Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Unheard Voices Of Al-Intifadah Al-Shabaaniyah: An Exploration Of The 1991 Uprising And America’S Betrayal Through The Testimonies Of Iraqi Participants Residing In America, Zainab Alhussainy

Honors College Theses

This thesis delves into the often-overlooked 1991 uprising in Iraq, a significant early instance of resistance against Middle Eastern dictatorship. Rooted in the experiences shared within Michigan's Iraqi community. Focusing on southern Iraq, the thesis investigates the catalysts and mechanisms that enabled oppressed individuals under Saddam Hussein's Ba’athist regime to unite and rebel. Through extensive oral history methodologies, this research engages with diverse survivors—mothers, youth, and children—across various southern Iraqi cities. Their narratives unveil the hardships endured before, during, and after the rebellion.

Remarkably, despite oppressive conditions and violent impediments, the southern Iraqi populace achieved a formidable mass uprising. This …

Gender Nonconformity In Mexico: A Study Of Community And Isolation In Carmín Tropical, Maddox Arnold

Honors College Theses

As media representation of minority communities becomes more common, it is important to consider how such representation reflects the real-life experience of the communities in question. Rigoberto Pérezcano’s 2014 film Carmín Tropical offers a clear view of the gender nonconforming experience in Mexico. Although Mexico remains one of the deadliest countries for transgender people, over the last decade many states have introduced legislation to advance the rights of the transgender and gender nonconforming community. This places Mexico in a unique position as the country finds itself balancing between violence and progress. Carmín Tropical tells the story of Mabel, a muxe …

Effects Of Internet Exclusion On The City Of Detroit, Alexander G. Haddad

Honors College Theses

Introduction

The rise of Information Technology (IT) in the past 50 years has revolutionized many areas of human life and activity. Information Technology’s most obvious areas of impact are often those where they add a great and obvious value to a particular industry, and it is extremely difficult to find some aspect of life that has not changed since its inception. Some examples include the digitization of stock trading, the automation of factories and life-saving operations, and the enhanced communication and collaboration across public education, enterprise activity, and international affairs. However, what is often overlooked and understudied are the secondary …

A Program Of Race Betterment: The Emergence And Evolution Of Eugenic Ideas In Michigan, Branden Mceuen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Contemporary concerns with technologies like CRISPR and the proliferation of state laws restricting abortion have led people to wonder if we are witnessing a return of eugenics. I analyze the development and evolution of eugenic ideas and policies throughout the 20th century, using the state of Michigan as a frame of reference. In examining the eugenic theories and policies psychiatrists and physicians endorsed, I demonstrate that eugenics was a key component of preventive public medicine in the first two decades of the 20th century. I show how they educated the public on eugenics based on both environmentalist and hereditarian ideas …

Labor Logs In A Multimodal Curriculum: Revealing Valuable Assessment Practices In Technical Communication And First-Year Writing Courses, Suzette Bristol

Wayne State University Dissertations

This project discusses the creation and implementation of labor logs in multimodal curricula in two levels of writing courses and how these labor logs support students’ development of meta-awareness through reflection-in-action (Yancey, 1998). Labor logs create a space for students to focus on in the moment recognition, or monitoring, of what takes place as they work through a project (VanKooten, 2016; Trimble and Jankens, 2019). By turning the focus of labor-based assessment (Inoue, 2019) to multimodal projects, this project clarifies the work that labor logs and multimodal pedagogies do in first-year writing and technical communication courses: indicating for students a …

Constructing A Well-Being: Exploring Knowledge Construction In Dbt Skills Training Using Art And Activity Theory, Elizabeth Bailey

Wayne State University Dissertations

Through Arts-based Research, constructed within the theoretical basis of the Activity System, participants engaged with dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) program content to develop a cohesive and meaningful project. Participants are conceptualized as reliable experts in their own experience, and as active agents of knowledge construction. Participants generate profound and relevant insights into their experiences – insights that can enhance DBT practice, expand research methodology, and build conceptual connections across theories. The Arts-based Activity System offers a theoretically-backed methodology that can disrupt the harmful parallels between the development of the disorders DBT is intended to treat and the dominant research paradigm …

Aproximaciones Críticas Innovadoras En La Narrativa Española Del Siglo Xxi, Paula Silvana Fecay

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this work is to investigate and analyze the concepts of death and absence in 5 Spanish novels of the XXI century. The novels are Esta pared de hielo (2005) by José María Guelbenzu, Mi querida Eva (2007) by Gustavo Martín Garzo, Laura y Julio (2008) by Juan José Millás, Nada que no sepas (2018) by María Tena and La llave 104 (2019) by Paz Castelló. These five Spanish novels are very different but have common elements that will be analyzed through a common lens, focusing on the death and absences in the novels but without ceasing to …

Mammy And Aunt Jemima: Keeping The Old South Alive In Popular Visual Culture, Angela G. Athnasios

Honors College Theses

Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century, American popular visual culture produced racist portrayals of Black Americans. Literature, illustrations, minstrelsy, film, and television are notorious for promoting such unflattering images. Each of these media typified African Americans as exaggerated caricatures with dark skin, bulging eyes, bright-red lips, and goofy smiles. The creators of these stereotypes project their racist beliefs into popular culture. This in turn heavily influences the way other races view people of African descent, as well as how Black people view themselves. From mammies, to Jezebels, to pickaninnies, and everything in between, the message ultimately conveyed in these …

Singing Solidarity: Class Consciousness, Emotional Pedagogy, And The Songs Of The Industrial Workers Of The World, Tara Forbes

Wayne State University Dissertations

Singing Solidarity looks at songs and song culture in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from its inception to its decline near the start of WWI and examines how IWW songs engaged with, transformed, and directed workers’ feelings to “spur [them] to action” (Gould 47). Songs in the IWW repertoire created a sense of group identity and cohesion, supporting the IWW’s project of class consciousness and working-class solidarity. This solidarity, I argue, was felt rather than theorized. The felt solidarity of the IWW collective was intensified through the act of singing as a group, which was simultaneously an instantiation …

A Multispecies Perspective Into Dietary Genetic Adaptations And Ancient Migration In The Peruvian Andes, Kelsey Jorgensen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Successful adaptation to the high-elevation Andes would have required both cultural and biological adaptations by early human populations. These past adaptations continue to shape the evolutionary outcomes of both humans and non-human species today. A multispecies perspective was used to examine how humans and non-human creatures, specifically insects, were shaped by past human adaptations. This dissertation asked two primary questions: 1) Given the importance and evolutionary history of potato consumption in the Peruvian Andes, is a genetic adaptation to better digest potato starch detectable in present-day Peruvians? and 2) Using the Andean Potato Weevil (APW) phylogeny as a proxy, what …

Antiwar Literature In The United States Since 1945, Kelly Roy Polasek

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation examines literary resistance to US militarism since 1945. I maintain that a requirement of antiwar literature is a disruption or break from the pro-war narrative that seeks to justify and normalize the wars and militarism that saturate this historical period; literary works about war that do not deviate from this narrative are simply war literature. In chapters on John Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946), poetry and performance protests of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1970-72), Rob Halpern’s Common Place (2015), and works of speculative fiction by Omar El Akkad (American War, 2017) and N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season, 2015), …

Taxation, Liberty, And Property Rights: A Libertarian Defense Of Universal Health Coverage, Graeme Bradley Cave

Wayne State University Dissertations

Today, the United States is widely recognized as the only developed country without universal health coverage. Unfortunately for the United States, that is problematic. Despite lacking universal health coverage, the United States spends more on health care than any other country. In return, it has a large uninsured population, a large underinsured population, and overall comparatively poor health outcomes. Unsurprisingly, then, everyone in the philosophical literature on health care justice—for one reason or another—says the United States should join every other developed country and get universal health coverage. Everyone, that is, except for libertarians.In my dissertation, I argue that libertarians …

Pre-Pregnancy Drinking Among A Sample Of High-Risk Women And The Association Of Social Networks, Sandra Lee King

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACTPRE-PREGNANCY DRINKING AMONG A SAMPLE OF HIGH-RISK WOMEN AND THE ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

Background: Characteristics of drinking alcohol can include drinking contemporaneously; at the same time as others, and concordantly; when individuals exhibit identical traits or characteristics. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the association of pre-pregnancy drinking among a unique sample of high-risk women and to investigate the association of their social network members as predictors of alcohol consumption during the 3-month preconceptional period. Analysis was conducted on the patterns of alcohol consumption among study participants who were recruited from the Healthy Families Indiana (HFI) …

A Tale Of Two Nations’ Histories The Application Of Literary Fairy Tales As A Firsthand Account Of History, Nicholas Gottlob

Honors College Theses

Fairy tales are often thought to be solely for children as a means of education and entertainment. The literary fairy tale provided a medium that allowed authors to express their opinions under the guise of a story. This has not always been the case as literary fairy tales have been utilized as political instruments by authors and intended for a highly educated audience. Using fairy tales as a facade provided protection for authors, as outright criticisms against those in power usually resulted in dire consequences such as imprisonment or even death for the objector. The literary fairy tale provided a …

Escrime Americana: The History Of Discrimination In American Fencing From The 1700s-1950, Alyssa J. Hirsch

Honors College Theses

This research paper will focus on the history of discrimination in American fencing from 1700-1950. The time frame covers the colonial origins of the sport in America, through segregation practices up to 1950. This project will analyze the origins of classism, sexism, and racism in American fencing, and how it connects to how racism, sexism, and classism have operated in the United States. There has been no previous research conducted into the history of discrimination in fencing exclusively, so this is new territory.

The research for this paper includes primary sources provided by the head historian of U.S. fencing, Andy …

A Comparison Between The Wolves Of Brandenburg, Germany And Minnesota, Usa: History, Technology, And Culture, Jacob W. Depper

Honors College Theses

The conservation of the wolf as a species depends on a good understanding of its history. The wolves of Minnesota, USA were almost completely extirpated from the state by the mid 20^th century. In Brandenburg, Germany wolves were completely extirpated from the state by the end of the 19^th century. This paper looks at the history of these two wolf populations during two different time periods; between 1965 and 2000 in Minnesota and between 1990 and 2020 in Brandenburg. Through a comparative approach this paper also looks at the almost complete eradication of the wolves in the respective …

Beyond The Rainbow: Predicting Intra And Intergroup Political Attitudes Of Latinx And Black Americans And The Potential For Cooperation And Conflict, Randall Wyatt

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation uses social psychological theory and methods to better understand the political attitudes of whites, Blacks, Latinx Americans and Asian Americans in the contemporary United States. Using quantitative methodology and survey research, I estimate the potential for cooperation and conflict between racial minorities and the political implications that these measures may have. I show that perceptions of competition with immigrants are strongly associated with anti-immigration preferences even among racial minorities such as Blacks and Latinx Americans, of who have a long history of migration to the United States. However, I also show that there is potential for interracial cooperation …

Transformation Of The St. Clair Maritime Cultural Landscape From The Seventeenth To The Twentieth Centuries, Daniel Frederick Harrison

Wayne State University Dissertations

The St. Clair system—a river, delta and lake between Lake Huron and the Detroit River—offers significant opportunities to study long-term maritime landscape formation, and to preserve a unique resource. Few maritime landscapes in the Great Lakes remain so deeply and clearly inscribed by successive cultures. This permits both focused and comprehensive analyses and comparisons of the ideologies, technologies and practices of indigenous, colonial, and modern societies as each created its unique place in the environment through four processes: cognition, dwelling, movement, and representation. The socially-conditioned perception of environmental resources and constraints, and resulting strategies to exploit the former while minimizing …

Toward An Ecofeminist Embodied Pedagogy: A Study Of Difference In Online And Offline Community Writing Courses, Rachel Dortin

Wayne State University Dissertations

Toward an Ecofeminist Embodied Pedagogy: A Study of Difference in Online and Offline Community Writing Courses argues that service-learning and community-engaged learning (SCEL) often fail to present community partners as real, embodied beings. Rather, students often believe that there is an “us” (the university) and a “them” (the community). Entering community partnerships with this perspective can be damaging, for both students and community partners, and result in unsuccessful collaborations. My dissertation responds to this problem by offering an ecofeminist, embodied pedagogy (EEP) as a solution. I argue that students are eager to learn about difference and that instructors need to …

Curricular Inquiry: A Survey Of Writing Pedagogy Practicum Instructors, Clare Jennifer Russell

Wayne State University Dissertations

The practicum course, a required course for many new college writing instructors, is a vital site for identifying what are considered best practices in the teaching of college composition, but also for critiquing, revising, and reevaluating those practices. My dissertation contributes to the conversation about how Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) learn to teach college composition, and how what they learn in teaching practicum courses impacts graduate education in Rhetoric and Composition. My dissertation study focuses on the perspectives of instructors who design practica courses that prepare college writing instructors to teach first-year composition at their institutions. GTAs in Writing Studies, …

Coming Out As Complex: Understanding Lgbtq+ Community Writing Groups, Hillary E. Weiss

Wayne State University Dissertations

Though composition studies has increasingly studied writing spaces outside of the classroom and workplace, LGBTQ+ community writing groups have received little focus in composition research. This dissertation studies four LGBTQ+ community writing groups across North America to find why people choose to join these groups and how power and conflict function in these spaces. I argue that LGBTQ+ writing groups improve writing and offer emotional support, friendship, and community, as other writing groups do, but these particular spaces also provide group members with opportunities to improve one’s self, publish, and educate the community about LGBTQ+ issues. I also find that …

Politics At Play: The 1985 World Festival Of Youth And Students And Its Role In Soviet And Cold War History, Michaela Lewalski

Wayne State University Theses

The Twelfth World Festival of Youth and Students that took place in Moscow in 1985 has largely been forgotten, but historical analysis of the event reveals that it had significant implications for the Soviet Union and Cold War. This thesis argues that the festival was a public ceremony that the Soviet Union used to prove its domestic stability and its role as a leader in the fight for world peace to its own people, counterparts in the West, and allies and potential allies in the South and East. The symbols and concrete measures that the Soviet Union used—and the reactions …

Tecumseh And Tenskwatawa: Myths, Memories, And Messages For Present Times, Matt Hoerauf

Wayne State University Theses

Tecumseh has been hailed as the most famous Indigenous leader in the United States and Canada. Many scholars have bemoaned the difficulty to separating man from myth. One thing is clear: there could be no Tecumseh without his brother Tenskwatawa. It was Tenskwatawa who first had a religious awakening that birthed a spiritual movement. It was Tenskwatawa who was the first leader of this pan-Indigenous group of followers. Tecumseh’s leadership would not emerge until nearly six years later. In the many works on Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa’s story can be easily found. However, he is nearly always portrayed as less important and …

Coming Out As Complex: Understanding Lgbtq+ Community Writing Groups, Hillary Weiss

Wayne State University Dissertations

Though composition studies has increasingly studied writing spaces outside of the classroom and workplace, LGBTQ+ community writing groups have received little focus in composition research. This dissertation studies four LGBTQ+ community writing groups across North America to find why people choose to join these groups and how power and conflict function in these spaces. I argue that LGBTQ+ writing groups improve writing and offer emotional support, friendship, and community, as other writing groups do, but these particular spaces also provide group members with opportunities to improve one’s self, publish, and educate the community about LGBTQ+ issues. I also find that …

The Politics Of Hijab In American Culture, Noha F. Beydoun

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Politics of Hijab in American Culture analyzes the relationship between hijab and US imperialism in contemporary American culture. This project examines the ways in which neoliberal notions of freedom work through discourse on hijab in the U.S. from the vantage point of narratives produced by individuals invested in Muslim American identity. What emerges is a liberated/dominated Muslim woman figure which, I argue, justifies U.S. practices overseas. By looking at how hijab is situated in narratives produced for self-representation of Muslim American identity in the U.S., this project demonstrates the ways in which American imperialism operates such that those marginalized …

Named But Not Known: Teaching And Assessing The Research-Writing Process, Ruth Boeder

Wayne State University Dissertations

In lived experience, the two processes of secondary research and writing overlap and intertwine interminably, creating an overarching complex system as research becomes expressed in writing and writing generates new research. This classroom study explores the two processes as one—the research-writing process—through coding of student journal responses and assessment of student research papers. Analysis reveals students to be thoughtful but not yet as nuanced in their descriptions of their research process as much be desired. They more frequently discuss writing with weaknesses in their research process than with research strengths. Further findings indicate that although it is difficult to assess …

Design Thinking & Strategic Product Planning For Highly Engineered Products, Shannon Dare Wayne

Wayne State University Dissertations

This paper offers an integrated framework to systematically address routine challenges plaguing early product development for highly engineered and complex products, such as automobiles. The framework includes up-front strategic product planning leveraging ‘design thinking’ and ‘design execution’ through a structured process to enable adaptation under uncertainties in the product development lifecycle for customer delight and program success. Included is product planning, from fuzzy front-end until product launch, and prioritizing aligned strategic initiatives while integrating design thinking throughout the process. We also discuss two real-world case studies to emphasize the efficacy of the framework and to demonstrate practical examples of how …

A Rhetoric Of Zaniness: The Case Of Pepe The Frog, Sean Milligan

Wayne State University Dissertations

A Rhetoric of Zaniness: The Case of Pepe the Frog argues that Sianne Ngai’s aesthetic category of zaniness is an essential concept for understanding and studying digital rhetoric in the post-truth era. To illustrate how zaniness has come to define online discourse, the dissertation traces the character of Pepe the Frog through various moments of, what Laurie Gries calls, “rhetorical transformation.” Specifically, the dissertation focuses on his initial appearance in Matt Furie’s Boy’s Club comics and transformation into a meme, his appropriation by the alt-right, and his adoption as propaganda for the Trump presidential campaign.

The Center Of All Beauty: Radical Democracy, Materiality, And The Poetic Subject In Twentieth-Century American Poetry, Marcus Merritt

Wayne State University Dissertations

In The Center of All Beauty, I trace a strain of poetics in twentieth-century American poetry from William Carlos Williams through Frank O’Hara, Alice Notley, and Amiri Baraka. This poetics is founded in a radically democratic conception of the poetic subject and in the use of poetry as a tool for developing critical knowledge about the material conditions within which the poetic subject is constituted. In Spring and All and The Embodiment of Knowledge, Williams articulates a poetics that denies the authority of any grounds upon which any poetic subject would be considered inadequate to poetic speech and outlines a …

Turning Passion Into Profit: When Leisure Becomes Work In Modern Roller Derby, Amanda Nicole Draft

Wayne State University Dissertations

Modern roller derby operates as a “by the skater, for the skater” business model, where participants are not paid but must devote a certain amount of time, effort, and money to sustaining their sport and respective organizations. At the same time, while derby is grounded in anti-corporate values, a growing industry has sprouted to support the sport, the larger share of which consists of small business retailers selling gear, apparel, and other accessories. I use the context of modern roller derby to examine the changing natures of work and leisure, specifically how they operate as greedy institutions and emphasizing the …