Matching Items (9)
Description
The purpose of this project is to analyze Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon (1817) and its inclusion of a character of color. This thesis discusses Austen's mixed-race heiress, Miss Lambe, in the context of two other pieces of fiction that feature mixed-race heroines--the anonymously published The Woman of Colour (1808) and Mary Ann Sullivan's Owen Castle (1816). Scholarship on Austen's awareness of the Abolitionist movement and her sympathy for its politics has previously been published. I advance our conversations on the subject by discussing Austen's Miss Lambe as a mixed-race heiress in the context of gender, race, and ethnicity in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels. My thesis considers literary and historical treatments of people of color and provides a trans-Atlantic approach to female characters identified as mixed race.
Juxtaposing Sanditon, The Woman of Colour, and Owen Castle provides insight into how Austen was working within a set of established literary traditions, while creating ways to disrupt some of its problematic elements. This project looks at conventions of the mixed-race female characters in five ways. To begin, I discuss the mixed-race heroine and the compulsion to define her place of origin. Second, I consider the convention of describing mixed-race heiresses' rights to their inheritance. An analysis of the significance of naming mixed-race heiresses follows. I discuss literary conventions of the betrayal of mixed-race females. Lastly, I explore the common use of black maid figures in novels of this era to advance social critique against prejudice. Comparative analysis of Austen with other novels featuring mixed-race heroines in this era allows us to reach new understandings of Sanditon. Austen's unfinished last novel is shown to question the power of fortune, to undermine the orthodoxy of categorizing race and ethnicity, and to unsettle the hierarchy among characters of different races and ethnicities.
Juxtaposing Sanditon, The Woman of Colour, and Owen Castle provides insight into how Austen was working within a set of established literary traditions, while creating ways to disrupt some of its problematic elements. This project looks at conventions of the mixed-race female characters in five ways. To begin, I discuss the mixed-race heroine and the compulsion to define her place of origin. Second, I consider the convention of describing mixed-race heiresses' rights to their inheritance. An analysis of the significance of naming mixed-race heiresses follows. I discuss literary conventions of the betrayal of mixed-race females. Lastly, I explore the common use of black maid figures in novels of this era to advance social critique against prejudice. Comparative analysis of Austen with other novels featuring mixed-race heroines in this era allows us to reach new understandings of Sanditon. Austen's unfinished last novel is shown to question the power of fortune, to undermine the orthodoxy of categorizing race and ethnicity, and to unsettle the hierarchy among characters of different races and ethnicities.
ContributorsBaugh, Victoria (Author) / Looser, Devoney (Thesis advisor) / Justice, George (Committee member) / Wernimont, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Engineers spend several years studying intense technical details of the processes that shape our world, yet few are exposed to classes addressing social behaviors or issues. Engineering culture creates specific barriers to addressing social science issues, such as unconscious bias, within engineering classrooms. I developed a curriculum that uses optical illusions, Legos, and the instructor's vulnerability to tackle unconscious bias in a way that addresses the barriers in engineering culture that prevent engineers from learning social science issues. Unconscious bias has documented long-term negative impacts on success and personal development, even in engineering environments. Creating a module in engineering education that addresses unconscious bias with the aim of reducing the negative effects of bias would benefit developing engineers by improving product development and team diversity. Engineering culture fosters disengagement with social issues through three pillars: depoliticization, technical/social dualism, and meritocracy. The developed curriculum uses optical illusions and Legos as proxies to start discussions about unconscious bias. The proxies allow engineers to explore their own biases without running into one of the pillars of disengagement that limits the engineer's willingness to discuss social issues. The curriculum was implemented in the Fall of 2017 in an upper-division engineering classroom as a professional communication module. The module received qualitatively positive feedback from fellow instructors and students. The curriculum was only implemented once by the author, but future implementations should be done with a different instructor and using quantitative data to measure if the learning objectives were achieved. Appendix A of the paper contains a lesson plan of the module that could be implemented by other instructors.
ContributorsLauber, Emily Anne (Author) / Wernimont, Jacqueline (Thesis director) / Mertz, Benjamin (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Increasing numbers of biomedical products have become eligible for over-the-counter sale in contemporary American consumer culture. What was once the realm of the clinical has moved into the realm of the domestic, with the consumer as the interpreter of health issues and communication. This dissertation examines the user experience with the marketing and design of packaging of home pregnancy tests. Studies indicate that more than one-third of women of reproductive age in the U.S. have used a home pregnancy test, yet the test is marketed to a specific demographic of user: one who is white, affluent, and married. How are users’ experiences affected, and how do different methodological frameworks yield results for the study of these user experiences?
In this project, I conduct a series of methodological case studies to show how each reveal various aspects of the user experience of home pregnancy testing. I begin with a case study of three brands of home pregnancy tests, using visual-material rhetorical analysis to uncover the cultural values implicit in packaging. I then move to two case studies involving the results of a National Institutes of Health survey of pregnancy test users. I employ a thematic analysis framework to analyze demographic information about users and to contextualize their narratives. I also conduct corpus linguistics and semantic network analysis with the same data set to model patterns in language. From these varying approaches, each with different underlying assumptions, nuanced aspects of the user experience with the product and its communication emerge. For example, the user’s life circumstances change from initial to subsequent pregnancy test purchase and use so as to suggest more desire for a positive result with subsequent testing, yet many users across these categories express some degree of discomfort when purchasing this product.
I conclude with suggestions based on this research for more ethically informed pregnancy test marketing, and outline avenues for future research for evaluation of home pregnancy test user experience. I finally discuss the implications of multiple methodological approaches for transdisciplinary humanities project design, implementation, and evaluation, with emphasis on the digital and medical humanities.
In this project, I conduct a series of methodological case studies to show how each reveal various aspects of the user experience of home pregnancy testing. I begin with a case study of three brands of home pregnancy tests, using visual-material rhetorical analysis to uncover the cultural values implicit in packaging. I then move to two case studies involving the results of a National Institutes of Health survey of pregnancy test users. I employ a thematic analysis framework to analyze demographic information about users and to contextualize their narratives. I also conduct corpus linguistics and semantic network analysis with the same data set to model patterns in language. From these varying approaches, each with different underlying assumptions, nuanced aspects of the user experience with the product and its communication emerge. For example, the user’s life circumstances change from initial to subsequent pregnancy test purchase and use so as to suggest more desire for a positive result with subsequent testing, yet many users across these categories express some degree of discomfort when purchasing this product.
I conclude with suggestions based on this research for more ethically informed pregnancy test marketing, and outline avenues for future research for evaluation of home pregnancy test user experience. I finally discuss the implications of multiple methodological approaches for transdisciplinary humanities project design, implementation, and evaluation, with emphasis on the digital and medical humanities.
ContributorsOpel, Dawn S (Author) / Goggin, Maureen Daly (Thesis advisor) / Daer, Alice R (Committee member) / Wernimont, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This paper explores the intersection of female madness and Gothic space in four pieces of Gothic media: Jane Eyre written By Charlotte Brontë, "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Carrie (1976) directed by Brian De Palma, and Midsommar (2016) directed by Ari Aster. In these texts, female characters find themselves driven “mad,” either by their own design or from outside influences. While the madness presents itself differently in each text, they all share common elements, especially in terms of Gothic space. Each text sees its madwoman affected by the environment around them whether it is explicitly stated in-text or not. Gothic space acts as both a metanarrative on the characters’ lives and emotions, and as literal, physical spaces that the characters inhabit and interact with. Oftentimes, what the character cannot express is told through the environment around her. Feelings of suffocation, misery, entrapment, and repression are represented in and through haunted homes, quasi-asylums, closets, schools, attics, and sun-lit fields. In analyzing all four texts individually and in relation to one another, this paper also argues for the presence of a paradox inherent in the cultural formation of female madness. In each text, all written/created across 200+ years, a common theme emerges. Though the expression of madness for the women in each text is a freeing and liberating experience, they also meet tragic and often violent ends. The madness exhibited in each text is both a response to and an expression of trauma - resulting in either victimization or villainization for the women who succumb to it. The end result depicts women who have been physically, mentally, and emotionally destroyed from their own madness. In freeing themselves, they unknowingly and unintentionally subject themselves to further pain and misery.
ContributorsBoyle, Molly Anne (Author) / Justice, George (Thesis director) / Sandler, Kevin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
The 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade was a significant event in the story of fetal personhood—the story of whether embryos and fetuses are legal persons. Roe legalized abortion care in the United States (US). However, the story of fetal personhood began long before the 1970s. People have been talking about embryos, fetuses, and their status in science, the law, and society for centuries. I studied the history of fetal personhood in the United States, tracing its origins from Ancient Rome and Medieval England to its first appearance in a US courtroom in 1884 and then to the Supreme Court’s decision in 1973.
But this isn’t a history of events—of names and dates and typical details. This is a history of words. In the twenty-first century, words used to discuss embryos and fetuses are split. Some people use humanizing language like “unborn children” and “human life.” Others use technical words like “embryos” and “fetuses.” I studied what words people used historically. I charted how words moved from science to the public to the law, and how they impacted court rulings on fetal personhood.
The use of certain words nudged courts to grant additional rights to embryos and fetuses. In the 1960s, writers began describing the science of development, using words like “unborn child” and humanizing descriptions to make embryos and fetuses seem like people already born. That helped build an idea of embryos and fetuses as having “life” before birth. When people began asking courts to legalize abortion care in the 1970s, attorneys on the opposite side argued that embryos and fetuses were “human life,” and that that “life” began at conception.
In those cases, “life” was biologically defined as when sperm fertilized egg, but it was on that biological definition “life” that judges improperly rested their legal rulings that embryos and fetuses were “potential human life” states had a duty to protect. It wasn’t legal personhood, but it was a legal status that let states pass laws restricting abortion care and punishing pregnant people for their behavior, trends that threaten people’s lives and autonomy in the twenty-first century.
But this isn’t a history of events—of names and dates and typical details. This is a history of words. In the twenty-first century, words used to discuss embryos and fetuses are split. Some people use humanizing language like “unborn children” and “human life.” Others use technical words like “embryos” and “fetuses.” I studied what words people used historically. I charted how words moved from science to the public to the law, and how they impacted court rulings on fetal personhood.
The use of certain words nudged courts to grant additional rights to embryos and fetuses. In the 1960s, writers began describing the science of development, using words like “unborn child” and humanizing descriptions to make embryos and fetuses seem like people already born. That helped build an idea of embryos and fetuses as having “life” before birth. When people began asking courts to legalize abortion care in the 1970s, attorneys on the opposite side argued that embryos and fetuses were “human life,” and that that “life” began at conception.
In those cases, “life” was biologically defined as when sperm fertilized egg, but it was on that biological definition “life” that judges improperly rested their legal rulings that embryos and fetuses were “potential human life” states had a duty to protect. It wasn’t legal personhood, but it was a legal status that let states pass laws restricting abortion care and punishing pregnant people for their behavior, trends that threaten people’s lives and autonomy in the twenty-first century.
ContributorsAbboud, Carolina (Author) / Maienschein, Jane (Thesis advisor) / Justice, George (Committee member) / Marchant, Gary (Committee member) / Pyne, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Online communities have created such an outpouring of new media that academia has not had the time to catch up. Creepypasta is a genre of online horror short story that began in the early 2000’s on the forums 4chan and Something Awful. In the twenty-two years since its inception, the academic discourse around it has sprouted but not flourished. Creepypasta as a genre is perhaps one of the newest and least understood offshoots of horror and the gothic. Thus far there have been no full-bodied attempts at defining the genre or looking at the works as a whole, instead there is only focus on the parts. This thesis will be attempting to define the genre and will undertake this by first analyzing the components that define the genre, its origins, claims to authenticity, and publishing routes, as well as the folkloric connections which have been the focus of the majority of the literature thus far. This will move into an analysis of a single example of the form, Accounts from a Lonely Broadcast Station, to demonstrate the application of the definition of the genre, but also to show the wide breadth of potential of this genre in being analyzed academically.
ContributorsRamirez, Makayla (Author) / Justice, George (Thesis advisor) / Zarka, Emily (Committee member) / Baldini, Cajsa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This action research study is a mixed methods investigation of doctoral students’ preparedness for multiple career paths. PhD students face two challenges preparing for multiple career paths: lack of preparation and limited engagement in conversations about the value of their research across multiple audiences. This study focuses on PhD students’ perceived perception of communicating the value of their research across academic and non-academic audiences and on an institutional intervention designed to increase student’s proficiency to communicate the value of their PhD research across multiple audiences. Additionally, the study identified ways universities can implement solutions to prepare first-generation PhD students to effectively achieve their career goals.
I developed a course titled Preparing Future Scholars (PFS). PFS was designed to be an institutional intervention to address the fundamental changes needed in the career development of PhD students. Through PFS curricula, PhD students engage in conversations and have access to resources that augment both the traditional PhD training and occupational identity of professorate. The PFS course creates fundamental changes by drawing from David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory and the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) developed by Robert Lent, Steven Brown, and Gail Hackett. The SCCT looks at one’s self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, goal representation, and the interlocking process of interest development, along with their choice and performance.
I used a concurrent triangulation mixed methods research model that included collecting qualitative and quantitative data over 8 weeks. The results of the study indicated that PhD students’ career preparation should focus on articulating the relevancy of their research across academic and non-academic employment sectors. Additionally, findings showed that PhD students’ perception of their verbal and non-verbal skills to communicate the value of their research to both lay and discipline specific audiences were not statistically different across STEM and non-STEM majors, generational status, or gender, but there are statistical differences within each group. PhD programs provide students with the opportunity to cultivate intellectual knowledge, but, as this study illustrates, students would also benefit from the opportunity to nurture and develop practical knowledge and turn “theory into practice.”
I developed a course titled Preparing Future Scholars (PFS). PFS was designed to be an institutional intervention to address the fundamental changes needed in the career development of PhD students. Through PFS curricula, PhD students engage in conversations and have access to resources that augment both the traditional PhD training and occupational identity of professorate. The PFS course creates fundamental changes by drawing from David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory and the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) developed by Robert Lent, Steven Brown, and Gail Hackett. The SCCT looks at one’s self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, goal representation, and the interlocking process of interest development, along with their choice and performance.
I used a concurrent triangulation mixed methods research model that included collecting qualitative and quantitative data over 8 weeks. The results of the study indicated that PhD students’ career preparation should focus on articulating the relevancy of their research across academic and non-academic employment sectors. Additionally, findings showed that PhD students’ perception of their verbal and non-verbal skills to communicate the value of their research to both lay and discipline specific audiences were not statistically different across STEM and non-STEM majors, generational status, or gender, but there are statistical differences within each group. PhD programs provide students with the opportunity to cultivate intellectual knowledge, but, as this study illustrates, students would also benefit from the opportunity to nurture and develop practical knowledge and turn “theory into practice.”
ContributorsCason, Jennifer (Author) / Liou, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Barber, Rebecca (Committee member) / Justice, George (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This project seeks to probe into an unexplored horizon of young adult literature studies: the empowering potential of Young Adult Fantasy (YAF) with queer Latinx representation for queer Latinx youth. The two theoretical frameworks of analysis used in this project are: Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s concept of “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” (1990) and Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s “Conocimiento” individuation journey.
ContributorsMartinez, Nora Grace (Author) / Justice, George (Thesis director) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Bebout, Lee (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
This dissertation looks at two works of nineteenth-century British fiction that are considered outliers: Sir Walter Scott's Saint Ronan's Well (1824) and George Eliot's "The Lifted Veil" (1859). Saint Ronan's Well, a work of domestic fiction, has long been described as unusual for Scott because it is unlike his signature historical novels. "The Lifted Veil,” a Gothic novella, is generally understood as different in kind from Eliot’s realist and social problem fiction. I describe both texts as outliers because they have been described as atypical (in the case of Eliot) or less worthy of study (in the case of Scott) by scholars, for myriad reasons. My work uses both computational methods and tools and traditional literary close readings to test and assess these outlier works. I use stylometry, a computational tool that reads and compares texts to determine authorship attribution, to determine if both texts are indeed outliers for these authors. In addition, I use stylometric methods to analyze claims made by initial reviewers and contemporary critics about comparative authors and genres for Saint Ronan's Well and "The Lifted Veil." I examine statistical or stylistic evidence to test whether those long-standing claims of literary difference are supported with computational evidence. Each chapter consists of a series of stylometric tests that are analyzed in conjunction with close readings of text. The dissertation reaches three conclusions, based on the results of stylometric tests described across its four chapters. First, I find that, although Saint Ronan's Well is written in a unique subgenre for Scott, it is statistically and stylistically similar to his other novels. Second, I argue that "The Lifted Veil" is both an outlier for Eliot and an outlier among canonical work of the period in general, as indicated by the results of several stylometric tests. Finally, I argue that focusing on literary outliers is a necessary and productive step forward for traditional and computational literary studies. Focusing on texts that are literary and statistical outliers shows how computational and traditional literary methods can blend together to test the extent of generalizable knowledge in literary studies, especially with nineteenth-century British fiction.
ContributorsCaddy, Scott Allen (Author) / Looser, Devoney (Thesis advisor) / Justice, George (Committee member) / Mann, Annika (Committee member) / Simeone, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021