In their respective novels, The House Behind the Cedars (1900) and
Passing (1929), both Charles Chesnutt and Nella Larsen utilize racial
passing, the process of a mixed-race individual living as "white," to
explore the relations between black and white people during early-twentieth century America. This thesis specifically argues that
Chesnutt...
This thesis is arranged in three main chapters, each of which focuses on a particular type of Anaїs Nin text, and each of which is intended to enlarge Nin's complexities through distinct but overlapping perspectives. The idea connecting these three chapters is that Nin, who has been radically misrepresented by...
Haiti's political and economy history has led to a maternity care system that lies out of reach, geographically and financially, of most Haitians, resulting in excessively high maternal and infant mortality. The most common birth practitioners are homebirth midwives (matwòns), who attend roughly three-fourths of all births in Haiti (UNICEF),...
In her 2016 article “Beyond Rights as Recognition, Black Twitter and Posthuman Coalitional Possibilities,” Pritha Prasad argues that the hashtag, one of the decade’s most omnipresent features of digital communication, functions as “a performative composing medium that not only demands relationality” and “call[s] for the recognition of both the Black...
The sudden and unexpected death of a seemingly healthy infant sets in motion a number of linked processes with potentially complex and far-reaching ramifications. While individuals, families and communities grapple with the shock and heartbreak associated with the loss of a young life, a chain of multidisciplinary investigative responsibilities is...
Recent demographic studies have revealed a greater diversity in settlement patterns among Mexican immigrant families resulting in rapidly climbing populations of immigrants in new areas of the country, particularly in rural areas, while growth in established destinations has slowed. Host communities play an important role in families' acculturation processes and...
Recent scientific studies show that framing climate change as a health issue rather than an environmental issue were more persuasive with American audience members (Maibach et. al., 2010; Maibach et. al. 2014). Also in 2014, a survey on respiratory healthcare providers and found that a large percentage believed that climate...
The purpose of this study was to identify and examine risk and protective factors associated with residential instability within a sample of rural low-income mothers. Residential instability was defined as two or more residential moves within the course of a year. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to compare residentially...
A light and electron microscope study of Corylus avellana L.
vegetative buds infested with the eriophyoid mites, Cecidiophyopsis
vermiformis Nal. and Phycoptella avellanae Nal., is reported. Descriptions
are given of changes in infested stipule tissue. The
nipple-like proliferations (enations) which arise on the infested
stipule surface are covered by a...
This thesis examines the characterization of the femme fatale and the implications of this trope for late-Victorian gender and sexuality in the ghost stories of female aesthete Vernon Lee. In her treatment of the femme fatale figure, Lee both reinforces and complicates the image of the sexualized, often bestialized woman...
Within the U.S. there is a growing interest in the case of female adolescents being coerced into the sex industry (Bernstein, 2010; Estes & Weiner, 2001; Soderlund, 2010; Williams and Frederick, 2009). This interest, which emerged due to U.S. involvement in the international trafficking phenomena and grassroots organizing, has resulted...
This research explores the experiences of Iraqi women during and after the 2003 U.S.-led war (2003-2011). The aim of the project was to provide an occasion for a group of Iraqi women to give voice to their lived experiences of war and to document these voices, adding their subjective perspectives...
This thesis investigates how beginning, women farmers, within in a women farmers’ network in the Willamette Valley, Oregon are accessing land and farming information. Using ethnographic, community-based research methods, I ask how land access mediates their ability to care for their land and soil. Are these farmers interested in fostering...
This thesis examines two cultural productions of the Harlem Renaissance: Aaron Douglas's mural series, Aspects of Negro Life, and Nella Larsen's novel Passing. I read these works together because, more than their shared time period, they showcase an attention to the visual. Both Larsen and Douglas's works are concerned with...
In the months preceding the 2016 presidential election and during the Trump presidency, rhetoric, composition, and communications scholars expressed an urgent concern about the threat that Trump and his political affiliates posed to the status of truth in political life (McComiskey; Rice; Harsin; Cloud). However, the conversations surrounding the discipline’s...
School is a hostile environment for many LGBTQ youth. Teachers participate, consciously or unconsciously, in perpetuating oppressive heteronormative expectations in the classroom both through the overt and covert curriculum. Yet, pre-service teachers are under-trained about questions related to gender and sexuality during their teacher preparation. This qualitative study explores the...
This research is an exploration of empathy in the classroom from the standpoint of how instructors experience it and understand themselves to communicate it to their students, particularly students from different cultural backgrounds. The research method used was ethnographic analysis of a classroom observation and a one-hour semi-structured interview with...
This study examined the social and contextual factors that lead to differences in
the way biracial adolescents interpret their racial identity. Using 11 interviews with a sample of biracial youth between the ages of 14 and 17-years-old, this study also explores
the strategies these individuals use to achieve social validation...
Over two million people experience homelessness in the United States, but homeless people are often marginalized by invisibility and stigmas surrounding poverty within their local communities. This research seeks to amplify the voices of Corvallis area homeless women as a means to understand their everyday lived experiences. Six women residing...
While a number of scholars in the field of Rhetoric and Composition continue to reassert the importance of whiteness as an object of study, a sense of anxiety about the effectiveness of extant antiracist rhetorical practices permeate recent scholarship. This thesis engages with thinking from black studies, afropessimism, and transnational...
Chronic disease is costly to treat and burdensome for those living with its impacts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017), 117 million Americans currently live with chronic disease, and one in four adults live with two or more chronic diseases. The burden placed on the U.S....
Despite apparently supportive national policies, including nation-wide legalization of home birth and coverage by the national health care system of the costs associated with that option, these births account for less than 1% of all births in the Republic of Ireland. Using data collected during participant observation, both in person...
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a multimodal adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, released from 2012-2013. As a media event, the show proved how effective transmedia storytelling can be, eventually winning an Emmy for Original Interactive Program. In creating an intensely immediate narrative world, the series adapted more than Jane Austen’s...
This paper focuses on Satan as a sympathetic figure in Paradise Lost, and it argues that readers' sympathy for Satan drives them to pursue God's grace in order to avoid falling into the same fate as Satan. It uses Reader Response theory to show how readers connect with Satan, and...
The Syrian civil war generated waves of refugees who flow into neighboring countries. These refugees have been creating excess supply of labor in host countries. This study involves a series of interviews in which respondents shared their perceptions of their involvement in the labor market in Iraq. These interviews provide...
This thesis examines depictions of medievalism in three central texts: Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. Each of these texts provides an entry point for exploring the ways in which English and American writers have...
The purpose of this study is to explore the uncertainty and fear that DACAmented college and university students experience with the potential termination of the United States Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. There is limited research on the experiences of DACAmented individuals during this time of uncertainty for...
Recent conflicts in America concerning the environment (the harvesting of old growth timber in the Pacific Northwest, or the proposed opening of public lands in southern Utah to mining interests, for instance) have precipitated a personal examination of "historical others" (Jensen 64), individuals that possess very different sensibilities from a...
This thesis focuses on performances of masculinity by British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) airmen in the charged landscape of the First World War prisoner of war (POW) camp. I examine how captive airmen coped with imprisonment by reasserting the familiar homosocial communities of pre-capture squadron life, particularly through practices associated...
Recent changes in the historiography of American Transcendentalism
have inspired a reappraisal of the relationship between the Transcendentalist
movement in New England and the pietistic wing of the Unitarian church. This
thesis explores this reappraisal through a close reading of selected writings by
Henry Ware Jr. in juxtaposition to the...
Being an Eastern Shawnee Tribal member I understand the importance of documenting oral histories of Tribal elders to ensure that our cultural history is passed on to future generations. Therefore, the focus of this project is the collection, of oral histories and folklore in order to document traditional knowledge and...
Substantial research has shown deficits in the quality of end-of-life care in the U.S. In response to evidence of these deficits, efforts have been made to improve quality of end-of-life care. One approach has been to ask the question, "What is a good death?" Data on views of a good...
This thesis examines Latinx poetry in relation to the September 11th attacks and the reconfigurations of racial structures and the American empire that followed, most notably through the Department of Homeland Security and their agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE politically characterizes immigrants as anti-American to perpetuate stereotypes against...
Gothic literary works are characterized as such by their ability to represent and evoke terror. The form this representation takes is varied; often terror originates in the atmospheric effects of settings, in the appearance of mysterious, supposedly supernatural phenomena, and, perhaps most significantly, in the behavior of villainous characters. Shakespearean...
This thesis examines the internet phenomenon of the “Sad Girl,” a name given to young women who identify and present themselves as inherently melancholic people online. I position the internet community of the Sad Girl, which spans across three social media platforms, Tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram, within a larger history...
In this paper I discuss an ethnographic research project on identity embodiment among transgender and gender nonconforming punks in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., with focus on the relationship between transgender/gender nonconforming identity and affiliation to DIY punk communities. Trans punks create a unique, hybridized subculture-based identity embodiment...
Implementation of. the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of
1976 affords opportunities for fishery expansion and economic development
in the Oregon otter trawl fishery. The changes stimulated by the
Act should occur, according to social science theorists, by the
diffusion of innovations from innovative fishermen to less innovative
fishermen, with...
Listeria monocytogenes contamination continues to pose challenges for the food industry and there is demand for effective methods of food preservation and protection that can also be considered clean label. A promising source of antilisterial compounds may be sourced from bacteria that produce novel byproducts. Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified...
Tennyson and Hopkins scholarship is dominated by a focus on antithetical dichotomies. Tennyson's speakers are fractured selves focused on the gap between matter and spirit, faith and reason, solitude and community. Likewise, Hopkins' doubled vocation as priest and poet is presented as a contradiction to the point that the transition...
This thesis undertakes an examination of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, as a layering of genres. A futuristic dystopia that imagines late twentieth-century America as having fallen into neo-Puritanism and totalitarianism following widespread infertility and violence, The Handmaid’s Tale invites contemplation of various forms of fundamentalism, radicalism, and...
This research addresses the relationship between television
programming and body image. It specifically investigates what the Music
Television network's (MTV) dance show, "The Grind," communicates
about female body image. Two studies were conducted. Study one used
seven coders from a western United States high school to record female
body images...
The purpose of this study was to document vegetation on "The Island", a
Research Natural Area at the confluence of the Crooked River and the Deschutes River in
central Oregon's Juniperus occidentalis Zone and to compare the results with an earlier
study reported in 1964 from 1960-'61 data. Present-day comparisons...
My thesis explores the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth as emblematic of Western philosophy and literature's longstanding preoccupation with the relationship between mind and matter. The poets' attempts to mediate their languages and sensibilities with "real nature" have a complicated legacy for today's readers, as Romantic literature...
In the fall 2015, students at the University of Missouri embarked upon an extended series of protests aimed at calling out the University’s failure to address recent racist incidents against Black students and a larger oppressive campus culture. The protests prompted the creation of a student group led largely by...
“The system is fucked. Everything needs to change” was stated by Ashley Paige, a professional dominatrix and author in We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, at a book launch event. Paige’s sentiments are poignant and a call to action to all of us. Through this thesis, I will...
This thesis traces the relationship between the First World War, constructions of masculinity, and the life and poetry of T.S. Eliot. Central to this relationship is a study of homoeroticism, which the author characterizes as different from homosexuality but not exclusive of it, in late 19th and early 20th century...
There is a fundamental distortion in our understanding of Native people, especially Native women. This distortion is rooted in imperialism and the colonization of Native lands and has created a dominant/subordinate relationship between Non-Native/Native people. Anthropological life history research has traditionally reflected this relationship. As a Native woman, the author...
Research shows that women's lives are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. While the topic of women is largely absent from climate discourse overall, the representations of women that occur reveal underlying structures of power rooted in imperialism and colonial dominance. This thesis presents an analysis of the...
Native America tribes and community members throughout Oregon have asserted a strong opposition to the fossil fuel industry’s attempt to expand railways, build pipelines, and construct refineries, holding facilities, and export terminals. Despite the limited presence of fossil fuel infrastructure in the state, however, the industry is actively pursuing permits...
France's universalistic idea of citizenry has been complicated by a history of colonialism, racialization, and selective acceptance of difference. Although Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood) is France's motto, the consequences of colonial rule continue to impact the lives of non-autochthonous French citizens today. Since the colonial days, immigrants and...
Recent work in moral philosophy has displayed a renewed interest in ethics and ontology that consider the social constitution of the subject. However, these approaches to ethics, exemplified in Judith Butler’s work in Giving an Account of Oneself, often neglect the problem of antiblackness, which Afro-pessimist scholars argue operates at...
The agricultural sector is one of the largest contributors to global climate change but is also one of the most vulnerable to its impacts. Farmers are at increasing risk of livelihood loss, which produces risks for their physical and emotional wellbeing on a global scale. Swift and effective adaptation is...
Introduction: Youth in foster care face greater rates of trauma and subsequent mental health challenges (Bruce et al., 2009; O’Neill et al., 2012; Seltzer et al., 2012; etc.) that place increased burden on their caregivers (Daniel, 2011; McKeough et al., 2017), suggesting that these specific groups of youth in foster...
Following a history of tensions surrounding concubinage in medieval and early modern Spain, the Church sought greater control of religious life, particularly over the sacrament of marriage, via the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The Church exercised its strengthened restrictions and prosecuted these relationships with more frequency, as did civil...
This thesis explores the evolving purposes for the teaching of first-year English composition in Belize. Starting from an analysis of the underlying cultural assumptions of U.S. composition pedagogies, this thesis argues that American composition pedagogies need to be rethought when applied in a Belizean context to fulfill the country's unique...
Traditional interpretations of James Joyce's Dubliners have often focused on the pervasive "paralysis" of the city, covered in the stories' range of "childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life." However, these approaches have limited their focus on the women in the stories, often spotlighting the male characters--and the author--through a Freudian...
This thesis is a rhetorical analysis of American newspaper coverage of Hồ Chí Minh from 1954-1969. My method is the Pragmatic Attitude, created by Elizabeth and Jay Mechling. My foci of study are the polls and letters to the editor from this same period. These foci of study are used...
Contrasting the productive ground gained in ecological rhetorical theory through embedded fieldwork, composition as a discipline has yet to enact such transformative engagements with ecology. In this thesis, I put forward a praxis for ecological rhetoric and composition through permaculture design, utilizing the design framework’s system of ethics and principles...
Caribbean women authors, in an attempt to reclaim their voices lost to patriarchy and colonialism, are creating a new literary tradition by expanding the boundaries of the Bildungsroman genre. Many have challenged the conservative male Bildungsroman's deeply entrenched gender bias where female transcendence was impossible due to cultural prescriptions that...
Although there is a substantial body of work on the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated processes of water management and water governance (Earle & Bazilli, 2013), these efforts have mostly been concentrated in the Global South and women are still lacking in positions with decision-making power, making water governance...
This thesis examines the postmodern confrontation of representation throughout the oeuvre of Martin McDonagh. I particularly look to his later body of work, which directly and self-reflexively confronts issues of artistic representation & masculinity, in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of his earliest and most controversial plays. In...
In India, globalized flows of bio-medical discourse, practices and technologies are reshaping the field of reproductive healthcare, and the performance of childbirth more specifically. These projects aim to produce institutional delivery rooms that are "safe and modernized" by equating the utilization of westernized, obstetric techniques for managing delivery with better...
Nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) owners control a significant portion of forestland nationwide. Even though women own or manage NIPF lands, we know very little about how women manage forestland and what barriers women face in forest management. In addition, while there are several forestry organizations available to NIPF owners, few...
This thesis focuses on the application of the cosmogenic nuclide Beryllium-10 (10Be) in an effort to better constrain the thickness history of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet (FIS) at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and into the Holocene, as well as begin to answer the long-standing question regarding the age
and...
Using ¹³C cross polarization magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance techniques on 5 species of dead trees from the northwest (western hemlock, Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, lodgepole pine and ponderosa pine) I tracked the lignin and cellulose content over a 22 to 36 year period in order to determine the...
A label-free, photoluminescence (PL) based biosensor for 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) detection was developed by functionalizing diatom biosiilica with a TNT-specific single-chain variable fragment (scFv). The scFv loading was estimated to be 0.040±0.003 (μg scFv/μg biosilica). In saturated concentration, TNT binding to scFvbiosilica quenched about 13% of its PL. Dose response follows...
A radix-based calibration technique was previously proposed with a two-stage algorithmic analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The objective of this work is to verify the capability of radix-based calibration for a true multi-stage ADC. In order to prove the idea, a single bit-per-stage, 20-stage pipelined ADC is designed in a 0.35-μm CMOS...
The gradient of a velocity vector field is an asymmetric tensor field which can provide critical insight that is difficult to infer from traditional trajectory-based vector field visualization techniques. I describe the structures in the eigenvalue and eigenvector fields of the gradient tensor and how these structures can be used...
A generalized, three-dimensional, finite element bridge model was created in order to efficiently and accurately assess live-load girder distribution factors for a variety of bridge types. This model shortens the time required by bridge analysts to develop individual finite element models for bridges of varying geometries. The creation of the...
Volcanic hazard maps inform the public on the nature and extent of the hazards that threaten them, but these maps are often challenging for those who are not trained in map use or geology. The maps in this study focus on lahars, a dangerous, fast, and far-reaching volcanic hazard that...
The passive charge compensation (PCC) technique was introduced for switched capacitor (SC) circuit to increase the slew rate and enhance the linearity performance, as PCC techniques are used on the Delta-Sigma modulator (DSM) in ADC circuitry. The PCC technique of the project was applied to the design of a SC...
Birds perform valuable ecological functions and are useful environmental indicators. Avian distributions and diversity are predicted to change over the next 50 years. Little information exists on the role of local and regional conditions in fluctuations of avian communities over time. Historic datasets present a legacy of information that helps...
As screen resolution and video decoding capability have increased, high-definition (HD) video in resolutions as high as 1920 x 1080 is rapidly becoming the standard. Ad-hoc streaming of HD video over 802.11 wireless networks, e.g., streaming from a mobile device to a television, is convenient for users, but is hampered...
Corn oil (CO) and Sterculic foetida oil (SFO) fed rats were
injected with [9, 10-methylene-¹⁴C]sterculic acid. Less than 1%
of the label was expired as carbon dioxide. The majority of the
label was excreted in the urine as short-chain dicarboxylic acids with
an intact cyclopropane ring. The major metabolites for...
A new method for accelerating the Upstream Corner Balance (UCB) discretization of the equation of transfer is introduced. The inconsistent acceleration equations for the UCB discretization are derived by applying the "Modified 4-Step" diffusion synthetic acceleration technique not to the UCB discretization, but instead to the simple corner balance (SCB)...
The combined effects of habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation pose a serious threat to Earth's biodiversity, imperiling even relatively common species. 'Habitat' is necessarily a species-specific concept, and investigations of bird diversity relationships and subsequent efforts to prioritize conservation areas, are challenged by the difficulty of estimating complex habitat gradients...
This thesis presents a novel algorithmic A/D converter to be used in a biosensor. The converter is capable of a conversion rate of 1.5 bits/phase and hence the required conversion time is reduced. The proposed architecture is analyzed for non-ideal effects and compared with existing algorithmic A/D architectures. The converter...
It can be hypothesized that the degree to which students value
learning in the visual arts influences the amount of involvement in
art oriented activities that will be pursued in later years. This
investigation has compared former college students° valuations of the
Basic Design course with levels of art interest...
Ring amplification has emerged as an efficient technique to drive large capacitive loads in switched capacitor circuits. We propose circuit techniques to demonstrate the first application of a ring amplifier in a non-capacitive feedback system of a LDO. These techniques enable a simple cap-less LDO structure in 180nm CMOS that...
Dynamic DC offset is one of the biggest problems preventing the implementation of single chip receivers. This thesis presents a 2.4GHz downconversion mixer designed to work with adaptive DC offset cancellation for a fully integrated direct conversion receiver. Offset can be removed by dynamically changing the PFET load bias in...
Signals from the R/V Langseth’s tuned airgun array were recorded on an array of 33 EarthScope FlexArray seismometers deployed in the Oregon Coast Range from 43.5° to 45°N as part of the 2012 Ridge2Trench experiment to image the structure of the Juan de Fuca plate. This segment of the Juan...
Burial Lake sediments from the Noatak Basin in the northwest Brooks Range of Arctic Alaska (68.43°N, 159.17°W, 21.5 m water depth) provide the oldest continuous lacustrine record of paleo-environmental change and paleomagnetic secular variation (PSV) in eastern Beringia. A precise radiocarbon chronology, determined through accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) allows us...
The increasing demand for higher data-rates is challenging to satisfy with spectrum-deficient indoor WiFi networks. A novel hybrid WiFi Free-Space Optical (WIFO) system has been proposed to enhance the wireless capacity of indoor WiFi networks. In this thesis, an integrated optical wireless receiver is designed and integrated in 65-nm CMOS...
The ability to accurately locate people and objects indoors will enable opportunities for control and automation of indoor environments. Current indoor localization solutions require dedicated hardware which must be custom tailored to each application. There are large technological, societal, and economic benefits in developing a more general purpose system that...
For more than 30 years, researchers have investigated the effects of whole body vibration (WBV) platforms on athletic performance. WBV is a modality in which an individual stands on a vibrating platform to obtain performance effects. Frequency and amplitude of the vibration are the commonly adjusted parameters. The use of...
For the past six years a bacterial infection has been the cause
of large losses of adult, spawning, American shad (Alosa
sapidissima) in the Coos, Millicoma and Smith Rivers of Oregon.
There was a sizable commercial fishery for shad in these rivers
and losses of fish due to this infection...
In cellular telephones, RF power amplifiers consume a significant part of the total phone current. Reducing the average PA current will extend battery life. In GSM systems the handset is commanded by the base station to transmit at power levels lower than full power much of the time. A Doherty...
For the west coast of North America, from northern California to southern Washington, a habitat suitability prediction framework was developed to support wave energy device siting. Concern that wave energy devices may impact the seafloor and benthos has renewed research interest in the distribution of marine benthic invertebrates and factors...
The marine ecosystem provides a broad spectrum of services for a wide array of user groups. Such broad use of marine resources often results in use conflicts between ecosystem elements and human interests. To help mitigate these conflicts, the Bayesian Analysis for Spatial Siting (BASS) tool was developed to incorporate...
There are a nearly unlimited number of situations in which the
status of time-varying processes must be updated. The monitoring of
these processes usually occurs at periodic intervals. Whether the
monitoring is performed by man or machine, a decision must be made
regarding the frequency of these activities, that is,...