Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

La Imposición Del Neoliberalismo En México: Resistencia Y Opresión Del Profesorado De Lenguas A Nivel Universitario, David Martinez-Prieto

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

Este estudio utiliza las ideas de Althusser (1970) sobre el aparato ideológico del Estado para examinar las trayectorias de profesores (n=4) de lenguas que enseñaron en la Meritoria Universidad de Puebla, una de las principales universidades públicas en México. A través del análisis de los testimonios de dichos participantes, el presente trabajo analiza la represión de la comunidad universitaria durante la imposición de políticas neoliberales que pretendían privatizar la educación pública y limitar el derecho a la libertad de cátedra en esta universidad. De igual forma, en este artículo se examina la opresión que los docentes de lengua han experimentado …

Living Heritage, Resilience And Ethically Informed Infrastructures In Malawi, Martha B. Lerski, Frank Puluputu Mwale

Publications and Research

Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems …

To The Person Who Will Assess Me For Autism: On Self-Diagnosis And The Longing To Be Seen, Torri Blue

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Artist Statement (Creative Nonfiction):

I was self-diagnosed autistic before I went in for my so-called professional assessment. The months leading up to my assessment brought a good deal of stress. Would I be believed? Seen? How could I be? How, when I had spent a lifetime feeling misunderstood? "To the Person Who Will Assess Me for Autism" is exactly what it sounds like: a letter to my assessing psychologist. It was written in real-time, processing my self-diagnosis, yearning for proof, and working toward the belief that my identity as an autist would not be diminished by someone else's disbelief. I …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Echoes Of Longing, Mahalexmi Mohan

Masters Theses

Loss lingers like a shadow, a weight no time can lift. Longing becomes a silent scream, echoing within, unanswered. Internal pain festers in the quiet, where unhealed wounds weave themselves into the fabric of being. Each breath is both survival and surrender, a fragile balance between hope and the hollow ache of what was, what will never be, yet could be.

Abstract

My work is deeply influenced by my experiences within a dysfunctional family structure and is explored through the relationship of emotional vulnerability and its effect on self-worth. Layered into the work is a confrontation with the scars, conflict …

Ecospiritual Entanglement, Ali Vedad Yüner

Masters Theses

Land breeds culture. It gives us the resources to thrive, and in that process we establish a relationship with its constituents. With a multitude of beings inhabiting the land, a complex web of relationships develop. Biology describes these relationships as food webs; the mass entanglement of organisms in a manner that each organism nourishes the other. These webs are not just mere scientific structures but rather an interpretation of existential connections that every organism in the world, humans included, are indebted to. Food webs are the first stepping stone in the formation of culture, as they account for the engagement …

Designing Between Worlds, Levon Kostandyan

Masters Theses

This thesis reimagines design as a means of cultural continuity—an act of memory, resistance, and transformation. Rooted in the diasporic Armenian experience, it explores how identity is carried not only through storytelling, but through materials, rituals, and objects that evolve across time and place. Through the transformation of pomegranate skin from waste into a meaningful design material, the project navigates the space between symbolism and substance, honoring both the fruit’s ancestral weight and its potential as a living material language.


The work moves between personal narrative, historical research, and material experimentation, engaging with themes of displacement, hybridity, and embedded knowledge. …

Musical Language And Communication: Students Connect Music Streams To Literacy, Mathematics, Science, And Movement, Kelly Collier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation discusses how music and literacy claim many of the same skills, ways music may be used as a motivational tool to help promote strategies for skill development, and how teachers working in teams have the innovation to generate strategic learning. By combining music symbolism with the literacy curriculum, one can create a set of elementary school lessons that integrate musical melody with the facets of literacy, mathematics, science, and movement to formulate beneficial opportunities for student engagement and learning. Students cultivate learning by using the elements of rhythmic literacy, such as identifying beat values in conjunction with their …

Enjeux De Contacts De Langues Et D’Oralitures Dans Les Noms D’Ogresse Dans La Kabylie Des Babors, Massinissa Garaoun

Journal of Amazigh Studies

La Kabylie des Babors est une région montagneuse littorale située au nord-est de l’Algérie. Trois langues amazighes y sont pratiquées : la tabǧawit (ou kabyle oriental), la taɛemmuct (ou chaoui des Amouchas) et la tasaḥlit. L’une des figures majeures du conte amazigh et nord-africain est l’ogresse (Farès). Celle-ci est décrite comme une créature féminine, vivant seule ou en famille, isolée des Hommes et pouvant se nourrir de ces derniers. À partir d’un corpus de contes recueillis auprès de femmes originaires de différentes confédérations des Babors depuis 2017, j’ai rassemblé les dénominations ainsi que les principales caractéristiques attribuées aux ogres …

‘Amazigh Literary Space’: Intersection And Hybridity Across Languages And Media, Daniela Merolla

Journal of Amazigh Studies

My contribution will focus on multilingualism and multimedia in the ‘Amazigh literary and cinematographic space’ (Merolla De l’art, “Amazigh/Berber Literature”). Examining this notion coined in the 1990’s (Merolla “Gender and Community”) allows us to reflect on ongoing debates regarding North African literatures in postcolonial contexts. It also helps to see that Amazigh/Berber literature solely defined as Amazigh-language production tends to isolate works and performances that engage with multiple languages and literary traditions, cultural intersections, and hybridization in North Africa and its diasporas. The discussion is contextualized within the historical development of what is sometimes referred to as the “North …

Beyond The Binary: Amazigh Ethnicity And Transformational Resistance, Nour Sidhoum

Journal of Amazigh Studies

This article explores Amazigh activism in Algeria, focusing on the role of language, memory, and political mobilisation in reshaping national identity. It critically examines the reductive Arab/Berber binary, arguing that such oppositions, rooted in French colonial logic, provide the vocabulary through which Amazigh identity claims are confined within minority paradigms. The aim is to reconceptualise Amazigh ethnic identity as a form of transformational resistance that challenges dominant power structures rather than merely seeking accommodation within them. Drawing on a diverse range of primary and secondary sources—including memoirs of key figures in Algerian nationalism such as Hocine Aït Ahmed and Sadek …

2025 Persimmon Creek - Full Journal, Beth Keefauver, Wayne C. Robbins

Persimmon Creek

Persimmon Creek runs through the Susan B. Jacobs Arboretum, an oasis of nature in the center of our dynamic and thriving campus community at the University of South Carolina Upstate. My colleague Wayne Robbins and I were recently tasked with bringing back the student-edited literary journal formerly known as Writer’s Inc. Dr. Marilyn Knight stood at the helm of Writer’s Inc. for nearly twenty years, and when she retired, the journal left with her. We thought it would be an opportune time to pay homage to the legacy of Writer’s Inc. by renaming and reimagining our home department’s literary journal. …

When The Siren Sounds, Madelynn H. Morgan

Persimmon Creek

Growing up being the daughter of a fire fighter was not easy. I had a very absent father growing up, and this was due to his work in the fire service. Through this reflective essay, I discuss what growing up as a first-response family was like, and how it has shaped me into the adult I am becoming.

The Madonna - Whore Complex, Rhiya S. Ashman

Persimmon Creek

In this work, I wanted to explore the literature/media trope of the Madonna/Whore complex, specifically when it comes to Black women in media. The Madonna Whore complexes illustrate how women are often written into one of two extremes - they are either extremely pure, innocent, and childlike (The Madonna), or they are sexual, rebellious, and seductive (The Whore). The piece is full of symbolism, including the materials used to make it. I wanted to illustrate these extreme yet two dimensional ways these women were portrayed by creating them in flat paper, with no faces, to show how they are still …

Wulver In Appalachia, Wylan Blair

Persimmon Creek

A poem about a mysterious figure who comes to the aid of a mountain community.

Glimpses Of Myself In The Underground, Madelynn H. Morgan

Persimmon Creek

Through poetry, a older teenager reflects on a place that has made her who she is. She sees ghosts of her past self in every wall of this place, and it makes her feel oddly sentimental. She realizes how far she has come and how much has changed, and begins to understand how ever fleeting any given moment in time is.

Dodo, Lyxia C. Vue

Persimmon Creek

A short poem about the extinct animal known as the Dodo Bird.

The Stereo Skips, Maryssa H. Mckinney

Persimmon Creek

"The Stereo Skips" is a reflective poem that captures the chaotic and emotional experiences of a child navigating family struggles and religious expectations on a typical Sunday morning growing up in their household. Through the recurring image of a skipping stereo, the poem emphasizes the dissonance between external appearances and internal turmoil, as the child reflects on their relationship with God, the absence of their father, and the contradictions in their family life. The stereo's skips serve as a metaphor for the interruptions and unresolved emotions in the speaker's world.

Tsenacommacah, Wylan Blair

Persimmon Creek

This poem is about the area that was once called Tsenacommacah, the Powhatan people, and the horrors of the centuries that followed 1607.

Ode To A Carolina Cotton Mill, Joshua S. Lanier

Persimmon Creek

Ode to a Carolina Cotton Mill is a poem about the lives of generations of textile workers who left the farm in search of a better life for their families. THe poem is somewhat autobiographical, as my family had worked in the cotton mill for many generations.