This project is a study of the role interpretation has played during a few key moments in a culture war over the role of the university in society. It argues that in these key moments in which a political reflection has been undertaken regarding the way knowledge is produced and distributed, the nature and function of interpretation as such has…

This research examined the Chinese National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in mathematics before and after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, specifically covering the periods 1952-1965 and 1977-1984. The central focus was on the organization, structure, and content of the examinations, as well as their influence on and interaction…

Moving beyond purposes for reading as fixed outcomes, this dissertation project explores the possibilities of affect theory for decentering or weakening those purposes so they might be seen as one element among many interacting in the classroom space. Because these purposes become the expected outcomes of reading with youth in secondary English…

In this multiple case study, I asked ten practicing secondary educators in the Midwest to express the purposes and practices that drive their teaching regarding climate change education. The theoretical framework grounding this qualitative study is that of critical theory, in which one leverages critique to bring about social change. I analyzed…

I examine the formation of power as it relates to canonicity through online delivery systems, Amazon and Goodreads, and the academic sector in the contemporary period. The digital age has radically changed literature by providing for a textuality of literature that is multi-channeled, and this project responds by engaging new critical lenses for…

In this study, I explore the challenges, tensions, and opportunities facing a major research-intensive public university related to public service and engaged scholarship as the university system and higher education in general increase emphasis on service and engagement. This project was designed in cooperation with the university's Center for…

This dissertation is situated in the current scholarly reflection on the problems of Chinese modernity, especially its "initial phase," the Chinese Enlightenment (1910s-1920s). It examines the thought of the highly controversial thinker and writer Zhou Zuoren (1885-1967), whose work had been profoundly influential during the…

This dissertation takes Chinese advertisements as the research subjects to see in what way a quantifiable large number of advertisements with its metaphorical nature and instrumental mission can reflect social cultural change, in specifics, ideology and identity change of China in the last thirty years by combining four methods of research:…

The purpose of the study was to reach a close understanding of villagers' experience of change in the changing context of the Turkish Republic. The poetry books of two renowned literary figures Mehmet Basaran and Talip Apaydin were studied to investigate villagers' reactions and responses to various national changes. The literary work of these…

This study examined the impact of the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944 (the GI Bill) on African Americans' quest for higher education. The central question guiding this study follows: Why has higher education been so elusive for African Americans? With reference to this question, the following sub-questions were addressed: (1) How can the…