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Introduction: Beyond Hollow Materialism, Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth, Zada Komara

Art Faculty Publications

This introduction to the special issue, “Transformative Approaches to Materiality in Appalachian Studies,” provides theoretical background and examples that demonstrate applications of new material culture and materiality theory to key Appalachian studies themes. It offers new directions for the study of material entanglement in social relationships by reviewing the history of material culture studies in the Appalachian context, fundamental theoretical propositions emerging from the “material turn” in social theory, and examples drawn from ethnographic and archaeological research into the patterns of use of material culture in the timber country of West Virginia and coalfields of eastern Kentucky. Finally, this introduction …

Gay Rodeos, Western Wear, And Unresolved Tensions In 21st-Century North America Cowboy Culture And Esthetics, Kelly L. Reddy-Best, Malena Silva

Faculty Publications - Family and Consumer Sciences

In the 1970s, activists founded the International Gay Rodeo Association in the North American Midwest, disrupting traditional heteronormative and hypermasculine norms within cowboy culture. In this research, we critically analyze the intersections of cowboy manifestations and twenty-first century LGBTQ+ communities in North American queer cowboy portrayals via the gay rodeo. Specifically, we examine how the gay rodeo creates space for LGBTQ+ style, fashion, and dress embodiments in relation to the longstanding, heteronormative Wild West hero of the late 1800s. We analyzed two types of primary sources: the 2014 film Queens & Cowboys: A Straight Year on the Gay Rodeo and …

Sermons In Stones: Mormon Chosenness And The Politics Of Land In The American West, Emily Mclean

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the intersection of religion, land use, and political resistance in Latter-day Saint culture, arguing that Mormon land ethics are shaped by a ritualized process I term the “Cycle of Chosenness.” Through historical and ethnographic analysis, I trace how collective memory of the pioneer era informs symbolic labor that reaffirms Mormon exceptionalism. Three case studies illustrate the cycle in action: Brigham Young’s integration of labor and theology, Walter Cottam’s unsuccessful push for ecological restoration, and the Sagebrush Rebellion’s successful reframing of anti-federal activism as sacred labor. I show how the Sagebrush Rebellion marked a turning point by legitimizing …

The Price Tag Of A 5-Star Culture: Cultural Performance And The Politics Of Luxury In OʻAhu’S Hotel Industry, Kendall Hutchison Acker

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the intersection of cultural tourism and luxury branding with settler colonial dynamics in Oʻahu’s high-end hospitality industry. Focusing on Disney’s Aulani Resort, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, and the Moana Surf Rider, the study investigates how Hawaiian culture is performed, curated, and commodified as part of a five-star guest experience. Through ethnographic research and interviews with Native Hawaiian performers, artists, and cultural advisors, it traces how Indigenous identity is shaped by the demands of the tourism economy and the aesthetics of authenticity. These hotels function not only as sites of leisure but also as …

A Theoretical Framework For Black Women’S Leader Development, Kayla Kai Parker

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the leader development journeys of Black women, identifying key contributors and inhibitors that influence their progression into and experiences within formal leadership positions. This study employed a grounded theory methodology, integrated with an intersectional framework and Black feminist theory. Study data was gathered utilizing three methods: social media listening data points (n = 216), a leadership roadmap survey (n = 69), and structured interviews (n = 15). The open, axial, and selective coding led to the creation of a theoretical framework outlining two pathways to leadership outcomes: one shaped by inhibitors (e.g., identity management, overcompensation, hindrance, resource …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Race: Racial Discourses, Nationalism And Identity In Nineteenth Century Ireland, Timothy Werlinger

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The 19th century witnessed the rise of race and racism as a dominant framework of worldwide identity politics. These politics shaped the various social hierarchies and nationalist contexts across Europe and the world. Racial constructs adopted cultural, economic, and political components and did not rely exclusively on biological determinism. This had the effect of reinforcing or hardening boundaries between groups. This dissertation examines how racial identity was negotiated within an Irish context. It does this by considering social, scientific and nationalist discourses that engaged race as a device of inclusion and exclusion. By examining how racialized language permeated the Irish …

Collective Memory For The African Motherland In Interwar Black Chicago And The Limits Of The Environmental Justice Model, Colin Fisher

History: Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Textual Sediments: Genre And The Planetary Novel, William Bowden

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation investigates how twenty-first-century prose fiction navigates the ecological and temporal dimensions of planetary crisis. In response to accelerating pressures - climate change, ecological collapse, and the intensification of capitalist modernity - literary studies has turned increasingly to the planetary as a conceptual frame. Yet this shift has often outpaced the development of adequate critical vocabularies and narrative methodologies. By drawing on ecocriticism, narrative theory, phenomenology, and related fields, Textual Sediments proposes a new framework for reading what it terms the planetary novel: a sedimentary genre characterized by temporal layering, formal hybridity, and a recursive engagement with scale. Through …

Ἁδριανὸς Ἀνέθηκε: A Dedication By Hadrian In Arcadia, Anna Kouremenos, Frank Daubner

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ed Ruscha's Street-Level View And The Postwar Redevelopment Vernacular, F. R. Ammon, Brian D. Goldstein, G. D. Nelson

Art History Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Church Attendance, Gender Roles, And Human Sexuality, Derek D. Goodrich

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

This research examines how the frequency of religious attendance impacts views on gender roles and sexuality in Christian subgroups in the United States. Prior research on the varying worldviews of American Christians has revealed a diverse group of opinions that cannot be explained solely by denominational affiliation. Based on social identity theory, this study explores whether the frequency of attendance at religious services influences congregants’ beliefs on six issues: legalization of gay marriage, the acceptance of homosexuality in society, the acceptance of transgender people, whether a parent should stay home with the children, which parent should stay home, and women …

Complexity Machines: New Histories Of North American Automobile Production, 1900-1950s, Kevin A. Moskowitz

History Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation examines the design and manufacture of the mass-produced automobile in North America from its inception at the start of the twentieth century through the height of production in the late 1950s. This network of producers constituted the single largest industry in North America. The success of this market required producing a product that was desirable to consumers in design, affordable to purchase, and could be built in high enough quantities to justify the realignment of the rest of North American society to serve this new method of transportation. This dissertation is a shift away from demand studies concerned …

Across The Atlantic: Morbidity, Geography, And The Eighteenth-Century French Atlantic Slave Trade, Elise A. Mitchell

History Faculty Works

In 1765, enslaved Africans boarded the Roi Guinguin in Badagry as part of a restitution agreement between a Nantesian slave trading company and an African ruler. These captive Africans endured treacherous journeys from West Africa’s interior to Badagry, then Príncipe, then toward Saint Domingue before being rerouted to Cayenne in Guyane (French Guiana), and then the Îles du Salut for a smallpox quarantine. The captain of the Roi Guinguin and French imperial officials’ fears of smallpox outbreaks and other contagious diseases prompted them to halt and reroute the voyage to refreshment centers and quarantines along the West African and South …

Arenas Of Resistance: How Oklahoma's Black Rodeos Preserved Environmental Wisdom And Community Power, Rorie Johnson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how Black rodeos in Oklahoma emerged from post-emancipation agricultural labor and ranching traditions, serving as powerful sites of cultural preservation, knowledge transmission, and resistance to dominant narratives of the American West. Through analysis of historical records, photographic evidence, and personal family narratives, this research demonstrates how Black Oklahomans developed unique relationships with land and animals that encompassed both the "ecological burden" of agricultural labor and the "beauty" of cultural expression and community-building. Drawing on theoretical frameworks including Kimberly Ruffin's "ecological burden-and-beauty paradox," George Lipsitz's "Black spatial imaginaries," bell hooks' "oppositional gaze," and Toni Morrison's concept of "rememory," …

From Language ‘Standards’ To Speaker Agency: Exploring Spanish Heritage Language Instructors’ Ideologies, Gabrielle Yocupicio

International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest

This study explores the language ideologies of six university-level Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) instructors in Arizona, focusing on how they reproduce or challenge standard language ideologies (SLIs) in their teaching. SLIs often devalue the language varieties spoken by SHL learners, portraying them as informal or deficient compared to a perceived “standard” Spanish. Such views can undermine learners’ confidence and linguistic agency. Using qualitative methods, including interviews and observations, the study examines how instructors’ beliefs and practices align with or diverge from critical language awareness (CLA) frameworks that promote the legitimacy of all language varieties.

Findings reveal a spectrum of ideological …

Introduction To The “Mappings” Issue, Asa Mittman, Dan Terkla

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Cartography Between Ptolemaic Accuracy And Scope For Communication: The ‘Genoese World Map’ Dated 1457, Gerda Brunnlechner

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

The Advent Of The Astrolabe In St. Gallen And Notker Teutonicus’ Cosmographic Globe (C. 1015), Jost Schmid-Lanter

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Conquest In The Bayeux Embroidery, Rachel Dressler

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Including Black Farmers, Excluding Pests: Perspectives On Participation In The Cooperative Extension Service, Briana Bazile

Theses and Dissertations--Entomology

In recent years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has faced renewed scrutiny for documented discrimination against Black farmers, yet far less attention has focused on its century-old partner in public service delivery, the Cooperative Extension Service (CES). This gap is especially notable considering 1) federal parity mandates extant since 1972 in response to significant disparities between Black and White constituents and staff,2) public commitments to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in 2020 and, 3) the contributions of Black leaders at the origins of CES, at Tuskegee University in the late nineteenth century. Using the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service (KYCES) as a …

Beyond Interdisciplinarity: How Rosine 2.0 Created Social Structures Of Community Care, Jordan Landes, Katie L. Price, Vivian Truong

Library Staff Works

How might we learn from history in ways that help us imagine a better future? And what role might academic institutions play in making those futures imaginable? These questions informed Rosine Association 2.0, a socially engaged art project out of Swarthmore College active from 2021 to 2023. Inspired by a nineteenth-century social project in Philadelphia, Rosine 2.0 formed an interdisciplinary collective of artists, harm reduction organizers, archivists, and activists to co-imagine how harm reduction and mutual aid reduce stigma and increase community care in Philadelphia. We believe that Rosine 2.0 exemplifies the possibilities of public humanities projects that are …

Designing A Catholic School In The Twenty-First Century, Emmanuel I. Ugwejeh S.J.

Journal of Catholic Education

Data show an increasing number of Catholic schools from elementary to tertiary levels in developing countries, especially countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. These new Catholic schools seem to follow the industrial-era school design trajectories. However, the exigencies of the 21st century require a paradigm shift, ensuring that Catholic schools move away from the industrial method of education that did not attend to the specific educational needs of the student to a kind of education that further enriches the holistic education offered by the Catholic school. This enrichment includes architectural designs that support Catholic educational ideals and practices that preserve the earth. …

Pseudo-Vampires In The Nineteenth-Century English Vampire Canon: Draining Life Force By Class, Matt Tanner

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Annual Report 2024-2025: Library Department, Darrell W. Krueger Library-Winona State University

Library Annual Reports

This is the 2024-2025 annual report for the Darrell W. Krueger Library at Winona State University Darrell W. Krueger Library. The Annual Report documents the work, services, and resources available and provided to Winona State University and the Winona community for the fiscal year of 2024-2025.

Interview With Alyson Hagy, Ian Curtis

Inscape

Alyson Hagy graduated from Williams College and received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. She is the author of six collections of short stories and two novels, Boleto and Scribe. She currently teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Wyoming and lives in Laramie, Wyoming with her husband, with whom she has one son.

Examining Mental And Sexual Health Themes In Latina Youth Zines: A Multi-Modal Content Analysis, Jenn M. Lilly, D'Andrah Almanzar, Doreen Dorcely, Luisa Fernanda Sandoval Cortes, Ana Iris Murcia

Social Service Faculty Publications

Multiple, convergent risk factors place Latina youth at disproportionate risk for mental

and sexual health issues. Yet, their firsthand perspectives and experiential knowledge of

how to navigate mental and sexual health challenges is rarely the subject of scholarly

inquiry. This article presents a multi-modal content analysis of themes and messages

conveyed by two digital zines created by Latina young adults for Latina teens through an

arts-based research project. In this arts-based research, zines functioned as both data and

method, capturing Latina youth’s nuanced perspectives and lived experiences of mental

and sexual health. We identified six themes in their works—acknowledging and …

The Effect Of Inclusive Leadership By Pastoral Leaders On Catholic Parish Vitality, Matthew F. Manion

Dissertations

Catholic parish life in the United States has passed the point of decline where minor changes will enable it to grow again. Church leaders need a new missionary culture and outward-focused approaches to reach people today with the timeless truths of the faith. The old mindset of putting all the responsibility on the shoulders of the clergy to solve problems no longer works. Since heterogeneous groups make better decisions than homogeneous groups in complex, adaptive situations, this study explores the hypothesis that inclusive leadership by Catholic parish leaders leads to more innovation and better solutions to the challenges of church …

Hom: House Of Mexico In New York, Victoria Espinosa

MA Projects

New York City remains the epicenter of the global art world, attracting curators, collectors, museum directors, and other key players who are constantly seeking new ideas and emerging talent. For Mexican artists, having a presence in this dynamic environment is essential for gaining the visibility and recognition they deserve on the international stage. To address this need, I am committed to establishing a dedicated space in New York—not as a commercial gallery or museum, but as a non-profit platform showcasing the depth and diversity of Mexican arts & culture. The goal is to create a bridge between Mexican creativity and …

Come, Follow Me And Life Preparation, Denise Mccubbins

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This paper explores foundational principles for effective gospel teaching in seminary: being Christ-centered, learner-focused, and scripture-based. It highlights the integration of Come, Follow Me and Life Preparation lessons to address students’ spiritual and practical needs. Teachers are encouraged to balance exegesis (understanding scripture’s original intent) and eisegesis (personal application) for meaningful, doctrinally accurate lessons. Through creative and purposeful scripture study, educators can align lesson objectives with students’ lives, fostering deeper conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

"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 …