UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Filters

2006 - 200912010 - 20131

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.autobiography

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Sources for the Reevaluation of George Frederick Root's Career: The Autobiography & A Secular Cantata
    (2013) Brown, Caitlin Elizabeth; Warfield, Patrick R; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Music scholarship has failed to fully assess the impact of the American composer George Frederick Root beyond his work in the church, classroom, and home. Most famous for composing "The Battle Cry of Freedom" and acting as music education pioneer Lowell Mason's associate, Root's other contributions to American music are often overlooked, particularly his body of secular cantatas for amateur choirs. This paper examines the commonly relayed biography of Root, Root's place in American historiography, and the advantages of examining his own autobiography. Finally, this paper presents a case study of The Haymakers and its possible place in future studies of Root. By better examining his career, we see that George Frederick Root was a typical nineteenth-century American man and that he was also a composer notable for his ability to serve the musical needs of his audience. Root pioneered large-scale choral works targeted at amateur performers with his secular cantatas and, consequently, served a wider swath of American performers and listeners.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Translating Eastern European Identities into the American National Narrative
    (2006-05-30) Moscaliuc, Mihaela Diana; Ray, Sangeeta; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this study is two-fold: to examine the absence from current cultural studies on immigration and ethnicity of the Eastern European American as a conceptual entity, and to propose and implement a new methodology of reading immigrant autobiographical narratives that seeks to make transparent the cultural and linguistic processes of translation through which immigrants negotiate their identities in America. Part I provides the methodology and contextual framework I employ in the re-examinations of Mary Antin's The Promised Land (1912) and Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation (1989). The historical contextualization focuses on two periods that determined conceptual shifts-- the two decades of anti-immigration sentiment that led to the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, and the decades following World War II, when post-Holocaust consciousness opened the door to the institutionalization of a Jewish identity that both encompassed and effaced the Eastern European one at the same time that Cold War politics hindered the development of an Eastern European immigrant space of articulation. A brief analysis of Flannery O'Connor's story "The Displaced Person" (1954) will underscore the dominant culture's difficulty in conceptualizing Eastern European difference and its place in the American national narrative. After arguing for the need that we differentiate between immigrant and ethnic narratives, I introduce the concept of "palimpsestic translation" and develop a critical paradigm that weds translation theory to the genre of immigrant autobiography and to narratives of immigration at large. Parts II and III contribute to the reconceptualization and partial reconstitution of the Eastern European immigrant American space through a close re-examination of Antin's and Hoffman's immigrant narratives as "palimpsestic translations." The two analyses address issues of historicity, literary and historical visibility, and translatability, as they pertain to and illuminate each text. The conclusion briefly assesses the status of Eastern European American studies and outlines the contribution of my proposed reading paradigm to the resuscitation of a critical and theoretical interest in Eastern European American identities. Finally, I situate my study within the larger call for a reconsideration of the relationship between Translation Studies, American and Cultural Studies, and Ethnic Studies.