Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Doctor's Domain: Innovation and Regulation in the U.S. Medical Device Industry, 1950-2000(2024) Bowrey, Brice; Sicilia, David; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the role of physicians in shaping the development and regulation of medical technologies in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that physicians became the dominant actors in the medical technology sector by using their preexisting professional prestige to assert the primacy of clinical knowledge and promote a culture of tinkering in private sector research and development. In contrast, the nascent profession of biomedical engineering could not effectively compete for status and influence. By analyzing the professional conflicts between physicians, biomedical engineers, and other stakeholders in the regulatory system for medical devices that emerged during and after Congress enacted the Medical Device Amendments of 1976, this dissertation explores the role of perceived expertise and scientific legitimacy in shaping regulatory policy, business organization, and other social structures that facilitate technological innovation.Item P(L)AYING FOR THE FUTURE: THE COALESCING OF YOUTH, SPORT, AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN CHARM CITY(2024) Stone, Eric Alexander; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project explores how Sport-Based Youth Development (SBYD) has been arrived at as an ideal vehicle for youth development in contemporary Baltimore. To understand the SBYD approach, the project seeks to explore four interrelated empirically grounded sites/questions that explain why sport is expected to help develop, discipline, and prepare youth and communities for the future. Three key themes emerged from this work: 1) that youth must be problematized by different ideas, beliefs, and discourses to make them ‘amenable’ to being targets of SBYD; 2) that organizations are pushed into competing with one another rather than collaborating due to the need of the state to maintain control of how youth are incorporated into society; and 3) that various tools and techniques are used through the vehicle of sport to inculcate specific values into underserved youth and their communities. The first chapter identifies two of the key theoretical positions/approaches that inform the project: Governmentality and Articulation as theory/method. The second chapter provides an overview of how scholars have examined the phenomenon of Sport for Development and Peace as a historical, methodological, and empirical site. The third chapter identifies the methods and methodologies that underpin the project. The fourth chapter provides a brief reflexive overview of how I arrived in Baltimore to conduct the project. The fifth chapter seeks to (explore) how Baltimore’s underserved citizens have been positioned as targets of SBYD as conceived of by politicians, providers, public servants, and citizens of the city, state, and nation. The project found that SBYD in Baltimore is a product of specific policies, processes, decisions, ideologies, and discourses that conspire to create a specific understanding of youth and communities as ripe for and requiring intervention through sport and other recreational pursuits to reform their behavior and orientation towards neoliberal social values that has evolved over the last fifty years. The sixth chapter examines/explicates how discourses of youth, their future, and the role of sport are used by three SBYD organizations to connect with potential participants, to obtain resources and funding, and to report on their activities and programming to measure the impact on the targeted community. The project found that underserved youth and communities are subjectivated by discourses of responsibility, deficiency, the unknown future, and the perceived American values of neoliberal meritocracy. These discourses were conveyed by programs via their websites, curricula, tax documents, and other forms of media to funders, participants and other valueholders. The seventh chapter identifies how organizations make use of formal and informal relationships to support the implementation of programming, to obtain funding, and to support organizations as they seek to legitimize their operations and activities in the eyes of valueholders. The project found that the use of formal and informal relationships by valueholders and organizations enables SBYD providers to secure access to funding, space, and capacity to support program initiatives. The eighth chapter seeks to engage with the beliefs, perspectives, and values of SBYD providers and valueholders to understand how these personal ideas and views shape the implementation of SBYD in Baltimore by speaking to the staff of three organizations operating within the city. The project found that the production of SBYD programming is facilitated and challenged by perceptions of the youth and community, ideas about the purpose and value of sport, and a broader rooting of ideas about youth and communities in urban stereotypes. By examining these four sites/questions, the project identifies how SBYD is assembled into a disciplining, educating, rationalizing tool to create productive youth for the future. The project ends by identifying new areas of research such as education initiatives for volunteers to contextualize the communities they work in, challenges and limitations such as completing research during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and key takeaways such as connecting with youth to move away from abstract stereotypes of urban life.Item LISTENING TO REVOLUTION: A SURVEY OF CULTURAL AND MUSICAL REVOLUTIONS THROUGH THE STUDY OF SELECTED VIOLIN REPERTOIRE(2024) Konkle, Emily Grace; Stern, James; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The written portion of this performance dissertation examines cultural and musical revolutions in relation to the study of selected violin repertoire. The document is divided into two chapters, each of which contain program notes highlighting a specific element relating to revolutions. Chapter one of the document will explore revolutionary composers who charted new compositional pathways by employing novel creative techniques in their writing. Chapter two will survey how cultural and social revolutions—both past and present—have affected the evolution of music throughout history by means of their direct impact on the arts. This document will consider how the selected repertoire reflects revolution and will ultimately provide a tangible way for artists and audience members to connect with repertoire across all genres, from Biber’s Passacaglia to Corigliano’s STOMP.Item MINDING YOUR FEET: AN EXAMINATION OF CEMETERY RECORDATION AND ANALYSIS THROUGH GEOSPATIAL DOCUMENTATION IN FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA(2024) Boyle, Colleen; Palus, Matthew; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Cemeteries are a wealth of information and are a vital cultural resource for the communities in which they reside. These spaces reflect the cultural and community practices, the evolution of public space, economic conditions, and religious traditions of those interred. This thesis seeks to answer the research question: can cemetery landscapes be understood using a phenomenological approach to interpreting cultural patterns and trends in a digital landscape? Understanding cemetery landscapes is vital to the understanding and preservation of the cultural landscapes of these communities, so clear and accurate documentation of these sites is possible and necessary when using modern geospatial technology. This thesis examines the results of the Fairfax County Park Authority’s Archaeology and Collections Branch cemetery survey using geospatial mapping methodologies to record cemetery boundaries and inventory grave and grave marker locations. Through the examination of each of the three cemeteries highlighted throughout this thesis, it was determined that a hybrid approach to cemetery analysis utilizing the theoretical framework of phenomenology in conjunction with the broader perspective offered through digital data and mapping allows for a greater understanding of a space and its use over time.Item CHAOS AND CONSPIRACY: THE HAGERSTOWN DRAFT RIOTS AND THE WHISKEY REBELLION(2024) Lowery, Kourtney Renea; Brewer, Holly; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CHAOS AND CONSPIRACY: THE HAGERSTOWN DRAFT RIOTS AND THE WHISKEY REBELLION Kourtney Renea Lowery, Master of Arts, 2024 Thesis Directed By: Professor Holly Brewer, Department of History This thesis explores the events of Washington County, MD in September 1794 to re-establish the significance of the Hagerstown Riots and their connection to the Whiskey Rebellion in Pittsburgh as well as to broader revolutionary ideals. The riots were a localized event in which the militia openly disobeyed orders. Citizens soldiers used militarized force to display their opposition to the excise tax and militia draft. Residents and many local leaders also opposed these measures and favored a progressive political and economic system. The Hagerstown Riots are an important microhistory and look at early American rebellion, protestors, and redress of grievances. The protestors at the Hagerstown Riots were angry with the excise tax and economic and political policies that the federal government created policies that were antiquated and unfairly administered. Hamilton’s taxation scheme was modeled on a British taxation system which colonials had fought against. They viewed these policies as created by elites in the federal government. State governments and officials, meanwhile were becoming more egalitarian in places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Washington County, Maryland showcases these frustrations and changes by retracing the dynamics of the rioters, officials, and militia. It also seeks to resolve why this event has been forgotten. The riots decenter the Whiskey Rebellion from an isolated large uprising in Pennsylvania to a broad movement that includes local events such as the Hagerstown riots, and that started before the American Revolution.Item THE “UNEQUAL WRONGS AMENDMENT”: STATE COURT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MARYLAND EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT(2024) Justement, Shelly; Muncy, Robyn; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis answers the question: How did Maryland state courts’ interpretations of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) affect the amendment’s meaning? This thesis explores state courts’ interpretations of the amendment in seven cases involving child support, spousal abandonment, abortion, rape, women’s access to exclusively male clubs, and gay marriage between the years of 1972 and 2006. The state courts’ decisions regarding the Maryland ERA promoted legal equality without providing equity between men and women or heterosexual and homosexual couples. The state courts often interpreted the ERA in narrow ways that did not always benefit women’s rights, and indeed, this thesis demonstrates that the courts’ rulings in ERA cases did not produce material equality between men and women or queer and straight couples. The courts’ narrow interpretations of the ERA were reflected by the fact that the judges interpreted the words of the amendment literally without consideration of Marylanders’ socioeconomic realities; the judges limited the reach of the ERA to state actions, not the actions of private individuals or organizations; and the judges limited the application of the ERA to cases in which men and women were treated as separate classes. In examining the consistently narrow nature of the judicial interpretations of the ERA, this thesis acknowledges the limitations of the ERA for women’s as well as gay and lesbian rights in Maryland. While benefits to men did not inherently mean that the courts took rights away from women, the courts’ interpretations of the ERA ended up limiting women’s equity with men more often than promoting it.Item They 'Boast of Dressing Like Gentlemen': Cross-Dressing, Print Culture, and Nineteenth-Century Gender Ideology(2024) Hemphill, Julia Kay; Lyons, Clare A; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Nineteenth-century gender roles were very strict but cross-dressing challenged these extremely binary roles, often being written about in different forms of print media. The press published stories about cross-dressing people in different ways depending on the actions they took in male attire. Soldier women cross-dressed and entered the military, but were not reprimanded for their decisions because their amount of time in male attire was perceived to be finite and because they were performing a service for their country. Women and male-presenting people who wore male attire and went into male workplaces, took wives, and became heads of household were highly reprimanded in the press in lengthy articles and short stories. Finally, women who wore the reform dress and liberated themselves from enslavement in male attire were spoken about in the press in two competing ways, with people supporting their transgressions and others not. Looking at the different ways that print media discussed these women and male-presenting people is important for looking at how gender roles were structured, and for understanding why powerful men were only threatened by certain cross-dressers.Item Soaked in Blue: Indigo, Enslavement, and Value in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina(2024) Frangoulis, Kelli Marie; Lyons, Clare; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Indigo was the most exported product from South Carolina in the mid-eighteenth century, but little scholarship has been devoted to the enslaved laborers that manufactured indigo dye through gruesome conditions. This thesis highlights their experience and argues that they created value out of indigo through identity creation, spiritual significance, and connections with their West African homeland. By wearing indigo-dyed blue clothing, enslaved people could intentionally associate their identity with the color through repeated wear and trade to create specific blue looks. By painting their living quarters with leftover indigo residue, known today as “haint blue,” enslaved communities received spiritual value from the protective quality culturally associated with indigo blue. By engaging with West African-inspired craftwork traditions that centered indigo, they furthered their heritage and created new significance for indigo within a new enslaved context. This research contributes new understandings of both the indigo industry and how enslaved individuals in South Carolina expressed humanity and choice.Item CREATING A SOCIALLY JUST KINESIOLOGY: ADDRESSING ANTI-BLACKNESS IN THEORY, RESEARCH, AND PEDAGOGY(2024) Justin, Tori Alexis; Jette, Shannon; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Currently, the National Academy of Kinesiology (NAK) is striving to create a socially just kinesiology (DePauw, 2021). The NAK call to action is informed, in part, by emergent scholarship that examines how dominant approaches in kinesiology often discount the importance of developing anti-racist, critical, and equitable pedagogy (e.g., Armstrong, 2022). While this scholarship brings attention to kinesiology’s centering of whiteness and the persistent stereotyping of (in)active Black bodies, what is missing is an examination of how/if anti-Black explanations of corporeality manifest across differing spaces in contemporary kinesiology and, if present, what form(s) they take. My dissertation addresses the above-identified gap by using a three-manuscript model to examine three 'spaces’ of kinesiology: theoretical, research, and pedagogical.In manuscript 1 (Chapter 2), I engage Black feminist theory to critically evaluate the tenets of Physical Cultural Studies (PCS). In doing so, I identify a significant theoretical and empirical oversight in PCS scholarship, namely the tendency to reify white Eurocentric epistemo-logics and disregard Black feminist thought by emphasizing Black masculinity and white feminist imperatives in examinations of race and gender. To disrupt this practice, I propose a Black feminist informed reconceptualization of four principal PCS tenets (pedagogical, political, qualitative, and theoretical). Manuscript 2 (Chapter 3) delves into research spaces by investigating how notions of “race” and “racial difference” are constructed in cardiovascular health (CVH) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) research. I conducted a scoping review to systematically identify original research articles (N=236) that included “race” in their examinations of CRF and CVH and then analyzed the sample to ascertain how each article approached “race” and “racial difference”. Key findings include: the majority (77.5%) of the studies did not define race; more than half of the studies (58.6%) compared Black and white racial groups in their examinations; 45.2% of the studies positioned white research participants as the ‘average’ or ‘normal’ in comparison to other racial groups; and only one article discussed the possible role of racism in relation to their identification of racial difference in an outcome of interest. These findings illustrate the need for CRF and CVH examinations to engage scientific best practice on how to research “race” and “racial differences” in ways that avoid reproducing racialized stereotypes. Manuscript 3 (Chapter 4) considers how Black women doctoral students experience pedagogical spaces of kinesiology departments. By conducting semi-structured open-ended interviews (N=10) with current and former Black women graduate students in kinesiology, I examine participants’ perspectives on how/if anti-Black explanations of corporeality inform kinesiology research practice and curriculum, and how the participants experience these pedagogies. Key themes identified are: kinesiological research tends to employ “colorblind research methods”; these methods contribute to monocultural and ahistorical understandings of (in)active bodies and health; and participants experience resistance to institutionally-backed attempts to disrupt white normativity. For kinesiology to transform into the socially just field that NAK is advocating, kinesiologists must consider how anti-Blackness can inadvertently manifest in their theories, research practices, and pedagogies. I provide practical suggestions throughout the dissertation on how to move toward change in each of these spaces.Item Hollow Ground: Industry, Extraction, and Ecology in the Floodplains of Early Maryland(2024) Hess, Sophie; Bell, Richard; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Hollow Ground: Industry, Extraction, and Ecology in the Floodplains of Early Maryland,” investigates histories of natural resource commodification, environment, and culture in the Patapsco River Valley, or “The Hollow” as it was called by its first European settlers. Beginning in the seventeenth century, English colonists seized the powerful currents of the Patapsco and the forests surrounding it, the ancestral floodplains of Piscataway and Susquehannock peoples, to build large-scale agricultural projects and industrial factories. These operations altered the environment, and as the valley grew into a center of extractive production, its communities experienced more frequent and severe floods which have continued into the present. This dissertation examines these entwined consequences of environmental capitalism and settler colonialism through a site-specific, multi-century lens, studying how humans, plants, and animals within various spaces of production—iron furnaces, wheat fields, grist and cotton mills, schools, prisons, local governments, and family units —experienced industrialization. It traces trace labor ecologies within communities of enslaved, convict, and low-wage workers, and the ways that soil exhaustion, flooding, and other environmental forces both threatened these enclaves and created opportunities for freedom. This work uses a microhistorical methodology to intervene in histories of energy transition, labor, and the Anthropocene. “Hollow Ground” argues that early American industrialism can help us to better understand how local desires for capital growth have accumulated into global processes of toxic emissions, and how the frontline issues faced by post-industrial communities today relate not only to global production but to local histories of extraction and the culture that perpetuates it. These same communities also hold critical histories of commoning, stewardship, labor resistance, and environmentalism that can help create a blueprint for survival in the face of the climate crisis.