Digital Commons Network^™

The Fate Of Her Heart, Elizabeth Gisselquist

Student Research Submissions

The Fate of Her Heart, by Lisa Gisselquist, was written for ENGL 470B-02, with the instruction of Professor Ray Levy. This fiction novella poses the question of whether the person one loves is more important than the established ways of parents. It also examines the risks and rewards of a diplomatic approach versus stopping the enemy before they become too powerful. These questions are posed through a clean fiction story about the actions of the characters, Talia and Ryker, as they must overcome the stigmas of society, and defeat the encroaching Kaito fighters. While their story is not resolved by …

Novella, Sydney German

Student Research Submissions

This paper was written for ENGL 470B:1 – Seminar: Creative Writing Fiction under the instruction of Dr. Ray Levy, and the project is titled Novella while the story is called Unforeseeable. It is an 11,000-word sensational, suspenseful psychological fiction about Ava Reed, a 22-year-old woman, who is on a search for independence and freedom from her small town. The story begins by immediately diving into the scene of a murder with Ava holding the weapon. From there, the story works backward to slowly reveal the motive and the true account of what took place that night. It focuses primarily …

Russian And Ukrainian: Like Two Drops Of Water, Elizabeth Edwards

Student Research Submissions

Ukraine and Russia, both in the international spotlight, have similar national languages that are often misrepresented as being entirely mutually intelligible. While both languages do, in fact, have the same lineage, Ukraine has, over time, developed linguistic independence in a distinct language separate from Russian. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has renewed public interest in both the Ukrainian and Russian languages, but there are still stark differences, both socio-politically and linguistically, which are not widely known or appreciated. A brief, historical description of a few lexical, phonological, and orthographic differences between the two languages can illustrate the importance of …

Framing Contexts And Immersion: The Functionality Of Trpg Frames In Dimension 20’S Fantasy High Series, Lyndsey Clark

Student Research Submissions

This paper uses a form of rhetorical criticism known as frame analysis to analyze the perspective frames within the context of tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs). The three frames of interest in this study include the person frame, the player frame, and the character frame. These frames are used to contextualize certain person, player, and character interactions and immersion contexts within the first season of Dimension 20’s actual play podcast, Fantasy High. Through these three frames, we can see the breakdown of the person, player, and character mindset, as well as the overlap of thought, emotions, and ideas between …

Math Musicians: Exploring The Impact Of Content Integrated Pop Music On Students’ Attitudes And Engagement During Math Instruction, Megan Hook

Student Research Submissions

Traditional methods of math instruction have been consistently linked to students having negative feelings about math, as well as decreased motivation and engagement during math instruction. This study investigated how arts integration, specifically integrating pop music, impacted students’ attitudes about math and students’ motivation and engagement during math instruction in a fifth-grade classroom. This study was mixed methods, with quantitative data collected through an adapted version of a student dispositions survey to assess students’ attitudes, motivation, and engagement, and qualitative data collected through a short response question about how students feel music impacted their math experiences. Results indicated that the …

“The Battle Against Sameness”: Queer Marriages In Forster And Woolf, Lindsey Hatton

Student Research Submissions

The Bloomsbury Group was known for unconventionality, both in their lives and in their writing. This holds especially true for E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, whose novels uniquely depict queer relationships as an alternative to traditional, rigid, heterosexual marriages. This paper looks at Clarissa and Richard from Mrs. Dalloway, Margaret and Henry from Howards End, and Maurice and Alec from Maurice and how each of these couples subvert the societal conventions of the Victorian era in different ways. A close reading of these texts and characters allows for a nuanced understanding of Woolf and Forster’s revolutionary visions and demonstrates how …

Coronavirus Disability Survey: Assessing The Impact Of Covid-19 On Young Adults With Disabilities, Hena Rashid

Student Research Submissions

This paper seeks to inform individuals of the importance of digital inclusivity, diminish the digital divide, and accessibility to technological services of college students who experience a form of disability. The United States has conducted minimal research on the digital disability rhetoric, promoted minimal disability-inclusive measures to protect the rights and well-being of college students, and minimal assistance to mitigate Coronavirus (COVID-19) impacts to this population subgroup. This subject can have a big impact on individuals who suffer from disability stigma, low accessibility issues, and who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Furthermore, this subject will benefit college students …

Reforming The United States’ Currency Production, William Cather

Student Research Submissions

Since the 1980s, the debate about the one-cent piece’s production and use has been discussed throughout relatively recent Congressional history; and has involved economic, financial, industry-based, as well as numismatic groups to weigh in on the topic. The question arises: Why have other countries successfully changed their lower-denomination currency and converted their economic system into one that incorporates cash-rounding while the United States has struggled to do so?

By observing international examples of the obsoletion of low-denomination coinage and the implementation of cash-rounding, the proposed economic and financial reform has proved to work as an economically-sound alternative to the current …

A Content Analysis Of Queer Slang On Tik Tok, Kuri Benitez

Student Research Submissions

Social media platforms’ concentration of diversity and interactions has accelerated the rate of cultural change on the Internet. With the rise of Tik Tok, a video-sharing social media platform, language used by marginalized groups is being incorporated into the platform’s slang due to the rapid rotation of trends. This study aims to provide data to a new field related to Tik Tok culture and the effects of trends on marginalized groups.

Using qualitative content analysis, this article studies an LGBTQ+-inspired Tik Tok trend to determine if the portmanteau of “-ussy”’s meaning has changed from its original use and if trends …

Prometheus & The Body Beautiful: Arno Breker And The Weaponization Of The Greco-Roman Tradition In The Größe Deutsche Kunstausstellung, Sophia Maldonado

Student Research Submissions

During the Third Reich (1933-1945), Hitler and the Nazis turned to the visual arts as a tool for propaganda to promote Hitler’s conception of the ideal people, i.e. the ‘Aryan’ race. Rooted in a calculate understanding of Greco-Roman civilization and culture, this conception of the ideal appropriated the visual vocabulary of the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Within the 1937 inaugural exhibition of the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung, a propagandistic effort designed to promote this ideal, Arno Breker, chief sculptor of the Nazi Party, would exhibit his Prometheus. Breker’s interpretation of this mythological figure stood as a representation of …

Mutually Exclusive: Being Gay And Being A Man In E.M. Forster’S Maurice, Kimber Foreman

Student Research Submissions

This paper outlines the impacts of English heteronormativity on E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice by exploring applicable cultural context and its reflection within the text. Maurice was published after Forster’s death, and as his only novel with explicit queer characters, is the best suited for parsing Forster’s own understanding of the society he lived in. With a primary focus on the characters of Maurice and Clive, the paper examines the dichotomy that Forster posits heteronormative English society creates between traditional English masculinity and the identities of gay men. This examination ultimately leads to the conclusion that Forster writes the Greenwood-bound fate …

Reception Of Classical Material In The Argument Of Charles Loyseau's Traité Des Ordres Et Simples Dignités, Matt Nelson

Student Research Submissions

Charles Loyseau (1564-1627) was a French jurist who wrote during the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII – the first two kings of the Bourbon dynasty. Throughout his career, Loyseau wrote several argumentative treatises either contesting royal edicts or supporting royal law against popular dissent. His most influential work was his 1610 publication Traité des ordres et simples dignites. In it, he helped establish a French social structure of three distinct orders: the Clergy, the Nobility, and the so-called Third Estate consisting of the rest of the population. This system later became known as the Ancien Régime after the …

The Garden Of Secrets And Truths, Chloe Martin

Student Research Submissions

This essay, entitled “The Garden of Secrets and Truths,” was written for ENGL 470C-01, Seminar in Creative Writing: Nonfiction, with Professor Colin Rafferty. This piece consists of excerpts from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden coupled with nonfiction flash essays about life, growing up, and ambition. This essay was born from the “Public Domain” challenge in this course which prompted students to take a work of literature that is within the Public Domain and use it as a springboard to tell their original nonfiction story or stories. It follows a sort of call-and-response pattern where a quote from The Secret …

“Hysteria Abated”: Forster’S Treatment Of Women’S Mental Health In Howards End, Rosemary Pauley

Student Research Submissions

In Howards End, Forster’s female characters are written off multiple times as having ‘hysteria’ or simply being foolish, sensitive women, which was a common attitude towards mental illness in Edwardian society. This essay investigates the concept of hysteria and Forster’s use of mental health with his female characters, using these factors to enhance the understanding of the characters, particularly the struggles or judgments that the three leading ladies, Helen, Margaret, and Ruth, face. The initial inspiration was drawn from Margaret’s jumping out of the carriage, as well as the neglect of Ruth’s dying wish; both women are deemed hysterical. While …

Queer Representation In The Scream Franchise, Amber M. Harvey

Student Research Submissions

This paper is an exploration of queer representation across the Scream film franchise. The original Scream premiered in 1996 and in 2022 and the series was rebooted with new characters that are the second generation of the characters in the first film. The direct parallels between the films allow for an analysis of how representation has grown with the times. The ultimate goal of this paper was to investigate two different aspects of on screen representation: quantity (how many queer characters are shown?) and quality (Are they queer coded? Are they shown to actually be queer? Do they embody queer …

How We Talk About Archaeology In The Digital Age, Michael Messina

Student Research Submissions

Abstract

Archaeology is known for the research, study, excavation, and exploration of the past. Often the present advancements at hand are not thought about when it comes to this field of study. This paper aims to shine a light on how the digital era has progressed the ways in which the archaeological field opened up like never before due to the all of the social mediums in which archaeologists can share their research and findings. Theory is explored both new and old on globalization within the field and how everything arrived to where it is now. Questions are researched through …

Inferno Of The Mind, Amber M. Harvey

Student Research Submissions

This chapbook is a series of poems that explore what it is like living with mental illness. It is a collection of ten poems, inspired by the nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. The reader is led on a journey through the mind of the author, each poem providing a modern interpretation of each circle: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. This journey into a “hell of the mind’s making” explores the themes of identity, reality, societal expectations and pressures, and self-doubt through the use of form, structure, and image. The collection ends with a …

Unearthing The Witch: Reckoning With Gender, Magic, And The Unusual Dead Within Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burials, Samantha Melvin

Student Research Submissions

The fifth to seventh centuries CE, or the Migration Period, marked the development of Anglo-Saxon culture and society in England. The early Anglo-Saxons are known largely through their material culture and mortuary practices, left behind in medieval cemeteries that twist their way across the English landscape. The remains of early Anglo-Saxons tell rich and interesting histories about past peoples, but within the broader landscapes of these cemeteries are deviant burials. These are burials that are specifically typified as ones that ‘deviate’ from the norm, usually indicating that the inhumed individual was punished in death for actions committed in life. These …

Humanitarian Intervention And American Public Opinion: An Analysis To Intervene, Alexia Inge

Student Research Submissions

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Einstein's Equations, Lagrangians For General Relativity, And Adm Formalism, Timothy Corbett

Student Research Submissions

Einstein’s equations describe the relation of spacetime curvature and present matter. We will consider the case of a Lorentzian manifold diffeomorphic to ℝ × Σ, where time t ∈ ℝ and the three-dimensional manifold Σ represents space. In a homogeneous and isotropic universe, the three-dimensional manifold Σ of the Lorentzian manifold has Riemann curvature tensor ⁽³⁾R = KI, where K is a constant and I is the 3 × 3 identity matrix. Space is flat when K = 0, spherical when K is positive, and hyperbolic when K is negative. In this paper, we will show models agreeing with …

Elgamal Encryption In The General Linear Groups, Lynn Sherman

Student Research Submissions

We first modify ElGamal encryption system in Z _p^* to GLn(Fq). This allows us to change our message m to be n-component column vector which allows us to have some computation advantages and can encrypt the messages in a vector form. We check a validity of our modified system with examples. Then, we proceed to check some security aspects of our scheme. Ultimately, we suggest some directions to keep optimal security of our scheme.

Dorothy Allison's Gothic Poverty, Jessica Morin

Student Research Submissions

This paper explores how the gothic spaces in Dorothy Allison’s novels are connected to her characters class. I analyze specific places in Bastard out of Carolina and Cavedweller and how these spaces are either redeemed or remain gothic throughout the novels, and how this connects to the characters economic status. In Bastard out of Carolina, where the characters begin and remain poor, places are either gothic from the beginning or are safe spaces that transform into gothic places over the course of the novel. Conversely, in Cavedweller, where the characters begin poor but become financially stable by the end of …

The Dissection Of Twins, Amber Zipfel

Student Research Submissions

The Dissection of Twins

Amber Zipfel

Professor Colin Rafferty

ENGL 470C_01: Creative Writing Seminar: Non-Fiction

This body of work is composed of ten short pieces that dissect several aspects of twins in approximately 7,000 words. The structure of the work, which involves every piece mirroring another one with the same or similar title, is meant to resemble the relationship of twins: two labeled with the same title but possess different content within their bodies. Overall, there are personal stories and informative breakdowns of twin stereotypes utilized to convey this popular subject. Each piece helps strengthen the primary goals of this …

Bildungsroman And Trauma In Harper Lee’S To Kill A Mockingbird And Dorothy Allison’S Bastard Out Of Carolina, Bernadette D'Auria

Student Research Submissions

Scholars have long viewed Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird as a young girl’s Bildungsroman. Through an adult Scout’s reflection on her childhood, Lee takes her readers on a journey that has traditionally been categorized as a young girl’s growth from naivete to maturity. While Scout is witness to the impacts and traumas of racism in Maycomb, scholars have often overlooked Scout’s ambivalent attitude regarding these events. Scout sentimentalizes Maycomb and rarely processes or reacts to the traumatic events that encompass her childhood, leaving Lee’s narrative a poor example of a growth towards maturity. In contrast, the coming-of-age arc in …

Shakespeare’S The Merchant Of Venice, Qanon And Blood Libel, Georga Hackworth

Student Research Submissions

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, QAnon, and Blood Libel explores the contemporary relevance of the work of Shakespeare. The Jewish blood libel was first mentioned by Socrates. Whether Socrates was literal or using an allegory is unknown. What is known, is the story was repeated and used as the basis for a conspiracy theory targeting Jews stating they kill Christian Children to make unleavened Passover bread. This idea has resulted in stereotypes and Jews being the scapegoats for all the ills of the world. William Shakespeare played on this idea in The Merchant of Venice, using a blood libel to …

An Intersectional Feminist Look At Bridgerton, Payton Creamer

Student Research Submissions

Abstract: The representation in TV shows are proven to impact the way people come to view themselves and other groups of people. Therefore, casting decisions play a critical role in dismantling the patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity. Season 1 of Bridgerton was praised for bringing a diverse cast to the Regency era. This study aims to determine whether or not Bridgerton is an intersectional feminist show. In order to do this, I used a content analysis approach and looked for emergent themes. I argue that the show fails to be an intersectional feminist one because gender, race, and sexuality never …

How Service Animals Are Discussed In Social Media, Kenna Pak

Student Research Submissions

The role of service animals (SA) in public life is often disputed online where people show their emotion, feelings, and experiences with SAs or as an SA handler. The purpose of this study was to examine how public social media discusses service animals using the hashtag #service animal. Instagram posts regarding the hashtag #serviceanimal were studied under an inductive approach to content analysis using open coding. The results show that service animals are spoken of in a positive light in public social media posts which is contradictory to the physical public’s perception. There is great responsibility bestowed upon service animals …

The Role Of Memes In An Online Community Created By College Students: A Content Analysis, Jessica Probst

Student Research Submissions

This paper explores how a community is formed in the Facebook group The M in UMW Stands for Memes and what role memes play in shaping a sense of community and sharing information. Based on previous research, there was a common theme found within the results of the studies; memes can be used to communicate information and a shared understanding is needed to have a sustainable online community. I chose to complete this study using a content analysis which allowed for an evaluation of the shared language used in the posts revealing how this mode of communication creates a sustainable …

The Nil Agreement And Social Media: A Content Analysis, Scott Smith

Student Research Submissions

The Name, Image and Likeness Agreement has opened hundreds of doors for college athletics to make money based on their "likeness" and not their performance on the field. This new agreement levels the playing field for all athletes in college. Through a content analysis this paper will take a look at how the NIL is being discussed in various media channels such as TikTok and how this agreement is affecting the student athlete experience. Not every athlete is striking mega deals, but with this agreement everyone from Junior college to Division 1 has the opportunity to make money through avenues …

A Defense Of Moral Realism, Caleb Robb

Student Research Submissions

My Theis is a defense of the moral metaethical theory known as moral realism. Moral realism is the idea that moral laws are objective, true, non-natural, and applicable to all moral agents. I reference and subscribe to the form of moral relativism that is proposed by Russ Shafer-Landau in his book Moral Realism. In my thesis I argue that moral realism is the correct view of moral laws, and that relativism, error theory, and noncognitivism are all incorrect views. Relativism argues that moral laws stem from the culture and people in each society, and that they are subjective to only …