Bodily Territories: Lust, Landscape and the Struggle for Female Space in Woolf\u27s The Voyage Out and Atwood\u27s Surfacing

In her lengthy critical essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf inquires into the absence of the female genius in the literary canon. As she mourns this lack of feminine representation on her own bookshelves—“looking about the shelves for books that were not there”—Woolf questions the opposition between what she refers to as the lyrically “suggestive” female sentence, and the dominant, subject driven, “I” of the male sentence (AROO, 45, 98). Woolf carves out a creative space for feminine narrative and focuses primarily on the landscape that is dominated by the “I”. This “I” representing both the masculine epic narrative and a metaphorical phallus, obliterates the surrounding landscape of the novel. This landscape signifies the role of women in literature; ever present, yet, not at the forefront, or well developed. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf encounters a masculine text with palpable disdain. As her hypothetical villain “Mr. A.” composes a novel that serves as an example of the metaphorical dominant signifier “I”, Woolf, with desperation, attempts to see beyond the “I” and to read the landscape behind: “But after reading a chapter or two a shadow seemed to lie across the page. It was a straight dark bar, a shadow shaped something like the letter “I”. One began dodging this way and that to catch a glimpse of the landscape behind it. Whether that was indeed a tree or a woman walking I was not quite sure” (100). Because it represents the women that remain hidden in an opaque shroud of historical non representation, this landscape becomes territory for the modern woman to reclaim. This landscape, not merely a literary space, is metaphorically linked to the territorial claiming of the female body due to patriarchal domination. The female body manifests itself throughout literature as a blank canvass onto which future generations are inscribed. This body, much like the body of a literary text, insures immortality to the author. It is in Woolf‟s own writing that the landscape is at the forefront and it is the female body that she seeks to reclaim in her first novel The Voyage Out. Woolf unknowingly passed this torch, this desire to explore literary and bodily territory, to Canadian Author Margaret Atwood. It is in her second novel, Surfacing, that Atwood presents a thematically similar take on territorial struggles in the framework of modern marriage. Both women, though separated by decades of supposed feminist progress, reveal that marriage remains a game of territorial occupation

The Relation Between Cognitive Inflexibility and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Traits in Adults: Depression and Anxiety as Potential Mediators

The current study quantitatively examined the relation between cognitive inflexibility and obsessive-compulsive personality traits and also examined whether depression and anxiety were mediators of that relation. A total of 56 individuals, ages 18 to 40, participated in the study and were recruited from the undergraduate and graduate student body of The University of Southern Mississippi as well as other participants from the University community. Participants completed self-report questionnaires on measures of cognitive inflexibility (Cognitive Flexibility Scale; CFS), depression and anxiety (Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale; DASS), and obsessive-compulsive personality traits (Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire; PDQ-4). It was hypothesized that cognitive inflexibility would relate to obsessive-compulsive personality traits (OCPT). Furthermore, it was predicted that anxiety symptoms (separate from those symptoms that are more core to OCPT) would fully mediate this relation. It was also expected that depression symptoms would at least partially mediate the relation between cognitive inflexibility and OCPT. Although the hypotheses were not fully supported, interesting relations (in the predicted directions) among variables did emerge. Cognitive inflexibility was related to anxiety and depression, the latter of which was further linked to OCPT. However, the full mediational model was not supported. The findings from the current study add to the current literature and have both theoretical and practical implications

Floristic Quality Index: Ecological and management implications in created and natural wetlands

We applied the Floristic Quality Index (FQI) to vegetation data collected across a chronosequence of created wetland (CW) sites in Virginia ranging in age from one to 15 years post-construction. at each site, we also applied FQI to a nearby forested reference wetland (REF), for a total of 30 sites (15 created, 15 reference). We tested the performance of the index against a selection of community metrics (species richness, diversity, evenness, percent native species) and site attributes (age, soil physiochemical variables). The relationship between FQI and community and environmental variables was analyzed with Spearman\u27s rank order correlation coefficient and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). Calculation of FQI with all species (including non-natives) did not increase the number of significant correlations (p\u3c0.05) with community attributes and/or environmental parameters when compared with FQI based on native species alone. Further, vegetation layer-based FQI calculations improved the sensitivity of the index to differences in floristic quality between sites when compared with an overall index calculated across layers, and a modified, abundance-weighted FQI showed a unique correspondence with community and environmental variables in the CW herbaceous layer and REF herbaceous and shrub-sapling layers. These results suggest that a natives only , layer-based version of the index should be used in wetland assessment in Virginia, and an abundance-weighted FQI may be a useful tool for assessing floristic quality in certain layers. An abundance-weighted format is perhaps desirable because such an index preserves the heritage aspect of the species conservatism concept inherent in floristic quality assessment, and also entrains the ecology aspect of site assessment based on relative abundances of the inhabiting species. FQI did not successfully relate CW sites to REF sites, bringing into question the applicability of the FQI concept in comparing created wetlands to reference wetlands, and the use of forested reference wetlands in general to assess vegetation development in created sites. Based on correlations with soil nutrient variables and ordination results, we propose a conceptual model of vegetation development in created wetlands described as the Initial Conditions model, which is expressed in terms of initial site conditions, soil chemistry, species diversity, and floristic quality

The ethos of the Oklahoma oil boom frontier, 1905-1929

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Oklahoma, 1970Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-114

Student Recital: Courtney DeBerry, Clarinet

Courtney DeBerry is a student of Patti Carlson. This recital is given in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Music, Music Education degree. Courtney DeBerry, clarinet Bobbie Kesler-Corleto, pian

When Parents and Educators Clash: Are Special Education Students Entitled to a Cadillac Education.

Due to the ambiguous language of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), there is uncertainty concerning IDEA’s requirements. IDEA mandates that all school districts receiving federal education monies provide for the education of disabled students. According to IDEA, each state must provide disabled children with “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet the student’s unique needs and prepare him or her for employment and independent living. Parents have argued that IDEA requires school districts to compensate them for commercial programs and private school costs. Courts have held that an individual education plan (IEP) which provides some educational benefits is sufficient to satisfy IDEA. Parents are granted or denied relief based solely on a school district’s compliance with procedural requirements. Nonetheless, courts have sided with school districts even if some procedural violations occurred, so long as it was shown that the disabled child received a FAPE. School districts must be required to strictly adhere to IDEA’s procedural requirements. To reduce litigation, school districts must be required to maintain accurate records of their attempts to provide an appropriate educational experience for disabled students and resolve parental concerns promptly. Furthermore, Texas should adopt a statewide uniform system modeled after the Rowley standards. In Board of Education v. Rowley, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the FAPE requirement is met when a school district provides personalized instruction with sufficient support services to permit a child to benefit educationally from that instruction. Texas should initiate statewide training programs for school district personnel. These programs should provide the knowledge and skills necessary to implement special education services that meet federal and state guidelines as well as teach the parents of disabled students how to appropriately advocate for their child

Working together: School administrators supporting teachers of students with behavioral challenges

Special educators who teach students with significant or challenging behaviors may experience physical aggression, verbal aggression, the destruction of classroom or personal property, or the elopement of a student. Student behaviors such as these can lead to physical and mental exhaustion and stress in teachers. School leadership needs to know what special educators of students with significant behaviors report as supportive to decrease injury and burnout, to promote educator retention and ultimately student success. This study defines the types of supports provided by school principals that special education teachers in Oklahoma report to be helpful in these difficult situations. This quantitative survey research project used a pragmatic and non-experimental design to describe special education teachers’ perceived support by a principal with the reported desired support types. In previous studies by Littrell, Billingsley, and Cross (1994) the findings of special education teachers' perceived supports were similar to House’s 1981 social supports study, where teachers rated emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental supports as important. In this study, the sample was obtained by asking special education directors of Oklahoma public school districts to distribute the survey to teachers in their school district who teach students with challenging behavior. The survey inquired about specific challenging behaviors including elopement, physically aggressive behavior, property destruction, and verbally aggressive behavior. Teachers rated all areas of support as important, with emotional support identified as the most important form of support. Principals can help special education teachers experience greater confidence and skill by providing emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental support. With intentional and focused support, principals can influence the work of teachers of students with behavior challenges and be instrumental in supporting teachers through successful behavior interventions and increased academic achievement of students with behavioral challenges (Tschannen-Moran & Gareis, 2015)