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"How Hard I Have Manoeveured": Elizabeth Waring, J. Waties Waring, and Their Rhetorical Campaign to End School Segregation.
Fenimore, Wanda Little, Houck, Davis W., Fleckenstein, Kristie S., Nudd, Donna M., Proffitt, Jennifer M., School of Communication, Florida State University
On January 16, 1950, Elizabeth Waring delivered an explosive speech to the Coming Street (black) Young Women's Christian Association in Charleston, South Carolina. The speech was the first in a rhetorical campaign launched by Mrs. Waring and her husband, federal Judge J. Waties Waring, to publicize racial oppression and segregation in the South. Because of the outraged reaction and media publicity of the Charleston YWCA speech, Mrs. Waring garnered an invitation to appear on NBC's nationally...
Show moreOn January 16, 1950, Elizabeth Waring delivered an explosive speech to the Coming Street (black) Young Women's Christian Association in Charleston, South Carolina. The speech was the first in a rhetorical campaign launched by Mrs. Waring and her husband, federal Judge J. Waties Waring, to publicize racial oppression and segregation in the South. Because of the outraged reaction and media publicity of the Charleston YWCA speech, Mrs. Waring garnered an invitation to appear on NBC's nationally televised Meet the Press. On the show, Mrs. Waring shocked Southern whites further when she declared that people should be allowed to marry whoever they please. In other words, the taboo against interracial sex was nonsensical. In this dissertation, I examine the rhetorical campaign of the Warings from historical-critical and rhetorical perspectives. I situate their rhetoric within its historical context of the Jim Crow South as well as the rhetorical situation that gave rise to the Warings' public discourse. Rather than a specific method, I employ close reading of the text of the YWCA speech to determine the ways that Mrs. Waring spoke of race relations and social equality. Along with delving deeply into the Charleston YWCA speech, I establish continuities between it and the Warings' other speeches. In addition, I argue that the Warings defied the rhetorical situation in terms of persuasion and fitting response because their rhetoric adheres to the elements of exhortation as well as polarization, shock, prophetic, and agitator rhetoric. After closely reading the text of the speech, I turn to the response among Southern whites and media by examining newspaper articles, editorials, and letters written to the Warings. The Warings endured social ostracism, vile letters, harassing phone calls, impeachment threats, and attacks upon their home. Yet, despite their efforts and perseverance, their attempts to end school segregation are little known. The timing of the Warings' rhetorical campaign is significant in terms of the Clarendon County school segregation case that began in 1948. After landing in Judge Waring's courtroom on two separate occasions, the matter eventually became one of the cases (Briggs v. Elliott) of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that ruled school segregation was unconstitutional. The rhetorical history of Briggs, specifically its prominence and significance as part of Brown, is largely unwritten. Judge Waring presided over these cases and ordered Thurgood Marshall and NAACP attorneys to revise the suit from an equalization case to a direct attack on the constitutionality of legally-mandated segregation. Southern whites continually questioned the Warings' motives, claiming that the couple was using race relations to exact revenge on the whites who socially spurned them. However, Elizabeth and Waties' activism included public and private actions. Along with their rhetoric and Judge Waring's judicial opinions, the Warings corresponded regularly with a network of prominent civil rights advocates like Septima Clark, James Dombrowsky, Aubrey Williams, Marion Wright, Walter White, and Myles Horton. They frequently entertained blacks in their home and aided Reverend Joseph De Laine after he fled South Carolina. I argue that the Warings were involved in both covert and overt actions to achieve their goal, the end of school segregation, and their motives were genuine, not spiteful. They purposefully pursued a rhetorical course of action to influence the outcome of the Clarendon County school segregation case. Examining that campaign offers a different appreciation and understanding for how Brown came about.
"I Am the Conjure": Sharon Bridgforth and a Theatre of Multiplicity.
Ormiston, Rebecca, Osborne, Elizabeth, Dahl, Mary Karen, Salata, Kris, School of Theatre, Florida State University
This thesis focuses on Sharon Bridgforth's performance pieces. Examining Bridgforth's performance texts, a more complicated and--at times-- contradictory way of approaching subjectivity emerges, challenging ideas of cultural authenticity, essentialism, and a self-contained Black aesthetic. I position Bridgforth's performance pieces as points of entry for discussing the U.S. American theatre's misleading categorization of plays by women playwrights of color as plays concerned with race over...
Show moreThis thesis focuses on Sharon Bridgforth's performance pieces. Examining Bridgforth's performance texts, a more complicated and--at times-- contradictory way of approaching subjectivity emerges, challenging ideas of cultural authenticity, essentialism, and a self-contained Black aesthetic. I position Bridgforth's performance pieces as points of entry for discussing the U.S. American theatre's misleading categorization of plays by women playwrights of color as plays concerned with race over aesthetics-- an oversimplified system that undercuts the multifaceted, polyphonic plays and performance pieces written, and limits the multiple interpretations possible in these works. I ultimately advocate for reimagining U.S. American theatre's discourse on race and gender, asking spectators to consider ways in which the voices "from the fringe" challenge incomplete binaries of identity and community.
"I am the Truth (أنا الحق)": Finding a Critique of Sufism from Three Accounts of Al-Hallaj's Utterance.
Robinson, Brennan Jeffrey
"I Can Name that Bayesian Network in Two Matrixes!".
Almond, Russell
The traditional approach to building Bayesian networks is to build the graphical structure using a graphical editor and then add probabilities using a separate spreadsheet for each node. This can make it difficult for a design team to get an impression of the total evidence provided by an assessment, especially if the Bayesian network is split into many fragments to make it more manageable. Using the design patterns commonly used to build Bayesian networks for educational assessments, the...
Show moreThe traditional approach to building Bayesian networks is to build the graphical structure using a graphical editor and then add probabilities using a separate spreadsheet for each node. This can make it difficult for a design team to get an impression of the total evidence provided by an assessment, especially if the Bayesian network is split into many fragments to make it more manageable. Using the design patterns commonly used to build Bayesian networks for educational assessments, the collection of networks necessary can be specified using two matrixes. An inverse covariance matrix among the proficiency variables (the variables which are the target of interest) specifies the graphical structure and relation strength of the proficiency model. A Q-matrix — an incidence matrix whose rows represent observable outcomes from assessment tasks and whose columns represent proficiency variables — provides the graphical structure of the evidence models (graph fragments linking proficiency variables to observable outcomes). The Q-matrix can be augmented to provide details of relationship strengths and provide a high level overview of the kind of evidence available in the assessment. The representation of the model using matrixes means that the bulk of the specification work can be done using a desktop spreadsheet program and does not require specialized software, facilitating collaboration with external experts. The design idea is illustrated with some examples from prior assessment design projects.
"I Couldn't Help It!": Essays on Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities.
Capes, Justin A., Mele, Alfred, Kelsay, John, Clarke, Randolph, McNaughton, David, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University
According to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP), a person is blameworthy for what he did only if he could have avoided doing it. This principle figures importantly in disputes about the relationship between determinism, divine foreknowledge, free will and moral responsibility, and has been the subject of considerable controversy for over forty years now. Proponents of the principle have devoted a good deal of energy and ingenuity to defending it against various objections....
Show moreAccording to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP), a person is blameworthy for what he did only if he could have avoided doing it. This principle figures importantly in disputes about the relationship between determinism, divine foreknowledge, free will and moral responsibility, and has been the subject of considerable controversy for over forty years now. Proponents of the principle have devoted a good deal of energy and ingenuity to defending it against various objections. Surprisingly, however, they have devoted comparatively little effort to developing positive arguments for it, and, with few exceptions, the arguments they have proposed have received little, if any, critical attention. My dissertation is intended to help fill this gap in the literature on PAP. There are three main arguments for PAP. I critically evaluate each of these arguments, arguing that they are all unsuccessful. Where, then, does that leave PAP? I suggest that, in the absence of any further compelling arguments for or against the principle, debate over it is likely to end in dialectical stalemate. I conclude by highlighting several implications of this suggestion for recent debates about the metaphysics of moral responsibility.
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