Pleasant T. Rowland designed The American Girls Collection with the goal of providing a line of toys and books to "enrich the lives of American girls by fostering pride in traditions of growing up female in America and ...

. With the Colony at Hermann, Missouri being established as a true German community, there is the implication that there was some "true" identity that could be captured and reproduced. I argue that that the identity embraced by the German immigrants in that region...

to landscapes associated with collective historical-cultural trauma brought forth by urban renewal in smaller post-colonial cities. Embedded within Columbia, Missouri, is a place called The Douglass School Neighborhood. City planners clearcut the Douglass School...

[EMBARGOED UNTIL 5/31/2023] This research focused on understanding the role of institutions, social and cultural factors, and women's socio-economic status in (re)producing and perpetuating the sexual abuse of girls in ...

This dissertation analyzes the phenomenon of violence in the context of labor migration from Tajikistan to Russia. It examines the legal framework for migration policy and asks how sociology can understand the experience of violence and how social...

This dissertation investigates alliances across gender, race, and class in the dynamics of working class solidarity. The analysis examines the geographically bounded organizational networks, community spatial organization, ...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This research begins with one question: What is humane about humane? In the context of the no-kill animal shelter movement this study examines the social processes through which...

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This research addresses the dynamics involved in the processes of criminalization and decriminalization giving particular attention to issues of power. Through the analysis...

In this dissertation, I trace the history of campaign finance reform's influence on political advertising. I track the discourses held within Congress and court hearings to uncover what I call the money-speech paradigm, ...