Browsing by Subject "Landscape"
Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Animal kingdoms : princely power, the environment, and the hunt in colonial India(2009-12) Hughes, Julie Elaine; Minault, Gail, 1939-; Talbot, Cynthia; Davis, Janet; Hyder, Syed Akbar; Louis, William Roger; Charlesworth, MichaelShaped in part by diverse landscapes, game profiles, and ruling personalities, hunting in the Indian princely states in the colonial period was heterogeneous to a previously unrecognized extent. At the same time, significant underlying political, social, and cultural continuities unified states and their rulers’ approaches to sport. Focusing on the Rajput realms of Mewar, Orchha, and Bikaner, I show how princes of different ranks negotiated their states’ divergent landscapes in pursuit of dissimilar game, and how they trusted in superior hunting grounds, wildlife, and shooting methods to advance their personal standings and sovereign powers. I also investigate how these rulers used hunting to maintain connections with their state and lineage histories, to exemplify local Rajput ideals and identities, and to manage relationships with various audiences, including their subjects, state nobles, other princes, and British officials. This study is concerned as much with princely perceptions of game and shooting grounds as with “real” landscapes or environmental changes. I examine how the princes conceptually linked natural abundance with favorable political conditions and degradation with lost power and compromised dignity. I consider what it meant to pursue tigers, wildfowl, antelope, and wild boar in dense jungles, wetlands, arid plains, and imposing hills. In addition, I look at the ways princes attempted to employ and also to modify those meanings to suit their own purposes. I did the research for this dissertation at government and private archives in India and the United Kingdom. Because my primary goal was to discover princely views, I relied as far as possible on sources produced by elite Indians or by those in their service. Among the materials I used were state government records, personal correspondence, speeches, game diaries, hunting memoirs, photographs, and miniature paintings. Much of the documentation was in English, with the major exception of records relating to Mewar State and its subordinate noble estates. The language of those papers ranged from Hindi through Rajasthani (Mewari). To understand British responses better, I consulted Government of India records. Published memoirs and travelogues written by Europeans who visited and hunted in the regions under consideration also proved useful.Item Behavioral effects of wind farms on wintering Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) on the Texas High Plains(2011-12) Navarrete, Laura; Griffis-Kyle, Kerry; Haukos, David A.; Mulligan, KevinTexas has a superior annual capacity for wind power which has led to the erection of multiple wind farms across Texas with many more facilities planned. Wind energy is vital for a shift to carbon-emission free energy, however there has been relatively little research investigating the effects of wind farms as disturbance factors across the landscape. This project examines how wind energy infrastructure affects Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) behavior including landscape level habitat uses. Sandhill cranes are known to avoid areas of human activity and wind farms have been shown to render surrounding habitat of up to 1 km unsuitable to other species through direct effects (destroying habitat) and indirect effects on (avoidance). I examined the distribution of cranes at multiple wind farms on the Southern High Plains of Texas. I evaluated the effects wind farms have on roost occupancy, habitat use and crane behavior by comparing areas with wind turbines to those without for presence of cranes at roosting sites and behavior of cranes at foraging sites. I found that cranes within wind farm plots exhibited more vigilant behavior and less resting behavior. The distance to the nearest turbine contributed to 18% of the variation in the percent of cranes seen resting. Crane density and flock size are both negatively correlated with distance to turbines. Cranes in the vicinity of wind farms were found in smaller flocks, in larger habitat patches and closer to the road than cranes in control plots. Cranes also showed different habitat preferences within wind farms plots, utilizing non-foraging habitat which they avoided in control plots. Surveying playas in Texas using occupancy modeling methods resulted in no combination of variables explaining crane presence or absence in playas. To make effective management and conservation decisions, managers must be furnished with tools that help them understand large-scale ecological processes. Evaluating crane risk to wind farms based on behavioral characteristics can be used to predict areas of avoidance and help preserve important crane habitat in a rapidly developing landscape.Item Deep end(2010-05) Berg, Sonya Carol; Sutherland, Dan, 1966-; Mutchler, LeslieThis report describes the processes, working habits, materials, and multiple iterations of my work over the past three years. I reflect more in depth on my final series of work in which I have incorporated images of empty pool structures into paintings and large drawings. I consider the pool images metaphors for containment, control of the landscape, the unknowable, and in both a material and psychological sense, the void. The objects I exhibit, drawings, paintings and prints, are generated using a convoluted process. Rather than working in a systematic way, I negotiate rapid impulses, subjective goals, and thematic consistency. When I use figure/ground reversal and gestural drawing, I look to create a hand-touched surface that generates a sense of uneasiness in the composition, and a subjective disruption in the landscape.Item Investigating Rainwater Harvesting as a Stormwater Best Management Practice and as a Function of Irrigation Water Use(2012-02-14) Shannak, Sa'D Abdel-HalimStormwater runoff has negative impacts on water resources, human health and environment. In this research the effectiveness of Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) systems is examined as a stormwater Best Management Practice (BMP). Time-based, evapotranspiration-based, and soil moisture-based irrigation scheduling methods in conjunction with RWH and a control site without RWH were simulated to determine the effect of RWH as a BMP on a single-family residence scale. The effects of each irrigation scheduling method on minimizing water runoff leaving the plots and potable water input for irrigation were compared. The scenario that reflects urban development was simulated and compared to other RWH-irrigation scheduling systems by a control treatment without a RWH component. Four soil types (sand, sandy loam, loamy sand, silty clay) and four cistern sizes (208L, 416L, 624L, 833L) were evaluated in the urban development scenario. To achieve the purpose of this study; a model was developed to simulate daily water balance for the three treatments. Irrigation volumes and water runoff were compared for four soil types and four cistern sizes. Comparisons between total volumes of water runoff were estimated by utilizing different soil types, while comparisons between total potable water used for irrigation were estimated by utilizing different irrigation scheduling methods. This research showed that both Curve Number method and Mass-Balance method resulted in the greatest volumes of water runoff predicted for Silty Clay soil and the least volumes of water runoff predicted for Sand soil. Moreover, increasing cistern sizes resulted in reducing total water runoff and potable water used for irrigation, although not at a statistically significant level. Control treatment that does not utilize a cistern had the greatest volumes of predicted supplemental water among all soil types utilized, while Soil Moisture-based treatment on average had the least volume of predicted supplemental water.Item Lake Ontario Maritime Cultural Landscape(2010-10-12) Ford, Benjamin L.The goal of the Lake Ontario Maritime Cultural Landscape project was to investigate the nature and distribution of archaeological sites along the northeast shoreline of Lake Ontario while examining the environmental, political, and cultural factors that influenced the position of these sites. The primary method of investigation was a combined archaeological and historical survey of the shoreline within seven 1-km square areas. The archaeological component of the survey covered both the terrestrial and submerged portions of the shore through marine remote sensing (side-scan sonar and magnetometer), diving surveys, pedestrian surveys, and informant interviews. A total of 39 sites and 51 isolated finds were identified or further analyzed as a result of this project. These sites ranged from the Middle Archaic period (ca. 5500-2500 B.C.) through the 19th century and included habitation, military, transportation, and recreational sites. Analysis of these findings was conducted at two scales: the individual survey area and Lake Ontario as a whole. By treating each survey area as a distinct landscape, it was possible to discuss how various cultures and groups used each space and to identify instances of both dynamism and continuity in the landscapes. Results of these analyses included the continuous occupation of several locations from pre-Contact times to the present, varying uses of the same environment in response to political and economic shifts, the formation of communities around transportation nodes, and recurring settlement patterns. The survey data was also combined to explore regional-scale trends that manifest themselves in the historical Lake Ontario littoral landscape including ephemeral landscapes, permeable boundaries, danger in the lake, and factors of change.Item Landscape preservation and biodiversity planning : the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project and beyond(2014-05) Yaquinto, Robert Giacomo; Holleran, MichaelThis report argues that historic landscape preservation efforts need to embrace biodiversity planning. Historic landscape preservation sites need to develop biodiversity plans because they are uniquely qualified to provide the continuous monitoring that successful biodiversity planning requires. Not only will biodiversity monitoring at various historic landscape sites contribute to a nationwide collection of biodiversity planning data, but it will also provide a rich source of information that can be presented to draw a wider audience into the biodiversity discussion. After considering three precedents: Old Sturbridge Village, Old World Wisconsin, and Tucson Botanical Gardens, the report focuses on the Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project and its real and potential impacts on biodiversity planning in southern Arizona and more broadly. Finally, the report considers how seed libraries and seed swaps might serve a similar purpose in other parts of the country.Item Local and landscape level variables influencing migratory bird abundance, diversity, behavior, and community structure in Rainwater Basin wetlands(Texas Tech University, 2006-08) Brennan, Elisabeth K.; Smith, Loren M.; Wilde, Gene R.; Vrtiska, Mark; McIntyre, Nancy E.; Strauss, Richard E.The Rainwater Basin (RWB) region in south-central Nebraska, which currently contains approximately 400 wetlands, is one of the most threatened and least studied wetland complexes in the Great Plains. Early soil surveys indicate the RWB originally included more than 4,000 natural wetland basins, totaling approximately 38,000 ha; however, conversion of wetlands to agricultural fields has resulted in the destruction of over 90% of the wetlands and 88% of the original wetland area. Even in their reduced, degraded condition, RWB wetlands provide essential stopover and staging areas to migratory wetland birds in the Central Flyway. Consequently, the RWB region has been identified as containing waterfowl habitat of major concern by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Five to 7 million waterfowl pass through the RWB region every spring, including virtually all of the 600,000 mid-continental white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons), 500,000 Canada geese (Branta canadensis), 50% of the mid-continental mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) population, and 30% of the continental northern pintail (Anas acuta) population. Staging areas and migratory stopovers often function as geographic bottlenecks; entire populations within a flyway can be affected by the quality and quantity of available wetland habitat at stopover sites. This common dependence among migratory birds on staging sites has major implications for wetland conservation and restoration. In an effort to guide wetland stopover site restoration and conservation efforts, there has been an increased effort to determine what factors influence wetland habitat quality for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. Although previous studies have shown that local and landscape-level factors influence abundance, diversity, and behavior of breeding birds on wetlands, few studies have assessed the impact of these factors on wetland birds during migration. Moreover, examination of wetland bird habitat use, behavior, and community structure provides the opportunity to test hypotheses about the mechanisms that allow wetland birds to coexist while migrating through a region with unpredictable resources. My objectives were to 1) examine local (within wetland and immediate watershed) factors influencing abundance, species richness, and diversity of waterfowl, shorebirds, and wading birds; 2) evaluate landscape-level factors influencing abundance, species richness, and diversity of waterfowl, shorebirds, and wading birds at various spatial scales; 3) determine the effects of hunting disturbance, time period, and migration chronology on bird behavior; and 4) examine community patterns and species associations to assess the importance of assembly rules in structuring wetland bird distribution and communities during migration. I conducted biweekly avian surveys in 36-40 wetlands from mid-February through mid-May, 2002-2004. Concurrently, I recorded behaviors of wetland birds during 1 of 6 time periods, using a flock scan technique. I measured 16 local wetland habitat variables in mid-May of each year, including percent emergent vegetation, water depth and organic matter depth. Using ArcView and various spatial datasets, I calculated landscape variables for each study wetland within 5 and 10 km. Landscape variables included area, number of patches, and mean patch size of agricultural land, grassland, wetlands, riparian area, and land with high sedimentation potential. Using multiple linear regression, I tested hypotheses about how local and landscape variables influenced species richness, diversity, and abundance of geese, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, shorebirds, and wading birds. The best models containing local and landscape variables for each dependent variable were selected using Akaike’s Information Criterion. I observed an estimated 945,333 individual migratory wetland birds representing 61 species during 2002 surveys (n = 637), 517,650 birds representing 62 species during 2003 surveys (n = 873), and 1,097,950 birds representing 64 species during 2004 surveys (n = 955). Wetland area had a positive influence on goose abundance in all years, whereas percent emergent vegetation and hunting pressure had negative influences. Models predicting dabbling duck abundance were variable among years; however, number of wetlands within 5 km was the best predictor of dabbling duck abundance. Area of agriculture within 10 km of a wetland had a positive influence on dabbling duck abundance in years with low precipitation (2002 and 2003), whereas wetland vegetation was important for dabbling ducks in the wetter year (2004). Wetland area and percent of vegetation composed of inner marsh (drawdown and aquatic bed species) were the best and most consistent predictors of diving duck abundance. Shorebird abundance was best predicted by wetland area and area of agricultural land within 10 km. Wetland area was the only consistent predictor of wading bird abundance. Models predicting species richness contained wetland area as a positive predictor and water depth as a negative predictor. In addition, percent emergent vegetation was a positive predictor of species richness, indicating that species richness was greatest in wetlands with intermediate levels of vegetation. To determine for what purpose birds are using wetlands during migration, I examined the effects of time period, hunting pressure, and year on behavior. I used a multivariate analysis of variance to test for differences in behavior among time periods, hunting categories (hunted within season, hunted out of season, and closed to hunting), and years for geese, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, and shorebirds. I also compared behaviors of early (before March 17) and late (after March 17) migrating dabbling ducks to determine whether a greater proportion of early migrants were observed feeding in wetlands than later migrants. Goose behavior did not differ among time periods; however, a smaller proportion of geese was observed feeding on hunted wetlands than unhunted wetlands in 2004. A smaller proportion of dabbling ducks was observed feeding on hunted wetlands compared to unhunted wetlands and in 2004 compared to other years. Diving duck behavior did not differ among time periods, years, or hunting categories. Shorebirds spent most of the time feeding; however, proportion of birds feeding was lower in 2004 than other years. Early migrating dabbling ducks fed less and rested more than did later migrants. I used null model analysis to examine spatial and temporal co-occurrence patterns of geese, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, and shorebirds. I also calculated species association values to determine if dabbling ducks were avoiding wetlands occupied by snow geese (Chen caerluscens). Goose species co-occurred less often than expected in all years of the study, whereas co-occurrence patterns of dabbling ducks were not different than expected by chance in all years. However, when evaluated at a weekly scale, dabbling ducks co-occurred less often than expected during weeks of peak migration (high abundance). Diving ducks co-occurred less often than expected in 2002 and 2004 but not in 2003, whereas shorebirds co-occurred less often than expected in all years. The majority of association values among snow geese and dabbling species were positive, indicating that dabbling ducks are not avoiding wetlands with snow geese. However, negative associations among snow geese and dabbling ducks species might be observed in high precipitation years, when greater wetland availability would permit segregation and increase the chances of detecting co-occurrence patterns. Wetland conservation in the RWB should focus on providing wetland complexes for migratory birds, particularly dabbling ducks. In addition, allowing wetlands to go through their natural hydrologic cycle should promote intermediate levels of emergent vegetation, which will increase use by dabbling ducks, shorebirds, and wading birds, while discouraging goose use of these wetlands. Spring hunting, especially in low precipitation years, causes a re-distribution of geese and dabbling ducks as well as decreasing dabbling duck feeding opportunities. During dry years, flooding temporary and seasonal wetlands and closing them to hunting will help offset the effects of hunting on non-target species by providing more protected feeding areas. In addition, a clearly defined, comprehensive plan for measuring the success of these objectives, as well as standardized monitoring protocols, are necessary for incorporating adaptive management into the conservation goals of the RWBJV. In particular, the ability to quickly and accurately assess wetland availability in the RWB will be crucial to making the best possible management decisions on where and when to distribute water on the landscape.Item Local and landscape level variables influencing migratory bird abundance, diversity, behavior, and community structure in Rainwater Basin wetlands(2006-08) Brennan, Elisabeth K.; Smith, Loren M.; Wilde, Gene R.; McIntyre, Nancy E.; Strauss, Richard E.; Vrtiska, MarkThe Rainwater Basin (RWB) region in south-central Nebraska, which currently contains approximately 400 wetlands, is one of the most threatened and least studied wetland complexes in the Great Plains. Early soil surveys indicate the RWB originally included more than 4,000 natural wetland basins, totaling approximately 38,000 ha; however, conversion of wetlands to agricultural fields has resulted in the destruction of over 90% of the wetlands and 88% of the original wetland area. Even in their reduced, degraded condition, RWB wetlands provide essential stopover and staging areas to migratory wetland birds in the Central Flyway. Consequently, the RWB region has been identified as containing waterfowl habitat of major concern by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Five to 7 million waterfowl pass through the RWB region every spring, including virtually all of the 600,000 mid-continental white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons), 500,000 Canada geese (Branta canadensis), 50% of the mid-continental mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) population, and 30% of the continental northern pintail (Anas acuta) population. Staging areas and migratory stopovers often function as geographic bottlenecks; entire populations within a flyway can be affected by the quality and quantity of available wetland habitat at stopover sites. This common dependence among migratory birds on staging sites has major implications for wetland conservation and restoration. In an effort to guide wetland stopover site restoration and conservation efforts, there has been an increased effort to determine what factors influence wetland habitat quality for migrating shorebirds and waterfowl. Although previous studies have shown that local and landscape-level factors influence abundance, diversity, and behavior of breeding birds on wetlands, few studies have assessed the impact of these factors on wetland birds during migration. Moreover, examination of wetland bird habitat use, behavior, and community structure provides the opportunity to test hypotheses about the mechanisms that allow wetland birds to coexist while migrating through a region with unpredictable resources. My objectives were to 1) examine local (within wetland and immediate watershed) factors influencing abundance, species richness, and diversity of waterfowl, shorebirds, and wading birds; 2) evaluate landscape-level factors influencing abundance, species richness, and diversity of waterfowl, shorebirds, and wading birds at various spatial scales; 3) determine the effects of hunting disturbance, time period, and migration chronology on bird behavior; and 4) examine community patterns and species associations to assess the importance of assembly rules in structuring wetland bird distribution and communities during migration. I conducted biweekly avian surveys in 36-40 wetlands from mid-February through mid-May, 2002-2004. Concurrently, I recorded behaviors of wetland birds during 1 of 6 time periods, using a flock scan technique. I measured 16 local wetland habitat variables in mid-May of each year, including percent emergent vegetation, water depth and organic matter depth. Using ArcView and various spatial datasets, I calculated landscape variables for each study wetland within 5 and 10 km. Landscape variables included area, number of patches, and mean patch size of agricultural land, grassland, wetlands, riparian area, and land with high sedimentation potential. Using multiple linear regression, I tested hypotheses about how local and landscape variables influenced species richness, diversity, and abundance of geese, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, shorebirds, and wading birds. The best models containing local and landscape variables for each dependent variable were selected using Akaike’s Information Criterion. I observed an estimated 945,333 individual migratory wetland birds representing 61 species during 2002 surveys (n = 637), 517,650 birds representing 62 species during 2003 surveys (n = 873), and 1,097,950 birds representing 64 species during 2004 surveys (n = 955). Wetland area had a positive influence on goose abundance in all years, whereas percent emergent vegetation and hunting pressure had negative influences. Models predicting dabbling duck abundance were variable among years; however, number of wetlands within 5 km was the best predictor of dabbling duck abundance. Area of agriculture within 10 km of a wetland had a positive influence on dabbling duck abundance in years with low precipitation (2002 and 2003), whereas wetland vegetation was important for dabbling ducks in the wetter year (2004). Wetland area and percent of vegetation composed of inner marsh (drawdown and aquatic bed species) were the best and most consistent predictors of diving duck abundance. Shorebird abundance was best predicted by wetland area and area of agricultural land within 10 km. Wetland area was the only consistent predictor of wading bird abundance. Models predicting species richness contained wetland area as a positive predictor and water depth as a negative predictor. In addition, percent emergent vegetation was a positive predictor of species richness, indicating that species richness was greatest in wetlands with intermediate levels of vegetation. To determine for what purpose birds are using wetlands during migration, I examined the effects of time period, hunting pressure, and year on behavior. I used a multivariate analysis of variance to test for differences in behavior among time periods, hunting categories (hunted within season, hunted out of season, and closed to hunting), and years for geese, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, and shorebirds. I also compared behaviors of early (before March 17) and late (after March 17) migrating dabbling ducks to determine whether a greater proportion of early migrants were observed feeding in wetlands than later migrants. Goose behavior did not differ among time periods; however, a smaller proportion of geese was observed feeding on hunted wetlands than unhunted wetlands in 2004. A smaller proportion of dabbling ducks was observed feeding on hunted wetlands compared to unhunted wetlands and in 2004 compared to other years. Diving duck behavior did not differ among time periods, years, or hunting categories. Shorebirds spent most of the time feeding; however, proportion of birds feeding was lower in 2004 than other years. Early migrating dabbling ducks fed less and rested more than did later migrants. I used null model analysis to examine spatial and temporal co-occurrence patterns of geese, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, and shorebirds. I also calculated species association values to determine if dabbling ducks were avoiding wetlands occupied by snow geese (Chen caerluscens). Goose species co-occurred less often than expected in all years of the study, whereas co-occurrence patterns of dabbling ducks were not different than expected by chance in all years. However, when evaluated at a weekly scale, dabbling ducks co-occurred less often than expected during weeks of peak migration (high abundance). Diving ducks co-occurred less often than expected in 2002 and 2004 but not in 2003, whereas shorebirds co-occurred less often than expected in all years. The majority of association values among snow geese and dabbling species were positive, indicating that dabbling ducks are not avoiding wetlands with snow geese. However, negative associations among snow geese and dabbling ducks species might be observed in high precipitation years, when greater wetland availability would permit segregation and increase the chances of detecting co-occurrence patterns. Wetland conservation in the RWB should focus on providing wetland complexes for migratory birds, particularly dabbling ducks. In addition, allowing wetlands to go through their natural hydrologic cycle should promote intermediate levels of emergent vegetation, which will increase use by dabbling ducks, shorebirds, and wading birds, while discouraging goose use of these wetlands. Spring hunting, especially in low precipitation years, causes a re-distribution of geese and dabbling ducks as well as decreasing dabbling duck feeding opportunities. During dry years, flooding temporary and seasonal wetlands and closing them to hunting will help offset the effects of hunting on non-target species by providing more protected feeding areas. In addition, a clearly defined, comprehensive plan for measuring the success of these objectives, as well as standardized monitoring protocols, are necessary for incorporating adaptive management into the conservation goals of the RWBJV. In particular, the ability to quickly and accurately assess wetland availability in the RWB will be crucial to making the best possible management decisions on where and when to distribute water on the landscape.Item Lost & found(2012-05) Botkin, Erica Lauren; Sutherland, Dan, 1966-; Goodman, MarkI have produced two distinct bodies of work, landscapes and portraits. In both, I investigate my relationship to the subject. My role as the photographer fluctuates between the time I spend by myself and the time I spend with others. The landscape series promotes the act of looking and obscures my presence as photographer. Responding to the saturation of images in the media today, I hope to recalibrate viewers to a slower pace. I look for spaces at the edge of a controlled wilderness that are still accessible to the general public and mimic the identity of my childhood home in Northern California. Both color and black and white photographs sentimentalize manicured nature in ordinary locations. These landscapes facilitate reflection through consideration of similarities and differences. In doing so, these locations lose their specificity and approach a generalized sense of the sacred. The second body of work is a series of photographic collaborations I make with my autistic friend, Will Johns. He selects the subject matter and operates the light meter. His autism informs his methods, which then affects my methods. His idiosyncratic choices force me to photograph subject matter I wouldn’t be drawn to and compose in a new way where I must consider Will as author, subject and subject matter. In these images Will stands with the light meter, his posture gaze and facial expressions explicitly make reference to our relationship and reveal the complexity in separating subject matter from subject and the difficulties artists face with issues of exploitation and authorship.Item The overburdened Earth : landscape and geography in Homeric epic(2011-08) Lovell, Christopher; Riggsby, Andrew M.; Beck, Deborah; Cook, Erwin F.; Purves, Alex C.; Kim, LarryThis dissertation argues that Homer's Iliad depicts the Trojan landscape as participant in or even victim of the Trojan War. This representation alludes to extra-Homeric accounts of the origins of the Trojan War in which Zeus plans the war to relieve the earth of the burden of human overpopulation. In these myths, overpopulation is the result of struggle among the gods for divine kingship. Through this allusion, the Iliad places itself within a framework of theogonic myth, depicting the Trojan War as an essential step in separating the world of gods and the world of men, and making Zeus’ position as the father of gods and men stable and secure. The Introduction covers the mythological background to which the Iliad alludes through an examination of extra-Homeric accounts of the Trojan War’s origins. Chapter One analyzes a pair of similes at Iliad 2.780-85 that compare the Akhaian army to Typhoeus, suggesting that the Trojan War is a conflict similar to Typhoeus’ attempt to usurp Zeus’ position as king of gods and men. Chapter Two demonstrates how Trojan characters are closely linked with the landscape in the poem’s first extended battle scene (4.422-6.35); the deaths of these men are a symbolic killing of the land they defend. Chapter Three discusses the aristeia of Diomedes in Book 5, where his confrontations with Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo illustrate the heroic tendency to disrespect the status difference between gods and men. Athena’s authorization of Diomedes’ actions reveals the existence of strife among the Olympian gods, which threatens to destabilize the divine hierarchy. Chapter Four examines the Akhaian wall whose eventual destruction is recounted at the beginning of Book 12. The wall symbolizes human impiety and its destruction is a figurative fulfillment of Zeus’ plan to relieve the earth of the burden of unruly humanity. Finally, Chapter Five treats the flußkampf and Theomachy of Books 20 and 21, episodes adapting scenes of divine combat typically associated with the struggle for divine kingship. In the Iliad, these scenes show that Zeus’ power is unassailable.Item Regional dynamics and local dialectics in Iron Age Botswana : case studies from the hinterland in the Bosutswe Region(2013-08) Klehm, Carla Elizabeth; Denbow, James R. (James Raymond), 1946-Since the 1980's, few have included sub-Saharan African in worldwide comparative discussion of complex societies. This exclusion is at the expense of challenging embedded notions of the development of complexity. The trading polity Bosutswe (700-1700 AD) at the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and its surrounding region provide a perfect example of why this is important. In the Bosutswe region, complexity was not be driven by external factors, elites, or the core, but arose from local actors and out of localized contexts. During its occupation, Bosutswe became increasingly involved with long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean exchange network, linking trade from the African coast to the interior. At Bosutswe, glass beads associated with long-distance trade and local ostrich eggshell beads attest to a strong local economy supported by cattle herding, subsistence farming, and iron and bronze manufacture. This trade with Bosutswe peaked from 1200-1450 AD, when social stratification at Bosutswe became spatially and materially evident. This dissertation focuses on Bosutswe's trajectory through the point of view of two nearby settlements, Khubu la Dintša (1220-1420 AD) and Mmadipudi Hill (~550-1200 AD), to reconstruct the local economy and landscape. Expanding the concept of the polity to one situated in a landscape of human and environmental interchange provides a key comparative insight to other studies of complex societies and variable trajectories of societal development. The Bosutswe landscape and by extension Iron Age southern Africa can be conceptualized as a patchwork of landmark hilltop polity centers on a scrub desert landscape of agropastoral activity surrounded by smaller hilltop and ground sites. The local dynamic may have involved strategies by Bosutswe to mitigate environmental characteristics of low rainfall, opportunistic hunting and herding opportunities for the surrounding communities, and alliances between these communities for security in a politically unstable era. Everyday life would have involved issues about land use, as over time herders and farmers exhausted pastures, soil fertility, and firewood. Treating these early polities as landscapes of human, animal, and environmental relationships will help revise the way early complex societies are conceptualized: not as individual sites, but as local landscapes of power.Item Social violence, social healing : the merging of the political and the spiritual in Chicano/a literary production(2012-05) Lopez, Christina Garcia; Cordova, Cary, 1970-; Limón, José Eduardo; Lieu, Nhi; Perez, Domino; Cox, JamesThis dissertation argues that spiritual and religious worldviews (i.e. Mexican Catholicism, indigenous spiritualities, and popular religion) have historically intersected with social and political realities in the development of Mexican origin communities of the United States. More specifically, as creative writers from these communities have endeavored to express and represent Mexican American experience, they have consistently engaged these intersections of the spiritual and the material. While Chicano/a criticism has often overlooked, and in some ways dismissed, the significant role which spiritual and religious discourses have played in the political development of Mexican American communities, I examine how the works of creative writers pose important questions about the role of religious faith and spirituality in healing the wounds of social violence. By placing literary texts in conversation with scholarship from multiple disciplines, this project links literary narratives to their historical, social, and political frameworks, and ultimately endeavors to situate literary production as an expressive cultural product. Historical and regional in approach, the dissertation examines diverse literary narratives penned by writers of Mexican descent between the 1930s and the current decade. Selected textual pairings recall pivotal moments and relations in the history of Mexico, America, and their shared geographical borderlands. Through the lens of religion and spirituality, a broad array of social discourses emerges, including: gender and sexuality, landscape and memory, nation-formation, race and ethnicity, popular traditions, and material culture.Item The over-winter ecology of lesser prairie-chickens (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) in the northeast Texas Panhandle(2010-12) Kukal, Curtis A.; Ballard, Warren B.; Wallace, Mark C.; Butler, Matthew J.; Gipson, Philip S.; Whitlaw, Heather A.; Fish, Ernest B.Since the 1800s, lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus; LPC) populations have exhibited range-wide declines. Most aspects of the LPC?s over-winter ecology are poorly understood across the species? range, but especially in the northeast Texas Panhandle. We investigated space-use, habitat selection, and survival patterns for over-wintering LPCs between 1 September 2008 and 28 February 2010. We captured and monitored 41 LPCs (34 males and 7 hens) from 8 leks during the course of the study. We collected 1,229 locations from 19 LPCs during the over-winter of 2008?2009, and 1,984 locations from 29 LPCs during the over-winter of 2009?2010. We observed that ?98% of LPC locations were within 5.0 km of their leks-of-capture and ?98% were within 2.4 km of a known lek. We did not observe LPCs utilizing agricultural fields, possibly because most agriculture near leks was dominated by wheat (Triticum aestivum). Both genders consistently selected grassland landcover over shrubland landcover types. Our results underscore the need to conserve grassland landcover for over-wintering LPCs. We agree with previous management recommendations that rangelands within 5.0 km should be managed for over-wintering LPCs, but we further recommend prioritizing rangeland within 2.4 km of all the leks in an area. We found that cause-specific mortality rates were equally attributable to mammalian (M = 0.133, SE = 0.056) and avian (M = 0.198, SE = 0.063) predators. We evaluated 22 competing survival models using the second-order Akaike?s Information Criterion (AICc). Model selection indicated that mean patch size of shinnery oak (Quercus havardii) rangelands best explained over-winter survival. However, limited sample size likely contributed to uncertainty in our models. Our results suggested that managing for large, contiguous patches of shinnery oak could be counter-productive for LPC over-winter survival.Item The wide mouth of bone: Original poetry(2007-05) Willis, Brandi Paige; Kolosov-Wenthe, Jacqueline; Wenthe, WilliamThe Wide Mouth of Bone: Original Poetry is a collection of poems which explores the landscape of the Llano Estacado and its relationship to memory, space, and emotion. Ache, the central theme of these poems, manifests in a number of settings and images: a bird dying in a field, the inconsolable loss of a loved one, and the realization of love, to name a few. As a whole, this collection follows the path of the seasons and examines how one's experiences become a greater conversation about our place within the natural world.Item Visible features : Austin(2014-05) Hart, Jonas Spencer; Reynolds, Ann Morris; Sutherland, Dan, 1966-This report is a summary of my work and research during my three years at The University of Texas at Austin. I engage the city's impressive urban parks and new urbanist developments through my own practice of descriptive and interpretive landscape painting. Through continuous exploration of the city, research into the history of landscape painting and into the strategies of modern landscape architecture, I have learned to see more clearly the role that the visual history of depicted landscape plays in contemporary practices of landscape design and construction. This has reinforced my interest in understanding how painting as a medium plays a role in our cultural understandings of how landscapes should look and act. By experimenting with new formats and materials I continue to adapt my work to articulate a new, dynamic understanding of landscape in flux and inextricable from its human inhabitants.Item "The world in miniature" : testing Bruce Conner's CROSSROADS(2016-05) La Brasca, Jana Lee; Reynolds, Ann Morris; Charlesworth, Michael JThe subject of this thesis is Bruce Conner’s 1976 film CROSSROADS, a 37- minute filmic portrait of the world’s first underwater nuclear detonation at the Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946. CROSSROADS consists of 23 segments of declassified United States National Archive footage and two original soundtracks composed by Patrick Gleeson and Terry Riley. Documentary and aesthetic at once, the work invites a meditation upon the terrifying violence and evanescent beauty of a key 20th century icon: the atomic mushroom cloud. In this thesis, I examine CROSSROADS under the generative conceptual prism of the miniature as theorized by Claude Levi-Strauss in The Savage Mind and Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space. I expand upon the miniature idea flexibly throughout this paper: I find that it is equally relevant to nuclear weapons testing history, landscape, cinema, description, and the artwork of Bruce Conner. Remaining focused on questions of scale and making relevant comparisons to works of art, films, and contemporary visual culture, I structure my analysis loosely around episodes in the life of the film: the production of its source material in the 1940s, Conner’s process of modifying it in the 1970s, and the resulting work’s reception after its premiere in 1976.