Digital Commons Network^™

Go Cry About It!, Grace C. Ryder

MFA in Visual Art

I have always been a crier. I have always felt deeply and intensely. Goodbyes, heartbreak, joy, and empathy—I’m grateful to feel it all, even when it hurts. My artwork often investigates vulnerable topics through making the personal public using self archival and diaristic elements. Inspired by my familial and romantic relationships, I explore my connections to other people and how I memorialize and honor them. My painted works often depict ephemeral objects, establishing their value through the use of oil paints while my sculptures are often exaggerated, oversize forms, emphasizing the passage of time.

From January 1st to December 31st …

Unmeasured, Detached, And Isolated: The Legitimation Of A Domesticated Identity, Eva M. Agüero

MFA in Visual Art

Unmeasured, detached and isolated explores the lingering effects of colonialism on identity, behavior, and cultural perception through the lens of my personal experience as a Venezuelan immigrant in the United States. I investigate how colonial legacies—especially those codified through manuals of etiquette like Manuel Antonio Carreño’s Manual de Urbanidad y Buenas Maneras—continue to shape self-perception and societal expectations. Through video, sculpture, miniatures, and installation, I reconstruct a visual language that resists simplification and reclaims complexity. Engaging with the symbolic weight of tropical imagery, domestic spaces, and hybrid aesthetics, my work challenges Eurocentric frameworks and examines the figure of the migrant …

The Intersection Of Spirituality, Commerce, And Art In The Work Of William Keith, Joan Gallagher

Theses

This thesis examines the nineteenth-century Tonalist artist William Keith, focusing on how he successfully integrated commerce, art, and spirituality to achieve financial success, artistic innovation, and spiritual depth. While scholars often emphasize the symbolism and religiosity in his work, they tend to overlook his financial accomplishments. This study explores Keith's background, religious influences, and artistic development within the cultural, economic, and social context of nineteenth-century America. As a Tonalist, Keith produced popular works for the art market; as a Swedenborgian, his art reflected the spiritual principles of that faith. Unlike his East Coast counterparts, Keith’s California-based landscapes captured the dramatic …

C. S. Lewis And The Process Of Sanctification: A Literary Analysis Of Till We Have Faces, Samantha Fullmer

Student Research

This article analyzes C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces as a mythical representation of the Christian process of sanctification. Through the main character, Orual, and her transformation, Lewis portrays the Christian journey from pride to love through submission to divine intervention. This tale reveals how pride and self-deception can prevent humanity from recognizing the truth of the Divine. Orual’s story illustrates that the barriers between humanity and the Divine often come placed there by humanity themselves. By examining the process of transforming from hubris to love through sanctification, and by comparing this narrative to other works by Lewis, such …

Froggy People: Anthropomorphism And Slice-Of-Life In Autobiographical Comics, Maddie Baker

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores how the following three comics categories overlap and interact with one another: slice-of-life, anthropomorphic, and autobiographical. I search for reasons why comic makers would choose to tell their own daily life stories using animal avatars rather than their own faces. While each of these three categories has been studied extensively individually, I hope to find additional insights by observing how comic makers employ the genres together as storytelling devices. Each category has unique narratological power which impacts the reader’s experience. For example, anthropomorphism affects how the author and reader internalize and relate to characters. Slice-of-life comics are …

Lines Of Thought: The Cartoon As A Phenomenological Object And A Philosophical Tool, Thomas Attwood

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

Cartooning’s greatest strength is its simplicity. This essay argues that the cartoon’s inherent modesty and accessibility are central to its philosophical utility, and that its spare visual language conveys more than meets the eye. Drawing on phenomenology, it considers cartooning as a process grounded in the body, and it investigates the bodily encounter between the viewer and the cartoon. Through an analysis of cartooning work by Saul Steinberg, R.O. Blechman, and Liana Finck - a “family of cartoonists” - it demonstrates how a line-drawn, representational cartooning language can transform the act of looking into a participatory experience that interrogates issues …

Firing The Canon: Queer Representation In The Magical Girl Genre, Lena C. Humble

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This research delves into the impact queer representation in the shoujo (Japanese for young girl) genre has on audiences. More specifically, the “Magical Girl” (a subgenre of shoujo) genre’s main focus is about ordinary girls whose lives are drastically changed when they are given magical powers. One of the major plot points of magical girl media is how these girls find balance with their ordinary lives with their magical alter egos, and their attempts to keep these lives separate. Much of this media follows a small group of girls, who tend to build deeply emotionally intimate relationships as they share …

The Dragon's Eye: A Quest For Tabletop Role-Playing's Visual Culture, Benjamin Kent

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

The world of Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TRPGs) has always been defined and dominated by Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the game that pioneered the industry in the 1970’s. Meanwhile during this time, independent games have consistently innovated new ways of utilizing this highly creative field both in contrast and in concert with D&D’s growth. As a decade-long player and developing creator of these games, I hold a vested interest in furthering our understanding of them. The visual aspects of these products are well-documented and celebrated, but in this essay I attempt to define the overall landscape of TRPG visual culture …

Buffalo Bill And The Great Western Story, Sarah A. Hawkes

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

The author investigates how narratives are constructed through visual culture to better understand her own history. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show acts as a case study demonstrating how “history” is often a narrative established by those in power. These narratives often essentialize their subjects, leading to erasure and exclusion. Sitting Bull and Annie Oakley are used as examples of figures that have become caricatures in service to a greater narrative about the American West. This paper argues for the inefficacy of considering any one narrative as “history” instead recommending a close reading of many different narratives. Three different Western figures, …

The Liminal Space Of Dreams: Narration Of Dreams In Graphic Novel And Comics, Muyang Li

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores the dream as a narrative in graphic novels and comics, examining its character as a subconscious experience depicted by means of visual storytelling. Focusing on psychological, symbolic, and aesthetic functions of dream narrative, I demonstrate that dream narration offers an allegory by means of which both creator and reader can explore issues of identity, desire and trauma in an intimate and healing way. In analyzing these functions of dream narration, I draw upon ideas from theorists such as C.J Jung, Freud and other scholars who have engaged their work on the psychological perspective of the experience of …

Undefinitive, Lan Mu

MFA in Visual Art

My thesis project, Undefinitive, examines the cyclical process of destruction, transformation, and rebirth through installation, ceramics, and text. With a deep unease toward my own gendered body, I investigate how vulnerability, both physical and psychological, can become a site of resistance and empowerment. Drawing from feminist theory, Chinese mythology, and stream-of-consciousness narratives, my work explores the monstrous and the fragmented as inseparable states of one’s becoming. Through references to body art, speculative fiction, and queer theory, I reimagine femininity and queerness as forces capable of dismantaling societal structure and forging new modes of existence.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where …

Places, Please!, Catie Cook

MFA in Visual Art

Growing up in the American South as the daughter of a scenic designer, I frequently found myself on both the physical stage of the theatre and the metaphorical stage of gender performance. Through immersive oil paintings, I seek to visually represent where these two experiences merge, depicting imagery and characters from my childhood staged in theatrical and uncanny environments. In this thesis I explore the canine motif as my primary subject, positioning the Dalmatian as a self-insert and exploring the show dog as a foil to the Southern beauty. Building upon Judith Butlers theory of gender performance, and Laura Mulvey’s …

Design, Implementation, And Reflection From An Interdisciplinary Course In Museum Studies, Brenna L. Decker

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this introduction here.

In Spring of 2023, I developed a special topics course titled Collection Material Handling to introduce students to museum management using Utah State University collections on the Logan, UT campus. The cross-listed upper-level course brought 16 USU students together from two disciplines: anthropology and natural sciences. The publication details how I used various learning theories to guide the creation of course content and how I structured and implemented activities in the classroom and in the collections. Examples of worksheets, activities, student feedback, and recommended improvements to assignments are provided. I encourage …

The Global Economic And Financial Crisis: An Overview Of The Effects On African Countries, Oluwole Owoye

Journal of African Policy Studies

In the wake of the global economic and financial cnsts, experts and analysts agreed that the initial effects on African financial sectors would be minimal because of the limited exposure to the international financial markets. However, African countries are more integrated than before with the world economy through the following transmission channels: international trade, foreign direct and portfolio investments, foreign aid flows, private remittances, and tourism; and since they are predominantly primary commodity exporters, their economies was negatively affected by the recession in many developed countries due to the sharp decline in world demand for commodities and in their prices. …

Micro Finance In Eritrea: A Catalyst For Women Development, Ravinder Rena

Journal of African Policy Studies

The microfinance refers to small-scale financial services (primarily credit and savings) provided to people who engage in the farming, fishing and operate micro-enterprises to gain subsistence income from these activities and subsequently support the rural economy. Microfinance is a highly accepted and recognized development tool. It has been playing a vital role in many developing countries of the world. The women are considered to be a pillar of the society and economy. For example, 45 per cent of the measurable Gross Domestic Income comes from the work of women in the world's richest countries. Eritrea, a poor but young nation …

Fostering Constructive Public And Private Sector Linkages For Agricultural Research And Development In Sub Saharan Africa, Kefasi Nyikahadzoi, Adewale Adekunle

Journal of African Policy Studies

Investing in agricultural research and development is critical for improving livelihoods of the resource poor in Sub Saharan Africans and also for the conservation of natural resource. While on the global level, the contribution of public sector to agriculture research and development investment is declining; the private sector is coming in to fill the gap. In Sub Saharan Africa, private sector involvement in agriculture research and development is still very limited. This paper uses secondary data and information coming out of the Sub Saharan Africa Challenge Programme to discuss the constraints that inhibit private sector involvement in agriculture research and …

How Kirby’S Return To Dream Land Deluxe Subverts Narrative Expectations, Kelley I. Hale

Aurora

The Kirby series has been around for over 30 years, and very little has been done to research it. This is a shame, as I believed (and still do believe) the series has a lot to offer in terms of research. For this paper, I analyzed Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, a Switch remake of the Wii game Kirby's Return to Dream Land. I analyzed the cutscenes found within the game using fantasy theme criticism. I did this to explore how the game subverts narrative expectations, as well as show that Kirby games have value when it comes to …

Nexus Between Land Redistribution And Poverty Reduction: A Qualitative Overview Of The Fast Track Land Reform In Rural Zimbabwe 2000-2007, Percyslage Chigora, Edson Ziso, Niya Mtombeni

Journal of African Policy Studies

Imposition of colonial rule in Zimbabwe saw millions of hectares of productive land expropriated from the native inhabitants relegating them to perpetual poverty and deprivation. Out of this predicament, native Zimbabweans resorted to armed struggle to reclaim their land in two historical periods leading to independence in 1980. Consequently, land repossession was a primary grievance during the armed struggle and thus, land redistribution was high on the agenda at the attainment of independence but not much was done in the first two decades. In the first decade, obligatory clauses in the Lancaster House constitution effectively made popular land reform impossible. …

Cpa - New Sudan, Old Sudan Or Two Sudan? A Review Of The Implementation Of The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Johan Brosche

Journal of African Policy Studies

On 9 January 2005 the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Government of Sudan (GoS) signed a peace agreement called the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the conflict in southern Sudan that had been going on since 1983 and had resulted in at least 54 000 battle-related deaths. In total it is estimated that two million people have died during the war as a result of violence, famine and disease. The CPA was the final outcome of the so-called Machakos peace process which began in July 2002. Overall the implementation of this agreement is lacking in momentum. Some …

Population Increase, Environment, Food Access And Development In Africa: The Role Of The African Union, Amado J. Kaba

Journal of African Policy Studies

This paper examines the impact of the massive population increase in Africa in the post World War II era and the environmental challenges the continent confronts in trying to feed such a high number of people. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section examines the demographics of Africa, which show that the continent has increased its total population by 750 million people from 1950 to 2008. The second section of this paper then presents arguments by scholars pertaining to the environmental challenges, especially for agriculture, facing Africa as it finds ways to feed this massive number of …

Memory Wars: Korean Popular Culture And The Politics Of Historical Justice With Japan, Grace Lee

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal

No abstract provided.

Representation Of Blackness In Insecure By Issa Rae, Cameryn Polk

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal

No abstract provided.

Prologue Vol. 16

Prologue: A First-Year Writing Journal

No abstract provided.

Shakespeare’S Murderous World: Not A Doomed Reality, Afton Fay

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

The Small Worlds Of Childhood: Philosophy, Poetics, And The Queer Temporalities Of Early Life, Lauren Shizuko Stone

Gender & Sexuality

The Small Worlds of Childhood argues that prose representations of bourgeois childhood contain surprising opportunities to reflect on the temporality of experience. In their narratives of children at home in their everyday worlds, Adalbert Stifter, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Walter Benjamin are not only able to shed a unique light on key issues in the history of philosophy. They also offer a queer critique of the normative expectation that the literature of childhood is oriented toward the future.

Stone shows that when writers engage in philosophical storytelling, showing children tarrying in quotidian experience, they dislodge childhood from its nostalgic value …

From Farmers To Architects To Artists: Who Lived And Worked In The David Adler Estate, Libertyville, Illinois, 1864-2020, Rebecca D. Katz

Honors Capstones

The thesis of this paper investigates the transformation of the David Adler Estate from its creation in 1864 to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The way our communities’ function is based in local histories, yet many individuals fail to see the importance of it. Through research focused on census data, newspapers, and oral histories, a clear timeline was formed in how the David Adler Estate was utilized. By examining the estate’s progression through agricultural, architectural, and artistic phases, this paper shows how a single house can reflect the growth of a region. Grounded in the belief that local history holds …

Performative Biomechanics : Evolving Buildings Into Inhabitable Organisms, Josh Lopez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

There has always been a connection between biology and architecture. Michael Pawlyn, in Biomimicry in Architecture, coined “biomechanical designs” to describe structural techniques derived from creatures. This study investigates chitin-based creatures. Crustaceans, insects, and microscopic organisms all have exoskeletons in nature. With a focus on crabs, other crustaceans and bugs, this study examines and evaluates the formal characteristics of chitin-based organisms. The architectural creations of OXMAN, NOX, which was founded by Lars Spuybroek; and Lebbeus Woods are among those that are analyzed and studied due to their inspiration from living things. They follow functional effectiveness in nature, which is why …

On Appreciating Evidence, Auke Alesander Montesano Montessori

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The topic of this dissertation is the kind of understanding or grasping necessary for successfully using something as evidence. I call this kind of grasp “appreciation”. Take the case of a fossil. Intuitively, you can only successfully use a fossil as evidence for the existence of dinosaurs if you appreciate the epistemic link between the fossil and dinosaurs. If you fail to grasp the relevance of the fossil and you think it is just a rock with a funny pattern, you would not be justified to form the belief that dinosaurs once existed based on that fossil. However, what it …

From Object To Architect: How Molly Bloom Designs Her Own Gaze In Joyce’S Ulysses, Mackenzie Hughes

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

Challenges And Opportunities Of Agricultural Research In The Sudan, Allam Ahmed

Journal of African Policy Studies

National research institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are under increasing governmental pressure to make direct and visible contributions to national research and development strategies. Although Sudan is a predominately agricultural economy, crop productivity is extremely low and does not exceed thirty percent of the level attained in research farms. The aim of this paper is to develop a framework for analyzing problems and identifying opportunities to strengthen African research institutions' role in development-oriented research. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the implementation capacity constraints, which exist in formal agricultural research, and the impact this has on …