Matching Items (9)
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ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on Anne Moody's use of the autobiographical genre as an extension of her political activism. Noting consistent values and conventions that govern the writing of political activists, this study asserts that Moody's narrative is best situated in the genre of political autobiography--a term coined by Angela

ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on Anne Moody's use of the autobiographical genre as an extension of her political activism. Noting consistent values and conventions that govern the writing of political activists, this study asserts that Moody's narrative is best situated in the genre of political autobiography--a term coined by Angela Davis. Using Margo V. Perkins' text as a base to define autobiography as activism, this dissertation illustrates the consistent values that characterize Moody's narrative as political autobiography, resistance literature, and ultimately Black Power literature. Building on the works of Joanne Braxton, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, bell hooks, Margo V. Perkins, Assata Shakur, and Johnny Stover, this project demonstrates the use of Moody's autobiography as a collective form of resistance that is reflective of autobiography as activism. To frame its argument, this study theorizes how one comes into revolutionary consciousness, demonstrating the move toward activism as a process. Drawing on Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson's autobiographical theory that the "narrated I" is distinguished from the "narrating I," this study asserts, as Francoise Lionnet suggests, that the "narrating I" is the vehicle to deliver recollections relevant to the autobiographer's agenda. This study emphasizes that the early version of the self Moody creates is consciously linked to her role as a future activist, ultimately demonstrating her political evolution through the emphatic linking of the personal and political. Most importantly, this dissertation demonstrates that Moody's text represents a continuity--an autobiographical bridge--between representations of the Christian nonviolent civil rights movement and the Black Power movement of the late 1960's. This study argues that Moody's autobiography is ideologically poised at the intersection of civil rights and Black Power; therefore, it serves as both a civil rights autobiography and a Black Power autobiography. Coming of Age in Mississippi offers a unique contribution to the genre of Black Power autobiography for the way it facilitates unprecedented insight into the transition from non-violent civil rights ideology to revolutionary consciousness.
ContributorsFlanagan, Melissa A (Author) / Miller, Keith D. (Thesis advisor) / Stancliff, Michael (Committee member) / Anokye, Duku (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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This dissertation theorizes nineteenth-century public performance of spiritual media as being inherent to the production of autobiography itself. Too often, dominant social discourses are cast as being singular cultural phenomena, but analyzing the rhetorical strategies of women attempting to access public spheres reveals fractures in what would otherwise appear to

This dissertation theorizes nineteenth-century public performance of spiritual media as being inherent to the production of autobiography itself. Too often, dominant social discourses are cast as being singular cultural phenomena, but analyzing the rhetorical strategies of women attempting to access public spheres reveals fractures in what would otherwise appear to be a monolithic patriarchal discourse. These women's resistant performances reap the benefits of a fractured discourse to reveal a multiplicity of alternative discourses that can be accessed and leveraged to gain social power. By examining the phenomena of four nineteenth- century Spiritualists' mediumship from a rhetorical perspective, this study considers how female spirit mediums used their autobiographies to operate as discursive spaces mediating between private and public spheres; how female mediums constructed themselves in the public sphere as women and as spiritual authorities; how they negotiated entry into volatile and unpredictable publics; how they conceived of the vulnerability of the female body in the public sphere; and how they coped with complications inherent to Victorian era constructions of feminine corporeality. In conclusion, this dissertation offers a highly situated performative theory of subaltern publicity.
ContributorsLowry, Elizabeth (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Poetry serves as a window through which we can convey emotions and experiences otherwise difficult to access and express. This chapbook addresses the moments in life that have dramatic transformational effects and those moments and events we wish to deny. Through my poetry, I reveal the honest revelations of hurt

Poetry serves as a window through which we can convey emotions and experiences otherwise difficult to access and express. This chapbook addresses the moments in life that have dramatic transformational effects and those moments and events we wish to deny. Through my poetry, I reveal the honest revelations of hurt and pain, and the raw emotions evoked from the things that have occurred throughout my life. In doing so, I confront these painful experiences from a place of conscious awareness of the way in which they have impacted my life, and I allow others access to my hurt, self-hatred, and imperfection acknowledged throughout. This chapbook symbolizes the movement from a place of denial to a place of awareness and finally to a place of transformation and growth. As my poetry transformed from weak poems only accessible on an abstract level to powerful poems of honest and tangible pain and hurt, I experienced my own transformation. Allowing myself to candidly share my experiences with others has enabled me to grow from these experiences.
ContributorsLarson, Amanda Beth (Author) / Montesano, Mark (Thesis director) / Comeaux, Alexandra (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-12
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This project charts the development of autobiography as a genre through two pairs of writers: Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the Enlightenment, and Oscar Wilde and James Weldon Johnson of the fin de siècle, leading into the twentieth century. The Enlightenment thinkers took an Augustinian confessional approach to the

This project charts the development of autobiography as a genre through two pairs of writers: Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the Enlightenment, and Oscar Wilde and James Weldon Johnson of the fin de siècle, leading into the twentieth century. The Enlightenment thinkers took an Augustinian confessional approach to the autobiography as a genre, revealing their flawed selves to the public in order to make themselves both authentic and virtuous. Through both these writers, autobiography became a way to replace the religious precepts of the Middle Ages, as the flawed self could be redeemed through society in its current historical moment rather than God. Franklin’s autobiography shows how self-making through economic credit is conducive to virtue, while Rousseau turned inward toward a natural goodness lacking in corrupt social relations. Despite their differences, both furthered the development of autobiography as an account of authentic self-making.

The fin de siècle writers fictionalized the autobiography and derived a concept of authenticity that develops from the suffering of social otherness. Wilde praised the poor over the bourgeois in a British Philistine society, while Johnson’s narrator argued for the authenticity of an African-American class striving for economic and social justice. Both writers redeemed suffering through the ideals of the subjective self, a turn inward that resembles Rousseau’s own look into his natural, innermost self. Overall, this project focuses on how the development of the genre between these two pairs of thinkers gives multiple accounts of self-making leading to the social Other becoming an agent for authenticity; how is the self to be read, understood, and made authentic through its imperfections and sufferings? The fictionality of the later works casts an overarching question: is attaining authenticity through autobiography merely fictional?
ContributorsConigliari, Jeremy (Author) / Oberle, Eric (Thesis director) / Holbo, Christine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Anxiety is currently the most prevalent mental disorder in America with over 4 million people struggling with it every day. I am one of those millions. This book explores the multitude of coping mechanisms that I have learned and developed through my time with anxiety, covering everything from humor to

Anxiety is currently the most prevalent mental disorder in America with over 4 million people struggling with it every day. I am one of those millions. This book explores the multitude of coping mechanisms that I have learned and developed through my time with anxiety, covering everything from humor to finding the motivation to change. It is a creative non-fiction autobiography that depicts detailed moments from my own life that provide advice and tools for managing anxiety that are made accessible to people who may have completely different experiences from my own. While anxiety has always played a huge roll in my life, it wasn't until I got to college that I decided to finally begin taking the steps I needed to in order to see the changes that I wanted to see. I am a teacher, and every day I see many of my students battling with the exact pains and stresses that I always have. This book is for all of my future students as well as all the adolescents out there who feel like nobody really understands; the ones who all they need is a little direction and the confidence to know they're not alone.
ContributorsSwendig, Laura Ashley (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Griffith, Jason (Committee member) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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Information Measurement Theory (IMT) is a concept which was devised for the purpose of understanding how information works in the universe. At its core, it states that 100% of information exists in the universe at any one time, and with enough perception, any event can be predicted based on the

Information Measurement Theory (IMT) is a concept which was devised for the purpose of understanding how information works in the universe. At its core, it states that 100% of information exists in the universe at any one time, and with enough perception, any event can be predicted based on the initial conditions preceding the event. With this idea in mind, the author of IMT developed the Kashiwagi Solution Model (KSM) which deals with how people best utilize the information present in the universe. Simply put, the ideas presented by KSM encourage people to think in a more logical manner through the utilization of relevant information. The following thesis details an autobiographical case study which focuses on the life of a college student undergoing severe depressive symptoms during the course of their academic career. The usage of concepts stemming from IMT and KSM are then used to determine the root causes of the depression in order to prevent it from ever happening again. The case study acts as a guide to others in order to better help them deal with similar situations that are happening with their lives while providing evidence that the concepts detailed by IMT and KSM are factually relevant.
ContributorsChauhan, Amit (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Unmanned aerial vehicles have received increased attention in the last decade due to their versatility, as well as the availability of inexpensive sensors (e.g. GPS, IMU) for their navigation and control. Multirotor vehicles, specifically quadrotors, have formed a fast growing field in robotics, with the range of applications spanning from

Unmanned aerial vehicles have received increased attention in the last decade due to their versatility, as well as the availability of inexpensive sensors (e.g. GPS, IMU) for their navigation and control. Multirotor vehicles, specifically quadrotors, have formed a fast growing field in robotics, with the range of applications spanning from surveil- lance and reconnaissance to agriculture and large area mapping. Although in most applications single quadrotors are used, there is an increasing interest in architectures controlling multiple quadrotors executing a collaborative task. This thesis introduces a new concept of control involving more than one quadrotors, according to which two quadrotors can be physically coupled in mid-flight. This concept equips the quadro- tors with new capabilities, e.g. increased payload or pursuit and capturing of other quadrotors. A comprehensive simulation of the approach is built to simulate coupled quadrotors. The dynamics and modeling of the coupled system is presented together with a discussion regarding the coupling mechanism, impact modeling and additional considerations that have been investigated. Simulation results are presented for cases of static coupling as well as enemy quadrotor pursuit and capture, together with an analysis of control methodology and gain tuning. Practical implementations are introduced as results show the feasibility of this design.
ContributorsLarsson, Daniel (Author) / Artemiadis, Panagiotis (Thesis advisor) / Marvi, Hamidreza (Committee member) / Berman, Spring (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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This dissertation posits that a relationship between a feminist rhetorical pedagogical model and autobiographical theoretical tenets engage students in the personal writing process and introduce them to the ways that feminism can change the approach, analysis, and writing of autobiographical texts. Inadequate attention has been given to the ways that

This dissertation posits that a relationship between a feminist rhetorical pedagogical model and autobiographical theoretical tenets engage students in the personal writing process and introduce them to the ways that feminism can change the approach, analysis, and writing of autobiographical texts. Inadequate attention has been given to the ways that autobiographical theory and the use of non-fiction texts contribute to a feminist pedagogy in upper-level writing classrooms. This dissertation corrects that by focusing on food memoirs as vehicles in a feminist pedagogical writing course. Strands of both feminist and autobiographical theory prioritize performativity, positionality, and relationality (Smith and Watson 214) as dynamic components of identity construction and thus become frames through which this class was taught and studied. I theorize these “enabling concepts” (Smith and Watson 217) as identity pathways that lead to articulation of identity and experience in written work.

This study posits that Royster and Kirsch’s four feminist rhetorical practices— Critical Imagination, Social Circulation, Strategic Contemplation, and Globalizing Point of View (19)—taken together offer a model for instruction geared to help learners chart identity pathways in the context of one semester of their undergraduate rhetorical education. This model is operationalized through a writing classroom that focused on feminist ideals, using a food memoir, The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber, as the vehicle of inquiry. This study offers a starting point for analysis of food memoirs in university writing classrooms by focusing specifically on the ways that students understood and applied the framework, model, and vehicle of the study. This dissertation prioritizes the composition and valuing of individual and communal lived experiences expressed through the articulation of identity pathways. Teachers and scholars can use the knowledge and takeaways gained in the study to better support and advocate for the inclusion of the students lived experiences in writing classrooms and pedagogy.
ContributorsBruce, Kayla Ann (Author) / Daly Goggin, Maureen (Thesis advisor) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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There has been a vast increase in applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in civilian domains. To operate in the civilian airspace, a UAV must be able to sense and avoid both static and moving obstacles for flight safety. While indoor and low-altitude environments are mainly occupied by static obstacles,

There has been a vast increase in applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in civilian domains. To operate in the civilian airspace, a UAV must be able to sense and avoid both static and moving obstacles for flight safety. While indoor and low-altitude environments are mainly occupied by static obstacles, risks in space of higher altitude primarily come from moving obstacles such as other aircraft or flying vehicles in the airspace. Therefore, the ability to avoid moving obstacles becomes a necessity

for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

Towards enabling a UAV to autonomously sense and avoid moving obstacles, this thesis makes the following contributions. Initially, an image-based reactive motion planner is developed for a quadrotor to avoid a fast approaching obstacle. Furthermore, A Dubin’s curve based geometry method is developed as a global path planner for a fixed-wing UAV to avoid collisions with aircraft. The image-based method is unable to produce an optimal path and the geometry method uses a simplified UAV model. To compensate

these two disadvantages, a series of algorithms built upon the Closed-Loop Rapid Exploratory Random Tree are developed as global path planners to generate collision avoidance paths in real time. The algorithms are validated in Software-In-the-Loop (SITL) and Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulations using a fixed-wing UAV model and in real flight experiments using quadrotors. It is observed that the algorithm enables a UAV to avoid moving obstacles approaching to it with different directions and speeds.
ContributorsLin, Yucong (Author) / Saripalli, Srikanth (Thesis advisor) / Scowen, Paul (Committee member) / Fainekos, Georgios (Committee member) / Thangavelautham, Jekanthan (Committee member) / Youngbull, Cody (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015