Monday, July 23, 2007

Your Favorite Professor's Dissertation? Say What...!!

Ever wonder what your favorite professor's dissertation was about? What subject once fired that youthful academic passion (or perhaps in some situations and more pragmatically, what topic presented itself as the most expedient ticket to getting that holy grail ... the Ph.D!)

You can go to Carmichael Library's database WorldCat Dissertations and Theses. Enter your professor's name. (You can check UM's Bulletin listing of faculty for the correct name and degree granting university.) It may be a revelation to find out what your mentor spent years pondering and researching.

David Callaghan focused his research lens on the subject Representing The Vietnamese: Race, Culture, and the Vietnam War in American Film and Drama

Stephen Higley richly described with a wealth of detail The Geography of the "Social Register" (Upper Class, Class Status)

Paul Mahaffey's topic was "Dark-eyed Coras": Re-defining the bi-racial female in the nineteenth and twentieth century American Novel

Never one to be Eclipsed, Michael Patton philosophized on Nihilism, Thought, and Personhood: An Ontological Study

Ruth Truss unreservedly examined The Alabama National Guard From 1900-1920 (National Guard, World War I)

Clark Hultquist frankly publicized advertising a la francais with his dissertation French Advertising: The Price of Dreams: A History of Advertising in France 1927-1968.

Steve Parker gamely addressed adolescence with Early Adolescent Male Peer Cultures: The Importance of Organized and Informal Sport (Organized Sport)

Jody Landers, with great composure, wrote: "Nine Forty-Eight" for Large Orchestra ... pretty sharp!

For those of you contemplating a dissertation topic, the database WorldCat Dissertations and Theses is a way to explore previoiusly researched subjects. A keyword search, for example, will retreive the titles of dissertations written concerning that theme.

To view a list of theses written by graduate students at UM, go to our Catalog and click on the Subject search: type University of Montevallo-Thesis and seventy seven items should be retrieved.

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