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Florence Normal College Quarterly, Faculty Of Florence Normal College

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The first edition of the Florence Normal College Quarterly

Neither Academy Nor Convent: Reconciling Religious And Feminist Readings Of Mary Astell, Hannah E. Brown

Honors Theses

Mary Astell is frequently interpreting through competing frameworks: as either a feminist advocate of women’s rational autonomy or a religious conservative committed to Anglican orthodoxy. This division reflects a broader tendency in Astell scholarship to separate her intellectual, moral, and theological commitments into distinct and often conflicting domains. This paper argues that such fragmentation is not grounded in Astell’s own philosophy but is instead the result of interpretive assumptions—particularly the view that intellectual autonomy and religious obedience are incompatible. By examining Astell’s account of reason, education for women, and spiritual development, this paper demonstrates that these elements form an integrated …

Practicing Conflict Transformation Skills Through Role-Playing Games For Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Higher Education, Alexandra Schreiber, Kjell H. Hugaas, Sarah L. Bowman

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

No abstract provided.

Service As Spiritual Formation : A Foundational Discipleship Framework For Service, Mak Zhe Hao

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Clergywomen, Cliftonstrengths, And Spiritual Formation : A Leadership Development Study In The Kentucky Annual Conference, Tamara H. Coleman

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

American Coverage Of The Killing Of Awdah Hathaleen: A Case Study, Charlie F. Nichols

Journalism

This project analyzes coverage from major American news outlets regarding the killing of Awdah Hathaleen by Yinnon Levi, using firsthand accounts of the event as a point of reference. These accounts are organized into a timeline of the event that coverage is compared with. The propaganda model outlined in Manufacturing Consent by Herman & Chomsky (1988) is used as a theoretical framework, namely the concept of unworthy victims. This framework posits that victims of violence perpetrated by American client states are framed as deserving of said violence. This addresses a gap in the literature of comparing coverage with a verifiable …

The Implications Of Music Therapy On The Human Mind, Mckayla Martin

Senior Honors Theses

Music therapy harnesses the power of music in clinical settings. It is primarily used to support mental health. Music affects areas such as anxiety, memory, and brain plasticity. Therapeutic music practices can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance specific types of long-term memory, and encourage neuroplasticity. It is an effective, non-invasive treatment for those experiencing mental distress. Ongoing research on the effectiveness of music therapy in clinical settings has the potential to significantly improve the treatment of mental illness, disorders, and disabilities.

Internalizing Diasporic Peoples: How Do We Keep Native Hawaiians Connected?, Kallie P. Kaaihue-Paopao

Whittier Scholars Program

In the attempt to better understand the grounds for the generation culture disconnect of identity in Native Hawaiians, I study the diaspora of my people. Diaspora is the dispersion of people from their native lands. I find interest in this aspect of my people because the most common studies blame our dispersion on socioeconomic status and as a Native Hawaiian that wishes to do more for her people, I want to express that while it plays a part that there is a disconnection between the social actions and reactions of Hawaiʻi’s people. Common questions that I find unanswered are, why …

The "Evil Forest" As Threshold: A Computational Eco-Feminist Study Of The Forest In Nigerian Fantasy, Cynthia O. Mbagwu

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines the representation of the “evil forest” in Nnedi Okorafor’s Zahrah the Windseeker and Ukamaka Olisakwe’s Don’t Answer When They Call Your Name, arguing that the forest functions as a liminal threshold that catalyses female transformation. Combining close reading with computational tools like TF-IDF keyword extraction in Ruby and sentiment analysis using VADER, the project investigates how pre-colonial and colonial connotations of the “evil forest” are re-imagined in contemporary Nigerian fantasy fiction. By segmenting each narrative into pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal phases, the study tracks shifts in sentiment toward the forest and correlates them with thematic developments …

Lewis Carroll’S Curious Creatures: Examining Carroll’S Use Of Animal Characters Within The Context Of His Life And Victorian Era England, Nima M. Faunce

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) has maintained a wide readership since its publication, but many aspects of Carroll’s original intentions and inspirations are lost on modern readers. By examining his animal characters through the lens of his personal life and Victorian England, a deeper understanding of his novel is uncovered. Some of his characters directly reflect individuals from his real life, such as the Liddell family, while other characters provide a window into Victorian beliefs and practices. This paper investigates each of Carroll’s animal characters in order of appearance and determines possible points of inspiration from his personal …

The Consumptive Female Ideal: The Case Study Of “Snow White”, Nayla G. Torres Ruiz

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Tuberculosis (TB), also known as “consumption” or “phthisis,” was one of the most pervasive and culturally significant diseases of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Despite its high mortality rate—claiming more lives than cholera and smallpox combined—TB was widely romanticized in art, literature, and popular culture, particularly as a feminine disease associated with beauty, purity, fragility, and moral virtue. The physical traits of consumption—pale skin, rosy cheeks, red lips, glassy eyes, and a slender, delicate frame—became an ideal of female beauty, one that many women sought to emulate through restrictive diets, toxic cosmetics, and evolving fashion trends, such as increasingly tight …

Killing The Hot Vampire: Gender, Camp, And The Stakes Of Desire In Nineteenth-Century Vampire Fiction, Ella G. Kehr

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines the representation and destruction of the Hot Vampire in nineteenth-century vampire fiction, focusing on Dracula (1897), Carmilla (1872), and The Blood of the Vampire (1897). It argues that these texts construct the female vampire as a figure of excessive sexuality, independence, and deviance which causes both societal (patriarchal) and narrative disruption. In the male-authored texts, the construction of the Hot Vampire is exaggerated beyond the neat bounds of gothic excess and monster theory. The destruction of these vampires also follows this unbound extravagance. The Hot Vampire’s death becomes the ritualized restoration of patriarchal order, which is often …

Domestic Cow Of Plenty: Gender And Womanhood In The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Harshika Ajay Gupta

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis examines gender and womanhood in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Bhāgavata), a Sanskrit text from the 10th century CE that holds an important theological and cultural position in contemporary Hindu traditions. It decodes the Bhāgavata’s unique perspectives on the following: (1) gender, sex, sexuality, and reproduction, (2) women’s social normativity, and (3) women’s personhood and agency. This thesis argues that the Bhāgavata contains a unique theorization of gender and sex as well as a positive valuation of femininity, and that it imbues its narratives with practical resources and actions to recognize and expand the agentive capacity of women.

For scholars …

Scrolling Critically: Momfluencers As Sites Of Composition, Rhetoric, And Pedagogical Insight, Sarah A. O'Neill

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis critically examines the practices of Momfluencers–social media influencers who blend maternal identity with lifestyle branding–to inform pedagogy for aspiring digital professionals, particularly college students preparing for careers in social media.

Chapter 1 establishes a theoretical framework, drawing on multimodal literacy and Mikhail Bahktin’s concept of heteroglossia to analyze how meaning is constructed across platforms. Chapter 2 investigates the rhetorical and compositional strategies Momfluencers use on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, highlighting how authenticity, professional obligations, and audience expectations intersect with platform-specific features and algorithmic mediation. Chapter 3 presents findings from a classroom study, emphasizing the literacies required …

Greek Basileus "King" As A Possible Borrowing From Semitic Mšl "To Rule’", Gerald Leonard Cohen

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Martha Mitchell: Loud Mouth Of The South, Emma Bernice Kolker

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this paper, I will argue how Martha‘s Arkansas identity presents itself as a double edge sword, with her personality attracting the attention of the public with the consent of powerful men in the Republican party, while at the same time her comments and actions were the very reason she was blamed and marginalized by the same men who allowed her to speak in the first place.

Critical Improvisation: Black Secondary Graduates’ Experiences Of Student Voice, Lauren Malara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe Black secondary graduates’ experience of improvisational comedy through the framework of Student Voice. Amid silencing legislative bans in education, the study aimed to critically make meaning of participants’ shared experiences of Theater Games and provide insight into the critical applications of improvisation as a tool to develop student leaders. The study employed a hermeneutical phenomenological design, sampling six Black graduates that participated in improvisational courses as part of the secondary curriculum. Data collection included a demographic questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and participant journals. The findings of a thematic analysis indicate that improvisation developed …

The Ringworm Poem, Riley Hamilton '26

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Riley Hamilton is a Senior English Writing major and Studio Art minor at DePauw University. She loves acrylic painting, making abstract collages, and of course, reading and writing. She enjoys practicing yoga, hiking, and camping.

How To Spend A Year Of Your Twenties Without A Car, Jane Duffy '26

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Jane Duffy is an English Writing and Studio Art double major at DePauw University. She is a painter, a creative writer, and the Editor-in-chief of A Midwestern Review for her fourth year of involvement. She enjoys hiking, drinking coffee, travelling, and creating things inspired by observation of the world around her.

2026 Commencement Program, Columbia College Chicago

Commencement Programs

The commencement program of the 2026 Columbia College Chicago graduation ceremonies.

From Witness To Weapon: How Elizabeth Barrett Browning’S “The Cry Of The Children” Embodies And Transforms The Rhetorical Situation, Elyssa Vianey Solis

Theses and Dissertations

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Cry of the Children” employs trauma-driven rhetoric to expose Victorian child labor exploitation.

Combining literary analysis with rhetorical theory, this research contextualizes the poem within 19th-century industrial exploitation, showing how Browning transforms documentary evidence like the 1842 Children’s Employment Commission Report into emotional testimony. Visceral imagery, ironic juxtaposition, and embodied suffering weaponize pathos to reveal systemic abuse and moral urgency. Applying Lloyd Bitzer’s and Richard Vatz’s theories, we can posit that Browning both responds to and defines the crisis, merging poetic protest with social reform as civic intervention.

By engaging Bitzer and Vatz, this paper argues …

“Daría Mi Vida Por Ti”: On The Rhetoric Of Sacrifice Through The Lens Of Motherhood From The Border, America Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will discuss the implications of sacrifice as an ideology inflicted upon Chicana mothers. It will center on answering the following inquiry: why should a Chicana/Mexican mother sacrifice? This question addresses the role of sacrifice by discussing aspects of Chicana/Chicanx feminist rhetoric and Catholicism that influence the perception of motherhood as sacrifice and martyr. I construct and employ the rhetorical concept of MA↔MÁ to articulate the relationship between la maternidad y el martirio as attributed to mothers from the borderlands. This concept examines whether this affliction is bestowed by dominant and marginalizing narratives or self-imposed through divine merits. I …

A Testimoniando On Tutoring Practices In A Predominantly Latine Writing Center: How Drawing From Tutors’ Memories Fosters Reflective Practices, Emily Michelle Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

The student body of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) consists primarily of Latine students, a population that is reflected in the Writing Center’s tutor demographics. Tutor practices connect to the training sessions that are based on disciplinary expectations but also incorporate each tutor’s epistemology, cultural beliefs, and lived knowledge experiences. To reflect on the practices, memories, and experiences that tutors collected at the Writing Center, the concepts of testimoniando and testimonios will serve as the praxis and means of sharing the experiences and lived knowledge of tutors who identify as part of a marginalized group; this allow …

Parasites Of Meaning: When Interpretation Becomes Infection, Kimberly Medrano

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the impulse to seek moral certainty in morally ambiguous first-person confessional narratives and argues that such certainty is unnecessary. When confronted with narrators whose moral positions remain unclear, readers often project their own moral frameworks onto the text to place the narrator within specific moral binaries. This impulse reveals the reader’s discomfort with ambiguity. This study analyzes the confessional narration, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. The thesis will explore how its confessional narrator resists moral clarification. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of moral binaries and J. Hillis Miller’s concept of the “Critic as Host,” this thesis …

“The Distance And Time Difference Aren’T Helping”: Family Communication Practices Of African Graduate Students Adapting To A New Country, Hummuh Abubakar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined how international graduate students maintained long-distance communication with family members while adapting to life in the United States. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with seven international students, the research explored how participants sustained emotional closeness, manage disclosure, and select communication media across geographic distance. Guided by Communication Privacy Management Theory and Media Richness Theory, the study analyzed how students regulated private information and strategically used video calls, voice calls, and messaging platforms to meet relational and emotional needs. Findings revealed four primary themes: reliance on digital communication technologies; the emotional and psychological functions of family communication; structural …

Perceptions On The Moral And Ethical Applications Of Generative Ai In Creative Game Development, Isabella Maccera

Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity

As AI tools become increasingly embedded in creative industries, they introduce both opportunities for efficiency and concerns regarding authorship, intellectual property, job displacement, and professional identity. Guided by three research questions focused on creativity, ethics, and workflow adaptation, this research employs a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews to capture participant experiences and interpretations. This study frames GenAI not as an isolated tool, but as part of a broader system that reshapes creative labor, collaboration, and organizational structure. Inductive coding and thematic analysis reveal five central themes: perceptions of AI in creative workflows, ethical and intellectual property concerns, employment and identity …

American Industry And Soviet Blood: U.S.-U.S.S.R. Collaborations During The Interwar And Wartime Years, Evan Banaszewski

History

This project will examine the connections between American corporations and the Soviet state from the late 1920’s through WWII. In particular, this project will focus on ventures undertaken by said corporations towards the modernization of Soviet industrial might, including, but not limited to, Ford-built automotive plants, Albert Kahn-designed factories, and General Electric-built hydroelectric grids. These ventures not only helped the Soviets transform a historically agricultural society into an industrial one but also enabled the rapid conversion of peacetime infrastructure into hubs of wartime production. The project then situates these private indirect contributions alongside the direct aid provided by the American …

Journal Of Roleplaying Studies And Steam (Jrpssteam) Vol. 5 [2026], Número 1 (Issue 1), Romano Ponce-Díaz Phd, Cristo Leon, Ivan Avila, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Kjell Hedgard Hugaas, Alexandra Schreiber Ma, Jaime Eduardo García Maya, Víctor Emmanuel Quintana Villarreal Vic Emma, Francisco Gonzalez Ing., Daniel Romero Benguigui, Antonio Roda-Martínez

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

El presente número del Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM examina la convergencia entre las prácticas lúdicas, el diseño narrativo y los procesos de mediación sociocultural en la investigación contemporánea. Las contribuciones reunidas en este número abordan el juego de rol como un dispositivo de producción de conocimiento, intervención psicoeducativa y reelaboración de representaciones culturales. Nos podemos atrever a señalar que la educación es la convergencia entre la ludología, las ciencias sociales, los estudios visuales y el análisis cultural; entendiendo a la educación como la actividad consciente e intencionada de transmitir información y conocimientos a las siguientes generaciones.

Martin Heidegger …

Haunting As Heritage: Mapping The Interior And Indigenous Ghosts, Koda L. Animkii

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Within Stephen Graham Jones’ novella Mapping the Interior, the connections between history and identity are analyzed and emphasized through the exploration of identity formation and the impacts of settler colonialism on the self. These connections are heightened through the novella’s use of horror, as the rhetoric of the normative and monstrous within the genre holds the potential for both resistance and oppression. Looking at the genre of horror as a whole, and at the subgenres of ghost stories and hauntings more specifically, the shifting structures of the Self and the Other as established by Robin Wood’s “An Introduction to …

Encounters Of Third Space: A Case Study On Salvadoran Political Art And Identity Interplay, Breanna Delgado

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Third space is an in-between thought space designated for marginalized collectives, allowing multiple recontextualizations of identity interplay. However, Third Space is colonized due to western ideological influences such as criminalization of political art, stunting collective growth. This project serves to question and challenge Salvadoran political art and collective identities through questions such as why political art? Can political art be considered “safe spaces”? and dissecting the process of political art, third space meaning making, and identity interplay. Preserving the collective’s political art serves as a grassroots method of justice, accountability, and collective reparation.

I applying three conceptual frameworks: Bhabha’s (1994) …