Electronic Thesis or Dissertation

This thesis takes a postcolonial, critical race, and monster theory approach to understanding Caliban as a “monstrous” figure, primarily because of threat of miscegenation within the ideological power structure of the Caribbean slave plantation system as depicted in A Tempest by Aimé Césaire. Through the lens of Louis Althusser’s theory on the construction of ideologies and recognizing race as an ideology, this thesis asserts that the colonized subject is interpellated or hailed as a “monster,” thereby allowing the colonizer to moralize and rationalize their altruicide and dehumanization of the colonized subject. Prospero, the colonial master serves as the arbiter of white masculine power whereby his phallus can be understood as a “characteristic feature of making horror and pleasure coincide” (Mbembe, Postcolony 175). When Caliban, the colonized subject, refuses to function within the interpellated identity of the “monster,” he attempts to redeem his lost honor by interpellating himself as a “BLACK MAN” (Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks 95). Prospero regards this as a threat to deconstruct the ideology of race and destroy his colonial legacy through an “unholy miscegenation” between Caliban and Miranda, his daughter, thus transforming them into “monsters.” The colonial master’s response to this attempted usurpation of phallic power results in the recourse to honor killing which Achille Mbembe identifies as altruicide—the altruistic homicide of the “monster,” of the colonized subject, that plagues society as a threat against whiteness (Critique of Black Reason 10).

Marine Hydrokinetic (MHK) energy is an alternative to address the demand for cleaner energy sources. This study advanced numerical modeling tools and uses these to evaluate the performance of both a Tidal Turbine (TT) and an Ocean Current Turbine (OCT) operating in a variety of conditions. Inflow models are derived with current speeds ranging from 1.5 to 3 m/s and Turbulence Intensities (TI) of 5-15% and integrated into a TT simulation. An OCT simulation representing a commercial scale 20 m diameter turbine moored to the seafloor via underwater cable is enhanced with the capability to ingest Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) data and simulate fault conditions. ADCP measurements collected off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale during Hurricanes Irma and Maria were post-processed and used to characterize the OCT performance. In addition, a set of common faults were integrated into the OCT model to assess the system response in fault-induced scenarios.

This thesis argues that the numerous widespread fears about deviant domestic behavior that rose to prominence in Western nations during the post-World War II era can still be observed in contemporary fictional representations of what I term the “monstrous domestic”: when mothers and the domestic spaces that they occupy are depicted as “bad,” “evil,” or otherwise threatening. Using psychoanalytic, feminist, and monster theory, as well as sociocultural context, I examine four works that prominently display and condemn the monstrous domestic: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014), and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2007). Ultimately, I contend that the continued presence of wicked mothers who utilize their domestic power to control and harm their children within fiction indicates that, despite social progress, an unconscious cultural uneasiness about (un)acceptable maternity and domesticity still remains.

Wetlandscape topography creates spatial variation in hydroperiod, which in turn creates spatial variation in biotic communities. Such spatiotemporal variation occurs on a large scale in some of the most productive wetlands in the world, including those of south Florida, U.S.A. Wading birds (Pelicaniformes and Ciconiiformes) are iconic, top-level consumers of such ecosystems. Infrequent drying is necessary to maintain the primary nest substrate (Salix caroliniana), and prey availability is regulated by production of prey biomass in the wet season and the subsequent concentration of prey biomass into shallow pools during the dry season. The goal of this dissertation was to explicitly model wading bird nest abundance and survival as functions of water-level fluctuations, which were spatially nested (i.e., the effects of water-level fluctuations that occurred over a large scale were measured separately from the effects of water-level fluctuations that occurred over a small scale). In Chapter 2, I modeled colony-specific effects of wetlandscape water level fluctuations on wading bird nest abundance. Modeling the response at the colony level allowed the inclusion of important parameters that cannot be measured at the wetlandscape scale. For instance, each colony had its own optimal range of lake stage, which depended on local topography. I used the models to predict cumulative nest abundance under six hydrologic scenarios that were based on potential water management actions at Lake Okeechobee. I found that increasing water levels at the lake would marginally benefit the Great Egret but would substantially reduce long-term Snowy Egret and White Ibis populations. In Chapter 3, I modelled spatiotemporal distributions of fish biomass density in Lake Okeechobee’s littoral zone as a function of hierarchically nested hydrological variables. These models were consistent with the dynamic landscape connectivity model previously described in the literature. I modified the models to predict a binomial response which could then be linked to wading bird foraging threshold. The model predictions were used to estimate the number of available patch days during the breeding season, which was highly correlated with the number of nests for the great egret (Ardea alba), the snowy egret (Egretta thula), and the white ibis (Eudocimus albus). In Chapter 4, I used spatial statistics to better understand how interannual variability in resource wave patterns in the littoral zone influenced wading bird nest abundance. I found that more birds nested in years when the drying edge of the marsh moved further across the landscape. Great egret nest survival increased also, but small heron nest survival decreased. This decrease was likely because small herons continued to nest late into the season in years with longer waves, and, as with most bird species, nests that are initiated later in the season. In Chapter 5, I compiled conventional nestling diet data from 5 wading bird species sampled in 4 wetland types from 2010 to 2020 (not every wetland type was sampled in every year). This chapter provides a comprehensive, broad description of wading bird diets in south Florida, and quantifies interspecies, spatial, and interannual variation in nestling diets. By using a model-based approach to quantify the relative biomass of prey species and prey traits in nestling diets, I provide the first diet analysis that is fully reproducible across the large sympatric range of the wading bird species in the study (great egret, snowy egret, tricolored heron [Egretta tricolor], little blue heron [Egretta caerulea], and wood stork [Mycteria americana]).

The story, This Kind of Trouble, follows the life of its protagonists, Margaret, a 65-year-old woman living with schizoaffective-disorder in 2012 Nigeria, and her estranged husband, Benjamin, a White presenting man born to mixed raced father. Although Margaret exudes class privilege, she pursues in her retired years a kind of desperate anonymity, often complicated by echoes of her past: an ex-husband, and the haunted past of an unforgivable crime from which they must now seek absolution.
Indeed, the story attempts to invert the discourse on illness and assimilation, as well as on race and citizenship. It does this by tackling the themes of colonialism, cultural identity, and the formulations of the Immigrant v Expatriate trope. Essentially, through this work I ask two critical questions: how has colonial mental constructs travelled over time, and how does a person become Black in the global Western imaginary?

In the social world of adolescents, friends play an integral role in shaping adjustment. Little is known about what differentiates those who influence from those who are influenced. The current study examined the role of relationship alternatives to determine whether a relative lack of friends increases susceptibility to influence over adjustment outcomes in a sample of adolescents (N=794). Findings suggest that partners with relatively fewer friends were susceptible to influence from partners with relatively more friends over social anxiety and prosocial behavior. Both partners influenced each other’s academic engagement over time. Multiple group analyses indicated that patterns of susceptibility to influence did not differ between partners with fewer relationship alternatives who had no other friends and those who had one or two other friends. The findings of the current study highlight the role of a relative lack of relationship alternatives in susceptibility to friend influence.

Taking into account: [a] the traditional mother; [b] cultural pressures/expectations; [c] religion; and [d] distinct communication differences in native vs. north American diaspora – the role of mothers when discussing sex with their daughters in Caribbean cultures has a multifaceted set of communication challenges that continue to face mothers and daughters today. When they do communicate, the conversation is predominantly about abstinence and in some cases, condom use completely excluding information about STDS and methods of birth control. The cultural and religious pressures that mothers adhere to may thwart the decision to give their daughters an informative safe sex talk. To truly have effective mother-daughter sexual communication, mothers need to craft educative safe sex messages and communicate that with their daughters. Failure to do so will only increase the likelihood of daughters engaging in risky sexual behavior.

Teachers are essential to the academic and social-emotional progress of children in the US (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). American teachers work tirelessly to provide quality instruction in a safe learning environment that nurtures the educational and emotional needs of their students (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Many teachers report that the emotional toll of teaching has impacted their professional and personal lives in a negative way (Werner Juarez et al., 2020) As a result, teachers are vulnerable to the development of occupational hazards such as stress, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress (STS) which may diminish their professional quality of life (Richards, 2012). The literature indicates that the deterioration of professional quality of life is strongly correlated to more systemic problems in education, such as elevated attrition rates and the retention of highly qualified teachers (Schutz & Zembylas, 2009). The research suggests that indicators for these professional deficits may begin to present during the preparation phase of teaching (Miller & Flint-Stipp, 2019). However, most universities provide inadequate training for the protection and improvement of teacher well-being across the span of their careers (Schonert-Reichl, 2017). In addition, there has been little research invested in the development of compassion satisfaction, a protective factor in cultivating teacher resilience (Pérez-Chacón et al., 2021). The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between social and emotional competence (SEC) and professional quality of life factors in pre-service teachers. A nonexperimental, correlational design was used to examined whether emotion regulation and relationship management skills is predictive of an educators’ perceived levels of burnout, STS, and compassion satisfaction (N = 51).

Prosecutors have high levels of discretion. Responsibilities of a prosecutor range from appropriate charging decisions to safeguarding principal criminal procedures. Understanding prosecutorial discretion is crucial since most convictions result from guilty pleas. Social scientists have analyzed empirical data on the influence of extra-legal characteristics during initial charging and sentencing stages. However, few have examined the interaction between case law and empirical research regarding a prosecutor’s perception concerning a defendant’s rights throughout case processing. Consequently, not much is known about how prosecutorial discretion impacts a defendant’s constitutional rights under the fifth and fourteenth amendments, specifically the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. This thesis evaluates prosecutorial discretion and provides a comprehensive analysis of how laws shape sociological theories and legal concepts. Implications of these analyses are discussed through the context of case law, theory, and research.

Temperament and its development have been associated with the alpha band of EEG coherence in previous research that focused on adolescent and adult populations, results suggest that this measure stands as a reliable indicator of emotional states. In the current study, five data sets from previously conducted studies were analyzed to determine if resting state alpha coherence measures differ in various brain regions and are associated with variation in levels of temperament. Additionally, we aimed to determine if, as age increases, a synchronous result in coherence may be seen (specifically, from posterior to anterior), in accordance with neurophysiological development. Regression analyses suggested that the negative affectivity temperamental qualities did not significantly associate with coherence. Repeated-measures analyses yielded significant results in favor of the electrocortical development hypothesis and, through exploratory analysis, more reactive temperament scores depicting positive affectivity, emotional/self-regulation, and activity level displayed in infants who had higher coherence in posterior regions. The study was suggestive of high coherence values associating with highly reactive temperamental attributes in posterior regions in the 3- to 12-month-old participants and higher coherence values displaying in posterior regions compared to anterior regions consistently across age groups.