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Book Review: Kings, Conquerors, Psychopaths: From Alexander To Hitler To The Corporation, Tim Bakken

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The book Kings, Conquerors, Psychopaths is a survey of a vast amount of human wrongdoing. It lays bare the motivations of aggressors who wish to subjugate nations or groups of people and corporate executives and government bureaucrats who make discretionary decisions that harm people. Along with cataloging mass killings by despots and soldiers, the book includes stories about Ponzi-schemers and the deaths of automobile drivers and passengers who were killed by vehicle defects known to the manufacturer. The book posits that “[p]owerful, elite forces are trying to force us backward toward a non-democratic state, one where power, wealth, and prerogative …

Reading Rent: Interracial Relationships And Racial Hierarchies, Susanna A. Perez-Field

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In examining the musical Rent by Jonathan Larson (1995) and its film adaptation by Chris Columbus (2005), most scholarly work and analyses have focused on the work’s identity as a queer text. I assert that elements of this musical have been overlooked for its depth of racial and class hierarchies. Utilizing sociological theory and interracial relationships, I will examine characters and musical numbers to explore diversity and class positioning.

I will explore Rent for themes of racial, gender, and sexual identities and how they are presented through the friendships and romantic relationships of the eight principal characters (alphabetically): Angel, Benny, …

“We Need To Figure Out Who We Are”: Reframing Manhood In An Online Discussion Forum, Tomas Sanjuan Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I explore the potential of online communities in negotiating alternative forms of “doing” masculinity. I focus on the /r/bropill which is hosted on Reddit – home to thousands of active discussion forums called subreddits. I argue that the members of /r/bropill subreddit are attempting to redefine what it means to live your life not only as a man but as a “good man.” Using a purposive sample, I analyzed 24 discussions which totaled 1325 posts (n = 1325). I conducted a qualitative textual analysis of the original posts and comments inspired by grounded theory. My findings reveal …

Online News Portrayal During The Covid-19 Health Crisis And Journalism's Role In Misinformation In The U.S., Michou Ducilon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a wealth of new information regarding the virus's origin and treatment. Regrettably, the vast amount of online information has resulted in the proliferation of misinformation, as the World Health Organization reported. To investigate whether journalists may have contributed to this problem, a qualitative analysis was conducted on 15 news articles from top-tier media outlets. Using NVivo software, the articles were analyzed to identify linguistic words and visuals that fell into coding categories based on Behrendt's (2008) contextual analysis for evaluating text. Each article was then coded again to identify common themes. During this process, new …

Foodways Of The Florida Frontier: Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Gamble Plantation Historic State Park (8ma100), Mary S. Maisel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Gamble Plantation sits on the banks of the Manatee River in Ellenton Florida and has been home to many different occupants since its construction in 1844. Archaeological research at the site has recovered material culture spanning the entire occupation of the estate. One of the most universal aspects of life that these many residents shared is that they all prepared, consumed, and disposed of food and food waste in the same midden on the property. This thesis analyzes the faunal remains recovered from the 2017 and 2018 excavations of Gamble Plantation to identify remains down to a species level, …

Forum : Vol. 47, No. 3 (Fall : 2023), Florida Humanities.

FORUM : the Magazine of Florida Humanities

No abstract provided.

Host Communities: The Foundation Of Regenerative Tourism, Marie Haley

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

Tourism is a human structure and cannot be equated to natural systems such as farming. While regenerative farming focuses on the health of the natural system starting with the soil, tourism is a human system and must focus on regenerating the human system. This paper argues that the foundation of tourism is the host community. If the host community is vibrant and healthy, dynamic and resilient and has appropriate political systems to manage tourism, tourism will have the social licence and will thrive. Tourism can then have upwardly cascading feedback mechanisms where the host community can restore the natural environment, …

The Sounds Of Travel: Video Ethnography In Multisensory Tourism Research, Francesc Fusté-Forné

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

While the analysis of the tourist experience often relies on the visual representations, recent research also increasingly calls for a multisensory understanding of tourism research. Soundscapes are an emerging type of tourism attraction that contributes to the protection and promotion of the sense of place. Departing from the use of video in ethnographic practice, this research notes illustrates the features of soundscapes in nature-based tourism research based on video auto-ethnography. Results show that the sounds of water, animals and gastronomy are evocative of people, places and practices in nature-based tourism experiences.

Climate Change Commitments And Challenges To Achieve Regenerative Tourism: A Case Of Aotearoa New Zealand, Asif Hussain

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

New Zealand heavily relies on nature-based tourism for its popular "100% pure New Zealand" brand. However, the country faces challenges in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to the significant contribution of long-haul destination. Despite various environmentally friendly initiatives, the primary obstacle to achieving low-carbon and regenerative tourism lies in the fact that tourists must fly to reach New Zealand. In terms of per-capita aviation emissions, New Zealand ranks sixth for international and fourth for domestic aviation emissions among other countries. The tourism sector in New Zealand is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, with a 54% increase in vulnerability. This …

The Impact Of Globalization On Domestic Growth In Africa, Thomas L. Ainscough, Todd M. Shank

Journal of Global Business Insights

Research into the impacts of globalization on domestic growth in Africa has been scarce and the results of the research that does exist have been mixed. This research addresses this gap in the literature by using the newly revised KOF Globalization Index to determine the impact of social, political, and financial globalization on African economies. The KOF Index was revised substantially in 2019. Our full data set includes 40 years of data, from 1980-2019. Findings indicate that the relationship between globalization and GDP is best represented by a non-linear cubic model. With that model, social globalization has become Africa’s most …

Selective Framing And Narrative As Anthropocentric Agents In Yellowstone: America’S Eden, Breanna Lee Hansen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Yellowstone: America’s Eden is but one example of nature documentaries tackling the complexities of nature-culture relationships during the age of the Anthropocene. Yellowstone National Park, the first to be named, is a primary example of how our relationship to the natural world developed through conservation and commodification. Yellowstone: America’s Eden demonstrates how film techniques conceal nature as a human construct through selective framing and narrative. By analyzing editing techniques made in the representation of Yellowstone National Park, this thesis bridges anthropocentrism to nature documentaries. Drawing on interdisciplinary research from media studies, environmental humanities, and anthropology, this thesis analyzes the ways …

From Counter-Strike To Counterterrorism: How The Cheater Reconfigures Our Understanding Of Asymmetric Warfare, Enya C. Silva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Around the turn of the century, as the United States increased its military presence in the Middle East in what was widely known as the War on Terror, computer games were also rising in popularity. Military inspired narratives and settings are very common in video games, especially in the genre known as the first person shooter – characterized by a single player, first person point of view. Alexander Galloway provides a vocabulary for understanding the video game, and the first person shooter in particular, derived from the framework of game studies. Scholarship around video games usually either seeks to affirm …

Aotearoa New Zealand, The Forcible Transfer Of Tamariki And Rangatahi Māori, And The Royal Commission On Abuse In Care, David B. Macdonald

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article investigates to what extent the forcible transfer of tamariki and rangatahi Māori (Indigenous children and youth) in Aotearoa New Zealand can be considered genocide. First, I begin by exploring contemporary genocide theory as it relates to dolus eventualis in settler colonial contexts, before engaging with precedents for recognizing Indigenous genocides established by truth commissions in Canada (2015; 2019) and Australia (1997). I then explore the history around Indigenous child removal in Aotearoa from the onset of colonization to the present day, attentive to ways in which the UN Convention can apply to the forced removal of Māori children. …

Why China Cares About Canada’S Indigenous Residential Schools: From Whataboutism To Internal Denial, Xiyuan (Marvin) Xia

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article examines how the Chinese government and its propaganda departments use genocide-related discourses to fulfil different political purposes at home and abroad. By criticizing Western colonialist regimes’ assimilation policies, especially Canada’s Indigenous residential schools, the Chinese diplomats apply the rhetoric of whataboutism to dodge the international community’s questions about China’s systematic persecution of Uyghur Muslims. Domestically, China’s state media intensively cover Canada’s residential school system and the colonial genocide against Indigenous people, trying to distract the audience from the state atrocities in Xinjiang and mislead the public to distrust Canada and other countries’ motives for accusing China of committing …

Forum : Vol. 47, No. 2 (Summer : 2023), Florida Humanities.

FORUM : the Magazine of Florida Humanities

No abstract provided.

A Novel Jazz Music Curriculum For Young Children: Results Of A Pilot Study, Jazmin D. Ghent

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Jazz improvisation is known as the highest-known art form concerning improvisation due to its frequency and development of creative ideas (Feldman 1964). Research shows that the art of spontaneous creation can contribute to children’s ability to problem-solve, social and emotional well-being, and academic success into adulthood (Biasutti, 2017; Heble & Laver, 2016; Kiehn, 2003; Kuzmich, 1980; Solis, 2009). Improvisation is crucial for developmentally comprehensive music programs; however, improvisation is scarce in elementary music classrooms and curricula. For this pilot study, a group of 31 children aged 5-8 and considered at-risk participated in a study where they were randomly assigned to …

From Other And From World: Expanding The Current Model Of Existential Isolation, Roger Young Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extant research investigating the nature of existential isolation (EI) has focused primarily on the experience of the gap between one’s mind and the minds of others (self-other EI). The general purpose of the current research was to begin exploring the experience of the gap between one’s mind and the world (self-world EI). This purpose was carried out across three studies. A pilot study confirms that self-world EI is a relatively common experience that usually involves meaning violation or dissociation, and results in psychological discomfort and self-doubt. Study 1 found that self-world existential isolation produces more “EI affect” (e.g., nervous, afraid, …

Identity Boundaries Construction And Its Effects On Vulnerability In The Case Of A Historically Marginalized People (Hmp) In Rwanda: An Examination Of Their Access To Human Rights., Jean Baptiste Ndikubwimana, Kathleen A. Anangwe, Oriare Oriare Nyarwath, Mwimali Jack, Charles Mulinda Kabwete

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

This paper contextualises the vulnerability of a Historically Marginalized people (HMP) referred to as the Batwa to explain how their moral inferiority resulting from the constructed microaggressions and attitudinal prejudices, jeopardize their full enjoyment and appreciation of human rights. The dilemmas experienced by the Batwa in Rwanda have until recently received little theoretical and empirical attention thereby disregarding ontological and epistemological distinction. This paper contributes to this lacuna by reviewing colonial discourse of histories and hegemonies and investigating ethnic socio-cultural practices and other mythical tales. The foregoing indicates a genuine need for the application of human rights approach to recognize …

Review Of Figurations Of The Feminine, By Siobhán Mcilvanney, Tonya J. Moutray

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

A review of Siobhán McIlvanney's Figurations of the Feminine, by Tonya J. Moutray

Plotting The Plantationocene With The History Of Mary Prince, Shelby Johnson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

In this essay, I consider how The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) extends vital affordances for assembling a literary history of ecological rupture, settler colonialism, and transatlantic slavery. These insights arise from my experiences teaching Prince in “Plotting the Plantationocene in Early Atlantic Literature” (Fall 2021), a course which took up what it means to orient to historical formations of climate change as co-emergent with plantation systems. I argue that my students explored how figures like Prince open politically vibrant pathways for being in the world otherwise to plantation modernity.

Subversive Cartography: Teaching Mary Prince And Saidiya Hartman, Carolina Hinojosa

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This chapter utilizes Hartman’s methodology of retrieval to create a map1 in StoryMap JS2 (“the map” or “this map”) that analyzes multiple geographic spaces in The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Narrative and Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. The map is an archive or a witness to some of the geographical spaces Mary Prince lived (and was sold) as an enslaved woman seeking freedom and the places in which Saidiya Hartman has conducted research or visited in Ghana as a “free” woman. Layering the past over present creates a …

Black Lives, White Witnesses: An Argument For A Presentist Approach To Teaching Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, Sharon Smith

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This essay outlines a presentist approach to teaching Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (1688), in which a white woman witnesses a Black man’s brutal execution at the hands of enslavers. This approach explores the capacity of Behn’s novel—a colonialist narrative scholars frequently identify as troubling or frustrating—to generate discussions about “white witnessing,” particularly white people’s consumption of images of Black people in peril. This includes recent videos of Black people killed by police or white citizen vigilantes. Many Black individuals identify these videos as traumatizing, frequently noting how they have failed to spur structural reform. Of central concern in the classroom discussion …

Chawton House And Its Library: Legacies And Futures, Kim Simpson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

In a review of Women’s Writing, 1660-1830: Feminisms and Futures, Paula Backscheider draws attention to “the miracle that is Chawton House, whose conferences nurtured these essays” in the collection. This essay will examine the legacy of this unique institution and explore the futures for the organization both as heritage site and as home to a substantial collection of women’s writing of the long eighteenth century. The community encouraged and nurtured by Chawton House since it opened to the public in 2003, as is so often the case with all things related to Jane Austen, complicates divisions between the academic …

Women, Slavery, And The Archive: Innovations In Slavery Studies And Contemporary Connections, Srividhya Swaminathan

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

“Women, Slavery, and the Archive: Innovations in Slavery Studies and Contemporary Connections”

Early scholarship on slavery, abolition, and the British empire largely ignored the contribution of women of any race to the African Institution. British women who participated in boycotts, produced literary texts against African enslavement, and did the legwork of circulating petitions were relegated to footnotes until well into the twentieth century when women scholars began to create space in the canon for the unrecognized or under-recognized women writers. These new avenues of research evolved through decades to become more inclusive, more critical, and more ground-breaking in bringing the …

Elizabeth Boyd's Disappearing Act: Performing Literary Legacy On The Georgian Stage, Kristina Straub

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

How do we trace the historical processes that grant some writers visibility and, hence, legacy, while shoving others into the historical closet? This essay offers the case study of Elizabeth Boyd (1727-1745), a novelist, poet, and playwright who has received some attention from scholars interested in women’s contributions to the legacy of William Shakespeare in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. In particular, her unperformed play, Don Sancho: Or, the Students Whim, a Ballad Opera of Two Acts, with Minerva’s Triumph, a Masque (1739) dramatizes a woman writer’s reflections on the politics of legacy at this formative moment in …

Institutional Legacies And The Decision To Commit Genocide, Stacey M. Mitchell

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Despite their striking similarities, which include population demographics, size, and a legacy of inter-group conflict, the collapse of democratization in Rwanda and Burundi in the early 1990s led to genocide in Rwanda and a different type of violence in Burundi. This study suggests that to better comprehend why risk factors lead to genocide in some cases and not others, focus must be placed on how these factors are perceived by those in power of the state experiencing them. This study introduces a model that uses Comparative Historical Analysis (CHA), process tracing, and the inclusion of a decision model built on …

A Church Of The People: Coptic Church Building And Direction In Central New Jersey, Bishoy Garis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building off Michael Akladios’ work on early Coptic migration and the ad hoc institutionalization of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America, this dissertation proposes that the construction and direction of Coptic churches in Middlesex County, New Jersey was laity driven, ad hoc, reactive, and dependent on local variables. Additionally, it reveals that the creation of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey spurred migration to the Middlesex County area and transformed their small community into a domestic and international Coptic migration center. Unlike previous scholarship that places greater attention on urban Coptic communities and transnational networks, …

“We Need To Have A Place To Vent And Get Our Frustrations Out”: Addressing The Needs Of Mothering Students In Higher Education Using A Positive Deviance Framework, Melissa León

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the experiences of mothering students at four different colleges using a positive deviance (PD) framework. PD is an approach that seeks to identify positive behavioral patterns that help members of a community overcome structural barriers (Gross, et al. 2017). The Positive Deviance Framework was applied to investigate how some mothering students are successful in college and how their experiences could potentially help new or struggling mothering students. Eleven mothering students were interviewed to determine what interventions could assist mothering students who lack representation in the traditional college environment, a situation that often leads to feelings of isolation. …

Archaeogaming And The Re-Use Of Digital Archaeological Materials: Generating Serious Games For The Villas Of Roman Sicily, Kaitlyn Kingsland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With 10 million copies sold and 500 million dollars of revenue, the 11th installment of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018), showed how a videogame based on ancient Greek history and archaeology can make a splash in popular culture and that the distant past can become an extinguishable source of infinite engaging gaming narratives. As pedagogic and research counterparts to videogames of this kind, serious games and archaeogames focusing on Greek and Roman civilizations move from different premises, though aspiring to the same level of success. Serious games, created for a primary purpose other than sole entertainment, have …

Negationist Denialism In The "Comfort Women" Issue In Japan, Tetsushi Ogata

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article deals with the pervasive and entrenched nature of Japanese denialism on wartime memories, mainly focusing on the “comfort women” issue. It argues that a lens of “negationism” is more beneficial to address entrenched denialism. The net effect of denialism has been to perpetuate binary identity constructs, the deniers and the denied, one side re-engineering social relations to dominate and continue dominating the other. Conventional approaches to counter such denialism have relied heavily on truth-seeking and justice-dispensing mechanisms, but they are inept at addressing negationist denialism. The article explores a post-atrocity model of narrative and identity to go beyond …