Digital Commons Network^™

Baby Fever, Meet Reality Check, Victoria R. Reginaldo

Undercurrents: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Composition

Victoria R. Reginaldo is a Biology major from Weymouth, MA; she was born in Brazil and speaks Portuguese. Victoria explains that this essay was meaningful to her because it allowed her to think about an idea she has carried with her since she was young, the desire to have children, and how that dream is shaped and complicated by the realities of today’s society. “As I get older and begin to realize that life isn’t so simple, it made me want to research and write about how society influences the decision to have children,” she shares. Victoria notes that this …

Interspecies: A Collaborative Curatorial Inquiry Into New Romanticism, Mariana Pestana, Katerina Inglezaki, Carlos Pastor, Mathilde Gouin, Bernardo Gaeiras, Fernanda Costa, Mariana Simões

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents a situated, plural, and horizontal curatorial methodology centered on questioning rather than providing solutions in response to posthuman thought and practice. It inquires whether we might be witnessing the emergence of a New Romanticism in contemporary design and architecture concerned with interspecies relations. This romantic turn arises by acknowledging subjectivity and imagination while engaging critically with the complexities of the climate crisis. To this end, this paper examines the making of an exhibition that assembled material evidence from science, art, technology, and design. The exhibition was developed through a three-step curatorial framework aligned with the decentering narratives …

Swosu Research And Scholarly Activity Fair 2026, Swosu Office Of Sponsored Programs

SWOSU Research and Scholarly Activity Fair Programs

On behalf of the University Research and Scholarly Activity Committee (URSAC) and the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, we are pleased to welcome you to the Thirty-Fourth SWOSU Research and Scholarly Activity Fair.

Modulation Of The Cgas-Sting Inflammation Pathway In Mouse Models Of Accelerated And Slowed Aging, Benjamin David Heckman

ETDs from 2020-2029

Chronic sterile inflammation (inflammaging) is a core pillar of aging, and the cGAS-STING innate immune pathway has emerged as a key driver of this process. However, how this pathway intersects with systemic endocrine signaling remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the intersection of endocrine signaling and cGAS-STING activation using two complementary mouse models with opposing lifespan phenotypes: a short-lived, liver-specific glucagon receptor knockout (LKO) mouse and a long-lived growth hormone-releasing hormone knockout (GHRH-KO) mouse. We demonstrate that despite presenting with a metabolically healthy phenotype, female LKO mice exhibited a significantly reduced lifespan. We link this premature mortality to a sex …

A Reflective Lab Journal For Biodesign: Navigating More-Than-Human Sensibilities And Disciplinary Tensions, Jiho Kim, Iohanna Nicenboim, Joana Martins, Elvin Karana

IASDR Conference Series

This paper introduces reflective journaling as a tool for advancing biodesign practices, merging documentation methods from biology and design while integrating more-than-human sensibilities into laboratory practices. It highlights the need for tools that can flexibly support record-keeping across biology and design, balancing precision and accountability with iteration, creativity, and collaboration. Furthermore, it critically addresses calls to support care ethics and nurturing multispecies interactions within biodesign. Through an explorative review of diverse documentation formats, including laboratory notebooks and annotated portfolios, and informed by our own biodesign experiences, we introduce the Reflective Biodesign Lab Journal as a potential approach to address these …

Embodied Encounters With Plankton: Ground Truth Methods As Sites For Human-Ocean Entanglement, Clarissa Chevalier

Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality: Faculty Publications

This article examines shifting methods of plankton research within contemporary oceanography through direct participatory engagement on a ten-day research cruise off the Santa Lucia Escarp- ment in February 2025. As a feminist visual science studies researcher, I reflect on how seasick- ness, sensory immersion, and embodied participation shaped my experience of plankton sampling and reveal the entanglement of oceanographic knowledge with its contexts. While remote sensing technologies – such as satellites, digital twins, and remotely operated vehicles – are increasingly shaping oceanography and producing intensified modes of ocean quantification, I argue that tactile, physical sampling methods remain indispensable in plankton …

“To Prepare The Mind For Wonder”: Popular Science And Mass Media In The 1920s, Alexander Olson

Journal of 20th Century Media History

This article examines the creation and development of the Science Service, a 1920s initiative aimed at popularizing science through mass media. Founded by biologist William Ritter and newspaper magnate Edward Scripps, the wire service sought to disseminate accurate scientific information to the American public via newspapers, radio, and other popular media. While Scripps favored a commercially viable, accessible style that used entertainment to hook readers, Ritter envisioned science journalism as a tool for democratic education and intellectual empowerment. These conflicting philosophies created lasting tensions within the organization around how to address challenges such as sensationalism, editorial independence, and public skepticism. …

Fountain, Sadaf Azadehfar

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the intersections of water, power, identity, and architecture through the lens of colonial and postcolonial landscapes, focusing particularly on Persian gardens and fountain sculptures. Drawing on historical, cultural, and symbolic frameworks, the study explores how water systems embody both practical and spiritual roles, positioning water as a force of control, resistance, and regeneration. Central to this work are analyses of arches and garden designs, which serve as architectural metaphors for cosmic harmony, community gathering, and contested space. Through a combination of visual analysis, historical research, and personal artistic practice—including ceramic sculptures and multimedia installations—this thesis traces the …

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Ancient Allegories: Eleanor Antin’S 'Historical Takes' On Subverting Classical Motifs And Typologies, Lainey Tomasoski

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

The New York-born artist Eleanor Antin erupted into the male-dominated American conceptual photography art scene in the 1960s and 70s with feminist works that reimagined the female body in terms of representation and history. In congruence with the feminist and civil rights movements, conceptual photography represented a shift in how art was utilized to criticize the social and political institutions in which it is rooted. Antin and other feminist artists engaging in conceptual photography and video played with the embodiment of characters, performance of the body, and an intrinsic “self-reflexivity” of subject, viewer, and artist. However, Antin pivoted her work …

Griffin's Slow Burn Revolution In Philosophy And Comparative Cognition, Kristin Andrews

Animal Sentience

Ristau presents Griffin as launching a scientific revolution supported by philosophical insights. This commentary focuses on two points: Griffin as a scientific revolutionary, although the cognitive ethology revolution is not yet complete; and on the immense influence Griffin had, and continues to have, on philosophy.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 33. The Story In Evolution., Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) is best known for his independent formulation of the principle of natural selection. In this work I first review my understanding of Wallace’s intellectual development on this subject, including the notion that he had no model for the evolution of higher consciousness as of his first treatment of natural selection in 1858. This leads to some conclusions about his approach to the subject, and links to parallel ideas inherent in the philosophy of Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677).

Phylogenetic Analysis Of Anthropomorphic Rock Art: A Study Of Material Culture Evolution, Muhammad Faisal Chair, Ali Akbar

International Review of Humanities Studies

This paper provides an explanation of the application of phylogenetic analysis, derived from biology, to be applied in archaeology with the aim of observing evolutionary phenomena, the development of ideas, and the dissemination of ideas from material culture. Phylogenetics will be applied to data on anthropomorphic motifs at five rock art sites in West Sumatra: Gua Lidah Air, Gua Runjo, Ngalau Tompok Syohiah, Batu Basurek, and Gua Basurek. The main stages in this analysis involve collecting representative data in the category of distinctive values from each rock art site. Distinctive values data is obtained through observation and identification of morphological …

Architects Of Influence: Pioneers Who Shaped Today's Architecture, Carlynn Olinger

University Honors College

Architecture is a world that many people take advantage of and don’t understand the complexity behind it. There are many people in history who made a path for the way the world functions today, some of these people are architects. There are five men specifically: Antoni Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Meis Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn, who pioneered the way for technology, education, aesthetics, and functionality of architecture. By researching we can learn who they were, what they did, and how they did it. Each one of these architects had different struggles, goals, backgrounds, and ideas. …

The History Of -Eer In English: Suffix Competition Or Symbiosis?, Zachary Dukic, Chris C. Palmer

Faculty Articles

Ecological models of competition have provided great explanatory power regarding synonymy in derivational morphology. Competition models of this type have certainly shown their utility, as they have demonstrated, among other things, the relevance of frequency measures, productivity, compositionality and analyzability when comparing the development of morphological constructions. There has been less consideration of alternative models that could be used to describe the historical co-development of suffixes that produce words with sometimes similar forms or meanings but are not inevitably or solely in competition. The symbiotic model proposed in this article may help answer larger questions in linguistics, such as how …

Seagrass-Roots Environmentalism: The Lee County Conservation Association, Chris Wilhelm

Florida Historical Quarterly

After World War II, Florida crafted a new identity: the Sunshine State. This concept was not solely based on Florida's hot weather and sunny skies although the relationship between sun and water was implicit in the new identity. Tourists enjoyed the sun on boats and beaches, retirees and snowbirds fled northern winters for new sunny coastal cities. The heat of Florida's sunshine was thus balanced by the state's coastal waters. The Sunshine State is a convenient slogan, but Florida is actually defined by its coast. Other states have more sunshine, but none in the continental U.S. have more coastline or …

Racial-Sexual Normativity In/As Narratives Of “The Human”, Jeri Brand

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis synthesizes Sylvia Wynter’s and Judith Butler’s models of identity-formation to analyze discourses of racialization and sex/gender difference in normative scientific theories of “the human.” I argue that eugenicist white supremacism and sex/gender normativity form a single conceptual framework – what I call “the racial-sexual matrix” – throughout these scientific narratives. I then trace an epistemological consistency across 18^th- through 21^st-century scientific literature as evidence for the ongoing legacies of coloniality, white supremacy, and eugenics in current hegemonic sex/gender ontologies. Finally, I contend that the racial-sexual matrix functions as an index of proper humanness not …

The History Of -Eer In English: Suffix Competition Or Symbiosis?, Zachary Dukic, Chris C. Palmer

Graduate Publications – English

Ecological models of competition have provided great explanatory power regarding synonymy in derivational morphology. Competition models of this type have certainly shown their utility, as they have demonstrated, among other things, the relevance of frequency measures, productivity, compositionality and analyzability when comparing the development of morphological constructions. There has been less consideration of alternative models that could be used to describe the historical co-development of suffixes that produce words with sometimes similar forms or meanings but are not inevitably or solely in competition. The symbiotic model proposed in this article may help answer larger questions in linguistics, such as how …

Traditional Chinese Medicine: Employing Integrative Medicine As An Approach To Treat Cancer, Jade Hudson

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the history of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) through its depiction in the four classics of TCM and examines the evolution of the field to date. The five categories of TCM treatments analyzed in this paper include acupuncture, dietary therapy, herbal medicine, moxibustion, and physical exercise. Research highlights significant positive outcomes in cancer patients who incorporate TCM alongside modern cancer treatments, such as reduced nausea, vomiting, fatigue, anorexia, pain, and improvements in quality of life and overall well-being. However, notable risks associated with TCM herbal medicine and moxibustion underscore the need for further research into these practices before …

Bruno Latour's Constructivism And Its Implications For The New Agency Of Sociology, Robertus Robet, U. Abdul Rozak R

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

Abstract

Latour removes the boundaries between natural sciences and humanities. Science for Latour is cultural practise, at the same time in every cultural practice, nature and objects are also actively involved. In that sense, Latour's constructivism encourages the emergence of non-human actors as drivers of the societal changes. By that, he provoked sociology to expand its subject matter. The Social in sociology must be seen as an association involving human and non-human actors.

Key words: Constructivism, Expansion of agency, actant, actor network theory.

Konstruktivisme Bruno Latour Dan Implikasinya Terhadap Ide Keagenan Sosiologi, Robertus Robet, U Abdul Rozak R

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

Abstract

Latour removes the boundaries between natural sciences and humanities. Science for Latour is cultural practise, at the same time in every cultural practice, nature and objects are also actively involved. With that, Latour's constructivism encourages the emergence of non-human actors as drivers of the societal changes. With that he provoked sociology to expand its subject matter. The Social in sociology must be seen as an association involving human and non-human actors.

Migratory Material: Epigenetics & Weaving At The Us-Mexico Border, Valerie Navarrete

Masters Theses

Discourse often sutures the body shut, disallowing representations of identity to outgrow sociopolitical interests. This issue may originate from borders, but also from the unnamable pathology that generational colonial trauma transmits to the mind, body, and environment. Without a direct form of translatability, this thesis proposes a new materialism that deviates from any object-oriented ontology. Untethered and intra-active, epigenetics and weaving represent objects that transform typical ways of knowing and seeing. Their sensitivity to the environment, in addition to their mobility across generations of time, broaden the spatiotemporal loci of the body and its embodiment. Proposing new materials that expand …

Hello There: An Integrative Framing Analysis Of The Disney+ Series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hannah Grace Sawchuck

Masters Theses

The effective communication of emotions within audio-visual content, such as film, was one of the most important aspects that needed to be considered when creating such content. Within the field of communication, there was a limited amount of research that existed on the communication of emotions in film. This was a problem as such content is becoming more prevalent in society. Knowing how those emotions were created and developed would allow communication scholars to better understand how to effectively elicit emotions from their own audio-visual content. By examining a well-known series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, scholars could see how different aural and …

'I Don’T Fit That Stereotype': Participant Photography And The Visual (Re)Positioning Of Black Men, Quaylan Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This paper examines how Black men use a participant photography project as a tool for meaning making during the current political and social context of anti-Black racism, Black activism, and intersectional politics. Using a critical visual methodology in the analysis of the images, this paper will examine how Black men make meaning of current social issues through the types of images they produced, how they make meaning of the types of audiences they are speaking to through the project, and how these meanings are reflected through their repositioning practices in the visual project. Specific attention is paid to how they …

Understanding Environmental Art: A Case Study Of Jason Decaires Taylor's Coral Greenhouse (2019), Laura Dean Hinson

Theses

This thesis highlights the need for a new way to analyze environmental art. In the past, environmental artwork has been discussed in terms of the abstract concepts that drove their creation and the role they played in moving artists outside of the gallery space in the1960s and 70s. However, in recent years environmental artists are increasingly driven by themes of environmental conservation and preservation, using scientific research as the basis of their designs. Because of the shift in focus, developing a new way to discuss environmental art that takes into consideration the influence scientific research has on art production and …

The Victorian Crisis Of Faith: Uncertainty, Pessimism, Morality, And Monsters. A Look At Nineteenth-Century British Gothic Horror And The Unassailable Unknown, Jay Schroeder

Dissertations and Theses

This work investigates how Gothic narratives employed negative aesthetics, monstrous bodies, exploded meaning, and an unshakable mood of uncertainty to explore rising fears of dwindling morality and impending human doom during the long nineteenth century. Using Eugene Thacker’s cosmic pessimism, Sianne Ngai’s concept of tone, and Stephen Greenblatt’s theories of resonance and wonder, combined with monster theory, Gothic criticism, biological studies of fear, and nineteenth-century studies in medicine, science, and literature, I investigate how these texts constructed monstrous bodies to create an atmosphere of fear that reflected a culture of pessimism and a crisis of faith to contend, albeit unsuccessfully, …

دور الخصائص النفسية والاجتماعية للبيئة الأسرية في اضطراب فرط النشاط الحركي لدى تلاميذ المدارس الابتدائية, م.د. عدنان علي حمزة

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

تشير الدراسات حديثاً وجود مشكلة فرط النشاط الحركي لدى نسبة من الأطفال بأعمار ما قبل المدرسة وأثنائها ، ويؤكد أخصائيو الصحة المدرسية، فضلاً عن عيادات الطب النفسي إلى تسببها بمشكلات نفسية وصحية وتربوية واجتماعية وقانونية، وتقدر نسبة وجودها عالمياً بـ(6-9%)، كما تقدر الخسائر المادية بـ(98) مليون دولار سنويا، وإن نسبة(23%)من هؤلاء الأطفال يذهبون ضحايا أو يتسببون بنسبة مماثلة من الوفيات للآخرين جراء سرعتهم وضعف انتباههم، وفي الوقت الذي تعطي فيه الدراسات البيولوجية نسبة(43%) من السببية للوراثة، فإن الدراسات في ميدان النفس اجتماعي أعطت الدور الأكبر للتنشئة الأسرية، وقد دلَّ المختصون في الشأن النفسي العراقي مؤخراً على وجود مشكلة سلوك فرط …

The Ruinous Northern Frontier: The Decline And Collapse Of Frontier And Roman Civilizational Integrity On The Danube, A.D. 370 - 500, James Knight

Masters Theses

The imperial Roman advance to and entrenchment along the Danube from the times of Augustus to Aurelian, mirrored by the slow development of various Germanic peoples beyond the 1,700-mile river’s northern bank, set the stage for a series of climactic engagements between the late Roman Empire and their various barbarous neighbors along what had quickly become the Empire’s most important and unstable frontier. The immigration and settlement of Goths from the Pontic Steppe, fleeing the Huns as they emerged from Central Asia, within the Roman Balkans undermined the Danube frontier, eviscerated the Eastern Roman field army, and enabled Alaric’s role …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Garrigus and Morris, eds., Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World. by Light T. Cummins; Evans, A "Topping People": The Rise and Decline of Virginia's Old Elite, 1680-1790. by Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler; Ashton, I Belong to South Carolina: South Carolina Slave Narratives. by Carmen V. Harris; Kennedy, Born Southern: Childbirth, Motherhood, and Social Networks in the Old South. by Blain Roberts; Pickenpaugh, Captives in Gray: The Civil War Prisons of the Union. by Jeremy Taylor; Martin, Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Southern College Sports, 1890-1980. by Michael Oriard; Keirn and …

From Aristotle To Wunderkammer: The Development Of Entomology And Insect Collections, Erica E. Fischer

Grand Valley Journal of History

This paper analyzes the development of insect classification and the shift from the realm of the amateur naturalist to professional scientific pursuit. While earlier historians of science have explored the field of entomology in specific eras, this paper explores continuity and change in the study of insects and natural history collections from the ancient world to the 20^th century. Period entomology texts, modern entomology and history of science journals, entomological displays and preserved specimens, and histories of entomology reveal that, though entomology developed as a private pursuit for the wealthy, it came to represent an ideal starting place for …