Digital Commons Network^™

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Economic Factors And Theories Of Decline And Reform In The Late Ottoman Empire C. 1789–1911, Peter S. Gomori

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tribes of Turkish speaking people (“Turks”) migrated in the 11th century from the Central Asian Steppes to what we consider the Middle East. Over the next two centuries this community would expand north, west and south to form a vast empire: the Ottoman Empire. Possibly the peak of the size of this empire would probably occur during the 16^th century under the rule of the Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent (1494- 1566) where the population of the Ottoman Empire was estimated to be up to 30 million. Yet there would be rivals. To the East was the Safavid Empire (today …

Children And The Cold War: Race & Hypocrisy Amid Fear Of Nuclear War, Richard D. Mctaggart Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

During the Cold War, American propaganda centered the wellbeing of the child in its messaging warning of atomic attack at the hands of the Soviet Union. However, despite American claims that all children were valued by the United States, this was proven untrue by its unequal treatment of Black children.

Preservando La Playa Del Pueblo, Tasha A. Sandoval

Capstones

After more than 80 years, the only queer beach in New York City, the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis, is in danger. In 2022, the city announced the demolition of the Neponsit Hospital, a long-abandoned structure that shelters the beach from the street, creating a sense of privacy and safety. Can Riis Beach live on as a safe and joyous utopia for queer communities without the presence of the hospital buildings? Some beach-goers are campaigning to ensure that whatever replaces the hospital space centers the queer community and preserves the beach’s queer history, including the legacy of Ms. Colombia, a …

U.S. Government And Politics In Principle And Practice: Democracy, Rights, Freedoms And Empire, Samuel Finesurrey, Gary Greaves

Open Educational Resources

This book is written for students early in college to provide a guide to the founding documents and structures of governance that form the United States political system. This book is called American Government and Politics in Principle and Practice because you will notice that what has been inscribed in law has not always been applied in practice-particularly for indigenous peoples, enslaved peoples, people of color, women, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, those formerly incarcerated, immigrants and the working class within U.S. society. In designing this book, we have two goals. First, we want you to know what the founding documents …

Animal-Human Vocabulary Builder, Domenick Acocella, Rene Cordero

Open Educational Resources

The assignment helps students individually build a usable, expanding vocabulary of terms and concepts, enabling each to further contribute to the ongoing, evolving written, oral, and visual conversations centered on the use of and thought about animals for food, clothing, work, entertainment, experimentation, imagery, and companionship.

The Political Imagination: Introduction To American Government, Peter Kolozi, James E. Freeman

Open Educational Resources

The Political Imagination: Introduction to American Government provides realistic, critical analysis as well as a hopeful, engagement-oriented narrative that encourages students to understand the important role they can play in the political system and in crafting a society in which they want to live. The Political Imagination draws on social and political theory and history offering an analytical as well as normative framework to think about the substance of politics, the procedures and institutions of government, and a dynamic, socially contingent definition of political power.

Commemorating A Legacy Of Dissent: Revisiting Campus Activism 1968-1970, Annie E. Tummino

Publications and Research

On the heels of the student revolt at Columbia in 1968, Queens College students launched their own militant actions and demands for change on campus. Using primary source materials from the Benjamin Rosenthal Library’s Special Collections and Archives, the presentation covers the New Left and Anti-War movements, as well as an uprising led by Black and Puerto Rican students influenced by the ideologies of Black Power and self-determination. The role of archives in preserving activist history and educating current and future generations is also touched on.

Paper House: The Revolution, The Disappeared, And The Historicity Of Lebanon, Elsa Saade

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will be an attempt to reenact events in relation to the disappeared and the Lebanese civil war, with the help of newspaper cuts, oral history, theories on historical writing, memories, and books on Lebanon. As a prospective historian, the writer will be tapping into the internal event of thought processes and meaning of the past, as advised by R. G. Collingwood in The Idea of History. (Collingwood, 1946 ) That critical inquiry will only be at the service of understanding the present from the lens of a self-reflecting inquisitor that has faced many silences in a past …

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

Spatial Distribution Of Chinese Language Education And Historical Development Of Chinese Language Pedagogy In Higher Education In The United States, Jing Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project includes two major components: an interactive digital map that displays the geographical distribution of Chinese language programs in colleges and universities in the United States, their program starting years, the types of such universities and colleges, and their names and states; and a multimedia essay on the evolution of Chinese language pedagogy in colleges and universities in the United States. Data has been collected on the program start year, school names, states where schools are located, school types, and whether the school had been funded by two federal sponsored language programs: the National Defense Education Act in …

Is Lying Contagious? Spatial Diffusion Of High-Yield “Satellites” During China’S Great Leap Forward, Hongwei Xu, Geng Tian

Publications and Research

Situated in China’s Great Leap Forward (GLF) campaign in 1958, this study examines the spatial diffusion of “launching high-yield satellites”— exaggerating grain yields, which contributed to the 1959–61 GLF famine that claimed millions of human lives. The authors conceptualize exaggerating grain yields as a political innovation adopted by local cadres to endorse the GLF and signal political loyalty to their superiors. Using geocoded county-level event history data from historical newspaper archives, the authors found that the diffusion of exaggerating grain yields across the country was primarily driven by the interaction between geographic proximity and political proximity.

Waiting: History, Fear, And Healing In Ballynafeigh / The Upper Ormeau Road Of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Molly J. Hurley-Depret

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in one neighborhood of Belfast called Ballynafeigh / the upper Ormeau Road in 2006–2007, I argue we need to pay closer attention to the “inconspicuous transformations” that may have been occurring in parallel to the official peace process. Walter Benjamin notes that “refined and spiritual things” do “make their presence felt in the class struggle. They manifest themselves in this struggle as courage, humour, cunning, and fortitude.” Benjamin states that “the past strives to turn toward that sun which is rising in the sky of history. A historical materialist must be aware of …

Direct Action Housing: Exploring The History Of Tenant-Led Housing Struggles—On Film—In Nyc, Arielle Lawson

Publications and Research

This independent research project dives into the history of tenant-led housing struggles in New York City with a particular focus on using film archives and documentaries to highlight key moments and case studies when housing activism opened up new political imaginations, intersections and possibilities in the city.

As outlined in the Direct Action Housing zine, I curated and hosted four public events in the spring of 2019 on different aspects of housing struggles documented through archival film records. This series of housing history films was a starting point and catalyst to think about the role of and for the home …

A Parade Of Identities: Negotiation Of Ethnic Identities In Three New York City Cultural Parades, Julia M. Herrera-Moreno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“A Parade of Identities” is a digital project that applies social theories of international migration, psychology and cultural anthropology to ethnographic visual data in order to analyze ethnic identity and urban space appropriation found in three of New York City’s cultural parades. The project traces and analyzes the historical meaning and emerging directions in terms of ethnic identity construction, of NYC immigrant parades through the use of the author’s photography and video collections (2012-2018) of St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day and Chinese New Year parades, in association with a website and blog via digital humanities’ platform. Additionally, by activating the …

Reimagining Essex Street Market, Madeleine M. Crenshaw

Capstones

Reimagining Essex Street Market is a multimedia story highlighting a historic 78-year-old market on the Lower East Side that is moving to a massive mixed-used development. Using, GIFS, text, social video and photo, this project illustrates the historical and cultural significance of the market that has been a staple to the neighborhood and the immigrant communities of the Lower East Side for decades.

https://medium.com/@madeleinecrenshaw/reimagining-essex-street-market-6ebcbb704b25

Revival, Anya Van Wagtendonk

Capstones

My hometown, Great Barrington, MA, has one famous former resident: NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois. For generations, his legacy in the predominantly white town was hardly acknowledged. People actively protested the landmarking of his birth site in the 1960s. When I was a kid, plans to name a new middle school after him were scrapped after the uproar grew too loud. Even in this supposedly liberal enclave in western Massachusetts, people continued to object to his membership in the Communist Party. As former NAACP president Cornell Brooks said recently, this would be like Princeton, N.J., ignoring that Einstein had ever …

Historical Effects Of Electronic Interfaces, G James Mitchell

Publications and Research

Electronic interfaces are a primary tool for most professional and personal communication currently happening. Electronics, like the human mind, are limited by the understanding of executing will, or commands. This can be characterized as “interface limitations” of digital technology. Identifying this bottleneck in technological development has been critical in historical changes to both hardware and software technology. Recent medical research examines a novel user interface to reduce task load. I hypothesize, interface developments that take cues from nonverbal human communication enhance and sustain the significance of those technologies in society. By examining pivotal moments of historical technology we can identify …

Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is a cross-disciplinary subspecialty within psychology. OHP derives from two disciplines within applied psychology, health psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. OHP is also linked to disciplines outside of psychology, such as occupational medicine and public health. The discipline has roots in eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century thinkers, including Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. These thinkers were concerned with the impact of the organization of work and the business cycle on human life. Later research by Elton Mayo, Marie Jahoda, Walter B. Cannon, Hans Selye, and investigators at the University of Michigan’s …

Connecting Wikipedia And The Archive: Building A Public History Of Hiv/Aids In New York City., Ann Matsuuchi

Publications and Research

This is an overview of a project that was started in 2015 that was collaboratively designed by archivists and historians with the La Guardia & Wagner Archives and LaGuardia Community College’s faculty/librarians. It involves students in the production of a needed public history of the outbreak and impact of HIV/AIDS in New York City via writing and researching contributions to Wikipedia.

The Technocratic Politics Of The Common Core State Standards In History, Kate Duguid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper shows that the explicit aims of the American educational standards for public schools, the Common Core State Standards to teach history to create “college and career ready” students, marks a shift from preparing students for political participation to preparing them for market participation. I trace the intellectual and pedagogical origins of the Common Core’s pretense of technocratic apolitical values back through the previous two major American curricular reform efforts. In the first section I discuss the origins and development of the National History Standards and show how Cold War anxiety prompted a shift in evaluating students as potential …

Claiming Time: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, And Adam Smith On Freedom And Futurity, Jennifer Corby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation engages the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Adam Smith through the lens of time. By first analyzing their earlier works on the nature of self-consciousness, it demonstrates that each offers a theory of subjectivity that, despite important differences, shares a singular point of distinction from those that typified early modern thought. Against the predominant view that human freedom necessitates immaterial agency, each theorizes a materialist agent that is able to overcome the determinism of the material world by way of the temporal nature of subjectivity. Each understands self-consciousness to be constituted by an extension of memory …

The Bitter Pill: How Second-Wave Feminism Failed, And Why It Doesn't Matter, Brianna Mcgurran

Capstones

It's not cool to be a feminist. It’s not anti-establishment to say you don’t identify with that label; now, it’s the status quo. Every time a celebrity like Katy Perry or Salma Hayek distances herself from feminism, blogs like Jezebel and Feministing pounce. But a few months ago I found out that all the back-and-forth doesn’t matter. The final verdict on second-wave feminism's success won’t be found in words spoken on the red carpet or in rejoinders on women’s blogs. The future of gender relations will be decided in an obscure corner of the Internet populated primarily by angry white …

"Gent De Forca I De Presó": Jueus I Xuetes Als Dietaris De Joan Estelrich, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Els Dietaris de Joan Estelrich, publicats per Quaderns Crema, aporten una informació substantiva sobre el personatge i la seva circumstància. Per exemple, les nombroses referències que hi fa als jueus i als xuetes mallorquins, reveladores dels prejudicis de l'època.

Engaging With Research And Resources In Music History Courses, Jennifer Oates

Publications and Research

With the ever-expanding sea of resources available to students today, it is now more important than ever to teach students how to navigate, assess, and interpret resources. Given the ease of access to information, students tend to seek out the path of least resistance, most often a Google search and/or Wikipedia. Their unfamiliarity with print resources, such as thematic catalogues, means they are missing out on significant music scholarship that is not available online or through Google. Today’s students have grown up searching the internet. The single-search approach of a web search leaves many students confused by terms like …

Review Of The Website The Nuremberg Trials Project, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the website The Nuremberg trials project.

Review Of The Website Founders Early Access, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the website Founders early access.

Academic Libraries In Poland University Of Warsaw Library As An Example Of Library Transformation In Post-Communist Poland, Ewa Dzurak

Publications and Research

This article examines the complex changes that have occurred in Polish academic libraries, especially the University of Warsaw Library (UWL), after the fall of communism in 1989.Shortly afterwards, thanks to grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, an accelerated transformation in all library practices began. In preparation for automation, the authority file was created, introducing the process of applying international standards in bibliographic description in a new climate of interlibrary cooperation. The Library of Congress classification and access to open stacks were introduced for the first time in Poland in a newly constructed UWL building. A crowning achievement of the …

Educating For Justice: A History Of John Jay College Of Criminal Justice. [Third Edition]., Gerald Markowitz

Publications and Research

Revision of the previously updated edition Educating for justice. 2004. Includes an interview with Jeremy Travis, the fourth President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted June 5, 2008.

TOC: Introduction. The making of John Jay College; 1965-1970. The era of open admissions: 1970-1976. The crisis: 1976. The development of criminal justice: 1976-1989. The student takeovers of 1989-1991. The quest for equity. John Jay comes of age. Epilogue. Index.

International Institute Of Social History, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the International Institute of Social History's website.