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The (Im)Possibility Of Separating Rabbinic Texts Into Literary Genres: Form Analysis And Text Linguisticslysis And Text Linguistics, Rivka Ulmer

Faculty Journal Articles

This paper analyzes rabbinic homiletic texts from the perspective of form analysis in combination with text-linguistic theories. My study indicates that, from the perspective of functional considerations, it is not meaningful to lift small literary forms from a coherent text that depends on a co-text to create meaning. Additionally, the concepts of genre and parable need to be abandoned and replaced by text-type and mashal. The form-analytical description of rabbinic homilies is based on research performed at the Institute of Judaic Studies in Frankfurt am Main. The text-linguistic concepts are based on strict formalizations that demonstrate textual relations.These theories were …

Responding To A Non-Responsive Response, Brant A. Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

James Lucas had the opportunity to respond to the review of the book that he and Jonathan Neville wrote, By Means of the Urim & Thummim. He elected not to really respond to the issues I brought up but rather summarized his essential points. That doesn’t leave much to respond to. However, there is a continuing misunderstanding of how historians work that I feel must be underscored.

"Queens Of Ghost-Land" 134 Years Later: Un-Masking An Appalachian Witchcraft Accuser, Aíne Norris

English Faculty Publications

In 1891, newspapers across America printed a story about witches in the Appalachian Mountains and the alleged powers they possessed to control their small farming community. The article was scathing in accusation and ultimately contributed to continued othering of the women profiled, increasing their visible vulnerabilities of class, gender, and societal status. Despite an implied familiarity with the region, the article was published with initials for its byline, an act that simultaneously identified the author to locals as historian Eva Grant while offering her anonymized national protection as a subject expert. For over five years the accusations were re-printed in …

Engagement Of Young Dara’Ang In Cultural Identity Reconstruction, Nor Lae Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Pamira Rakorasilp

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

Dara’ang ethnic attire remains a significant aspect of the intangible cultural heritage of the Dara’ang people residing in Nor Lae Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand. This study employs the concepts of youth agency, intangible cultural heritage, and cultural identity to explore the perspectives of young Dara’ang regarding the intangible significances of their ethnic attire as youth are actively embracing it. Youth’s abilities in safeguarding the attire and reconstructing their cultural identity when interacting with other community members and Thai society are also examined. Drawing data from an arts-based engagement ethnography approach, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and participant observation, this study reveals that …

The Role Of English In An Indonesian-Filipino Multilingual And Mixed Marriage Family Language Policy : An Exploratory Qualitative Case Study, Atina Firdausa Qisthi

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This study investigates the role of languages, specifically English, in an Indonesian-Filipino multilingual and mixed-marriage family and the impacts on language practices. The data was collected through interviews, recordings, and observations. The Family Language Policy (flp) serves as a conceptual framework for understanding the presence of language ideologies and practices inside a family. The findings indicate that Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese are primary languages, while Tagalog occupies a minority position due to limited usage in Indonesia. English is deemed to play a key role in communication and work purposes. Parents’ attitudes regarding the importance of English are reflected in their …

Sustaining A Local Museum By Creating Value Through A Museum Teamwork Network : A Case Study Of Si Sutthawat Temple Museum, Thailand, Watcharaphong Chumduang, Punjaphut Thirathamrongwee

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This article investigates how local museum development can create value for sustainable self-operation, utilizing the Si Sutthawat Temple Museum in Wiang Pa Pao District, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, as a case study. The study delves into the value creation process within the museum’s operations, specifically focusing on the contributions of local personnel. Employing semi-structured interviews and direct observations, the researcher closely studied the individuals playing pivotal roles in the museum’s operations, actively participating in the operator group’s activities. The findings underscore the crucial role of museums in bridging ‘objects’ as the primary drivers of value creation and ‘community kinships’ as …

Memory And Posthuman Subjectivity In Kazuo Ishiguro’S Never Let Me Go, Natawan Wongchalard

Manusya, Journal of Humanities

This article explores the significance of posthuman subjectivity and memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). The narrative details the life of clones bred for medical donation, who are facing premature demise. Kathy H., the protagonist and narrator, has been criticized for her seeming passivity and submission to oppression. However, this inquiry contends that her narrative – propelled by her act of remembrance – is a mechanism formulated to reclaim the agency of the non-human other or posthuman subject. The study employs Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of ‘desire’ and ‘becoming’ to examine the clones’ desires, which are constrained …

Habsburg Encounters With Native America: Familiar Strangers, J. Singerton, M. Křížová, Michael Burri

German Studies Faculty Works

The central European lands of the Habsburg monarchy have long shared an intertwined past with the Indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. This volume focuses on the process of encountering these peoples as a continual action across several centuries that has produced numerous and varied instances of cultural dialogues, perspectives, and understandings. Moreover, this central European element is something that has not been considered in its own right before now and has been overshadowed by the focus on a wider Germanic fascination for Indigenous cultures. Breaking away from this wider narrative allows us not only to recover a more distinct historical …

Mortal Rivers: A Case Study Analysis Of Indigenous Water Sovereignty Within The Penobscot And Lakota Nations, 19th Century To Present, Moya S. Stringer

Honors Theses

Indigenous water sovereignty has long been a contested problem within the continent of Turtle Island. In 2016, the Lakota Nation globalized the message Water is Life through their movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil infrastructure that would put one of the continent’s largest watersheds at risk. The revolutionary fervor of the Water is Life movement travelled all the way to the Penobscot Nation in the Dawnland, a place we now call Maine. In an adjacent vein to the Lakota, the Penobscot people have spent the 21st century addressing damming projects and rampant pollution from the 1900s in a …

Asian American Navigation In Higher Education: Do We Belong At Colby College?, Amanda Rose Alpert

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how Asian American students navigate their belonging at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), specifically a case study at the higher educational institution Colby College. In understanding how Asian American students navigate the spaces around them, this thesis dives into the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the Asian American politicized label, and the different diasporas and cultural nuances Asian Americans experience that make up the complicated, diverse, and misunderstood label. Through exploring global racializations of Asian bodies and legacies of Western imperialism and colonialism, this gives a basis of how Asian Americans understand themselves as persons living …

A Long Way Home: Postcolonial Migration Between Cameroon And France, Elizabeth Greenberg

Honors Theses

This project grew from an observation that despite exhibiting strong national pride, most young Cameroonians express a fervent desire to emigrate. Through a combination of interviews and a review of past literature, I discovered a unique narrative among upper middle class Cameroonian migrants whose stories are generally underrepresented in migration literature. This study investigates how history and sociocultural dynamics help explain the Cameroonian decision to choose France (specifically the Île de France region) as a migration destination. France is particularly relevant because it previously held control of many parts of Cameroon and is one of the most popular migration destinations …

The Information Practices Of Undergraduates Encountering Material Objects As Information Resources In Classroom Learning Tasks, Christopher A. Miller

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Undergraduate students sometimes encounter material objects as information resources in small-group classroom learning activities. Examples include art, artifacts, specimens, and anatomical models. This dissertation sought to identify common features of the students’ information practices in such situations, regardless of the activity’s discipline or content, and to explore how making material information central shapes students’ information practices. The conceptual framework combined theorizations of materiality and information practices. Methods involved video recording students doing a variety of simulated classroom activities with objects, video elicitation, qualitative content analysis, and praxiographic interpretation. The praxiographic interpretive descriptions illustrated how all aspects of the site–material, bodily, …

Identifying Intangible And Biocultural Heritage Elements Toward Environmental Understanding: Engaging Stakeholders Through Art, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Grounded in a case study in Barbuda in the Caribbean, this research examines sustainability from the perspective of what arts and heritage can contribute to community engagement and local and broader understandings about the environment. This article documents a growing body of literature recognizing the role of arts and culture, including local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), in climate change endeavors. Art and TEK present expansive world views. Contextual information situates research done on the island of Barbuda pre- and post-Hurricane Irma. Visual arts workshops engaged community members in mixed methods research. Results documented cultural elements, particularly intangible and …

Book Review: Feminist Afterlives Of The Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism, Subhasis Pal

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Gendered Violence In Public Spaces: Women’S Narratives Of Travel In Neoliberal India, Barnana Baidya, Partha Bhattacharjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Playing Through Music History: The Contextualizing Function Of Western Historical Music In Fantasy Role-Playing Video Games, Laney Abigail Sheehan

Wayne State University Theses

This thesis focuses on the presence of Western historical music in contemporary video games. Through a combination of music-theoretical analysis, iconography, and Peircean semiotics, the author demonstrates that the nondiegetic soundtracks of fantasy role-playing video games utilize elements of major style periods in music history—including the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras—to enhance existing representations of time and place in their visual environments. This phenomenon is particularly apparent in three games, which serve as case studies: Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), and Elden Ring (2022). Ultimately, the project contributes research to …

Fat Feminists, Ami Trowell, Ami C. Trowell

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

This thesis presents the original play "Fat Feminists" alongside a critical reflection exploring the intersection between feminist theory and lived experience. The play depicts two friends confronting their 50th birthdays in a society that has historically valued them primarily for youth and beauty. Through their journey, the work examines how women navigate the terrain of aging in a culture that continues to prioritize female appearance despite decades of feminist progress.

The accompanying critical paper interrogates the disconnection between feminist theoretical ideals and everyday reality, drawing particularly on bell hooks' "Feminism is for Everybody" to frame the discussion. The paper traces …

Pwatem: An Anthology Of Literature And Art (2025)

Pwatem (Poictesme), 2006-

Pwatem is an anthology of literature and art from undergraduate students at Virginia Commonwealth University. Pwatem publishes poetry, prose and art of all kinds from talented undergraduate students of all majors.

“From Craft To Collection: A Conservation Case Study On A Prisoner Of War Napoleonic Bone Model Guillotine”, Anna Shobe

Scripps Senior Theses

For my thesis, I have the ambition of creating a sort of guide on the treatment and analysis of this model guillotine, first by filling in some historical background about the object, informed by prisoner accounts and scholarship around similar Napoleonic bone models. As well as the materiality of the object, which will be discovered through instrumental analysis using a Microfadeometer to test for light sensitivity of the bone itself and the colored pigments present and a Scanning Electron Microscope/Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy to attempt to test for the classification of said pigments. These methods will not only inform the …

Disorienting "Western" Viewers With Nacer Khemir's Desert Trilogy, Kristian Peterson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this essay, I explore tensions that arise when creating alternative cinematic visions of Muslim life, specifically frictions emerging from the goal of shifting public perception of the community and patterns of self-orientalization. Here, I complicate assumptions about the representation of Islam by looking at a self-articulated presentation of Muslims through the narrative feature series the Desert Trilogy, by Tunisian director Nacer Khemir (born 1948). I argue that Khemir is ensnared by ahistorical Islamic nostalgia and largely reinforces romantic orientalist aesthetics in his films. While his portrait of Muslims is much more “positive” than those in the broader archive, it …

Cuny ’69 – Students In Social Movements. A Global Perspective, Despina Lalaki

Open Educational Resources

This teaching material was developed as a result of the CUNY 1969 Teach-in that took place in Summer 2025. Prof. Lalaki has developed a course that situates CUNY ’69 within a broader historical and global framework of student movements, and invites students to engage with sociological theory, protest texts, oral histories, news coverage, activist media, archival materials, and film.

Book Review Essay: Reading The Witch Otherwise: Decolonial Reckonings And Epistemic Disobedience In The Witch Studies Reader, Moussa Pourya Asl

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Tawny, Tyrannous Dr. Francia And Carlyle’S Confused South America, Marisa Palacios Knox

Literatures and Cultural Studies Faculty Publications

Scholars have highlighted Thomas Carlyle’s “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question” (1849) as a point of no return for Carlyle’s descent into a full-throated advocacy of racism, imperialism, and proto-fascism. His 1843 article “Dr. Francia” on the late Paraguayan dictator has garnered much less critical attention than the provocative “Occasional Discourse,” but it simultaneously anticipates the latter essay and offers an alternative representation of Carlyle’s ideas—and Victorian ideas more generally— about shifting categories of race and imperialism before they congealed. Instead of positioning himself as the authoritative interpreter of Francia, Carlyle highlights his own uncertainty, taking as a central premise …

Echoes Before Language: A Written Thesis On Movement, Origin, And Becoming, Shadidja Parker

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis presents a body-based, lineage-informed approach to movement development into dance, honoring both scientific and spiritual knowledge systems. It engages in a blend of qualitative, embodied, and autoethnographic methods—including dance studies, developmental science, phenomenology, and cultural analysis—to examine how movement emerges, evolves, and carries meaning. Grounded in my lived experience as a dancer, mother, and Black woman, this research frames the body as both a site and source of knowledge. I use my own body as an instrument of movement, memory, and identity, positioning my embodiment as a form of inquiry. The thesis is organized in two parts: a …

Editor-In-Chief's Note, Surekha Rao

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

The Roots Of Womanism As Identity, Empowerment, And Liberation For Black American Women: Raciolinguistic Genealogical Exploration, Shante Noel Millercent Morgan

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Black American women intellectuals, activists, and scholars have grappled with womanism in relation to Black women’s presence in the world, particularly in the context of feminist and Black liberation movements. Since womanism was introduced more than four decades ago, both movements claimed Black women were a priority in theory and rhetoric but often excluded them in practice. For this reason, this dissertation examines womanist thought as a source of identity, empowerment, and liberation for Black American women. I employed two methods to investigate womanist thought that align with a qualitative inquiry: genealogy focus and raciolinguistic genealogy analysis. I conducted a …

Domains Of Use And Self-Reported Proficiency: A Comparative Study Of Heritage Spanish Speakers Across Two University Campuses, Sara Castro Cantú, Salvatore Callesano

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This study takes a sociolinguistic approach to exploring self-rated proficiency of Latinx, heritage Spanish speakers in Illinois. Recent studies show how dominant discourses around Spanish-English bilingualism and the educational environment in higher education institutions shape Latinx speakers’ self-perceptions of proficiency. We specifically investigate and compare two groups of college students from Chicago: students who attend a large public Predominantly-white institution in central Illinois, and students who attend a large public Hispanic-Serving institution in the heart of Chicago. Students completed an online survey about their language histories and linguistic profiles. Descriptive correlation analyses are presented that examine the relationships between self-reported …

Revising The Nation: Tribal Sovereignty And The American History Textbook, 1929-2002, Grace R. Ellis

Library Map Prize

This thesis examines Indigenous representation in twentieth-century American history textbooks. Chapter One contends that the most popular U.S. history textbook of the late twentieth century, The American Pageant, erased tribal nations from its narrative and its maps. Across twelve editions (1956-2002), The Pageant taught generations of students that “Indians” served only as barriers to building the modern American nation-state. While Indigenous erasure can be traced back to specific passages in The Pageant, erasure can better be understood as an iterative process, both textual and cartographic in nature. Beginning in 1983, The Pageant added new maps that depicted tribes …

Rompiendo La Cultura Del Machismo A Través De La Música: Bad Bunny Y La Nueva Era Del Reggaetón, Bianca Rodriguez

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how Benito “Bad Bunny” Antonio Martnez Ocasio, a groundbreaking artist in the reggaetón and Latin music industry, uses his music to challenge machismo norms in Latinx culture. Historically, reggaeton has perpetuated hypermasculine ideals, emphasizing dominance, aggression, and rigid gender roles. In contrast, Bad Bunny disrupts these conventional stereotypes of machismo behavior by embracing vulnerability, advocating for gender equality, and rejecting toxic masculinity. Through his lyrics in “La Canción” y “Haciendo que me amas”, Bad Bunny normalizes emotional expression and critiques societal expectations of men. Additionally, in tracks such as “Yo Perreo Sola” …

Engines Of Division: The Trabant, Economic Lag, And Cultural Fragmentation In A Unified Germany, Maria Carolina Auerbach

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the Trabant, East Germany’s iconic yet inefficient automobile, as a critical lens through which to explore the enduring socio-economic and cultural disparities between East and West Germany in the aftermath of reunification. By tracing the Trabant’s trajectory from its inception within the GDR’s command economy to its rapid obsolescence in the face of Western market forces, this study reveals how the vehicle served as both a product and a symbol of East Germany’s industrial ethos, resilience, and identity. The Trabant, once a ubiquitous artifact of socialist life, embodied the constraints of a resource-scarce economy but also cultivated …