure of an immaculate historical myth. From there, the confederados, as they would come to be called, challenged by a Brazilian society that defied their preconceived notions of race and slavery, would amalgamate their white heritage and local Brazilian culture into an identity that was both wholly unique yet still distinctly Confederate, an identity that manages to persist to this day. Confederados in Brazil today recover an imagined heritage that was portable: like the CSA in North America, Confederados romanticize and mythologize racial identity and a struggle against a distant federal tyranny threatening individual rights. Yet at the same time, an even more curious thing has happened: they have seemingly betrayed their white heritage in certain aspects and adopted distinctly un-Confederate attitudes towards race, the very same attitudes that they had struggled to. Through analyzing both this movement and the analogous Lost Cause movement in the United States, one can begin to understand the allure that such movements have for particular groups of people, as well as how these movements have persisted so long after their initial founding.
ContributorsRozansky, Eric (Author) / Schermerhorn, Calvin (Thesis director) / El Hamel, Chouki (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
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Adolescent Predictors of Marijuana Cessation and Motivations for Quitting Marijuana in a Racially Balanced Adult Non-Treatment Sample

Description
Marijuana is currently the mostly widely used illicit drug in the U.S., and has been for multiple decades (Johnston et. al., 2016). Despite a growing belief that marijuana use is not harmful, over 4 million Americans have met criteria for marijuana use disorders in the past year alone (CBHSQ, 2015).…

Marijuana is currently the mostly widely used illicit drug in the U.S., and has been for multiple decades (Johnston et. al., 2016). Despite a growing belief that marijuana use is not harmful, over 4 million Americans have met criteria for marijuana use disorders in the past year alone (CBHSQ, 2015). According to marijuana trajectory studies, about a third of marijuana users will end up quitting later in life, but some \u2014 such as those who meet criteria for dependence \u2014 have a much greater difficultly quitting. Therefore, by looking at marijuana users who were successful in quitting, and comparing them to ongoing adult marijuana users, factors that may assist in helping an individual quit \u2014 such as certain motivations for quitting \u2014 may be identified. To study these issues, data was collected from 507 participants from the Pittsburgh Youth Study. It was found that adolescents who used marijuana weekly for at least one year were likely to be ongoing marijuana users in adulthood and that adolescents who had a warm relationship with their primary caretaker were likely to have quit marijuana by adulthood. It was also found that Black participants were more likely to have legal, monetary, and religious reasons for quitting than were White participants. Furthermore, participants who used regularly in adolescence were likely to list legal reasons, as well as a concern that marijuana use was needed to feel normal. Finally, it was found that not a single motivation for quitting marijuana was associated with a shorter period of abstinence. The implications of these findings for motivations to quit marijuana are the focus of the discussion.
ContributorsGomez, Kira Elise (Author) / Pardini, Dustin (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Meier, Madeline (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12