This thesis is built on the assumption that in order to be a serious Thoreau scholar, one must move away from Walden (1854) and read his other works. Walden is, to be sure, Thoreau’s most studied book and remains an iconic example of 19th-century Amer . . .

We are in need of a more subversive reading of past and present literature and film that allows not only for a feminist literary history, but also for a feminist future in which men are more comfortable responding to and accepting women as equal to th . . .

This thesis argues that, in key nineteenth century texts, humor is a means of fostering group identity and a mode of social critique. The chapter “Boundary Maintenance in Early American Humor” looks at humor as a form of boundary maintenance in both A . . .

Phytophthora ramorum is an oomycete plant pathogen found in both North America and Europe that is commonly referred to as Sudden Oak Death (SOD). Since its initial detection in California in 1995, SOD has killed over a million trees, primarily tanoaks . . .

I examined the vegetation community and structure of a wet meadow from 2013-2017 across ecological, temporal and spatial scales, immediately following hydrologic restoration. I set out to determine if the natural seedbank can act as a primary source f . . .

California contains some of the most geographically complex patterns of biodiversity on Earth, but much of that diversity has been lost since European settlement. California grasslands, for example, were once dominated by diverse native perennial gras . . .

Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, located in the Sierra Nevada foothills, outside Nevada City, CA is an example of the effects of hydraulic mining. Soil erosion is a direct result of the exposure created by the process and continues to raise envir . . .

West Coast Swing’s history began around the mid-twentieth century, with roots in Lindy Hop. Despite its fascinating history and its formal status as California’s state dance, however, no academic history of this dance and its community yet exists. Thi . . .

In order to determine whether an animation can influence people’s perception of aggression and eeriness, the present investigation tested the interaction between facial width-to-height ratios and the ‘Uncanny Valley’ in an animation that displayed a d . . .

This investigation was designed to explore the effects of verbal narratives (chronological vs. conceptual), graphics (conceptual vs. chronological vs. none) and their interaction on information processing – comprehension, perspective, and judgment—of . . .