Theses published by graduate students in the Institute for the Humanities, College of Arts & Letters, Old Dominion University, since Fall 2016 are available in this collection. Backfiles of all dissertations (and some theses) have also been added.
In late Fall 2025, all theses will be digitized and available here. In the meantime, consult the Library Catalog to find older items in print.
Theses/Dissertations from 2024
Thesis: Prisons of the Imagination: Carceral Ideology and Race in Science Fiction, Daniel Allen Avant Blachman
Theses/Dissertations from 2023
Thesis: From Donatello to Michelangelo: A Franciscan Angel, Kayla M. Bruce
Thesis: Always Reppin' Padua: An Examination of Campanilismo in the Works of Andrea Mantegna, Sarah Kathryn Suddith Gorman
Theses/Dissertations from 2022
Thesis: Nietzsche’s Will to Power as that Which Eternally Recurs, Joshua Aaron Ackerman
Thesis: Rape, Consent, and the U.S. Military, Siris Fernandez
Thesis: TikTok as a Digital Activism Space: Social Justice Under Algorithmic Control, Brittany Haslem
Thesis: "I Want to Know What I'm Looking at": Surveilling Gender as a Response to Cultural Anxieties in Halloween, Sleepaway Camp, and Scream, Jennifer Jacinda McLawhorn
Thesis: Hieronymus Bosch's Dismantled Triptych and the 'Devotio Moderna', Mary E. Tippett
Theses/Dissertations from 2021
Thesis: Integrating Empathy Pedagogy with Feminist Thought and Social Justice Praxis, Ashlyn Elizabeth Brown
Thesis: Riverology: Promoting Stewardship of Rivers Through Youth Participation in Science and Art, Robin R. Dunbar
Thesis: Experiences with Flood and Perceptions of Flood Risk among Members of the Filipino American Community in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Anjelica Pascual Petsch
Thesis: Media Effects on Cultural Perceptions as Seen in Food Media and Food Cultures, David Williams Tortolini
Theses/Dissertations from 2020
Thesis: Cecily Brown and Maureen Gallace: Teaching Covert Feminism in Public School, Danielle Salyers
Thesis: Titian’s Poesie: The Visual Allegories of Morality and Religion, Holli M. Turner
Thesis: Drag Incorporated: The Homonormative Brand Culture of RuPaul's Drag Race, Nathan T. Workman
Theses/Dissertations from 2019
Thesis: Emergency Departments and Care for Marginalized Populations, Irvin B. Harrell
Thesis: Harbored: Like Museums, Videogames Aren't Neutral, Stephanie Hawthorne
Thesis: Must Stay Woke: Black Celebrity Voices of Dissent in the Post Post-Racial Era, Lily Kunda
Theses/Dissertations from 2017
Thesis: Social Controls Through the Mirror of Columnists' Narratives: A Content Analysis for Framing in Media, Daphne Canan
Thesis: “El Negro Sin La Oreja”: A Dialectical Approach to the Blackness in Dominican Identity, Kevin E. Nicholes
Thesis: Teaching Excellence: The Use of Heroes in Moral Education, Shaun Douglas Respess
Theses/Dissertations from 2016
Thesis: It Could Have Been Great: An Examination of Kandinsky's Bauhaus Paintings and the Great Synthesis of the Arts, Deanna Brooks
Thesis: No Witnesses: Protest Policing and the Media at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Robert David Frenzel
Thesis: "We Can't Do It Without You!" Crowdfunding As Cultural and Economic Negotiations Within Neoliberal Culture, David Zachary Gehring
Thesis: Interweaving Visual Language of the Spiritual and the Secular: Goya, Spanish Spiritualism, and the Sublime, Stirling Cushman Goulart
Thesis: Juridical, Religious and Globalization Perspectives on the Constitutions of Egypt and Tunisia after the Arab Spring, Lora Hadzhidimova
Thesis: "We Are Still in Apartheid:" Girls' Perspectives on Education Inequality in Democratic South Africa and Models for Social Change, Rebekah Lindsey Joyce
Thesis: Collisions of Local and Global: Transnationalizing a South African Domestic Workers' Union, Moriah Elise Shumpert
Theses/Dissertations from 2014
Thesis: Regulatory Capture, the Chesapeake Bay, and Hampton Roads: What's on Your Plate, Ronnie David Gannon
Thesis: Digital Identity Formation: How Social Networking Sites Affect Real World Authenticity, Matthew Joseph Montoya
Thesis: Las Vegas: Utopia of Escape for Everyman, Alison Cowand Napier
Theses/Dissertations from 2013
Thesis: Crosswords at a Crossroad: The Puzzle Turns 100. What Is the Clue to Its Survival?, Lynn J. Feigenbaum
Theses/Dissertations from 2012
Thesis: Digital Poetry From a Cyborg Perspective, Daniel James Hosmer
Thesis: Behind the Silk Screen a Critical Analysis of Translators, (In)visibilty, and Alternative Translation Environments, Justin Charles Sprague
Theses/Dissertations from 2011
Thesis: Decontextualizing Development: A Critical Examination of American Popular Discourse on Foreign Aid, Jeffrey Haines
Thesis: Nawal Al Saadawi and Hanan Al Shaykh's Authorship: Between Arab and Western Reception, Diana M. Obeid
Thesis: Internet Usage and Religious Authority: A Case Study of the Catholic Church of South Korea, Youngho Park
Theses/Dissertations from 2009
Thesis: Feminisms in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Emily G. Brown
Thesis: Poetic to Platonic Alētheia Orality, Literacy, and the Development of Truth in Greek Poetry and Philosophy, Justin B. Cecil
Thesis: A Brand New Bond: Shifting Strategies for 007 in the Age of Conglomeration and Convergence, Katherine C. Skophammer
Theses/Dissertations from 2007
Thesis: The Bachelor Primetime Construction of Romance, Fairy Tales, and Melodrama, Susan E. Beck
Thesis: Duchampian Authenticity and the Readymade Consumer, Terra D' An Rudisill
Thesis: Complexity, Fine-Tuning, and Multiple Universes: The Insufficiency of Scientific Theories for Determining Metaphysical Views, Ashley Graham Kennedy
Theses/Dissertations from 2006
Thesis: Nature and Norfolk: The History of the Norfolk Botanical Garden, Cheryl S. White
Theses/Dissertations from 2005
Thesis: Lost in Translation: Decoding Rabelais, E. Ashley Hall
Theses/Dissertations from 2004
Thesis: Johann August Weppen's Der Hessische Officer in Amerika and David Christoph Seybold's Reizenstein: The American Revolution and the German Bürgertum's Reassessment of America, Virginia Sasser DeLacey
Thesis: Idiomatic Expressions and Marital Relationships Over Three Stages of the Family Lifespan, Meredith T. Raynor
Thesis: The New Deal in Art: The Fine Arts Project and the Evolution of Abstract Expressionism, Sarah Coon Stoops
Theses/Dissertations from 2003
Thesis: “A Midsummer Night's Dream”: A Director's Notebook, Natasha Bunnell
Theses/Dissertations from 2002
Thesis: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Postmodern Teleological Impasse, Michael P. Tarpey
Theses/Dissertations from 2001
Thesis: The Synod of Dordrecht 1618-1619. The Influence of Calvinism on the Development of Freedom in the Netherlands in the Period 1560-1630, Joseph A. van Burik
Theses/Dissertations from 1999
Thesis: A Phenomenological Inquiry Into the Nature of the Sacred, Ana Maria Janssen
Thesis: Daughters of Charity: Catholic Women and Their Communities in Antebellum America, Linda Merritt McCubbins
Theses/Dissertations from 1998
Thesis: Communication to Reduce Embarrassment Between Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures, Puvana Ganesan
Thesis: Wei Jingsheng and the Democracy Movement in Post-Mao China, Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
Thesis: Collapsing the Philosophy/Rhetoric Disjunct: Nietzsche, Plato and the Perspectival Turn, Ned Vankevich
Theses/Dissertations from 1997
Thesis: Caged Gorillas, Sandra Dee Holcombe
Thesis: Searching for Zarathustra: A Nietzschean Critique of Post-Traditional Ethical Theory, Joshua Knutsen
Theses/Dissertations from 1996
Thesis: Downsizing America in the Twentieth Century: A Sociological and Theoretical Analysis of the Shrinking Middle Class, Terreea Lynne Adams
Thesis: Passage or Pathology: Current Attitudes Toward Women's Aging in the Literature of Menopause, Kaaren Gearhart Ancarrow
Thesis: The Role of Plant Foods Among Native Americans in Seventeenth-Century Virginia An Historical and Botanical Study, Timothy W. Cameron
Thesis: Finding Godot: Postmodernism and Truth, Robert T. Gregory Jr.
Thesis: Annie Wood: A Portrait, Jo Ann Mervis Hofheimer
Thesis: Wittgenstein on Freedom of the Will, Grant Allen Marler
Thesis: The Emperor Julian (A.D. 331-363): His Life and His Neoplatonic Philosophy, Anthony W. Nattania
Thesis: Eldorado: The Poes in Norfolk, Myreen Moore Nicholson
Theses/Dissertations from 1995
Thesis: Revolution, Song Lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney Playscript, LeRoy C. Boyd III
Thesis: The Inner Voice, Janis Ruth Bagnall Cochrane
Thesis: Confederate Civil War Photographers Propagators and the Hero Myth, Ronald L. Crusan
Theses/Dissertations from 1994
Thesis: The Appropriation of Nietzschean Thought by Donald Kuspit in the Critic Is Artist: The Intentionality of Art and the Existential Activist Painter: The Example of Leon Golub, Frederic S. Bayersdorfer
Thesis: Group Therapy: A Play, Eleanor L. Earl
Thesis: The Role of Laughter in the Thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul D. Gerdes
Theses/Dissertations from 1993
Thesis: DOK: An Original Screenplay, Duncan Campbell
Thesis: Women's Profiles, Robyn Lynn Cochran
Thesis: Stand and Run, Andrea Gaye Evans
Thesis: Beyond Sugar and Spice: Labeling Female Genitalia, Ethel E. Hellman
Thesis: The Red Hawk's Cry, Malaika Anne King
Thesis: The Falcon: A Play, Harold W. McKinney II
Theses/Dissertations from 1992
Thesis: Salvation at the Cinema: Religious References in American Science Fiction Films of the 1980's, Marjorie Roberts Tautkus
Theses/Dissertations from 1991
Thesis: Overall Laughing One and the Experiences, Anina Porter Adams
Thesis: Playdance, Gary Ryan Brown
Thesis: "But Where Shall Understanding Be Found?" Searching for Sophia, Personified Wisdom, Kathleen Damiani
Thesis: The Theology of Father Brown, Catherine Miles Flynn
Thesis: The Parties Quarrae, Michael E. Malone
Thesis: Creativity its Phenomenology in Man and Nature, Margaret L. McCoy
Thesis: Ninety-Nine and One-Half, Deborah R. Williamson
Theses/Dissertations from 1990
Thesis: Knowing God in William Blake: A Study to Find Meaning in His Work Through Plato, Swedenborg, and Mystical Tradition, David B. Gabel
Thesis: Vincent Van Gogh: The Artist and His Journey, Sheila F. Winborne
Theses/Dissertations from 1989
Thesis: Sojourn: A Time in Egypt, Deborah L. Miller
Thesis: Literary Visions of Edward II and Isabella of France, Dana L. Sample
Thesis: Spire and Tower: The History, Architecture and Art of Two Norfolk, Virginia Churches, Judith L. Smith
Thesis: Essays for Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education, Hugo G. Walter
Theses/Dissertations from 1988
Thesis: The Chimney Fireplace in Colonial Virginia, Catherine Howe Grosfils
Thesis: Forced Sex in Battering Relationships: An Ethnographic Investigation, Leigh Hofheimer
Thesis: Kingdom by the Sea: A Screenplay, John C. Jarvis Jr.
Thesis: "Wretched, Bloody, and Usurping Boar"? An Evaluation of the Historicity of Shakespeare's Richard III, Kathryn Kiff
Thesis: Die Geburt der Tragoedie, Joseph Barnett Metzler III
Theses/Dissertations from 1987
Thesis: Meaning in the Historic and Artistic Milieu of the Jacobean Court Masque, John R. Bledsoe
Thesis: Influences of Pre-Columbian Art in the Work of Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, June-Marie Lam
Theses/Dissertations from 1986
Thesis: Matoaka, June Nan Cooper