Browsing by Subject "Graduate School"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Geosocial Dating Apps and the Romantic Lives of Young Gay and Bisexual Men(2017-04-18) Arthur, Tim W.; Douglas, Karen; Cabaniss, Emily; Constance, DouglasThis study explores the role of geosocial dating applications in the romantic lives of young gay and bisexual men. Technology is rapidly changing the way individuals seek romantic and sexual partners. Due to social stigma surrounding homosexuality, virtual mediums have been popular among the LGBT community since their inception. Young gay and bisexual men are among the most likely to use virtual dating mediums. Ten one-on-one, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with participants ranging in age from twenty-three to twenty-nine years old. Using a quasi-inductive, grounded theory approach, transcripts of the interviews were analyzed and coded for relevant themes. Erving Goffman’s theories on the presentation of self, stigma, and the interaction order, combined with the conceptualization of dating apps as partner markets, provided the theoretical framework for data analysis and discussion. Findings suggest that geosocial dating apps offer users a mixed bag of benefits and challenges. Men are able to interact with one another while retaining control over the release of identifying information. However, the ability to withhold or mask personal details about themselves can also create interactional challenges and impediments to relationship formation and retention.Item Of Pyrates and Picaros: The Literary Lineage of Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates(2017-11-13) Morris, Adam R.; Payton, Jason M.Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates is a text that exists at the nexus of Atlantic history, Atlantic literary studies, and oceanic studies. Though the study of Johnson’s work has most often been the province of historians, this thesis establishes the need to reconsider it as a literary artifact and explores its literary legacy and lineage through the use of material history and genre theories. The initial chapter examines the evolution of A General History in transnational and transatlantic contexts, with an emphasis on its material history. This approach affords the opportunity to examine how changes to the text serve the rhetorical purposes of girding Johnson’s credibility with his audience and of emphasizing the critical socio-political themes in the text, namely European culpability in the rise and perpetuation of piracy, and how these changes reflect a fluctuation in eighteenth-century concerns with piracy. Chapters two and three maintain a generic focus. Chapter two establishes the work as a piece of literature with divinable characteristics belonging to many genres and specifically acknowledges the picaresque novel’s influence on the text, noting that the work borrowed from the Spanish literary tradition and that some figures in the text, Bartholomew Roberts in particular, function as English picaros. Chapter three focuses on the text’s distinct political commentary and Johnson’s mobilization of the English picaro as a vessel of criticism. The socio-political criticism evident in the English picaro female pirate narratives—those of Mary Read (and Anne Bonny, to a lesser extent)—is the manifestation, illustration, and extension of criticisms introduced in the preface and introduction, both of which mark the text as a critique of English/European imperial practices and inefficiencies. A close reading of Johnson’s text reveals a nuanced view of eighteenth-century piracy. Ultimately, Johnson leverages the picaresque and other fictional elements for the sake of socio-political criticism and satire and argues that the scourge of piracy is a byproduct of the structural and administrative shortcomings of the European state at large, emphasizing the English role in the incubation of piracy.