Digital Commons Network^™

The Disconnect Of Moral Accountability: Freedom, Equality, And The Limits Of Punishment, Celine Shiah Choi

Philosophy Senior Theses

This thesis examines the justificatory foundations of moral accountability as a social practice and the profound disconnect between our ordinary intuitions about justice, the moral attitudes we hold toward one another, and the governing institutional practices of punishment. Drawing on Stephen Darwall's second-person standpoint and P.F. Strawson's account of reactive attitudes, the paper argues that legitimate accountability presupposes two necessary conditions, freedom and equality, understood as the shared capacity of rational agents to recognize moral demands and stand in reciprocal normative relation with one another. Both conditions, however, prove deeply fragile in practice: legal institutions invoke the language of rational …

From Double Absence To Double Presence: Video-Selfie As Empowerment In A Multicultural Italian Classroom, Maria Ranieri, Ilaria Bucciarelli, Giulia Cuozzo

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

This paper examines the video-selfie as a tool for empowerment in multicultural secondary school classrooms. We draw on data from the European ICME project, focusing on a vocational secondary school in Italy, where 17 of 18 first-year students – approximately half of whom had migration backgrounds – produced short videos presenting themselves through personally meaningful objects. Students then participated in a structured reflection activity after watching each other's videos in class. We combine three theoretical frameworks: critical media literacy, identity and self-representation studies, and Mezirow's transformative learning theory. Our argument is that the video selfie empowers in multiple ways: it …

After Meat: Ruin, Decomposition, And The Epistemic Collapse Of Industrial Food Systems, Alexandra Kenefick

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The contemporary crisis of industrial meat is typically framed in environmental, ethical, or technological terms. This paper argues instead that the crisis is fundamentally epistemic, exposing the conceptual limits of modern food systems organized around abstraction, purification, efficiency, and control. Drawing on critical theories of modernity, political ecology, and design, it reframes meat not as food but as a designed industrial artefact. Through the lens of ruin, industrial breakdown is read as material disclosure, rendering visible the violences, dependencies, and exclusions that sustained modern abundance. Against technological solutionism and post-meat futurism, the paper develops decomposition as an alternative epistemic and …

A Faith And Technology Resource Hub: Building The Christian Engineer’S Bookshelf, Gayle Ermer, Derek Schuurman

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

A wealth of material related to the interactions between faith and technology has been generated over time to help Christian engineers reflect on and evaluate their work and technology development more generally. However, there is currently no central location where this large variety of resources can easily be accessed. This paper will describe the process of developing a faith and technology resource hub. The vision for the hub is that it will include a comprehensive searchable directory of resources addressing faith and technology, as well as a browsable, organized, curated, and annotated set of webpages containing links to particularly important …

A Distinctly Christian Understanding Of The Technical Details In Engineering, Paul Griffioen

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Within engineering disciplines, much attention has been given to developing pedagogical techniques and practical applications that are distinctly Christian. However, not as much attention has been given to understanding technical engineering content from a distinctly Christian perspective. The main reason is that the technical details of engineering seem to be the same for both Christians and non-Christians. After all, does being a Christian have any impact on the content of specific technical details like integration and finite element analysis? Since the vast majority of time in engineering jobs, research, and teaching is spent on specific technical details, this is a …

What My Grandma Ate, What My Grandma Wrote: Culinary Memory, Migration, And Changing Foodways In A Cretan–Turkish Household, Sedef Özgönül Donuktan

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper explores the difference between daily eating habits (what is “eaten”) and handwritten recipe notebooks (what is “written”) within a Cretan-Turkish kinship network influenced by migration and resettlement. By combining oral history interviews with five women and analysing 242 notebook recipes, the study shows that these handwritten books are not just passive records of daily meals. Instead, they serve as selective domestic archives shaped by a “festive bias,” standardisation, and social value. The research indicates that while routine meals (such as stews) depend on embodied, unrecorded knowledge, the notebooks mainly contain special dough recipes using modern industrial ingredients like …

The Rubble Of Words: Food As A Device For Silence In A Time Of Polycrisis, Jennie Moran

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

On the night of 03 August 2024, Adam Kelwick, the imam from the Abdullah Quillian Society Mosque in Liverpool crossed police lines and presented anti-immigration protesters with burgers and chips prepared in the mosque kitchen. This took place in the aftermath of the Southport stabbings and the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for more than a decade. “We decided to deal with those people who came to protest against us in a way which we hoped could open up hearts and minds. We wanted to cook food for them.” This paper will examine the power of food to …

Food In Dinneen’S Foclóir Gaedhilge Agus Béarla, John D. Mulcahy

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Inspired by the work of the late Manchán Magan, this paper examines Irish food and hospitality through the lens of historical lexicography using the 1927 edition of Fr Patrick Dinneen’s Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla as a linguistic “time capsule”. By examining Irish words connected with everyday eating, the paper traces how these words embody resilience, reciprocity, and hope in the face of recurring crises such as famine, emigration, and political upheaval. The paper also draws attention to roles associated with food provision and banqueting, underlining the long-standing importance of hospitality in Irish society. This approach uncovers how hospitality was understood …

No Excuses. All Ownership. Music As Meaning, Business As Longevity, Taylor Atherton-Henry

Student Theses

Music has always been more than a creative outlet for me; it is a reflection of identity, emotion, discipline, and the way I move through the world. Long before it became a profession or an academic pursuit, music functioned as a language through which I could process experience, express love, and make sense of both joy and struggle. As I progressed through this program, it became increasingly clear that my artistic development and professional aspirations were evolving simultaneously. What began as separate goals, creating an album and establishing a music production company, ultimately became inseparable. Each process informed and strengthened …

Hidden Behind Happiness: Bhutan’S Global Image And Ethnic Exclusion, Deepesh Das Shrestha

Master's Theses

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

"The Appearance Of The Confederate Flag In These Seas:" The Css Sumter, Neutrality, And The International Dimensions Of The American Civil War, John Macisaac Coleman

History Undergraduate Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

“A Group Of Unnamed Human Beings”: Aubrey Daniel, The My Lai Massacre And The Prosecution Of Lieutenant Calley, Ben Katz

History Undergraduate Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Recombobulation- Taking The Bad With The Good, Gregory T. Kmieciak

Masters Theses

Recombobulation, a play on the word discombobulated (completely disoriented and utterly confused), is intended as a joke.  In the lore of the Milwaukee airport, the Recombobulation Area is located between the TSA check point and the boarding area, or likewise right after you land and before you are heading out of the airport. It's an area to regroup, get your bearings, or if you're anything like me, have a beer.

I've chosen this made-up word as a thesis title, both for its informal tone and to pay homage to my home town. It offers an air of lightness to otherwise …

The Frame You're Holding, Andrea Mato

Masters Theses

The Frame You're Holding explores how my photographer's eye transitioned into a graphic designer's voice. The projects presented explore how to weave the textural and subjective qualities of photography into a design context. My practice explores how the frames of graphic design – the page of a book, the browser window, or the wall of an exhibition – can be expanded or reimagined. As a designer, I became the translator of content into form, seeking to author the design while collaborating with other voices. The Frame You're Holding is a snapshot of my practice as a graphic designer, encapsulating my …

“The Duty Of Hatred”: Anti Germanism In Ohio During Wwi, Quinn Edward Hall

History Undergraduate Senior Theses

During the First World War Ohio was engulfed in an environment of anti-Germanism. In an effort to mobilize the public for war, the federal and Ohio state governments labeled German-Americans and Germanness as an existential domestic threat. It was thus framed that policing the loyalty of German-Americans and riding the state of its German character were essential wartime duties. This ideology led Ohioans to eliminate German language from schools, purge the state of German culture, engage in mob violence against their German American neighbors, and successfully utilize anti-Germanism to enact statewide prohibition. While other historians have suggested that this anti-Germanism …

Subversives On The Small Screen: Unions, The Television Blacklist, And The Politics Of Fear In 1950s America, Emma Coulter

History Undergraduate Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Held In Sediment, Kati Lowe

Masters Theses

This thesis examines time as a durational, non-linear condition shaped through emotion and perception rather than a sequence of forward-moving events. Through painting and related material strategies, the work focuses on aftermath, residue, interruption, and return. Throughout this thesis, terms such as misalignment, double vision, fragmentation, interruption, and recurrence function as a conceptual vocabulary for describing instability within memory, embodiment, and lived experience. Blurred edges, doubled forms, and punctures in the surface register a lag between experience and comprehension, especially in relation to grief, trauma, depression, memory, and embodied perception. Neon color functions as a counterpoint to delay, signaling persistence, …

Circling, Eun Yong Lee

Masters Theses

This thesis explores Korean aesthetic sensibilities from the perspective of material logic, placing at its core the process of reinterpreting and materializing them. Here, ※material logic§ refers to the relationships among materials that emerge from a particular group＊s accumulated understanding of materials, as well as from the ways in which they combine and use them.

Without Traditional Craftsmanship, Modern Design Is Nothing, Muhammad Asif

Masters Theses

This project explores the fusion of traditional wood carving techniques with modern design principles, resulting in a unique Ocean of Design that showcases the beauty of cultural heritage. Inspired by the intricate carvings of my ancestors, who contributed to iconic landmarks like the Omer Hayat palace, I have created a pieces that not only highlights the craftsmanship of my artisans but also reflects my own journey as a designer. The Ocean of Design is influenced by the shapes of leaves and the clean lines of modern aesthetics, blending functionality with artistic expression. Through this project, I aim to promote my …

Numb., Anna Rapson

Masters Theses

Social media platforms, from their conception, posed a break in the lived experience of the average human being’s day to day routines. Although access to information has always been shaped by portals into other lived realities—through photojournalism, print legacy media, news broadcasts both on radio and television—social media has posited a novel phenomenological architecture where borders between embodied reality and perception of lived experience are simultaneously blurred and reinforced. This morphed duality of consciousness positions the body and mind in tension, deconstructing pre-social media conceptions of the ontology of lived experience. In a digital world shaped by limitless input by …

Foveate, Dahlia Aggarwal

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how textiles can unsettle visual assumptions, encouraging a perceptual shift. Through weaving, upholstery, and spatial installation, the work stages a tension between what a surface appears to be and how it is encountered by the body. Through woven pattern, tactile texture, and trompe l’oeil textile surfaces, perception is something negotiated rather than fixed: the eye anticipates one reality while the hand discovers another.

Drawing on a range of sensations gathered from observing landscape formations and textures, it translates enduring scale and material qualities into an interior landscape of woven surfaces and textile-based furniture. Rather than serving as …

Censorship, Information Networks, And The Courrier Extraordinaire During The French Revolution, Kent Friel

History Undergraduate Senior Theses

In 1790, as France neared a year of revolution, a former book dealer named Joseph Duplain announced plans for a new venture: a newspaper called the Courrier extraordinaire that would get the news from Paris to major provincial cities hours or even days earlier than other newspapers by using its own express information network. This thesis argues that the Courrier extraordinaire provides a new view of how information moved during the French Revolution. Not only has the specific story of the Courrier extraordinaire never been told at length before, but the intense rivalry among newspaper publishers to physically get the …

Echándole Ganas: Pláticas Of Belonging + Resistance In Art + Design, Itzanya Bravo

Masters Theses

This thesis centers the experiences of Mexican American students, alumni, faculty, and community-based artists navigating art and design higher education in the United States. Grounded in the question ¿Dónde está la gente latina?—where are the Latino people?—this research examines how representation and culturally sustaining practices shape Mexican American students' sense of belonging and creative agency in a country with systems built on white supremacy

Using pláticas as the primary methodology—a relational, conversational approach rooted in community and storytelling traditions—alongside autohistoria-teoría and Chicana Feminist Epistemology, this study draws on eight in-depth pláticas with Mexican American creatives across art + design higher …

What Teachers See: Collaborative Artmaking In Chinese And U.S. Elementary Schools, Jiayu Shi

Masters Theses

This study explores how elementary art teachers in the United States and China perceive and use collaborative artmaking with their students. Driven by my personal journey as a Chinese student and art educator now studying in the U.S., this research asks: How do teachers in these two countries compare in their views of collaborative artmaking, including its social-emotional outcomes, benefits, and challenges. I conducted semi structured interviews with three elementary art teachers: two from China (one veteran, one early-career) and one from the U.S. with experience in both rural and urban schools. Findings show that teachers in both contexts value …

A Thesis By An Art Student Trying To Find Meaning In Simulation Games, Yichuan Wang

Masters Theses

This thesis explores a strange question: what happens if meaning is no longer written by an author, but emerges from the behavior of a system itself?

Beginning with observations of the Providence River and inspired by Conway’s Game of Life, information theory, and artificial life research, the project investigates simulation as a space where language, memory, and collective meaning can evolve without central control. Rather than treating video games as vehicles for storytelling, this research approaches them as dynamic systems capable of generating unpredictable forms of organization and perception.

The thesis proposes a closed spherical computational world populated by simple …

Body In Process: Assembly, Control And The Medical Gaze, Fangzhou Lu

Masters Theses

This project begins with the doll as a way to think through assemblage. It has a human form, but it is not born as a whole; it is assembled from parts. Its joints, holes, and modular structure make it more like a puzzle toy. I use it to examine the act of “assembly” itself, and to understand the body as something that can be taken apart, adjusted, and replaced.

This logic of assembly also runs through real-life practices surrounding living bodies. Medical repair and treatment, through suturing, fixation, replacement, and transplantation, maintain and extend the body’s reconfigurability. In the plant …

Until The Ground Breaks, Annie Hu

Masters Theses

Until the Ground Breaks explores the complex relationship between personal memory, embodied experience, and internalized "archival logic." By examining long-term cross-cultural diasporic experiences and the shifting dynamics of family narratives—including the sensory experiences and fading memory of a grandmother, a father's correspondence that acts as a textual record of emotional logic, and the continuous revision of family history—this thesis dissects the psychological tremors that occur when the illusion of a singular, stable memory archive collapses. This research rejects the view of memory as a static container of truth, revealing it instead as a dynamic, unstable, and constantly rewritten living system. …

Reclamando Corazón Y Voz: Latinas Speak Their Truth Through Plática As Resistance In California Community College Learning Disabilities Assessments, Maricela Becerra

Dissertations

Although California Community Colleges (CCCs) offer learning disability (LD) assessments to determine eligibility for academic accommodations, for Latina students navigating converging forces of race, gender, language, citizenship, and ableism, these assessments often surface unspoken histories of harm. This study advanced Chicana feminista DisCrit (CFDC), extending disability critical race theory through Chicana spirituality and cultural intuition to examine possibilities when an educadora situates assessments in a plática grounded in consideración—respectful, relational, and unhurried care.

Rooted in Chicana feminist pláticas methodology and authored from the positionality of a disabled Latina scholar–practitioner, this qualitative decolonial dissertation explored how Latina students reflected on …

Care Ecologies Between Knots, Eliza R. Marris

Masters Theses

Discarded fibers like raw wool behave the way harm reduction does. Harm reduction resists stigma and works to move beyond assumptions and oversimplifications of substance use and addiction. Wool is irregular, complicated, and emotionally charged. It resists compression and maintains its own being even when pulled apart. Working with raw wool is in relationship with complexity, as is harm reduction.

At its core, harm reduction is grounded in thoughtfulness and empathy towards people, their lived experience, and its nuances. It is a witness to lives, memories, and imprints, acknowledging the entangled realities of addiction. Our detachment from fiber remainders, materials …