Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Divine Democracy: Examining The Intersection Of Religion And Politics In Civil Religion, José Andrés Serrano

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis seeks to build upon and provide a new interpretation of civil religion in the United States. In it, the history of civil religion from the 1960s, starting with Bellah, to the 2010s will be analyzed for any themes still used in the 2020s. Similarly, understanding what a religion is within this time frame will be broken apart and examined to see how it paralleled the evolution of political understanding. Building upon its history, the paper will break into four prominent chapters: Is American Democracy Like a Civil Religion?, Religious Characteristics in the American Government, American Democracy as a …

Three Essays In Behavioral Economics, Zhou Fang

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Well-being is important because it directly impacts an individual's quality of life and overall happiness. It encompasses physical, mental, and social aspects, promoting a balanced and fulfilling existence. Optimal well-being leads to improved productivity, resilience, and positive contributions to society, creating a healthier and more harmonious world.

This dissertation delves into the realm of interdisciplinary research, bridging economics and psychology, to investigate several critical areas that affect peoples’ wellbeing. It explores gender discrimination within peer review processes, seeks advancements in the measurement of subjective well-being, and analyzes the influence of cultural factors on prosocial behaviors.

The first chapter delves into …

The Carceral Death Machine: Savagery, Contamination And Sacrifice In The Contemporary Prison, Timothy Malone

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation, I develop a convict epistemology that interweaves two elements: 1) a deep engagement with the works of particular philosophers and scholars investigating questions of punishment, violence, biopolitics and political philosophy 2) with some specific, publicly-reported incidents within California prisons in the late 20th and 21st centuries and my own detailed narration of events and the structural and quotidian dynamics of the prison yard as I experienced them as inmate #K73299 from 1997 to 2005. Diverging from Foucauldian theories of disciplinarity, I argue that under neoliberalism, the primary punishments that any inmate is subjected to within the carceral …

Learning From History: Real And Perceived Threats To National Security, David Dupont

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Significant changes in American domestic security policies were generally associated with periods of military conflicts. Laws that would pave the way for legalizing the surveillance and internment of civilian populations have their origin in the Quasi-War. Likewise, the practice of state property seizure under the Office of Alien Property Custodian and limited internment programs were first established during WWI. Mass civilian internment came into existence leading up to WWII. This trajectory continued in modern times with the extensive system of domestic surveillance post-9/11. In this paper, I argue for gaining a historical comprehension of these issues by exploring their origins …

The Pervert’S Guide To The Museum, Seth Ifor Alt

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation provides a sustained theoretical articulation of core Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts situated within the standing difficulties in the practice and theory of museums. Drawing upon research gathered from site visits, informational interviews, textual analysis, and an extensive engagement with the seminars of Jacques Lacan, I enumerate here a first attempt at what a Lacanian theoretical formation can contribute to museum studies scholarship. Through this research this dissertation shows psychoanalysis to be especially useful for museum studies owing to how the troubles immediately encountered in the everyday material practices of museological work are structurally analogous to the impossibilities experienced on …

Crawl Space: Driving Over The Anthropocene In A Jeep, Michael Pesses

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The automobile has long been directly and indirectly connected to human conceptions of nature, yet few studies linger with the act of driving as a practice that contributes to how nature is experienced. I argue that a more nuanced understanding of automobility is necessary for any scholars who study both social practices and environmental sustainability. Following the work of the human geographer Doreen Massey, I explore how relations between humans and non-humans, the social and the natural, ideology and practice work together to produce places specific to space and time. I also argue that American automobility is not simply transportation, …

Aristotle On Practical Reasoning: Perception, Reason And Action In Aristotle’S Thought, Kyu-Been Chun

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study aims to clarify Aristotle’s practical reason and how his flexible but, nonetheless nonarbitrary ethical teaching works. By doing so, I hope to provide an alternative way of understanding practical reason in contradistinction to a modern view of practical reason and its assumptions about thinking through moral and political issues. In this dissertation, I argue that Aristotle’s discussion of practical reason shows that any attempts to formalize morality in the abstract are limited by the complexity of each particular situation, the variability in perception/cognition of the agent as well as a human longing that is inextricably linked to practical …

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the intellectual capacity of spoken word and performance poetry, and poets as intellectuals, where poets produce and disseminate knowledge, ideas, and data, in the form of narratives, that contribute to critical consciousness. The effectiveness of the series lay in the consistent blurring of entertainment, knowledge, anti-capitalism, and capitalism. This research demonstrates how Def Poetry Jam provided …

A Matter Of Life And Def: Poetic Knowledge And The Organic Intellectuals In Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, Anthony Sean Blacksher

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In December of 2001, Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry (Def Poetry Jam) turned HBO viewers into audience members of a televised poetry reading, featuring spoken word and performance poetry. Over six seasons, actors, rappers, comedians, and the host, Mos Def, joined poets in a unique representation of counter-public open mic poetry readings and poetry slams. This dissertation unpacks the poetry, performances, and the production of Def Poetry Jam to explore how a performative art embodied and confronted racial discourses, including stereotypes and also, addressed the racism, patriotism, and imperialist discourses that circulated after 9/11. Def Poetry Jam contributes to the …

Mobile People, Mobile God: Mobile Societies, Monotheism, And The Effects Of Ecological Landscapes On The Development Of Ancient Religions, Edward Surman

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Despite the wealth of scholarship concerning the origins of religious beliefs, practices, and cultures, there has been little consideration of the impact of ecological landscapes on the development of ancient religions. Although the influence of the natural environment is considered among the variables in explaining the development of various economic, political, and other social systems throughout history, there is a specific gap concerning its impact on the origins of religious systems. The argument which is taken up in this writing is the correlation between agriculturally marginal landscape and the development of monotheism. Specifically that the religions of the ancient Iranians …

How One Writes, Makes, Markets A Movie And How An Audience Reads The Movie: Two Biographical Films Of Hitler As A Case Study, Nick Chi-Shu J. Yeh

CGU Theses & Dissertations

According to John Lukacs, German people's views on Hitler and Nazism once got examined right after the fall the Third Reich in the 1950s but this subject has lost its appeal since then. How do Germans nowadays, specifically those young ones raised in the "New Germany" after the fall of the Berlin Wall, think of Hitler and their country's Nazi legacy? This dissertation is to explore how six young Germans growing up in the new "unified Germany" interpret two films' representations of Hitler and Nazism.

Investigating Young Children's Music-Making Behavior: A Developmental Theory, Paul G. Morehouse

CGU Theses & Dissertations

We have many developmental theories contributing to our understanding of children as they meander steadfastly toward maturation. Yet, none have reported on how young children interpret the qualitative meaning and importance of their own music-making experiences. Music created by average, not prodigious, young children is perceived by adults as “play” music rather than “real” music. But do young children take the same view as adults? When Piaget speaks of the young child’s qualitatively unique view and experience of the world (Ginsberg & Opper, 1988), can we assume that his statement encompasses young children’s predispositions related to music-making?

Music is understood …

Stylizing, Commodifying, And Disciplining Real Bodies: An Examination Of Wwe Wrestling, Isamu Horiuchi

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines professional wrestling in the U.S., in particular, live and television shows produced by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Through the examination, it addresses complex issues of authenticity, audience, commodification, and discipline in contemporary popular culture and media.

I use three approaches in this study. First, I apply the theory of culture industry, developed by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, to understand WWE wrestling. I examine how the WWE thoroughly stylizes its products to attract fans and condition them to repeat the same calculable reactions. However, contemporary fans often refuse to react as the WWE wants them …

Rights Of Concrete Others: Ethics Of Concrete Others, Social Individuality, And Social Multiculturalism, Hochul Kwak

CGU Theses & Dissertations

A globalizing world is replete with the vulnerable, who are experiencing economic poverty, medical maltreatment, political persecution, and/or cultural misrecognition. The vulnerable are under systematic oppression and domination. Although the wealth of humankind increases continuously, many are excluded from any benefit of this increased wealth. While human beings have achieved significant progress in medical technology, uncountable numbers of people are exposed to a shortage of appropriate medical care. Despite continued expansion of democracy around the globe, the powerless majority and minorities are experiencing ignorance of their differences, culturally and/or politically. This dissertation searches for a viable human rights scheme that …

Accelerated Culture: Exploring Time And Space In Cinema, Television And New Media In The Digital Age, Thomas J. Connelly

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand the impact of speed on the interrelation and the overlapping of the production and consumption of cinematic and televisual texts. It explores the immediacy of digital media and new economic processes, and how they are informing structures of perception, as well as lending themselves to new and different ways of seeing the moving image in the digital age. These visual expressions are evident in the changing perception of the long take; the increasing use of video gaming aesthetics and database narratives; new and variant forms of narrative and visual styles in television; and the speed …

Covenant Nation: The Politics Of Grace In Early American Literature, Justin M. Scott-Coe

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The argument of this dissertation is that a critical reading of the concept of "covenant" in early American writings is instrumental to understanding the paradoxes in the American political concepts of freedom and equality. Following Slavoj Zizek's theoretical approach to theology, I trace the covenant concept in early American literature from the theological expressions and disputes in Puritan Massachusetts through Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of Will and the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, showing how the covenant theology of colonial New England dispersed into more "secular" forms of what may be called an American political theology. The first chapter provides an …

Religion And The Evolution Of Democracy: A Revised Selectorate Model For The Arab Spring, Amir K. Bagherpour

CGU Theses & Dissertations

2011 was a seminal year in the history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Popularly referred to as the Arab Spring, the region has experienced a wave of revolutions and instability. It can be classified in three broad categories within 2011: Uprisings that have resulted in the overthrow of standing regimes, uprisings that have failed to overthrow standing regimes, and states that have not experienced popular revolts. In the first category Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia have all experienced uprisings resulting in the respective departure of Muamar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Zine Al Abidine Ben …

The Experiences Of Legally Married Same-Sex Couples In California, Erin Christine Falvey

CGU Theses & Dissertations

With the aim of increasing practitioner competence, this dissertation provides marriage and family therapists and mental health service providers with insight into the experiences of legally married same-sex couples. Specifically, the inquiry's objective was to elicit narratives of strength and agency from these couples who navigated the oppressive circumstances of an anti-gay amendment campaign situated within the debate over the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples. Fourteen couples were interviewed in order to respond to the dissertation's overriding question: How do the lesbian and gay couples and families who are among those who were legally married in California before …