UCO - Graduate Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/11244/324596

Established in 1954, the Jackson College of Graduate Studies provides access to graduate education for culturally-diverse students locally, nationally, and internationally, while supporting UCO’s mission of transformative learning through processes which maintain and enhance quality. Masters' theses are a culmination of these studies. Print copies of all masters' theses produced by UCO students are available in UCO's Archives and Special Collections.

Chambers Library is committed to accurately and respectfully describing materials relating to historically overlooked communities. Users encountering offensive or outdated terminology found on the library’s website, Central Search, SHAREOK, or elsewhere in the collection may submit a report to our metadata team. To learn more, visit the library’s Inclusive Metadata Initiative page.

Availability of Digitized Theses
Theses completed before December 2007 will gradually be made available in this collection. Chambers Library takes pride in its efforts to preserve the intellectual output of the university and has started a theses digitization project for any theses created before December 2007. UCO alumni interested in receiving a digital copy of their thesis created before 2008 may send an email to diwg@uco.edu. Please include the author name, year graduated, and degree information.

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Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

Open Access
A song for Eurydice.
(2015) Hofrichter, Sarah Paige Berling; Daro, James; Macey, J. David; Rice, Allen C., 1958-
A SONG FOR EURYDICE tells the tale of the human refugees living in the desert wasteland of Terra Arcturus, hundreds of light-years from their obliterated home, Old Earth. The story follows Captain Orion Andersen of the former Scandinavian Kingdoms of Northern Europe (SKONE), whose arrival on Terra Arcturus has effectively curtailed further military advancement; his murdered girlfriend, Niki Alsecco, whose death reveals more complex political twists than surface tensions would suggest; and the distant gods of Orion and Niki's ancestors, upon whom Orion calls when battle with Rhialt, the chief deity of the native Nessians, appears imminent. The story is told from the point of view of a nameless Scribe in service to the Judges, who, in the absence of God-of-Old, determine the eternal fates of their human charges. With political unrest straining relations amongst the Judges, the Scribe finds that telling the tale of Orion and Niki could be the key to saving the remaining human refugees from eternal damnation. A SONG FOR EURYDICE asks the question, "Who determines what is real?" It explores the relationship between reality and madness; religion and science; and history and the future. This novel seeks to show the futility of describing subjective experience as objective truth through use of metaphor. Ultimately, the novel decides, reality exists only in your head. It is what you choose to do with that knowledge that determines who you are.
Open Access
All the world's my stage.
(2015) Treadway, Linda Kim; Daro, James; Macey, J. David; Van Cook, Jeri; Daro, Betteanne
All The World's My Stage is the action-filled comedy of Kimberly Peterson's woefully isolated and loveless life. Middle-aged and single, her most recent love affair only exists in her dreams with her favorite movie star. While searching for inspiration for her next romance novel, she happens across the goddess Bali, trapped in a cheap statue in the local antique shop. In exchange for freedom from her tawdry prison, Bali promises to help Kim find true love. Life on the run from Bali's evil twin sister and her mafia of Mau priestesses sure makes Kim's life more exciting. Things heat up when she partners with Gregorian Laydon, the super-sexy love god, who joins Kim's quest to rescue Bali from her enemies. Between vengeful deities and everyone concealing personal secrets, Kim's emotions go on a roller-coaster ride, making it hard to know which way is up. However, Kim courageously faces these challenges head on to: solve the puzzle of her past, save Bali, and win Greg's love, despite all obstacles. All The World's My Stage shows the importance of self-reliance in a world that relies so heavily on partnerships. Kim's independence is the reason she can survive in this chaotic world of gods, warriors, and clairvoyance, as well as, finally allowing herself to fall in love. This is the story of strong will versus immortal gods, and the virtues that humanity holds over omnipotence. Love, we see, really does conquer all.
Open Access
Desiderium
(2022) Vance, Sydney; Barnes, Wendy; Squires, Constance; Quoss-Moore, Rebecca
Desiderium is a collection of poetry composed with the aim of investigating loss through the primary lenses of grief and addiction. The poems housed in this collection attempt to navigate that opaque, precarious experience of developing an alcohol addiction/dependency while coming of age, and many of these poems specifically address the intersection of addiction, youth, and great tragedy. My work draws inspiration in storytelling technique from poets such as Ada Limón, Tracy K. Smith, and Maggie Smith. To write coherently and honestly about addiction, Kaveh Akbar’s Calling A Wolf A Wolf and sam sax’s madness were my foremost guides and influences. For my poems about grief, Mary Jo Bang’s Elegy was paramount; loss is naturally a heavy subject, and Bang’s work deftly demonstrates how grief can be written without the sacrifice of levity. The female body serving as one of my book’s foremost motifs, I have followed poets such as Natalie Diaz and Limón in my attempts to complicate how the body and the female sexual experience are transcribed. The greatest struggle I faced in the construction of Desiderium was in arranging the poetic order to align with the arc of my speaker in a way that feels purposeful and is coherent to the reader. Her journey is one that begins in a place of questioning and resistance in the first half, and ends in a place of more active acceptance and accountability for her life and her choices in the second. Ultimately, Desiderium is a record of young adulthood from this writer’s unique perspective, an attempt to make sense of fact, memory, and that barely perceptible space where the two intersect.
Open Access
Fly on the wall : odd scenes from seemingly normal people.
(2017) Castilla, Nicole Petra; Garrison, Stephen M.; Spencer, Susan; Wickham, Anastasia
Watching individuals react to each other and communicate is fascinating and usually humorous to some extent. Fly on the Wall: Odd Scenes from Seemingly Normal People showcases those little scenes, those reactionary moments of confusion, frustration, fear, love, and annoyance. This is the heart of comedy.
Open Access
Ka'l woman and other short stories.
(2017) Johnson, Charles R.; Squires, Constance; Garrison, Stephen M.; Craggett, Courtney
Open Access
Lenin : a screenplay.
(2015) Nelson, Jake; Daro, James; Olmstead, Justin Quinn; Springer, John Parris, 1955-
LENIN is a historical screenplay that follows the aging revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, as he goes from living in poverty/isolation to becoming one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century. The story focuses on Lenin's relationship with his wife, Nadya, who is dealing with being a secondary person in her husband's life in comparison to the Revolution of Russia and a mistress named Inessa Armand. Her struggle of trying to prove herself to him as a woman, a wife, and a revolutionary is one of the most important aspects of the script, while Lenin's struggle of gaining the power over Russia that he desires while also dealing with his political circle who has their own agenda mirror's Nadya's arc. The screenplay uses real excerpts from Lenin's speeches, letters, and conversations with others in order to bring a since of authenticity to the screenplay. Very few changes to the history have been made in order to tell a very honest, truthful, and in-depth look at Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.
Open Access
Out is through
(2019) Jordan, Caleb; Rocha, Iliana; Huber, Kate; Squires, Constance
Out is Through is a book of poetry that began as a long ekphrasis which explored the Black Paintings of Francisco Goya; however, it grew out of that initial impulse into something more than merely commentary. The basis of the ekphrasis is still there, along with a quote from Goya to situate the manuscript, but the poems have branched out and deal with more recent themes like politics, violence, self-harm, and selfhood. There are three sections of poems named after the different members of the Fates, the Greek figures who control the lives of human beings through the measuring and cutting of life-strings. Many of the poems do not have titles which is to destabilize the narrative and the normal way in which readers are used to reading poems, where the titles guide the reader toward some immediate understanding. Without the titles, the poems feel more foreign, and the reader is forced to take the words and images on their own merit. This decentering of the reader within the experience of reading the poems, forcing them to confront how they read poems, is an important theme throughout the book. Some of the works that inspired Out is Through are the paintings of Francisco Goya, which provided the foundation and impetus for the writing of the book. Goya's Black Paintings reflect the personal and political turmoil of his time while also being heavily veiled in metaphor and symbolism. The forms of the poems have been inspired by Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns, Susan Howe's Pierce-Arrow, and John Berryman's The Dream Songs. Along with those books, Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson provided spiritual guidance for the book through Howe's exploration and elucidation of Emily Dickinson's work and life. One of the major facets of Dickinson's work was decentering the reader and allowing the poetry space to exist on its own, which is the same goal as that of the poems in Out is Through. The alienation of the familiar has often been a goal of writing, from the density of Joyce to the stripped-down strangeness of Beckett, though where Out is Through branches out and creates its own space within the poetry world is its focus on the nature of poetry itself. Often form has been used to help the reader grasp what the poem is doing, but many of the poems within this book have been stripped of that familiarity and the form becomes a hedge maze. This hedge maze effect can confuse the reader, but once the reader figures out their own way through the poems become clearer, more guiding, and more guided than they first appear. Out is Through is different from many other works of poetry; there is a growing amount of work within the poetry world that eschews difficulty, prioritizes personal experience, and focuses on issues of identity and selfhood. Out is Through shares the focus on issues of identity but seeks to alienate the reader to force them to look at their identity from a new angle. The poetry's focus on history, personal and global, places identity within a spectrum of experience. What makes Out is Through so bold is the way that it weaves the political, personal, and historical into an experience that pushes the readers to read with attention and patience. The work has been designed for the reader to find themselves lost, wondering how they got where they are, and finding out something new about themselves.
Open Access
Surrenstrada : for honor.
(2018) Watkins, Kenneth; Daro, James; Stein, Wayne; Wickham, Anastasia
The genre of my novel is Fantasy. The subgenre is Weird West. This novel showcases monsters and creatures set in a western world. This book is heavily influenced by high fantasy novels with shades of steampunk. Even though this project is set in a fantasy world, traditional fantasy plays a significant role. The Dark Elf trilogy by R.A. Salvatore influenced the work significantly in form. Christie Golden Arthas book along with her other Warcraft novels influenced plot and characterization. Old western films like The Shootist and television shows like Gunsmoke along with Wagon Train guided the western style. First and foremost objective of the work is to create a compelling story. The second objective is to apply the lessons learned from this university. Surrenstrada: For Honor takes place in its own world. That in itself presents a challenge. Continuity proves challenging because the world needs to be consistent. The first step - create a world that possess a deep history. Things that will never hit the pages but provides the reader with immersion. Questions slow your writing because one always asks, would that monster be there or what is the climate in this area? The questions never stopped during the writing process. The second challenge of writing this novel was consistency. This challenge sounds easy but proved problematic. Something as simple as the spelling of a character's name. This led to time spent during the editing process. Reading other authors first and foremost proved to be invaluable. Authors like Salvatore, Golden and even Tolkien provided strong influences. These authors gave me insight into form and showed the potential of storytelling in this genre. The other two, despite reluctance to admit, watching westerns all the time as a child. Westerns during my youth displayed a fascinating world of the hero or heroine jumping on a horse riding to confront the villain. Also, the game Dungeouns and Dragons. This gave the lore of fantasy monsters used in this novel. This game is gaining interest with shows like Stranger Things. Surrenstrada: For Honor sub-genre is Weird West. This genre, even though a few works have been done, is relatively open. This work adds to a sub-genre by giving compelling characters, new world and tells a compelling story. The implications of this work shows this genre that creating a world and putting monsters against your heroes is all secondary. Despite being set in a fantastical world, there is always a human element. That is where the story hides.
Open Access
The deliverer.
(2012) Alexander, Geri; Macey, J. David; Hochenauer, Kurt; Warren, Clifton
Metadata only
Ties that bind.
(2018) Pate, Amanda M.; Daro, James; Bolf-Beliveau, Laura; Macey, J. David
Removed from view at request of the author.
Open Access
Wordsmith : battle narrative.
(2018) Sprecher, Dillyn; Daro, James; Breslin, Linda; Stein, Wayne
Graphic novels are an emergent form of literature that combine text and illustrations to present narrative works in a visually engaging display. The following thesis is a graphic novel in the genre of science fiction. It is infused with other fiction genres such as tall tales, fantasy, and mystery as its characters write their own narratives. This thesis draws inspiration from various works, widely spanning from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to the Japanese manga, Yu-Gi-Oh!. First, the rich characterization presented in the Canterbury Tales inspired the depth of character development in this creative project. In Wordsmith: Battle Narrative, every character is intended to have an appealing and relatable backstory. Another source of inspiration came from A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories by Will Eisner. Eisner's work established and popularized the genre of the graphic novel. Furthermore, the genre has continued to be legitimized through important and deep works such as Art Spiegelman's Maus and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. In terms of modern works, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster was also heavily influential to this thesis. Like in The Phantom Tollbooth, in this graphic novel, the characters take skills learned in the classroom and apply them to clearly defined situations within the story. It was necessary that these situations would feel organic despite their fictional undertones. Finally, the Japanese manga, Yu-Gi-Oh!, inspired the concept of using technology and holograms to portray one's ideas. In Yu-Gi-Oh! the holograms display card games; in Wordsmith: Battle Narrative, holograms are used in a writing contest. The main objective of this work is to get struggling students excited about reading and writing. This work introduces and reviews English learning standards by engaging students in an entertaining narrative. This graphic novel was developed as a work to be used in the classroom by a sixth-grade English teacher of struggling readers, many of which are English language learners. A graphic novel is a fitting medium as these students benefit from the use of visual aids, chunked reading, and in-depth study and review of vocabulary words and writing concepts. Challenges arose in the creation process while trying to meet students' needs and incorporate learning standards. Pages would find themselves bloated with too much action or dialogue. Ideas were generated to address learning standards, but were removed from the script because they felt too artificial from a reader's perspective. In addition, the concept of a sustained narrative work of this magnitude also presented its own problems. In early drafts, the thesis seemed to have two competing plots with an undefined central antagonist. To address crowded script pages, pages were drawn out in panels to visually imagine how the finished page would look. This process revealed errors and helped in the overall editing. Instead of just thinking of the graphic novel as a script, consideration began to develop for the work as a completed work. To maintain a consistent plot and rhythm, outlines were created and the necessity of scenes was considered. The result cut several pages of unneeded exposition and addressed the plot. One of the competing plots was restructured and used as a catalyst for another. The significance of this project is to show the importance and utility of the graphic novel in developing literacy in struggling readers. Graphic novels and comic books are underutilized in schools. This project could influence similar works to be used in classrooms to address the needs of students of all ages and backgrounds. While various types of literature are used in the classroom, this graphic novel represents an intentional approach with English learning standards interwoven throughout the work.