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

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

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    The Rhetorical Origins of the African Colonization Movement in the United States
    (2009) Stillion Southard, Bjorn Frederick; Klumpp, James F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    From the introduction of slavery to British North America, the concurrent presence of freedom and slavery fostered much tension. Still, in the early 1800s, slavery was not yet the intransigent issue that would lead to civil war. Amidst mounting tensions and declining, yet still viable, possibility for resolution, a nationwide effort to colonize free blacks to Africa began. Positioned as neither immediate emancipation, nor the continuation of the status quo, colonizationists framed their scheme as a solution to the problem of slavery. With the discourse generated at a germinal meeting on December 21, 1816, the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States (later called the American Colonization Society) was created and motivations for African colonization were set forth. This project explores the rhetorical development of the national African colonization movement in The United States. To begin, this project traces the discursive tensions between discourses of security and morality to which colonizationists would need to attend to advance their scheme. Driving this tension was an emerging antagonism between instrumental and pathetic dimensions of rhetoric. The project then illuminates the potential to overcome such tensions that had been cultivated in political economic (i.e., legislative) discourse about slavery. This potential resolution was defined by the development of moderate rhetorical strategies to address the problem of slavery. Turning to the initial meeting of the Colonization Society, this project attends to how colonizationists negotiated the discursive tensions and used the rhetorical resources of the moment to motivate colonization. Ultimately, this project argues that the motivations offered by colonizationists in support of African colonization failed in their attempt to use moderate rhetorical strategies and thus, failed to overcome the discursive tensions of slavery.
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    EFFECTS OF PRE-EXISTING SUBMERSED MACROPHYTES ON THE INVASION SUCCESS OF HYDRILLA VERTICILLATA
    (2004-07-06) Chadwell, Todd Byron; Engelhardt, Katharina; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    I evaluated (1) the effects of a native submersed aquatic plant species, <i>Vallisneria americana<i>, on the colonization success of a non-native and highly invasive submersed aquatic species, <i>Hydrilla verticillata<i>, through field and greenhouse experiments; and (2) the effects of <i>H. verticillata<i> propagule density on its colonization success of patches dominated by the native species. Results of the field study, located in a tidal freshwater region of Chesapeake Bay, suggest that pre-existing vegetation did not have significant negative effects on <i>H. verticillata<i> colonization. However, pre-existing <i>H. verticillata<i> biomass and <i>H. verticillata<i> colonization success were strongly correlated. In contrast, results from the greenhouse study showed that <i>V. americana<i> had a strong inhibitory effect on <i>H. verticillata<i> colonization by fragments and increasing <i>H. verticillata<i> fragment density again increased colonization success. Reduced water column nutrient concentrations, resulting from <i>V. americana<i> growth, appeared to negatively affect successful rooting and subsequent colonization by <i>H. verticillata<i>.