Digital Commons Network^™

Ornamental Letters In J.R.R. Tolkien's Manuscripts, Eduardo Boheme Kumamoto

Journal of Tolkien Research

The purpose of this article is to examine ornamental letters and decoration that in some way interacts with letterforms in J.R.R. Tolkien’s manuscripts. I explore Tolkien’s use of elements such as double strokes, color, dots, and flourishes to add prominence and beauty to the letterforms; where possible I also try to establish a relation between these ornaments and medieval manuscripts.

Representasi Kritik Terhadap Kerusakan Lingkungan Dalam Lirik Lagu “Alam Bukan Tempat Sampah” Karya Fiersa Besari: Analisis Semiotika Ferdinand De Saussure, Sophie Dwishinta, Talitha Gea Salsabila, Helmi Muzaki, Lutfi Wulandari

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

This study examines the representation of environmental criticism in Fiersa Besari’s song “Alam Bukan Tempat Sampah” through Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotic framework. It employs a descriptive qualitative method, using the complete song lyrics as its data source. Analysis involves reading the text, identifying signifiers, interpreting signifieds, grouping meanings, and developing interpretations within the context of the lyrics as a whole. The findings indicate that environmental criticism is constructed through word choices, semantic contrasts, metaphors, imperatives, and repetition. The lyrics criticize environmental neglect, the pursuit of wealth and power, and complaints or blame unaccompanied by corrective action. The metaphor “our home” …

Morality And Me: An Investigation Of A Moral Framework For College Students, Jillian Lee Meyer '23, Ted Bitner

Student Research

How do college students explain their choices when everyday situations raise moral questions? This study examined the reasoning of 136 U.S. undergraduates across ten dilemmas involving friendships, coursework, employment, and social life. Participants chose a course of action and briefly explained why. Their written explanations were coded using six moral dimensions developed by the Prindle Institute for Ethics: consequences, intentions and motivations, principles and rights, care and relationships, virtues, and fairness. Across dilemmas, students most often emphasized consequences, followed by intentions and motivations. Other dimensions became more prominent in particular contexts: legal questions drew attention to principles and rights, while …

Could 'Real Existing Ai' Be Sentient?, Tim Crane

Animal Sentience

Jonathan Birch is rightly sceptical about the idea that today’s AI machines (e.g. LLMs) are candidates for sentience. Nonetheless, he gives three reasons for taking the future possibility of AI sentience seriously. I dispute them all. Birch fails to distinguish the very idea of an artificial mind from computational AI (what I call ‘Real Existing AI’); he does not adequately distinguish a simulation from a replica or copy; and he fails to acknowledge that the appeal to computational functionalism in this context is straightforwardly question-begging.

Artificial Sentience: From Computational Functionalism To Behaviourism?, Wanja Wiese

Animal Sentience

I critically examine Jonathan Birch’s account of how brain emulations might create artificial sentience candidates, arguing that his account risks collapsing into a behaviourist account, unless the specific computational processes realised by such emulations are carefully considered. Drawing on examples from computational neuroscience, I show that similar behaviours can arise from vastly different computational processes, thereby undermining the suggestion to focus on behaviourial profiles to determine whether a brain emulation of a sentience candidate is itself a sentience candidate.

Beyond Words: Semiotic Decoding Of Rẹ́Rẹ́Rún (Catastrophe Au Rendez-Vous) By Ọládẹ̀Jọ Òkédìjí And The Rich Tradition Of Yorùbá Theater, Nafiu O. Oloore Mr

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Many researchers have focused on analysing novels, poems, and drama in the French language while neglecting certain subgenres. Although numerous studies have been conducted on semiotic analysis in French, little effort has been made to analyze Yorùbá drama. Thus, this study aims to provide a semiotic analysis of Rẹ́rẹ́rún (Catastrophe au rendez-vous) by Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí. This study adopts a qualitative research approach and textual explanation as its methodology. The semiotics theory proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure is employed as the theoretical framework. Following the qualitative method, twenty signs relevant to this study were selected for interpretation. Semiotics is chosen because …

Voix Proverbiales Et L'Esthétique Socioculturelle : Les Proverbes Africains Dans La Trilogie De Kouta De Massa Makan Diabate, Ademola Malick Adebayo, Israel Adégòkè Owóṣení

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Dans les traditions orales africaines, les proverbes sont des paroles condensées de sagesse, mot d'esprit, de raisonnement social et d'esthétique culturelle. La véritable littérature africaine est l’oralité et elle démontre la richesse linguistique, la complexité culturelle et l’esthétique de la parole à travers les proverbes, les chansons, les épopées, les mythes et les légendes ainsi de suite. L’oralité reflète la richesse linguistique et l’identité culturelle du continent noir. Cependant, les proverbes sont des transporteurs particuliers de la sagesse, la morale, la valeur, les codes sociaux et la croyance d’une société donnée. Dans la trilogie de Massa Makan Diabaté, les proverbes …

L’Insécurité Linguistique Selon La Perspective Des Élèves D’Immersion Française En Saskatchewan, Olushola Adedeji, Michael Akinpelu

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Cet article examine l’insécurité linguistique (IL) chez des élèves d’immersion française (IF) en Saskatchewan en s’appuyant sur la sociolinguistique pour le changement. À partir d’un devis mixte (un questionnaire à large échelle auprès d’élèves de 7e–12e année et des groupes de discussion focalisés avec des élèves de 11e–12e année), l’étude décrit les différentes manifestations de l’IL, ses causes et ses effets sur les élèves tout en recensant des stratégies d’adaptation. Les résultats de l’étude montrent que l’IL est moins liée à une compétence linguistique objective qu’à des conditions sociales et pédagogiques modifiables. Des recommandations concrètes sont proposées, notamment la légitimation …

Cultural And Social Inclusion In Sexe Et Mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle Au Maroc By Leïla Slimani: A Critical Perspective, Juliet N. Elikwu Dr.

Tête à Tête: Journal of Francophone Studies

Several published studies on Leïla Slimani's Sexe et Mensonges: La Vie sexuelle au Maroc have extensively examined the themes of sexual taboos and the challenges facing women in Moroccan society. But, limited attention has been given to her portrayal of cultural and social inclusion through the testimonies and narratives of marginalized women in academic discourse. This study seeks to analyze the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within the framework of cultural norms and patriarchal structures depicted in the work. The study draws on a qualitative methodology centered on close textual analysis. The theoretical framework integrates Michel Foucault’s concepts of power …

Extraplanetary Studies 101: Life On Other Planets, Jason W. Whelan

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

What Film Is Good For: On The Values Of Spectatorship, Pablo Alzola

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Julian Hanich and Martin P. Rossouw, eds., What Film Is Good For: On the Values of Spectatorship (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023).

Eternity, Leah R. Sisk

Journal of Religion & Film

This film review of Eternity was developed from an essay on how the film demonstrates the nature of choice, including William James's notion of a leap of faith.  The original essay was submitted for an undergraduate Philosophy and Religion class on American Pragmatism at Western Carolina University.

Misread Before Being Known: Race, Religion, And Institutional Non-Inquiry In Abrogation, Franklin Livingston

Journal of Religion & Film

Institutions often arrive at certainty before they arrive at knowledge. This article names that mechanism institutional non-inquiry — the organizational habit through which visual and cultural assumptions substitute for direct verification, allowing identity classifications to solidify before the subject meaningfully enters the encounter. Unlike prejudice, racialization, or established theories of pre-reflexive social perception, institutional non-inquiry isolates the organizational encounter itself as the specific procedural moment at which collective interpretive habits make inquiry feel unnecessary. Examining Abrogation (2024), a micro-budget American independent feature following Daud Khan, a Brown Pakistani-American infectious disease specialist whose movement through evangelical, civic, and federal institutions repeatedly …

Moving On: Purgatorial Seriality And Unanswered Prayer In Lost’S “Ab Aeterno”, Christian Wilken

Journal of Religion & Film

“Ab Aeterno” (Lost, 6.09) distills the series’ religious logic with unusual explicitness by staging theodicy not as doctrine but as narrative procedure. This article argues that the episode converts Catholic sacramental form (confession, absolution, and penitential address) into a serial ethics of endurance in which closure is structurally deferred. Richard Alpert’s confession establishes a subject who seeks an authorized word that would stabilize suffering, yet the priest’s refusal (“I can’t”) installs a theology of unanswered prayer that becomes the template for Richard’s long durée of waiting. Jacob’s “cork” parable then supplies a katechontic justification of restraint: evil is not abolished …

Between Icon And State: Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan The Terrible, Milja Radovic

Journal of Religion & Film

Remembering the 80th anniversary of Sergei Eisenstein’s film Иван Грозный (Ivan the Terrible, 1944/1945), it is crucial to re-examine Eisenstein’s work, including his last film that became an unintentional ‘testament’ to cinema. Eisenstein’s mastery has been pivotal for understanding cinema and film language, the way this language operates, constructs and deconstructs and communicates historical realities. This paper focuses on a film that was made in two parts, Part I in 1944 and part II in 1945, to investigate Eisenstein’s approach to the subject of history, nation and religion. The research considers how this master of cinema contemplated intricate ideas and …

Piercing The Veil In Sinners: Theological Insights From The Juke Joint, Antonio D. Sison Cpps

Journal of Religion & Film

Celebrated as a critical and commercial success, Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying opus Sinners has also been considered as one of the most culturally significant films of 2025. It also promises to be one of the most theologically resonant films of the year. This is evinced not only in its thematic and literary bases but, importantly, in its very audiovisual language and grammar, its stylistic strategies qua film. As reasoned in this essay, Coogler’s film is a rich locus theologicus, a nexus for theological discovery and insight.Sinners kindles the hermeneutical impulse to dialogue with African American/Pan-Africa theologies exemplified by the …

Affirmative Transcendence: The Ethics Of Mazu And The Internal Expansion Of The Confucian Moral Imagination, Yu Pei

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper proposes and defends the concept of affirmative transcendence through a systematic analysis of the 2012 Chinese television drama Mazu (38 episodes, CCTV). Affirmative transcendence names a structure in which the protagonist achieves sacred status (shen 神) not by negating her human relationships but by maintaining them while exhibiting a mode of moral perception that exceeds the limits of role-based ethics. The paper argues that what is analytically distinctive about this structure is its internal character: the tradition is not rejected but exceeded, and the exceeding is accomplished through resources the tradition itself provides. The paper identifies two …

Documenting The Ineffable: A Comparative Analysis Of Mystical Representation In Kimiavi’S The Garden Of Stones And Western Sufi Documentary, Hessam Abedini

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines how documentary film attempts to represent mystical experience through comparative analysis of Parviz Kimiavi's The Garden of Stones (1976) and American documentaries featuring Samuel Lewis, particularly Sunseed (1973). Rather than assuming terms like "sacred" or "authentic," the study grounds its analysis in empirical definitions from William James, historical scholarship by Carl Ernst and Annemarie Schimmel, and literary theory from Fatemeh Keshavarz. Through detailed examination of specific scenes—Darvish Khan hanging stones from dead trees, Lewis leading ecstatic dances—the article demonstrates how different cinematic strategies approach documentary's epistemological limits when confronting ineffable experience.

The analysis corrects historical misunderstandings about …

Maximizing The Use Of Interpreters In Shortterm Medical Missions, Barbara L. Loach

Great Commission Research Journal

In the debate over the effectiveness of short-term medical missions (STMM), the role of interpreters has received cursory attention. However, the perceived quality of care and the actual care that patients receive, and therefore their receptivity to the organization and the presentation of the gospel by faith-based STMMs, hinges greatly on employing trained interpreters who can reliably communicate on behalf of all parties involved. Each barrier to cross-cultural communication —verbal, non-verbal, and cultural—can and should be addressed to have a successful mission outreach; providing adequate training for all participants in STMM, especially for interpreters, is critical to mediate the communication …

My Pilgrimage In The Growth Of The Church, Charles Van Engen

Great Commission Research Journal

I have lived a life invested in the growth of the church and forming leaders who would mobilize the church toward growth. I have sought to pay forward what others did for me. Born of missionary parents, I was raised in the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. From 1973 to 1985, my wife, Jean, and I served the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico in Chiapas, Mexico, in leadership formation, training evangelists, pastors, and teachers of rapidly growing churches. In 1981, I received a Ph.D. in missiology under Johannes Verkuyl at the Free University of Amsterdam. I taught Mission Theology …

Repairing The Missional Breach: Why The Church Isn’T Making Disciples And How We Can Fix It By Kevin Blackwell, Henry E. Walker

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Eating Disorders & Meat Consumption: A Meta-Analytic Review, Urska Dobersek, Laurel Standiford-Reyes, Tyler Robinson, Alex Antony Edwin, Sarah Siebers

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

In this meta-analytic review, we examined the current evidence on eating disorders in relation to meat consumption and meat abstention. We systematically searched six online databases in December 2025 for primary research on eating disorder-related variables in meat consumers and meat abstainers. Fifty-one studies with 55,984 participants (n_{meat consumers} = 44,282, n_{meat abstainers} = 9,751) met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The outcomes were eating disorders and orthorexia nervosa. Meat consumption was associated with lower eating disorder (g = 0.20, 95% CI [0.08, 0.32], p = .001) and orthorexia nervosa symptomology (g = 0.47, 95% CI [0.33, …

Public Rhetoric And Private Strategy: The World Bank's Relationship With Mexico Through The 1980s Debt Crisis, Phillip Purcell

Holster Scholar Projects

This project investigates how the World Bank's relationship with Mexico changed through the 1980s debt crisis and whether the institution's internal assessments differed from its public presentation. Drawing on archival memoranda, correspondence, briefing papers, and publicly available reports, the study compares World Bank deliberations with official statements and publications. It demonstrates that examining these private and public records together provides a clearer understanding of how the Bank formulated policy, exercised influence over Mexico's economic strategy, and responded to the challenges of debt, adjustment, and reform. More broadly, the project contributes to understanding the role of international financial institutions in shaping …

Volume 29, Issue 1 Full Contents

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Formed Together: A Value-Based Model Of Mutual Spiritual Formation For Pentecostal Pastors And Churches Under 500, W. T.A. Mcmillan

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28) is both a warning and an invitation. It insists that the pastor's inner life and the congregation's shared life cannot be pulled apart without doing damage to both. This dissertation grows out of that conviction and out of years of pastoral ministry in Pentecostal churches where the pressure to perform often overwhelms the slow work of being formed. It asks a simple but searching question: How do Assemblies of God pastors serving congregations under 500 in attendance understand the connection between their own spiritual health and the spiritual …

Failed Gay Rights Amendment To Mankato's Human Rights Ordinance In Mankato, Minnesota In 1987, Kellian Clink

Library Services Publications

In 1987, small but passionate people urged the city to pass an amendment to Mankato’s existing human rights ordinance to protect LGBTQ+ communities.   Advocates argued that gays were entitled to the same rights as straight people and were looking for protection in housing and employment, particularly. They demonstrated that people had lost jobs, housing, and access to dance venues. Some opponents equated gays with promiscuity, child molestation, solicitation, sin, and AIDS; some were convinced it was not needed; some pinned their arguments on the existence of laws already on the books.  This narrative is based on articles from the local …

Handbook For Mindful Technical Writing: A Practical Guide For University Students And Professionals, Dawn Atkinson, Stacey Corbitt

Writing

Welcome to the Handbook for Mindful Technical Writing: A Practical Guide for University Students and Professionals. This handbook was developed to make advanced writing instruction more accessible, practical, and adaptable for a wide range of learners and professionals. Based on Atkinson and Corbitt’s Advanced Level Writing in the University Classroom and Beyond: Mindful Practices for Technical, Business, and Scientific Communication (2024), this new handbook has been created as a user-friendly, streamlined, and classroom-ready resource for students, instructors, and professionals in academic, technical, and workplace settings. This handbook is organized into four core units designed to meet the needs of diverse …

Intermediate College Writing: Building And Practicing Mindful Writing Skills, Dawn Atkinson, Stacey Corbitt

Writing

No abstract provided.

On Canvas: The Origins And Implications Of A Common Phrase, Kerr Houston

Art Inquiries

Why do modern art historians and conservators describe paintings executed on cloth in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as works on canvas, when late medieval and early Renaissance sources never do the same? This article answers that question by tracing and analyzing the evolution of canvas as a term in the history of painting. Until the late 1400s, it will be argued, the term canvas and its regional variants connoted coarse woven fabrics made of hemp that were associated with rugged, utilitarian needs and rural poverty—but not with painting. By contrast, artists and related texts relied on …

Front Matter, Art Inquiries, Kris K. Belden-Adams

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.